Judgment (18 page)

A whistle called to him.

JD Macklin, smiling, turned and saw Brett standing behind him, wearing black, holding the Magnum at his side.

Brett Macklin raised his arm slowly and aimed the gun at his father's head. And then blew the bewildered look right off his face.

Rush hour the next day began about three p.m. The cars heading east on the Santa Monica Freeway slowed to a crawl at the Robertson turnoff. Mort Suderson knew a car didn't move faster than twenty miles per hour at this point unless it had machine-gun turrets mounted on the hood and a stunt driver behind the wheel.

Mort was blessed with neither. So it took him nearly an hour to get downtown in his lime green '78 Chevette, a car he referred to as his "pussyfart little shitmobile." The car doubled as his filing cabinet, crinkled Tab can depository, picnic table, and home entertainment center. Mort had installed the stereo system himself, cutting a huge hole in the dashboard and stuffing everything but a turntable in the space. Twice the stereo had been stolen and twice the thieves had cut around it, leaving an even bigger hole.

His latest stereo was held in place with two rolls' worth of electrical tape and periodic applications of Scotch tape, Elmer's glue, and rubber cement. Mort thought it gave the car character.

Genesis' "Just a Job to Do" was shaking the Chevette as it sputtered to the curb in front of the police station. A weary Brett Macklin, his clothes wrinkled and hair askew, stood on the sidewalk.

Mort reached across and unlocked the passenger door. It creaked loudly as Macklin pulled it open and fell into the torn bucket seat.

"Thanks for coming down, Mort." Macklin cleared a space for his feet among the Big Mac containers, the Tab cans, and old newspapers.

"No problem." Mort pulled into traffic and slammed on the brakes. Macklin threw out his arms, bracing himself against the dashboard. The motor home Mort nearly sideswiped honked as it passed. Macklin leaned back and sighed.

Mort smiled apologetically and moved away from the curb, weaving through traffic to the freeway.

They had traveled for a few minutes in silence when Mort cleared his throat and spoke hesitantly. "Well, it's over now."

"No, it isn't," Macklin whispered. "It may just be the beginning."

Mort reached under his seat, looking for something amidst the clutter. "I guess you'll be needing this, then." He pulled out the .357 Magnum and offered it to Macklin.

Macklin looked at the weapon and then glanced at Mort. He took the gun in one quick motion and set it on the floor by his feet.

"I came by the house just as the cops took you away. I did a little search of my own," Mort explained, turned down the radio. "I figured if I could find the gun, so could Ron. I figured it would be better if I was the one who found it.

Shaw.

Surely Shaw knew about his arrest. Macklin nervously wondered what Shaw's reaction would be. Would Shaw become an enemy or an ally? It was a question Macklin presumed he would have to face sooner than he liked.

Macklin looked at Mort and smiled. "You don't have to do this, Mort. If I fall, I don't want to drag you down with me."

"Look, I know what I'm doing. You helped me when no one else would."

"You don't owe me anything, Mort. If you did, you've paid me back double already."

"Brett, if you need help . . . ah . . . finishing things, I'm here."

Macklin put his hand on Mort's shoulder. "Thanks, Mort, I appreciate it.

"But I really don't want to get you any more involved than you already are at this point. It's better for the both of us. I really don't know what I'm going to do. There are so many unanswered questions."

Mort nodded and turned up the radio. They drove the rest of the way without talking, absorbed in their own thoughts. Macklin wasn't really thinking—his mind had slipped into neutral and he was absently watching the cars as they passed.

Mort pulled up in front of Macklin's house. "If you need to reach me, Brett, I'll be flying the chopper tonight for
The Bloodmaster
crew."

"All right." Macklin opened the door and got out. "Thanks again, Mort."

He closed the door.

"See ya, Brett." Mort waved and drove away.

Macklin yawned, unlocked the door, and was halfway to the bedroom when he remembered that Kirk Jeffries was in town. As drained as Macklin was, he thought some time with his old friend might be therapeutic. Perhaps it would bring a little of the old Brett Macklin to the surface again. It also meant seeing Shaw.

He went into the kitchen to call and invite Shaw. Sunshine answered the phone. The usually talkative Sunshine was abrupt, treating Macklin like an obnoxious salesman she couldn't wait to get rid of.

