Free Because the Night by James Ellroy

walked in and shut the door behind him. When he shuffled his feet nervously, Lloyd said, “Looking for me or the Dutchman, Walt?”
    â€œYou,” Perkins said.
    Lloyd pointed to a chair. Perkins ignored it. “I checked with the squad,” he said. “Herzog always worked alone. A lot of the men wanted to work with him because of his rep, but Jack always nixed it. He used to joke that ninety-five percent of all vice cops were alcoholics. He …” Perkins faltered as Lloyd came alive with tension. The sandy-haired man was not a cop.
    Perkins shuffled his feet again, drawing figure eights on the floor. “Lloyd, I don’t want I.A.D. nosing around the squad.”
    â€œWhy?” Lloyd asked. “The worst you’ll get is a reprimand. Vice commanders have been working Herzog off the payroll for years. It’s common knowledge.”
    â€œIt’s not that.”
    â€œThen what is it?”
    Perkins ceased his figure eights and forced himself to stare at Lloyd. “It’s you. I know the whole story of what happened with you last year. I got it straight from a deputy chief. I admire you for what you did, that’s not it. It’s just that I know the promotion board has a standing order not to ever promote you or Dutch, and I—”
    Lloyd’s peripheral vision throbbed with black. Swallowing to keep his voice down, he said, “And you want me to sit on this? A brother officer murdered?”
    Shaking his head and lowering his eyes, Perkins whispered, “No. I paid off a clerk at Personnel Records. He’s going to carry Herzog present for another week or so, then report him missing. There’ll be an investigation.”
    Lloyd kicked out at a metal wastebasket, sending a mound of wadded paper onto Perkins’s pantslegs. The lieutenant flinched back into the door and brought his eyes up. “The born-agains in I.A.D. have a hard-on for you, Hopkins. Gaffaney especially. You’re a great cop, but you don’t give a fuck about other cops and the people close to you get hurt. Look at what you’ve done to Dutch Peltz. Can you blame me for wanting to cover my ass?”
    Lloyd released the hands he had coiled into fists. “It’s all a trade-off. You’re an administrator, I’m a hunter. You’re a well liked superior officer, which means that the guys you command are shaking down hookers for head jobs and ripping off dope dealers for their shit and slopping up free booze all over Hollywood. I’m not so well liked, and I get strange, scary ideas sometimes. But I’m willing to pay the price and you aren’t. So don’t judge me. And get out of the way if you don’t want to get hurt, because I’m seeing this thing through.”
    Lloyd pretended to fiddle with the papers on Dutch’s desk. The second he averted his eyes, Perkins slipped out the door.
    An hour later, when the last remnants of twilight dissolved into night, Lloyd drove to Jackie D.’s bar. The barman he had talked to two nights before was on duty and the place was still empty. The barman had the same weary look and automatically put down a napkin as Lloyd took a seat at the bar, shaking his head and saying, “No mercy. The ginger ale drinkers always return. There is no mercy.”
    â€œWhat’s the complaint this time?” Lloyd asked.
    â€œWet T-shirt contest next door. First I gotta compete with free booze, now I gotta compete with free tits. I heard the guy who owns that puspocket is gonna throw in female mud wrestling, maybe female bush shaving, maybe female dick measuring, make a bundle and go into something stable like pushing heroin. No mercy!”
    â€œIsn’t his liquor license up for suspension, too?”
    â€œYeah, but he’s young and he’s got the chutzpah to think big and diversify. You know, a forty-story swingers’ condo shaped like a dick, with an underground garage shaped like a snatch.