Clandestine

6

Wacky Walker never made it to Seventy-seventh Street Division, Watts, L.A.'s heart of darkness, but I did.

Beckworth bided his time and in June, when Captain Larson retired, to muted fanfare, after thirty-three years on the job, I got my orders: Officer Frederick U. Underhill, 1647, to Seventy-seventh Street Division to fill manpower shortage.

Which was a joke: the ranks at Seventy-seventh Street were swelled to bursting. The ancient red brick building that served the hottest per capita crime area in the city was pitifully overstaffed with cops, and undersupplied with every crime-fighting provision from toilet paper to fingerprinting ink. There was a shortage of chairs, tables, floor space, lockers, soap, brooms, mops, and even writing implements. There was no shortage, however, of prisoners. There was an unsurpassed daily and nightly parade of burglars, purse snatchers, dope addicts, drunks, wife beaters, brawlers, pimps, hookers, perverts, and cranks.

The fifteen four-man cells held at least twice their capacity every day, and weekends were the worst. The drunks were kicked out on the street, usually to return several hours later, and the other misdemeanor offenders were released on their own recognizance—which left the tiny, sweltering jail filled with a minimum of a hundred howling felons, with more coming in every hour.

Standing at my first evening roll call I felt like a pygmy at a reunion of the Paul Bunyan family. At six feet two and a hundred ninety pounds, I was a shrimp, a dwarf, a Lilliputian compared to the gland cases I served with. They were all cut from the same mold: World War II combat vets from the South or Midwest with low academy test scores and extensive body-building experience who all hated Negroes and who all seemed to possess a hundred esoteric synonyms for "nigger."

Physically, they were splendidly equipped for fighting crime, what with their great size and illegal dumdum bullets, but there their efficacy ended. They were sent to the Seventy-seventh to hold clown the lid of a boiling cauldron, by scaring or beating the shit out of suspects real and imagined, and that was it. They had no capacity for wonder, only a mania for order. Knowing that, and knowing I would pass the sergeant's exam with very high marks in less than a year, I decided to make the most of Watts and to throw myself into police work as I never had before. Actually, that would be easy. Night foot patrol would put the kibosh on chasing women and let me observe the wonder close up.

After roll call the station commander, a harsh-looking old captain named Jurgensen, called me into his office. I saluted and he pointed me to a chair. He had my personnel file open on his desk, and I could tell he was baffled: in a sense that was good; it meant that he wasn't a buddy of Beckworth's and that they hadn't conspired together on my transfer.

Jurgensen gave me a handshake that matched his face in sternness, then got right to the point: "You have an excellent record, Underhill. College man. Top-flight marks at the academy. Killed two holdup men who killed your partner. Excellent fitness reports. What the hell are you doing here?"

"May I be candid, sir?" I asked.

"By all means, Officer."

"Sir, Captain Beckworth, the new commander of Wilshire Station, hates my guts. It's personal, which is why no dissatisfaction with my performance is reflected on my fitness reports."

Jurgensen considered this. I could tell he believed me. "Well, Underhill," he said, "that's too bad. What are your plans regarding the department?"

"Sir, to go as far as I can as fast as I can."

"Then you have the opportunity to do some real police work. Right here in this tragic sinkhole."

"Sir, I'm looking forward to it."

"I believe you are, Officer. Every man who comes to this division starts out the same way, walking a beat at night in the heart of the jungle. Sergeant McDonald will fix you up with a partner."

Jurgensen motioned his head toward the door, indicating dismissal. "Good luck, Underhill," he said.

When I met my new partner in the crowded, sweltering muster room, I knew I was going to need luck—and more. His name was Bob Norsworthy. He was from Texas and he chewed tobacco. He fingered his Sam Browne belt and rotated his billy club out from his right hip in a perfect circle as the desk sergeant introduced us. Norsworthy was six and a half feet tall and weighed in at about two-thirty-five. He had black hair cut extra close to his flat head and blue eyes so light that they looked like he sent them out to be bleached.

"Yo there, Underhill," he said to me as Sergeant McDonald walked away from us. "Welcome to the Congo."

"Thanks," I said and stuck out my hand, instantly regretting it as Norsworthy crushed it in his huge fist.

He laughed. "You like that old handshake of mine? I been workin' on it with one o' them hand-squeezer babies. I'm the champeen arm wrestler of this station."

"I believe you. What are we going to do on the beat tonight, Norsworthy?"

"Call me Nors. What should I call you?"

"Fred."

"All right there, Fred. Tonight we're gonna take a long walk up Central Avenue and let our presence be known. They got call boxes every two blocks, and we call the station every hour for instructions. Old Mac at the desk lets us know where there's trouble brewin'. I gotta key for the call boxes. Them boxes is ironclad. If we don't keep 'em all sealed up, them delinquents'd be bustin' into 'em and makin' all kinds of funny noises.

"We break up lots o' unlawful assemblies. An unlawful assembly is two or more niggers hangin' around after dark. We lean on known troublemakers, which is just about every wiseass on the street. We check out the bars and liquor stores and haul out the bad jigaboos. That's where this job gets to be fun. You like to whomp on niggers, Fred?"

"I've never tried it," I said. "Is it fun?"

Nors laughed again. "You got a sense of humor. I heard 'bout you. You dispatched two taco-benders to the big frijole patch in the sky when you was workin' Wilshire. You a genuine hero. But you gotta be some kind of fuckup or you wouldn't a got transferred here. You my kind of cop. We gonna be great buddies."

Norsworthy impulsively grabbed for my hand and crushed it again. I pulled it away before he could break any bones. "Whoa, partner," I said, "I need that hand to write reports with."

Norsworthy laughed. "You gonna be needin' that right hand for lots more'n writin' reports in this here division, white boy," he said.

If Norsworthy was less than sensitive, then he was more than instructive. Grudgingly, despite his racism and crudeness, I started to like him. I expected him to be brutal, but he wasn't: he was stern and civil with the people we dealt with on the street, and when violence was required in subduing unarmed suspects his method was, by Seventy-seventh Street standards, mild—he would grasp the person in a fierce bear hug, squeeze them until their limbs took on a purple sheen, then drop them to the pavement, unconscious. It worked.

When we patrolled Central Avenue south of 100th Street, an area Norsworthy called "Darkest Africa," nobody save the far-gone drunks, hopheads, and the unknowing would give us anything but frightened nods. Norsworthy was so secure in his knowledge of how dangerous he was that he granted the Negroes whom he privately maligned a stern respect, almost by rote. He never had to raise his voice. His gargantuan, tobacco-chewing presence was enough, and I, as his partner, caught the edge of the awed, fearful respect he received.

So our partnership jelled—for a while. We walked the beat and made lots of arrests for drunkenness, possession of narcotics, and assault. We would go into bars and arrest brawlers. Usually, Norsworthy would quell an incipient brawl just by walking in and clearing his throat, but sometimes we would have to go in with billy clubs flying and beat the brawlers to the ground, then handcuff them and call for a patrol car to take them to the station.

The "unlawful assemblies" that Norsworthy had told me about were easy to disperse. We would walk coolly by them, Nors would say, "Good evening, fellows," and the group would seem to vanish into thin air.

Thus the job went. But it started to bore me, and I started to resent my partner. His constant stream of talk—about his service in Italy during the war, his athletic prowess, the size of his dick, "niggers," "kikes," "greaseballs," and "gooks"—vexed and depressed me and undercut the wonder and strangeness of life in Watts. I wanted to be free of the awesome and fearful presence of my partner to be able to pursue the wonder in peace on my own, so I concocted a plan: I convinced Norsworthy that we could be twice as effective patrolling separately, on opposite sides of the street, within sight and earshot of each other. It took a lot of convincing, but finally he bought it, on the proviso that since it was against the rules, we get together once an hour to compare notes and deliberate on potential hot spots that might require the both of us.

So I was freed, somewhat, to let my mind drift and wander with fragments of the dusky neon night music. I grieved less and less for Wacky, and my once-rampant curiosity about Lorna Weinberg abated.

When I became more comfortable with solitary patrol, I would ditch out on Norsworthy completely and hit the numbered side streets off Central—tawdry rows of small, white-framed houses, tarpaper shacks, and overcrowded tenement buildings. I bought three pairs of expensive binoculars and secreted them on the rooftops of buildings on my beat. Late at night, I would scan lighted windows with them, looking for crime and wonder. I found it. The whole gamut, from homosexuality—which I didn't bother with—to wild jazz sessions, to heated lovemaking, to tears. I also found dope addiction—which I did act on, always relaying my information on reefer smoking and worse to the dicks, never trying to grandstand and make the collar myself. I wanted to prove I was a team player, something I never was at Wilshire, and I wanted class-A fitness reports to go with the sergeancy that would be mine shortly after my twenty-eighth birthday.

And I made collars, good ones. I found myself a cracker-jack snitch, a crazy-acting old shoeshine man who hated hopheads and pushers. Willy saw and retained everything, and he had the perfect cover. The neighborhood pimps, lowlifes, and pushers came to him to "glaze their alligators," and they talked freely in front of him—he was considered to be a blubbering idiot, rendered that way by thirty years of sniffing shoe polish.

He went along with the act, working for peanuts at his shine stand and selling information to me for a sizable chunk of my pay. Through Willy I was able to effect the arrest of a whole slew of grasshoppers and heroin pushers, including a guy wanted on a murder warrant back east.

Norsworthy resented my successes, feeling that I had usurped his power, making his fitness reports look bad by comparison. I felt his resentment and his frustration building. I knew what he was going to do, and took immediate steps to circumvent it.

I went to the commander of the detective squad and leveled. I told him of the collars I had given his men, and how I obtained the information that led to them—I had been walking my beat, at night, alone, free of my intrusive patrol partner.

The grizzled, skinny old lieutenant liked this. He thought I was a tough guy. I told him old big-dick Bob Norsworthy was about to blow all this to hell, that he was pissed off and wanted to horn in on my action, and was about to rat on me to Captain Jurgensen for ditching out on the beat.

The old lieutenant shook his head. "We can't let that happen, can we, son?" he said. "As of now, Underhill, you are the only solitary foot patrolman in this station. God have mercy on your soul if you ever run into trouble, or if Norsworthy ever quits the department."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," I said, "you won't regret it."

"That remains to be seen. One word of advice, son. Watch out for ambition. Sometimes it hurts more than it helps. Now close the door behind you, I want to turn on my fan."

7

I was at home the following Wednesday frying Night Train his morning hamburger when he brought me the news that was to change my life forever.

My landlady, Mrs. Gates, had been complaining about Train chewing up her plants, shrubs, garden chairs, newspapers, and magazines. She was a dog lover, but frequently told me that Night Train was more "voodoo beast" than dog, and that I should have him "fixed" to curb his rambunctiousness. So when I heard a shrill, "Mr. Underhill!" coming from the front lawn, I put on my widest smile and walked outside ready to do some placating.

Mrs. Gates was standing above Night Train, swatting him with a broom. He seemed to be enjoying it, rolling in the grass on his back with the morning paper wedged firmly between his salivating jaws.

"You give me my paper, voodoo dog!" the woman was shouting. "You can chew it up when I'm finished reading it. Give it to me!"

I laughed. I had come to love Night Train in the months since Wacky's death, and he never failed to amuse me.

"Mr. Underhill, you make that evil dog stop chewing my newspaper! Make him give it to me!"

I bent down and scratched Night Train's belly until he dropped the paper and started to nuzzle me. I flipped it open to show Mrs. Gates that no damage had been done, then caught the headlines and went numb.

"Woman Found Strangled in Hollywood Apartment" it read. Below the headline was a photograph of Maggie Cadwallader—the same Maggie with whom I had coupled in February, shortly before Wacky's death.

I pushed Train and the caterwauling Mrs. Gates away, then sat down and read:

I put the newspaper down and stared at the grass.

"Mr. Underhill? Mr. Underhill?" Mrs. Gates was saying. I ignored her and walked back to my apartment and sat on the couch, staring at the floor.

Maggie Cadwallader, a lonely woman, dead. My one-night conquest, dead. Her death was not unlike that of the woman whose body Wacky and I had discovered. Probably the deaths were unrelated, yet there was the slightest bit of physical evidence linking them: I had met Maggie at the Silver Star. Her first time, she told me. But she may well have returned, frequently. I wracked my brain for the name of the woman whose body Wacky and I had found, and came up with it: Leona Jensen. She had had matches from the Silver Star in an ashtray filled with matchbooks. It was slight, but enough.

I changed clothes, putting on my light blue gabardine summer suit, made coffee and mourned for Maggie—thinking more of her little boy in the orphanage back east who would never see his mother. Maggie, so lonely, so much in need of what I and probably no man could have given her. It was a sad night I had spent with her. My curiosity and her loneliness had been left unresolved, anger on her part and self-disgust the only resolution on mine. And now this, leaving me feeling somehow responsible.

I knew what I had to do. I had three quick cups of coffee and locked Night Train in the apartment with a half-dozen big soup bones, then got my car and drove to my old home, Wilshire Station.

I parked in the Sears lot a block away and telephoned the desk, asking for Detective Sergeant DiCenzo. He came on the line a minute later, sounding harried. "DiCenzo here, who's this?"

"Sergeant, this is Officer Underhill. Do you remember me?"

"Sure, kid, I remember you. You got famous right after I met you. What's up?"

"I'd like to talk to you briefly, as soon as possible."

"I'm gonna get lunch in about five minutes, across the street at the Shamrock. I'll be there for the better part of an hour."

"I'll be there," I said, then hung up.

The Shamrock was a bar-lunch joint specializing in corned beef sandwiches. I found DiCenzo at the back, wolfing a "special" and chasing it down with a beer. He greeted me warmly. "Sit down. You look good, college man. Too bad about your partner. Where you been? I ain't seen you around."

I filled him in as quickly as I could. He seemed satisfied, but surprised that I liked working in Watts.

"So what do you want, kid?" he asked finally.

I tried to sound interested, yet offhand. "You remember that dead woman my partner and I found on Twenty-eighth Street?"

"Yeah, a beautiful young dame. A real pity."

"Right. I was wondering what the upshot of your investigation was. Did you ever find the killer?"

DiCenzo looked at me curiously. "No, we never did. We rousted a lot of burglars, but no go. We checked out the dame's personal life, which was nothing hot—no enemies, all her friends and relatives had alibis. That print you circled on the wall belonged to the dame herself. We got a couple of dozen crazies who confessed, but they were just nuts. It's just one of those things, kid. You win some, you lose some. How come you're interested?"

"The woman looked like an old girlfriend of mine. Finding her dead got me, I guess." I lowered my head, feigning disbelief at the awesomeness of death.

DiCenzo bought it. "You'll get over these things," he said. Lowering his voice, he added, "You'll have to, if you wanna stay on the job."

I got up to go. "Thanks, Sergeant," I said.

"Anytime, kid. Be good. Take care of yourself." DiCenzo smiled heartily and went back to devouring his lunch.

I drove up to Hollywood Station on Wilcox just south of Sunset and lucked out, walking brazenly through the entrance hall, nodding at the desk sergeant and walking straight upstairs to the detective squad room, where a briefing on Maggie Cadwallader's murder had just begun.

The small room was packed with at least twenty dicks standing and sitting at desks, listening as a portly older cop explained what he wanted done. I stood in the doorway, trying to blend in like just another off-duty officer. No one seemed to notice me.

"I think we got burglary," the older cop was saying. "The woman's apartment was ransacked but good. No prints—the only prints we got belong to the victim and her landlady she used to play cards with. The man from downstairs who found the body left some, too. They've been questioned and are not suspects. We got no recent murders on the books that match this. Now here's what I want: I want every burglar known to use violence brought in and questioned. There was no rape, but I want all burglars with sex offenses on their rap sheets brought in anyway. I want all burglary reports in the Hollywood area for the past six months that resulted in arrest and dismissal checked out. Phone the D.A.'s office for disposition of all cases. I want to know how many of these shitheads we caught are back out on the street, then I want all of them brought in and questioned.

"I've got two men talking to neighbors. I want to know about what valuables this Cadwallader dame owned. From there we can lean on fences and check out the pawnshops. I want all the dope addicts on the boulevard brought in and leaned on hard. This is probably a panic killing, and a hophead looking for a fix might strangle a dame and then leave without taking anything. I've got two men questioning people in the neighborhood about that night. If anyone saw or heard anything, we'll know about it. That's it for now. Let's break it up."

That was my cue to leave. I checked my watch. It was two-forty. I had three hours before I had to report to duty.

I walked out to my car amidst a tangle of grumbling detectives. I lowered the top and sat in the front seat and thought. No, not burglary, I kept saying to myself; not this time. Maybe the Jensen woman, maybe the matches were coincidental, but Maggie Cadwallader had a strangeness about her, almost an aura of impending doom, and when she saw my gun she had screamed, "Please, no! I won't let you hurt me! I know who sent you! I knew he would." She had been a strange woman, one who had wrapped her small world tightly about herself, yet let frequent strangers in.

The Silver Star bar was the place to start, but it was useless to hit it in the daytime, so I drove to a phone booth and got the address of the Small World Import-Export Company: 615 North Virgil. I drove there, exhilarated—and feeling slightly guilty about it.

The Small World Import-Export Company was in a large warehouse in the middle of a residential block specializing in rooming houses for students at L.A. City College a few blocks away. Every house on the block advertised "Student Housing," and "Low Rates for Students." There were a lot of "students" sitting on their front porches, drinking beer and playing catch on their beat-up front lawns. They were about my age, and had the superior look of G.I. Bill recipients. Two wars, Underhill, I thought, and you avoided them both and got what you wanted. Now here you are, a patrolman in Watts imitating a detective in Hollywood. Be careful.

I was. I entered the warehouse through its ratty front door stenciled with a ratty-looking globe by a guy who obviously didn't know his geography very well. But the receptionist knew a cop and a badge when she saw them, and when I inquired about friends of Maggie Cadwallader she said, "Oh, that's easy." She dialed a number on her desk phone, saying, "Mrs. Grover, our head bookkeeper, was a good friend of Maggie's. They had lunch together almost every day." Into the phone she said, "Mrs. Grover, there's a policeman here to talk to you about Maggie." The receptionist put down the phone and said, "She'll be out in a minute." She smiled. I smiled back.

We were exchanging about our eighth and ninth smiles when an efficient-looking woman of about forty came into the waiting room. "Officer?" she asked.

"Mrs. Grover," I answered, "I'm Officer Underhill, Los Angeles Police Department. Could I talk with you?"

"Certainly," she said, very businesslike. "Would you like to come to my office?"

I was enjoying my role but her brusque manner was unnerving. "Yeah, sure," I replied.

We walked down a dingy hallway. I could hear great numbers of sewing machines whirring behind closed doors. Mrs. Grover sat me down in a wooden chair in her sparsely furnished office. She lit a cigarette, settled behind her desk, and said, "Poor Maggie. What a godawful way to die. Who do you think did it?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm here."

"I read in the papers that you people think it was a burglar. Is that true?"

"Maybe. I understand you and Maggie Cadwallader were good friends."

"In a sense," Mrs. Grover replied. "We ate together every workday, but we never saw each other socially."

"Was there a reason for that?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean, Mrs. Grover, is that I'm trying to get a handle on this woman. What kind of person was she? Her habits, her likes, dislikes, the people she associated with, that kind of thing?"

Mrs. Grover stared at me, smoking intently. "I see," she said. "Well, if it's helpful I can tell you this: Maggie was a very bright, disturbed woman. I think she was a pathological liar. She told me stories about herself and later told stories that contradicted the earlier ones. I think she had a drinking problem, and spent her nights alone, reading."

"What kind of stories did she tell you?"

"About her origins. One day she was from New York, the next day the Midwest. She once told me she had a child out of wedlock, from a 'lost love,' then the very next day she tells me she's a virgin! I sensed that she was very lonely, so once I tried to arrange a dinner date for her with a nice bachelor friend of my husband's. She wouldn't do it. She was terrified. She was a cultured person, Maggie, and we had many lovely conversations about the theater, but she told me such crazy things."

"Such as?"

"Such as the nonsense about the baby back east. She showed me a photo once. It broke my heart. She had obviously clipped it from a magazine. It was so sad."

"Do you know of any men in her life, Mrs. Grover?"

"No, Officer, none. I really do believe she died a virgin."

"Well," I said, standing up, "thank you for your time, Mrs. Grover. You've been very helpful."

"She deserved so much better, Officer. Please find her killer."

"I will," I said, meaning it.

I wasn't much good on the beat that night. My mind was elsewhere. I knew I would need a very fast transfer to day watch in order to continue my investigation at night. I thought over my options—requests to Jurgensen? To the head of the Detective squad? Going on sick leave? All too chancy.

The following morning I drove to the station and knocked on Captain Jurgensen's door. He greeted me warmly, surprised to see me in the daytime. I told him what I wanted: I had a very sick friend from my orphanage days who needed someone to look after him at night while his wife went to work at Douglas Aircraft. I wanted day watch temporarily, to help out my friend, and to better acquaint myself with the area I was serving in.

Jurgensen put down his copy of Richard III and said, "Starting today, Underhill. We've got a man on vacation. No solo, though. No golden boy stuff. just walk the beat with a partner. Now go to work."

At eleven-thirty that night I committed my first crime as an adult. I drove up to Hollywood, parked in a gas station lot and walked up to Maggie Cadwallader's apartment on Harold Way. Wearing gloves, I picked the lock on the door and made my way through the dark apartment to the bedroom. I carried a pocket flashlight, and by risking using it every few seconds I could tell that all of Maggie's personal belongings had been cleaned out, presumably to better show the apartment to prospective new tenants when the publicity of her death died down.

In the bedroom, holding the flashlight awkwardly, I unscrewed the bedpost that had contained Maggie's "priceless love gift." It was gone. I replaced the post and unscrewed the other one: nothing there. The two remaining ones were solid, melded into the bedstead. It was as I had hoped. Still, there was double-checking to be done.

I drove to Hollywood Station, parked, walked in and showed my badge to the desk sergeant. "I'm with Seventy-seventh dicks," I told him. "Is there anyone upstairs I can talk to?"

"Give it a try," he replied, bored.

The squad room was deserted, except for a tired old cop writing reports. I walked in like I owned the place, and the old-timer looked up only briefly from his paperwork. When I didn't see what I wanted lying around in plain sight, I cleared my throat to get his attention.

He looked up again, this time displaying bloodshot eyes and a weary voice. "Yes?" he said.

I tried to sound brisk and older than my years. "Underhill, Seventy-seventh Street dicks. I'm working South Central pawnshop detail. The loot told me to come up here and check the property report on that dead dame, Cadwallader. We find a lot of stuff pawned down in the Seventy-seventh that got clouted in Hollywood and West L.A. The lieutenant figured maybe he could help you out."

"Shit," the old-timer said, getting up from his chair and walking to a row of filing cabinets. "That was no burglary caper, if you ask me. My partner and I wrote that report." He handed me a manila folder containing three typewritten pages. "There was nothin' missin', accordin' to the landlady, and she knew the stiff good. Could be the guy panicked. Don't ask me."

The report was written in the usual clipped department style, and everything from cat food to detergent was listed—but no mention was made of a diamond brooch, or any other jewelry.

There was a signed statement from the landlady, a Mrs. Crawshaw, stating that although the apartment had been in complete disarray, nothing seemed to be missing. She also stated that Maggie Cadwallader, to her knowledge, had not owned jewelry or stocks and bonds, nor had she secreted in her apartment large sums of money.

The old cop was looking at me. "You want a copy of that?" he asked wearily.

"No," I said, "you were right, it's a dull report. Thanks a lot, I'll see you."

He looked relieved. I felt relieved.

It was twelve-forty-five and I knew I couldn't sleep now even if I wanted to. I wanted to think, but I wanted it to be easy, not filled with panicky speculation over the dangerous risks I was taking. So I decided to break my silent vow of abstinence and drove out to Silverlake, where I knocked on the door of an old buddy from the orphanage.

He was mildly glad to see me, but his wife wasn't. I told them it wasn't a social call, that all I wanted was the loan of his golf clubs. Incredulous, he turned them over. I promised to return them soon, and to repay him for his favor with a good restaurant dinner. Incredulous, his wife said she'd believe it when she saw it, and hustled her husband back to bed.

I checked the clubs. They were good Tommy Armours, and there were at least fifty shag balls stuffed into the pockets of the bag. I went looking for a place to hit them, and to think.

I drove home and picked up Night Train. He was glad to see me and hungry for exercise. I found a few cold pork chops in the ice box and threw them at him. He was gnawing the bones as I attached his leash and slung the golf bag over my shoulder.

"The beach, Train," I said. "Let's see what kind of Labrador you really are. I'm going to hit balls into the ocean. Little chip shots. If you can retrieve them for me in the dark, I'll feed you steak for a year. What do you say?"

Night Train said "Woof!" and so we walked the three blocks down to the edge of the Pacific.

It was a warm night and there was no breeze. I unhooked Night Train's leash and he took off running, a pork chop bone still in his mouth. I dumped the balls onto the wet sand and extracted a pitching iron from the bag. Hefting it was like embracing a longlost beloved friend. I was surprised to find I wasn't rusty. My hiatus from golf hadn't dulled that sharp edge my game has always had, almost from the first time I picked up a club.

I hit easy pitch shots into the churning white waves, enjoying the synchronization of mind and body that is the essence of golf. After a while the mental part became unnecessary, my swing became me, and I turned my mind elsewhere.

Granted: I had passed myself off as a detective twice, using my own name, which might cost me a suspension if it were discovered. Granted: I was going strictly on hunches, and my observations of Maggie Cadwallader were based on her behavior during one evening. But. But. But, somehow I knew. It was more than intuition or deductive logic or character assessment. This was my own small piece of wonder to unravel, and the fact that the victim had given me her body, tenuously, in her search for something more, gave it weight and meaning.

I whistled for Night Train, who trotted up. We walked back to the apartment and I thought, Wacky was right. The key to the wonder is in death. I had killed, twice, and it had changed me. But the key wasn't in the killing, it was in the discovery of whatever led to it.

I felt strangely magnanimous and loving, like a writer about to dedicate a book. This one's for you, Wacky, I said to myself; this one's for you.

8

It was strange to be sitting in a bar looking for a killer rather than a woman.

The following night, free of the obsession that usually brought me to such places, I sat drinking watered-down Scotch and watched people get drunk, get angry, get maudlin and pour out their life stories to perfect strangers in alcoholic effusiveness. I was loking for men on the prowl, like myself, but the Silver Star on that first night held nothing but middle-aged desperation played to the tunes of the old prewar standards on the jukebox.

I closed the place, walking out at 1:00 A.M., asking the bartender if the place ever picked up.

"Weekends," he said. "This joint really hops on weekends. Tomorrow night. You'll see."

The barman was right. I got to the Silver Star at seven-forty-five Saturday evening and watched as the joint started to hop. Young couples, servicemen on leave—easily recognizable by their short haircuts and plain-toed black shoes—elderly juiceheads, and single men and women casting lonely, expectant glances all competed for bar and floor space.

The music was livelier this evening, and tailored for a younger clientele; upbeat arrangements of show tunes, even a little jazz. A good-looking woman of about thirty asked me to dance. Regretfully I turned her down, offering a bad leg as an excuse. She turned to the guy sitting next to me at the bar, who accepted.

I was looking for "operators," "lover-boy" types, "wolves"—men who could gain a woman's confidence as well as access to her bed with surpassing ease. Men like myself. I spent three hours, sitting, changing seats from bar-side to table-side, sipping ginger ale, always looking. I began to realize that this might be a long, grueling surveillance. For all my eyeball activity, I didn't see much.

I was starting to get depressed and even a little angry when I noticed two definite lowlife types approach the bar and lean over to speak in undertones to the bartender, whose face seemed to light up. He pointed to a door at the rear of the place, next to a bank of phone booths and cigarette machines. Then all three walked off in that direction, the barman leaving the bar untended.

I watched as they closed the door behind them, then waited two minutes. I went over to the door and knelt down, sniffing at the crack where it met the floor. Reefer smoke. I smiled, then transferred my gun from its holster to the pocket of my sports coat, flipped open my badge's leather holder and very casually but forcefully threw my right shoulder into the doorjamb, splintering the wood and throwing the door wide open.