Shaw wasn't in, but he would be back soon. Macklin asked her to have him come by his house at seven o'clock if he was interested in joining Macklin to see Jeffries.

The conversation left Macklin feeling ill at ease. Sunshine's behavior was a sign of what he could expect from Shaw.

Macklin sighed and then walked to the bedroom, where he quickly stripped and showered, first with hot water to soothe his aches and pains and then with cold to revive and invigorate. He dried himself and slipped into a worn-out pair of Levi's 501s, his favorite basic blue rugby shirt, and his dirtied Adidas.

Feeling warm and relaxed now, Macklin went to the entry hall and gathered up the scattered mail, carrying it with him to the kitchen table, where he began sorting through it.

For the next half hour he comfortably lounged there in the familiar clothes and familiar habits and familiar smells of his old, single life. The mail was something refreshingly routine, and it was nice. For those few minutes before Shaw drove up in hiss blue, 1959 Cadillac convertible and started honking, Brett Macklin felt almost normal again.

Macklin opened the front door and groaned inwardly. Shaw had that solemn look on his face that meant a "big talk" was coming. He wanted to yell "see you some other time, Ronny," go in the house, and lock the door. Instead, he closed the door and sprinted to the car.

"It's looking good, Ronny." He stroked a fin as he walked around the back of the car and got in the passenger side.

Shaw pulled away from the curb, made a U-turn, and headed north.

Macklin glanced at Shaw, who drove as if he was wearing an iron neck brace.

"Okay, talk to me. Don't sit there like a mortician."

"I don't know, Mack. It seems to me you'd be rather comfortable with a mortician. You've boosted their business to a new high this month."

"You think I'm Mr. Jury."

Shaw turned and met Macklin's gaze. "I
know
you're Mr. Jury. Everybody does. Don't kid yourself. You may as well make a uniform and write it in gold on your chest." Shaw scratched his neck.

"Relax, Mack, it's just you and me in the car. No hidden recorders, no camera. Nothing a murderer like yourself should be concerned about."

"I'm not a murderer," he replied.

"You're a killer, simple as that. The only difference between you and the guys who killed your father is that you're alive and free." Shaw studied Macklin's face. "For now."

"If you're so sure I'm your man, why don't you stop me? Why are you with me now?" Macklin asked. Shaw turned away. "I'll tell you why. You know, whether it's me or somebody else, you'd like to shake Mr. Jury's hand and say, 'job well done.'"

"Mack, your way is wrong."

"Do you have any doubt they killed my father?"

"No," Shaw said, barely audible.

"How many other people have they beaten, raped, harassed, or killed?"

"I don't know."

"
You don't know.
Well, I know something. I know that no one is going to miss those vicious animals. I know that a lot of people are breathing easier at night now that they are gone. That's not to say I'm your man. But somebody has to do it. We can't let a bunch of punks hold an entire city hostage."

"That's not the point. You thought you had reason to kill—"

"Come on, Ronny," Macklin interrupted."I told you I wasn't Mr. Jury."

Shaw looked at him skeptically and continued, ". . . and so did they. Reason doesn't mean a damn thing. It's still murder. You can lie to me, but you can't lie to yourself."

"I'm not living a lie. You are. The cops won't ever win. You know that. It just keeps getting worse. The law protects the criminal and punishes the victim."

Macklin lowered his voice and settled back into his seat. "The time has come for someone to draw the line, for someone to tell these punks they can't prey on people anymore."

Macklin looked away from Shaw to the passing skyline, "It's time for us to take our city back."

As Shaw banked around the La Brea turnoff and surged north towards Hollywood Boulevard, he thought about what Macklin had said. Shaw knew that in many ways Macklin was right. He knew the frustration of watching the law let the guilty free. He could see crime growing in the face of constant cutbacks in police budgets and manpower. He felt the helplessness as people saw their neighborhoods fall under the control of warring gangs. He realized all the LAPD could do was police the results of the violence and not the violence itself.

And he had let Macklin kill.

La Brea met Hollywood Boulevard and Shaw steered the car to the right. Hollywood Boulevard, a tired whore trying to turn one last trick, a street that wasn't made to grow old, stretched out in front of them.

