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  He was pleasurably aware of the frenzy he was working himself up to. His penis was a spear, plunging deep into the heart of this wretched species, conquering and subjugating them. Each thrust gave him more power, each thrust struck deeper and deeper into their heathen soul. His manhood, his strength, his overpowering physicality, would beat them all.

  No one had ever pounded her like this. No one had ever been so totally consumed. It hurt bad, and her eyes were closed tightly against the pain, her body rocking against his thrusts. She was afraid to stop him, better to wait for the inevitable end and have Horace, her pimp, beat the shit out of him later.

  His reward was growing. The once distant sensation was now running down his back and into his pelvis, expanding. He plunged further and further into that subhuman soul, harder and harder. A blinding, beautiful white light burst in his head and covered his body in its soothing glow. He gritted his teeth and stiffened as the light ebbed. His eyes fluttered open.

  He looked down at the whore. Her teeth were clenched, her chin high, and the tendons in her neck tensed. She looked down her face and into his eyes. She thought she was staring into a corpse. His colorless lips curved into a coldly maniacal grin as he reached back to his belt with one hand. She followed the hand and saw the glint of clean steel.

  "No!" she whispered huskily.

  Jerking back his pelvis, he pulled his penis out of her. And jammed the knife in.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sunday, May 20, 5:03 a.m.

  The air was still. The smoky brown haze that hung over the city glowed as the sun crept reluctantly into the sky. The mechanical hum of Brett Macklin's Cadillac was the only sound on the street. The buildings loomed lifeless and dull three stories high on either side of him. A drunk disappeared down an alley like a rodent scurrying into the crevice between two boulders.

  Brett Macklin watched the sun burn through the night the same way he had watched the day bleed into darkness twelve hours before. The passage of time, which he spent driving endlessly through the maze of South Central Los Angeles streets, had changed nothing for him.

  The impostor was still out there somewhere.

  Macklin eased the car to a stop at the curb and stared at the asphalt on the street. Three red splashes. The errant drops of red from some unseen painter's giant brush. Here was where the impostor had emerged from the darkness to take three lives and plunge Macklin's life into an abyss. Macklin was no closer to finding the son of a bitch than he was twelve hours ago.

  Only a handful of hours, he knew, remained before Mordente exposed him—and Cory and Brooke were destroyed.

  He tapped the dashboard nervously with his right hand. Cory and Brooke, he thought. He saw it as it once was, in his Venice house, when they were a family, before the arguing, before the coldness, before they left and Macklin was alone.

  Macklin pressed on the gas, screeched across the street in a sharp U-turn, and headed north. He wanted to see them once more, before Monday, before they hated him too much to ever see him again.

  Sunday, May 20, 8:12 a.m.

  The mattress was a blood-soaked sponge under the black prostitute's splayed body. Shaw approached the bed slowly, feeling the three Winchell's donuts he'd eaten an hour before churning in his stomach. Her body reflected her assailant's murderous frenzy. A net of deep, jagged slashes crisscrossed her torso, and her thighs were totally obscured by grotesque lumps of clotted blood, matted pubic hair, and torn flesh.

  "Her name's Anita." Vice Sergeant Sage Mitchell, clad in his favorite checkered polyester sport coat, took a deep drag on his Marlboro and exhaled the smoke through his nostrils. "I've picked her up dozens of times for whorin' and dealin' along this block."

  Shaw glanced at her face. Her eyes were stark white ovals wide with terror. "Didn't anyone hear anything?"

  Mitchell shrugged. "Sure they did."

  "No one called the police?"

  Mitchell chortled. "C'mon, Shaw, be serious."

  Shaw ground his teeth and scratched his brow nervously. He felt an irrational urge to reach out and strangle Mitchell and didn't quite know why. The man was just going through the motions of his job, and that's all he expected Shaw to do, no more and no less. After all, both of them knew Anita's murder would never be solved. Why waste any effort?

  Shaw understood that, he really did. Anita was anonymous, part of the flotsam swirling in the stormy undercurrents of the streets. Occasionally, some of the flotsam washed up on blood-soaked mattresses in fleabag hotels, in rusted garbage bins in forgotten alleys, or crumpled in heaps amidst the weeds in a vacant lot.

