L.A. Confidential

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Evidence--the victims' belongings found near the Tevere Hotel; Coates' Mere and the shotguns located: forensic verification on the piece that shot the strangely marked rounds. No grand jury on earth would refuse to hand down Murder One. The Nite Owl case was made.

Ed at his kitchen table, writing a report: Parker's last summary. Inez in the bedroom, her bedroom now, he couldn't get up the nerve to say: "Just let me sleep with you, we'll see how things go, wait on the other." She'd been moody--reading books on Raymond Dieterling, getting up nerve to ask the man for a job. The news on the guns didn't bolster her--even though it meant no testimony. Evidence--her outside wounds had healed, there was no physical pain to distract her. She kept feeling it happen.

The phone rang; Ed grabbed it. An extra click--Inez picking up in the bedroom.

"Hello?"

"Russ Millard, Ed."

"Captain, how are you?"

"It's Russ to sergeants and up, son."

"Russ, have you heard about the car and the guns? The Nite Owl's history."

"Not exactly, and that's why I called. I just talked to a Sheriff's lieutenant I know, a man on the Jail Bureau. He told me he heard a rumor. Dudley Smith's taking Bud White in to beat confessions out of our boys. Tomorrow morning, early. I had them moved to another cellblock where they can't get at them."

"Jesus Christ."

"The savior indeed. Son, I have a plan. We go in early, confront them with the new evidence and try for legitimate confessions. You play the bad guy, I'll play savior."

Ed squared his glasses. "What time?"

"Say 7:00?"

"All right."

"Son, it means making an enemy out of Dudley."

The bedroom line clicked off. "So be it. Russ, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Sleep well, son. I need you alert."

Ed hung up. Inez in the doorway, wearing his robe--huge on her. "You can't do this to me."

"You shouldn't eavesdrop."

"I was expecting a call from my sister. Exley, you can't."

"You wanted them in the gas chamber, they're going there. You didn't want to testify, now I doubt if you'll have to."

"I want them hurt. I want them to suffer."

"No. It's wrong. This is a case that demands absolute justice."

She laughed. "Absolute justice fits you like this robe fits me, _pendejo_."

"You got what you wanted, Inez. Let it go at that and get on with your life."

"What life? Living with you? You'll never marry me, you're so deferential around me that I want to scream and every time I've got myself convinced you're a pretty decent guy you do something that makes me say, '_Madre mia_, how can I be so dumb?' And now you'd deny me this? _This little thing?_"

Ed held up his report. "Dozens of men built this case. Those animals will be dead by Christmas. _Todos_, Inez. _Absolutamente_. Isn't that enough?"

She laughed--harder. "No. Ten seconds and they go to sleep. Six hours they beat me and fucked me and stuck things in me. No, it's not enough."

Ed stood up. "So you'll let Bud White jeopardize our case. Ellis Loew probably arranged this, Inez. He's thinking airtight grand jury presentation, a two day trial with half of it him grandstanding. He'd jeopardize what he's already got for that. Be smart and recognize it."

"No, you recognize that the fix is in. The _negritos_ die because that's the way it is. I'm just a witness nobody needs anymore, so maybe tomorrow Officer White takes a few licks for my justice."•

Ed made fists. "White's a brutal disgrace of a policeman and a slimy, womanizing son of a bitch."

"No, he's just a guy who calls a spade a spade and doesn't look six ways before he crosses the street."

"He's shit. _Mierda_."

"Then he's my _mierda_. Exley, I _know_ you. You don't give a damn about justice, you just care about yourself. You're only doing that thing tomorrow to hurt Officer White, and you're only doing it because you know that he knows what you are. You treat me like you want to love me, then you give me nothing but money and social connections, which you've got plenty of and won't miss. You take no risks for me, and Officer White risks his estüpido life and doesn't weigh the consequences, and when I get better you'll want to fuck me and set me up someplace where you won't have to be seen in public with me, which is revolting to me, and if for no other reason I love _estupido_ Officer White because at least he has the sense to know what you are."

Ed walked up to her. "And what am I?"

"Just a run-of-the-mill coward."

Ed raised a fist, flinched when she flinched. Inez pulled off her robe. Ed looked, looked away--at the wall and his framed army medals. A target--he threw them across the room. Not enough. He took a bead on a window, reared back, hit soft padded curtains instead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Jack woke up seeing smut.

Karen in orgy shots--Veronica Lake loving her. Blood: fuck pix as coroner's pix, beautiful women drenched red. The first real thing he saw was daybreak--then Bud White's car parked by Lynn Bracken's pad.

Cracked lips, bone aches head to toe. He swallowed his last bcnnies, brought back his last thoughts before oblivion.

Nothing in the files, Patchett and Bracken his only Hudgens leads. Patchett had servants living in. Bracken lived alone--he'd brace her when White left her bed.

Jack brainstormed a tailing report--lies to snow Dudley Smith. A door slammed--a sound like a gunshot. Bud White walked to his car.

Jack hit the seat prone. The car pulled away, seconds, another gunshot/door slam. A quick look: a brunette Lynn Bracken heading out.

Over to her car, up to Los Feliz, east. Jack followed: the right lane, dawdling back. Sparse early morning traffic: call the woman too distracted to spot him.

Due cast, into Glendale. North on Brand, a swerve to the curb in front of a bank. Jack pulled around the corner to a sighting point--the corner store, a grocer's--milk cartons stacked by the door.

He squatted down, watched the sidewalk. Lynn B. was talking to a man: nervous, a shaky little guy. He opened the bank and hustled her in; a Ford and Dodge were parked further down--no way to nail plate numbers. Lamar Hinton walked outside lugging boxes.

Files, files, files--it had to be.

Bracken and the bank geek hauled boxes: a run to the Dodge and Lynn's Packard. The geek locked up the bank, hit the Ford and U-turned southbound; Hinton and Bracken formed a chain--separate cars heading north.

Seconds tick tick tick--Jack counted to ten, chased.

He caught them a mile out--weaving, creeping up, falling back-downtown Glendale, north into foothills. Traffic dwindled; Jack found a lookout spot: a clean view of the road winding upward. He parked, watched: the cars kept climbing, took a fork, disappeared.

He followed their route straight to a campsite--picnic tables, barbecue pits. Two cars behind a pine row; Bracken and Hinton carrying boxes--muscle boy dangling a gas can off one pinky.

Jack ditched his car, snuck up behind some scrub pines. Bracken and Hinton dumped: paper in a big charcoal pit. They turned their backs; Jack sprinted over, ducked down.

They came back, another load: Bracken with a lighter out, Hinton's arms full. Jack stood up, kicked, pistolwhipped--the balls, left/right/left to the face. Hinton went down dropping paper; Jack broke his arms--knees to the elbows, jerks at the wrists.

Hinton went white--shock coming on.

Bracken had hold of the gas can and a lighter.

Jack stood in front of the pit, his .38 cocked.

Standoff.

Lynn held the can, the cap loose, spilling fumes. Flick--a flame on the lighter. Jack drew down--right in her face.

Standoff.

Hinton tried to crawl. Jack's gun hand started shaking. "Sid Hudgens, Patchett and Fleur-de-Lis. It's either me or Bud White, and I can be bought."

Lynn killed the flame, lowered the gas. "What about Lamar?"

Hinton: pawing at the dirt, spitting blood. Jack lowered his gun. "He'll live. And he shot at me, so now we're quits."

"He didn't shoot at you. Pierce . . . I just know he didn't."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know. Really. And Pierce and I don't know who killed Hudgens. The first we heard of it was the newspapers yesterday."

The pit--folders on charcoal. "Hudgens' private dirt, right?"

"Yes."

"Yes and keep going."

"No, let's talk about your price. Lamar told Pierce about you, and Pierce figured out that you were that policeman who always seems to wind up in the scandal sheets. So as you say, you can be bought. Now, for how much?"

"What I want's in with those files."

"And what do you--"

"I know about you and the other girls Patchett runs. I know all about Fleur-de-Lis and the shit Patchett pushes, including the smut."

No fluster--the woman put out a stone face. "Some of your stag books have pictures with animated ink. Red, like blood. I saw pictures of Hudgens' body. He was cut up to match those photos."

The stone face held. "So now you're going to ask me about Pierce and Hudgens."

"Yeah, and who doctored up the photos in the books." Lynn shook her head. "I don't know who made those books, and neither does Pierce. He bought them bulk from a rich Mexican man."

"I don't think I believe you."

"I don't care. Do you want money besides?"

"No, and I'm betting whoever made those photographs killed Hudgens."

"Maybe somebody who got excited by the pictures killed him. Do you care either way? Why am I betting Hudgens had dirt on you, and that's what's behind all this?"

"Smart lady. And I'm betting Patchett and Hudgens didn't play golf or--"

Lynn cut him off. "Pierce and Sid were planning on working a deal together. I won't tell you any more than that."

Extortion--it had to be. "And those files were for that?"

"No comment. I haven't looked at the files, and let's keep this a stalemate and make sure nobody gets hurt."

"Then tell me what happened at the bank."

Lynn watched Hinton try to crawl. "Pierce knew that Sid kept his private files in safe-deposit boxes at that B of A. After we read that he'd been killed, Pierce figured the police would locate the files. You see, Sid had files on Pierce's dealings--dealings legitimate policemen would disapprove of. Pierce bribed the manager into letting us have the files. And here we are."

Jack smelled paper, charcoal. "You and Bud White."

Lynn made fists, pressed them to her legs. "He has nothing to do with any of this."

"Tell me anyway."

"Why?"

"Because I don't make you two as the hot item of 1953."

A smile from deep nowhere--Jack almost smiled back. Lynn said, "We're going to strike a deal, aren't we? A truce?"

"Yeah, a non-aggression pact."

"Then make this part of it. Bud approached Pierce, investigating the murder of a young girl named Kathy Janeway. He'd gotten Pierce's name and mine from a man who used to know her. Of course, we didn't kill her, and Pierce didn't want a policeman coming around. He told me to be nice to Bud . . . and now I'm starting to like him. And I don't want you to tell him anything about this. Please."

She even begged with class. "Deal, and you can tell Patchett the D.A. thinks the Hudgens case is a loser. It's heading for the back burner, and if I find what I want in that pile, today didn't happen."

Lynn smiled--this time he smiled back. "Go look after Hinton."

She walked over to him. Jack dug into the folders, found name tabs, kept digging. A spate of T's, a run of V's, the kicker. "Vincennes, John."

Eyewitness accounts: squarejohns at the beach that night. Nice folks who saw him drill Mr. & Mrs. Harold J. Scoggins, nice folks who told Sid about it for cash, nice folks who didn't tell the "authorities" for fear of "getting involved." The results of the blood test Sid bribed the examining doctor into suppressing: the Big V with a snootful of maryjane, Benzedrine, liquor. His own doped-up statement in the ambulance: confessions to a dozen shakedowns. Conclusive proof: Jack V. snuffed two innocent citizens outside the Malibu Rendezvous.

"I got Lamar back to my car. I'll drive him to a hospital."

Jack turned around. "This is too good to be true. Patchett's got carbons, right?"

