Suicide Hill by James Ellroy Read Free Book Online Page B

they’re going away this weekend, and they have this tendency to patch things up during long motel idylls.”
    Lloyd laughed. “I’ve been observing you lately. Don’t you ever eat lunch?”
    Penny laughed back. “The school serves nothing but health food, and Mom’s sandwiches suck. I hit a burger joint on the way home.”
    â€œCome on, we’ll get a pizza and conspire against your mother.”
    After a long lunch, Lloyd dropped Penny back at school and drove to Janice’s apartment. There was a note on the door: “Roger—running late, make yourself at home. Should ret. around 3:30.” He checked his watch—3:10—and picked the lock with a credit card and let himself in. When he saw the state of the living room, he realized Janice’s success, not her lover, was his chief competition.
    Every piece of furniture was a frail-looking antique, the type he had told her never to buy for the house because he was afraid it wouldn’t support his 225 pounds; every framed painting was the German Expressionist stuff he despised. The rugs were light blue Persian, the kind Janice had always wanted, but was certain he’d ruin with coffee stains. Everything was tasteful, expensive, and a testament to her freedom as a single woman.
    Lloyd sat down carefully in a cherrywood armchair and stretched his legs so that his feet rested on polished hardwood, not pale carpeting. He tried to kill time imagining what Janice would be wearing, but kept picturing her nude. When that led to thoughts of Roger, he let his eyes scan the room for something of or by himself. Seeing nothing, he fought an impulse to check out Janice’s bedroom. Then he heard a key in the lock and felt himself start to shiver.
    Janice saw him immediately and didn’t register an ounce of surprise. “Hello, Lloyd,” she said. “Liney called me at the office and told me you were in town. I expected you to come by, but I didn’t expect you to break in.”
    Lloyd stood up. A red wool suit and a new shorter hairdo. He hadn’t been close. “Cops have criminal tendencies. You look wonderful, Jan.”
    Janice sighed and let her purse drop to the floor. “No, I don’t. I’m forty-two, and I’m putting on weight.”
    â€œI’m forty-two and losing weight.”
    â€œSo I can see. So much for the amen—”
    Lloyd took two steps forward; Janice one. They embraced hands to shoulders, keeping a space between them. Lloyd broke it off first, so the contact wouldn’t make him want more. He took a step backward and said, “You know why I’m here.”
    Janice pointed to a Louis XIV sofa. “Yes, of course.” When sat down, she took a chair across from him and said, “I what you want, and I’m glad that you want it, but I don’t what I want. And I may never know. That’s as honest an answer as I can give you.”
    Lloyd felt threads of their past unraveling. Not knowing whether to press or retreat, he said, “You’ve made a good life for yourself here. This pad, your business, the life you’ve set up for the girls.”
    â€œI also have a lover, Lloyd.”
    â€œYeah, Roger the on-and-off lodger. How’s that going?”
    Janice laughed. “You’re such a riot when you try to act civilized. I read about you in the L.A. papers a couple of weeks ago. Some man you captured in New Orleans.”
    â€œSome man whose capture I fucked up in New Orleans, some man whose arraignment I almost blew in L.A.”
    Janice smoothed the hem of her skirt and leaned forward. “I’ve never heard you admit to making mistakes before. As a cop, I mean.”
    Lloyd leaned back. The sofa creaked against his weight and combined with Janice’s words to form an accusation. “I never made them before!”
    â€œDon’t shout, I wasn’t accusing you of anything. What did the man do?”
    The