  Shaw hated the role he had to play whenever he faced a corpse like Anita's. It made him feel like a glorified garbage man, making sure bodies get zipped into bags and hauled away before they become smelly and bothersome. The taxpayers didn't give a damn who made the mess as long as it got cleaned up. The thing that made Shaw angry was that Mitchell accepted it all so naturally.

  "Did anyone see the guy she came in with?" Shaw asked.

  "Yeah, some kinky asshole in a red jumpsuit."

  A shiver rippled down Shaw's back. "Red jumpsuit?"

  "Yeah, and he had this black shit, makeup or something, across his eyes," Mitchell said. "A real wacko, by the sound of it."

  Shaw's heart pounded in his chest. The same man who killed those black youths had butchered this black prostitute. It couldn't be a copycat killing because the police hadn't released to the press that the Mr. Jury who shot the black youths wore a red jumpsuit.

  Fear, tinged with guilt, colored Shaw's thoughts. He had been too hard on his friend Brett Macklin.

  # # # # # #

  "Watch me, Daddy. Watch me," Cory yelled as she stood shivering wet on the edge of the ping board. "I'm gonna pe now. Watch me."

  "I'm watching," replied Brett Macklin, shifting the Sunday Los Angeles Times, two pounds of unread newsprint, from his sweat-dampened bare legs to the ground between his chaise lounge and Brooke's.

  Cory smiled and took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm gonna go!" She bent over tentatively, stretched out her arms, and then tumbled into the water in a nearly fetal position.

  Within a second she burst up through the surface, shaking her head and spitting water. "How'd I do, Daddy?"

  Macklin grinned. "Just great, honey. Next time try to be straighter, like an arrow." He glanced to his left at Brooke, his ex-wife, her face alight with an amused smile. Sitting so close to her, he could smell the coconut oil that made her copper skin, amply revealed by her skimpy white bikini, so slick and shiny. Sweat beaded on her sharp cheekbones and above her full, scarlet lips. Macklin felt the old desire percolating. Brooke's allure hadn't waned. Macklin had caught several men around the pool sneaking furtive glances at her.

  "She sure loves to see you, Brett," Brooke remarked. "Just look at how charged she gets." She regarded him solemnly. He sat shirtless in his swimsuit, watching with bloodshot, tired eyes as Cory climbed out of the pool. "You used to see her every weekend. Now months can go by. She thinks it's something she's doing wrong."

  "I'm going to pe again, Daddy," Cory said, marching to the end of the ping board.

  Macklin smiled and nodded. "Go ahead, we're watching."

  "You've been a real bastard," Brooke hissed out of the side of her smile. "You've changed."

  Brooke was right.

  Macklin had been afraid to see his daughter, afraid the violence that seemed to stalk him would get her. It was a different kind of fear that brought him here today. Last night, during his fruitless search through the grimy underside of Los Angeles for the phony Mr. Jury, he realized that only a handful of hours remained before Mordente exposed him—and Cory and Brooke were destroyed.

  All he could think about last night was seeing them once more, tranquil and happy, before the end . . . before they hated him too much to ever see him again.

  This morning he simply showed up, unannounced, at their apartment. Cory was overjoyed, jumping into Macklin's arms. He gave her a tight hug that nea
rly brought tears to his eyes. Brooke made pancakes and eggs. Macklin didn't realize how hungry he was until he started eating, eventually horsing down eleven pancakes, six eggs, and three glasses of orange juice before they trudged down to the pool.

  "Are you going to disappear again and break her heart?" Brooke said, regarding Macklin carefully. His chest was hard and covered with droplets of sweat. "Because if you are, Brett, leave right now."

  Macklin swallowed, his throat dry, conflicting compulsions waging war inside him. He wanted to grab them both in his arms and run away someplace. He wanted to tell them about his vigilantism before the Los Angeles Times could. He wanted to hide, melt into the air and become invisible. He wanted to tell Brooke he still loved her. He wanted to scream with frustration until his lungs burst. He wanted to bring back his father and start over.

  He wanted to be happy again.

