Vampyres of Hollywood Read Online Free PDF Page A

and a half. “Oh, I wouldn’t want that,” she said. She was serious.
    “Why not?”
    “I’d hate to end up fighting with you.”
    “I don’t blame you. You’d lose.” I ran my finger down her arm.
    She glanced sidelong at me, her huge gray eyes hooded with what might have been lust. “You always win, don’t you?”
    “Always.”

Chapter Four
     

     
    BEVERLY HILLS
11:45 A.M.
     
    Greed and stupidity.
    That’s how most criminals are caught. Forget the high-tech CSI/SVU stuff—Vincent D’Onofrio kneeling on the floor to chart the exact trajectory of a quarter-inch blood spatter on a burned-out halogen bulb found only in one corner of the Cloisters. That kind of stuff helps keep Dick Wolf’s research staff busy, but it’s not the truth.
    The truth is, most criminals are stupid. Don’t forget, America’s Dumbest Criminals is a documentary.
    You don’t believe the story about the bank robber who called Triple A when he locked himself out of his getaway car? Or his compatriot who handed a teller his stickup note written on the back of an envelope with his return address on the front? They’re true. Stupidity and greed. Criminals have it in spades.
    So I wasn’t surprised to hear that Benzedrine Benny, aka Biblical Benny, had had his new maps on the street before the killings hit the news. What bothered me is that he’d had them printed before the last killing took place. B.B. is stupid and greedy, but I’ve never known him to be psychic.
    I knew he wasn’t the killer. There’s no way he could have gotten near any one of the victims. Benny doesn’t have a close relationship with soap and water; his smell alone would have sent the vics screaming for bodyguards. These murders were up close and creative. Benny’s thought processes are taxed making change for a ten.
    But he knew something. Or he knew someone who knew something. Either way, it was more than I knew, and whatever it was, it would bring me one step closer to the killer and further out of the sinkhole this case was fast becoming.
    Hollywood is a one-company town. Anything that screws with the company screws with the town. We’ve got three dead celebrities and suddenly nobody wants to show up for work. Productions are shutting down. Every talking head on every news channel has a theory, a comment, an observation, a quip, and a quote. Arnold is screaming up in Sacramento. We can’t afford to lose more films to Canada or Australia or Europe.
    And the celebs are absolutely freaked. Gavin de Becker can’t hire enough staff to answer the phones at his security service. Homeboys from East L.A. are camping out at the Beverly Hills Hotel, standing guard outside the bungalows with their Ingrams. After the third murder, Soldier of Fortune magazine did a direct mailing to every member of S.A.G. with an ad offering “Bodyguard Specialists. European and Middle Eastern Trained.” There was a discount if you hired in bulk.
    The stars who can’t afford to hire a shooter are buying the firepower themselves. Most of them can’t operate a TV remote, you think they’re going to know how to shoot a .50-caliber Desert Eagle? That’s what they’re buying, for Christ’s sake. It’s got to be in excess of .357 Magnum, and it’s got to be nickel plated and ivory handled to boot. Either that or “the cute little one that will fit right in my purse. Does it come in platinum?” That’s a direct quote from a well-known model-turned-singer to my brother-in-law who owns a gun shop in Venice. She wanted something to match her watch and her dog’s collar.
    No-Pants was waiting right where I’d left him. He’d put down Fevre Dream and had a copy of Daily Variety in his hands. This guy must have a library card. I handed him the six-pack of Corona I’d bought from Young.
    “Mexie, huh? Good choice for a hot day.”
    “Enjoy it. Anything interesting in the trades?” You can’t live in Beverly Hills as long as I have and not know the lingo.
    “Nah, just more