The noise was very sharp and abrupt, like an explosion. The three grasshoppers were standing against the back wall next to a ceiling-high collection of whiskey crates, and they jumped back and threw up their hands reflexively when they heard the noise and saw my badge and gun.

I looked back into the bar. No one seemed to have noticed what had happened. I closed the door behind me, softly. "Police officer," I said very quietly. "Move over to the left-hand wall and place your hands on it, above your heads. Do it now."

They did. The smell of the marijuana was rank and sensual. I patted the three men down for weapons and dope, but came up with nothing except three fat reefers. All the guys were shaking and the bartender started to blubber about his wife and kids.

"Shut up!" I snapped at him. I pulled the other two guys back by their shirt collars, then shoved them in the direction of the door. "Get the hell out of here, you goddamn lowlife," I hissed, "and don't ever let me see you in here again."

They stumbled out the door, casting worried glances at the barman.

I secured the door by placing a crate of gin bottles against it. The bartender cowered against the wall as I walked toward him. He fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes, looking at me imploringly for permission.

"Go ahead, smoke," I said. He lit up. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Red Julian," he said, eyeing the door.

I eased his fears. "This won't take long, Red. I'm not going to bust you, I just need a little help."

"I don't know no sellers, honest, Officer. I just light up once in a while. Fifty cents a throw, you know."

I smiled sardonically. "I don't care, Red. I'm not with narcotics. How long have you worked here?"

"Three years."

"Then you know what goes in this place—all the regulars, the con artists . . ."

"This is a good clean room, Officer, I don't let no—"

"Shut up. Listen to me. I'm interested in pickup artists—pussy-hounds, guys who score regular here. You help me out and I'll let you slide. You don't and I'll bust you. I'll call for a patrol car and tell the bulls you tried to sell me these three reefers. That's two to ten at Quentin. What's it gonna be?"

Red lit another cigarette with the butt of his old one. His hands were shaking. "We get hotshots, they come and go," he said. "We got one guy who comes and goes, but comes regular when he's in town. A good-lookin' guy named Eddie. That's the only handle I got on him, honest. He picks up here all the time." Red backed away from me again.

"Is he here tonight?" I asked.

"Naw, he comes in when it's quieter. A real smoothie. Flashy dresser. He's not here tonight, honest."

"Okay. Listen to me. You've got a new regular here. Me. What nights are you off?"

"Never. The boss won't let me. I work six to midnight, seven days a week."

"Good. Has Eddie been coming in lately? Scoring?"

"Yeah. A real smoothie."

"Good. I'll be coming back, every night. As soon as Eddie comes in, you let me know. If you try to tip him off, you know what'll happen." I smiled and held the three reefers under his nose.

"Yeah, I know."

"Good. Now get out of here—I think your customers are getting thirsty."

I closed the bar again that night. No Eddie.

First thing Sunday morning I went to a drugstore in Santa Monica that did one-day photo processing. I left four newspaper photographs of Maggie Cadwallader, telling the man, who shook his head dubiously, that I wanted his best reproduction blown up to snapshot size, six copies by six o'clock that evening. When I waved a twenty-dollar bill under his nose, then stuck it in his shirt pocket, he wasn't so dubious. The photos I picked up that afternoon were more than adequate to show to potential witnesses.

Red was nervously polishing a glass when I took a seat at the bar early Sunday night. It was sweltering hot outside, but the Silver Star was air-conditioned to a polar temperature.

"Hello, Red," I said.

"Hello, mister . . ."

"Call me Fred," I said magnanimously, sliding the blowup of Maggie Cadwallader across the bar to him. "Have you ever seen this woman?"

Red nodded. "A few times, yeah, but not lately."

"Ever see her with Eddie?"

"No."

"Too bad. Slow house tonight, eh?" I said, looking around the almost empty bar.

"Yeah. Daylight saving time kills it this early. People don't think it's right to drink before dark. Except booze-hounds." He pointed toward a bloated couple mauling each other on one of the lounge sofas.

"I know what you mean. I had a friend once who liked to drink. He said he only liked to drink when he was alone or with people, in the daytime or the nighttime. He was a philosopher."

"What happened to him?"

"He got shot."

"Oh, yeah? That's a shame."

"Yeah. I'm going to have a seat on one of those sofas facing the door. If our buddy shows up, you come and let me know, capische?"

"Yeah."

By eight o'clock the bar was filled to half its capacity, and by ten the sustained darkness had me feeling like a bat in the Carlsbad Caverns.

At around eleven o'clock, Red walked over and nudged me. "That's him," he said, "at the bar. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt."

I motioned Red away and sauntered past the man on my way to the men's room, taking the stool next to him when I returned and catching a heady whiff of his lilac cologne. I called to Red loudly and ordered a double Scotch, in order to get a reaction from Eddie. He turned toward me, and I committed to memory a handsome face, delicate and arrogant at the same time, well-tanned, with curly, rather long brown hair, and soft, deep-set brown eyes. Eddie turned back quickly, engrossing himself in his martini and the woman sitting next to him, a skinny brunette in a nurse's uniform who was courteously feigning interest in his conversation.

". . . So it's been good lately. The trotters, especially. Don't believe what you read. There are systems that work."

"Oh, really?" the brunette said, bored.

"Really." Eddie leaned into the woman. "What did you say your name was?"

"Corrinne."

"Hi, Cornnne, I'm Eddie."

"Hi, Eddie."

"Hi. You like the ponies, Corrinne?"

"Not really."

"Oh. Well, you know it's really just a question of getting to know the game. You know?"

"I guess so. I don't know, it just bores me. I've got to go. Nice meeting you. Bye."

The brunette got up from her stool and left. Eddie sighed, then finished his drink and walked back in the direction of the men's room, stopping and standing in front of the full-length mirror on the wall and going through an elaborate ritual of smoothing his hair, brushing lint off his shirt, checking the crease in his trousers and smiling at himself several times from different angles. He seemed satisfied, as he should have been: he was the very prototype of the smooth-talking L.A. lounge lizard, designed to charm, manipulate, and seduce. For a split second, I felt revulsion at my own womanizing, before telling myself that my motives were certainly entirely different.

I moved to another seat at the back of the room that afforded me a view of the whole bar. I watched as Eddie unsuccessfully tried to put the make on three young women. I could feel his disgust and desperation as he paid his bill, killed his last martini and stormed out. Quickly I exited, and followed him down a side street. He got into a '46 Olds sedan. My car was parked on the other side of the street, pointed in the opposite direction, so as Eddie drove off I sprinted for it. I gave him a thirty-second lead, then hung a U-turn and tailed him. Eddie turned left on Wilton then right on Santa Monica a mile later. He was easy to follow: his right taillight was out and he drove smoothly in the middle lane.

He led me to West Hollywood. I almost lost him crossing La Brea, but when he finally pulled to the curb at Santa Monica and Sweetzer, I was right behind.

After carefully locking his car, Eddie walked into a bar called the Hub. I gave him a minute's lead, then walked in myself, expecting it to be a lively off-the-Strip pickup joint. I was dead wrong: it was a pickup joint, but there were no women in the bar, just anxious-looking men.

I braced myself and walked to the bar. The bartender, a fat bald man, appeared and I ordered beer. He sashayed away from me to get it and I looked for Eddie.

I spotted him first, then heard him. He was in a booth in the back, arguing with another man—a handsome, decidedly masculine man in his mid fifties. I couldn't hear their conversation, but was momentarily troubled anyway—what was he doing here? I had thought he was a woman-chaser. The argument grew more heated, but I still couldn't hear any words.

Finally, the other man shoved what looked like a large manila envelope at Eddie, got up, and walked out the back door of the bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Eddie sitting very still in his booth, then he suddenly bolted for the front door. I hunched over my beer as he passed by, then chased after him.

As I was flinging open the door of my car, Eddie hung a tire-screeching turn north onto Sweetzer, heading up the steep hill to the Strip. I peeled rubber in pursuit and finally caught up with him as he was signaling a left-hand turn onto Sunset. I stayed right behind him for about a half mile until he turned right on a little street called Horn Drive and parked almost immediately. I continued on and parked some fifty yards in front of him, getting out of my car just in time to see him cross the street and enter the court of a group of Spanish-style bungalows.

I ran across the street, hoping to catch Eddie as he entered one of the units, but was out of luck. The cement courtyard was empty. I checked the bank of mailboxes on the front lawn, looking for Edward, Edwin, Edmund, or at least the initial "E." No luck—the tenants of the fifteen bungalows were all designated by their last names only.

I went back to my car and pulled over to the other side of the street, directly in front of the entrance of the court, deciding to wait Eddie out. My curiosity about him was peaking; he was a volatile night owl and might well be leaving soon on another run.

I was wrong. I waited, and waited, and waited, almost dozing off several times, until nine-thirty the next morning. When Eddie finally emerged, immaculately dressed in a fresh Hawaiian shirt, light blue cotton slacks, and sandals, I felt my enervation drop like a rock. I studied his face and body movements as he walked to his car, searching for clues to his sexual makeup. There was a selfconscious disdainfulness about him that wasn't quite right, but I put it out of my mind.

Eddie drove fast and aggressively, deftly weaving through traffic. I stayed close behind, letting a few cars get between us. We drove this way all the way downtown to the Pasadena Freeway, out that tortuous expressway to South Pasadena, then east to Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia.

Entering the racetrack's enormous parking lot, I felt relieved and hopeful. It was a brilliantly clear day, not too hot, and the parking lot was already filled with cars and plenty of people to hide me as I tailed my suspect. And I remembered what an old Vice cop had once told me: racetracks were good places to brace people for information—they felt sinful and somehow guilty about being there, and cowered fast when confronted with a badge.

I parked and sprinted to the entrance turnstiles. I paid my admission, then lounged, eyes downcast, next to a souvenir stand and waited for Eddie to show up. He did, a good ten minutes later, flashing a pass at the ticket-taker and getting a big smile in return. As he passed me, consulting his racing form, I turned my back.

The giant entranceway and passages leading up to the grandstand were filling up fast, so I let a solid throng of horseplayers get between us as we maneuvered toward the escalators that led to the betting windows. Eddie was going first-class: the fifty-dollar window. He was the only one in line there. He got a warm welcome from the man in the cage, and I could hear him plainly as I stood by the ten-dollar window a few yards away.

"Howsa boy, Eddie?" the guy said.

"Not bad, Ralph. How's the action? You got any hot ones for me?" Eddie's voice seemed strained under the ritualistic overtones.

"Naw, you know me, Eddie. I like 'em all. That's why I'm working here and not bettin' here. I love 'em all, too much."

Eddie laughed. "I hear you. I got the system though, and I feel lucky today." He handed the man a sheet of paper and a roll of bills. "Here, Ralph, that's for the first four races. Let's take care of it all now. I want to check out the scenery."

The man in the cage scooped up the scratch sheet and money and whistled. He detached a row of tickets and handed them to Eddie. He shook his head. "You might be takin' a bath today, kid."

"Never, pal. Seen any lookers around? You know my type."

"Hang out at the Turf Club, kid. That's where the class dames go."

"Too ritzy for me. I can't breathe in there. I'll be back for my money at the end of the day, Ralph. Have it ready for me."

Ralph laughed. "You bet, kid."

I followed Eddie to his seat in one of the better sections of the grandstand. He bought a beer and peanuts from a vendor and settled in, reading his racing form and fiddling with a pair of binoculars in a leather case.

I was wondering what to do next when an idea struck me. I waited for the first race to start, and when the passageways cleared and the crowd started to yell, I made my way back down to the souvenir stand, where I bought the current issues of three magazines: Life, Collier's, and Ladies' Home Journal.

I took them into the men's room, locked myself into a stall and thumbed through them, finding what I wanted almost immediately—five black-and-white photographs of rather ordinary women, taken from the neck up. I tore them out, left the rest of the magazines on the floor and placed the blowup photo of Maggie Cadwallader in the middle of the tear-outs.

Then I went looking for Ralph, the man at the fifty-dollar window. He wasn't in his cage, so I strolled aimlessly through the nowdeserted passageways until I spotted him walking out of the radio broadcasters' booth, smoking a cigar and holding a cup of coffee.

He spotted me too, and some sort of recognition hit him even before I showed him my badge. "Yes, Officer," he said patiently.

"Just a few questions," I said. I pointed across the hall to a snack stand that had tables and chairs.

Ralph nodded patiently and led the way. We sat facing each other across a grease-stained metal table; I was brusque, even a little bullying.

"I'm interested in the man you were talking to at the window about a half hour ago. His first name is Eddie."

"Yeah. Eddie."

"What's his last name?"

"Engels. Eddie Engels."

"What's his occupation?"

"Gambler. Punk. Wise guy. I don't think he has a job."

"I'm interested in the women he runs around with."

"So am I! Ooh, la la!" Ralph started cracking up at his own wit.

"Don't be funny; it's not amusing." I fanned the six photographs on the table in front of him. "Ever see Eddie with any of these women?"

Ralph scrutinized the photos, hesitated a moment, then placed a fat index finger square on the picture of Maggie Cadwallader. My whole body lurched inside and my skin started to tingle.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"How are you sure?"

"This tomato is a dog compared to some of the babes I seen Eddie with."

"When did you see them together?"

"I don't know—I think it was a couple of months ago. Yeah, that's right, it was the day of the President's Stakes—in June."

I gathered up my photos and left Ralph with a stern warning. "You don't breathe a word of this to Eddie. You got that?"

"Sure, Officer. I always figured Eddie wasn't quite on the up and—"

I didn't let him finish. I was out the door, looking frantically for a pay phone.

I called L.A.P.D. R&I, gave them my name and badge number and told them what I wanted. They got back to me within five minutes: there was no Edward, Edwin, or Edmund Engels, white male, approximately thirty years old with a criminal record in Los Angeles. I was about to hang up, then got another idea: I told the clerk to go through the automobile registration files for the last four years. This time he hit pay dirt: Edward Engels, 1911 Horn Drive, West Hollywood, owned two cars: the green '46 Olds sedan I had tailed him in, and a '49 Ford convertible—red with white top, license number JY 861. I thanked the clerk, hung up and ran out to my own car.

My next stop was Pasadena, where I looked for Ford and Oldsmobile dealerships. It took a while, but I found them and got what I wanted: advertising stills of their '46 and '49 models. Next I drove to a five and dime on Colorado Boulevard and bought a box of kiddie crayons. In the parking lot I went to work on my visual aids, coloring the Olds sedan a pale sea green and the Ford a bright fire engine red with a pristine white top. The results were good.

By this time it was one-forty-five and getting very humid. I needed a shave and a change of clothes. I drove home, showered, shaved, and changed. I got out my diary and destroyed all the pages pertaining to my encounter with Maggie Cadwallader. Then I stretched out on the bed and tried to sleep.

It was no good. My brain wouldn't stop running with plans, schemes, contingencies, and expectations. Finally I gave up, shooed Night Train out to the backyard, locked up, and drove to the Sunset Strip.

I timed it just right, parking my car in the lot of a gas station on Sunset and Doheny and starting off on foot. The nightclubs were just opening, gearing up for another evening of high-life, and the barmen, waiters, and parking attendants I wanted to talk to were fresh faced and had plenty of time to answer my questions.

I was developing a theory about Eddie Engels; that he was arrogant, cocky to an extreme, loudmouthed, and rather stupid—just stupid enough to bring women he was planning to harm or even kill into his own backyard to wine and dine. It seemed logical. He lived within walking distance of the hottest night spots in the city, and he clearly loved to be seen with women.

So I theorized, and walked east, showing my photograph of Maggie Cadwallader to parking lot attendants, doormen, maître d's, and waiters. I hit every nightclub and juke joint on both sides of Sunset from Doheny to La Cienega—with no luck. I was about to admit defeat when I decided to start checking out restaurants, as well.

At my third one, I got my first confirmation. It was an Italian place and the garrulous old waiter nodded in recognition as I showed him the photo. He remembered Maggie from several weeks before, and was about to embark on a long discourse about the food she ate when I hissed at him, "Did she have an escort?"

Startled, the old guy smiled, said "sure," and described Eddie Engels. He went on to tell me of all the "nicea-looking bambinas" the "nicea-looking young man" brought to eat there. It was enough confirmation, but I wanted proof. I wanted it covered thoroughly from every angle, so that when I presented my case to my superiors it wouldn't leak an ounce of water.

I hit four more restaurants, all within five blocks of Eddie Engels's apartment on Horn Drive, and got three more positive identifications from waiters who recalled Eddie as an extravagant tipper who talked loudly of his racetrack winnings. They remembered Maggie Cadwallader as being quiet, clinging to Eddie and drinking a lot of rum and Cokes.

I took down the names and home addresses and phone numbers of all my witnesses and ran back to my car. It was eight-thirty, which gave me, I figured, about two hours before most people would be in bed.

I drove to Hollywood and started knocking on doors. The people I spoke to weren't surprised: other officers had been around the week before asking questions. When I showed them my colored photos of the two cars, they were surprised. The other cops hadn't asked anything about that—just about "strange things," "funny stuff" that they might have seen or heard on the night of the murder. One after another they shook their heads. No one had noticed the '46 Olds or '49 Ford ragtop. I covered all of Harold Way and turned onto De Longpre, getting discouraged. Lights were starting to go off, people were going to bed.

On the corner of De Longpre and Wilton, I ran into three high school boys playing catch by the light of a streetlamp. I played it very palsy with them, even letting them look at my gun. With their confidence gained, I showed them my pictures.

"Hey!" the biggest of the three kids exclaimed. "What a sharp drop-top! Man, oh, man!"

One of his pals grabbed the photo and scrutinized it silently. "I seen a car like that. Right here. Just down the street," he said.

"When?" I asked quietly.

The kid thought, then looked to the big kid for support. "Larry," he said, "you remember last week, I snuck out and came over. Remember?"

"Yeah, I remember. It was Monday night. I had to go to—"

I interrupted, keeping my voice stern and fatherly, "And the car was red and white like the one in this picture?"

"Yeah," the kid said, "Exactly. It had a foxtail on the antenna, real sharp."

I was ecstatic. I took down their names and phone numbers and told them they were on their way to becoming heroes. The kids were somber with the gravity of their heroism. I solemnly shook hands with all three of them, then took off.

I found a pay phone on Hollywood Boulevard and got Eddie Engels's telephone number from Information. I dialed it, and let it ring fifteen times. No answer. Night owl Eddie was on the prowl.

I drove back to the Strip, turned north on Horn Drive and parked across the street from his bungalow court. I dug around in my trunk for some makeshift burglar tools and found some old college drafting stuff—including a metal T-square with thin edges that looked as if it could snap a locking mechanism. Equipped with this and a flashlight, I walked toward the darkened courtyard.

This time I knew to look for "Engels" on Number 11. It was three bungalows down, on the left-hand side. All the lights were off. I pulled open a flimsy screen door, looked in both directions, then covertly flashed my light on the inner door and studied the mechanism. It was a simple snap-bolt job, so I got out my T-square, transferred the flashlight to the crook of my left arm, wedged the metal edge between lock and doorjamb and pushed. It was hard, but I persisted, almost snapping the blade of the T-square. Finally, there was a loud metallic ka-thack, and the door opened.

I walked in quickly, and closed the door behind me. I ran the flashlight along the walls looking for a light switch, found one, and flipped it on, momentarily illuminating a living room tastefully furnished with Persian carpets, modern blond bentwood furniture, and, on all four walls, oil paintings of horses in racing colors.

I turned the light off, and headed for the hallway. I switched on another light and almost knocked over a telephone stand. The stand had three drawers, and I went through them hoping to find some kind of personal phone book. There was nothing—the three drawers were empty.

I flipped off the light and maneuvered my way into the bedroom. My eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness, so it was easy to pick out objects in the room—bed, dresser, bookshelves. The window was covered by heavy velvet curtains, so I decided to risk leaving a light on while I did my searching. I turned on a table lamp, lighting up a room that was strangely sedate—just a simple bed with a plaid bedspread, a bookshelf crammed with picture books on horse racing, and bullfight posters and framed prints of a beautiful palomino on the walls. There was a deep walk-in closet behind the bed, crammed with clothes. At least fifty sport coats on hangers, thirty or forty pairs of slacks, scores of dress shirts and sport shirts. The floor of the closet was lined with shoes, from somber wingtips to sporty loafers, all shined and arranged neatly. Eddie the dude. It wasn't enough. I wanted evidence pointing to Eddie the degenerate—Eddie the killer.

I went through the dresser drawers, four of them, very thoroughly and very carefully, looking for phone books, journals, photographs, anything to link Eddie Engels to Maggie Cadwallader or Leona Jensen. There was nothing. Just gold silk underwear, but that was not enough to hang a man on.

I went back into the big closet and felt inside the jacket pockets. Nothing. Finished with the bedroom, I turned out the light and went back to the living room, shining my flashlight in corners, into bookshelves, under chairs and sofas. Nothing. Nothing personal. Nothing to indicate that Eddie Engels was anything but a spiffy dresser who loved horses.

There was a liquor cabinet with one bottle each of Scotch, bourbon, gin, and brandy. There were no photographs of family or loved ones. It was a maddeningly impersonal habitat, the home of a phantom.

I went into the kitchen. It was as I expected, compact and very tidy; a breakfast nook, a sink that held no dishes, a refrigerator with nothing but a cold-water bottle inside, and a 1950 calendar tacked to the wall with no notations on any of its pages.

Which left the bathroom. Maybe old Eddie cut loose in there. Maybe the bathtub would be filled with mermaids or alligators. No such luck—the bathroom was pink tile, spotless, with a giant mirror above the sink, and a full-length mirror on the inside of the door. Eddie, the narcissist.

Above the toilet was a medicine cabinet. I opened it, expecting to find toothpaste and shaving gear, but found instead a half-dozen tiny shelves holding rolled-up neckties. Eddie, the sartorially splendid, used the full-length mirror to ensure a perfect Windsor knot. I ran a hand over the collection of silk, arranged according to color and style. What a mania for order; what a mania for small perfections. Then I noticed what seemed like a strange anomaly—one silk tie, a green one, was sticking out further than the others. I poked at it with a finger, and felt something solid inside. I pulled the tie out carefully and unrolled it. Maggie Cadwallader's diamond brooch fell into my hand.

I stared at it for long moments, shocked. After a minute or so, my calm flew out the window and my mind started churning with plans. I rolled the brooch back into the tie and replaced it in the little cabinet exactly as I had found it. I turned the bathroom light off and walked through the dark apartment to the front door. I locked it behind me, checking the jamb for signs of entry. There were none.

All the lights in the courtyard were off. I stood there a few moments, savoring the wonder of the night and what I had just discovered, then walked behind the bungalows. There was a corrugated overhang that sheltered the tenants' cars. The car on the end, shiny in the moonlight, was a bright red '49 Ford with a white ragtop. A foxtail dangled from the radio antenna. I flicked it with my finger.

"You killed Maggie Cadwallader and God knows who else, you degenerate son of a bitch," I said, "and I'm going to see that you pay."

9

My case. My suspect. My revenge? My collar? My glory and gravy train? All these thoughts went through my head the following day as I walked my beat on sun-beaten Central Avenue.

A decision was due, and I would have to act either rationally or quixotically. I gave my options more thought, and as my tour ended I made a decision—a humbling, but safe one. I changed back into my civvies and knocked on Captain Jurgensen's door.

"Enter," he called through it. I walked in and saluted. Jurgensen dog-eared his paperback Othello and looked at me. "Yes, Underhill?" he said.

"Sir," I said, "I know who killed that woman who was found strangled in Hollywood last week. He may have killed others. I can't make the collar myself. I need to turn my evidence over to someone who can formalize an investigation, so I came to you."

"Perdition, catch my soul," Jurgensen said, then sighed and drew a pipe and pouch from his desk drawer. I stood at parade rest while he took his time packing the pipe and lighting it. He seemed to have forgotten I was there. I was about to clear my throat when he said, "For Christ's sake, Underhill, sit down and tell me about it."

It took me twenty minutes, by the electric clock on the captain's wall.

I covered everything, except my coupling with Maggie Cadwallader. I told him of the similarities between the two killings. I told him of my noticing the matches in Leona Jensen's apartment last February, and how that was the link that drew me to the Silver Star. I omitted my knowledge of the diamond brooch.

During the course of telling my story, I watched Jurgensen's normally stoic expression veer between curiosity, anger, and some kind of bitter amusement. When I finished he stared at me in silence. I stared back, sensing that phony contrition for the liberties I had taken wouldn't be believed. We stared at each other some more.

The captain looked very grave. He started to tamp his pipe bowl into his palm very slowly and deliberately. "Underhill," he said, "you are a supremely arrogant young man. In the course of what you arrogantly call your 'investigation,' you have committed infractions of departmental regulations that could end your career; you have committed two felonies that could send you to San Quentin; and implicitly you have held the detectives of two divisions and the Homicide Bureau up to ridicule—"

"Sir, I—"

"Don't interrupt, Underhill! I am a captain and you are a patrolman, and don't forget it." Jurgensen's face was very red, and there was an angry blue vein throbbing in his neck.

"Sir, I apologize."

"Very well. I could crucify you for your arrogance, but I won't."

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me yet, Officer. You are a very gifted young man, but your arrogance supersedes your gifts. Arrogance cannot be tolerated in police officers; to tolerate it would be to promote anarchy. The Los Angeles Police Department is a superbly structured bureaucracy, one you have sworn allegiance to. Your actions have reviled the department. Know that, Underhill. Know that your ambition is threatening to kill you as a policeman. Do you understand me?"

I cleared my throat. "Sir, I do believe I acted rashly, and I apologize to you—and to the department—for that. But I think my motives were sound. I wanted justice."

Jurgensen snorted and shook his head. "No, Underhill, you didn't. I would accept that from many young officers, but not from you. Beyond self-aggrandizement, I'm not sure that even you know what you want, but it certainly isn't justice. You laugh at the penal code of this state, and tell me you want justice? Don't insult my intelligence."

Jurgensen's anger was winding down. I tried to deflect his attack. "Sir, with all due respect, what do you think of my case?"

"Your 'case'? I think that as of this moment you have nothing but a strong suspect and an incredible gift of intuition. This man Engels is so far nothing but a gambler and a womanizer, neither of which is criminal behavior. He's also probably a homo, which doesn't make him a murderer. You have no hard evidence. I don't think much of your 'case.'"

"And my intuition, Captain?"

"I trust your intuition, Underhill, or I would have suspended you from duty half an hour ago."

"And, sir?"

"And . . . what do you want, Underhill?"

"I want to be part of the investigation, and I want to go to the Detective Bureau when I pass the sergeant's exam later this year."

Jurgensen laughed bitterly. He reached into his desk, pulled out a scratch pad, and wrote something on it, ripping the page free and handing it to me. "This is my home address, in Glendale. Be there tonight at eight-thirty. I want you to tell your story to Dudley Smith. He'll decide the course of this investigation. Now leave me alone."

When he said the words "Dudley Smith," Jurgensen's cold blue eyes had bored into me like poison darts, waiting for me to show fear or apprehension. I didn't.

"Yes, sir," I said, then got up and walked out the door without saluting.

Dudley Smith was a lieutenant in the homicide bureau, a fearsome personage and legendary cop who had killed five men in the line of duty. Irish-born and Los Angeles-raised, he still clung tenaciously to his high-pitched, musical brogue, which was as finely tuned as a Stradivarius. He often lectured at the academy on interrogation techniques, and I remembered how that brogue could be alternately soothing or brutal, inquisitive or dumbfounded, sympathetic or filled with pious rage.

He was over six feet tall and broad as a ceiling beam. He was an immense brownness—brown hair cut close, small brown eyes, and always dressed in a baggy brown vested suit. There was a frightening set to his face, regardless of the interrogation technique he was explaining. He was a master actor with a huge ego who was adept at changing roles at the drop of a hat, yet who always managed to impart purity of personality to the part he was currently playing.