  "It's been a rough time for me," Macklin said, sorry he had come this morning. Now he realized it would just make things worse. "Dad's murder was a big shock. I had barely gotten over that when Cheshire was killed. My world keeps doing somersaults. I'm not ready to bring Cory and you back into that world yet. Until I can settle things down, both of you will have to be patient with me."

  "Here I go!" Cory yelled, vaulting off the ping board. Her straight little body sliced smoothly into the water.

  Brooke sighed. "Want to do me a favor?"

  "What?"

  "You try explaining that to her."

  # # # # # #

  Macklin left Brooke and Cory at five thirty feeling worse than he had the night before. Seeing them made the doom he faced even more frightening.

  He hadn't been able to explain anything to Cory and ended up making vague promises to see her soon. Macklin could feel Brooke's scornful gaze burning into his back as he left the apartment. She had every right to be pissed. But once she knew what he had been doing the last few months, Macklin was sure she would be thankful he had stayed out of their lives.

  Macklin had wanted to spend his last evening as a free man with them but couldn't handle the oppressive guilt he felt every time he looked at their faces. He fought the urge to once again aimlessly roam the streets in a ridiculous search for the phony Mr. Jury. Tonight, he decided, he wanted to spend his time with friends. There were two tickets to senatorial hopeful Cecil Parks' fund-raising dinner in Macklin's glove compartment, and he was going to use them.

  # # # # # #

  7:00 p.m.

  The New Horizons hotel, which everyone called simply "the Arrow," had given Los Angeles the stunning architectural landmark the downtown high-rise district desperately needed. It rose, gleaming, from the shadows of the downtown skyscrapers as Macklin drove towards it.

  The hotel looked like two giant staircases back to back, a pyramid with two graduated faces. Interesting, but hardly striking. What set the hotel apart was the arrow of cement, steel, and glass that shot out of the twenty-fifth floor. Though quite solid, the five-story shaft that peaked with a four-level black triangle had a sense of motion to it. To Macklin, it looked like the arrow was soaring towards the stars.

  A bright neon glow spilled out into the night from the lobby's covered entranceway. Macklin eased his shiny Cadillac to a stop at the front door. A broad-shouldered black man with a gray mustache wearing a red top hat and tails opened Macklin's door, smiled warmly, and held out his hand for the key.

  "I haven't seen a car like this in twenty years," the doorman said enviously. "It's stunning, sir. A damn shame they don't make them like this anymore."

  Macklin grinned and emerged from the car in a simple black tuxedo with a ruffleless shirt. The doorman's eyes were taking in the car with honest appreciation.

  "It's a beautiful dinosaur, all right," Macklin said, slipping his keys and a crisp $20 bill into the doorman's chubby palm. "Take good care of her for me."

  "I will, sir." The doorman nodded reverently, gesturing away an approaching teenage carhop wearing an ill-fitting white suit. "It will be waiting for you right here."

  As Macklin walked towards the lobby, he looked back as the smiling doorman slowly lowered himself into the driver's seat and firmly grasped the wheel. The lights above Macklin were so bright that he couldn't see anything in the blackness of the street beyond his car.

  Macklin tried to shrug away the itchy irritations of the suit against his sunburned shoulders as the lobby doors slid open with a whisper and he strolled into the cool, air-conditioned lobby. He faced a clear wall behind which three glass elevators ascended and descended along the center of the hotel to the restaurant, bar, observation deck, and ballroom housed in the arrowhead twenty-five stories up.

  One of the elevator doors parted and Macklin saw a familiar face.

  "Holy shit, you wore a tux!" boomed Kirk Jeffries in a voice almost as loud as his clothing. "Knowing you, I thought you'd show up in a fucking T-shirt and jeans."

  Jeffries wore a bright blue, crushed-velvet tuxedo with black trim, three four-inch cigars wrapped in cellophane sticking out of his pocket. Blue-trimmed white ruffles spilled out of the opening of his jacket, which barely contained the bulk of his belly.

  Macklin felt a broad grin stretch across his face and his chest swell with warmth. He was glad he came.

  Jeffries limped out of the elevator and grabbed him in a hearty bear hug.

  The pollster clapped him solidly on the back. "It's good to see you."