That smile again. "Yes, for his deal with Hudgens. Sid gave him carbons of every file except the files he kept on Pierce himself Pierce wanted the carbons as his insurance policy. I'm sure he didn't trust Sid, and since we have all of Hudgens' files right here, I'm sure Pierce's files are in there."

"Yeah, and you have a carbon on mine."

"Yes, Mr. Vincennes. We do."

Jack tried to ape that smile. "Everything I know about you, Patchett, his rackets and Sid Hudgens is going into a deposition, _multiple_ copies to _multiple_ safe-deposit boxes. If anything happens to me or mine, they go to the LAPD, the D.A.'s Office and the L.A. _Mirror._"

"Stalemate, then. Do you want to light the match?"

Jack bowed. Lynn doused the files, torched them. Paper sizzled, fireballed--Jack stared until his eyes stung.

"Go home and sleep, Sergeant. You look terrible."

o o o

Not home--Karen's.

He drove there woozy, keyed up. He started to feel the close-out: bad debts settled bad, a clean slate. He got the idea just like he got the idea to shake down Claude Dineen. He didn't say the words, didn't rehearse it. He turned the radio on so he'd keep the notion fresh.

A stern-voiced announcer:

". . . and the southside of Los Angeles is now the focus of the largest manhunt in California history. We repeat, an hour and a half ago, just after dawn, Raymond Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine, the accused killers in the Nite Owl massacre case, escaped from the Hall of Justice Jail in downtown Los Angeles. The three had been moved to a minimum security cellblock to await requestioning and made their escape by the means of knotted-together bedsheets and a jump out a secondstory window. Here, recorded immediately after the escape, are the comments of Captain Russell Millard of the Los Angeles Police Department, co-supervisor of the Nite Owl investigation.

"'I . . . assume full responsibility for this incident. I was the one who ordered the three suspects sequestered in a minimum security unit. I . . . every effort will be made to recapture them with all due speed. I . .

Jack turned the radio off. Close-out: pious Russ Millard's career. Call-out: figure the whole Bureau yanked from bed for the dragnet. He yawned the rest of the way to Karen's, rang her bell seeing double.

Karen opened up. "Sweetie, _where have you been?_"

Jack plucked curlers out of her hair. "Will you marry me?"

Karen said, "Yes."

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Ed, staked out at 1st and Olive. His father's shotgun for backup, a replay on his hunch.

Sugar Ray Coates: "Roland Navarette, lives on Bunker Hill. Runs a hole-up for parole absconders."

A whispered snitch: the speakers didn't catch it, doubtful Coates remembered he said it. R&I, Navarette's mugshot, address: a rooming house midway down Olive, half a mile from the Hall of Justice Jail. A dawn breakout--they couldn't make Darktown unseen. Figure all four of them armed.

Scared--like Guadalcanal '43.

Outlaw--he didn't report the lead.

Ed drove to mid-block. A clapboard Victorian: four stories, peeling paint. He jumped the steps, checked out the mail slots: R. Navarette, 408.

Inside, his suitcoat around the shotgun. A long hallway, glass-fronted elevator, stairs. Up those stairs--he couldn't feel his footsteps. The fourth-floor landing--nobody in sight. Down to 408, drop the suitcoat. Inez screaming primed him--he kicked the door in.

Four men eating sandwiches.

Jones and Navarette at a table. Fontaine on the floor. Sugar Coates by the window, picking his teeth.

No weapons in sight. Nobody moved.

Odd sounds--"You're under arrest" strangling out. Jones put his hands up. Navarette raised his hands. Fontaine laced his hands behind his head. Sugar Ray said, "Cat got your goddamn tongue, sissy?"

Ed jerked the trigger: once, twice--buckshot took off Coates' legs. Recoil--Ed braced against the doorway, aimed. Fontaine and Navarette stood up screaming; Ed SQUEEZED the trigger, blew them up in one spread. Recoil, a bad pull: half the back wall came down.

Blood spray thick--Ed stumbled, wiped his eyes. He saw Jones make the elevator.

He ran after him: slid, tripped, caught up. Jones was pushing buttons, screaming prayers--inches from the glass, "Please Jesus." Ed aimed point-blank, squeezed twice. Glass and buckshot took his head off.

Strong legs now, fuck civilian screams all around him.

Ed ran downstairs, into a crowd: blues, plainclothesmen. Hands pounded his back; men shouted his name. A voice close by: "Millard's dead. Heart attack at the Bureau."

CHAPTER FORTY

Rain for the funeral. A graveside service: Dudley Smith's eulogy, a priest's last words.

Every Bureau man attended: Thad Green's orders. Parker called out the press: a little ceremony after they planted Russ Millard. Bud watched Ed Exley comfort the widow--his best profile to the cameras.

A week of cameras, headlines: Ed Exley, "L.A.'s Greatest Hero"--World War II stalwart, the man who slayed the Nite Owl slayers and their accomplice. Ellis Loew told the press the three confessed before they escaped--nobody mentioned the niggers were unarmed. Ed Exley was made.

The priest's spiel picked up steam. The widow started weeping--Exley put an arm around her shoulders. Bud walked away.

Lightning, more rain--Bud ducked into the chapel. Parker's soiree was set up: lectern, chairs, a table laid out with sandwiches. More lightning--Bud looked out the window, saw the casket hit the dirt. Ashes to fucking ashes--Stens got six months, scuttlebutt had Exicy and Inez a hot item: kill four jigs, get the girl.

The mourners headed up--Ellis Loew slipped, took a pratfall. Bud hit on the good stuff: Lynn, West Valley on the Kathy snuff. Let the bad shit go for now.

Into the chapel: raincoats and umbrellas dumped, a rush for seats. Parker and Exley stood by the lectern. Bud sprawled in a chair at the back.

Reporters, notepads. Front row seats: Loew, the widow Millard, Preston Exley--hot news for Dream-a-Dreamland.

Parker spoke into the mike. "This is a sad occasion, an occasion of mourning. We mourn a kind and good man and a dedicated policeman. We mark his passing with regret. The loss of Captain Russell A. Millard is the loss of Mrs. Millard, the Millard family and all of us here. It will be a hard loss to bear, but bear it we will. There is a passage I recall from somewhere in the annals of literature. That passage is 'If there was no God, how could I be a Captain?' It is God who will see us through our grief and our loss. The God who allowed Russ Millard to become a captain, His captain."

Parker pulled out a small velvet case. "And life continues through our losses. The loss of one splendid policeman coincides with the emergence of another one. Edmund J. Exley, detective sergeant, has amassed a brilliant record in his ten years with the Los Angeles Police Department, three of those years given over to service in the United States Army. Ed Exley received the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry in the Pacific Theater, and last week he evinced spectacular bravery in the line of duty. It is my honor to present him with the highest measure of honor this police department can bestow: our Medal of Valor."

Exley stepped forward. Parker opened the case, took out a gold medallion hung from a blue satin ribbon and placed it around his neck. The men shook hands--Exley had tears in his eyes. Flashbulbs popped, reporters scribbled, no applause. Parker tapped the mike.

"The Medal of Valor is a very high expression of esteem, but not one with practical everyday applications. Spiritual ramifications aside, it does not reward the recipient with the challenge of good, hard police work. Today I am going to utilize a rarely used chief's prerogative and reward Ed Exley with work. I am promoting him two entire ranks, to captain, and assigning him as the Los Angeles Police Department's floating divisional commander, the assignment formerly held by our much loved colleague Russ Millard."

Preston Exley stood up. Civilians stood up; the Bureau men stood on cue--Thad Green flashed them two thumbs. Scattered applause, lackluster. Ed Exley stood ramrod straight; Bud stayed sprawled in his chair. He took out his gun, kissed it, blew pretend smoke off the barrel.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

A gala lawn wedding, a Presbyterian service--old man Morrow called the shots and picked up the tab. June 19, 1953: the Big V ties the knot.

Miller Stanton best man; Joanie Loew--swacked on champagne punch--matron of honor. Dudley Smith the hit of the reception--stories, Gaelic songs. Parker and Green came at Ellis Loew's request; boy captain Ed Exley showed up. The Morrows' social circle pals rounded out the guest list--and swelled old Welton's huge backyard to bursting.

Marriage vows for his close-out. Bad debts settled good: new calendar days, his "insurance policy deposition" stashed in fourteen different bank vaults. Scary vows: he pumped himself up at the altar.

Parker buried the Hudgens killing. Bracken and Patchett stalemated. Dudley called off his tail on White, bought his phony reports: no Lynn, White prowling bars at night. He staked Lynn's place for a couple of days, it looked like she had a good thing going with Bud--who always was a sucker.

Like himself

The minister said the words; they said the words; Jack kissed his bride. Hugs, backsiaps--well wishers swept them away from each other. Parker drummed up some warmth; Ed Exley worked the crowd, no sign of his Mexican girl. Nicknames now: "Shotgun Ed," "Triggerman Eddie." "L.A.'s Greatest Hero" smiles on a bagman cop marrying up.

Jack found a spot above the pool house--a little rise with a view. Two celebrants stuck out: Karen, Exley. Give him credit: he seized the opportunity, made the Department look bold. He wouldn't have had the stomach for it--or the rage.

Exley. White. Himself

Jack counted secrets: his own, whatever lived at that edge where pornography touched a dead scandal monger and lightly brushed the Nite Owl Massacre. He thought of Bud White, Ed Exley. He sent up a wedding day prayer: the Nite Owl dead and buried, safe passage for ruthless men in love.

CALENDAR

1954

EXTRACT: L.A. _Herald-Express_, June 16:

EX-POLICEMAN ARRESTED

FOR MURDEROUS

ROBBERY SPREE

Richard Alex Stensland, 40, former Los Angeles police detective and a defendant in the 1951 "Bloody Christmas" police scandal, was arrested early this morning and charged with six counts of armed robbery and two counts of first-degree murder. Arrested with him at his hideout in Pacoima were Dennis "The Weasel" Burns, 43, and Lester John Miciak, 37. The other men were charged with four armed-robbery counts and two counts of first-degree murder.

The arrest raid was led by Captain Edmund J. Exley, divisional floating commander for the Los Angeles Police Department, currently assigned to head up the LAPD's Robbery Division. Assisting Captain Exley were Sergeants Duane Fisk and Donald Kleckner. Exley, whose testimony in the Bloody Christmas scandal sent Stensland to jail in 1952, told reporters: "Eyewitnesses identified photographs of the three men. We have conclusive proof that these men are responsible for stickups at six central Los Angeles liquor stores, including the robbery of Sol's Liquors in the Silverlake District on June 9. The proprietor of that store and his son were shot and killed during that robbery and eyewitnesses place both Stensland and Burns at the scene. Intensive questioning of the suspects will begin soon, and we expect to clear up many other unsolved robberies."

Stensland, Burns and Miciak offered no resistance during their arrest. They were taken to the Hall of Justice Jail, where Stensland was restrained from attacking Captain Exley.