I was at the academy when the Black Dahlia investigation was going on. Smith was in charge of rounding up all known sex criminals in Los Angeles. After finishing his lecture, applause-loving actor that he was, he told us about the kind of "human scum" with which he was dealing. He told us that he had heard things and seen things and done things in his search for the killer "of that tragic, thrill-seeking colleen, Elizabeth Short" that he hoped we, the "cream of Los Angeles manhood," about to enter "the grandest calling on God's earth" would never have to hear or see or do. It was brilliantly elliptical. Speculation on the sternness of Smith's measures was the number one topic of conversation at the academy for weeks. I asked one of my instructors, Sergeant Clark, about him.

"He's a brutal son of a bitch who gets the job done," he said.

Elizabeth Short's killer was never found—which meant that Dudley Smith was human, and fallible. I pumped myself up with logic as I drove out Los Feliz to Glendale that evening. I went over my story from all possible angles, knowing I could not betray any personal knowledge of Maggie Cadwallader. I was prepared for a master performance myself, prepared to kiss the big Irishman's ass, to butt heads with him, to run profane, run subservient, run any way but stupid with him in my effort to be part of the investigation that brought down Eddie Engels.

Captain Jurgensen lived in a small wood-framed house on a treeless side street off of Brand Avenue near downtown Glendale. As I walked up the steps a dog started barking and I heard Jurgensen shush him: "Friend, Colonel, friend. Now, hush." The dog whimpered and trotted over to greet me, going straight for my crotch.

Jurgensen was sitting inside the screened porch on a lawn chair. "Hello, Underhill," he said, "sit down." He pointed to the wicker armchair next to him. I sat down.

"About this afternoon, Captain—" I started to say.

Jurgensen shushed me as he had the dog. "Forget it, Fred. Enough said. As of now you are temporarily attached to the detective bureau. Lieutenant Smith will tell you about it. He'll be here in a few minutes. Would you like iced tea? Or a beer?"

"Beer would be fine, sir."

The captain brought it, in a coffee cup, just as I saw an old prewar Dodge pull up to the curb. I watched as Dudley Smith carefully locked the car, hitched up his trousers and walked across the front lawn toward us.

"Don't be scared, Fred," Jurgensen said, "he's only human."

I laughed and sipped my beer as Dudley Smith knocked loudly on the flimsy wooden frame of the porch. "Knock, knock," he said broadly in his musical, high-pitched brogue. "Who's there? Dudley Smith, so crooks beware." He laughed at his own poetry, then walked in and stuck out a huge hand to Captain Jurgensen. "Hello, John. How are you?"

"Dudley," the captain said.

Smith nodded in my direction. "And this is our brilliant young colleague, Officer Frederick Underhill?"

I got up to shake the big cop's hand, noting with satisfaction that I was two inches taller than he. "Hello, Lieutenant," I said, "it's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is entirely mine, lad. Why don't we all sit down? We have grave matters to discuss, and we should relax our bodies while we tax our brains."

Smith folded himself into the only padded chair on the porch. He stretched out his long legs and smiled charmingly at Jurgensen. "Beer, please, John, in a bottle, and please take your time getting it."

The ranking officer walked dutifully away while the big Irishman stared at me with beady brown eyes, hugely offset by his blunt red face. After a moment, he spoke.

"Officer Frederick U. Underhill, twenty-seven years old, college graduate, not a veteran. Exceedingly high marks at the academy, excellent fitness reports at Wilshire and Seventy-seventh Street. Killed two men in the line of duty. I am suitably impressed, and I don't give a damn what vigilante actions you have taken lately. John is an excitable, traditional cop. I am not. I applaud you for your actions and congratulate you on your intelligence in taking your investigation to a superior officer. Enough horseshit. Talk to me of dead women and killers. Take your time, I'm a good listener."

The little brown eyes had never left my own, and they remained on target while Dudley Smith fished in his trouser pockets for cigarettes and matches, then lit up and blew smoke at me.

I cleared my throat. "Thank you, sir. In February, I was working Wilshire Patrol. My partner and I were summoned by a distraught woman to a murder scene. The victim was a young woman named Leona Jensen. She had been strangled and stabbed to death in her apartment; the place had been ransacked. I called the dicks. They came and said it looked as if the woman had interrupted a burglar. I noticed a book of matches from the Silver Star bar on a table, but didn't think anything about it.

"Last week another woman was strangled in her apartment in Hollywood; I read about it in the papers. Her name was Margaret Cadwallader. I started thinking about the similarities between the two murders. The Hollywood dicks put this one off as a burglary killing, too, and they were basing their entire investigation on that thesis. I had an intuition about it, though. It wouldn't let me sleep. I trust my intuitions, sir, which is why my record of felony arrests is so good.

"Somehow I knew the two deaths were connected. I broke into the Cadwallader woman's apartment"—I slowed down as I got ready to drop my first outright lie—"and found a book of matches for the selfsame bar under the corner of the living room carpet." I paused for effect.

"Go on, Officer," Dudley Smith said.

"All right. Now I knew that the Cadwallader dame had gone to the Silver Star, at least once. I wangled my way onto day watch so I could go there at night, too. I had a hunch that the Jensen woman and Margaret Cadwallader had been picked up there by a loverboy type. I enlisted the aid of the bartender, who told me about 'Eddie,' a real smooth operator who picked up a lot of women at the joint. Eddie came in the following night. The barman pointed him out to me. He tried putting the make on several women, who turned him down. He left, and I tailed him to a queer bar in West Hollywood, where he had an argument with a guy. Then I followed him to his apartment off the Strip. He stayed there all night. The next morning, I tailed him to Santa Anita racetrack. From his conversation with the man at the fifty-dollar window, I determined he was a heavy gambler who frequently brought women to the track.

"I showed a photograph of Margaret Cadwallader to the window man. He told me that Eddie's last name was Engels, and that Eddie had brought the woman to the track in June for the President's Stakes. He positively identified her. I had mixed the photo in with several others, so I know he was certain.

"Next I called R&I and got some info on Engels's record and car ownership. No record; two cars. I went to car dealers and got pictures of the models he owns, then colored them in the appropriate colors. Next I went to every nightclub on the Sunset Strip. Four people remembered seeing Eddie Engels with Margaret Cadwallader. I got their names and addresses. Then I drove to Hollywood. A high school kid remembered seeing Engels's '49 Ford convertible parked around the corner from the Cadwallader apartment on the night of the murder. He described it as having a foxtail on the radio antenna. Later that night I broke into Engels's bungalow. I found no evidence linking him to anything criminal, but I did see his '49 Ford. It had a foxtail on the aerial. That's it, Lieutenant."

I expected Dudley Smith to fix me with a stern, probing look. He didn't. He just smiled crookedly and lit another cigarette. He exhaled smoke and laughed heartily.

"Well, lad," he said, "you've got us a killer. That's for damn sure. The Cadwallader dame, a certainty. The other woman, what was her name?"

"Leona Jensen."

"Ahhh, yes. Well, there I'm not so sure. What was the cause of death, do you know?"

"The M.E. at the scene said asphyxiation."

"Ahhh, yes. Who handled it for Wilshire dicks?"

"Joe DiCenzo."

"Ahhh, yes. I know DiCenzo. Freddy, lad, what are your feelings about this degenerate Engels?"

"I think he knocked off Cadwallader and Jensen and God knows who else."

"God knows? Are you a religious man, lad?"

"No, sir, I'm not."

"Well, you should be. Ahhh, yes. Divine Providence is certainly at work in this case."

Captain Jurgensen came onto the porch holding a beer.

"Ahhh, John. Thank you," the lieutenant said. "Give us ten more minutes, will you, lad?"

The captain muttered, "Sure, Dud," and retreated again.

"I was about to say, lad," Dudley Smith went on, "that I concur wholeheartedly with you. How old are you? Twenty-seven, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Don't call me sir, call me Dudley."

"All right, Dudley."

"Ahhh, grand. Well, lad, I'm forty-six, and I've been a cop for half my life. I was in the O.S.S. during the war. I was a major in Europe and I came back to my sergeancy in the department, expecting to rise very fast. I caught a lot of killers, and I killed a few myself. I made lieutenant, and I expect I'll always be a lieutenant. I'm too tough and smart and valuable to be a captain and sit on my ass all day and read Shakespeare like our friend John."

Dudley Smith leaned toward me and clamped his huge right hand over my knee. He lowered his tenor voice a good three octaves, and said, "In Ireland, the brothers taught me an abiding love and respect for women. I've been married to the same woman for twenty-eight years. I've got five daughters. There's a lot of the beast in me, lad, God knows. What gentleness there is I owe to the brothers and the women I've known. I hate killers, and I hate woman-killers more than I hate Satan himself. Do you share my hatred, lad?"

It was his first test, and I wanted to pass it with honors. I tightened my whole face and whispered hoarsely, "With all my heart."

Smith tightened his grip on my knee. He wanted me to show pain in acquiescence, so I winced. He released my knee, and I rubbed it gingerly. He smiled. "Ahhh, yes," he said. "Grand. He's ours, Freddy. Ours. He's claimed his last victim, God mark my words."

Smith leaned back and slouched bearlike into his chair. He picked up his bottle of beer and drained it. "Ahhh, yes. Grand. Detective Officer Underhill. Do you like the sound of that, lad?"

"I like it fine, Dudley."

"Grand. Tell me, lad, how did you feel after you gunned down those two pachucos who killed your partner?"

"I felt angry."

"Did you weep, later?"

"No."

"Ahhh, grand."

"When do we start, Dudley?"

"Tomorrow, lad. There'll be four of us. Two fine young protégés of mine from the bureau, and us. As of now, John is out. As of now, I am your commanding officer. During the war, we in the O.S.S. had a word we used to describe our activities: clandestine. Isn't that a grand word? It means 'in secret.' That's what our investigation is going to be—in secret. Just the four of us. I can get hold of anything, any file we need from within the department or any other police agency. The case is all ours, the glory all ours, the plaudits all ours, the commendations and advancements to be earned, all ours—once we get an airtight case and a confession from this monster Eddie Engels."

"And then?"

"Then we go to the grand jury, lad, and let the people of our grand Republic of California decide the fate of handsome Eddie, which, of course, will be to send the dirty son-of-a-whore to the gas chamber."

"He's as good as in the little green room right now, Dudley."

"Indeed he is, lad. Now you listen. Our command post will be at the Havana Hotel, downtown at Eighth and Olive. I've already rented us a room, number sixteen. You be there tomorrow morning at eight sharp. Wear civvies. Get a good night's sleep. Say your prayers. Thank God that you're free, white, twenty-one and a splendid young copper. You go home now. John will be miffed at not being in on this, and I want to soft-pedal his pride. Now, shoo."

I got up and stretched my legs. I stuck out my hand to Dudley Smith. "Thanks, Dudley," I said. "This means a lot to me."

Smith shook my hand firmly. "I know it does, lad. I can tell we are going to be grand friends. God bless you. When you say your prayers, send one up for old Dudley."

"I will."

Smith laughed. "No, you won't," he said, "you'll go out and find yourself some grand piece of tail and show her your badge and tell her you're the next chief of police. Ha-ha-ha! I know you, lad. Now go and leave me to placate old John."

I walked back to my car feeling touched by madness and wonder. Mad, wonderful laughter trailed after me as I drove off.

Mad laughter filled my sleep that night. Nagging doubts tore at me in the form of Wacky Walker and Dudley Smith twirling nightsticks and shouting obscene poetry at each other. Reuben Ramos watched, honking on his sax and offering cryptic comments like a hophead Greek chorus. Captain Bill Beckworth was there too, offering his two cents' worth—"Caution, Freddy. Improve my putting stroke and I'll make you the king of Wilshire Division. All the pussy and wonder you can stomach! I'll bring back Walker from the dead and make him a nobel laureate. Trust me!"

I woke up with a headache and the certainty that Dudley Smith was going to screw me out of all the plaudits to be earned from the Eddie Engels case. He was the ranking officer, the decision maker, the one who would file with the district attorney's office when Engels was arrested. I needed an insurance policy, and I knew exactly who to call.

I took my time dressing and eating breakfast. I fried Night Train a pound of hamburger. He wolfed it down greedily and licked the inside of his dish. I threw him a soup bone as dessert. He gnawed it while I called Information and got the number of the office of the district attorney, city of Los Angeles. It was still early. I hoped someone would be there.

I dialed. "District attorney's office," a woman's singsong voice answered.

"Good morning," I said, "may I speak to Miss Lorna Weinberg, please?"

"Your name please, sir?"

"Officer Fred Underhill."

"One moment, Officer. I'll ring."

Lorna Weinberg came on the line a moment later, sounding harried. "Hello," she said.

"Hello, Miss Weinberg. Do you remember me?"

"Yes, I do. Is this something about my father?"

"No, it's not. It's both personal and professional. I need to speak to you, as soon as possible."

"What is it?" Lorna snapped.

"I can't discuss it on the phone."

"What is this, Mr. Underhill?"

"It's something important. Something I know that you'll think is important. Can I meet you tonight?"

"All right. Briefly. How about outside city hall, the Spring Street entrance, at five o'clock? I can give you fifteen minutes."

"I'll be there."

"Good day, Officer," Lorna Weinberg said, hanging up before I could deliver the witty remark I had prepared.

It was a hot, smoggy day, and it didn't faze me in the least. I drove downtown feeling buoyant with anticipation, and parked in front of the Havana Hotel, an old, one-story red brick building with a rickety elevator in its small entrance foyer. It was 7:59 by my watch, so I leaped the stairs three at a time, knocking on the door of room 16 at exactly eight o'clock.

A stocky blond man in a short-sleeved white shirt and a shoulder holster opened it. I held out my badge to gain entrance and he nodded me inside. Dudley Smith and another man were in the middle of the dingy little room, hunched over a folding card table.

Smith looked over his shoulder and greeted me. "Freddy! Laddy! Welcome! Let me make the introductions—gentlemen, this is Officer Fred Underhill, my newest protégé. Fred, meet Sergeant Mike Breuning," he nodded toward the stocky blond man. "And Officer Dick Carlisle," he nodded toward the other man, a tall, thin, sallowfaced man with wire-rimmed glasses. I shook hands with my new colleagues and exchanged pleasantries with them until Dudley Smith cleared his throat loudly and called for our attention.

"Enough horseshit," he said. "Freddy, tell Mike and Dick your story. Omit nothing. Here, stand up in back of this table like a good toastmaster. Ahhh, yes, that's grand."

Breuning and Carlisle pulled up chairs while I assumed my position behind the folding table. Smith sat on the bed, smoking and sipping coffee and smiling at me. It took me fifteen minutes to recount my tale. I could tell that Breuning and Carlisle were impressed. They looked to Dudley Smith for confirmation, almost doglike in their deference to the big cop.

He smiled at them. "Ahhh, yes. A real live degenerate womankiller. Comments, lads? Questions?"

Carlisle and Breuning shook their heads.

"Freddy?" Smith asked.

"Only one, Dudley. When do we start?"

"Ha-ha-ha! Grand! We start now, lad. Now listen: here are your assignments. Mike, you will go immediately to Horn Drive. You will tail Eddie Engels. You will go with him all day and all night until he returns home to sleep. If he picks up any women, you will stay very close. Do you get my meaning, lad? This beast must claim no more victims. Freddy, you will go to Horn Drive, too. You will question people on that street about their degenerate neighbor. I want names and addresses for any eyewitnesses to violence or abuse on Engels's part. Take the whole day on this. Dick, you go to Wilshire Station and talk to Sergeant Joe DiCenzo. Talk to him about the Leona Jensen killing. Tell Joe that I'm working on this investigation on my own time—he'll understand. Read the reports on the caper—coroner, dicks' log sheets, property, everything. Take notes. I'll be doing the digging into Eddie-boy's background myself. We'll meet here tomorrow, same time. Now go to work and God be with you!" Dudley Smith clapped his big hands, thunderously indicating dismissal.

Breuning and Carlisle filed out the door, looking grimly determined. I was about to follow them when Dudley Smith grabbed my arm. "You call me this afternoon at the bureau, lad. About four o'clock."

"Sure, Dudley," I said.

Smith squeezed my arm very hard, then gently shoved me out the door.

Breuning was standing on the sidewalk, apparently waiting for me. "Since we're both going out to the Strip, I thought I could follow you," he said.

"Sure," I said. "Where's your car?"

"Around the corner." Breuning was doing a little nervous shuffle.

I could tell there was something he wanted to say. I tried to make it easy for him. "How long have you been on the job, Mike?"

"Eleven years. You?"

"Four."

"That must have been a tough nut, shooting those two Mexicans."

"I don't think about it too much."

"I was wondering. Dudley likes you, you know that?"

"I guess so. Why do you mention it?"

Breuning's stolid German face darkened. "Because I noticed the way you were looking at him. Studying him like he was kind of a crazy man. A lot of people think Dudley's nuts, but he's not. He's nuts like a fox."

"I believe you. He's just an actor, and a damn good one. He's good at firing people up. That's his gift."

"Right. He wants this guy Engels, though. Bad."

"I know. He told me. He hates woman-killers."

"It's more than that. You have to know Dudley. I know him real well. Since I was a rookie. He's still pissed off about the Dahlia. He told me the Engels case is his penance for not catching the guy who sliced her."

I gave that some thought. "He wasn't in charge of the entire investigation, Mike. The whole L.A.P.D. and sheriffs department couldn't find the killer. It wasn't Dudley's fault."

"I know, but he took it that way. He's a religious man, and he's taking the Engels thing real personal. The reason I'm bringing all this up is that Dudley wants to make you his number one man. He says you've got the stuff to go all the way in the department. That's no skin off my ass, I like being a sergeant in the bureau. But you've got to play it Dudley's way. I can tell you're not scared of him, and that's bad. If you cross him, he'll fuck you for real. That's what I wanted to tell you."

I smiled at the admonition. It increased my respect for Dudley Smith, and my respect for Mike Breuning for mentioning it. "Thanks, Mike," I said.

"You're welcome. Now let's hotfoot it over to the Strip. I'm getting itchy to start."

Mike got his car and pulled up behind me. I drove straight out Wilshire, hoping that Eddie Engels was still a late sleeper, so that Mike would have someone to tail. I turned north on La Cienega. Mike was right behind me as I turned onto the Strip ten minutes later. Horn Drive came up, and I pulled over to the curb and pointed out Engels's bungalow and Olds sedan. Mike smiled and gave me the thumbs-up sign. I waved and drove up the hill, parked the car and set out on foot to do my questioning.

I knocked on the doors of bungalow huts, well-tended cottages, French chateau walk-up apartments, artist's dives, and miniature Moorish castles and got a succession of blank looks, yawns, and bored shakes of the head. "Sorry, I can't help you, Officer." Eddie the phantom. This consumed five hours. At two o'clock I walked down to the diner on the corner of Horn and Sunset and ordered two cheeseburgers, French fries, a salad, and a jumbo pineapple malt. I was famished—and nervous about my meeting with Lorna Weinberg.

The man who served me at the counter looked like a jaded soda jerk out of hell. He slouched in front of me while I tore into my salad, alternately picking his teeth and his nose. We were obviously destined to converse—it was only a question of who would speak first. It was me, out of necessity. "Get me some ketchup, will you?"

"Sure, buddy," the counterman said, handing me a bottle of Heinz's and leaning over to breathe on me. "You with the sheriff's?" he asked. That was interesting.

"L.A.P.D.," I said. "You an ex-con?"

"I been clean for six years. Topped out my parole, knock wood." The guy made an elaborate show of rapping his knuckles on the countertop.

"I congratulate you," I said. "How long have you been working this joint?"

"Two years on the job. Knock wood."

"You know the locals pretty well?"

"Local yokels or regular customers?"

"Very astute. I mean people who live in the neighborhood who frequent this place."

"Oh." The man's eyes narrowed into a con-wise squint. "You got any particular locals in mind?"

"Yeah. A guy named Eddie. A handsome guy about thirty. Curly brown hair. Brown eyes. Sharp dresser. A lover-boy. Always a good-looking tomato in tow. You know him?"

The counterman's eyes remained impassive. When I finished, he nodded, almost imperceptibly. "Yeah, I think so."

I came on strong. "I'm a police officer and a big tipper. Tell me."

He looked around for prying ears. There weren't any. "Okay—you got it right. Smooth boy. Lover-boy. I should get the dames I seen that bastard with. Listen, Officer—"

I reached into my coat pocket for my photograph of Maggie Cadwallader. "Her?" I said. "This tomato?"

The counterman scrutinized the photo and shook his head. "Naw, lover-boy would never be seen with a beast like this. Ugh. What a—"

"Shut up. Tell me about the women you have seen him with."

Chastened, he went on, his voice low: "Just movie star material. Real beauts. Class-A poontang hangin' onto him like there's no tomorrow."

"Do you know any of these women? Are any of them regular customers?"

"Naw, I think he just brings 'em in for a quick burger, 'cause he lives around here."

"How do you know that?"

"That's kinda funny. Once he was in here with this good-lookin' blond. She was teasin' him about somethin'. He didn't like it. She had her hand on the countertop. Eddie started squeezin' it, real hard. The dame had tears in her eyes. She was hurtin' bad. She said, 'Not now, baby. You can give it to me good at the apartment, but not here. We'll be back there in a minute. Please, baby.' She looked scared, but kind of excited, too, you know?"

"When was this?" I asked.

"I dunno. Months ago."

"Have you seen this woman again, with or without Eddie?"

"I don't think so."

"Did you see Eddie exhibit violence toward any other women?"

"Naw. But I wouldn't call that violence."

"Shut up." I handed him a slip of paper from my notebook. "Write down your name and address," I said.

The ex-con did it, his jaw quavering slightly. "Look, Officer . . ." he started.

"Don't worry," I said, smiling. "You're in no trouble. Just keep it zipped about what we talked about. Capische?"

"Yeah."

"Good." I put the slip of paper into my pocket and dropped a five-spot on the counter. "Keep the change," I said.

I found a pay phone in the parking lot and called Dudley Smith downtown. It took some moments for him to come onto the line and I waited in the sweltering booth, lost in thought, the receiver jammed to my ear. Smith's loud high-pitched brogue suddenly hit me.

"Freddy, lad! How nice to hear from you!"

I recovered fast, speaking calmly: "Good news, Dudley. Our boy was seen at a local diner with a woman some months ago. The counterman said he abused her physically and she enjoyed it. I got a statement from him." Dudley Smith seemed to be considering this—he was silent for the better part of a minute. In my eagerness, I broke the silence: "I think he's a sex sadist, Dudley."

"Ahhh, yes. Well, lad, I think our pal is a lot of things. I've got some interesting stuff, too. Now, Freddy, tomorrow you will be the straight man to greatness. You pick me up at my house at nine A.M., 2341 Kelton Avenue, Westwood. Wear a light-colored suit, and be prepared to learn. Have you got that?"

"Yes."

"Ahhh . . . grand. Was there anything else you wished to tell me, lad?"

"No."

"Grand. Then I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodbye, Dudley."

I drove home and showered and changed clothes. I shaved for the second time that day. I drove downtown fighting a tingling anticipation that was half nerves and half a thigh-warming sexual flush. I parked in the lot for city employees on Temple Street, showing the attendant my badge in lieu of a parking sticker. I combed my hair several times, checking in my rearview mirror to see that the part was straight.

At exactly five o'clock, I was stationed directly in front of the Spring Street entrance to city hall, waiting for Lorna Weinberg.

Lorna came out the broad glass doors a few minutes later, limping with one foot kicked out at almost a right angle. She guided her way with a thick, rubber-tipped black wood cane. She carried a briefcase in her left hand, and had an abstracted look on her face. When she saw me she frowned.

"Hello, Miss Weinberg," I said.

"Mr. Underhill," she returned. She moved her cane to her left hand and offered me her right. We shook, the handshake an implicit reminder that this was a civil meeting of two professional people.

I said, "Thank you for agreeing to see me. I know you're a busy woman."

Lorna nodded brusquely and shifted her weight to her good leg. "And you're a busy man. We should find a place to go and talk. I'm very curious to hear what you have to say." Catching herself being almost friendly, she added, "I trust you wouldn't waste my time." When I didn't acknowledge that, she asked, "Would you?"

I gave Lorna Weinberg my widest, most innocent smile. "Maybe. So much for the amenities. Do you eat dinner?"

Lorna frowned again. "Yes, Officer, I do. Do you?"

"Yeah. Every night. An old childhood habit. You know any decent places around here?"

"Not that I can walk to."

"If your bum leg acts up we can rest or I can carry you. Or we can drive somewhere."

Lorna winced against my comments, curling her lip reflexively. "We can drive," she said, "in my car."

I was more than willing to concede the point.

We walked the half-block to Temple very slowly, saying very little. Lorna limped steadily, easily throwing the dead leg forward in almost perfect rhythmic grace. If she was in pain she didn't show it; only her bare arm holding the cane betrayed any sign of tension.

I tried to think of something to say, but all my one-liners seemed fatuous or abrasive. As we crossed the street I grabbed her elbow to steady her and she withdrew it angrily.

"Don't," she snapped, "I can manage myself."

"I'm sure you can," I said.

The car was a late model Packard with an automatic shift and a specially constructed stirrup to hold Lorna's bad leg. Without consulting me, she drove north to Chinatown. She was a good, efficient driver, maneuvering the big car deftly through the heavy evening traffic on North Broadway. Squeezing effortlessly into a tight parking space and setting the hand brake with a flourish, Lorna turned to face me. "Is Chinese all right?" she asked.

The restaurant interior was a marvel of papier-mâché architecture. All four walls were shaped like mountain ranges, with cascading waterfalls dropping into a trough filled with giant goldfish. The room was bathed in a bluish-green light that imparted an underwater effect.

An obsequious waiter guided us to a booth at the back and handed us menus. Lorna made a great show of studying hers while I formulated my thoughts into a useful brevity. I stared at her as she perused her menu. Her face was very strong and very beautiful.

She looked up from her menu and caught my gaze. "Aren't you going to eat?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said. "If I do, I know what I'll have."

"Are you that rigid? Don't you like to try new things?"

"Lately, yes. Which is why I'm here."

"Is that a double-entendre, Officer?"

"It's a cross between a proposition and a statement of purpose."

"Is that a double-entendre?"

"It's a cross between a paradox and a logical fallacy."

"And the part I—"

I interrupted, "The paradox is murder, counselor, and the fact that I intend to profit from the capture of the murderer. The logical fallacy is that—well, in part I'm here because you are a very handsome and interesting woman." Lorna opened her mouth to protest, but I raised my voice to drown her out. "Pardon my language, but, as a colleague of mine says, 'Enough horseshit.' Let's eat, then I'll tell you about it."

Lorna glowered at me, speechless. I could tell she was mustering her resources for a wicked return salvo. Fortunately for me, our waiter glided up silently and said, "You order now?"

Before Lorna could start again I took a sip of green tea and began the story of Freddy Underhill, rogue cop, and his incredible intuition and persistence. She started to question me several times, but I just shook my head and continued. She changed expressions only once during my monologue, when I mentioned the name of Dudley Smith. Then her rapt look changed to one of anger. By the time I finished, our food had come. Lorna looked from me to her plate, then pushed it away and made a face.

"I can't eat now," she said. "Not after what you've told me."

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes. It's circumstantial, but it fits. What exactly do you want from me?"

"When the case is airtight, I want to file my depositions with you personally. The truth: Smith is going to try to screw me out of this; I can tell. I don't trust the bastard. Frankly, I want the glory. Are you still preparing cases for the grand jury?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then as soon as I have enough evidence, or as soon as we arrest Engels, I'll come to you. You prepare the case and the grand jury will indict Engels."

"And then, Officer?" Lorna asked sarcastically.

"And then we both have the satisfaction of knowing Eddie Engels is on his way to the gas chamber. Your career will be aided, and I'll go to the detective bureau." Lorna was morosely silent. I tried to cheer her up. "Which will make your job easier. I'll be filing lots of cases with you—but only ones where I'm sure my arrestee is guilty." I smiled.

"Dudley Smith is going to crucify you for this," Lorna said.

"No, he isn't. I'll be too big. The case will make the papers. I'll have too much support—from the press, plus from within the department. I'll be untouchable."

Lorna poked her chopsticks at her fried rice.

"Will you help me?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "It's my job, my duty."

"Good. Thank you."

"You're very, very cocky."

