L.A. 46, page 22
The Suddermans and the Fines and the Johnsons came home next. Having agreed before they left to bet the jocks and not the horses, the twenty dollar per couple pool they’d started out with had grown to four hundred and eighty dollars. All were a little high when they returned but their elation was quickly dissipated by the rain, finding the building under siege, and the grim news that Mr. Katz was dead.
Sober-faced and annoyed because they weren’t allowed to go to their apartments, the Suddermans and the Fines joined the other tenants in the rear of the building where they’d gone to enjoy hot coffee and doughnuts at Mrs. Malloy’s invitation. Like the others, they tried to comfort Mrs. Katz with words of sympathy.
Captain Johnson was particularly grim. Deeply shocked by the senseless death of his friend, he immediately offered his services in any capacity to Lieutenant Feeney, Captain Hale’s second-in-command.
His offer was refused with thanks. Lieutenant Feeney assured the retired Chicago police captain he knew how the captain must feel but they had all the manpower they could use.
John Johns was next to return. On learning that his wife was one of the two women Romero was holding as hostages, he had to be restrained by two detectives from riding up to the penthouse to confront Romero with his bare fists. Against Lieutenant Feeney’s orders, Johns then made his way up the ramp and through the rain and the field of fire to the squad car on the far side of the street. There Captain Hale and two detectives armed with rifles were trying to keep dry while they waited for the car from Central Division to arrive with Romero’s mother.
Johns gripped the sill of the rolled down window of the police car and said hotly, “Is this all you intend to do, just sit here while Romero is holding those two women up there? If that’s the case, while your lieutenant in the garage says no, I’d like your permission to go up there and see if I can’t do something.”
“What’s your interest in this?” Hale asked.
“One of those women is my wife.”
Snug and dry in the car, Hale nodded. “Oh, yes, I recognize you now. You’re John Johns, the—” Hide started to say “pinko” and decided it wouldn’t be advisable—“T.V. commentator.”
“That’s right.”
“What do you think you could do up there, Mr. Johns?”
“I haven’t any idea,” Johns admitted. “But I’ve had some combat experience and—”
Hale was short with him. “Oh, come off it, Johns. I have twenty men down in the street, four men behind the elevator housing. Twice that number blocking off the exits. Most of them with combat experience. More important than that, they’re trained officers of the law being paid to do a job. So simmer down. This is as rough on us as it is on you. We’re not sitting in here on our butts because we want to get in out of the rain. Maybe Lieutenant Feeney didn’t make the situation clear to you. The only reason we’re stalling is because Romero swears if we try to rush him he’ll shoot the two women and the boy and kill himself.”
“And you believe that?”
“I don’t see,” Hale said, “that I have any choice. But off the record, yes. What does he have to lose?” Hale had to shout to make himself heard above the howl of the wind and the drum of rain on the roof of the car. “Besides, if that guy who lives in the penthouse is right, this condition has been building for years. Dementia praecox, paranoidal type, he called it.”
Johns refreshed his memory by defining the term. “A form of dementia usually beginning in late adolescence, characterized by melancholia and withdrawal, developing into systemized delusions of grandeur and persecution.”
“That’s just what the man said.”
“Then why wasn’t the man locked up years ago?” Hale protested. “Look, fellow. Don’t give me a bad time. I have enough on my mind. But if you’re worried about Romero abusing your wife sexually, stop worrying.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“It’s also extremely difficult to do while you’re aiming and shooting a rifle. Besides, again according to Dr. Gam, Romero blowing his stack wasn’t sex motivated. Gam says something much deeper is eating on him.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I go for that. They told me in the garage that Mr. Katz died in a struggle while he was trying to prevent Romero from raping the teen-ager in Apartment 33. They also told me that according to your line of questioning, you’re pretty sure he’d raped at least one other woman in the building.”
“That’s true,” Hale admitted. “And if it was the one I think it was, it was a new experience for her. But when he went after the little broad in 33, all he was trying to do was prove to Romero that he was Marty the Wonder Boy and just as good, if not better, than any other man. Right now, holed up where he is, with at least two rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition and our hands tied, I’m not so certain he isn’t right.”
Johns wiped sweat from his face. “That’s a bullhorn on the seat beside you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then if you won’t let me go up there, can’t I at least talk to him, talk to my wife, try to find out if she’s all right?”
“Why not?” Hale said. He opened the door of the car on the side away from the building and came out with the bullhorn. “But if you don’t mind, before you do, let’s get a little more bulk between us and that picture window. Every time we call up to him, he shoots. Every time he shoots, he comes a little closer. And while it’s not so much, I have only three years to go for my pension.”
Crouched behind the squad car with the three detectives, Johns pointed the bullhorn up through the rain and called:
“This is John Johns, Romero. You have my wife up there.”
The answer was immediate. Standing to one side of the shattered window, shooting from a position in which only the muzzle of his gun could be seen, Romero emptied a clip of bullets that thudded into the body of the car, ricocheted off the pavement to keyhole into the trunk of the live oak tree close by. A shouted string of obscenities followed the shots.