BANNER: L.A. _Mirror-News_, June 21:

STENSLAND CONFESSES, DESCRIBES

REIGN OF ROBBERY TERROR

BANNER: L.A. _Herald-Express_, September 23:

LIQUOR STORE KILLERS CONVICTED;

DEATH PENALTY FOR EX-POLICEMAN

EXTRACT: L.A. _Times_, November 11:

STENSLAND DIES FOR LIQUOR STORE

KILLINGS--GUNMAN FORMER POLICEMAN

At 10:03 yesterday morning, Richard Stensland, 41 and a former Los Angeles police officer, died in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison for the June 9 murders of Solomon and David Abramowitz. The killings took place during a liquor store holdup. Stensland was convicted and sentenced on September 22 and refused to appeal his sentence.

The execution went off smoothly, although Stensland appeared inebriated. Present among the press and prison officials were two LAPD detectives: Captain Edmund J. Exley, the man responsible for Stensland's capture, and Officer Wendell White, the condemned killer's former partner. Officer White visited Stensland in his death row cell on execution eve and stayed through the night with him. Assistant Warden B. D. Terwilliger denied that Officer White supplied Stensland with intoxicating liquor and denied that White viewed the execution while drunk himseW. Stensland verbally abused the prison chaplain who was present and his last words were obscenities directed at Captain Exley.

1955

_Hush-Hush_ Magazine, May 1955 Issue:

WHO KILLED SID HUDGENS?

Justice in the City of the Fallen Angels reminds us of a line from that sin-sational sepia show _Porgy and Bess_. Like "a man," it's "a sometime thing." As in for instance: if you're a well-connected contributor to demon D.A. Ellis Loew's slush fund and you get murdered--killer beware!! !--L.A. Chief of Police William H. Parker will spare no expense unearthing the fiend who put you on the night train to the Big Adios. But if you're a crusading journalist writing for this magazine and you get chopped into Ken-L Ration in your own living room--killer rejoice!! !--Chief Parker and his moralistic, misanthropic, mindless mongolians will sit on their hands (well worn from palming payoffs) and whistle "justice is a sometime thing" while the killer whistles Dixie.

It has now been two years since Sid Hudgens was fatally slashed in his Chapman Park living room. Two years ago the LAPD had its (sticky, graft-ridden) hands full with the infamous Nite Owl murder case, which was resolved when one of their members took the law into his own (overweeningly ambitious, opportunistic) hands and shotgunned the shotgunners to the Big Au Revoir. Sid Hudgens' murder was assigned to two flunky detectives with a total of zero "made" homicide cases between them. They, of course, did not fmd the killer or killers, spent most of their days here at the _Hush-Hush_ office reading back issues for clues, scarfing coffee and doughnuts and ogling the comely editorial assistants who flock to _Hush-Hush_ because we know where the bodies are buried . . .

We at _Hush-Hush_ tap the inside pulse of the City of the Fallen Angels, and we _have_ investigated the Sidster's death on our own. We have gotten nowhere, and we ask the Los Angeles Police Department the following questions:

Sid's pad was ransacked. What happened to the ultra on the QT, ultra secret and ultra _Hush-Hush_ files the Sidster was supposed to be keeping--sinuendo even too scalding for us to publish?

Why didn't D.A. Ellis Loew, elected largely on the strength of a _Hush-Hush_ article exposing the peccadillos of his incumbent opponent, give us a backscratch in return and use his legal juice to force the LAPD to track down the Sidster's slayer?

Celebrity cop John "Jack" Vincennes, the famous dope scourge "Big V," was a close friend of Sid's and was responsible for many of his crusading exposés on the menace of narcotics. Why didn't Jack (heavily connected to Ellis Loew--we won't utter the word "bagman," but feel free to _think_ it) investigate the killing on his own, out of paiship for his beloved buddy the Sidster?

Unanswerable questions for now--unless _you_, the reading public, take up the cry. Look for updates in future issues--and remember, dear reader, you heard it first here: off the record, on the QT and _very_ Hush-Hush.

_Hush-Hush_ magazine, December 1955 issue:

JUSTICE WATCH: BEWARE THE

LOEW/VINCENNES COMBINE!!!!

We've pussyfooted long enough, dear reader. In our May issue we marked the second anniversary of the fiendish murder of ace _Hush-Hush_ scribe Sid Hudgens. We lamented the fact that his killing remains unsolved, gently prodded the Los Angeles Police Department, D.A. Ellis Loew and his brother-in-law by marriage LAPD Sergeant Jack Vincennes to do something about it, asked a few pertinent questions and got no response. Seven months have passed without justice being done, so here's some more questions:

Where _are_ Sid Hudgens' _ultra_ sin-tillating and sinsational secret files--the files too hot for even scalding _Hush-Hush_ to handle?

Did D.A. Loew quash the Hudgens murder investigation because the crusading Sidster recently published an exposé on _Badge of Honor_ producer/director Max Pelts and his bent for teenage girls, and Pelts was a (five figure!!!) contributor to Loew's 1953 D.A.'s campaign fund?

Has Loew ignored our pleas for justice because he's too busy gearing up for his spring 1957 reelection campaign? Is Jack "We won't use the word 'Bagman"' Vincennes again shaking down Hollywoodites for contributions for brother-in-law Ellis and thus unable to investigate the Sidster's death?

More on the Big-time Big V:

Is Vincennes, dope-buster supreme, on the sauce and feuding with his much younger rich-girl wife, who persuaded him to leave his beloved Narco Division, but now frets over his working the hazardous LAPD Surveillance Detail????

Fuel for thought, dear reader--and a gentle prodding for belated justice. The search for justice for Sid Hudgens continues. Remember, dear reader: you heard it first here, off the record, on the QT and _very_ Hush-Hush.

1956

"Crimewatch" feature, _Hush-Hush_ Magazine, October 1956 issue:

GANGLAND DROUGHT AS COHEN

PAROLE APPROACHES: WILL FEAST

FOLLOW FAMINE WITH THE

MICKSTER REDUX?

You, dear reader, probably haven't noticed, since you're a law-abiding citizen who relies on _Hush-Hush_ to keep you abreast of the dark and sin-sational side of life. This publication has been accused of being sin-ical, but we're also sin-cere in our desire to inform you of the perils of crime, organized and otherwise, which is why this periodical periodically offers a "Crimewatch" feature. This month we offer a palpably percolating potpourri centering on malicious L.A. mob activity or the lack of it, our focus the currently incarcerated Meyer Harris Cohen, 43, also known as the misanthropic Mickster, the inimitable Mickey C.

The Mick has been reposing at McNeil Island Federal pen since November of 1951, and he should be paroled sometime next year, certainly by the end of 1957. You all know Mickey by reputation: he's the dapper little gent who ruled the L.A. rackets circa '45 to '51, until Uncle Sammy popped him for income tax evasion. He's a headline grabber, he's a big mocher, face it: he's a mensch. And he's up at McNeil, freezing his toches in the admittedly plush cell, his pet bulldog Mickey Cohen, Jr., keeping his tootsies warm, his money man Davey Goldman, also convicted of tax beefs, warming a cell down the hail. L.A. gangland activity has been--enjoying? _enduring?_--a strange lull since Mickey packed his PJs for Puget Sound, and we at _Hush-Hush_, privy to many unnamable insider sources, have a theory as to what's been shaking. Listen close, dear reader: this is off the record, on the QT and _very_ Hush-Hush.

November '51: adios Mickey, pack a toothbrush and don't forget to write. Before catching the McNeil Island Express, the Mickster informs his number two man, Morris Jahelka, that he (Mo) will remain titular boss of Kingdom Cohen, which Mickey has "long-term loan" divested to various legit, non-criminal businessmen that he trusts, to be quietly run by out-of-town muscle on a drastically scaled-down basis. Mickey may come off like a vicious buffoon, but Mrs. Cohen's little boy has a head on his simian shoulders.

Are you on our wavelength so far, dear reader? Yes? Good, now listen even more closely.

Mickey languishes in his cell, living the prison life of Riley, and time goes by. The Mick gets percentage fees from his "franchise holders," funneled straight to Swiss bank accounts, and when he's paroled he'll get "giveback fees" and have Kingdom Cohen returned to him on a platter. He'll rebuild his evil empire and happy days will be here again.

Such is the power of the ubiquitous Mickey C. that for several years no upstart gangsters try to crash his lulled-down, on-siesta rackets. Jack "The Enforcer" Whalen, however, a well-known thug/gambler, somehow knows of Mickey's plan to let sleeping dogs snooze while he's stuck in stir and the police are gratefully twiddling their thumbs with no mobster nests to swat. Whalen does not attack the diminutized Kingdom Cohen--he simply builds up a rival, strictly bookmaking kingdom with no fear of reprisals.

Meanwhile, what has happened to some of the Mickster's chief goons? Well, nebbish-like Mo Jahelka keeps triplicate sets of books for the franchise holders, whiz at figures that he is, and Davey Goldman, stuck in stir with his boss, walks Mickey Cohen, Jr., around the McNeil Island yard. Abe Teitlebaum, Cohen muscle goon, owns a delicatessen that features greasy sandwiches named after Borscht Belt comedians, and Lee Vachss, Mr. Icepick To The Ear, sells patent medicine. _Our_ favorite Mickey misanthrope, Johnny Stompanato (sometimes known as "Oscar" because of his Academy Award--size appendage), nurses a long-term case of the hots for Lana Turner, and may have returned to his old pre-Cohen ways: running blackmail/extortion rackets. Assuming that Whalen and Mickey don't collide upon the Mick's release, things look hunky-dory and copacetic, don't they? Gangland amity all around?

Perhaps _no_.

Item: in August of 1954, John Fisher Diskant, an alleged Cohen franchise holder, was gunned down outside a motel in Culver City. No suspects, no arrests, current disposition: the case reposes in the open file of the Culver City P.D.

Item: May 1955: two alleged Cohen prostitution bosses, franchise holders both--Nathan Janklow and George Palevsky--are gunned down outside the Torch Song Tavern in Riverside. No suspects, no arrests, current disposition: the Riverside County sheriff says case closed due to lack of evidence.

Item: July 1956: Walker Ted Turow, known drug peddler who had recently stated his desire to "push white horse very large and become a bonaroo racketeer" is found shot to death at his pad in San Pedro. You guessed it: no clues, no suspects, no arrests, current disposition with the LAPD's Harbor Division: open file, we're not holding our breath.

Now, dig it, children: all four of these gang-connected or would be gang-connected chumps were shot dead by three-man trigger gangs. The cases were barely investigated because the respective investigating agencies considered the victims lowlifes whose deaths did not merit justice. We wish we could say that ballistics reports indicate that the same guns were used for all three shootings, but they weren't--although .30-30 ripples pistols were the killers' M.O. all three times. And we at _Hush-Hush_ know that no interagency effort has been launched to catch the killers. In fact, we at _Hush-Hush_ are the first even to connect the crimes in theory. Tsk, tsk. We _do_ know that Jack Whalen and his chief factotums are alibied up tight as a crab's pincer for the times of the killings and that Mickey C. and Davey G. have been questioned and have no idea who the bad boys are. Intriguing, right, dear reader? So far, no overt moves have been made to take over siesta time Kingdom Cohen, but we have word that Mickey minion Morris Jahelka has packed up and moved to Florida, scared witless . .

And the Mickster is soon to be paroled. What will happen then??????

Remember, dear reader, you saw it here first. Off the record, on the QT and _very_ Hush-Hush.