"I'm very, very good."

"I don't doubt it. My father talks of you often. He misses you. He told me you don't play golf anymore."

"I gave it up last winter, shortly after I met you."

"Why?"

"My best friend got killed, and I killed two men. Golf didn't seem important anymore."

"I read about it in the papers. My sister was very upset. It bothered me, too. I wondered how you were affected. Now I can tell that you weren't, really. You were cocky then and you're more cocky now. You're a hard case."

"No, I'm not. I'm a nice guy and I'm flattered that you thought of me."

"Don't be. It was purely professional."

"Yeah, well purely unprofessionally, I've been thinking about you ever since we met. Nice, warm, unprofessional thoughts."

Lorna didn't answer—she just blushed. It was a purely feminine, unprofessional blush.

"Are you finished eating?" I asked.

"Yes," Lorna said softly.

"Then let's leave."

Ten minutes later we were back at the parking lot on Temple Street. I got out of the car and walked around to the driver's side.

"Please smile before we say good night, Lorna," I said.

Lorna grudgingly obliged, parting her lips and gritting her teeth.

I laughed. "Not bad for a neophyte. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night? I know a place in Malibu. We can take a seaside drive."

"I don't think so."

"That's right, don't think."

"Look, Mr.—"

"Call me Freddy."

"Look, Freddy, I . . ." Lorna's voice and resistance trailed off, and she grimaced and smiled again, unsolicited.

"Good," I said buoyantly. "Silence implies consent. I'll meet you in front of city hall at six o'clock."

Lorna stared at the steering wheel, unwilling to meet my eyes. I leaned into the car window and gently turned her head to face me, then kissed her softly on her closed mouth. Her hand came off the wheel and closed tightly on my arm. I broke the kiss.

"Don't think, Lorna. Tomorrow at six."

I ran off in the direction of my car before she could answer.

10

Dudley Smith and his female brood lived in a modest, spacious house a mile south of Westwood Village. I pulled up in front of it with five minutes to spare, wearing my only light-colored suit, which was somewhat wrinkled and soiled. I rang the doorbell and heard myself announced by several girlish giggles:

"Daddy, he's here!"

"Daddy, your policeman is here!"

"Daddy, visitor, Daddy!"

Curtains were pulled back in the picture window adjoining the doorway. A freckle-faced little girl was staring at me. She stared until I grinned and waved to her. Then she stuck out her tongue and retreated.

Dudley Smith threw open the door a moment later. As usual, he was wearing a brown vested wool suit. In September. The freckle-faced little girl was atop his shoulders, in a pink cotton dress. She giggled down at me.

"Freddy, lad, welcome," Dudley said, bending over and lowering the little girl to floor level. "Bridget, darling, this grand-looking young gentleman is Officer Fred Underhill. Say hello to Officer Fred, darling."

"Hello, Officer Fred," Bridget said, and curtsied.

"Hello, fair Bridget," I said, bowing.

Dudley was laughing loudly. It almost seemed genuine. "Oh, lad, you're a heartbreaker, you are. Bridget, get your sisters. They'll be wanting to meet the young gentleman."

Bridget scampered off. I felt the momentary loss I sometimes do around big families, then pushed it aside. Dudley seemed to notice my slight change in mood. "A family is something to cherish, lad. You'll have yours in time, I expect."

"Maybe," I said, glancing around at the warmly appointed living room. "Why the light-colored suit, Dudley?"

"Symbolism, lad. You'll see. Let's not talk about it here. You'll find out soon enough."

Bridget returned with her sisters in tow, all four of them. The girls ranged in age from six to about fourteen. They all wore identical pink cotton dresses and they all looked like soft, pretty versions of Dudley. The Smith girls lined up behind Bridget, the youngest.

Dudley Smith announced proudly, "My daughters, Fred. Bridget, Mary, Margaret, Maureen, and Maidred."

The girls all curtsied and giggled. I bowed exaggeratedly.

Dudley threw a rough arm around my shoulders. "You mark my words, lassies, this young man will be chief of police someday." He tightened his grip and my shoulder started to numb. "Now, say goodbye to your old dad and Officer Fred, and wake up your mother, she's slept long enough."

"Bye, Daddy. Bye, Officer Fred."

"Bye-bye, Mr. Officer."

"Bye-bye."

The girls all rushed to their father and hugged at his legs and pulled his suit coat. He blew them kisses and shooed them gently inside as he shut the door behind us. Walking across the lawn to my car, Dudley Smith said matter-of-factly, "Now do you know why I hate woman-killers worse than Satan, lad?"

"Drive, lad, and listen," Dudley was saying. "Yesterday I sent out some queries on handsome Eddie. Edward Thomas Engels, born April 19, 1919, Seattle, Washington. No criminal record, I checked with the feds. Navy service in the war, '42—'46. Good record. Honorable discharge. Our friend was a pharmacist's mate. I called the L.A. Credit Bureau. He financed two cars with a finance company, and they checked him out. He listed two credit references. That's who we're going to see now, lad, known intimates of handsome Eddie."

We pulled up to the light at Pico and Bundy. I looked to Dudley for some clue to our destination.

"Venice, lad," he said. "California, not Italy. Keep driving due west."

"Why the light suit, Dudley?" I tried again.

"Symbolism, lad. We're going to play good guy-bad guy. This fellow we're going to see, Lawrence Brubaker, is an old chum of handsome Eddie's. He owns a bar in Venice. A queer joint. He's a known homo with a lifetime of lewd-conduct arrests. A surefire degenerate. We'll play with him like an accordion, lad. I'll browbeat him, you come to his rescue. Just follow my lead, Freddy lad. I trust your instincts."

I turned left on Lincoln then right on Venice Boulevard, headed for the beach and my first real interrogation. Dudley Smith smoked and stared out the window in abstracted silence. "Pull up to the curb at Windward and Main," he said finally as we came in view of the ocean. "We'll walk to the bar, give us time to talk."

I pulled up and parked in the lot of an American Legion meeting hall, got out, stretched my legs and gulped in the bracing sea air. Dudley got out and clapped me on the back.

"Now listen, lad. I've been checking the files for unsolved murders of women that fit handsome Eddie's MO. I found three, lad, all choke jobs, as far back as March, 1948. One was found three blocks from here, strangled and beaten to death in an alley off Twenty-seventh and Pacific. She was twenty-two, lad. Keep that in mind when we brace this degenerate Brubaker."

Dudley Smith smiled slowly, a blank-faced, emotionless carnivore smile, and I knew that this was the real man, devoid of all his actor's conceit. I nodded. "Right, partner," I said, feeling myself go cold all over.

Larry's Little Log Cabin was a block from the beach, a pink stucco building with phony redwood swinging doors and a sign over them posting its hours—6:00 A.M, to 2:00 A.M., the maximum allowed by law.

Dudley nudged me as we entered. "It's only a queer joint at night, lad. In the daytime it's strictly a hangout for local riffraff. Follow my lead, lad, and don't upset the locals."

The room was very narrow, and very dimly lit. There were hunting scenes on the walls and sawdust on the floor. Dudley nudged me again. "Brubaker changes the decor at night, lad, muscle-boy paintings all over the walls. A sergeant from Venice Vice told me."

There were a half-dozen elderly juiceheads sitting at the logshaped bar, slopping up brew. They looked dejected and meditative at the same time. The bartender was dozing behind the counter. He looked like countermen everywhere—jaded even in sleep. Dudley walked over to the bar and slammed two huge hands down on the wooden surface. The bar reverberated and the early morning drinkers snapped out of their reverie. The bartender's head jerked back abruptly and he started to stutter: "Y-y-yess, s-s-s-sir?"

"Good morning!" Dudley bellowed musically. "Could you direct me to the proprietor of this fine establishment, Mr. Lawrence Brubaker?"

The barkeep began a stuttering sentence, then thought better of it and pointed to a doorway at the back of the bar. Dudley bowed to the bartender, then propelled me before him in that direction, whispering, "We're cop antagonists, lad. I'm the pragmatist, you're the idealist. Brubaker's a homo and you're a fine-looking young man. He'll go for you. If I have to get rough with him, you touch him gently. We have to go about this in a roundabout way. We can't let him know this is a murder investigation."

I nodded my head and twisted free of Dudley's grasp. I felt myself getting very keyed up.

Dudley knocked softly on the door and spoke in an effete American voice, the last syllables strained and upward intoned. "Larry, open up, baby!" A moment later the door was opened by an almost totally bald, blue-eyed, very skinny mulatto who stood there staring at us for a brief instant before cowering backward almost reflexively.

"Knock, knock," Dudley bellowed in his brogue. "Who's there? Dudley Smith, so queers beware. Ha-ha-ha! Police officers, Brubaker, here to assure our constituency that we are on the job, ever vigilant!"

Lawrence Brubaker stood in the middle of the office, his thin body trembling.

"What's the matter, man?!" Dudley screamed. "Have you nothing to say?"

I took my cue. "Leave the gentleman alone, Dud. He's no queer, he's a property owner." I slapped Dudley on the back, hard. "I think that Vice sergeant had it wrong. This is no homo hangout, is it, Mr. Brubaker?"

"I don't ask my customers for their sexual preferences, Officer," Brubaker said. His voice was light.

"Well put. Why should you?" I said. "I'm Detective Underhill and this is my partner Detective Smith." I clapped Dudley's broad back again, this time even harder. Dudley winced, but his brown eyes twinkled at me in silent conspiracy. I pointed to a sofa at the back of the little office. "Let's all sit down, shall we?"

Brubaker shrugged his frail shoulders and took the chair facing the sofa, while Dudley sat on his desk, dangling one leg over the edge and banging his heel against the wastebasket. I sat on the couch and stretched out my long legs until they were almost touching Brubaker's feet.

"How long have you owned this bar, Mr. Brubaker?" I asked, taking out a pen and notepad.

"Since 1946," he said sullenly, his eyes moving from Dudley to me.

"I see," I went on. "Mr. Brubaker, we've had numerous complaints about your bar being used as a pickup place for bookmakers. Plainclothes officers have told us this is a hangout for known gamblers."

"And a homo den of iniquity!" Dudley bellowed. "What was the name of that flashy-dressing gambler we rousted, Freddy?"

"Eddie Engels, wasn't it?" I asked innocently.

"That's the pervert!" Dudley exclaimed. "He was taking bets at every queer joint in Hollywood."

Brubaker's eyes went alive with recognition when I mentioned Engels's name, but no more. He was holding his ground stoically.

"Do you know Eddie Engels, Mr. Brubaker?" I asked.

"Yes, I know Eddie."

"Does he frequent your bar?"

"Not really, not for a while."

"But he did in the past?"

"Yes,"

"When?"

"The first few years I owned the Cabin."

"Why did he quit coming here?"

"I don't know. He moved out of the area. He broke up with the woman he was living with. She used to come here frequently, and when they broke up Eddie stopped coming around."

"Eddie Engels used to live here in Venice?" I asked mildly.

"Yes, he and Janet lived in a house near the canals, around Twenty-ninth and Pacific."

I let my breath out slowly. "When was this?"

"The late forties. From sometime in '47 to early '49, as I recall. Why all this interest in Eddie?" Brubaker inched his feet closer to my outstretched legs so that they touched my ankles. I felt a queasy sort of revulsion come up, but I didn't move.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dudley swivel his neck. "Enough horseshit!" he bellowed. "Brubaker, are you and Eddie Engels lovers?"

"What the world, are you—" Brubaker exclaimed.

"Shut up, you goddamned degenerate! Yes or no?"

"I don't have to—"

"The hell you say. This is an official police investigation, and you will answer our questions!"

Dudley got up and advanced toward Brubaker, who fell over in his chair, got up and backed himself into the wall, trembling.

I came between them as Dudley closed his hands into fists. "Easy, Dud," I said, pushing him gently at the shoulders. "Mr. Brubaker is cooperating, and we're investigating bookmaking, not homosexuality."

"The hell you say, Freddy, I want to get a handle on this degenerate Engels. I want to know what makes him tick."

I sighed, and released Dudley. Then I sighed again. I took Brubaker by the arm and led him to the couch. He sat down and I sat down beside him, letting our knees touch lightly. "Mr. Brubaker, I apologize for my partner, but he has a point. Could you tell us about your association with Eddie Engels?"

Brubaker nodded assent. "Eddie and I go back to the war. We were stationed together down at Long Beach. We became friends. We went to the races together. We stayed friends after the war. Eddie is a very popular guy at the racetrack, and he brought lots of people here to the Cabin. Lots of beautiful women, gay and straight. I introduced him to Janet, Janet Valupeyk, and they moved in together, here in Venice. He still comes by here once in a while, but not so much since he broke it off with Janet. We're still friends. That's about it."

"And he likes boys, right?" Dudley hissed.

"That's none of my business, Officer."

"You tell me, Brubaker, now!"

"He's a switch-hitter," Brubaker said, and stared into his lap, ashamed at divulging that intimacy. Dudley snorted in triumph and cracked his knuckles.

"What does Eddie do for a living, Mr. Brubaker?" I asked gently.

"He gambles. He gambles big and he usually wins. He's a winner."

Dudley caught my eye and nodded toward the door. Brubaker continued to stare downward.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Brubaker. You've been very helpful. Good day." I got up from the sofa to leave.

Dudley got in a parting shot: "You don't breathe a word of this to a soul; you got that, you scum?"

Brubaker moved his head in acquiescence. I gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze as I followed Dudley out the door.

Walking back to my car, Dudley let out a big whoop. "Freddy, lad, you were brilliant! As was I, of course. And we got solid evidence—handsome Eddie was living two blocks away when that tragic young woman was croaked in '48. Just think, lad!"

"Yeah. Are we going to put someone on that?"

"We can't, lad. Mike and Dick are tailing Engels twenty-four hours a day. There's just the four of us on this investigation, and besides, the trail's too cold—three and a half years cold. But don't worry, lad. When we pop Eddie for Margaret Cadwallader, he'll confess to all his sins, don't you fear."

"Where to now?"

"This Janet Valupeyk bimbo. She lives in the Valley. She was the other credit reference for handsome Eddie. We can mix business with pleasure, lad; I know a great place on Ventura Boulevard—corned beef that melts in your mouth. I'm buying, lad, in honor of your stellar performance."

With our guts full of corned beef and cabbage, Dudley and I drove to Janet Valupeyk's house in Sherman Oaks.

"Let's just hope old queer Larry didn't call her ahead. Kid gloves with this one, lad," he said, pointing at the large, white, one-story ranch-style house. "She's obviously got dough and she's got no record at all. It's no crime being charmed by a lounge lizard like charming Eddie."

We knocked and a handsome, full-bodied woman in her late thirties threw open the door. She was blurry eyed and wearing a wrinkled yellow summer dress.

"Yes?" she said, slurring slightly.

"We're police officers, ma'am," Dudley said, showing her his badge. "I'm Lieutenant Smith, this is Officer Underhill."

The woman nodded at us, her eyes not quite focusing. "Yes?" She hesitated, then said, "Come in . . . please."

We took seats uninvited, in the large air-conditioned living room. The woman plopped down in a comfortable armchair, looked at us and seemed to draw on hidden resources in an effort to correctly modulate her voice: "I'm Janet Valupeyk," she said. "How can I help you?"

"By answering a few questions," Dudley said, smiling. "This is an absolutely charming home, by the way. Are you an interior decorator?"

"No, I sell real estate. What is it?"

"Ahhh, yes. Ma'am, do you know a man named Eddie Engels?"

Janet Valupeyk gave a little tremor, cleared her throat and said calmly, "Yes, I knew Eddie. Why?"

"Ahhh, yes. You said 'knew.' You haven't seen him recently, then?"

"No, I haven't. Why?" Her voice was steady, but her composure seemed to be faltering.

"Miss Valupeyk, are you all right?" I asked.

"Shut up," Dudley snapped.

I went on, "Miss Valupeyk, the purpose of our—"

"I said, shut up!" Dudley roared, his high-pitched brogue almost breaking.

Janet Valupeyk looked like she was about to break into tears.

Dudley whispered, "Wait for me in the car. I won't be long."

I walked outside and waited, sitting on the hood of my car and wondering what I had done to irk Dudley.

He came out half an hour later. His tone was conciliatory, but firm; his voice very low and patient, as if explaining something to an idiot child. "Lad, when I tell you to shut up, do it. Follow my lead. I had to play that woman very slowly. She was on dope, lad, and too confused to follow the questions of two men."

"All right, Dudley," I said, letting the slightest edge of pride go into my voice. "It won't happen again."

"Good, lad. I got more confirmation, lad. She lived with handsome Eddie for two years. She paid the bills for that no-good gigolo. He used to beat her up. Once he tried to choke her, but came to his senses. He's a longtime cunt-hound, lad. He used to pick up girls even when he was living with lonely Janet. She was in love with him, lad, and he treated her like dirt. He bought whores and paid them to stand abuse. And he's queer, lad. Queer as a three-dollar bill. Boys are his passion, and women his victims."

I was amazed. "How did you get that out of her?"

Dudley laughed. "When I realized she was on dope, rather than booze, I checked out her medicine cabinet. There was a doctor's prescription bottle of codeine pills. A hophead, lad, but a legal one. So I played on her fear of losing that prescription, and it all came out: Eddie jilted her for some muscle boy. She loves Eddie and she hates him and she loves codeine most of all. A tragedy, lad."

Without being told, I took the long way back to downtown L.A. Laurel Canyon Boulevard, with its rustic, twisting streets would give me plenty of time to probe the man who was growing before my eyes in several different directions.

Dudley Smith was a wonder broker, but a brutal one, and I felt a very strange ambivalence about him. He was too sharp for elliptical games, so I came right out with it: "Tell me about the Dahlia," I said.

Dudley feigned surprise. "The Dahlia? What Dahlia?"

"Very funny. The Dahlia."

"Oh. Ahhh, yes. The Dahlia. What precisely was it you wanted to know, lad?"

"How far you had to go in your investigation, what you saw, what you had to do." I turned to give Dudley a look that I hope conveyed equal parts interest and tight-lipped allegiance. He smiled demonically and I felt another little chill go through me.

"Watch the road, lad, and I'll tell you. You've heard tales, have you?"

"Not really."

"Then hear one now, from the horse's mouth: I have seen many, many crimes on women, lad, and the crime on Elizabeth Short exceeded them all by a country mile—the atrocities committed on her defied even Satan's logic. She was systematically tortured for days, and then sawed in half while she was still alive."

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"Jesus Christ, indeed, lad. The investigation was three weeks old when I was called in. I was given a special assignment: check out all the psycho confessors that were being held without bail as material witnesses; the ones the dicks thought could actually have done it. There were thirty of them, lad, and they were the scum of the earth—degenerate mother-haters and baby-rapers and animal fuckers. I eliminated twenty-two of them right away. Breaking an arm here and a jaw there, I confronted them with intimate facts about lovely Beth's wounds. I gauged their reactions as I hit them and made them fear me more than Satan himself. None of them did it; they were guilty, filthy degenerates who wanted to be punished, and I obliged them. But none of them were guilty of the crime against lovely Beth."

Dudley paused dramatically and stretched, waiting for me to ask him to continue.

I obliged: "And the other eight?"

"Ahhh, yes. My hard suspects; the ones whose reactions old Dudley wasn't quite astute enough to gauge. Well, lad, I was astute enough to know that those eight had one thing in common: they were stark raving insane, slobbering, frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics capable of anything, which made them rather difficult to deal with. I was sure their insanity was of such an intensity that they could withstand any degree of physical duress. Besides, they thought they actually had croaked lovely Beth; they'd confessed to it, hadn't they?

"The dicks I'd talked to told me they figured the killer had hung lovely Beth from a ceiling beam; there were rope burns on her ankles. That got me to thinking. I needed to shock these degenerate lunatics. I needed to break through their insanity. First I rented a friend's warehouse. A big, grand, deserted place it was. Then I procured a fine-looking young female stiff from a pathologist at the morgue who owed old Dudley a favor. A big one, lad—old Dudley looked the other way for this fellow, and he belonged to old Dudley for life.

"Dick Carlisle and I snuck the stiff over to the warehouse late one night. I dyed her hair jet black, like the Dahlia's. I stripped her nude, and tied her ankles with a rope, and Dick and I hoisted her up feet first and hung her from a low ceiling beam. Then Dick went and got our eight degenerates from the Hall of Justice jail. We let them view her, one at a time, lad, with appropriate props. One scum was a knife man; he had scores of arrests for knife fighting. I handed him a butcher knife and made him slice the corpse. He could hardly do it. He didn't have it in him. Another filth was a child molester, recently paroled from Atascadero. His M.O. was asking little girls if he could kiss their private parts. I made him kiss the dead girl's private parts, smell that dead sex flesh up close. He couldn't do it. And on and on. I was looking for a reaction so vile, so unspeakable that I would know that this was the scum that killed Beth Short."

I was stunned. Speechless. I felt my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard that I thought I would push it through the front of the car. My voice was breaking when I finally got it out: "And?"

"And, lad, I kept them there through the night, making them look at the corpse. I hit them, and Dick hit them, and we made them kiss the dead girl and fondle her while we questioned them."

"And?"

"And, lad, none of them killed lovely Beth."

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"Ahhh, yes. Jesus Christ. I didn't get the fiend who killed the Dahlia, lad. I know in my heart of hearts that no one ever will. I took the young dead woman back to the morgue to be cremated. She was a lonely Jane Doe, who unknowingly served justice by her death. I went to confession the next morning. I told the father what I had done and asked for absolution. I got it. Then I went home and prayed to God and to Jesus and to the Blessed Virgin to let me have the strength to do it again and again, if I had to, in the name of justice and the church."

We were coming down into Hollywood. I pulled over to the curb at Crescent Heights and Sunset. I stared at Dudley's florid, demonic face. He stared back.

"And, lad?" he said, mimicking my tone.

"And what, Dudley?" I managed to get out, my voice steady.

"And do you think Dudley's a lunatic, lad?"

"No, I think you're a master actor."

"Ha-ha-ha! Well said. Is 'actor' a euphemism for 'madman,' lad?"

"No, I just think sometimes you're not sure what role you're playing."

Tiny brown predator eyes bored into me. "Lad, all my roles are in the name of justice and all my roles are me. Don't you forget that."

"Sure, Dudley."

"And, lad, don't think I don't know you. Don't think I don't know how smart you think you are. Don't think I didn't notice how you relished giving me guff in front of Brubaker. Don't think I don't know what a son of a bitch you think I am. Ha-ha-ha! Enough sorrow and contention, lad. Drive me downtown and take the rest of the day off."

I dropped Dudley downtown in front of Central Division headquarters on Los Angeles Street. He stuck his big hand out and we shook. "Tomorrow, lad. Eight A.M. at the hotel. We'll go over our evidence and decide when we'll snatch handsome Eddie."

"Right, Dudley."

He squeezed my hand until I rewarded him with a wince, then he winked and left me to contemplate madness and salvation.

I had over four hours to kill before my date with Lorna. I drove home and wrote out a detailed report on my involvement in the Margaret Cadwallader case. I put it in a large manila envelope and sealed it shut. I fed Night Train, changed clothes, and shaved again.

On my way downtown I stopped at a florist's shop, where I bought Lorna a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Somehow they made me think of the dead girl whose eternal sleep Dudley Smith had so viciously interrupted. I started to get a little scared, but the thought of Lorna kiboshed my fear and turned it into some strange symbiosis of hope and the odd amenities of justice.

I waited impatiently, red roses in hand, outside the Spring Street entrance to city hall until six-thirty.

Lorna was standing me up. I jogged over to the parking lot on Temple. Her car was in its space. Angry, I walked back to city hall and entered. I checked out the directory in the vestibule: the office of the district attorney occupied two whole floors. Nervously, I took the elevator, although I wanted to run the nine flights of stairs. I walked down the deserted ninth floor corridors, poking my head in open doorways, checking empty conference rooms. I even ducked my head into the ladies' can. Nothing.

I heard the clack-clacking of a typewriter in the distance. I walked down the hallway to a glass door with "Grand Jury Investigations" lettered on it in flat black paint. I knocked softly.

"Who is it?" Lorna's voice called testily.

I disguised my voice: "Telegram, ma'am."

"Shit," I heard her mutter. "It's open."

I pushed in the door. Lorna looked up from her typewriter, noticed me and jumped toward the door in an attempt to block my entrance. I sidestepped her, and she crashed to the floor.

"Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, God!" she said, pushing herself up into a sitting position against the wall. "What the hell are you doing with me?"

"Stalking your heart," I said, tossing the roses onto her desk. "Here, let me help you up."

I squatted down and grabbed Lorna under her arms and gently lifted her to her feet. She made feeble motions toward pushing me away, but her heart wasn't in it. I embraced her tightly and she didn't resist.

"We had a date, remember?" I whispered into her soft brown hair.

"I remember."

"Are you ready to go?"

"I don't think so."

"I told you last night, don't think."

Lorna disengaged herself. "Don't patronize me, Underhill," she hissed. "I don't know what you want, but I know you underestimate me. I've been around. I'm thirty-one years old. I've tried promiscuity and I've tried true love, and they're like my dead leg: they don't work. I don't need a charity lover. I don't need a deformity-lover. I don't need compassion—and above all, I don't need a cop."

"But you need me."

"No, I don't!" She raised her hand to slap me.

"Do it, counselor," I said. "Then I'll file on you for a 647-F, assault on a police officer. You'll have to investigate it yourself and then be in the incongruous position of being defendant, investigator, and defense attorney all at once. So go ahead."

Lorna lowered her hand and started to laugh.

"Good," I said. "I drop all charges and grant parole."

"In whose custody?"

"In mine."

"Under what conditions?"

"For starters, that you accept my flowers and have dinner with me tonight."

"And then?"

"That will depend on your probation reports."

Lorna laughed again. "Will I get time off for good behavior?"

"No," I said, "I think it's going to be a life sentence."

"You're out of your bailiwick, Officer, as you once said to me."

"I'm above the law, counselor, as you once said to me."

"Touché, Freddy."

"A standstill, Lorna. Dinner?"

"All right. The flowers are lovely. Let me put them in water, then we can go."

We headed for the beach and the Malibu Rendezvous, a classy seaside eatery I had catalogued in my mind since the "old days" when I dreamed of the "ultimate" woman. Now, years later, I was driving there, an adult, a policeman, with a crippled Jewish attorney sitting beside me blowing smoke rings and casting furtive glances at me as I drove.

"What are you thinking?" I asked.

"You told me not to think, remember?"

"I retract it."

"All right. I was thinking that you're too good looking. It's disarming and it probably makes people underestimate you. There's a side to you that could take advantage of that underestimation very easily."

"That's very perceptive. What else were you thinking?"

"That you're too good to be a cop. No—don't interrupt, I didn't mean it quite that way; I'm glad you're a cop. Eddie Engels would be free to kill with impunity if you weren't. It's just that you could be anything you want, literally. I was also thinking that I don't want to be fawned over in a fancy restaurant; I don't want to go clumping through there getting a lot of pitying looks."

"Then why don't we eat on the beach? I'll have the restaurant fix us up with a picnic basket and a bottle of wine."

Lorna smiled and blew a smoke ring at me, then tossed her cigarette out the window. "That's a good idea," she said.

I parked in the blacktopped area adjoining the restaurant, about a hundred yards away from the beach. Lorna waited in the car while I went to fetch our feast. I ordered three orders of cracked crab and a bottle of chablis. The waiter was hesitant about boxing an order "to go," but changed his tune when I whipped a five-spot on him, even popping the cork on the wine bottle and throwing in two glasses.

Lorna was standing outside the car, smoking, when I returned. When she saw me she stared up at the warm summer sky and pointed her cane heavenward. I looked up, too, and committed the twilight sky and a low-hanging cloud formation to memory.

There was a flight of rickety wooden steps leading down to the sand. I carried our picnic and Lorna limped by my side. The stairs were barely wide enough for the two of us, so I threw an arm around Lorna and she huddled into my chest and hopped on her good leg all the way down, laughing, out of breath when we reached the bottom.

We found a nice spot to sit on a rise. The sun was a departing orange ball, and it lovingly caught strands of Lorna's light brown hair and burnished them into gold.