Johns tried again. “Hold your fire, Romero. I’m not armed. I merely want to know if my wife is all right.”
“She’s fine. Just fine,” Romero shouted back through the rain.
“I’d rather have her tell me that.”
“I don’t give a damn what you’d rather.”
Cara Johns’ voice was barely audible through the window. “He’s telling the truth. I’m all right, John. He hasn’t harmed any of us.”
Johns stood up and talked over the hood of the car. “Why? Tell me that, Romero. Why? What harm did Mrs. Johns or I ever do you?”
“None,” Romero called back. “But it’s too late to be sorry now. So don’t try to soften me up or con me. Okay. You and Mrs. Johns were nice to Alicia and my boy. It was the only nice thing anyone in this frigging building ever did for me. I appreciate it.”
“Then why not release Mrs. Johns and your wife and the boy?”
If he’d been drunk, Romero was sober now, his arrogance replaced by despair and frustration and naked fear. When he spoke again, keeping well away from the front window or the patio doors, his voice brought to Johns’ memory the once familiar, cloying battlefield stench of disintegrating human flesh.
“You know the answer to that, Mr. Johns,” Romero called. “I can’t. I’m in a mess. Oh, God, am I in a mess. Right now, the two broads and the kid are all that are keeping me alive.”
Sensing motion beside him, Johns glanced sideways and saw that one of the detectives had risen from his crouch and was holding his rifle at the ready as he stared up through the night at the shattered window.
“What are you going to do?” Johns asked the detective.
The detective was surprised by the question. “What do you think? If I can get a clear shot at him, I’m going to kill the son of a bitch.”
24
The wind continued to blow and the rain kept on falling with increasing vigor after the prolonged drought. Great streams of water gurgled down the gutters to overflow the storm drains, snarling traffic on the streets and freeways, stall cars in low-lying sections and form rushing rivers in the usually dry arroyos where dust had lain for months. The wind was prankish, toppling palm and eucalyptus trees onto roofs and parked cars and power lines, causing blackouts in many parts of the city. Los Angeles 46 was one of these blackout areas.
While the police worked quickly but methodically rigging portable power plants, the plans they had made for the evening canceled by the unexpected deluge, two by two, wet and bedraggled, the tenants of the Casa del Sol made their way back to the building and were escorted down the ramp into the garage, now lighted by pressure lanterns and candles. By seven-thirty p.m. all the occupants except the Barry Edens and tie Wylies and Paul Mazeric had been accounted for.
At first the mood in the garage was subdued. There was little talking or movement. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. This wasn’t something that happened to you or to people you knew. This was something you read about in the morning newspaper or heard on your newscast. This was the type of incident that men like John Johns were always bleating about and blaming on what they claimed to be worldwide moral degeneration. This sort of thing didn’t take place in a building like the Casa del Sol where the minimum rent was two hundred and seventy-five dollars a month.
With the departure of the police ambulance carrying Ernie Katz’s body, which Marta Katz escorted by Captain and Mrs. Johnson insisted on accompanying, a subtle change in the atmosphere took place. It was a form of mental revolt.
Having been forced to walk up the hill in the rain, the tenants who’d returned were wet to the skin. It was cool and uncomfortable in the garage. Many of them hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. They were in need of dry clothes and a hot bath. There was no place to sit except the seats of the cars in the stalls or the wet web chaise longues and chairs that Lieutenant Feeney had ordered his men to carry in from the lanai. They started to become vocal. After all, some were saying, they paid plenty of taxes for police protection. They had, they assured each other, better things to do than stand and sit around a smelly garage while one slaphappy potential rapist thumbed his nose at fifty well-armed, well-paid officers. There was a limit to everything.
Most of the growing discontent was based on generalities. Others had more personal reasons, minor or major, for wanting to get the business over with so they could return to their apartments.
Mr. Melkha needed a drink.
Mr. and Mrs. Leslie had promised to telephone their son and daughter-in-law as soon as they reached home safely through the storm.
Ruby enjoyed talking to the good-looking young reporter who seemed more interested in her than in the story he was supposed to be getting. He was very nice. She liked him. Before all this business had started, however, she’d been on her way upstairs to write a letter to Wally to tell him how much she loved him and how happy they would be after they were married, how wonderful it was to know that she was going to be his wife. She still hoped she could write the letter before Vera and Tom came home. She didn’t want Vera to know she was going to be married until the very last minute. If Vera loused this up for her or hacked or spit or scratched herself in front of Wally’s mother before she and Wally were married she’d die. She’d simply lie right down and die . . .
The sharp pains that had started shortly after the incident on the balcony were coming more frequently now. Eva Mazeric didn’t feel well. She didn’t feel well at all. Induced, no doubt, by the emotional strain of the last few days and the excitement to which she’d been subjected, a radical change was taking place in her body. If die couldn’t find some place to lie down, and soon, she was going to be very embarrassed. Still, if what she thought was about to happen, did happen, one of her problems, the major one now, would be resolved . . .