  Macklin pulled back and regarded his friend. "How's your arm and leg?"

  Jeffries waved a hand in front of Macklin's face. "Shit, the doctor finally got a welder, a blowtorch, some steel, and put them back together just fine."

  "Have you been able to get Cecil's campaign back on track?" Macklin asked. He knew Jeffries well enough not to be fooled by his sloppy manner. Jeffries was a wizard at manipulating poll and survey results to a candidate's benefit. Once Jeffries had segmentized the populace, he could hone a candidate's delivery and bring in the right votes.

  Jeffries slipped his arm around Macklin's shoulder and led him to the bank of elevators. "Cecil's campaign has been like a paid vacation. He got hold of me just in time. I'll make him senator just like I made him the first black student body president back when all of us were at UCLA."

  Macklin could tell by the heavy weight on his shoulder that Jeffries' leg was a bigger handicap than he let on. The elevator doors in the middle parted and they stepped into the bullet-shaped glass capsule. The elevator lifted with a jolt and quickly rose through the roof of the lobby, offering Macklin a sweeping view of Los Angeles, a vast grid of sparkling lights spread out below him.

  A glass elevator whooshed past them, startling Jeffries and Macklin. "Christ, they come close," Macklin said. He looked down and saw that the elevator had stopped at a floor below them.

  "This middle elevator is an express straight to the top. It doesn't stop at any of the hotel floors," Jeffries said, answering Macklin's unspoken question.

  Macklin could now follow the trail of lights flowing on the Santa Monica Freeway clear to the ocean. He saw the glittering Century City towers to his far left and the tiny dots of lights from the homes that clung to the sharp faces of the Hollywood Hills to his right.

  They were suddenly enveloped in blackness as the elevator pierced the arrowhead. The doors slid open at level one, the ballroom.

  Macklin ambled slowly out of the elevator, his eyes wide. The window-lined ballroom was filled with hundreds of people sitting at round, white-clothed tables with flower arrangements in the center. There was a stage, a dais, and a long white table lined with well-known movie stars and politicians. The clatter of silverware and the low rumble of conversation were inviting. Hanging in the center of the room was a gigantic crystal chandelier that was dwarfed and made insignificant by the beauty and vastness of the twinkling night sky that surrounded everyone.

  "Incredible," Macklin muttered. "It's like we're gods sitting on a cloud."

  Jeffries chortled. "What a bunch of horseshit. You'd make a
lousy poet, my friend."

  They weaved between the tables towards the front of the room. Macklin spotted Ronny Shaw and his girlfriend, Sunshine, at the table he was being led to. Beyond them, he noticed Mayor Stocker among the celebrities at the table on the stage. He felt the warm feeling that he had been nurturing evaporate. He cursed himself for being so caught up in running away from his fear that he had ignored the fact that they would be here. It was as bad as staying with Cory and Brooke tonight would have been. These people were stark reminders that he couldn't run away from tomorrow's fate.

  As Jeffries and Macklin neared the table, Cecil Parks excused himself from a cluster of men he was mingling with and came over to greet them. Jeffries went on to join Shaw and Sunshine.

  "Brett!" Parks grinned, giving Macklin a firm handshake with one hand and clapping him on the shoulder with the other. "It's good to see you."

  Parks' greatest asset had always been his bright, turquoise eyes, which radiated friendliness. They were beaming warmly now. He wore a tuxedo seemingly identical to Macklin's and had the same trim jogger's build. Macklin hadn't seen Parks in more than a year. They used to jog together until his hectic political life ate up all his time.

  "You still jogging twice a week, Cecil?"

  Parks shrugged. "No time, Brett. I do all my running nowadays at banquets and speeches, in interviews and commercials, on fliers and talk shows."

  Macklin grinned. "It's the shits, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, but I want to be senator," Parks said. "Jogging with you and complaining about high defense appropriations, tax credits for schools that racially discriminate, the decay of the social security system, and covert government activities in Central America only makes me lose my breath quicker and doesn't change any of it. I want to show that one person can count."

  Macklin held up his hands in mock defense. "Okay, okay, you got my vote, Cecil, you can stop your speech now."