We sat on the sand, and I laid out our food on top of the brown paper bag it had come in. Not standing on ceremony, we polished off all three crustaceans in short order without saying a word. The sun had gone down while we ate, but the light from the big picture window of the restaurant cast an amber glow that allowed us a muted view of each other.

Lorna lit a cigarette as I poured us each a glass of wine. "To September 2, 1951," I said.

"And to beginnings." Lorna smiled and we clinked glasses. I didn't quite know what to say. Lorna did. "Who are you?" she asked.

I gulped my wine and felt it go to my head almost immediately. "I'm Frederick Upton Underhill," I said. "I'm twenty-seven years old, I'm an orphan, a college graduate and a cop. I know that. And I know that you've caught me at the most exciting time of my life."

"Caught you?" Lorna laughed.

"No, more correctly, I caught you."

"You haven't caught me."

"Yet."

"You probably never will."

"'Probably' is an equivocation, Lorna."

"Look, Freddy, you don't know me."

"Yet."

"All right, yet."

"But in a sense, I do. I went over to your dad's house last winter. I saw some photographs of you. I talked to Siddell about you, and she told me about the accident and your mother's death, and I felt I knew you then, and I still feel it."

Lorna's eyes glittered with anger and she spoke very coldly: "You had no right to pry into my life. And if you pity me, I will never see you again. I will walk up to that restaurant and call a cab and ride out of your life. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," I said. "I understand. I understand that I don't know what pity is, never having felt it for myself. I pity some of the people I meet on the job, but that's easy; I know I'm never going to see them again. No, for what it's worth I don't give a damn if you've got a bad leg, or two, or three. When I met you in February I knew, and I still know."

"Know what?"

"Don't make me say it, Lorna. It's too early."

"All right. Will you hold me for a while, please?"

I moved to Lorna and we embraced clumsily. She held me around the small of my back and nuzzled her head into my chest. I rested my hand on the knee of her bad leg until she took it and cupped it to her breast, holding it tightly there. We stayed that way for some time, until Lorna said in a very small voice, "Will you drive me back to my car, please?"

An hour later we were embracing again, this time standing in the parking lot on Temple Street. We kissed, alternately soft and hard. A patrol car cruised by, shined its light on us and departed, the cop shaking his head. Lorna and I laughed.

"Do you know him?" she asked.

"No, but I know you."

"All right, you know me, and I'm starting to know you."

"Dinner tomorrow night?" I asked.

"Yes, Fred. Only I don't want to go out, I want to cook for you myself."

"That sounds wonderful."

"My address is 8987 Charleville, in Beverly Hills. Can you remember that?"

"Yes. What time?"

"Seven-thirty?"

"I'll be there. Now kiss me so I can let you go."

We kissed again, this time quickly.

"No protracted farewells," Lorna muttered as she broke from my arms and limped over to her car.

11

We assembled at the Havana Hotel at 8:00 A.M., Wednesday, September 3. Dudley Smith was stern-faced and businesslike as he called for our reports and our conclusions.

Dudley reported first, telling of our questioning of Lawrence Brubaker and Janet Valupeyk. He volunteered his information on the three unsolved strangulation homicides in the West L.A-Venice area, with special emphasis on the woman fround in the alley near the Venice canals in March of '48.

Breuning and Carlisle whistled in awe at these new offshoots of the case. Mike raised his hand and interjected, "Dud, Dick's got absolutely nothing to tie our boy to the Leona Jensen homicide. I've got a pal on the Venice dicks who could give me access to their files. If Engels was living two blocks away at the time of the killing, there could well be something in their files that points to him."

Dudley shook his head patiently. "Mike, lad, we have this fiend cold for the Cadwallader snuff. Cold, lad. I'm thinking now that the Jensen killing was unrelated. Freddy, you discovered the stiff, what do you think?"

"I don't know, Dudley," I said, measuring my words carefully. "Of course, if I hadn't discovered those matches at the death scene we wouldn't be here today. But I'm beginning to think it was just an incredible coincidence, and that Engels didn't snuff Leona Jensen. Engels is a strangler, and although the Jensen woman was strangled, she was also stabbed all over. I've got a picture of Engels as a very competent, fastidious homosexual. Someone who hates women, but abhors blood. I agree with Dudley—forget the Jensen killing; it's the wrong MO."

Dudley laughed. "There's a college boy for you—brains all the way. Mike, you've been tailing handsome Eddie. What have you got?"

Stolid Mike Breuning cleared his throat and gave Dudley Smith a toadying look. "Skipper, I agree with Underhill. Engels is too immaculate. But he's been chasing skirts and taking home a different tomato every night for three nights running. I've been hiding out in the carport next to his bungalow listening for signs of violence. No such luck. The dames all left in the morning, without a mark on them. I tailed all three of them back to their cars. Engels gives them cab fare to get back to their cars, which were all parked next to cocktail bars. I tailed them all to juke joints in Hollywood. I got the license numbers of the cars the dames got into, in case we need them as witnesses."

"Fine work, Mike," Dudley said, reaching over from his straightbacked chair to give Breuning a fatherly pat on the shoulder. "Dick, lad, what have you to say?"

The cold-eyed, bespectacled Carlisle said resolutely, "All I know is that Engels is a cold-blooded killer and a smart son of a bitch. I say we grab him before he gets smart and knocks off another dame."

Dudley surveyed all of us in the tiny hotel room. "I think we all concur on that, don't you, men?" he said. We all nodded. "Are there any questions then, lads?"

"When do we file our reports with the D.A.?" I asked.

Breuning and Carlisle laughed.

"When Eddie Engels confesses, lad," Dudley said.

"What jail are we booking him into, then?"

Dudley looked to his more experienced underlings for support. They looked at me and shook their heads, then looked back to Dudley in awe.

"Lad, there will be no official police sanctions or paperwork until Eddie Engels confesses. Tomorrow morning at five-forty-five A.M., we will rendezvous in front of handsome Eddie's courtyard. I will drive my car. Mike, you will pick up Dick and Freddy. Mike and Dick, you will carry shotguns. Freddy, bring your service revolver. At five minutes of six we will kick in Eddie's door. We will subdue him, and put the fear of God into any colleen or homo who might be sharing his bed, then send them on their way. I have an interrogation place set up, an abandoned motel in Gardena. Freddy, Dick, Engels, and I will travel in my car. Mike will follow in his. This is apt to be a long interrogation, lads, so spend some time with your loved ones tonight and tell them you may not be seeing them for a while. Now, stand up, lads."

We did, in a little semicircle.

"Now all put your hands on top of mine."

We did.

"Now, lads, say a little silent prayer for our clandestine operation."

Breuning and Carlisle closed their eyes reverently. I did, too, for a brief moment. When I opened them I saw Dudley staring straight ahead past all of us to some distant termination point.

"Amen," he said finally, and winked at me.

Lorna's apartment was a block south of Wilshire near the Beverly Hills business district, and it was a perfect testament to her pride and competence; a neat, one-bedroom affair with subdued, expensive furnishings that reflected the things she held close—a sense of order and propriety, and a nonhysterical concern for the great unwashed. The place was a clearinghouse for her professional interests: the shelves were crammed with law texts and volumes and volumes of statute books for both California and the rest of the nation. There was a big cherry-wood desk placed diagonally into the corner of the living room that held her giant dictionary as well as scores of official-looking papers separated neatly into four piles.

The apartment was also a clearinghouse for wonder, and I tingled with pride as Lorna took me on a guided tour and gave me rundowns on the wonder-filled framed prints that hung on her walls. There was a Hieronymus Bosch painting that represented insanity—hysterical grotesque creatures in an undersea environment importuning God—or someone—for release from their madness. There was a Van Gogh job that featured flowery fields juxtaposed against brown grass and a somber sky. There was Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks"—three lonely people sitting in an all-night diner, not talking. It was awesome and filled with lonely wonder.

I took Lorna's hand and kissed it. "You know the wonder, Lorna," I said.

"What's the wonder?"

"I don't know, just the wonderful elliptical, mysterious stuff that we're never going to know completely."

Lorna nodded. She knew. "And that's why you're a cop?"

"Exactly."

"But I want justice. The wonder is for artists and writers and other creative people. Their vision gives us the compassion to face our own lives and treat other people decently, because we know how imperfect the world is. But I want justice. I want specifics. I want to be able to look at the people I send to court and say, 'He's guilty, let the will of the people reflect that guilt' or 'He's guilty with mitigating circumstances, let the will of the people reflect the mercy I recommend' or 'He's innocent, no grand jury trial for him.' I want to be able to see the results, not wonder."

We moved to a large, floral-print couch and sat down. Lorna stroked my hair tentatively. "Do you understand, Fred?"

"Yes, I do. Especially now. I want justice for Eddie Engels. He'll get it. But the grand jury system is predicated on people, and people are imperfect and wonder-driven; so justice is no kind of absolute—it's subservient to wonder."

"Which is why I work so hard. Nothing is perfect, even the law."

"Yeah, I know." I paused and fished in my coat pocket for a large manila envelope. "We're arresting Eddie Engels tomorrow, Lorna." I handed her the sealed envelope. "This is my report as the arresting officer."

She looked into my eyes and squeezed my hand. "You look worried," she said.

"I'm not, really. But I need a favor."

"What?"

"Don't open that envelope until I call you. Just forget about this case until I call you. And when Dudley Smith files with you, know this: my report is the truth. If there are discrepancies, see me. We'll build the case for the grand jury. All right?"

Lorna hesitated. "All right. You're putting yourself out on a big limb, Freddy."

"I know."

"And you want Engels more for your career than for justice."

"Yes." I said it almost apologetically.

"I don't care. I care about you, and Engels is guilty. You see to your career and I'll see to justice and we'll both get what we want."

I laughed nervously at the imperfect logic of it. Lorna took my hand. "And you're afraid of Dudley Smith."

"He's out of his mind. He's got no business being a policeman."

"Ha! The imperfection, the wonder, remember?"

"Touché, Lorna."

"Where are you booking Engels?"

Lorna saw my face cloud over. "I don't know," I said.

We stared at each other, and I knew she knew. Her whole body stiffened and she painfully hoisted herself to her feet and said, "I'll get dinner started."

Lorna hopped the ten or so steps to the kitchen without her cane. I stayed on the couch. I heard the refrigerator door open and shut and the clatter of cooking utensils being pulled out of cupboards. There was a nervous silence, and when I couldn't take it any longer I went into the kitchen, where Lorna stood leaning against the sink, distractedly fingering a saucepan. I wrenched it out of her hands. She resisted, but I was stronger. I hurled it against the wall where it clattered and fell to the floor. Lorna threw herself at me in a fierce embrace. She pummeled my shoulders with her fists and moaned deeply. I pried her chin from my chest and kissed her, lifting her off her feet. She started to resist, banging my shoulders even harder, but then thought better of it and stopped. I carried her into the bedroom.

Afterward, after the coupling, sated and aware of a new beginning, I started to search for words to make the future right, to make it multiply endlessly on this moment. "About Eddie En—" was all I got out before Lorna pressed gentle fingertips to my mouth to stop me.

"It's all right, Fred. It's all right."

We held each other, and I played with Lorna's big, soft breasts. She held me there, wanting to play mother, but I had other ideas. I kissed my way down her stomach toward the scar tissue that covered her pelvis. Lorna pulled away from me. "No, not there," she said, "next you'll be telling me how you love me for it, and how you love my bad leg. Please, Freddy, not that."

"I just want to see it, sweetheart."

"Why?!"

"Because it's part of you."

Lorna twisted in the darkness. "That's easy for you to say, because you're perfect. When I was a girl, all the boys who wanted to play with my big tits tried to get at them through my leg. It was very ugly. My leg is ugly and my stomach is ugly and I've got no uterus, so I can't have children."

"And?"

"And I used to cover my stomach with a towel when I slept with men so they couldn't touch me there. If there was a way I could have covered my leg I would have done that, too." Lorna started to cry. I kissed away her tears and bit at her neck until she started to laugh.

"Is it Freddy and Lorna now?" I whispered.

"If you want it to be," Lorna said.

"I do."

I got up from the bed and went into the living room. I found the phone and called Mike Breuning at his home. I told him not to pick me up in the morning, that I would meet everyone on Sunset and Horn at the specified time. He gave me an "Oh, you kid" chuckle and hung up.

I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I found a bag of ice in the freezer compartment and extracted a half-dozen cubes. I walked back to the bedroom. Lorna was lying on her stomach, very still. I approached the bed and dropped the ice cubes onto her shoulders. Lorna shrieked and threw herself backwards.

I leaped onto her, burying my head in the dead flesh of her abdomen. "I love you," I said. "I love you, Lorna, I love you, I love you."

Lorna squirmed and twisted to extricate herself. Her dead leg flopped uselessly in her efforts. I grabbed it and encircled it tightly with both my arms. "I love you, Lorna. I love you, Lorna. I love you. I love you."

Gradually, Lorna relinquished her fight and began to sob softly. "Oh, Freddy. Oh, Freddy. Oh, Freddy." Then she pressed both her hands to the back of my head and held me strongly to that part of herself she hated so terribly.

* * *

Morning and dark reality came too quickly.

Lorna had dozed off, nuzzled into my shoulder, but I had remained awake, savoring the feel of her next to me, but unable to stop thinking of Eddie Engels and Dudley Smith and shotguns and justice and my career in the new light of the woman I loved.

At four-thirty by the luminous dial of Lorna's bedside alarm clock I gently slid out of her embrace, kissed her neck and went into the living room to dress.

When I put on my shoulder holster and fingered my leather encased .38 service revolver I went chilly all over. Justice, I kept thinking as I drove up to the Sunset Strip, justice. Justice, not wonder. Not this time.

I barely had time to get coffee before meeting the others at Sunset and Horn.

Mike Breuning was already there, parked directly in front of the entranceway to Engels's courtyard. He waved at me as I parked across the street. I walked over and we shook hands through the driver's side window. Mike's badge was pinned to the lapel of his coat, and there was a pump shotgun beside him on the seat.

"Morning, Fred," he said, "nice day for it."

"Yeah. Where are Dudley and Dick?"

"They're taking a walk around the block. Engels is alone; Dick tailed him all night. I'm glad for that."

"So am I."

"Are you a little nervous?"

"Maybe a little."

"Well, don't be. Dudley has this thing all worked out." Breuning craned his head out the window. "Here they come now," he said. "Pin your badge to your coat."

I did, as Dudley Smith and Dick Carlisle crossed the street in our direction.

"Freddy, lad," Dudley hailed. "Top of the morning!"

"Good morning, skipper, good morning, Dick," I said.

"Underhill," Carlisle said, blank-faced.

"Well, lad, are you ready?"

"Yes."

"All right, then. Grand. Mike?"

"Ready, Dudley."

"Dick?"

"Ready, boss."

Dudley reached into the backseat of Breuning's car and handed Carlisle a double-barreled 12-gauge. Mike squeezed out his passenger door holding the Ithaca pump. I unholstered my service revolver and Dudley pulled out a .45 automatic from his waistband.

"Now, gentlemen," he said.

We walked rapidly into the courtyard, our weapons pointing to the ground. My heart was beating very fast and I kept stealing sidelong glances at Dudley. His tiny brown eyes were glazed over with something that went far beyond acting. This was the real Dudley Smith.

As we came to Engels's front door I whispered to him, "Let me go in first. I've been here before; I know where the bedroom is."

Dudley nodded assent and motioned Breuning and me to the front. "Kick it in," he hissed.

Mike raised his shotgun to chest level and I held my .38 above my head as we raised right feet in unison and simultaneously kicked the smooth surface. The lock gave way and the door burst inward. I ran straight for the bedroom, my gun in front of me, Smith, Breuning and Carlisle close behind. The bedroom door was open, and in the darkness I could glimpse a shape on the bed.

I flicked on the overhead light, and just as Eddie Engels stirred to life I placed the muzzle of my gun at his temple and whispered, "Police officers! Don't make a move or you're dead."

Engels, his eyes wide with terror, started to scream. Dick Carlisle jumped from behind me onto the bed and twisted his head into his pillow and started to strangle him with it. Breuning was right behind, stripping off the blue silk sheets and yanking Engels's hands behind his back.

"Goddamnit, Freddy, think! Sit on his legs!" Dudley shouted.

I threw myself onto the twisting form and put all my weight on the lower half of Engels's body as Mike managed to apply his handcuffs. Carlisle was still twisting the pillow-encased head of Eddie Engels.

"Stop it, Dick," Dudley screamed, "or you'll kill him!"

Carlisle let go and Engels went inert. We all got off the bed and looked at one another in shock. Dudley had gone red-faced in anger. He bent over and ripped open Engels's purple silk pajama top, placed an ear to his chest and started to laugh. "Ha-ha-ha! He's still alive, lads, thanks to old Dudley. He'll be all right. Let's get him the hell out of here. Now."

Carlisle lifted Engels up, and I slung him over my shoulder. He didn't seem to weigh much. I carried him through the dark apartment and out the door, my three colleagues forming a cordon around me. Covering our tracks, we carefully shut the door behind us. I ran toward my car, the unconscious killer bumping up and down on my back. My heart was beating faster than a trip-hammer and my eyes kept darting in all directions, looking for witnesses to the kidnapping. Dudley threw open the car door and I tossed Engels in a heap into the backseat. He came awake with a stifled scream and Dudley slammed him in the jaw with the butt end of his .45

"Get in back with him, lad," he whispered. I did, pushing Engels headfirst onto the floorboards. Dick Carlisle got in the driver's seat and hit the ignition. Dudley got in the passenger side and said very calmly: "You know where to go, Dick. Freddy, keep handsome Eddie out of sight. Lift his head up so he can breathe. Ahhh, yes. Grand." He reached an arm out the window and gave Mike Breuning the thumbs-up sign. "Gardena, lads," he said.

We took surface streets to the Hollywood Freeway. Mike was right behind us all the way. Dudley and Carlisle talked nonchalantly of major league baseball. I stared at the bloody swollen face of Eddie Engels and inexplicably thought of Lorna.

We took the Hollywood Freeway to Vermont, and Vermont south. As we passed the U.S.C. campus, Engels started to regain consciousness, his lips blubbering in mute terror. I placed a finger to them. "Ssshhh," I said.

We stayed that way, Engels pleading with his eyes, until Dudley craned his head around and said, "How's our friend, lad?"

"He's still unconscious."

"Ahhh, yes. Grand. We'll be there in a few minutes. It's a safe place, deserted. But I don't want to take any chances. When Dick pulls over, you wake Eddie up. Put your badge back in your pocket. Keep your gun out of sight. We're going to walk him in like he's a drunken pal of ours. You got the picture, lad?"

"I've got it."

"Grand."

Eddie Engels and I stared at each other. Some minutes passed. We threaded our way in and around the early morning traffic. When Dick Carlisle stopped the car completely I pretended to wake up Engels. He understood, and played along. "Wake up, Engels," I said. "We're police officers and we aren't going to hurt you. We just want to ask you some questions. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes," Engels said, breathing shallowly.

"Good. Now I'll help you out of the car. You're going to be weak, so hang on to me. Okay?"

"O-okay."

Carlisle and Smith threw open the doors of the car. I pulled Engels into a sitting position on the backseat. I removed his handcuffs and he rubbed his wrists, which had gone almost blue, and started to sob.

"Quiet now," Dudley whispered to him. "We'll have none of that, you understand?"

Engels caught the maniacal look in the big Irishman's face and understood immediately. He looked at me imploringly. I smiled sympathetically, and felt vague power stirrings: if justice was the imperative, and good guy-bad guy was the method of interrogation, then we were already well on our way.

Mike Breuning pulled up in back of us and tooted his horn. I took my eyes off Engels and checked out the surroundings. We were parked in a garbage-strewn alley in back of what looked like a disused auto court.

"Freddy," Dudley said, "you go with Mike and open up the room. Make sure no one's around."

"Right, skipper."

I got out of the car, stretching my cramped legs. Mike Breuning clapped me on the back. He was almost feverish in his excitement and praise of Dudley: "I told you old Dud thought of everything, didn't I? Look at this place," he said, leading me in through a narrow walkway to a one-story L-shaped collection of tiny connected motel rooms, all painted a faded puke green. "This is great, isn't it? The place went under during the war, and the guy who owns it won't sell. He's waiting for the value to go up. It's perfect."

It was perfect. Chills briefly overtook me. A perfect impressionist representation of hell: the L-shaped wings fronted by dead brown grass covered with empty short-dog bottles and condom wrappers. "Keep Out" signs painted over with obscenities posted every six feet. Dog shit everywhere. A dead, towering palm tree standing sentry, keeping the parking lot of an aircraft plant across the street at bay.

"Yeah, it's perfect," I said to Mike. "Does it have a name?"

"The Victory Motel. You like it?"

"It does have a ring to it."

Mike pointed me toward room number 6. He unlocked the door, and a large rat scurried out. "Here we are," he said.

I surveyed our place of interrogation: a small, perfectly square, putrid-smelling room with a rusted bedstead holding a filthy mattress on bare springs. A desk and two chairs. A cheap oil painting of a clown, unframed, above the bed. A magazine photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt pinned to a doorway leading into a bathroom where the bathtub and fixtures were covered with rodent droppings. Someone had drawn a Hitler mustache on F.D.R. Mike Breuning pointed to it and giggled.

"Go get our suspect, will you, Mike?" I said. I wanted to be alone, if only for a moment, if only in a hovel like this.

Dudley, Breuning, and Carlisle entered the tiny room a minute later, propelling our pajama-clad suspect in front of them. Carlisle threw Engels down on the bed and handcuffed his hands in front of him. He was trembling and starting to sweat, but I thought I noted the slightest trace of indignation come into his manner as he squirmed to find a comfortable posture on the urine-stained mattress.

He looked up at his four captors hovering over him and said, "I want to call a lawyer."

"That's an admission of guilt, Engels," Carlisle said. "You haven't been charged with anything yet, so don't fret about a shyster until we book you."

"If we book him," I interjected, assuming my role of "good guy" without being told.

"That's right," Mike Breuning said. "Maybe the guy ain't guilty."

"Guilty of what?" Eddie Engels cried out, his voice almost breaking. "I haven't done a goddamned thing!"

"Hush now, son," Dudley said in a fatherly tone. "Just hush. We're here to see to justice. You tell the truth and you'll serve justice—and yourself. You've got nothing to fear, so just hush."

Dudley's softly modulated brogue seemed to have a calming effect on Engels. His whole body seemed to slump in acceptance. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress. "Can I smoke?" he asked.

"Sure," Dudley said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a handcuff key. "Freddy, unlock Mr. Engels, will you?"

"Sure, Dud."

I unlocked the bracelets, and Engels smiled at me gratefully. Playing my unassigned role, I smiled back. Dudley tossed him a pack of Chesterfields and a book of matches. Engels's hands shook too badly to get a light going, so I lit his cigarette for him, smiling as I did it. He wolfed in the smoke and smiled back at me.

"Dick, Freddy," Dudley said, "I want you lads to make the run to the liquor store. Eddie, lad, what's your poison?"

Engels looked bewildered. "You mean booze? I'm not much of a drinker."

"Are you not, lad? Barhopper like yourself?"

"I don't mind gin and Coke once in a while."

"Ahhh, grand. Freddy, Dick, you heard the man's order. Hop to it; there's a liquor store down the street."

When we were outside, Carlisle outlined the plan for me. "Dudley says the key word is 'circuitous.' He says it means 'roundabout.' First off we're going to get Engels drunk, get him to talk openly about himself. You're supposed to be with the feds, which means you're an attorney. You and Dudley are going to good guy-bad guy the shit out of him. We'll keep him up all night, stretch him thin. We've got the room next door all cleaned up. We can take naps there. And don't worry: Dudley's got pals on the Gardena force—they'll leave us alone."

I smiled, again warming to Dudley Smith as a pragmatic wonder broker. "What are you and Mike going to do?"

"Mike's going to take it all down in shorthand, then edit it after Engels confesses. He's a whiz. I'm going to play bad guy along with Dudley."

"What if he doesn't confess?"

"He'll confess," Carlisle said, taking off his glasses and polishing them with his necktie.

When we returned from the liquor store with a quart of cheap gin, three bottles of Coke, and a dozen paper cups, Dudley was regaling Eddie Engels with stories of his life in Ireland around the time of World War I, and Mike Breuning was in the room next door, making sandwiches and brewing coffee.

Mike came into the interrogation room bearing a half-dozen stenographic pads and a fat handful of sharp pencils. He pulled up a chair next to the bed and smiled at Engels. Engels's eyes went back and forth from Mike's affable blond face to his .38 in its shoulder holster. Eddie was putting up a brave front, but he was scared. And curious about how much we knew, of that I was sure. He had killed at least one woman, but was obviously involved in so much illegal activity that he didn't know why we had busted him. But he didn't act like a trapped killer—there was an effete arrogance that cut through even his fear. He had sailed on his good looks and charm for some thirty years and obviously considered himself a naturally superior being. His self-sufficient masquerade was about to end, and I wondered if he knew.

Dudley got the proceedings started, banging his huge hands on the little wooden table that held Mike's stenographic pads.

"Mr. Engels," he said, "you are probably wondering exactly who we are, and why we brought you here." He paused and poured gin and Coca-Cola, mixed half and half, into a paper cup and handed it to Engels, who took it and sipped dutifully, dark intelligent eyes glancing around at the four of us.

Dudley cleared his throat and continued. "Let me introduce my colleagues," he said, "Mr. Carlisle, Los Angeles Police Department; Mr. Breuning, of the district attorney's office; I am Lieutenant Dudley Smith of the L.A.P.D.; and this gentleman"—he paused and inclined his head toward me—"is Inspector Underhill of the F.B.I." I almost laughed at my big new promotion, but kept a straight face. "If you have any legal questions, you ask the inspector. He's an attorney, he'll be glad to answer them."

I butted in, somehow wanting to calm Engels before the onslaught of brutality I knew would be coming. "Mr. Engels, you may not know it, but you are acquainted with some people who exist on the edges of the L.A. crime world. We want to question you about these people. Our methods are roundabout, but they work. Just answer our questions and I assure you everything will be all right."

It was a well-informed, ambiguous stab in the dark, and it hit home. Engels believed me. His features relaxed and he gulped the rest of his drink in relief. Dudley poured him another immediately, this one a good two-thirds gin.

Eddie took two healthy slugs of it and when he spoke, his voice had gone down considerably, almost to the baritone range. "What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Tell us about yourself, lad," Dudley said.

"What about me?"

"Your life, lad, past and present."

"Exactly what do you mean, Lieutenant?"

"I mean everything, lad."

Engels seemed to consider this. He seemed to draw into his memory, and guzzled his gin and Coke to speed his thought processes.

I looked at my watch. It was 7:00 and already getting hot in the sordid little room. I took off my suit coat and rolled up my shirtsleeves. I felt tired, having gone more than twenty-four hours without sleep. Almost as if in answer, Mike Breuning switched on a portable fan and handed me a cup of lukewarm coffee. Dudley poured Engels a cupful of pure gin.

"Your life story, lad," he said. "We're all dying to hear it."

"Mom and Dad were good people," Eddie began, his voice taking on the stentorian tone of one explaining profound intrinsic truth. "They still are, I guess. I'm from Seattle. Mom and Dad were born in Germany. They came here before the First World War. They—"

"Were you a happy youngster, Eddie?" Dudley interrupted.

Engels sipped his gin, wincing slightly at the full-strength bitterness. "Sure, sure, I was a happy kid. A good sport. An ace gent. I had a dog, I had a treehouse, I had a bike. Dad was a good guy. He never hit me. He was a pharmacist. He never sent Ma or me to the doctor. He fixed us up with this stuff from the pharmacy. Sometimes it had dope in it. Once Ma took some and had these religious hallucinations. She said she saw Jesus walking Miffy—that's another dog we had who got run over. She said Miffy could talk and wanted her to become a Catholic and work at this pet cemetery outside of town. Dad never gave Ma any more of the stuff after that; he hated Catholics. Dad was an ace guy with me but he was tough as nails with my sister, Lillian. He wouldn't let her date guys, he was always prowling around this flower shop where she worked to make sure no mashers were trying to date her. Dad was an old-fashioned Kraut. He hated guys who chased tail. He didn't want me to chase tail, he wanted me to marry some Kraut bimbo and go to pharmacist school."

