For Eddie Sims, finding his prey was not particularly difficult because he had learned the virtue of patience. Sims had studied the whereabouts, the comings and goings of Harrington, Lyons, and Judge Reese for weeks. He had patience now, a quality quite underrated, especially by the impatient. He learned of Lyons’s saloon habits. He found out where Harrington lived alone, simply by waiting near the courthouse parking lot and following her from a safe distance. When she rode out the Santa Monica Freeway to its end near the ocean, he followed a few more blocks, then pulled off. The next day he resumed where he had stopped. Her radiant red Maserati GT was not hard to catch sight of, though in this part of town Masers were no rarity. In just three days, he knew where she lived.
He did the same with Judge Reese. After several days on him, he discovered Reese had a fondness for slipping away around noon and wildly smacking balls at the driving range of the Wilshire Country Club near Rossmore Avenue and Beverly Boulevard. Although the club was private, Sims had gone to the pro shop and bought a Wilshire Country Club golf cap. As he entered an older, gray-haired man was leaving and telling the shop’s only worker, “Thank you, Dial.” Dial, Sims thought, what kind of sorry-ass name was that? Named after some soap. What’s with white people and their kids’ names?
Sims had given himself a minor makeover. He’d shaved his head, but not the three-days’ facial growth. He’d brought boots that gave him an extra two inches. Wrapped two sweaters around his belly. He had wrapped three, until he realized the third one, with green-and-gold diamonds, was Payton’s, a birthday gift from Lisa, his one and only girlfriend. He took it off. He didn’t want Payton along for the Revenge. His knife, okay, his sweater, no.
Sims’s biggest worry now was his Cutlass. He considered leaving it at the long-term lot at LAX, which was the classic place to leave a criminal car. But, he needed a car and he couldn’t rent one without using his real driver’s license, since it matched his only debit card. So he chanced it with the Cutlass and drove five minutes to Western Avenue in Gardena, where he knew of two used car lots. He parked the Cutlass on an industrial stretch of Gramercy Place at 169th Place near the back end of the Gardena Villas Mobile Home Park. He walked the block to Fujishima Motors on Western Avenue next to a UPS facility, and, after a test drive that didn’t even leave the lot, drove out ten minutes later in a once-silver eight-hundred-dollar 1991 Ford Taurus with 190,000 thousand miles.
He took Western to Redondo Beach Boulevard, hung a right past Normandie Avenue, past the Nahas Department Store, past the Memorial Hospital of Gardena, past Larry Flynt’s Hustler Casino, past Vermont Avenue, and onto the northbound Harbor Freeway. He was going golfing. Or at least to the range, looking to get a hole in one judge.
Up the Harbor, he tuned the radio to KNX News Radio. Traffic was humming along nicely. As he neared the Manchester Avenue off-ramp, he gazed to his right, to the east, just two miles away where he once had a content life with a wife, an energetic son, some rosebushes, and a never-ending rotation of cars in need of tune-ups. He stared east so long that when he returned his eyes to the freeway, he had to slam on his brakes to avoid rear-ending a tricked-out lime-green Nissan 350Z.
Off to the northwest, dark clouds were heading toward town. Traffic slowed considerably by the time he hit Vernon Avenue near the Coliseum. It usually did. Then he heard the radio report. “We now go live to Hal Hansen at the Police Administration Building for breaking news.”
Howitzer Hal, as usual, laid it on thick. “This is Hal Hansen and we have cracking news on the case of the maniacal serial killer known as the Evil Killer. Just moments ago, the LAPD released a photo of a man, Edward Sims, aka Eddie Sims, aka Barry Sanders. He is said to be a ‘person of interest’ in the case. Go to our website, losangeles dot cbslocal dot com to see his picture. Sims is described as black, forty-nine years old, five foot nine, a hundred seventy pounds with no distinguishing marks such as tattoos or scars. He drives a1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme SL, blue with California license plate zero-three-two ISN. Once again, LAPD has not said he is a suspect, but rather a ‘person of interest.’ That sounds interestingly suspect to me. Stay tuned to KNX for further updates.”