1957

CONFIDENTIAL LAPD REPORT: compiled by

Internal Affairs Division, dated 2/10/57

Investigating officer: Sgt. D. W. Fisk, Badge 6129,

IAD. Submitted at the request of Deputy Chief Thad

Green, Chief of Detectives

Subject: White, Wendell A., Homicide Division

Sir:

When you initiated this investigation you stated that Officer White passing the sergeant's exam with high marks after two failing attempts and nine years in the Bureau startled you, especially in the light of Lt. Dudley Smith's recent promotion to captain. I have thoroughly investigated Officer White and have come up with many contradictory items which should interest you. Since you already have access to Officer White's arrest record and personnel sheet, I will concentrate solely on those items.

1. White, who is unmarried and without immediate family, has been intimately involved on a sporadic basis with one Lynn Margaret Bracken, age 33, for the past several years. This woman, the owner of Veronica's Dress Shop in Santa Monica, is rumored (unsubstantiated by police records) to be an ex-prostitute.

2. White, who was brought into Homicide by Lt. Smith in 1952, has, of course, not turned into the superior case man that (now) Capt. Smith assumed he would be. His 1952--5 3 work under Lt. Smith with the Surveillance Detail was, of course, legendary, and resulted in White's killing two men in the line of duty. Since his (April 1953) shooting of Nite Owl case collateral suspect Sylvester Fitch, White has served under Lt./Capt. Smith with little formal distinction. However (rather amazingly), there have been no excessive force complaints filed against him (see White's personnel sheets 1948--51 for records of his previous dismissed complaints). It is known that during those years and up until the spring of 1953 White visited paroled wife beaters and verbally and/or physically abused them. Evidence points to the fact that these illegal forays have not recurred for almost four years. White remains volatile (as you know, he received a departmental reprimand for punching out windows in the Homicide pen when he received word that his former partner, Sgt. R. A. Stensland, had been sentenced to death), but it is known that he has sometimes avoided work with Lt./Capt. Smith's Mobster Squad, straining his relationship with Smith, his Bureau mentor. Citing the violent nature of the assignment, White has been quoted as saying, "I've got no more stomach left for that stuff." Interesting, when given White's reputation and past record.

3. In spring 1956, White took nine months' accumulated sick leave and vacation time when Capt. E. J. Exley rotated in as acting commander of Homicide. (A well-known hatred exists between White and Capt. Exley, deriving from the 1951 Christmas brutality affair.) During his time off from duty, White (whose Academy scores indicate only average intelligence and below average literacy) attended criminology and forensics classes at USC and took and passed (at his own expense) the FBI'S "Criminal Investigation Procedures" seminar at Quantico, Virginia. White had failed the sergeant's exam twice before embarking on these studies, and on his third attempt passed with a score of 89. His sergeantcy should come in before the end of the 1957 calendar year.

4. In November 1954, R. A. Stensland was executed at San Quentin. White asked for and received permission to attend the execution. He spent the night before the execution on death row drinking with Stensland. (I was told the assistant warden overlooked this infraction of prison rules out of a regard for Stensland's ex-policeman status.) Capt. Exley also attended the execution, and it is not known if he and White had words before or after the event.

5. I saved the most interesting item for last. It is interesting in that it illustrates White's continued (and perhaps increasing) tendency to overinvolve himself in matters pertaining to abused and (now) murdered women. I.e., White has shown undue curiosity in a number of unsolved prostitute killings that he believes to be connected: murders that have taken place in California and various parts of the West over the past several years. The victim's names, DODs and locations of death are:

Jane Mildred Hamsher, 3/08/5 1, San Diego

Kathy NMI Janeway, 4/19/53, Los Angeles

Sharon Susan Palwick, 8/29/5 3, Bakersfield, Calif.

Sally NMI DeWayne, 11/02/55, Needles, Ariz.

Chrissie Virginia Renfro, 7/16/56, San Francisco

White has told other Homicide officers that he thinks evidential similarities point to one killer, and he has traveled (at his own expense) to the above-listed cities where the crimes occurred. Naturally, the detectives that White has talked to considered him a pest and were reluctant to share information with. him, and it is not known whether he has made progress toward solving any of the above cases. Lt. J. S. DiCenzo, Commander of the West Valley Station squad, stated that he thinks White's hooker-killing fixation dates back to the time of the Nite Owl case, when White became personally concerned about the murder of a young prostitute (Kathy Janeway) he was acquainted with.

6. All in all, a surprising investigation. Personally, I admire White's initiative and persistence in pursuing a sergeantcy and his (albeit untoward) tenacity in the matter of the prostitute homicides. A list of my interview references will follow in a separate memo.

Respectfully,

Sgt. D. W. Fisk, 6129, lAD

CONFIDENTIAL LAPD REPORT: Compiled by

Internal Affairs Division, dated 3/11/57

Investigating officer: Sgt. Donald Kieckner, badge 688,

IAD. Submitted at the request of William H. Parker,

Chief of Police

Subject: Vincennes, John, Sergeant, Surveillance Detail

Sir:

You stated that you wished to explore, in light of Sgt. Vincennes' deteriorating duty performance, the advisability of offering him early retirement by stress pension before the twentieth anniversary of his LAPD appointment comes up in May 1958. I deem that measure inappropriate at this time. Granted, Vincennes is an obvious alcoholic; granted also, his alcoholism cost him his job with _Badge of Honor_ and thus cost the LAPD a small fortune in promotional considerations. Granted again, at 42 he is too old to be working a high-risk assignment such as the Surveillance Detail. As for his admittedly deteriorating performance, it is only deteriorating because Vincennes was, during his Narcotics Division heyday, a bold and inspired policeman. From my interviews I have concluded that he does not drink on duty and that his deteriorating performance can best be summed up by "sluggishness" and "bad reflexes." Moreover, should Vincennes reject an early retirement offer, my guess is that the pension board would back him up.

Sir, I know that you consider Vincennes a disgrace as a policeman. I agree with you, but advise you to consider his connection to District Attorney Loew. The Department needs Loew to prosecute our cases, as your new chief aide, Capt. Smith, will tell you. Vincennes continues to solicit funds and run errands for Loew, and should Loew, as expected, be reelected next week, he would most likely intercede if you decided to pressure Vincennes out of the Department. My recommendation is as follows: keep Vincennes on Surveillance until 3/58, when a new commander is scheduled to rotate in with his own replacement officers, then assign him to menial duties in a patrol division until his 5/15/58 retirement date arrives. At that time, Vincennes, humbled by a return to uniformed duty, could probably be persuaded to separate from the Department with all due speed.

Respectfully,

Donald J. Kieckner, IAD

BANNER: L.A. _Times_, March 15:

LOEW REELECTED IN LANDSLIDE;

STATEHOUSE BID NEXT?

EXTRACT: L.A. _Times_, July 8:

MICKEY COHEN WOUNDED IN

PRISON YARD ATTACK

McNeil Island Federal Prison officials announced that yesterday mobsters Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen and David "Davey" Goldman were wounded in a vicious daylight attack.

Cohen and Goldman, both slated to be paroled in September, were watching a softball game on the prison yard when three hooded assailants wielding pipes and handmade "shivs" descended. Goldman was stabbed twice in the shoulder and beaten viciously about the head, and Cohen escaped with superficial puncture wounds. Prison doctors said that Goldman's injuries are severe and that he may have suffered irreparable brain damage. The assailants escaped, and at this moment a massive investigation is being conducted to discover who they are. McNeil administrator R. J. Wolf said, "We believe this was a so-called death contract, contracted to in-prison inmates by outside sources. Every effort will be made to get to the bottom of this incident."

_Hush-Hush_ Magazine, October 1957 issue:

MICKEY COHEN BACK IN L.A.!!! ARE

HIS BAD OLD GOOD TIMES HERE TO

STAY???

He was the most colorful mobster the City of Fallen Angels had ever seen, Hepcat--and to dig his act at the Mocambo or the Troc was like watching Daddy-o Stradivarius chop a fiddle from a tree trunk. He'd crack jokes written by gagster Davey Goldman, slip fat envelopes to the bagmen from the Sheriff's Department and do a wicked Lindy hop with his squeeze Audrey Anders or the other comely quail sashaying on the premises. Eyes would dart to his table and the ladies would surreptitiously survey his chief bodyguard, Johnny Stompanato, and wonder, "Is he really _that_ large?" Sycophants, stooges, glad-handers, pissanters and general rimbamboos would drop by the Mickster's side, to be rewarded with jokes, a backslap, a handout. The Mick was a soft touch for crippled kids, stray dogs, the Salvation Army and the United Jewish Appeal. The Mick also ran bookmaking, loansharking, gambling, prostitution and dope rackets and killed an average of a dozen people a year. Nobody's perfect, right, Hepcat? You leave your toenail trimmings on the bathroom floor, Mickey sends people on the night train to Slice City.

Dig it, Hepcat: people also tried to kill Mickey!!! A mensch like that?--No! !!! Yes, Hepcat, what goes around comes around. The trouble was, the Mick had more lives than the proverbial feline, kept dodging bombs, bullets and dynamite while those around him went down dead, survived six years at McNeil Island Pen, including a recent shiv/pipe attack--and now he's back! Sy Devore, watch out: the Mickster will be in for a few dozen shiny new sharkskin suits; Trocadero and Mocambo cigarette girls, get ready for some C-note tips. Mickey and his entourage will soon descend on the Sunset Strip, and--_very Hush-Hush_--yes, ladies, Johnny Stompanato is _that_ large, but he only has eyes for Lana Turner, and word is that he and Lana have been playing more than footsie lately . . .

But back to Mickey C. Avid _Hush-Hush_ readers will recall our October '56 Crimewatch feature, where we speculated on the gangland "lull" that has been going on since the Mick went to stir. Well, some still unsolved deaths occurred, and that pipe/shiv attack that wounded Mickey and left his stooge Davey Goldman a vegetable? Well . . . they never got the hooded inmate assailants who attempted to send Mickey and his man to Slice City...

Call this a warning, children: he's a mensch, he's local color to the nth degree, he's the marvelous, malevolent benevolent Mickster. He's tough to kill, 'cause innocent bystanders take the hot lead with his name on it. Mickey's back, and his old gang might be forming up again. Hepcat, when you club hop on the sin-tillating Sunset Strip, bring a bulletproof vest in case Meyer Harris Cohen sits nearby.

EXTRACT: L.A. _Herald-Express_, November 10:

MOBSTER COHEN SURVIVES BOMB ATTEMPT

A bomb exploded under the home of paroled mobster Mickey Cohen early this morning. Cohen and his wife, Lavonne, were not injured, but the bomb did destroy a wardrobe room that housed three hundred of Cohen's custom-made suits. Cohen's pet bulldog, alseep nearby, was treated for a singed tail at Westside Veterinary Hospital and released. Cohen could not be reached for comment.

Confidential letter, addendum to the outside agency investigation report required on all incoming commanders of Internal Affairs Division, Los Angeles Police Department. Requested by Chief William H. Parker.