Engels paused and downed the rest of his gin. His body shook and I could see that he was getting drunk, smiling crookedly, his face glazing over with sentiment. Dudley refilled his cup.

"But you wanted to chase tail, right, Eddie?" I said.

Engels laughed and guzzled gin. "Right," he slurred, "and I wanted out of that fucking dead-dog town, Seattle. Nothing but rain and dead dogs and pharmacies and ugly tail. U-u-u-gly! Woo! I had the best tail Seattle had to offer and it was worse than the lowest piece of Hollywood ass. U-u-ugly!"

"So you moved to L.A.?" Mike interjected.

"Fuck, no! The fucking Japs bombed Pearl Harbor and I got drafted. The navy. Dad said I looked like Donald Duck in my uniform. I said he looked like Mickey Mouse in that smock he wore at the pharmacy. He didn't want me to go. He tried to fix it so I could stay in Seattle. He tried to hand the appeals board this hardship caper, but it didn't work. But Dad got poetic justice. They made me a pharmacist's mate. He called me Doctor Duck."

Eddie Engels doubled over with laughter on the mattress, then jolted up and vomited on the floor, his head between his knees, his hands hanging limply by his sides. He had knocked over his glass of gin, and when he looked up he banged a drunken hand all over the mattress looking for it. He found the glass on the floor in a pool of vomit, picked it up and waved it at Dudley.

"Gimme a refill, Lieutenant. Pharmacist's Mate Engels, 416-8395 requests a fucking drink on the double!"

Dudley gladly obliged him, this time filling the glass half-full. Engels grabbed it and bolted the liquid, falling back onto the mattress and muttering, "Lotsa tail, lotsa tail," before he passed out.

Eddie Engels woke up some six hours later, panicked and dehydrated to the bone. His eyes were feverish and his voice tremulous and raspy.

Dudley had outlined his plan while Engels was passed out: good guy-bad guy, with modifications. He had gotten a list of known bookmakers, homosexuals, and fences from the dicks at Hollywood Division, figuring Engels would have to know some of them. Throwing these names at Eddie would keep him from guessing why he was really in custody. It sounded like a good, if time-consuming, plan. I had rested during the afternoon and was up for it. But I wanted it to be over, and fast: I wanted to be with Lorna.

As Engels came awake, Mike Breuning was just returning with two big paper bags stuffed with hamburgers, French fries, and coffee in paper cups. We dug in and ignored our prisoner on the mattress.

"I have to go to the bathroom," he said meekly. No one answered him. He tried again. "I have to go to the bathroom." We ignored him again. "I said I have to go to the bathroom!" This time his panicked voice intoned upward sharply.

"Then go to the bathroom, for Christ's sake!" Dudley bellowed.

Engels got up from his resting place and wobbled into the filthy lavatory. We could hear the sound of him vomiting into the toilet bowl, then running water and urinating. He came came back a moment later, having discarded his vomit-soaked pajama top. His lean, muscular torso had been given a quick washing. He shivered in the late afternoon heat of the smelly little room.

"I'm ready to answer your questions, officers," he said. "Please let me answer them so I can go home."

"Shut up, Engels," Dudley said. "We'll get to you when we're damn good and ready."

"Ease off, Lieutenant," I said. "Don't worry, Mr. Engels, we'll be right with you. Would you like a hamburger?" Engels shook his head and stared at us.

We finished our dinner. Dick Carlisle announced that he was going for a walk, and got up and left the room. Mike, Dudley, and I arranged three chairs around the mattress. Engels had backed himself up against the wall. He sat Indian-style, with his hands jammed under his knees to control their trembling. We took our seats facing him and stared at him for a long moment before Dudley spoke: "Your name?"

Our prisoner cleared his throat: "Edward Engels."

"Your address?"

"1911 Horn, West Hollywood."

"Your age?"

"Thirty-two."

"Your occupation?"

Engels hesitated. "Real estate liaison," he said.

"What the hell is a 'real estate liaison'?" Dudley barked. Engels groped for words. "Come on, man!" Dudley shouted.

"Ease off, Lieutenant," I said. "Mr. Engels, would you explain your duties in that capacity?"

"I . . . I . . . uh, help close real estate deals."

"Which entails?" I asked.

"Which entails fixing up buyers with real estate people."

"I see. Well, could you—"

Dudley cut in. "Horseshit, Inspector. This guy is a known gambler. I've got reports on him from bookies all over Hollywood. In fact, I've got several witnesses who say he's a bookie himself."

"That's not true," Engels cried. "I bet the ponies, but I don't book any action with bookies or make book myself, and I'm clean with the cops! I've got no criminal record!"

"The hell you say, Engels! I know better!"

I raised my hands and called for order. "That's enough! That's enough from both of you! Now, Mr. Engels, betting the horses is not illegal. Lieutenant Smith just got carried away because he hasn't picked any winners lately. Would you call yourself a winning gambler?"

"Yes, I'm a winner."

"Do you earn more at gambling than at your real estate job?"

Engels hesitated. "Yes," he said.

"Do you list these winnings on your income tax returns?" I asked.

"Uh . . . no."

"What did you file as your total income on this year's return?"

"I don't know."

"What about 1950?"

"I don't know."

"1949?"

"I don't know."

"1948?"

"I don't remember."

"1947?"

"I don't know!"

"1946?"

"I don't . . . I was in the navy then . . . I forget."

Dudley butted in: "You do pay income tax, don't you, Engels?"

Engels hung his head between his legs. "No," he said.

"You realize that income tax evasion is a federal crime, don't you, Engels?" Dudley continued, pressing.

"Yes."

"I pay income tax, so does the inspector, so do all good law-abiding citizens. What the hell makes you so special that you think you don't have to?"

"I don't know."

"Ease off, Lieutenant," I said. "Mr. Engels wants to cooperate. Mr. Engels, I'm going to name some people. Tell me of your association with them."

Engels nodded dumbly. Dudley handed me a carefully typed slip of paper broken down into three columns headed: "Gamblers," "Bookmakers," and "Hollywood Vice offenders." I started with the gamblers. Mike Breuning got out his steno pad and poised his pencil over it. Dudley lit a cigarette for himself and one for Engels, who accepted it gratefully.

"Okay, Mr. Engels, listen carefully: James Babij, Leslie 'Scribe' Thomas, James Gillis, Walter Snyder, Willard Dolphine. Any of those names sound familiar?"

Engels nodded confidently. "Those guys are high rollers, big spenders at Santa Anita. Entrepreneurs, you know what I mean?"

"Yes. Are you intimate with any of them?"

"What do you mean 'intimate'?" Engels narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"I mean have you gambled with any of these men? Have you entertained any of them in your home?"

"Oh, no. I just see those guys at the track, maybe they buy me a drink at the Turf Club, maybe I buy them one. That kind of thing."

"All right," I said, smiling and going to the list of the bookies. "William Curran, Louis Washington, 'Slick' Dellacroccio, 'Zoomer' Murphy, Frank Deffry, Gerald 'Smiler' Chamales, Bruno Earle, Duane 'The Brain' Tucker, Fred 'Fat Man' Vestal, Mark 'The Gimp' McGuire. Ring any bells, Mr. Engels?"

"Lotsa bells, Inspector. Those bimbos are all West L.A. handbooks. Cocktail lounge sharpies. Mark 'The Gimp' pimps nigger broads on the side. They're all small potatoes, strictly from nowhereville." Engels smiled at his captors cockily. He was starting to feel confident of our purpose. All three of us gave him a deadpan. It made him nervous. "Freddy Vestal pushes reefers, I heard talk," he blurted out.

I gave Engels a winning smile. "All right now, let's try these: Pat Morneau, 'Scooter' Coleman, Jack Foster, Lawrence Brubaker, Al Bay, Jim Waldleigh, Brett Caldwell, Jim Joslyn."

Engels went ashen-faced. He swallowed several times, and, recovering quickly, threw out a smile that was pure charm, pure bravado. "Don't know those guys, Inspector, sorry."

Dudley went on the attack, saying very softly, "Do you know who those men are, Engels?"

"No."

"Those men are known degenerates—pansies, sissies, nancy boys, queers, homos, faggots, pederasts, and punks. They all have long rap sheets with the vice squads of every police agency in L.A. County. They all frequent queer bars in West Hollywood. Places we know you frequent, Engels. Half of those men have identified you from photographs. Half—"

"What photographs?!" Engels screeched. "I'm clean! I ain't got a police record. This is all a lie! This is—"

I entered the fray: "Mr. Engels, just let me ask you once, for our official records: are you homosexual?"

"Fuck, no!" Eddie Engels practically screamed.

"All right. Thank you."

"Inspector," Dudley said calmly, "I don't buy it. We know for a fact that he's tight with this homo, Lawrence Brubaker. We know—"

"Larry Brubaker was an old navy buddy! We were stationed together at the Long Beach yard during the war!" Engels was sweating, his face and torso were popping sweat from every pore. I handed him a glass of water. He gulped it down in one second flat, then looked to me for support.

"I believe you," I said. "You used to live near his bar in Venice, right?"

"Right! With a woman. I was shacked with her. I tell you I dig women. Ask Janet, she'll tell you!"

"Janet?" I asked innocently.

"Janet Valupeyk. She's the dame I do the real estate gig with. She'll tell you. We shacked together for two years, she'll tell you."

"All right, Mr. Engels."

"Not all right, Inspector," Dudley said, his voice rising in pitch and timbre, "not all right at all. We have witnesses who place this degenerate at known queer bars like the Hub, the Black Cat, Sergio's Hideaway, the Silver Star, the Knight in Armor, and half the homo hangouts in the Valley."

"No, no, no!" Engels was shaking his head frantically in denial.

I raised my voice and glared sternly at Dudley. "This time you've gone too far, Lieutenant. You've been badly misinformed. The Silver Star isn't a homosexual hangout—I've been there myself, many times. It's just a congenial neighborhood cocktail lounge."

Engels grabbed at what he thought was a life raft. "That's right! I been there myself, lotsa times."

"To place bets?" I interjected.

"Hell no, to chase tail. I picked up lots of good stuff there." Unaware that he was hanging himself, Engels rambled on, squirming on the now sweat-drenched mattress. "I scored in half the juke joints in Hollywood. Queer, shit! Somebody's been feeding you guys the wrong dope! I'm a veteran. Larry Brubaker's queer, but I just used him, borrowed money from him. He didn't try no queer stuff with me! You ask Janet. You ask her!" Engels was addressing all his remarks to me now. It was obvious he considered me his savior. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dudley draw his finger across his throat.

"Mr. Engels," I said, "let's take a break for a while, shall we? Why don't you take a rest?"

Engels nodded. I went into the bathroom and wet a paper napkin in the sink. I tossed it to him and he swabbed his face and upper body with it.

"Rest, Eddie," I said, smiling down at the handsome killer.

He nodded again and hid his face in his hands.

"I'm going for a walk," I announced to Dudley and Mike Breuning. I grabbed a container of cold coffee and a cold hamburger and walked outside.

A Santa Ana wind had come up, and the shabby front lawn was littered with a fresh array of debris. Palm fronds had blown out onto the sidewalk. The wind had cleared all traces of smog from the air, and the twilight sky was a pure light blue tinged with the remnants of a pink sun.

I tried to eat my burger, but it was too greasy and cold, and my nervous stomach balked. I threw the sandwich to the ground and sipped my coffee, pondering the rituals of justice.

Dudley came out a minute later. "Our friend is asleep, lad," he said. "Mike slipped him a Mickey Finn. He'll wake up in about four hours or so with a devilish headache. Then I'll go to work on him."

"Where's Carlisle?"

"He's going through handsome Eddie's apartment. He should be back soon. How do you feel, lad?"

"Expectant. Anxious for it to be over."

"Soon, lad, soon. I'm going to have at that monster for a good long time. You stay out until I take off my necktie. Then you intervene. Meet force with force, lad, be it verbal or physical. Do you follow?"

"Yes."

"Ahhh, grand. You are a brilliant young policeman, Freddy. Do you know that?"

"Yes, I do."

"I've wanted a protégé like you for a long time, lad. Mike and Dick are good cops, but they've got no brains, no imagination. You have a spark, a brilliant one."

"I know."

"Then why do you look so glum?"

"I'm wondering how I'll like the detective bureau."

"You'll like it fine. It's the cream of the department. Now get some rest."

I went into the room adjoining the interrogation room and lay down on a saggy army cot that was a good half foot too short for me. I got up and walked to the bathroom. It was relatively clean; almost clean enough to use. I looked at myself in the cracked mirror above the sink. I needed a shave and hadn't thought to bring a razor.

I lay back down on my cot. Exhaustion grabbed me before I could remove my shoes or shoulder holster. I fought sleep for brief moments, managing to mutter, "Lorna, Lorna, Lorna" until sleep triumphed.

I awoke to someone jostling me. I bolted upright and went for my gun. Dick Carlisle materialized and pinned my arms. The light from the overhead bulb was glinting off his steel-rimmed spectacles.

I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and suddenly realized that I didn't like Carlisle. There was something sullen and animalistic about him. And he was plainly keyed up.

"Look at this," he said, digging into his coat pocket and pulling out Maggie Cadwallader's diamond brooch.

"Jesus!" I said. "Where the hell did you get that? Is it real?"

"Dudley says so. He knows a lot about this kind of stuff, and he says it's legit. I found it at Engels's apartment hidden away in a tie rack."

"Jesus," I said, feigning awe, my wheels turning. "Jesus. When I searched the Cadwallader dame's apartment, I found a little photograph of her. She was wearing a brooch just like this one!"

"Christ, Underhill! What did you do with it?"

"I lost it when I had the newspaper photo reprinted."

"Shit. I'll tell Dudley."

Carlisle disappeared through the door that connected the two rooms, and I busied myself throwing water on my face and combing my hair. When I entered the interrogation room Dick Carlisle was slapping Eddie Engels awake, and Dudley and Mike Breuning were huddled in conversation. Seeing me, Dudley waved me toward him.

"Freddy, you're sure you saw a brooch like this one in that photograph you found?" He held it up for me to see.

"I'm positive, Dud."

"Grand, another confirmation. You sit back, lad. Remember your cue."

Carlisle went back to rousing Engels. "Wake up, wake up, you goddamned degenerate!" he shouted, then gave up in frustration, and stripped his belt from his trousers and lashed it across Eddie's bare back.

Engels, coming out of his doped stupor, curled himself into a fetal ball, his arms covering his face. "No, don't hit me, you can have it. You can have it all, don't hit me!" he shrieked.

Carlisle shrieked back: "We want the truth, you homo! The truth!"

"I'm not a homo!"

"Prove it!" Carlisle flailed Engels again with his belt. The heavy brass buckle catch ripped shreds of flesh loose from his shoulder blades, and Eddie threw himself onto his back to protect himself.

Dudley wrenched the belt from Carlisle and wrapped it around his broad right fist. "Ask Janet!" Eddie pleaded.

"I did, lad. Shall I tell you what she said?"

Engels faltered. "Tell me," he whispered.

Dudley Smith moved to the bed, picked up Engels under his arms and threw him across the room. He landed in a wild tangle of arms and legs and screamed. I gasped at the feat of strength. Dudley walked to Engels and jerked him to his feet with his left hand, then slammed a leather-encased right hand into his stomach. Engels screamed again, and doubled over, still held erect by the hand Dudley had dug into his shoulder.

"Janet told me that you were a dirty, cock-sucking degenerate," Dudley said, "who spurned her bed for the bed of a muscle-bound nancy boy. Is that true, Eddie?"

"No!"

"No?" Dudley dug his hand into Engel's shoulder until little geysers of blood shot out. "No, Eddie?"

Eddie Engels screamed, "No!"

"No?"

"No!"

"No?" Blood was trickling down Engels's chest, combining with his sweat. Dudley gritted his teeth and dug his hand in full force. "No?" he screeched, his brogue almost breaking. He released his hand and Engels fell to his knees, sobbing.

"Yes," he blubbered.

"Good, lad. Now answer a few more questions for me. Do you pay income tax?"

"No."

"Ahhh, yes. Do you take bets on the ponies?"

"Yes." Engels pawed at his shoulder. It was a giant purple swelling with deep puncture wounds.

"Get to your feet, lad," Dudley said. Engels managed to bring himself upright, and Dudley swung a huge roundhouse right at his midsection. Engels stifled a scream and fell to the floor, clutching his stomach. "More questions, lad. Janet told me you hit her. Is that true?"

"No!" Engels elbowed his way toward the wall, drawing his arms protectively over his head. "No! No! No! No!" he shrieked, drawing himself tighter into a ball with each screaming repeat of the word.

Dudley smiled menacingly. "No?"

"Yes," Engels said softly.

"Ahhh, grand. Did you hit her often, lad?"

"Yes."

"And other women?"

"Yes."

"Why? You filthy scum-sucker!"

"I . . . I . . . I don't know!"

"You . . . don't . . . know." Dudley tried the words on his palate like a connoisseur tasting a fine wine. "Tell me about the muscle boy, lad."

I looked around the room. Dick Carlisle was sipping a beer by the bathroom door, Mike Breuning was writing rapidly on his steno pad, and Dudley Smith was inching himself slowly toward the prostrate form of Eddie Engels. He squatted next to him and said softly, "Do you believe in God, lad?"

Engels nodded his head. "Yes."

"Then don't you think God wants you to be rid of your guilt, like a good believer?"

"Yes," Engels said, his voice surprisingly calm.

"Good, lad. Tell me about the muscle boy."

"His name was Jerry. I met him at Larry's Log Cabin. He was on dope. He needed help and I helped him."

"Did he like to hit women, too?"

"No!"

"Did the two of you prowl for lonely young women to beat up, then go home and commit sodomy with each other?"

"No! Please God, no, please God!" Engels wailed.

Dudley reached behind him and grabbed his arms and pulled him to his feet. Engels pliably submitted and stared at him impassively, until Dudley's right hand crashed into his solar plexus. He vomited, spraying a gush of pink goo that smelled like gin onto Dudley's shirtfront. Dudley's face contorted and his whole body twitched, but he just stood there, staring down at the woman-killer he hated so much.

There was complete silence in the room. Nobody moved. Engels remained perfectly still on the floor, arms wrapped around his devastated midsection. There was a straight-backed wooden chair directly behind him. Dudley lifted Engels into it. He pulled up another chair for himself and drew it up so that his knees almost touched Eddie's.

"Now, Eddie, we know that you like to hit women, don't we?"

"Y-yes."

"A handsome lad like yourself has no trouble finding young ladies, isn't that true? You said you go to cocktail bars. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"And you pick up young ladies there?"

"Uh . . . I . . . yes."

"For what purpose?"

"What? To fuck. To sleep with. I'm no fag!"

"Easy, lad. We know you like boys."

"No! No!"

Dudley slapped him.

"No, no, no, no!" he continued.

Dudley slapped him again, this time harder. Blood was flowing out of his nose, dripping into his mouth. He licked it off his lips and started to cry. Dudley sighed and handed Engels a handkerchief. "Maybe you aren't queer, lad. Maybe you do like tail. Alter all, the inspector said he saw you at that place, what was the name of it? The Silver Star? That place is no homo hangout."

Engels started to shake his head, spraying Dudley with blood and sweat. "I'm no fag. I've had more tail than any cop in L.A."

"Tell me about it, Eddie," Dudley said, lighting him a cigarette and placing it between his lips.

The cocky ladies' man came briefly to life, cutting through all his terror and fatigue. "They love me, they can't leave me alone. I'm a virtuoso. I just snap my fingers. Every bartender in Hollywood knows me—"

Dudley interrupted: "The barman at the Silver Star says you're a sissy. He says you hate women. You hate them, so you fuck them to make them like you, then you hurt them, right, Eddie? Right, Eddie? Right, Eddie, right? Queer, cock-sucking Eddie, right . . .?"

Engels threw himself on Dudley, knocking his chair over and falling on top of him, trying to smother him with his battered body. Breuning and Carlisle watched for stunned seconds, then ran over and grabbed Eddie by his flailing arms and legs and pinned him against the wall. Engels was screaming as Dick Carlisle began to slam him with both fists in the groin and rib cage. Breuning mashed his face into the wall until Engels bit into the palm of his hand. Breuning screamed and backed off, and Carlisle wrapped his hands around Engels's neck and started to choke him. Engels relinquished Breuning's hand and started to make gurgling sounds.

I jumped up and grabbed Carlisle by the shoulders, flinging him backward onto the mattress. Breuning was trying to get at Engels with his good hand, holding his bitten one between his legs to stanch the pain. I flattened myself against Engels, trying to push the two of us through the wall to another reality. Breuning pulled at my shoulders.

Finally Dudley screamed, "Stop it, all of you. Stop it. Stop it now!"

Breuning let go of me. I moved away from Engels, who fell to the floor, unconscious.

"You filthy traitor," Carlisle hissed at me. I advanced toward him, my fists cocked.

Dudley planted himself in front of me. "No, lad."

I flopped down into the chair that had held Engels. I was exhausted and shaking from head to foot. Breuning, Carlisle, Dudley, and I all stared at one another in ugly silence.

Finally Dudley smiled. He drew a hypodermic needle and a little vial out of his pants pocket. He inserted the needle into the vial and drew out some clear liquid, then knelt beside the unconscious Engels, checked his pulse, nodded and stuck the needle into his arm just above the elbow. He pushed the plunger and held it in for a few seconds, then lifted Engels onto the mattress.

"He'll sleep," Dudley said. "He needs it. You men do, too. We all do. So rest, lads. We'll start over in the morning."

We did. Fueled by a night's sleep—mine fitful, Engels's drugged—we began at nine o'clock the following day. Dudley had roused me at seven-thirty, presenting me with a razor and a fresh short-sleeved shirt. The ritual of shaving and bathing restored me somewhat.

I was still shocked by what had happened. Dudley knew it, and assuaged my fears. "No more violence, lad. He can't take much more. I've sent Dick Carlisle home; he might get carried away. We'll play it kid gloves from here on in." All I could do was nod dumbly. I couldn't even try to play protégé to the insane Irishman—he was a loathsome object to me now.

I walked down the street to a diner that served a boisterous, good-humored aircraft-worker clientele. The rough-hewn camaraderie of the men who sat beside me at the counter restored me further. I ate a big breakfast of sausage, eggs, and potatoes, chased by about a gallon of coffee. I bought a triple order of poached eggs and two chocolate malts for Eddie Engels. Ordering it boxed "to go" made me sad and angry. This was beyond the bailiwick of wonder and justice, reaching toward some kind of knowledge of the human condition that for once I didn't want to know.

There was a pay phone at the back of the diner. I almost gave in to an impulse to call Lorna, but didn't. I wanted it to be over first.

When I got back to the room, Eddie Engels was still passed out on the filthy mattress, his face contorted in terror even in repose.

Dudley, Breuning, and I watched him wake up. For long moments he didn't seem to know where he was. Finally, his brain clicked into reality, and when his eyes focused on Dudley he began to twitch spastically, shutting his eyes and trying to scream. No sound came out.

Dudley and I looked at each other. Mike Breuning fiddled with his steno pad, his eyes downcast, ashamed. I motioned to Dudley. He followed me into the adjoining room. "Let me have him," I said. "He's too terrified of you. Let me talk to him. Alone. I'll bring him around."

"I want a confession, lad. Today."

"You'll have it."

"I'll give you two hours, lad. No more."

I led Engels gently into the other room. I told him he could take his time using the halfway clean bathroom. He did, closing the door behind him. I waited while Engels cleaned himself up. He came back out and sat down on the edge of one of the cots. His torso was badly bruised, and the welt on his shoulder where Dudley had dug in his fingers had swollen to the size of an orange.

I lit him a cigarette and handed it to him. "Are you scared, Eddie?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, I'm real scared."

"Of what?"

"Of that Irish guy."

"I don't blame you."

"What do you want? I'm just a small-time gambler."

"And an abuser of women." He lowered his head. "Look at me, Eddie." He raised his head and met my eyes. "Have you hurt a lot of women, Eddie?" He nodded. "Why?" I asked.

"I don't know!"

"How long have you been doing this?"

"A long time."

"Before you left Seattle?"

"I . . . yes."

"Do your parents know about it?"

"No! Leave them out of this!"

"Sssshhh. Do you love your parents?"

Engels snorted, then looked at me as if I were crazy. "Everyone loves their parents," he said.

"Everyone who knows them. I never knew mine. I grew up in an orphanage."

"That's so sad. That's really sad. Is that why you became a cop, so you could track them down?"

"I never thought about it. You're a lucky fellow, though, to have a nice family."

Engels nodded, his frightened features softening for a moment.

"Are you close to your sister, Lillian?" I asked. Engels didn't answer. "Are you?" Still no response. "Are you, Eddie?"

Engels's face went beet red. "I hate her!" he screamed. "I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!" He slammed his hands into the edge of the cot in frustration. The outburst was over as quickly as it had started, but Eddie's personality had changed again. "I . . . hate . . . Lillian." He said it very softly, with great finality, one word at a time.

"Did she hit you, Eddie?" I asked.

A shake of the head in answer.

"Did she make fun of you?"

No response.

"Did she have power over you?"

"Yes," Engels whimpered. He bit his lip.

"What did she do to you?" I said gently.

Eddie Engels said, quite calmly: "She brought me out. She was lez and she didn't want me to love any other girls but her."

"And?" I whispered.

"And she dressed me up, and made me up . . ."

"And?"

"And . . . fixed me up, and made me do her in front of her girlfriend . . ." Engels's sad voice trailed off.

I cleared my throat. My own voice sounded strange and disembodied. "And you hate her for it?"

"And I hate her for what she made me, Officer. But I love her, too. And I'd rather be what I am than be what you are."

His words hung in the air, poisonous, like atomic fallout. I handed Engels the paper sack containing the eggs and malted milks. "Eat your breakfast," I said. "Rest for a little while, and soon you'll find out why we brought you here."

Making sure the windowless room was locked from the outside, I left Engels alone to contemplate my threat, then went and reported to Dudley Smith.

"You should have been a headshrinker, lad," was his only comment.

At one-thirty that afternoon we brought Eddie Engels back into the interrogation room. He was fed and rested, but looked weary and ready to accept anything. I sat him down on the mattress, and Dudley, Breuning, and I arranged our chairs, allowing him nothing to look at but three oversized cops. Dudley placed an ashtray, matches, and an open pack of Chesterfields on the mattress next to him. Engels helped himself, warily.

Dudley kicked it off: "Of course you know what this is all about, don't you, Engels?"

Engels gulped and shook his head. "No," he said.

"Lad, were you living on Twenty-ninth and Pacific in Venice in March of 1948?"

"Y-yes," Engels said.

"A young woman was found strangled to death two blocks from the house you shared with Janet Valupeyk. Did you kill her?"

Engels went white and screamed, "No!"

"Her name was Karen Waters. She was twenty-two."

"I said, no!"

"Very well. I have here the names of two other young women, lonely young women who met untimely deaths by strangulation. Answer if the names ring a bell, will you, lad? Mary Peterson?"

"No!"

"Jane Macauley?"

"I said, no!"

Dudley sighed, feigning exasperated patience: "So you did," he said. "Well, lad, Janet Valupeyk says otherwise. She positively identified all three of those dead women as conquests of yours. She remembers them well. She—"

"She couldn't have! Janet was a hophead! She was on dope all the time we lived together—"

Dudley swung his hand in a quick arc, catching Engels on the cheek. Stunned, Engels just stared at him like a reprimanded child.

"I thought you picked up lots of women, lad."

"I did. I mean, I do."

"Then how do you know you didn't pick up one of these women?"

"I . . . I don't . . ."

"Have you killed that many, Eddie?"

"I never killed any—"

Dudley swung his open hand, this time harder, opening up facial cuts inflicted the night before. Engels flailed his arms but remained in a sitting position. His face had shown uncomprehending fear and anger, but now it moved into outright grief. He knew we were closing in.

"Leona Jensen, remember her?" Dudley asked.

Engels hung his head and shook it. Dudley loosened his tie. I moved to the mattress.