The in-station radio broadcaster asked Hansen what citizens should do if they spotted the man. Sims was sweating now. He was thankful for the anonymity of the Ford Taurus, but wished he had parked the Cutlass farther away from Fujishima Motors. Oh, so they find the Cutter, he thought. What difference would it make now?
“Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to apprehend this man. He is considered very dangerous and possibly armed like a Navy SEAL, Force Recon Marine, or a Delta operator,” said Hansen, lapsing back into his over-the-top military ways and convicting Sims already. “This man has nearly beheaded a deputy district attorney with, what sources tell me, may have been an unforgiving Special Forces knife. He is alleged to have brutally killed one of this city’s most violent gang members, a gang member so dastardly he was known on the streets as ‘Terminal.’ Let the SWAT unit handle this bad guy. If you see him, notify LAPD at once. This is a nine-one-oner if there ever was one.”
Even Sims, with all he had going on, had time to realize Hansen sounded like a buffoon. He lumbered up the Harbor Freeway at fifteen mph, then to a stop, then back to twenty mph past the Coliseum, the USC campus, the Shrine Auditorium, and Felix Chevrolet. He dared not look at the drivers surrounding him. Were they staring?
After passing the Adams Boulevard off-ramp, Sims moved to the right-hand lanes and transferred to the westbound Santa Monica Freeway, taking the swooping two-lane 270-degree right transition ramp so slowly he was nearly rear-ended by a UPS truck that had veered off to pass him on the outside. It gave Sims an idea.
At the Wilshire Country Club, Judge Reese was getting his unwind on. He was sick of the security detail put on him. Yes, it might be for his own good, but it was stifling. Besides, the judge had his reliable snub-nosed .38. A Colt Detective Special. Lately, he would never leave home without it.
Before he got his bucket of balls, Reese told club staff that if there were any phone calls for him, any at all, he was not there. He turned off his cell. His shoulders were knotted. He needed a massage. He had no idea about a possible break in the Evil Killer case. He was enjoying the cloudy day. It looked like rain tonight.
When the word came in that he was missing, desperate LAPD detectives tracked down his wife, Jackie, who was lunching with the ladies at the Water Grill. Jackie told detectives her husband loved to golf at the Wilshire, Los Angeles, and Bel Air country clubs. They dispatched units to all three courses, most to Wilshire since it was closest to the courthouse. Jackie called her husband’s cell phone. It went straight to voice mail.
At that point, the judge had nine balls left in his bucket. A patrol car was coming Code Three, lights and siren, from Hollywood Division less than two miles away. Others were scrambling from wherever they were. Cars were heading in from Olympic and Wilshire divisions, too
Sims, in his Taurus, entered the parking lot of the Wilshire Country Club and was greeted by a sunglassed Asian parking valet seated in a director’s chair who figured this guy was not a member. He put his hand up for Sims to stop. The judge was down to three balls.
“Help you, sir?”
“I just have a delivery for the pro shop,” Sims said, patting a box in the small rear seat. “Golf shirts, I think.”
“I can take them here.”
“Thanks, but I had direct orders to hand them right to the pro shop. To Dial.”
“I can do that.”
The judge was done driving.
“Thanks, but I was told to hand them over to Dial personally.”
“Well, I don’t even think Dial is in today. I haven’t seen him.”
Sims spotted the judge, his Callaway FT-I driver over his shoulder like a baseball bat, heading toward his British Racing Green Jaguar XJR coupe.
“Okay, well, no problem. I’ll just come back tomorrow,” Sims said, blood now pounding against the walls of his veins at the sight of the kill. “I’ll just turn around up in here.”
He pulled the Taurus into the lot, turned it facing out back toward the entrance. He took a deep breath, got out of the car, walked toward the Jaguar, 9mm by his outer thigh.