11/29/57

Dear Bill--

God, we were sergeants together! It seems like a million years ago, and you were right. I did relish the chance to slip briefly back into harness and play detective again. I felt slightly treacherous interviewing officers behind Ed and Preston's back, but again you were right: firstly in your overall policy of outside agency validation for incoming I.A. chiefs, and secondly in choosing an ex-policeman predisposed to like Ed Exley to query brother officers on the man. Hell, Bill, we both love Ed. Which makes me happy to state that, basic investigation aside (the D.A.'s Bureau is conducting it, aren't they?), I have nothing but positives to report.

I spoke to a number of Detective Bureau men and a number of uniformed officers. One consensus of opinion held: Ed Exley is very well respected. Some officers considered his shooting of the Nite Owl suspects injudicious, most considered it bold and a few tagged it as intentionally grandstanding. Whatever, my opinion is that that act is what Ed Exley is most remembered for and that it has largely eclipsed the bad feelings he generated by serving as an informant in the Bloody Christmas matter. Ed's jump from sergeant to captain was greatly resented, but he is considered to have proven his mettle as divisional floater: the man has run seven divisions in under five years, established many valuable contacts and has earned the general respect of the men serving under him. Your basic concern: that his "not one of the boys" nature would provoke anger when it was learned that he would be running I.A., seems so far to be unfounded. Word is out that Ed will take over l.A. early in '58, and it is tacitly assumed that he will vigorously pursue the assignment. My guess is that his reputation for sternness and intelligence will deter many potentially bent cops into sticking to the straight and narrow.

It is also known that Ed has passed the exam for promotion to inspector and is first on the promotion list. Here some notes of discord appear. It is generally viewed that Thad Green will retire in the next several years and that Ed might well be chosen to replace him as chief of detectives. The great majority of the men I spoke to voiced the opinion that Capt. Dudley Smith, older, much more experienced and more the leader type, should have the job.

Some personal observations to supplant your outside agency report. (1) Ed's relationship with Inez Soto is physically intimate, but I know he would never violate departmental regs by cohabitating with her. Inez is a great kid, by the way. She's become good friends with Preston, Ray Dieterling and myself, and her public relations work for Dream-a-Dreamland is near briffiant. And so what if she's a Mexican? (2)1 spoke to I.A. Sgts. Fisk and Kieckner about Ed--the two worked Robbery under him, are junior straight-arrow Exley types and are positively ecstatic that their hero is about to become their C.O. (3) As someone who has known Ed Exley since he was a child, and as an ex--police officer, I'll go on the record: he's as good as his father and I'd be willing to bet that if you made a tally you'd see that he's made more major cases than any LAPD detective ever. I'm also willing to bet that he's wise to this affectionate little ploy you've initiated: all good cops have intelligence networks.

I'll close with a favor. I'm thinking of writing a book of reminiscences about my years with the Department. Would it be possible for me to borrow the file on the Loren Atherton case? Without Preston and Ed knowing, please--I don't want them to think I've gone arty-farty in my waning years.

I hope this little addendum serves you well. Best to Helen, and thanks for the opportunity to be a cop again.

Sincerely,

Art De Spain

LAPD TRANSFER BULLETINS

1. Officer Wendell A. White, Homicide Division to the Hollywood Station Detective Squad (and to assume the rank of Sergeant), effective 1/2/5 8.

2. Sgt. John Vincennes, Surveillance Detail to Wilshire Division Patrol, effective when a replacement officer is assigned, but no later than 3/15/58.

3. Capt. Edmund J. Exley to permanent duty station: Commander, Internal Affairs Division, effective 1/2/5 8.

PART THREE

Internal Affairs

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The Dining Car had a New Year's hangover: drooping crepe paper, "1958" signs losing spangles. Ed took his favorite booth: a view of the lounge, his image in a mirror. He marked the time--3:24 P.M., 1/2/58. Let Bob Gallaudet show up late--anything to stretch the moment.

In an hour, the ceremony: Captain E. J. Exley assumes a permanent duty station--Commander, Internal Affairs Division. Gallaudet was bringing the results of his outside agency validation--the D.A.'s Bureau had gone over his personal life with a magnifying glass. He'd pass--his personal life was squeaky clean, putting the Nite Owl boys in the ground outgunned his Bloody Christmas snitching--he'd known it for years.

Ed sipped coffee, eyes on the mirror. His reflection: a man a month from thirty-six who looked forty-five. Blond hair gone gray; crease lines in his forehead. Inez said his eyes were getting smaller and colder; his wire rims made him look harsh. He'd told her harsh was better than soft--boy captains needed help. She'd laughed--it was a few years ago, when they were still laughing.

He placed the conversation: late '54, Inez analytical--"You're a ghoul for watching that man Stensland die." A year and a half post--Nite Owl; today made four years and nine months. A look in the mirror, a claim on those years--and what he'd had with Inez.

His killings pushed Bud White out: four deaths eclipsed one death. Those first months she was all his: he'd proven himself to her specifications. He bought her a house down the block; she loved their gentle sex; she accepted Ray Dieterling's job offer. Dieterling fell in love with Inez and her story: a beautiful rape victim abandoned by her family dovetailed with his own losses-- once divorced, once widowered, his son Paul dead in an avalanche, his son Billy a homosexual. Ray and Inez became father and daughter--colleagues, deep friends. Preston Exley and Art De Spain joined Dieterling in devotion--a circle of hardcase men and a woman who made them grateful for the chance to feel gentle.

Inez took friendships from a fantasy kingdom: the builders, the second generation--Billy Dieterling, Timmy Valburn. A chatty little clique: they talked up Hollywood gossip, poked fun at male foibles. The word "men" sent them into gales of laughter. They made fun of policemen and played charades in a house bought by Captain Ed Exley.

All claims came back to Inez.

After the killings, he had nightmares: were they innocent? Impotent rage made his finger jerk the trigger; the dramatic resolution made the Department look so good that little facts like "Unarmed" and "Not Dangerous" would never surface to crush him. Inez stilled his fears with a statement: the rapists drove her to Sylvester Fitch's house in the middle of the night and left her there--giving them time to take down the Nite Owl. She never told the police about it because she did not want to recount the especially ugly things that Fitch did to her. He was relieved: _guilty_ dead men shored up the justice in his rage.

Inez.

Time passed, the glow wore off--her pain and his heroism couldn't sustain them. Inez knew he'd never marry her: a high-ranking cop, a Mexican wife--career suicide. His love held by threads; Inez grew remote--a sometime lover in practice. Two people molded by extraordinary events, a powerful supporting cast hovering: the Nite Owl dead, Bud White.

White's face in the green room: pure hatred while Dick Stensland sucked gas. A look at Dicky Stens dying, a look his way, no words necessary. Leave time called in so they wouldn't have to work together when he took over Homicide. He'd surpassed his brother, grown closer to his father. His major case record was astounding; in May he'd be an inspector, in a few years he'd compete with Dudley Smith for chief of detectives. Smith had always given him a wide berth and a wary respect couched in contempt--and Dudley was the most feared man in the LAPD. Did he know that his rival feared only one thing: revenge perpetrated by a thug/cop without the brains to be imaginative?

The bar was filling up: D.A.'s personnel, a few women. The last time with Inez was bad--she just serviced the man who paid the mortgage. Ed smiled at a tall woman--she turned away.

"Congratulations, Cap. You're Boy Scout clean."

Gallaudet sat down--strained, nervous.

"Then why do you look so grim? Come on, Bob, we're partners."

"_You're_ clean, but Inez was put under loose surveillance for two weeks, just routine. Ed . . . oh shit, she's sleeping with Bud White."

o o o

The ceremony--one big blur.

Parker made a speech: policemen were subject to the same temptations as civilians, but needed to keep their baser urges in check to a greater degree in order to serve as moral exemplars for a society increasingly undercut by the pervasive influence of Communism, crime, liberalism and general moral turpitude. A morally upright exemplar was needed to command the division that served as a guarantor of police morality, and Captain Edmund J. Exley, war hero and hero of the Nite Owl murder case, was that man.

He made a speech himself: more pap on morality. Duane Fisk and Don Kleckner wished him luck; he read their minds through his blur: they wanted his chief assistant spots. Dudley Smith winked, easy to read: "I will be our next chief of detectives--not you." Excuses for leaving took forever--he made it to her place with the blur clearing hard.

6:00--Inez got home around 7:00. Ed let himself in, waited with the lights out.

Time dragged; Ed watched his watch hands move. 6:50--a key in the door.

"Exley, are you skulking? I saw your car outside."

"No lights. I don't want to see your face." Noises--keys rattling, a purse dropped to the floor. "And I don't want to see all that faggot Dreamland junk you've plastered on the walls."

"You mean the walls of the house you paid for?"

"You said it, not me."

Sounds: Inez resting herself against the door. "Who told you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Are you going to ruin him for it?"

"_Him?_ No, there's no way I could do it without making myself look even more foolish than I've been. And you can say his name."

No answer.

"Did you help him with the sergeant's exam? He didn't have the brains to pass it on his own."

No answer.

"How long? How many fucks behind my back?"

No answer.

"How long, _puta?_"

Inez sighed. "Maybe four years. On and off, when we each needed a friend."

"You mean when you didn't need me?"

"I mean when I got exhausted being treated like a rape victim. When I got terrified of how far you'd go to impress me."

Ed said, "I took you out of Boyle Heights and gave you a life." Inez said, "Exley, you started to scare me. I just wanted to be a girl seeing a guy, and Bud gave me that."

"Don't you say his name in this house."

"You mean in your house?"

"I gave you a decent life. You'd be pounding tortillas on a rock if it wasn't for me."

"_Querido_, you turn ugly so well."

"How many other lies, Inez? How many other lies besides him?"

"Exley, let's break this off."

"No, give me a rundown."

No answer.

"How many other men? How many other lies?"

No answer.

"Tell me."

No answer.

"You fucking whore, after what I did for you. _Tell me_."

No answer.

"I let you be friends with my father. _Preston Exley is your friend because of me_. How many other men have you fucked behind my back? How many other lies after what I did for you?"

Inez, a small voice. "You don't want to know."

"Yes I do, you fucking whore."

Inez pushed off the door. "Here's the only lie that counts, and it's all for you. Not even my sweetie pie Bud knows it, so I hope it makes you feel special."

Ed stood up. "Lies don't scare me."

Inez laughed. "_Everything_ scares you."

No answer.

Inez, calm. "The _negritos_ who hurt me couldn't have killed the people at the Nite Owl, because they were with me the whole night. They never left my sight. I lied because I didn't want you to feel bad that you'd killed four men for me. And you want to know what the _big_ lie is? You and your precious absolute justice."

Ed pushed out the door, hands on his ears to kill the roar. Dark, cold outside--he saw Dick Stens strapped down dead.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Bud checked out his new badge: "Sergeant" where "Policeman" used to be. He put his feet up on his desk, said goodbye to Homicide.

His cubicle was a mess--five year's worth of paper. Dudley said the Hollywood squad transfer was just temporary--his sergeantcy shocked the brass, Thad Green was juking him for his window-punching number: Dick Stens green room bound, left/right hooks into glass. A fair trade: he never became a crackerjack case man because the only cases that mattered were case closed and case/cases shitcanned. Transfer blues: leaving Bureau HQ meant no early crack at dead-body reports--a good way to keep tabs on the Kathy Janeway case and the hooker snuff string he knew tied to it.

