The X-Rated Corpse by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2015-11-14T22:00:00+00:00

Death at Twenty One

Laurel Canyon in the moonlight was like the mammoth set of some De Mille Biblical spectacle. There were enormous shadows lying in the hollows of the sheer hills, the sporadic placement of villa and mansion light, bobbing and twinkling eerily in the darkness. I wheeled the Toyota slowly and noiselessly along the bordering privet hedge, past the tall, gnarled sycamore trees and parked. Easing up the inclined ribbon of driveway, blackout drive, wasn't a snap. Still, it seemed the proper M.O.* The home of a man currently under lock and key in a city jail for Murder One was bound to be under wraps. The trick was to play it by ear. There hadn't been any sense in asking Ogilvie for permission, either. There was something running around in my brain. Something without any given name. Or a motive. I only knew I had to go to Laurel Canyon, to B.Z.'s house and see something for myself. I couldn't have said what that was. I was operating in the dark, just like Lieutenant Oliver Ogilvie.

Nothing had changed since my last visit. Only the time of day was different. Time and condition of the featured players.

The Zangdorfer eyrie rose like a memorial, hidden and massive, in the shelter of the towering bluff of canyon wall. The night itself lent Gothic overtones and subtleties to the place. There was only the gleam of a door light and a pale orange glow from the upper regions. The California sky was vast and impenetrable, the full moon showing like a gigantic prop in the heavens. The stars were grouped in clusters. Galaxies were visible. The Big and Little Dippers rode eternally upon the canvas of blue-black ceiling. When a star moved, it was only a jet passenger plane droning overhead. The muffled hum of the engines was faraway music. Laurel Canyon seemed like one of the quieter locations in a dizzy, orbiting cosmos that was always in motion. Going somewhere. Yet, a certain, ancient timelessness was the soul of all Los Angeles. Of all Hollywood itself. Janet Gaynor, Jean Harlow or Violet Paris, John Gilbert, Clark Gable or Rock Hudson, the playground would never really change.

It couldn't. And it wouldn't.

William S. Hart, yesterday. John Wayne, today.

Dreams hung on. The promise of enchantment lingered.

Disappointments and failures never would alter things.

The cycle would go on. Endlessly. Forever and a Doris Day.

I sat in the dark Toyota under the concealing sycamores, watching the house, smoking a cupped cigarette. My .45 lay on my lap, ready. In the heavy, balmy, warm air of the summer night, even the cicadas were laying off their cricket harmony. It was a universe of soundlessness, broken only by the occasional, passing jetliner. The hum was a whisper.

Three hours had gone by since I'd left the Hotel Dunlap.

Three hours in which to sober up, fortify myself with a hot meal at one of the Boulevard's better restaurants and break the doldrums with a plan of action. The best to come out of that was this.

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