“Judge Reese.”
The judge looked up and sensed the danger. He panicked and went for the Jag door and urgently flung the Callaway driver at Sims while he fumbled for his .38 Detective Special. “C’mon, Snubby.”
The parking valet watched in horror, unable to speak. Sims sighted his Beretta.
“You bastard,” the judge said as he finally pulled out the snub-nosed .38. But, it was too late. “Bastard” was his last word. Three bullets missed him entirely, but two tore into the judge, one entering his mouth, the other just above his eyebrow. Like Terminal, there would be no open casket for the judge.
Sims dashed to his still-running car. The stunned valet sprinted away up Rossmore screaming, “Help!” Sims floored the Ford, didn’t let up as he exited, and made the right-hander onto southbound Rossmore, tires squealing, car starting to slide into oncoming northbound traffic. The worn Bridgestones eventually took hold, and the Taurus ricocheted forward. A lady in a Maxima slammed on her brakes to avoid the reckless driver.
Sims kept the gas pedal down as he streaked south toward 3rd Street where he made a wild right, then a quick left onto Muirfield Road, the most prestigious street in Hancock Park. He abandoned the car and walked quickly back to Beverly, then back to Rossmore where he waited with Mexicans or Salvadorans or Guatemalans, all females, for a bus. Slow-ass bus, hurry up. No wonder everybody drove a car in this jacked-up city.
Back at the Wilshire Country Club, the first LAPD cruiser on the scene bounced into the parking lot where Judge Reese’s body lay on its back, his face ruined. Lights still revolving, the sedan screeched to a halt, the doors flung open as the officers, guns drawn, huddled behind the car.
“He’s gone. The guy who shot the judge. He’s gone. He tore out going toward Beverly,” said a timid country club employee from near the pro shop. By now, the parking attendant was back, and he told the officers the car was a Taurus, silver or light blue and the “driver was a black guy, forty or fifty, something like that.”
Three minutes later, after Chief Miller, Commander Kuwahara, and the detectives got the news, all doubt was gone. An all-points bulletin to be on the lookout—a BOLO—for Edward Sims driving a Ford Taurus was issued. Minutes later, the car was found by passing cops, suspicious of a tired Taurus on a street of ten-million-dollar mansions.
Sims got off the bus at Alvarado Street and checked into a fifty-two-dollar room at the Royal Viking, paying for two nights up front. The motel, across the street from the Royal Thai Massage, Viva Bargain Center, and Tango Room cocktail lounge, had seen better times as evidenced by the razor wire atop its chain-link fence. Sims wondered if he had ever seen razor wire protecting a motel from the streets. Then again, he thought, maybe it was to protect the neighborhood from the motel.
Upon entering room 41, he turned on the television. Before he had two sweaters off, “Breaking News” was showing helicopter views of the Wilshire Country Club with an inset of Sims’s driver’s license photo. He glanced at a mirror and back at the photo. The shaved head helped.
He could hear the faint sound of scattered, soft rain against the window. He thought of Leslie Harrington and her rain. He craved a cognac, but he stayed inside till darkness fell.
Sims left his room that cloudy, drizzly night at ten thirty, to get a loaf of Weber’s white sandwich bread, a jar of Skippy’s creamy peanut butter, a liter bottle and a 200-milliliter bottle—what many still called a half pint—of Hennessy, and a non-Major League Baseball-sanctioned L.A. Dodgers cap at Crest Jr. Liquors three blocks west on 3rd Street just past St. Vincent Medical Center. The Korean owner and Mexican American helper barely noticed him, paying rapt attention to the Lakers-Suns game at Staples that had gone into double overtime. Outside, he grabbed an L.A. Weekly.
By the time he made it back to his room at the Royal Viking, half the half pint was warming his guts. He watched television. More on the shooting of the judge, but no breaking news. He laughed at that. He knew the next time there was breaking news on his case it would be “live” on 89th Street, right in front of Mr. and Mrs. Desmond’s house.
