When The Bough Breaks

I stayed outside, watching, waiting. Soon the sound of gagging and retching could be heard. Then cops began running out of the house, spilling out on the lawn, their hands to their noses, an action sequence in reverse. One particularly stalwart patrolman busied himself puking into the junipers. When it appeared that they'd all retreated, Milo came to the door, a handkerchief held over his nose and mouth. His eyes were visible and they made contact with me. They gave me a choice.

Against my better judgment I pulled out my own handkerchief, masked the lower part of my face and went in.

The thin cotton was scant defense against the hot stench that rose up against me as I stepped across the threshold. It was as if raw sewage and swamp gas had blended into a bubbling, swirling soup, then vaporized and sprayed into the air.

My eyes watering, I fought the urge to vomit, and followed Milo's advancing silhouette into the kitchen.

He was sitting there at a Formica table. The bottom part of him, the part in clothing, still looked human. The sky - blue salesman's suit, the maize - colored button - down shirt with blue silk foulard. The dandy's touches - the breast pocket hankie, the shoes with tiny tassles, the gold bracelet that hung around a wrist teeming with maggots.

From the neck up he was something the pathologists threw out. It looked as if he'd been worked over with a crowbar - the entire front part of what used to be his face was caved in - but it was really impossible to know what the swollen bloody lump attached to his shoulders had been subjected to, so advanced was the state of decay.

Milo began throwing open windows and I realized that the house felt as hot as a blast furnace, fueled by the hydrocarbons emitted by decomposing organic matter. A quick answer to the energy crisis: Save kilowatts, kill a friend…

I couldn't take any more. I ran for the door, gasping and flung away the handkerchief when I reached the outdoors. I gulped hungrily at the cool night air. My hands shook.

There was lots of excitement on the block now. Neighbors - men, women and children - had come out of their castles, pausing in the middle of the evening news, interrupting their defrosted feasts to gawk at the blinking crimson lights and listen to the stuttering radio static of the squad car, staring at the coroner's van that had pulled up to the curb with the cold authority of a parading despot. A few kids rode their bikes up and down the street. Mumbling voices took on the sound of ravaging locusts. A dog barked. Welcome to suburbia.

I wondered where they'd all been when someone had gotten into Bruno's house, battered him into jelly, closed all the windows and left him to rot.

Milo finally came out, looking green. He sat on the front steps and hung his head between his knees. Then he got up and called the attendants from the coroner's office over. They had come prepared, with gas masks and rubber gloves. They went in with an empty stretcher and came out carrying something wrapped in a black plastic sheath.

"Ugh. Gross," said a teenage girl to her friend.

It was as eloquent a way to put it as any.

12

Three mornings after we discovered the butchery of Bruno, Milo wanted to come over to review the salesman's psychiatric file in detail. I postponed it until the afternoon. Motivated by instincts that were unclear to me, I called Andre Jaroslav at his studio in West Hollywood and asked him if he had time to help me refresh my karate skills.

"Doctor," he said, the accent as thick as goulash, "such a long time since I see you."

"I know, Andre. Too long. I've let myself go. But I hope you can help me."

He laughed.

"Tsk, tsk. I have intermediate group at eleven and private lessons at twelve. Then I am going to Hawaii, Doctor. To choreograph fight scenes for new television pilot. Girl police person who knows judo and catches rapists. What do you think?"

"Very original."

"Ya. I get to work with the redheaded chickie - this Shandra Layne. To teach her how to throw around large men. Like Wonder Woman, ya?"

"Ya. Do you have any time before eleven?"

"For you, Doctor - certainly. We get you in shape. Come at nine and I give you two hours."

The Institute of Martial Arts was located on Santa Monica at Doheny, next to the Troubador nightclub. It was an L.A. institution, predating the Kung Fu craze by fifteen years. Jaroslav was a bandy - legged Czech Jew who'd escaped during the fifties. He had a high, squeaky voice that he attributed to having been shot in the throat by the Nazis. The truth was that he'd been born with the vocal register of a hysterical capon. It hadn't been easy, being a squeaky - voiced Jew in postwar Prague. Jaroslav had developed his own way of coping. Starting as a boy he taught himself physical culture, weight - lifting and the arts of self - defense. By the time he was in his twenties he had total command of every martial arts doctrine from saber - fencing to hopkaido, and a lot of bullies received painful surprises.