Winter Moon

law would let us take the creeps who do this and stencil that second word right above their eyes. Shithead. Etch it into their skin with acid just like they did to your glass. Make em walk around like that for a couple of years and see how their attitude improves before maybe we give them some plastic surgery."
        "You think you can find who did it?" Arkadian asked, though he surely.knew the answer.
        Luther shook his head, and Jack said, "Not a chance. We'll file a report, of course, but there's no manpower to work on small crime like this. Best thing you can do is install roll-down metal shutters the same day you replace the windows, so they're covered at night."
        "Otherwise, you'll be putting in new glass every week," Luther said,
        "and pretty soon your insurance company will drop you."
        "They already dropped my vandalism coverage after one claim," Hassam Arkadian said. "About the only thing they'll cover me for now is earthquake, flood, and fire. Not even fire if it happens in a riot."
        They stood in silence, staring at the window, brooding about their powerlessness.
        A cool March wind sprang up. In the nearby planter, the queen palms rustled, and soft creaking noises arose from where the stems of the big fronds joined the trunks.
        "Well," Jack said at last, "it could be worse, Mr. Arkadian. I mean, at least you're in a pretty good part of the city here on the West Side."
        "Yeah, and doesn't it break your heart," Arkadian said, "this is a good neighborhood."
        Jack didn't even want to think about that.
        Luther started to speak but was interrupted by a loud crash and a shout of anger from the front of the station. As the three of them hurried around the corner, a violent gust of wind made the plate-glass windows thrum.
        Fifty feet away, the man in the Armani suit kicked the vending machine again.
        A foaming can of Pepsi lay behind him, contents spreading across the blacktop.
        "Poison," he shouted at the machine, "poison, damn it, damn you, damn you, poison!"
        Arkadian rushed toward the customer. "Sir, please, I'm sorry, if the machine gave you the wrong selection-" "Hey, wait right there," Luther said, speaking as much to the station owner as to the infuriated stranger.
        In front of the office door, Jack caught up with Arkadian, put a hand on his shoulder, stopped him, and said, "Better let us handle this."
        "Damn poison," the customer said furiously, and he made a fist as if he wanted to punch the vending machine.
        "It's just the machine," Arkadian told Jack and Luther. "They keep saying it's fixed, but it keeps giving you Pepsi when you push Orange.Crush."
        As bad as things were in the City of Angels these days, Jack found it difficult to believe that Arkadian was accustomed to seeing people fly off the handle every time an unwanted can of Pepsi dropped into the dispensing tray.
        The customer turned away from the machine and from them, as if he might walk off and leave his Lexus. He seemed to be shaking with anger, but it was mostly the blustery wind shivering the loosely fitted suit.
        "What's wrong here?" Luther asked, heading toward the guy as thunder tolled across the lowering sky and the palms in the south planter thrashed against a backdrop of black clouds.
        Jack started to follow Luther before he saw the suit jacket billow out behind the blond, flapping like bat wings. Except the coat had been buttoned a moment ago. Double-breasted, buttoned twice.
        The angry man faced away from them still, shoulders hunched, head lowered.
        Because of the loose and billowing fabric of his suit, he seemed less than human, like a hunchbacked troll. The guy began to turn, and Jack would not have been surprised to see the deformed muzzle of a beast, but it was the same tan and cleanshaven face as before.
        Why had the son of a bitch unbuttoned the coat unless there was something under it that he needed, and what might an irrational and angry man need that he kept under his jacket, his loose-fitting suit jacket, his roomy goddamned jacket?
        Jack called a warning to Luther.
        But Luther sensed trouble too. His right hand moved toward the gun holstered on his hip.
        The perp had the advantage because he was the initiator. No one knew violence was at hand until he unleashed it, so he swung all the way around to face