Chapter Fifteen
Immediately we began our quest for the location of that room. This time no doubt or discussion was raised about my part in the search, since they obviously needed me to identify the place. There was little difficulty, surprisingly enough, in finding the correct hotel, as only three businesses in the whole Los Angeles area were called "Louie's"--- one was a cleaners and two were bars. Naturally the one we wanted was the last place we tried--- a dingy hole-in-the-wall tavern in habited for the most part by denizens of the wine bottle and gutter, lost souls with no other place to go.
The hostelry before which we found ouselves was a delapidated, unreinforced masonry structure, such as they have been trying for years to outlaw in Southern California because of the earthquake danger. At one time, it had probably been a fairly decent, medium priced hotel, but now it lay decaying near the outer boundary of skid row.
While Barry called for additional assistance, I pointed out the window of the room which I had visited. Then, I received my customary instructions to go wait in the car. Somehow or other these very sensisible precautions had never seased to wound my vanity, which can be enormous.
I remember, as I sat there, scanning the faces of the slowly gathering crowd, thinking that they were all so similar. Haggard, beaten, blank faces of both men and women wimply stared at teh procedings--- not even any curiosity betrayed itself in their eyes. Amazingly, the whole environment possessed the same quality, blank and crumbling with years ofwear. The whole scene was accentuated by that kind of sunlight, which, when seeping through the layers of ochre haze and smog, only depresses the situation.
Gradually, I became aware of the rather unnerving sensation that I was being watched. I looked about--- once again surveying the faces, the windows, the cars, but to no avail. Still I could not rid myself of the feeling. I tried to concentrate--- to focus my thoughts--- to discover the source of my impression. At that moment I was interrupted by an officer saying that my presence was desired in the room with the window. I was rather shocked that things had progressed so quickly. It seems as though within a few moments of the arrival of the other police units, the whole operation was over. The man we sought was not there.
I pushed open the cracked, glass doors of the lobby and walked across the thread bare carpets; even here the ceiling was in dire need of patching and the wallpaper was peeling. The upstairs hallway had no light and in my imagination I could see beady rat eyes staring at me. Or, was it my imagination? "What," I wondered, "brings a person to this?" In my heart, I knew--- life--- and the loss of desire to try any longer. In a way, it was a form of suicide, without the actual death.
I once more entered the room--- this time as anyone else would. All was exactly the same, except that the photograph was gone--- and the knife.
"Is this the room?" Carter asked.
"Yes," I replied, slightly distracted. I was receiving a perception, what many might call a vibration, which was greatly disturbing. "He was here within the hour. He is absolutely mad now; I feel it. Before he was calculating, in control of his actions--- not now--- now it is just blind rage, like a wounded animal. He is going to do it again, but he could do anything, including mass murder." Then I added as an afterthought, "The girl--- you'd best move her somewhere that no one can reach her."
Once the guys with the cameras and chemicals arrived, we left them to their
routine, and returned to Stuthard's cramped shambles of an office. We re-examined
the evidence, what there was of it, for the umpteenth time. What did we have, in
actual fact, not using my information?
1. A man of stalky build, about five feet seven or eight, who possessed abnormal strength.
2. He usually wears dark clothing and kills at night, though he may hunt in daylight.
3. The victim is always a Caucasian woman, rather tall, slim, under thirty, with red hair.
4. He slashes his victim's throat with a butcher knife, then rapes her.
5. The victims are probably random choices--- just their bad luck that they happen to fit his profile and that he spots them.
6. The suspect may not have much money.
Now, adding my data:
1. The suspect is middle-aged, with graying, red hair.
2. He drives a dark blue, dented, older model station wagon.
3. Victims usually never see him, except for Amber.
4. The victims are proxies for his daughter, Linda.
5. He has a religious fixation that he is punishing his daughter and taking her
sins upon himself.
"But why was Amber different?" Barry pondered. "He did her in daylight, allowed her to see him, and even told her what it was all about, according to you."
I had no explanation for that query, however, the lieutenant did. "She was probably an impulse choice. The others most certainly had been planned and the opportunity waited for, but suddenly there was a young girl, perhaps fitting his designs particularly well, and all he had to do was offer her a ride. It couldn't have been easier. And, if the kid, here, hadn't been tuned in, it may have been years before she was found. She might never have been found.
We continued to discuss the problem for another couple of hours, probing it from any quirky angle we could think of. At last, however, we decided to break and get a fresh start on it in the morning.
"I don't want you to go home tonight," said Carter rather abruptly, following a considerable silence. You said he could do anything now, which includes going after you, or for that matter, any one of us."
"No, it's all right. It's not my night to die--- I know that," I joked. "Besides the sergeant, here, is staying with me." Actually, I was being more than somewhat dangerously overconfident, and would suffer enormous contrition because of it. I had bad feelings about tonight, but I foolishly attributed them to my mounting anxiety over this "film noir" into which I'd been drawn, or rather catapulted. I did, indeed, fear for someone's life, but it was Anna's. I dismissed the thought--- My imagination was working overtime. Anna had been moved and was perfectly safe.
"I'm going to post a few officers around your building and place the area under surveillance," Carter insisted. "And Barry--- don't let that gun get too far away from you. I have my own 'feeling'."
I conceded that it was probably for the best, but at the same time considered
it unnecessary.
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