early news. The lead story reported that the Red Light Assassin had struck again. The RLA had been killing traffic cameras for several weeks, and the camera death toll was now up to twelve, each camera snipered dead-center through the lens with a.22-caliber pellet gun. Web sites devoted to the Red Light Assassin had been set up; T-shirts bearing slogans like FREE THE RED LIGHT ASSASSIN sold on every freeway off-ramp; and all of it had come about because the city had installed traffic cameras to ticket rush-hour motorists who slid through the red. Which, in L.A. 's killer traffic, meant everyone. The news anchor tried to keep a straight face, but her co-anchor and the weather guy goofed on the rising "body count," and had themselves in spasms. No mention was made of the nameless man found murdered in a downtown alley. Murdered people were common; murdered cameras were news.
I turned off the television, then went out onto my deck, feeling listless and unfocused. The rain had shriveled to a heavy mist and the sky was beginning to lighten. Later, homicide detectives would be asking my neighbors if they had seen me entering or leaving my house last night. Pardy would probably flash a picture of the dead man, and ask if anyone had seen him in the area, and my neighbors would be left wondering what I had done. I thought I should call to warn them, but calling would look bad so I let it go. Mostly, I wanted to call Lucy, but I had wanted to call her every day since she left, so that wasn't new. I let that one go, too, and watched as the canyon slowly filled with light.
People who lived on the hillsides would soon emerge from their homes to inspect the slopes, searching for cracks and bulges. The world grew unstable when rain fell in Los Angeles. Soil held firm only moments before it could flow without warning like lava, sweeping away cars and houses like toys. The earth lost its certainty, and anchors failed.
A black cat hopped onto the deck by the corner of my house. He froze when he saw someone on the deck, all angry yellow eyes, but his fury passed when he recognized me.
I said, "Yes, I am standing in the rain."
He said, "Omp."
He walked along the side of the house keeping as far from the mist as he could, slipped into the dry warmth of the house, then licked his penis. Cats will do that. He probably thought I was stupid.
When my mother was twenty-two years old she disappeared for three weeks. She disappeared often, walking away without telling anyone where she was going, but always came back, and that time she came back pregnant with me. My mother never described my father in any meaningful way, and may not have known his name. I did not reveal these things to the reporters who mobbed me for interviews after the events with Ben Chenier, but somehow the information found its way into their stories. I regretted not having read the clippings Diaz found in the alley. One might have mentioned the situation with my father, which could have inspired the old man to fabricate his fantasy. That was probably it and I should probably forget it, but I wondered if he had tried to contact me. When I stopped going to my office, I turned off my answering machine and tossed the mail, but that was weeks ago. If the dead man had written to me since then, his letter might be waiting in my office.
I went inside, put out fresh food for the cat, then drove down through the canyon to the little office I keep on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Mail was scattered inside the door where the postman drops it through the slot. I gathered it together, put on a pot of coffee, then turned on my message machine. The Elvis Cole Detective Agency was officially back in business. Of course, since I had ignored everything offered to me for the past six weeks I didn't exactly have something to do.
I went through the mail. A lot of it was bills and junk, but seven pieces were what I thought of as fan mail: a handwritten marriage proposal from someone named Didi, four letters congratulating me for bringing three mass murderers to justice, an anonymous nude photo of a young man holding his penis, and a letter from someone named Loyal Anselmo who described Pike