"I called Seattle this morning," I said. "I talked to your dad. I told him we suspected you of killing five women. He said you didn't have it in you. He said you were a good boy. I believed him, and I believe you. But Lieutenant Smith doesn't. I've told him that there's no hard evidence to link you to those women he mentioned. I think there's only one case against you, and I think we can close that one out if you answer the lieutenant's questions truthfully."

Engels took his chin off his chest and looked at me dolefully, like a dog waiting to be praised or hit. When he spoke his voice had gone effete again: "Did you really talk to Dad?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"That he loves you. That your mother loves you, that Lillian loves you most of all."

"Oh, God . . ." Engels started to sob.

Dudley spoke up. "All righty, Mr. Engels. Does the name Margaret Cadwallader mean anything to you?"

Eddie's whole face started to spasm. He brought his voice down to baritone and said, "No," tremulously.

"No? We have a dozen eyewitnesses who placed the two of you together at the racetrack and at nightclubs on the Sunset Strip."

Engels shook his head frantically.

"The truth, Eddie," I said. "For your family's sake."

"We da-dated," Engels said.

"But you broke up?" I continued for him.

"Y-yes."

"Why, killer?" Dudley bellowed. "Because she wouldn't let you hit her?"

"I never killed anybody!"

"Nobody said you killed her, homo! Did you hit her?"

"I didn't wa—she wasn't . . ."

"You didn't what? You fucking degenerate!" Dudley reached his arm back and swung it at Engels in slow motion.

I caught it in mid-swing, grabbing Dudley's wrist and holding it above my head. "I told you no more of that, Smith!"

"Goddamnit, Inspector, this punk is guilty and I know it!"

"I'm not so sure. Eddie, one thing troubles me. Your Ford convertible was seen parked on Margaret Cadwallader's street on the night she was strangled."

Engels moaned, "Oh, God."

I continued: "What was it doing there?"

"I . . . lent it to her."

"How did you get it back?" Dudley interjected.

"I . . . I . . ."

"Did you ever fuck her at her apartment, lover-boy?" Dudley bellowed.

"No!"

"That's funny, we got your fingerprints from her bedroom."

"That's a lie! I never been fingerprinted!"

"You're the liar, lover-boy. You were fingerprinted when the Ventura cops raided a homo hangout you were drinking at."

"That's a lie!"

Dudley went into a laughing attack. Perfectly modulated, his musical laughter rose and fell, diminuendoed and crescendoed like a Stradivarius in the hands of a master. "Ho-ho-ho! Ha-ha-ha!" Tears were streaming down his red face. It went on and on while Engels, Breuning, and I stared at him, dumbstruck. Finally, Dudley's laughter metamorphosed into a huge, expansive yawn. He looked at Breuning. "Mike, lad, I think it's time to set lover-boy straight, don't you?"

"Yes, I do, Lieutenant."

With all eyes on him, Dudley Smith dug into his coat pocket and pulled out Maggie Cadwallader's diamond brooch. There was absolute stillness in the sordid little room. Dudley smiled demonically and Eddie Engels's face broke out into a network of throbbing blue veins. He placed his head in his hands and sat very still.

"Do you know where we got that, Eddie?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, his voice gone high.

"Did you get it from Margaret Cadwallader?"

"Yes."

"Did you pay for it?"

Engels started to laugh—high, feminine laughter. "Baby, did I pay for it! Oh, baby! Pay and pay and pay!" he shrieked.

Dudley butted in: "I'd say Margaret paid for it, lover-boy—with her life. You beat 'em, you kill 'em—and now you steal from 'em. Do you desecrate their corpses, lover-boy?"

"No!"

"You just kill them?"

"Ye— No!"

"What were you going to do with that brooch, you filth? Give it to your lezbo sister?"

"Aaarrugh!" Engels screeched.

"Did your unholy sister teach you to eat cunt, lover-boy? Did you hate her for it? Is that why you hate women? Did she piss on you? Did she make you lap her on your knees? Is that why you kill women?"

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," Engels screamed, his voice a shrieking, cacophonous soprano. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"

Dudley threw himself on Engels, lifted him from the bed and slammed his back repeatedly into the wall. "Tell me how you did it, killer! Tell me how you croaked lovely Margaret and we won't tell your mommy and daddy about the others. Tell me!"

Engels went limp as a rag doll in Dudley's hands. When Dudley finally released him he crumpled to the bed and moaned hideously.

Dudley pointed to the bathroom. I followed him in. There was a giant cockroach crawling out of the filthy bathtub. "Cock-sucking cockroaches," he said. "They sneak into your bed at night and suck your blood. Dirty cocksuckers." He bent down and let the bug crawl onto his hand, then he closed his fist around it and squashed it into a greenish-yellow pulp. He rubbed the oozy remains on his trouser leg and said to me: "He's about to crack, lad."

"I know that," I said.

"You'll be the one to give him the final push."

"How?"

"He likes you. He's queer for you. His voice goes queer whenever you're close to him. You're his savior, but you're about to become his Judas. When I loosen my tie, I want you to hit him." I looked into Dudley's mad brown eyes and hesitated. "It's the only way, lad."

"I . . . I can't."

"You can and you will, Officer," Dudley hissed in my face. "I've had enough pretty-boy prima donnaism from you! You want a piece of this collar and you'll crack that fucking pervert in the face, hard! Do you understand, Underhill?"

I went cold all over. "Yes," I said.

We reassembled in the little room that now looked as battered as Eddie Engels himself. Dudley gestured to Mike Breuning's steno pad: "Every word, Mike."

"Right, skipper."

I brought Engels a glass of water. Knowing what I had to do, I didn't compound it by being nice to him. I just handed him the water, and when he gave me a smile, I gave him a deadpan in return.

"All right, Engels," Dudley said. "You admit to knowing Margaret Cadwallader?"

"Yes."

"And being intimate with her?"

"Yes."

"And hitting her?"

"No, I couldn't. She . . . look, I could turn snitch for you." Eddie tried desperately. "I know lots of people I could turn over. Dope addicts, pushers. I know some stuff from my navy time."

Dudley slapped him. "Hush, handsome Eddie. It's almost over now. We're going to fly your lovely sister, Lillian, down here. She wants to talk to you about lonely Margaret. She wants you to confess and spare your family the anguish of an indictment on five counts of murder."

"No, please," Engels whimpered.

"Lieutenant, I won't have it," I said angrily. "We've got no evidence. All we've got is the Cadwallader croaking. We can indict on that."

"Oh shit, Inspector. We can get indictments on at least five counts. We can go the whole hog! Let's get Lillian Engels down here, she'll drum some sense into little Eddie's head, like she's always done!"

"Please, no," Engels whimpered.

"Eddie," I said, "do your parents know you're homosexual?"

"No."

"Do they know that Lillian is a lesbian?"

"No. Please!"

"You don't want them to find out, do you?"

"No!" He screeched the word, his voice breaking. He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth.

"We can spare them, Eddie," I said. "You can confess to Margaret, and we won't file with the grand jury on the others. Listen to me, I'm your friend."

"No . . . I don't know!"

"Sssshhh. Listen to me. I think there were mitigating circumstances. Did Margaret taunt you?"

"No . . . yes!"

"Did she remind you of Lillian? Of all the bad things in the past?"

"Yes!"

"Evil things? Dreadful, awful things that you hate to think about?"

"Yes!"

"Do you want it to be over?"

"Oh, God, yes," he blubbered.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes. You're nice. You're a sweet person."

"Then tell me about Margaret."

"Oh, God. Oh, please, God."

I put my hands on Engels's knee. "I care, Eddie. I really do. Tell me."

"I can't!"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dudley loosen his necktie. I steeled myself, then got up and faced Engels. He looked up at me, beseeching me with wide brown eyes. I curled my hand into a fist and swung it full force at the side of his nose. It cracked, and blood and cartilage fragments burst into the air. Engels grabbed at his bloody face and fell back on the mattress.

"Confess, you goddamned murderer!" Dudley screamed.

I stood there, shaking. Engels rolled to his side on the mattress and blew out a noseful of blood. When he spoke his voice was resigned and sorrowful. "I killed Maggie. No one else. It was all mine. No one else's. I killed her and now I have to pay. She didn't deserve it, but she had to pay, too. We all have to pay." Then he passed out.

Breuning was scribbling furiously, Dudley was grinning like a sated lover, and I stood there trying to drum up some exhilaration for my compromised victory.

No one spoke, and then I realized I had to move fast to salvage even this compromised glory. I left the room abruptly, then ran across the street and found a pay phone. I dialed Lorna at work.

"Lorna Weinberg," she answered.

"This is Fred, Lorna."

"Oh, Freddy. I—"

"He confessed, Lorna. To Margaret Cadwallader. We're taking him in. Probably to the Hall of Justice jail. I don't think it's a grand jury case. I think he'll plead loony. Will you get the papers ready?"

"I can't until I have the arrest report. Freddy, are you all right?"

"I do . . . yes, sweetheart, I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine. Will you call me when Engels is booked?"

"Yes. Can I see you tonight?"

"Yes, when?"

"I don't know. I might be wrapped up tonight writing reports."

"Just come over when you're finished, all right?"

"Yes."

"Freddy?"

"Yes?"

"I . . . I'll . . . tell you when I see you. Be careful."

"I will be."

Engels was in handcuffs when I got back to the interrogation room. He was wearing tan slacks, sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt that Carlisle had brought from his apartment.

Breuning was taking down his statement: ". . . And I panicked. I thought I heard noises from upstairs. I hopped out the kitchen window. I was afraid to get my car. I ran to some bushes by the freeway ramp. I hid out for . . . hours . . . then I took a cab home . . ." Engels's voice trailed off. He looked at me and spat blood on the floor. His nose was purple and hugely swollen, and both his eyes were black.

"Why, Engels?" Breuning asked.

"Because someone had to pay. It shouldn't have been someone as sweet as Maggie, but it just happened."

Dudley clapped me on the back. "Mike and I are taking Engels to the H.O.J.J. You go home. We have to corroborate on our statements. You were brilliant, lad, brilliant. The sky's the limit for you once this thing has been sorted out."

"Wrong, Dudley," I said, making my move at last. "I'll go with you. It's my collar. You can file your report, and Engels's confession, but it's my collar. I filed my report with the D.A.'s office the day before we arrested Engels. It tells the truth from the beginning. You've been meaning to fuck me out of this collar and I won't have it. You try, and I'll go to the papers. I'll tell them your little Dahlia story and how you kidnapped Engels and beat the shit out of him. I'll throw my career down the toilet if you try to take this collar away from me. Do you understand?"

Dudley Smith had gone beyond red to a trembling purple. His big hands twitched at his sides. His eyes were tiny pinpoints of hatred. Spittle formed at the corners of his mouth, but he didn't utter a sound.

I beat them downtown.

The steps at the Hall of Justice were already jammed with reporters. Old Dudley, in true ham fashion, had prepared them for his arrival.

I parked on First off Broadway and stationed myself on foot on the corner to wait for my colleagues and our prisoner. They rounded the corner a minute later, and stopped for the light. Breuning glowered at me from the driver's seat. I opened the door and got in; Dudley and Engels were sitting in the back.

Dudley said, "You're through, Judas," and Engels hissed at me through gritted teeth.

I ignored them both and said, bluff-hearty in an imitation of Dudley's brogue: "Hi, lads! Just thought I'd drop by for the booking. I see the press is here. Grand! I've got a lot to tell them. Dudley, have you heard of the latest anthropological discovery? Man descended not from the ape, but from the Irishman! Ho-ho-ho! Isn't that grand?"

"Judas Iscariot," Dudley Smith said.

"Wrong, Dud. I'm the Irish Santa Claus. Beggora!"

We pulled to the curb in front of the maze of reporters, and I pinned my badge to the lapel of my wrinkled suit coat. Dudley shoved the handcuffed Engels out the door of the car, and we both grabbed his arms and led him up the steps to the Hall of Justice. Someone yelled, "Here they are!" and a mob of shirt-sleeved newshawks descended on us like vultures, throwing questions indiscriminately amidst the explosion of flash bulbs.

"Dudley, how many did he get?" "Did he confess, Dudley?" "Smile, killer! This is for the L.A. Daily News!" "Tell us about it, Dud!" "Hey, it's the cop who killed those two Mexican gunsels. Talk to us, Officer!"

We waded through them. Engels kept his head down, Dudley beamed for the cameras and I kept it stoical. We were met in the vestibule of the building by the head jailer, a sheriff's lieutenant in uniform. He led us to an elevator, where a deputy shackled Engels's legs. We rode up to the eleventh floor in silence. We watched as Engels was uncuffed and shackled, issued county jail denims, and led to a one-man security cell. Safely locked in, he stared at me one last time and spit on the floor.

The lieutenant spoke: "You men are wanted immediately at Central Division. The chief of detectives himself called me."

Dudley nodded, stone-faced. I excused myself, took the steps down to street level, and walked out the front door, to be mobbed by reporters. Some recognized me from my previous notoriety and hurled questions as I made for the sidewalk.

"Underhill, whose arrest is it?" "What happened?" "Dudley says this guy's a loony. Can you make him for any unsolved jobs on the books?"

I ignored them and pushed myself free as we hit the sidewalk. I ran all the way to Central Division headquarters on Los Angeles Street, four blocks away. Sweating, I tore through corridors, stopping for a moment to compose myself before I knocked on the door of Thad Green, the chief of detectives. His secretary admitted me to his waiting room. Dudley Smith was already there, sitting on the couch, smoking. We stared at each other until the buzzer on the secretary's desk rang and he said, "You can go in now, Lieutenant Smith."

Dudley walked into the pebble-glass-doored inner sanctum, and I waited nervously, furiously thinking of Lorna in an effort to quiet my mind. Dudley emerged half an hour later, walked right past me and out the door.

A voice from within the chief's office called, "Underhill" and I went in to meet my fate. The chief sat behind his huge oak desk. He acknowledged my salute with a brisk nod of his iron gray head. "Report, Underhull," he said.

When I finished, still standing, the chief said, "Welcome to the detective bureau, Underhill. I'll issue a statement to the press. The D.A.'s office will be in touch with you. I want a full written report in two hours. Don't talk to any reporters. Now go home and rest."

"Thank you, sir," I said. "Where will I be assigned?"

"I don't know yet. To a squad somewhere, probably." He consulted his calendar. "You report back to me one week from today, at eight o'clock. That will be Friday, September 12. We'll have found a suitable assignment for you then."

"Thank you, sir."

"Thank you, Officer."

I wrote my report down the hall in a vacant storage room and left it with the chief's secretary, then retrieved my car and drove home to Night Train, a shower, and a mercifully dreamless sleep.

12

A sparkling twilight found me waiting for the evening papers at a newsstand on Pico and Robertson. They came and the headlines screamed "Korea" rather than "Murder in L.A." I was disappointed. I was curious to see how the department's press release would jibe with Dudley Smith's press handout.

After checking the second and third pages for a flash update, I started to feel relieved: I had Dudley by the balls, and the day's reprieve the press was giving us would help smooth out what might be a tense evening with Lorna.

As I parked on Charleville I could see Lorna in her living room, smoking abstractedly and staring out her window. I rang the bell, and all my anger and enervation dropped like a rock. I started to feel a delicious anticipation.

The buzzer that unlocked the door sounded, and I sprinted up the stairs to find Lorna standing in the middle of the living room, leaning on her cane. She wore pink lipstick and a trace of mascara, and her burnished light brown hair had been set in a new style—swept up and back on the sides. It gave her a breathless look. She was wearing a tartan skirt and a man's French-cuffed dress shirt that perfectly outlined her large breasts.

She smiled blankly when she saw me, and I walked to her slowly and embraced her, cradling the new hairdo gently.

"Hello," was all I could think of to say.

Lorna dropped her cane and held me around the waist. "It's not going to the grand jury, Freddy," she said.

"I didn't think it would. He confessed."

"To how many?" I started to release Lorna, but she held on. "To how many?" she persisted.

"Just to Margaret Cadwallader. Let's not talk about it, Lor."

"We have to."

"Then let's sit down."

We sat on the couch.

"I looked for you at the Hall of Justice. I figured you'd be there for the booking," Lorna said.

"I got summoned to see the chief of detectives. I imagine Smith went back and booked Engels. I was dog-tired. I went home and slept. Why?" Lorna's face darkened angrily. "Why?" I repeated. "What the hell's going on?"

"I was there, I got a jail pass. The D.A. was there. He and Dudley Smith were talking. Smith told him that the Cadwallader killing was just the tip of the iceberg, that Engels was a mass murderer."

"Oh, God."

"Don't interrupt me. He was booked on just the one count. Cadwallader. But Smith kept repeating, "This is a grand jury job, there's no telling how many dames this maniac's bagged!' The D.A. seemed to go along with it. Then the D.A. saw me and mentioned to Smith that I read potential grand jury cases. Smith notices that I'm a woman, and starts to lay on the blarney. Then he asks me what I'm doing here, and I tell him that you and I are friends. Then he goes livid and starts to shake. He looked insane."

Shaken, I said: "He is insane. He hates me, I crossed him."

"Then you're insane. He could ruin your career!"

"Hush, sweetheart. No, I've been promoted. Smith reported first, I reported afterward. I'm going to the detective bureau. To a squad room somewhere. Thad Green told me himself. Whatever Smith told Green jibes with my report to you and my official arresting officer's report, which is the truth. What Smith told the D.A. is just hyperbole. All I—"

"Freddy, you told me there was no hard evidence to connect Engels to any other murders."

"That's absolutely true. But . . ."

Lorna was getting more red-faced and agitated by the second: "But nothing, Freddy. I saw Engels. He was beaten terribly. I asked Smith about that and he handed me some baloney about how he tried to resist arrest. I kept saying to myself, Good God, could my Freddy have had anything to do with that? Is that justice? What kind of man have I gotten involved with?"

I just stared at the Hieronymous Bosch print on the wall.

"Freddy, answer me!"

"I can't, counselor. Good night."

I drove home, steadfastly quelling all speculation regarding Lorna, woman-killers, and lunatic cops. I tried out my new rank: Detective Frederick U. Underhill. Detective Fred Underhill. The dicks. At twenty-seven. I was probably the youngest detective in the Los Angeles Police Department. I would have to find out. In November, the sergeant's exam. Detective Sergeant Frederick Underhill. I would have to buy three new suits and a couple of sports jackets, some neckties and a half dozen pair of slacks. Detective Fred Underhil. But. It kept rearing its beautiful, burnished brown head. Lorna Weinberg, counselor at law. Lorna Weinberg.

Be still, I said to myself, trying to heed my own advice—just don't think.

At home, after a roughhouse session with Night Train, some kind of nameless future-fear hit me and to combat it I dug out some textbooks.

I tried to engross myself, but it was useless; the words flew by undigested, almost unseen. I couldn't stop thinking.

I was about to give it up when my doorbell rang. Not daring to guess, I flung the door open. It was Lorna.

"Hello, Officer," she said. "May I come in?"

"I'm a detective now, Lorna. Can you accept what I had to do to get there?"

"I . . . I know I convicted you of an unknown crime on insufficient evidence."

"I would have filed a writ of habeas corpus, counselor, but you would have beat me in court."

"I would have appealed, in your behalf. Did you know that you are the only Frederick U. Underhill in all the L.A. area phone books?"

"No doubt. What are you doing here, Lorna?"

"Stalking your heart."

"Then don't stand in the doorway, come in and meet my dog."

Many joyful hours later, sated and engulfed with each other, too tired to sleep or think and unable to relinquish each other's touch, I had an idea. I dug out my meager collection of corny ballads, formerly used to seduce lonely women. I put "You Belong to Me" by Jo Stafford on the phonograph and turned the volume up so that Lorna could hear it in the bedroom.

She was laughing when I returned to her. "Oh, Freddy, that's so . . ."

"Corny?"

"Yes!"

"My sentiments, too. But, needless to say, I feel romantic tonight."

"It's morning, darling."

"I stand corrected. Lorna?"

"Yes?"

"May I have the next dance?"

"Dance? Freddy, I can't dance!"

"Yes, you can."

"Freddy!"

"You can hop on your good leg. I'll hold you up. Come on!"

"Freddy, I can't!"

"I insist."

"Freddy, I'm naked!"

"Good. So am I."

"Freddy!"

"Enough said, Lor. Let's hit it!"

I scooped the naked, laughing Lorna into my arms and carried her into the living room and deposited her on the couch, then put Patti Page singing "The Tennessee Waltz" on the phonograph. When she began to intone the syrupy introduction, I walked to Lorna and extended my hands.

She reached for them and I pulled her to me and held her close, encircling her at the buttocks and lifting her slightly off the floor so that her bad leg was suspended, and her weight was stationed on her good one. She held me tightly around my back, and we moved awkwardly in very small steps as Patti Page sang.

"Freddy," Lorna whispered into my chest, "I think I—"

"Don't think, Lor."

"I was going to say . . . I think I love you."

"Then think, because I know I love you."

"Freddy, I don't think this record is corny."

"Neither do I."

We drove to Santa Barbara Saturday afternoon, taking the Pacific Coast Highway. The blue Pacific was on our left, brown cliffs and green hills were on our right. There was hardly a cloud or a trace of smog. We cruised along with the top down in comfortable silence. Lorna kept her hand on my leg, giving me playful squeezes from time to time.

We hadn't talked about the case all morning, and it hovered benignly on some back burner of my mind. By silent agreement we had not turned on the radio. The present was too good, too real, to be marred by intimation of the harsh reality we both worked in.

So we drove north, on our first outing together. Lorna inched her hand, broadly in a parody of stealth, up my leg until I went, "Garrr! What the hell are you doing?"

She laughed. "What do you think?"

I laughed. "I think it feels good."

"Don't think, just drive." Lorna removed her hand. "Freddy, I was thinking."

"About what?"

"I just realized that I don't know a damn thing about what you do—I mean, with your time."

I considered this, and decided to be candid. "Well, before Wacky was killed I used to spend a lot of time with him. I don't really have any friends. And I used to chase women."

Surprisingly, Lorna laughed at this. "Strictly to get laid?"

"No, it was more than that. It was partly for the wonder, but that was B.L."

"B.L.?"

"Before Lorna."

Lorna squeezed my leg and pointed to the shoulder. "Pull over, please."

I did, alarmed at the darkly serious look on Lorna's face. I framed that face with both my hands. "What is it, sweetheart?" I asked.

"Freddy, I can't have children," Lorna blurted out.

"I don't care," I said. "I mean, I do care, but it doesn't make a goddamned bit of difference to me. Really, I—"

"Freddy, I just had to say it."

"Because you think we have a future together?"

"Y-yes."

"Lorna, I couldn't even consider a future without you." She twisted away from me and bit at her knuckles. "Lorna, I love you, and we're not leaving here until you tell me you believe what I've just told you."

"I don't know. I think so."

"Don't think."

Lorna burst out laughing, tearfully. "Then I believe you."

"Good, now let's get the hell out of here, I'm hungry."

We timed our arrival perfectly, Santa Barbara opening up before us, muted in the twilight like a heaven-sent reprieve from the humid, smog-bound commonness of L.A.

We found our weekend haven on Bath Street, a few blocks off State: the Mission Bell Hotel, a converted Victorian mansion painted a guileless bright yellow. We registered as Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Underhull. The desk clerk started to look askance at our lack of luggage, but the sight of my badge when I pulled out my billfold to pay for the room calmed him down.

Giggling conspiratorially, I took Lorna's arm as we walked to the elevator. Our room had bright yellow walls festooned with cheap oil paintings of the Santa Barbara Mission, bay windows fronting the palm-lined street, and a big brass bed with a bright yellow bedspread and canopy.

"I'll never eat another lemon," Lorna said.

I kissed her on the cheek. "Then let's not have fish tonight. I left my shaving kit in the car. I'll be right back."

I took the yellow carpeted stairs down to street level. The clerk, a skinny, middle-aged man with incongruous bright red hair, started to fidget when he saw me walk through the foyer. I had the feeling he wanted to ask me something. He put out his cigarette and approached me.

I made it easy for him. "What's up, doc?" I asked.

The man slouched in front of me, his hands jammed into his trouser pockets. He hemmed and hawed, then blurted it out: "It ain't none of my business, Officer," he said, looking around in all directions and lowering his voice, "but when they say 'degenerate' do they really mean 'queer'?"

"What the—" I started to say, then realized the source of the crazy non sequitur and sighed. "You mean it made the Santa Barbara papers?"

"Yes, sir. You're a big hero. Is that what it means?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it," I said, leaving the clerk alone in the yellow foyer contemplating semantics.

I trotted down to State Street and found a newsstand, where I bought copies of the L.A. Times and the Santa Barbara Clarion. It was on the front page of both papers, big headlines complete with photos. I started with the Times:

I couldn't think for my sudden anger. Hurriedly, I read through the front pages of the Santa Barbara paper. There was nothing new, they copied the Times almost verbatim.

Dudley Smith, the fat-mouthed glory-monger, was pulling out all the stops in his monomania. I was covered, but he was out to hang fresh victims on the head of a one-time murderer.

I ran back to the hotel, bursting through the foyer and taking the stairs three at a time. The door to our room was open, and Lorna was sitting in an armchair, smoking contentedly and reading a Santa Barbara tourist brochure.

I flung the newspapers at her lap. "Read these, Lorna," I said.

She did, after giving me a long, concerned look. I watched her read. When she finished, she said, "It's nothing I didn't expect."

"What do you mean?"

"I knew Smith would milk it for all it was worth."

"You don't know him, Lor. Not like I do. He'll try to pin everything from the Johnstown flood to World War II on Engels. He's out of his goddamned mind!"

Lorna smiled and took my hands. "Freddy, did Eddie Engels kill Margaret Cadwallader?"

"Yes, but—"

"Be still. Then he's in custody where he belongs. And you put him there, not Dudley Smith. If you're worried about Smith starting some insane, far-flung investigation that would involve you, forget about it. The D.A. would never authorize it."

I calmed down, slightly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. He would never spend the money. He believes in letting sleeping dogs lie. You think Engels is innocent of those other killings?"

"Yes. He killed Cadwallader, and that's it."

Lorna took my face in her hands and kissed it several times, softly. "You are beginning to care about justice, darling," she said, "and it's a wonderful thing to see."

"I'm not sure of that."

"I am. Did you read the story on the twelfth page of the Times?"

"No."

"Good. Then I'll read it to you." Lorna put out her cigarette and cleared her throat. "The title is 'Hailing a True-Life Hero,' and the subtitle is 'Policeman Is a One-Man Crimestopper Wave!' Here we go: 'Detective Frederick U. Underhill, twenty-seven, is the youngest officer to achieve that rank in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department. He is not your average cop. He is a 1946 graduate of Loyola College who didn't want to be a college man. He fought tenaciously to enter the service during World War II, petitioning the draft board several times to let him enlist, despite his punctured eardrum. He was refused, and made the most of his college years, graduating magna cum laude with a degree in history. Detective Underhill is an orphan, and possessed the highest grade point average ever achieved at the St. Brendan's Home for Children. Monsignor John Kelly, principal of St. Brendan's High School, where Underhill attended, said, "Fred's recent successes as a police officer don't surprise me at all. He was a hard-working, devout boy who I knew was destined for great things."

"'But what things! Underhill has said, "I have never wanted to be anything but a cop. It's the only life I have ever considered."

"'And we, the citizens of Los Angeles, are the lucky benefactors of Fred Underhill's boyhood decision to seek the selfless life of a police officer. Item: while working as a patrolman in the Wilshire Division, Fred Underhill had more felony arrests to his credit than any officer at the station. Item: Fred Underhill had one of the highest academic averages ever to come out of the Police Academy. Item: Captain William Beckworth, Underhill's former watch commander at Wilshire, called him, "The greatest natural policeman I have ever encountered." Heady praise indeed, but backed up by fact: in February of this year, Officer Fred Underhill shot and killed the two armed robbers who had just robbed a market. His partner died in the shootout. Now the cracking of the baffling Margaret Cadwallader case, both within one year.

"'The Korean War rages on. Overseas we are at a standstill with the communist enemy. On the home front, the war against crime wages on. It is a war that will regrettably always be with us. Thank God men like Detective Fred Underhill will always be with us.'"