Colette’s reaction was purely commercial. Saturday was always one of her biggest nights. She could always depend on Saturday night to take care of her rent and furnish the monthly payment on her new Thunderbird. By now, her phone would be ringing like mad. And where was she? Stuck in a stinking garage crowded with cops in wet slickers. Here she was, pouring coffee for and exchanging small talk with the wordy matrons and torchbearers of the Sisterhood of the Golden Circle who were so goddamn afraid of professional competition that under normal circumstances they wouldn’t even pass the time of day with her.
Shortly before eight o’clock the officers from Central Division reported that, due in part to the storm, they’d failed to locate Romero’s mother. Romero was cracking up rapidly, shouting obscenities and shooting at everything that moved on the rain-drenched street or on the roof. Captain Hale walked over to the car in which Gam was sitting with Eva and asked:
“How about it, Doctor? How about you trying to talk Romero out of there before he goes completely berserk and nils those two women and the boy?”
“Why me?” Gam objected.
Hale told him. “Because we’ve tried everything else. I’ve talked to him. Morton and the boys up on the roof have talked to him. Feeney has talked to him. Mr. Johns and a priest have talked to him.”
“What about his mother?”
“The boys from downtown are still looking for her. All her neighbors could tell them was that she was a cleaning woman in one of the office buildings but they didn’t know which one.”
“I see,” Gam said.
From the moment he’d returned to the building, he’d had a premonition that before the affair was over he’d somehow become involved. It was his apartment and his province. The man Romero was mentally ill. He needed , help.
“Okay,” Gam agreed. “Sure. I’ll be glad to do what I can. But give me a few minutes to see if I can’t come up with a new approach.”
He was a little bitter as he mulled over the situation. This whole thing might make some sense if Romero’s problem and latest outburst were of recent origin. But they weren’t. The mania, ignited and fueled by alcohol, that had erupted into violence that afternoon had begun the day Romero was born. It was the culmination of a number of things, substandard housing with all its problems, years of inadequate and indifferent educational and recreational facilities, a total ignorance, by example, of normal moral standards and relative values. He’d experienced all these conditions as an adolescent. As a young adult, an overdeveloped sex drive and Romero’s own frenetic and brutal though unguided drive for success, goaded him to try to beat his way up from second-class citizenship to the particular place in the sun he’d chosen for himself, regardless of the cost to himself and to others.
It didn’t do any good to reason that hundreds of other men of similar background and racial origin had become solid members of their communities. A city, a nation, a civilization was only as strong as its weakest thinkers. In the modern way of life, all men had to survive—or none would.
From what little he knew of the man, Gam doubted that Romero was basically bad. Weak, yes, but not wholly evil. Few men were. With intelligent civic concern and understanding, proper custodial care and guidance and a stout leather strap well applied where needed during Romero’s formative years, all this could have been avoided.
Oversimplified perhaps, but stripped to fundamentals, all that Romero’s pent-up revolt against society boiled down to was a frantic plea for help. What he was really shouting behind his facade of obscenity was: “Look, fellows. I’m one of you. I belong here, too.”
Gam continued to think bitter thoughts. He doubted that such a simple solution to outbursts like this one, an enforced teaching of the basic principles of moral and spiritual, fraternal and generic law, would ever be inaugurated or invoked. Not as long as the decadent descendants of the men and women who once had proudly proclaimed their belief that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, persisted in reverting to the law of the jungle, tacitly enduring if not admiring venality in high places, and insisted on paying homage to their own particular Baal, an image of a hundred-dollar bill wrapped around a phallic symbol.
Gloria Ames had been sacrificed on that altar. Now it was Marty the Wonder Boy’s turn. And after them, countless hundreds of thousands of still unborn male and female innocents who, miraculously, succeeded in making the perilous journey through the dark forests of moral and civic unconcern, carpeted with the moss of man s inhumanity to man and treed with the nonflowering condoms and pessaries and diaphragms growing in the brave new Space and Rubber Age.
Gam lit a cigarette and the smoke tasted harsh in his mouth and irritated the membranes of his nose. Yes, this had been building for years, but now, because he had some small knowledge of the human mind and was fairly articulate, he was being requested by Captain Hale, who was unable to incise the growth on the body politic, to risk his life, to play the Judas goat and lead the latest sacrifice to slaughter. Not that the captain of detectives was a cruel, heartless priest of the new order. On the contrary, Hale and his men had risked their own lives a dozen times during the past few hours in attempting to save other lives. All Hale was asking him to do was to try and talk the terrified man up in the penthouse into divesting himself of the illusionary blanket of safety he’d wrapped around himself and walk out onto the rainswept terrace with his hands raised in supplication to a totally indifferent Heaven.
He was being asked to persuade a man to walk out so that according to due process of law, dependent on the legal ability of two lawyers, the wisdom of a politically appointed judge, and the mores and personal prejudices of a jury of his peers, one Mauricio Romero, Jr., born willy-nilly into a world with which he’d never been able to cope, could, under the statutes of the Sovereign State of California be:
One: Incarcerated in a mental institution.