Macklin watched the tourists swarm around the footprints as they waited for the Hollywood Tour bus. To him, the street was dying. Tourists would look in vain for the mythical glitter and find just another neon street full of empty dreams, broken promises, and the make-believe hope that thrives wherever reality doesn't live up to fantasy.

Trendiness had packed up and moved west to Beverly Hills and Westwood, which, unlike Hollywood, were kept as antiseptic and clean as the dreams they were selling. Not that the dreams were any more real—they just looked and felt better. Desperation, which Macklin saw flaunting itself in Hollywood, hid in the shadows of Rodeo Drive and Westwood Boulevard, barely noticeable amidst the sea of BMWs.

The Chicken Shack was an island in a parking lot looming up on Macklin's left. It looked like a street party. Motorcycles crowded the parking lot. Male hookers plied their trade from metal picnic tables facing the boulevard.

A crush of garishly dressed punk rockers, with Mohawk haircuts and blaring stereos, milled around the yellow hut in large clusters.

Standing amidst it all, as if illuminated by a spotlight, stood Kirk Jeffries. He leaned against the counter that wrapped around the hut, munching hungrily on a massive chicken leg, the flat end of his bulbous note spotted with chicken grease.

Shaw squeezed his Cadillac convertible between one of the rows of motorcycles and a Plymouth Duster that looked as though it had been parked under the space shuttle launching pad.

Their discussion still weighed heavily on both of them. Grimly, Shaw and Macklin avoided each other by looking at Jeffries for a moment.

Macklin was pleased that Jeffries hadn't changed in the two years since he had last saw him. Jeffries' breast pocket was still bulging with a half dozen long cigars. Jeffries liked to shove the cigars deep into his mouth, gnawing on them until they were ragged and black. The habit had yellowed his teeth and given him smokestack breath.

A huge belt buckle that spelled KIRK held up his Sassoon jeans under his bulging belly, which was hidden by a blue checked shirt open wide at the collar to expose his hairy pigeon chest. His only concession to fashion, Macklin noticed, was a new pair of Sperry Top-Siders.

Shaw nudged Macklin without looking at him. "Look, he's still got that damn watch."

Wrapped around Jeffries' wrist was a gold watch that seemed to be about two inches thick, a timepiece that could probably deflect cannonballs and low-flying nuclear warheads with ease.

Jeffries, reaching for another piece of chicken, noticed Macklin and Shaw staring at him.

"You guys gonna sit in that meat wagon like a coupla pimps or join me?" Jeffries barked, his lips stretched into a side smile that afforded the punker near him a good look down his sooty throat.

Macklin and Shaw looked guiltily at each other, grinned, and got out of the car.

"Wait," Jeffries yelled, holding up a chicken breast. "Don't exert yourselves on my account." He wrapped his left arm around the bucket of chicken and moved to a bench beside Shaw's car.

Jeffries set down the bucket and grabbed Macklin in a bear hug, still holding the chicken breast. "It's good to see you again, Brett."

Before Macklin could reply, Jeffries released him and hugged Shaw. "Christ, Ronny, is that a gun or are you just glad to see me?"

Jeffries burst into his choke-wheeze of a laugh, which he silenced with a big bite of chicken.

"Sit down and grab some chicken before I eat it all," he said while chewing.

Macklin reached for a leg, thick with the Chicken Shack's famous batter. "Still as quiet and reserved as ever, aren't you, Kirk?"

"Don't believe in holding back, Brett, you know that."

Shaw expected Jeffries to stop taking bites out of the breast and just swallow it whole.

"Here you are making money left and right and you still don't know how to eat like a human being," Shaw said, only half joking. He took a wing from the bucket and pulled it apart.

"Fuck you, Ronny," Jeffries deadpanned. Macklin roared with laughter, nearly gagging on his mouthful of chicken.

Jeffries, preferring not to notice Macklin's laughter, glanced at the crowd around the yellow hut. "Queers have taken the place over, but the chicken is still the best. Shit, you two look good."

"Thanks," Macklin said.

"How do you guys do it?" Jeffries asked.

"We don't eat here anymore," Shaw replied.

Jeffries roared and noticed the grim expressions on his friends' faces. "What's the matter with you two? You're like a coupla rocks."

Macklin smiled. "We've had a long day. So, how long are you staying in town this time?"