Zeroville Read Free Page A

Vikar flies off his chair across the room and crumples against the wall.
32.
    The chief comes over and kneels beside him. “Don’t be cute.”
    “I’m not,” Vikar says.
    “I think you’re being cute.”
    “No.”
    “What did you come to L.A. for?” says the chief.
    “I came to Hollywood.”
    “O.K., Ike. What did you come to Hollywood for? Score some weed? You have some sort of big transaction in the works?”
    “Weed?”
    “Our blood work shows you have marijuana in your system.”
    “That’s not true,” Vikar says calmly.
    “We know about you. We know about the scores up in the canyon.”
    “Scores?”
    “People are spooked in the canyon these days. Maybe you noticed.”
    “No.”
    “No more happy hippie wonderland since a few days ago.” The chief acts as though he’s pondering something. “About the time you came to town, now that I think of it,” as though thinking of it for the first time, but he’s not thinking of it for the first time, and Vikar realizes none of this is about any “weed” or “score.” The chief says, “What did you say you came to L.A. for?”
    “Hollywood.”
    “O.K.,” irritated, “Hollywood.”
    “To work in the movies.”
    “Are you an actor?”
    “No.”
    “What is it you do in the movies?”
    “I don’t do anything yet.” He adds, “I just got here. Four days ago. Or five.”
    “Let me show you something,” says the chief, “here, let me help you to your feet.”
    “It’s all right,” Vikar says.
    “No, let me help you.” The chief pulls Vikar to his feet and picks up the chair. Vikar sits again at the table. “Better, Ike?”
    Vikar nods.
    “Sorry I lost my temper there. I apologize.”
    Vikar looks at the others standing around.
    “Let me show you something,” says the movie-star chief, and one of the other men hands him an envelope.
33.
    The chief opens the envelope and pulls out seven black-and-white photos and lays them out on the table.
    Vikar sees them for only a second, it’s all he can look. “Oh mother!” he screams, and topples from the chair as if struck again.
    The chief comes back over to Vikar on the floor and, as before, kneels next to him. “This one,” he says, holding up one photo, “was the eight-month-old fetus cut out of this one,” holding up another photo with the other hand. Vikar turns away, sobbing. “Pretty much slaughtered, wouldn’t you say, Ike? Pretty much butchered. This last one,” the chief holds up the seventh photo, “this one of the writing on the door, this business about the pigs … what does it say?” he turns the photo around as though looking at it for the first time, but he’s not looking at it for the first time. “This one about the pigs. Written on the door of the house in the blood of,” waving one photo, “the mother of,” waving the other, “this one. Am I supposed to take it personally, Ike? Was this for me, this about the pigs?” but Vikar sobs, wishing he never had seen it.
34.
    Five minutes later Vikar is still on the floor and the police are trying to get him to stop crying. “O.K.,” the chief says. “O.K., God damn it.”
    “Oh mother, oh mother …”
    “Stop it.” The chief hands the photos back to the black detective who gave them to him. Vikar begins to calm down. “You O.K.?”
    Vikar says nothing.
    “You O.K.?”
    Vikar shakes his head. The chief studies him, disappointed.
    The woman and the other men now leave the room, one by one. Vikar is still. “So,” the chief finally says, nodding at Vikar’s head, “what’s with the James Dean and Natalie Wood?”
35.
    They leave him in the interrogation room—
    —but through the open door he can hear a couple of voices. “… couldn’t even look at the photos,” one of the voices sounds like the chief’s, “how could he have done that to those people?”
    “He’s a freak,” the other voice says.
    “That’s awfully astute, Barnes. But the city is full of freaks and by itself it doesn’t put