Stuff to take with him:

His new nameplate--"Sergeant Wendell White," a picture of Lynn: brunette, goodbye Veronica Lake.

A Mobster Squad photo: him and Dud at the Victory Motel. Mobster Squad goodies--brass knuckles, a ball-bearing sap--he might leave them behind.

Lock and key stuff:

His FBI and forensics class diplomas; Dick Stensland's legacy: six grand from his robbery take. Dick's last words--a note a guard passed him.

Partner--

I regret the bad things I done. I especially regret the people I hurt when I was a policeman who just got in my way when I was feeling mean and the Christmas guys and the liquor store man and his son. It's too late to change it all. So all I can do is say I'm sorry, which don't mean anything worthwhile. I'll try to take my punishment like a man. I keep thinking it could be you instead of me who did what I did, that it was just the luck of the draw and I know maybe you've thought the same thing. I wish being sorry counted for more with guys like you and me. I payed the piper and called the tune and all that, but Exley kept the piper tune going when he didn't have to and if I got a last request it is that you get him for his share and don't be stupid and do something dumb like I would have did. Use your brains and that money I told you where to find and give it to him good, a good one in the keester from Sergeant Dick Stens. Good luck, partner. I can't hardly believe that when you read this I'll be dead.

Dick

Double-locked in the bottom drawer:

His file on the Janeway/hooker snuffs, his private Nite Owl file--textbook pure, like he learned in school.

Two cases that proved he was a real detective; Dick's shot at Ed Exley. He pulled them out, read them over--college boy stuff all the way.

The Janeway string.

When things sizzled down with Lynn, he started looking for stuff to jazz him. Prowling for women didn't cut it--ditto his on-and-off thing with Inez. He flunked the sergeant's exam twice, paid his way through school with Dick's stash, worked the Mobster Squad part-time: meeting trains, planes, buses, taking would-be racketeers to the Victory Motel, beating the shit out of them and escorting them back to planes, trains, buses. Dud called it "containment"; he called it too much to take and still like looking at yourself in the mirror. Good cases never came his way at Homicide: Thad Green bootjacked them, assigned different men. His classes taught him interesting stuff about forensics, criminal psychology and procedure--he decided to apply what he'd learned to an old case that still simmered with him: the Kathy Janeway job.

He read Joe DiCenzo's case file: no leads, no suspects, written off as a random sex kill. He read the autopsy reconstruction: Kathy beaten to death, face blows, a man with rings on both fists. B + secretor semen in the mouth, rectum, vagina--three separate ejaculations, the bastard took his time. He got a flash backed up by case histories: a sex fiend like that doesn't kill just once, then go back to twiddling his thumbs.

He started paper-prowling--the kind of thing he used to hate.

No similar solveds or unsolveds anywhere in the LAPD and Sheriff's Department files--the search took him eight months. He worked his way through other police agencies--Stens' money for a stake. Zero for Orange County, San Bernardino County; four months in and a match with the San Diego PD: Jane Mildred Hamsher, 19, hooker, DOD 3/8/51, the same handwork and three-way rape: no clues, no suspects, case closed.

He read LAPD and SDPD M.O. files and got nowhere; he remembered Dudley warning him off the Janeway case--ragging him for going crazy on woman basher jobs. He went ahead anyway; paydirt on a tn-state teletype: Sharon Susan Palwick, 20, hooker, DOD 8/29/53, Bakersfield, California. The same specs: no suspects, no leads, case closed. Dud never mentioned the teletype--if he knew it existed.

He went to Diego and Bakerfield--read files, pestered detectives who worked the cases. They were bored with the jobs--and gave him the brush. He tried reconstructing the time and place element: who was in those cities on the dates of the killings. He checked old train, bus and airplane records, got no crossover names, put out standing tri-state teletypes requesting information on the killer's M.O., asking for call-ins should his killer ply that M.O. again. Nothing came in on the info request; three dead-body reports trickled in oven the years: Sally NMI DeWayne, 17, hooker, Needles, Arizona, 11/2/55; Chrissie Virginia Renfro, 21, hooker, San Francisco, 7/14/56; Mania NMI Waldo, 20, hooker, Seattle two months ago: 11/28/57. The call-ins logged in late, the same results: goose egg. Every angle, every schoolboy approach tapped--for nothing. Kathy Janeway and five other prostitutes raped, beaten to death--open stuff only with him.

A 116-page dead-end file to take to the Hollywood squad--his own case, dead for now.

And his major case--pages and pages he kept checking oven. Dick Stens' case: nails in Ed Exley's coffin. He got goose bumps just saying the words.

The Nite Owl case.

Starting in on the Janeway job brought it back: the Duke Cathcart/smut connection, evidence withheld, insider stuff to fuck Exley. Timing was against him then: he didn't have the smarts to pursue it, the niggers escaped, Exley gunned them down. The Nite Owl case was closed--the weird side bits around it forgotten. Years passed; he went back to the Janeway snuff, discovered a string. And little Kathy made him think Nite Owl, Nite Owl, Nite Owl.

Brainwork.

Back in '53, Dwight Gilette and Cindy Benavides--Kathy Janeway K.A.'s--told him a guy who came on like Duke Cathcart was talking up muscling Cathcart's pimp business. What "pimp business"?--Duke had only two skags in his stable, but he had been talking up going into the smut biz--at first it sounded like a pipe dream coming from a major-league pipe dreamer--but it got validated when the Englekling brothers came forward and told their story of Cathcart approaching them with a deal: they'd print the smut, he'd distribute it, they'd approach Mickey Cohen for financing.

Cut to facts:

_He_ was inside Duke's pad post--Nite Owl. It was tidied up and print-wiped; Duke's clothes had been gone through. The San Bernardino Yellow Pages were ruffled--the pages for printing shops especially. Pete and Bar Englekling owned a printshop in San Berdoo; Nite Owl victim Susan Nancy Lefferts was originally from San Berdoo.

Cut to the coroner's report:

The examining pathologist based his identification of Cathcart's body on two things: dental plate _fragments_ cross-checked against Cathcart's prison dental records and the "D.C." monogrammed sports jacket the stiff was wearing. The plate fragments were standard California prison issue--any ex-con who'd done time in the state penal system could have plastic like that in his mouth.

Cut to his insider skinny:

Kathy Janeway mentioned a "cute" scar on Duke's chest. There was no mention of that scar anywhere in Doc Layman's autopsy report--and Cathcart's chest was not obliterated by shotgun pellets. A final kicker: the Nite Owl stiff was measured at 5 '8"; Cathcart's prison measurement chart listed him at 5 '9¼".

Conclusion:

A Cathcart impersonator was killed at the Nite Owl.

Cut to:

Smut.

Cindy Benavides said Duke was getting ready to push it; Ad Vice was investigating smut back then--he'd read through Squad 4's reports--all the men reported no leads, Russ Millard died, the fuck book gig fell by the wayside. The Englekling brothers told their story of Duke Cathcart's smut approach, how they visited Mickey Cohen in prison, how he refused to bankroll the deal. They thought Cohen ordered the Nite Owl snuffs Out of batshit moral convictions--a ridiculous idea--but what if some kind of Nite Owl plot got started with the Mick? Exley submitted a report that said he and Bob Gallaudet talked up that theory, but the jigs escaped around then--and the Nite Owl got pinned on them.

Cut to:

His theory.

What if Cohen told some prison punk about the Cathcart/Englekling plan--or his man Davey Goldman did? What if the punk got paroled, talked up crashing Duke's stable while he was really just shoring up juice for his Duke impersonation? What if he killed Duke, stole some of his clothes and ended up at the Nite Owl by chance--because Duke frequented the place, or more likely--_as part of some kind of criminal rendezvous that went bad, the killers leaving, coming back with shotguns, blasting the Cathcart impersonator and five innocent bystanders to make it look like a robbery?_

Flaw in his theory so far:

He'd checked McNeil parole records: only Negroes, Latins and white men too large or two small to be the Cathcart impersonator were released between the time of the Cohen-- Englekling brothers meeting and the Nite Owl. But--Cohen could have talked up the Cathcart smut proposal, word could have leaked to the outside, the impersonation could have been four or five times fucking removed.

Theories on top of theories, theories that proved he had the brains to call himself a detective:

Say the Nite Owl snuffs came out of smut intrigue. That meant the niggers were innocent, the real killers planted the shotguns in Ray Coates' car--which meant that the purple Merc seen outside the Nite Owl was a coincidence--the killers couldn't have known that three spooks were recently seen discharging shotguns in Griffith Park and would rank as natural first suspects. Somehow the killers found Coates' car before the LAPD--and planted the shotguns, print-wiped. It could have happened a half dozen ways.

1. Coates, in jail, could have told his lawyer where the car was stashed; the killers or their front man could have approached him for the information-or could have coerced him into making Coates talk.

2. The jigs could have spilled the location to one of their fellow inmates--maybe a planted inmate in with the killers.

3. His favorite, because it was simplest: the killers were smarter than the LAPD, did their own garage search, checked out garages behind deserted houses first--while the police went at it in grids.

Or the spooks told other inmates, who got relcased and got approached by the killers; or--unlikely--a cop finger man told them how the block search was breaking down. Impossible to check it all out: the Hall of Justice Jail destroyed its 1935--55 records to make way for more storage space.

Or the jigs really were guilty.

Or it was some other bunch of boogies riding around, blasting the air in Griffith Park, killing six people at the Nite Owl. Their 1948--50 Ford/Chevy/Merc was never located because the purple paint job was homemade, never listed on a DMV form.

Brainwork from a guy who never thought he had much of a brain--and he didn't make a shine gang for the snuffs, because--

The Englekling brothers sold their printshop mid-'54, then dropped off the face of the earth. Two years ago, he issued a "Whereabouts" bulletin: no results, no positive results on the cadaver bulletins he'd been tracking statewide: zilch on the brothers, no stiffs that might be the real Duke Cathcart. And-- six months ago, following up in San Berdoo, he got a hot lead.

He found a San Berdoo townie who'd seen Susan Nancy Lefferts with a man matching Duke Cathcart's description--two weeks before the Nite Owl killings. He showed him some Cathcart mugshots; the man said, "Close, but no cigar." The Nite Owl forensic had Susan Nancy "flailing" to touch the man sitting at the next table: Duke Cathcart, really the impersonator, supposedly unknown to her. Why were they sitting at _different tables?_ The kicker: he tried to interview Sue Lefferts' mother, a chance to run the boyfriend by her. She refused to talk to him.

Why?

Bud packed up: mementoes, ten pounds of paper. Stalemates for now--no new whore leads, the Nite Owl dead until he braced Mickey Cohen. Out to the elevator--adios, Homicide.

Ed Exley walked by staring.

He knows about Inez and me.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Stakeout: Hank's Ranch Market, 52nd and Central. A sign above the door: "Welfare Checks Cashed." January 3, relief day--check-cashers shooting craps on the sidewalk. Surveillance Squad 5 got a tip-some anonymous ginch said her boyfriend and his buddy were going to take the market off, she was pissed at the boyfriend for porking her sister. Jack in the point car, watching the door, Sergeant John Petievich parked on 52--scowling like he wanted to kill something.