All night, he lay awake on a hard, queen-size bed, tossed and turned like a an old, out-of-balance washing machine in a North Compton coin laundry, and drank from the upended Hennessy liter as if it were mother’s milk. It was L.A. cold outside and the heater inside didn’t work. Still, Sims was sweating. He threw off the sheets and toxins oozed out of him. He thumbed though the Weekly. He read a feel-good piece about a woman who had been wounded in Hyde Park by a stray gang bullet, but had recovered enough to start her dream job of driving a bus. It didn’t make him feel good. He missed a piece by Michael Lyons about a serial killer.
He laughed when he thought about King Funeral. On his way to Pelican Bay, he had dropped off the tape, which he had taken from Terminal, to the homies at 74th and Hoover with instructions to watch it. He knew where to drop it because on the video, the announcer—actually the deputy Boylston—introduced Funeral as “The King of 74th and Hoover.” Sims relished having the power of death.
Sims actually looked forward to death after he completed the Revenge and it was a peaceful thought. Nothing but sleep lay ahead for him. That sounded nice. An eternity of peaceful, ultimate slumber. Lay me down next to Payton in the cold Inglewood Park dirt.
That next morning was a dazzling Los Angeles day, like the day Lyons had been shot on 2nd Street. The gray sky had turned cerulean blue strewn with three gigantic, billowy clouds, the kind you want to take a nap on. From Sims’s second-floor room at the Royal Viking, even Alvarado Street looked clean.
That afternoon, Lyons went to a joint press conference the mayor and chief of police gave on the steps of City Hall, across the street from a former heroin mart now awash in bougainvillea. He stayed way back, away from TV reporters and their cameramen. Both the mayor and the chief admitted that a serial killer, dubbed the Evil Killer, was loose in the city. Lyons felt a tinge of not quite pride, but satisfaction when he heard that. They took turns answering questions. Lyons had no questions, he never did near a TV camera.
“Chief Miller has assured me everything possible is being done to track this deranged man down and bring him to justice,” the mayor said. He rambled on for a few more minutes before the chief took over.
“Yes, there is a serial killer on a rampage. However—and I cannot stress this enough—” the chief said, “the people he is targeting, all of his victims, have a direct connection with an incarcerated gang leader named Cleamon Desmond, better known as Big Evil. The suspect’s son was ordered killed by Cleamon Desmond years ago. The suspect, Edward Sims, is seeking revenge in his own sick way. At this point, we believe both Judge Harold Reese and Deputy District Attorney Leslie Harrington were killed because they did not go for the death penalty against Cleamon Desmond who is serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole in Northern California. He will never get out of prison, but, apparently, that was not enough for Edward Sims. We now believe that reporter Michael Lyons may have been also a victim of this sick individual.”
Lyons walked away content as Miller continued. “Mr. Sims, if you can hear me, please turn yourself in before you and other people are harmed. I know and you know your good son would not want this.”
Sims could hear him loud and clear at the Royal Viking. “Okay, Chief. Whatever you say. I’ll turn myself in tomorrow. Right after I kill Big Evil’s mother.”
Mr. and Mrs. Desmond had been alerted that the Evil Killer had struck again. Still, they refused an offer by the LAPD to be put up at a hotel near the airport. They were proud people and they were not going to run. LaBarbera and Hart had made a special appeal to Mrs. Desmond personally, but she was unfazed. “If the good Lord feels it is my time, then it is my time. Thank you, Sal, and thank you, Johnny, but this has been my home for forty-one years, and I am not being forced out of it by anyone except Jesus Christ himself.”
In Orange County, sheriff’s deputies had tracked down Evil’s white girlfriend Helen Truman, who was delighted to be put up at a hotel room until the killer was caught. She had hit a stretch of bad road and was back living with her mother in Santa Ana. She hoped Sims wouldn’t be caught anytime soon.