Lorna finished with a flourish and swooned in a parody of lovestruck awe. "Well, Officer Fred?" she said.

"They forgot to say I was tall, handsome, intelligent, and charming. That would have been the truth. However, they opted for horseshit—it reads better. They couldn't very well have said that I was an atheist draft dodger and, before you, a pussy-chaser on the prowl . . ."

"Freddy!"

"It's the truth. Oh, shit, Lorna, I'm so goddamned tired of this thing."

"Are you really, dear?"

"Yes."

"Then will you do me two favors?"

"Name them."

"Don't mention the case for the rest of the weekend."

"Okay. And?"

"And make love to me."

"Double okay." I reached for Lorna, and we fell laughing onto the bed.

Sometime later, we called room service for two trout dinners that arrived on a linen-covered pushcart, delivered by a bellboy who rapped discreetly on the door and called out softly, "Supper, folks!"

After eating, Lorna lit a cigarette and eyed me with warmth and much humor. Somehow it brought forth in me a huge rush of curiosity, and I said, "Turnabout, Lorna?"

"Turnabout?"

"Right. You wanted to know about the missing hours in my life . . ."

"All right, darling, turnabout. After the accident, much self-pity: feeling trapped, a saintly dead mother, a fat sister, a buffoon for a father, and all the goddamned operations—and false hopes and speculations and guilt and self-hatred and anger. And the detachment. That was the worst of all. Knowing I was not of this time and place—or any time and place. Then learning to walk all over again, and feeling joyous until the doctor told me I could never have children. Then awful, awful bitterness and the little lessons in acceptance."

"What do you mean, Lor?"

"I mean never knowing when my bad leg would go out completely, and I'd fall on my ass. It always seemed to happen when I was wearing a white dress. Learning to take stairs. Having to leave early for class when I knew there would be stairs to climb. The awful, gentle people who wanted to help. The men who thought I'd be an easy lay because I was crippled. They were right, you know. I was an easy lay."

"So was I, Lor."

"Anyway, then college, and law school, and books and painting and music and a few men and some kind of reconciliation with my family, and finally the D.A.'s office."

"And?"

"And what, Freddy?" Lorna's voice rose in exasperation. "You are so goddamned persistent! I know you want me to talk about the 'wonder'—whatever the hell it is—but I just don't feel it."

"Easy, sweetheart. I wasn't prying."

"You were and you weren't. I know you want to know everything about me, but give it time. I'm not the wonder."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not! You want to control the wonder. That's why you're a cop. Freddy, I want to be with you, but you can never control me. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand that you're still afraid of things. I'm not anymore."

"Don't be oblique, goddamnit!"

"Shit," I said, feeling suddenly the weight of my carefully thought-out life collapse from three weeks of tension and expectation. "Wonder, justice, horseshit. I just don't know anymore."

"Yes, you do," Lorna said. "There's me. I'm not wonder or justice."

"What are you?"

"I'm your Lorna."

That night and early morning we didn't go sight-seeing on State Street or take a romantic walk on the beach, or tour historic Santa Barbara Mission. We went dancing—in our lemon-colored room—to the music, on the radio, of the Four Lads, the McGuire Sisters, Teresa Brewer, and the immortal big band of the late Glenn Miller.

We found a station that played requests, and I called in and importuned them to play a host of old standards that were suddenly dear to me in the light of Lorna. The disc jockey obliged, and Lorna and I held each other close and moved slowly across the room to the soft beat of "The Way You Look Tonight," "Blue Moon," "Perfidia," "Blueberry Hill," "Moments to Remember," "Good Night, Irene" and, of course, Patti Page singing "The Tennessee Waltz."

At dawn on Monday morning, we got up and reluctantly drove back to L.A. and the administration of justice.

13

I was sound asleep in my apartment when the telephone rang. It was two o'clock Monday afternoon. I had been asleep a scant three hours.

It was Lorna. "Freddy, I have to see you right away. It's urgent."

"What is it, Lor?"

She sounded gravely worried. There was a timbre to her voice I had never heard before. "I can't talk about it on the phone."

"Did they arraign Engels?"

"Yes. He pleaded not guilty. Dudley Smith was there with the assistant D.A. and Engels started screaming. The bailiffs had to restrain him."

"Jesus. Are you at your office?"

"Yes."

"I'll be there in forty-five minutes."

It took me fifty-five, dressing hurriedly and highballing my Buick at ten miles over the speed limit. I flashed my badge at the parking attendant at the lot on Temple and he nodded crisply, placing an official-looking piece of paper under my windshield wiper. Two minutes later I was barging through the door of Lorna's office.

Lorna had company, and they looked grave. Both were smartly tailored men in their early forties. One of them, the more impressive-looking of the two, seemed familiar. He was sitting on Lorna's green leather couch with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He fingered a leather briefcase stationed next to him on the floor. He was intimidating even in this casual posture. The other man was sandy-haired and plump, and wearing an ascot and a cashmere sweater on a day when the temperature promised to reach ninety-five. He was licking his lips repeatedly and moving his eyes back and forth from the briefcase man to me.

Lorna made the introductions as I pulled up a wooden chair next to her desk. "Detective Fred Underhill, this is Walter Canfield." She pointed to the man with the briefcase. "And this is Mr. Clark Winton." She nodded in the direction of the man with the ascot. Both men acknowledged my presence with stares—Canfield's hostile, Winton's nervous.

"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" I said.

Canfield started to open his mouth, but Lorna spoke first in a voice that was all business: "Mr. Canfield is an attorney, Fred. He represents Mr. Winton." She hesitated, then said haltingly, "Mr. Canfield and I have worked together in the past. I trust him." She looked at Canfield, who smiled grimly.

"I'll be brief, Officer," he said. "My client was with Eddie Engels on the night Margaret Cadwallader was murdered." He waited for my reaction. When all he got was silence he added, "My client was with Engels all night. He remembers the date very well. August 12 is his birthday."

Canfield looked at me triumphantly. Winton was staring into his lap, kneading his trembling hands.

I felt my whole body go rigid with a pins-and-needles sensation. "Eddie Engels confessed, Mr. Canfield," I stated carefully.

"My client has informed me that Engels is a disturbed man who carries a great deal of guilt with him for certain events in his past."

Winton interjected: "Eddie is a troubled man, Officer. He was in love with an older man when he was in the navy. The man made him do awful things, and made Eddie hate himself for being what he was."

"He confessed," I repeated.

"Come, Officer. We both know that confession was obtained under physical duress. I saw Engels at his arraignment this morning. He has been severely beaten."

"He was restrained through force when he tried to resist arrest," I lied.

Canfield snorted. In different surroundings he would have spat. I met his contemptuous look with one of my own, then transferred it to Clark Winton. "Are you homosexual, Mr. Winton?" I asked, already certain of the answer.

"Freddy, goddamnit!" Lorna blurted.

Winton swallowed and looked to his attorney for support. Canfield started to whisper into his ear, but I interrupted them: "Because if you are, and you are planning to come forth with this information, the police will want signed statements regarding your relationship with Engels and a detailed account of your activities with him on the night of August 12. Are you prepared for that?"

"Eddie and I were lovers," Winton said calmly, with great resignation.

I gathered my argument and spat it out: "Mr. Winton, we have a signed confession. We also have eyewitnesses who will testify to having seen Engels's car on Harold Way on the night of the murder. You are opening yourself up to an accessory rap if you go public with your story."

Canfield eyed me coldly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lorna sitting rigid, fuming. "My client is a man of courage, Officer," Canfield said. "Edward Engels's life is at stake. Thad Green is an old friend of mine, as is the district attorney. Mr. Winton's affidavit will be delivered this afternoon. Mr. Winton realizes the police will have many questions for him; I will be present at the questioning. Mr. Winton is a prominent man; you will not beat any confession out of him. I came here to talk to you only because Lorna is an old friend and I respect her judgment of people. She told me you were concerned with justice, and I believed her . . ."

"I am concerned with justice, and . . ."

I couldn't finish. My resistance crumbled in a heap, and I felt my vision darken at the corner of my eyes. I picked up a heavy quartz bookend from Lorna's desk and hurled it at the glass part of her office door. The glass shattered outward and the bookend landed on the corridor floor with a loud bang. My hands were aching to hit something, so I mashed them together and closed my eyes, fighting tears and tremors. I heard Canfield say goodbye to Lorna, and heard footsteps as he ushered his client out the half-destroyed door.

"I believe Winton," Lorna said finally.

"So do I," I said.

"Freddy, Dudley Smith convinced the D.A. to let him head an investigation into a half-dozen unsolved homicides. He wants to pin them on Eddie Engels."

"Jesus, crazy Dudley. Is this guy Canfield a hotshot? He looks familiar."

"He's one of the finest, highest-paid criminal lawyers on the West Coast."

"And Winton has got money?"

"Yes, he's very wealthy. He owns two textile plants in Long Beach."

Still looking for outs, I persisted. "And Canfield is buddies with Thad Green and the D.A.?"

"Yes."

"Then Engels will go free and Dudley Smith and I will be up shit's creek without a paddle."

I looked through the gaping glass hole in the door, searching for something that would stop up the now-gaping hole in my life. "I'm sorry about the door, Lorna," was all I could think of.

Lorna pushed her swivel chair over to where I was sitting. "Are you sorry for Eddie Engels?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

Lorna kissed me softly on the lips. "Then let justice be done. It's out of your hands now."

I pushed Lorna away from me. I didn't want to believe her. "And what about Maggie Cadwallader?" I shouted. I turned around to look at the hole in the door. Three men in suits were looking in on us.

"You okay, Lorna?" one of them asked.

Lorna nodded. They departed, looking skeptical. I could hear glass being swept up.

"What about Maggie Cadwallader?" Lorna asked. "Did you want revenge for her, or was this whole crusade just an exercise in wonder that went bad?"

Suddenly I wanted to hurt Lorna as I had never wanted to hurt anyone before. "I fucked Maggie Cadwallader on the same day I met you. I picked her up at the Silver Star bar and took her to her apartment and fucked her. That was how I got involved in this thing, how I knew where to look for evidence. I knew if I found the killer my career would skyrocket. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted to have you, to fuck you, to make you mine. That was why I involved you in this; it was just another seduction in a whole fucking long line of them."

I didn't wait for Lorna to respond. I walked out of her office, not looking back.

I drove aimlessly, the way I had on the night I had met Maggie Cadwallader. I bought a copy of the L.A. Mirror. Engels's arraignment was on the front page. "'I Am Not A Homo!' Killer Screams." Yellow journalism at its best. The account revealed that Engels had had to be restrained and dragged out of the courtroom by three muscular bailiffs after submitting his plea of not guilty.

I threw the paper out the car window and drove east. Near San Bernardino I glimpsed from the freeway a large, well-set-up municipal golf course. I got off at the next exit, found the golf haven, parked in the deserted lot, bought two dozen balls, and rented a set of beat-up clubs from the pro shop. After paying my green fee, I ducked past the starter's cubicle and walked straight into the heart of the course.

I thought and thought—and thought. I tried not to think. I succeeded and I failed. I sailed a half-dozen well-hit 2 irons into deep nowhere and felt nothing.

Mea culpa, I said to myself. What went wrong? What really happened? What will happen next? Will the department back me up? Will I go back to patrol in Watts, humbled, singled out as a maverick destined to go nowhere? Logical fallacies. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: after this, therefore because of this. Circumstantial evidence. A guilty man. Guilty not of murder, but of guilt. Poor queer Eddie. Gallant queer Clark Winton. Mea maxima culpa. Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. What father? Eddie Engels? Dudley Smith? Thad Green? Chief Parker? God? There is no God but the wonder. I tried to harden my heart against Lorna, and failed. Lorna, Lorna, Lorna.

I slammed a furious succession of 3 irons straight into a grove of trees, hoping they would ricochet back and knock me dead. They didn't; they just disappeared, never to be seen again, sacrifices to a golf god I had ceased to believe in.

I drove home. I could hear my phone ringing as I pulled into the driveway. Thinking it might be Lorna, I ran for it.

The ringing persisted as I unlocked my front door. I picked up the receiver. "Hello?" I said warily.

"Underhill?" a familiar voice queried.

"Yes. Captain Jurgensen?"

"Yes. I've been calling you since six o'clock."

"I've been out. I drove out to San Berdoo."

"I see. Then you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Eddie Engels is dead. He committed suicide in his cell this afternoon. He was about to be released. Evidence came up to point to his innocence."

"I . . . I . . ."

"Underhill, are you there?"

"Y-yes."

"The chief himself asked me, as your last commanding officer, to inform you."

"I . . . don't . . ."

"Underhill, you are to report downtown at eight tomorrow morning. Central Division, room 219. Underhill, did you hear me?"

"Yes, sir," I said, letting the receiver slip out of my shaking hands and fall to the floor.

14

There were three of us present in room 219. The two cops, my interrogators, were named Milner and Quinn. Both were sergeants from Internal Affairs and both were burly and sunburned and middle-aged. They had both doffed their suit coats as they had ushered me into the crowded little room. I strangely relished their fatuous attempt at intimidation, and was certain I could best them at any form of psychological warfare.

We were all wearing Smith and Wesson .38 police specials in shoulder holsters, which gave the proceedings a ritualistic air. I was nervous, high on adrenaline and phony righteous indignation. I was prepared for anything, including the end of my career, and that strengthened my resolve to defeat these two obdurate-looking policemen.

I pulled up a chair, propped up my feet on a ledge of recruiting posters, and smiled disarmingly while Quinn and Milner dug cigarettes and Zippo lighters out of their suit coats and lit up. Milner, who was the slightly taller and older of the two, offered the pack to me.

"I don't smoke, Sergeant," I said, keeping my voice clipped and severe, the voice of a man who takes trouble from no one.

"Good man," Quinn said, smiling, "wish I didn't."

"I quit once, during the Depression," Milner said. "I had a good-looking girlfriend who hated the smell of tobacco. My wife don't like it either, but she ain't so good-looking."

"Then why'd you marry her?" Quinn asked.

"'Cause she told me I looked like Clark Gable!" Milner snorted.

Quinn got a big bang out of that. "My wife told me I looked like Bela Lugosi and I slugged her," he said.

"You should have bit her neck," Milner cracked.

"I do, every night." Quinn guffawed, blowing out a huge lungful of smoke and pulling up a chair facing me. Milner laughed along and opened a tiny window at the back of the room, letting in rays of hazy sunshine and a flood of traffic noise.

"Officer Underhill," he said, "my partner and I are here today because doubts have been raised about your fitness to serve the department." Milner's voice had metamorphosed into a precise professorial tone. He started a dramatic pause, drawing on his cigarette, and I answered, mimicking his inflections:

"Sergeant, I have grave doubts about the brass hats who sent you here to question me. Has Internal Affairs questioned Dudley Smith?"

Milner and Quinn looked at each other. Their look was informed with the humorous secret knowledge of longtime partners.

"Officer," Quinn said, "do you think we are here because a queer slashed his wrists in County Jail yesterday?" I didn't answer. Quinn continued: "Do you think we're here because you initiated, illegally, the arrest of an innocent man?"

Milner took over. "Officer, do you think we're here because you have brought great disgrace on the department?"

He took a folded-up newspaper out of his back pocket and read from it: "'Hero cop quick on the trigger? L.A.P.D. in hot water? Thanks to crack legal beagle Walter Canfield and a courageous anonymous witness, Eddie Engels almost walked out the door of County Jail a free man. Instead, humiliated and tortured by his ordeal of false arrest, he left under a sheet. Canfield and the man with whom Engels spent the night of August 12—the night he was alleged to have murdered Margaret Cadwallader—tragically got to the authorities too late with their information. Eddie Engels slashed his wrists with a contraband razor blade in his cell on the eleventh floor of the Hall of Justice yesterday afternoon, the victim of gunslinger justice.

"'Our Seattle correspondent contacted the victim's father, Wilhelm Engels, a pharmacist in suburban Seattle. "I can't believe that God would do such a thing," the white-haired old gentleman said. "There must be an investigation into the policemen who arrested my Edward. Edward was a gentle, lovely boy who never hurt anyone. We must have justice." Mr. Engels told our correspondent that Walter Canfield has offered his services, free of charge, in filing suit for false arrest against the Los Angeles Police Department. "Mr. Engels will have his justice," Canfield told reporters shortly before he learned of Engels's death, "the justice his son was denied. This is clearly a case of a quick-on-the-trigger young cop out to make a name for himself."'"

Milner paused. My vision was starting to darken at the edges, but I shook my head and it cleared.

"Go on," I said.

Milner coughed and continued. "'Officer Frederick U. Underhill, canonized within the L.A.P.D. and by Los Angeles newspapers earlier this year for killing two holdup men, brought the 'same rash justice to his investigation of Eddie Engels. Veteran L.A.P.D. Detective Lieutenant Dudley Smith told our reporter: "Fred Underhill is an ambitious young man out to make chief of police in record time. He caught myself and several others up in his crusade to get Eddie Engels. I admit I went along with it. I admit I was at fault. Last night I lit a candle for poor Eddie's family. I also lit one for Fred Underhill and prayed that he learns a lesson from this tragedy he perpetrated."'"

I started to laugh. My laughter sounded hysterical to my own ears. Milner and Quinn didn't think it was funny. Quinn snapped: "This article, which was in the L.A. Daily News, goes on to call for your resignation and an investigation into the entire department. What do you think about that, Underhill?"

I calmed myself and stared at my inquisitors. "I feel that that article was written in a very poor prose style. Convoluted, hysterical, hyperbolic. Hemingway would disapprove of it. F. Scott Fitzgerald would turn over in his grave. Shakespeare would be dismayed. That's what I think."

"Underhill," Milner said, "you know the department takes care of its own, don't you?"

"Sure. Witness that lunatic Dudley Smith. He'll come out of this thing smelling like a rose and probably make Captain. Ahhh, yes. Grand!"

"Underhill, the department was prepared to stand by you until we did a little checking up on you."

I started to go cold in the hot, smoky room. The traffic noise on Los Angeles Street sounded alternately very loud and very soft.

"Oh, yeah?" I said. "Come up with anything interesting?"

"Yes," Quinn said, "we did. Let me quote. 'Sarah had high full breasts with cone-shaped dark brown nipples. Coarse hairs surrounded them. She was an experienced lover. We moved well together. She anticipated my motions and accommodated them with fluid grace.' Want some more, Underhill?"

"You filthy bastards," I said.

"Did you know that Sarah Kefalvian is a Communist, Underhill? She's listed in the rolls of five organizations that have been classified as Commie fronts. Did you know that?" Milner leaned over me, his knuckles white from grasping the table. "Do you fuck a lot of Commies, Underhill?" he hissed.

"Are you a Communist, Freddy?" Quinn asked.

"Go fuck yourself," I said.

Milner leaned over further; I could smell his tobacco breath. "I think you are a Communist. And a filthy pervert. Decent men don't write about the women they fuck. Decent men don't fuck Commies."

I stuck my hands under my thighs to control their shaking and to keep myself from hitting someone. My head was pounding and my vision blurred from the blackness throbbing behind my eyes. "You forgot to mention I've got red upholstery on my car. You forgot to mention I also fuck Koreans, Republicans, and Democrats. When I was in high school I had a redheaded girlfriend. I've got a red cashmere sweater, you forgot to mention that."

"There's one thing you didn't forget to mention," Quinn said. "Listen: 'I told Sarah about dodging the draft in '42. She is the only person besides Wacky to know that. Telling her made me feel strangely free.'"

Quinn spat on the floor. "I served in the war, Underhill. I lost a brother at Guadalcanal. All good Americans served. Anyone who dodged the draft is a no-good Commie traitor, and not worthy to carry a badge. You have brought disgrace to the department. The chief himself has been told of what we found in your diary. He ordered this investigation. We only had a little time to search your apartment. God knows what other Commie degeneracy we would have found, if we had had more time. You have two choices: resign, or face departmental trial on charges of moral turpitude. If you don't resign, we will take your diary to the feds. Draft-dodging is a federal offense."

Milner took a typed form out of his suit coat pocket. He placed on the table along with a pen; then he and his partner walked out of the room.

I stared at the resignation form. The print blurred before my eyes. Tears welled in them, and I willed the effort to stanch their flow. It took a minute, but they stopped before they could burst out of me. I walked to the window and looked out. I marked the time and committed the scene to memory, then took off my shoulder holster and laid it on the table. I placed my badge next to it and signed away my access to the wonder.

Camera-wielding reporters were stationed in front of my apartment as I turned onto my block. I couldn't face them, so I drove around the corner and cut through the alley, then parked and hopped fences, entering my apartment through the back door. I filled a suitcase with clean clothes, hitched Night Train to his leash and walked back out to the alley and around the block to my car.

I drove north, with no destination in mind. Night Train chewed golf balls in the backseat. It was easy not to think of my future; I didn't have one.

Hugging the coast road reminded me of my recent jaunt with Lorna, which suddenly brought the future back to me in a blinding rush of schemes and contingencies.

I looked at the telephone poles lining the Pacific Coast Highway and contemplated sweet, instant oblivion. When the tall wooden spires began to look like the ultimate scheme, I let out a muffled, dry sob and swung my Buick inland through some insignificant dirt canyon trail, moving upward through green scrub country until I came down forty-five minutes later in the San Fernando Valley.

I headed north again, catching the ridge route in Chatsworth and moving up it toward the Grapevine and Bakersfield. I wanted to find someplace barren and bereft of beauty, a good flat place to walk my dog and arrive at decisions without the distractions of picturesque surroundings.

Bakersfield wasn't the place. At three-thirty P.M., the temperature was still close to one hundred degrees. I stopped at a diner and ordered a Coke. The Coke cost a nickel and the ice that accompanied it a quarter. The counterman was giving me the fisheye. He handed me my Coke in a paper cup and opened his mouth to speak. I didn't let him; I slammed some change on the countertop and walked quickly back to my car.

Some hundred and fifty miles north of Bakersfield, I realized I was entering Steinbeck country, and I almost sighed with relief. Here was a place to light, filled with the nuances and epiphanies of my carefree college reading days.

But it didn't happen. My mind took over and I knew that being surrounded by verdant farmland and picaresque, hard-drinking Mexicans would bring back the wonder full force, along with a barrage of guilt, shame, self-loathing, and fear that spelled only one thing: it is over.

I pulled to the edge of the roadside. I let Night Train out and he ran ahead of me into a seemingly endless sea of furrowed irrigation trenches. I walked behind him, listening to his happy bays. We walked and walked and walked, kicking up dust clouds that soon covered my trouser legs with a rich, dark brown soil. I walked all the way into a spot where the world seemed eclipsed in all directions. All my horizons were a deep dark brownness.

I sat down in the dirt. Night Train barked at me. I scooped up a handful of soil and let it slip through my fingers. I smelled my hands. They smelt of feces and infinity.

Suddenly the irrigation pipes that surrounded me broke into life, spraying me with water. I got up reflexively and started running in the direction of my car. Night Train did too, quickly passing me. Some unseen timing device was at work, and the sprinklers kept popping on in perfect succession, right behind me. I ran and I ran and I ran, barely staying ahead of the ten-foot-high geysers of water. Exhausted, I came to a halt at the edge of the blacktop, trying to catch my breath. Night Train barked happily, his chest heaving also. My shoes, socks, and trouser legs were soaking wet and smelled of manure. I got clean clothes out of the suitcase in the backseat, and changed right there on the roadway.

By the time I had finished dressing and had regained my breath, an eerie stillness had come over me. It held me there and wouldn't let me move or think. After a few moments I started to weep. I wept and I wept and I wept, standing there on the dusty roadside, my hands braced against the hood of my car. Finally my sobbing stopped, as abruptly as the stillness had begun. I took my hands from the car and stood upright as tenuously as a baby taking his first steps.

It took me a solid four hours of lead-footed driving to make it back to Los Angeles. After dropping Night Train with my mystified landlady, I drove to Lorna's apartment.

I could hear her radio blaring from the living room window as I pulled to the curb. Her electrically operated front door was propped open with a stack of telephone books. She had left the light on in the stairway, and I could see the glow of candlelight illuminating her living room at the top of the stairs.

I cleared my throat repeatedly to prepare her for my coming as I took the stairs slowly, one at a time. Lorna was lying on her floral-patterned couch, with one arm dangling over the side holding a wineglass. The light from candles placed strategically throughout the room on lamp tables, bookshelves, and windowsills encased her in an amber glow.

"Hello, Freddy," she said as I entered the room.

"Hello, Lor," I returned. I pulled an ottoman up alongside the sofa.

Lorna sipped her wine. "What will you do now?" she asked.

"I don't know. Who told you?"

"The four-star edition of the L.A. Examiner. 'Underhill Resigns in Wake of False Arrests Suits. Communist Ties Cited.' Do you want me to read you the whole thing?"

I reached for her arm, but she pulled it away. "I'm sorry for yesterday, Lorna, really."

"For my office door?"

"No, for what I said to you."

"Was it the truth?"

"Yes."

"Then don't apologize for it."

Lorna's face was an iron mask in the candlelight. Her expression was expressionless, and I couldn't decipher her feelings. "What are you going to do, Freddy?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll paint my car red. Maybe I'll dye my hair red, too. Maybe I'll enlist in the North Korean Army. I've never done anything half-assed in my life, so why be a half-assed Commie?"

Lorna lit a cigarette. The smoke she exhaled cast her in a second halo within the amber light. Her mask was starting to drop. She was starting to get angry, and that gave me heart. I threw out a line calculated to compound that anger. "The wonder got me, I guess."

"No!" Lorna spat out. "No, you bastard. The wonder didn't get you; you got you! Don't you know that?"

"Yes, I do. And do you know the only thing I'm sorry for?"

"Eddie Engels and Margaret Cadwallader?"

"The hell with them. They're dead. I'm only sorry I took you with me."

Lorna laughed. "Don't be sorry. I fell for circumstantial evidence and the brightest, brashest, handsomest man I'd ever met. What will you do now, Freddy?"

I took Lorna's hand, holding it tightly so she couldn't withdraw it. "I don't know. What will you do?"

Lorna wrenched her hand free and began twisting her head sideways, banging it back and forth violently on the couch. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, for Christ's fucking sake, I don't know!"

"Will you stay with the D.A.'s office?"

Lorna shook her head again. "No. I can't. I mean, I could if I wanted to, but I can't. I can't go on with justice and cops and criminal law. When you called me and told me Engels confessed, I went straight to the D.A. Maybe I gushed about you, I don't know, but he had my number, and when Canfield brought Winton to see him and we talked afterward, I knew that I was through in the office. With Engels dead, it's final. I don't even want to be there now. Freddy, will you try to get another policeman's job?"

The naive question was a challenge. I shook my head. "Not unless it's in Russia. Maybe I could be a deputy commissar in Leningrad, something like that. Write parking tickets for bobsleds in Siberia."

Lorna stroked my hair: "What do you want, Freddy?"

"I want you. That's all I know. Will you marry me?"

Lorna smiled in the candlelight. "Yes," she said.

We decided not to lose our momentum. Lorna hurriedly packed a suitcase while I put the top up on the car. We left immediately for the border, cracking jokes and singing along with the radio and playing grab-ass as we highballed it south on Route 5.

Coming into San Diego, Lorna started to cry as the realization hit her that she had lost her secure old life and had gained an uncertain new one. I held her tightly with one arm and continued driving. We crossed the border into Mexico at three in the morning.

We found an all-night wedding chapel on Revolución, the main drag of Tijuana. A fat, smiling Mexican priest married us, took the ten-dollar wedding fee and typed our marriage license, assuring us all the while that it was lawful and binding before man and God.

We drove through the impoverished Tijuana streets until we spotted a hotel that looked clean enough to spend our wedding night in.

I paid for three days in advance and carried our bags to a rickety elevator that took us up to the top floor. Our room was simple: clean, polished wood floors; clean, threadbare carpeting; a clean bathroom; and a big clean double bed.

Lorna Underhill undressed, lay down on the bed and fell asleep immediately. I sat in a chair and watched my wife sleep, believing that the steadfastness of my love for her would cover all the contingencies of life without the wonder.