Lunch: Fritos, straight vodka. Jack yawned, stretched, cut odds: Aragon vs. Pimentel, what Ellis Loew wanted--he was supposed to meet him at a political soiree tonight. The vodka burned his stomach; he had to piss wicked bad.

Horn toots--his signal. Petievich pointed to the sidewalk. Two white men entered the market.

Jack walked across the street. Petievich walked over. A frame on the doorway, a look in. The robbers at the checkstand, backs to the door--guns out, spare hands full of money.

No proprietor. No customers. A squint down the far aisle-- blood and brains on the wall. SILENCER. BACK DOOR MAN. Jack shot the heisters in the back.

Petievich screamed; back door footsteps; Jack fired blind, chased. Bottles broke over his head: blind shots, silencer rounds--no noise, muffled thwaps. Down the far aisle, two dead winos, a door closing. Petievich fired, blew the door off--a man sprinted across the alley. Jack emptied his piece; the man vaulted a fence. Shouts from the sidewalk; crapshooters cheering. Jack reloaded, jumped the fence, hit a backyard. A Doberman jumped at him, snarling, snapping teeth in his face--Jack shot him point-blank. The dog belched blood; Jack heard shots, saw the fence explode.

Two bluesuits hit the yard running. Jack dropped his gun; they fired anyway--wide--blowing out fence pickets. Jack put his hands up. "Police officer! Police officer! Policeman!"

They came up slow, frisked him--peach-fuzz rookies. The taller kid found his ID. "Hey, Vincennes. You used to be some kind of hotshot, didn't you?"

Jack cold-cocked him--a knee to the nuts. The kid went dqwn; the other kid gawked.

Jack went looking for a place to drink.

o o o

He found a juke joint, ordered a line of shots. Two drinks killed his shakes; two more made him a toastmaster.

To the men I just killed: sorry, I'm really better at shooting unarmed civilians. I'm being squeezed into retirement, so I thought I'd 86 a couple of real bad guys before I capped my twenty.

To my wife: you thought you married a hero, but you grew up and learned you were wrong. Now you want to go to law school and be a lawyer like Daddy and Ellis. No sweat on the money: Daddy bought the house, Daddy upgrades your marriage, Daddy will pay for tuition. When you read the paper and see that your husband drilled two evil robbers, you'll think they're the first notches on his gun. Wrong--in '47 dope crusader Jack blasted two innocent people, the big secret he almost wants to spill just to get some life kicking back into his marriage.

Jack downed three more shots. He went where he always went when with a certain amount of shit in his system--back to '53 and smut.

He felt safe on the blackmail: his depositions for insurance, the Hudgens snuff buried--_Hush-Hush_ resurrected it, got nowhere. Patchett and Bracken never approached him--they had the carbon of Sid's Big V file, kept their end of the bargain. He heard Lynn and Bud White were still an item; call the brainy whore and Patchett memories--bad news from that bad bloody spring. What drove him was the smut.

He kept it in a safe-deposit box. He knew it was there, knew it excited him--knew that loving it would trash his marriage. He threw himself into the marriage, building walls to keep them safe from that spring. A string of sober days helped; the marriage helped. Nothing he did changed things--Karen just learned who he was.

She saw him muscle Deuce Perkins; he said "nigger" in front of her parents. She figured out his press exploits were lies. She saw him drunk, pissed off. He hated her friends; his one friend--Miller Stanton--dropped out of sight when he blew _Badge of Honor_. He got bored with Karen, ran to the smut, went crazy with it.

He tried to ID the posers again--still no go. He went to Tijuana, bought other fuck books--no go. He went looking for Christine Bergeron, couldn't find her, put out teletypes that got him bupkis. No way to have the real thing--he decided to fake it.

He bought hookers, shook down call girls. He fixed them up to look like the girls in his books. He had them three and four at a pop, chains of bodies on quilts. He costumed them, choreographed them. He aped the pictures, took his own pictures, recaptured; sometimes he thought of the blood pix and got scared: perfect matches to murder mutilations.

Real women never thrilled him like the pictures did; fear kept him from going to Fleur-de-Lis--straight to the source. He couldn't figure out Karen's fear--why she didn't leave him.

A last drink--bad thoughts adieu.

Jack cleaned up, walked back to his car. No hubcaps, broken wiper blades. Crime scene tape around Hank's Ranch Market; two black-and-whites in the lot. No reprimand note on his windshield--the vandals probably stole it.

o o o

He hit the bash at full swing: Ellis Loew, a suite packed with Republican bigshots. Women in cocktail gowns; men in dark suits. The Big V: chinos, a sport shirt sprayed with dog blood.

Jack flagged a waiter, grabbed a martini off his tray. Framed pictures on the wall caught his eye.

Political progress: _Harvard Law Review_, the '53 election, a howler shot: Loew telling the press the Nite Owl killers confessed before they escaped. Jack laughed, sprayed gin, almost choked on his olive. Behind him: "You used to dress a bit more nicely."

Jack turned around. "I used to be some kind of hotshot."

"Do you have an excuse for your appearance?"

"Yeah, I killed two men today."

"I see. Anything else?"

"Yeah, I shot them in the back, plugged a dog and took off before my superior officers showed up. And here's a news flash: I've been drinking. Ellis, this is getting stale, so let's get to it. Who do you want me to touch?"

"Jack, lower your voice."

"What is it, boss? The Senate or the statehouse?"

"Jack, it's not the time to discuss this."

"Sure it is. Tell true. You're gearing up for the '60 elections." Loew, on the QT. "All right, it's the Senate. I did have some favors to ask, but your current condition precludes my asking them. We'll talk when you're in better shape."

An audience now: the whole suite. "Come on, I'm dying to run bag for you. Who do I shake down first?"

"_Sergeant, lower your voice_."

Raise that voice. "Cocksucker, I shit where you breathe. I put Bill McPherson in the tank for you, I cold-cocked him and put him in bed with that colored girl, I fucking deserve to know who you want me to put the screws to next."

Loew, a hoarse whisper. "Vincennes, you're through."

Jack tossed gin in his face. "God, I fucking hope so."

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

". . . and we're more than the moral exemplars that Chief Parker spoke of the other day. We are the dividing line between the old police work and the new, the old system of promotion through patronage and enforcement through intimidation and a new emerging system: the elite police corps that impartially asserts its authority in the name of a stern and unbiased justice, that punishes its own with a stern moral vigor should they prove duplicitous to the higher moral standards an elite corps demands of its members. And, finally, we are the protectors of the public image of the Los Angeles Police Department. Know that when you read interdepartmental complaints filed against your brother officers and feel the urge to be forgiving. Know that when I assign you to investigate a man you once worked with and liked. Know that our business is stern, absolute justice, whatever the price."

Ed paused, looked at his men: twenty-two sergeants, two lieutenants. "Nuts and bolts now, gentlemen. Under my predecessor, Lieutenant Phillips and Lieutenant Stinson supervised field investigations autonomously. As of now, I will assume direct field command, with Lieutenant Phillips and Lieutenant Stinson serving as my execs on an alternating basis. Incoming complaints and information requests will be routed through my office first, I'll read the material and make my assignments accordingly. Sergeant Kleckner and Sergeant Fisk will serve as my personal assistants and will meet with me every morning at 0730. Lieutenant Stinson and Lieutenant Phillips, please meet me in my office in one hour to discuss my assuming command of your ongoing investigations. Gentlemen, you're dismissed."

The meeting dispersed in silence; the muster room emptied. Ed replayed his speech, hitting key phrases. "Absolute justice" hit with Inez Soto's voice.

Dump ashtrays, straighten chairs, tidy the bulletin board. Unfurl the flags by the lectern, check them for dust. Back to his speech, his father's voice: "Duplicitous to the higher moral standards an elite corps demands of its members." Two days ago, his speech would have been the truth. Inez Soto's speech made it a lie.

Flags, gold-fringed. Gold-plated opportunism: he killed those men out of a weak man's rage. As the Nite Owl killers they gave the rage meaning: absolute justice boldly taken. He twisted the meaning to support what the public was telling him: you're L.A.'s greatest hero, you're going to the top and beyond. Bud White's revenge, the man too stupid to grasp it: a simple cuckold accompanied by a woman's few words had him treading lies at the top, thrashing for a way to make his stale glory real.

Ed walked into his office: clean, neat--no order to secure. Complaint forms on his desk--he sat down, worked.

Jack Vincennes in big trouble.

1/3/58: while on a Surveillance Detail stakeout, Vincennes shot and killed two armed robbers--gunmen who had murdered three people at a southside market. Vincennes gave chase to a third gunman/robber, lost him, was approached by two patrolmen who did not know he was a police officer. The patrolmen fired at Vincennes, assuming him to be a member of the robbery gang; Vincennes dropped his gun and allowed himself to be frisked--then assaulted one of the officers and vacated the crime scene before Homicide and the coroner arrived. The third suspect remained at large; Vincennes went to a political gathering honoring D.A. Ellis Loew, his brother-in-law by marriage. Presumed to be drunk, he verbally abused Loew and threw a drink in his face--in full view of the guests.

Ed skimmed Vincennes' personnel file. A 5/58 pension securement date--goodbye, Trashcan Jack--you were close. Stacks of his Narcotics Squad reports: thorough, detailed to the point of being padded. Between the lines: Vincennes had a hard-on for minor dope violators--especially Hollywood celebrities and jazz musicians--substantiating an old rumor: he called _Hush-Hush_ Magazine to be in on his gravy rousts. Vincennes was transferred to Administrative Vice as part of the Bloody Christmas shake-up; another stack of reports: bookmaking and liquor infraction operations, no zeal, plenty of verbal padding. Ad Vice assignment into the spring of '53: Russ Millard commanding the division, a pornography investigation running concurrent with the Nite Owl. And a _big_ anomaly: assigned to trace smut, Vincennes repeatedly reported no leads, commented that the other men on the assignment were coming up empty, twice offered the opinion that the investigation should be dropped.

Antithetical Jack V. behavior.

Smut brushed shoulders with the Nite Owl.

Ed thought back.

The Englekling brothers, Duke Cathcart, Mickey Cohen. Smut dismissed as a viable Nite Owl lead--three dead Negroes, case closed.

Ed read the file again. Years of padded reports, one assignment bereft of paper. Vincennes returned to Narco in July '53--he went back to his old ways, continued them straight through to the end of his duty with Surveillance.

Big-time anomaly.

Coinciding with the Nite Owl.

Spring '53, another connection: Sid Hudgens was murdered then--unsolved. Ed hit the intercom.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Susan, find out who besides Sergeant John Vincennes was assigned to the Fourth Squad at Administrative Vice in April of 1953. Do that, then locate them."

o o o

A half hour for results. Sergeant George Henderson, Officer Thomas Kifka retired; Sergeant Lewis Stathis working Bunco. Ed called his C.O.; Stathis walked in ten minutes later.

A burly man--tall, stooped. Nervous--an I.A. bracing out of nowhere was a spooker. Ed pointed him to a chair. Stathis said, "Sir, this is about . . ."

"Sergeant, this has nothing to do with you. This has to do with an officer you worked Ad Vice with."

"Captain, my Ad Vice tour was years ago."

