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arms. Beller’s head was nothing but splattered bone and brain debris, and Lloyd let them lie in the dirt.
    Muttering, “God please, please, God, rabbit down the hole,” Lloyd walked out to the street, noting with his animal antennae that there was no one about–the locals were either scared shitless by the gunfire or inured to it. He emptied his canteen into the gutter and found a length of surgical tubing in his bayonet case–good strangling cord, Beller had once told him. There was a ’61 Ford Fairlane at the curb. Deftly manipulating the tubing and canteen, Lloyd managed to siphon a solid pint of gas from the tank. He walked back to the outhouse and doused what remained of Beller, than reloaded his .45 and paced off ten yards. He fired, and the outhouse exploded. Lloyd walked back to Avalon Boulevard. When he turned around, the entire lot was engulfed in flames.
    Two days later, the Watts Riot was over. Order had been restored to the devastated underbelly of South Central Los Angeles. Forty-two lives were lost–forty rioters, one deputy sheriff and one National Guardsman whose body was never found, but who was presumed dead.
    The riot was attributed to many causes. The N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League attributed it to racism and poverty. The Black Muslim Party attributed it to police brutality. Los Angeles Chief of Police William H. Parker attributed it to a “breakdown in moral values.” Lloyd Hopkins considered all these theories fatuous nonsense. He attributed the Watts Riot to the death of the innocent heart, most specifically the heart of an old black wino named Famous Johnson.
    When it was over, Lloyd retrieved his car from the parking lot of the Glendale Armory and drove to Janice’s apartment. They made love, and Janice provided what comfort she could, but refused the oral comfort Lloyd begged for. He left her bed at three in the morning and went looking for it.
    He found a Negro prostitute at the corner of Western and Adams who was willing to do the deed for ten dollars, and they drove to a side street and parked. Lloyd screamed when he came, frightening the hooker, who bolted out of the car before she could collect her money.
    Lloyd cruised aimlessly until dawn, then drove to his parents’ house in Silverlake. He could hear his father snoring as he unlocked the door, and he saw light coming from under the door to Tom’s room. His mother was in her den, sitting in her bentwood rocker. All the lights in the room were off, except for the colored light from the fish tank. Lloyd sat down on the floor and told the mute, prematurely old woman his entire life story, ending with the killing of the killer of innocence and how he could now protect innocent people as never before. Absolved and fortified, he kissed his mother’s cheek and wondered how he would kill the eight weeks before he entered the Academy.
    Tom was waiting for him outside the house, stationed firmly on the pathway leading to the sidewalk. When he saw Lloyd, he laughed and opened his mouth to speak. Lloyd didn’t let him. He pulled a .45 automatic from his waistband and placed it against Tom’s forehead. Tom started to tremble, and Lloyd said very softly, “If you ever mention niggers, commies, kikes, or any of that shit to me ever again, I’ll kill you.” Tom’s florid face went pale, and Lloyd smiled and walked back to the shattered remains of his own innocence.

Part Two
    Torch Songs

3
    He cruised west on Ventura Boulevard, savoring the newness of daylight-saving time, the clarity of the extra-long afternoons and the unseasonably warm spring weather that had the harlots dressed in tank tops and bare-midriff halters and the real women in a profusion of demure summer pastels: pink, light blue and green, pale yellow.
    It had been many months since the last time, and he attributed this hiatus to the shifting weather patterns that had his head in a tizzy: warm one day, cold and