"I know, late '51 through the summer of '53. You transferred out just as I rotated in on my floater assignment. Sergeant, how closely did you work with Jack Vincennes?"

Stathis smiled. Ed said, "Why are you grinning?"

"Well, I read in the paper that Vincennes juked these two heist guys, and talk around the Bureau has it that he bugged out on the scene unannounced. That's a big infraction, so I was smiling 'cause it figured he'd be the Ad Vice guy you'd be interested in."

"I see. And did you work closely with him?"

Stathis shook his head. "Jack was strictly the single-o type. You know, the beat of a different drummer. Sometimes we worked the same general assignments, but that was it."

"Your squad worked a pornography investigation in the spring of'53, do you recall that?"

"Yeah, it was a colossal waste of time. Dirty skin books, a waste of time."

"You yourself reported no leads."

"Yeah, and neither did Trashcan or the other guys. Russ Millard got co-opted to that Nite Owl thing, and the skin book caper fell through."

"Do you recall Vincennes acting strangely during that time?"

"Not really. I remember he only showed up at the squadroom at odd times and that him and Russ Millard didn't like each other. Like I said, Vincennes was a loner. He didn't pal around with the guys on the squad."

"Do you recall Millard making specific queries of the squad when two printshop operators came forward with smut information?"

Stathis nodded. "Yeah, something to do with the Nite Owl that didn't pan out. We all told old Russ that those skin books could not be traced hell or high water."

One hunch going dry. "Sergeant, the Department was running a fever with the Nite Owl back then. Can you recall how Vincennes reacted to it? Any little thing out of the ordinary?"

Stathis said, "Sir, can I be blunt?"

"Of course."

"Well, then I'll tell you that I always figured Vincennes was a cheap-shot cop on the take somehow. Put that aside, I remember he was sort of nervous around the time of the skin book job. On the Nite Owl, I'd say he was bored with it. He was in on the arrest of those colored guys, he was there when our guys found the car and the shotguns, and he still seemed bored by it."

Coming on again--no facts, just instincts. "Sergeant, think. Vincennes' behavior around the time of the Nite Owl and the pornography investigation. Anything out of the ordinary with him. _Think_."

Stathis shrugged. "Maybe one thing, but I don't think it amounts to--"

"Tell me anyway."

"Well, back then Vincennes had the cubicle next to mine, and sometimes I could hear him pretty good. I was at my desk and heard part of a conversation, him and Dudley Smith."

"And?"

"And Smith asked Vincennes to put a tail on Bud White. He said White'd gotten personally involved in a hooker homicide and he didn't want him doing nothing rash."

Skin pricldes. "What else did you hear?"

"I heard Vincennes agree, and the rest of it was garbled."

"This was during the Nite Owl investigation?"

"Yes, sir. Right in the middle of it."

"Sergeant, do you remember Sid Hudgens, the scandal sheet man, being killed around that time?"

"Yeah, an unsolved."

"Do you recall Vincennes talking about it?"

"No, but the rumor was that him and Hudgens were buddies."

Ed smiled. "Sergeant, thank you. This was off the record, but I don't want you to repeat our conversation. Do you understand?"

Stathis got up. "I won't, but I feel bad about Vincennes. I heard he's topping out his twenty in a few months. Maybe he vamoosed 'cause shooting those heist guys got to him."

Ed said, "Good day, Sergeant."

o o o

Something old, wrong.

Ed sat with his door open. Gold-braided flags just outside-- opportunities knocked.

Vmcennes might have dirt on Bud White.

Instincts: Trash running scared in the spring of '53.

Connect the "skin-book caper" to the Nite Owl.

Inez Soto's indictment--he killed three innocent men.

If he cut Vincennes a break on his l.A. investigation--

Ed hit the intercom. "Susan, get me District Attorney Loew."

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Mickey Cohen said, "I got my own problems to worry about. The fershtunkener Nite Owl case and fershtunkener dirty books I don't know from the Bible, another book I never read. That rebop bored me five years ago, now it is an even further distance from hunger. I got my own problems, such as look at my poor baby."

Bud looked. A raggedy-assed bulldog by the Mickster's fireplace--wheezing, his tail in a splint. Cohen said, "That is Mickey Cohen, Jr., my heir who is not long for this canine world. A bomb attempt in November he survived, though a goodly number of my Sy Devore suits did not. His poor tail has remained steadily infected and his appetite is dyspeptic. Cops resurrecting old grief is not good for his health."

"Mr. Cohen--"

"I like a man who addresses me with proper decorum. What did you say your name was again?"

"Sergeant White."

"Sergeant White then, I will tell you there is no end to the grief in my life. I am like Jesus your goy savior carrying the weight of the world on his back. Back in prison these fershtunkener goons attack me and my man Davey Goldman, Davey gets his brains scrambled, gets paroled and starts walking around in public with his shlong hanging out, it's big, I don't blame him for advertising, but the Beverly Hills cops ain't so enlightened and now he's doing ninety days observation at the Camarillo nut bin. As if that is not enough grief for your yiddisher Jesus to undergo, then feature that while I was in prison some colleagues looking after my interests were bumped off by persons unknown. And now my old boys won't form back together with me. My God, Kikey T., Lee Vachss, Johnny Stompanato--"

Kill the tirade. "I know Johnny Stomp."

Cohen hit the roof. "Ferstunkener Johnny, Judas from the best-selling Bible is his middle name! Lana Turner is his Jezebel and not his Mary Magdalene, his cock leads him to grovel for her like a dowsing rod. Granted, he is even better hung than Davey G., but my blessed Jesus I took him away from being a two-bit extortionist and made him my bodyguard, and now he refuses to re-enlist, he'd rather nosh grease at Kikey's fucking deli and hobnob with Deuce Perkins, who I have it on good authority plays hide the salami with members of the canine persuasion. Did you say your name was White?"

"That's right, Mr. Cohen."

"Wendell White? _Bud_ White?"

"That's me."

"Boychik, why didn't you tell me?"

Cohen Junior pissed in the fireplace. Bud said, "I didn't think you'd heard of me."

"Heard, shmeard, word gets out. Word is you're Dudley Smith's lad. Word is you and the Dudster and a couple of his other hard boys been keeping L.A. safe for democracy while this so-called crime drought's been going on. A motel in Gardena, a little blackjack work to the kidneys, va va va voom. Maybe now, maybe if I can get my old guys to quit noshing grease and associating with dog fuckers, I can get business going again. I should be nice to you so's you and the Dudster reciprocate. So what's with this Nite Owl rehash?"

His pitch--canned. "I heard how the Englekling brothers visited you up at McNeil, how they talked up Duke Cathcart's deal. I was thinking that you or Davey Goldman might have talked it up on the yard and word got out that way."

Mickey said, "Nix. Not possible, 'cause I never told Davey. True, I am well known for my cell business confabs, but not a soul on this earth did I tell. I told that guy Exley that when we sbmoozed on the topic years ago. And here's a bonus insight from the Mickster. It is my considered opinion that dirty books are a high-profit item worth killing innocent bystanders over only if an established high-profit market already exists. Give the fucking Nite Owl up, those shvartzes the hero kid bumped took the ticket and probably did the job anyway."

Bud said, "I don't think Duke Cathcart was killed at the Nite Owl. I think it was a guy impersonating him. I think the guy killed Cathcart, took over his identity and wound up at the Nite Owl. I was thinking the whole thing got started up at McNeil."

Cohen rolled his eyes. "Not with me it didn't, boychik, 'cause I told nobody, and I can't feature Pete and Bar stopping to spread the word out on the yard. Where'd this clown Cathcart live?"

"Silverlake."

"Then dig up the Silverlake Hills. Maybe you'll find a nice vintage stiff."

A flash--San Berdoo, Sue Lefferts' mother at her pad--eyes darting to a built-on room. "Thanks, Mr. Cohen."

Cohen said, "Forget the fershtunkener Nite Owl."

Cohen Junior took a bead on Bud's crotch.

o o o

San Bernardino, Hilda Leffertr. Last time she shoved him out pronto; this time he'd hit on the boyfriend: Susan Nancy was seen with a guy matching Duke Cathcart's description--press, intimidate.

A two-hour run. The San Berdoo Freeway would be working soon--cut the trip in half. Exley Senior to Junior: the coward knew about him and Inez, his look the other day spelled it plain. They were both biding their time. But if things fell his way he'd hit harder--Exley would _never_ tag him for the brains to hit smart.

Hilda Lefferts lived in a dump: a shingle shack with a cinder block add-on. Bud walked up, checked out the mailbox. Good intimidation stuff: Lockheed pension check, Social Security check, County Relief check. He pushed the buzzer.

The door opened a crack. Hilda Lefferts looked over the chain. "Told you before, now I'll say it again. I'm not buying what you're selling, so let my poor daughter rest in peace."

Bud fanned out the checks. "County Relief told me to hold these back until you cooperate. No tickee, no washee."

Hilda squealed; Bud popped the chain, walked in. Hilda backed away. "Please. I need that money."

Susan Nancy smiled down from four walls: vamp poses on a nightclub floor. Bud said, "Come on, be nice, huh? You remember what I tried to ask you last time? Susan had a boyfriend here in San Berdoo right before she moved to L.A. You looked scared when I told you before, you look scared now. _Come on_. Five minutes on that and I'm gone. And nobody's gonna know."

Hilda, eyeball circuits: the checks, the add-on room. "Nobody?"

Bud forked over Lockheed. "Nobody. Come on. I'll give you the other two after you tell me."

Hilda spoke straight to her daughter--the picture by the door. "Susie, you told me you met the man at a cocktail lounge and I told you I didn't approve. You said he was a nice man who'd paid his debt to society, but you wouldn't tell me his name. I saw you with him one day, and you called him Don or Dean or Dick or Dee, and he said, 'No, Duke. Get used to it.' Then I was out one day and old Mrs. Jensen next door saw you with the man here at the house and thought she heard a ruckus . . ."

Match it: "debt to society" equals "ex-con." "Did you ever learn the man's name?"

"No, I didn't. I . . ."

"Did Susan know two brothers named Englekling? They lived here in San Bernardino."

Hilda squinted at the picture. "Oh, Susie. No, I don't think I know that name."

"Did Susan's boyfriend ever mention the name 'Duke Cathcart' or mention a pornography business?"

"No! Cathcart was the name of one of the dead people where Susie died, and Susie was a good girl who would never associate with filth!"

Bud forked over County Relief. "Easy now. Tell me about the ruckus."

Hilda, tears coming on. "I came home the next day, and I thought I saw dried blood on the floor of the new den, I'd just had it built with the money from my husband's insurance policy. Susan and the man came back and acted nervous. The man crawled around under the house and called a Los Angeles phone number, then he and Susan Nancy left. A week later she was killed . . . and . . . I, well, I thought all that suspicious behavior meant the killings . . . I just thought of conspiracies and reprisals, and when that nice man who became such a hero came by a few days later with his background check, I just stayed quiet."

Goose bumps: Susie Lefferts' boyfriend the Cathcart impersonator. "The ruckus": the boyfriend kills Cathcart--probably in San Berdoo to talk to the Engleklings. Susie at the Nite Owl, scoping out some kind of meeting, the boyfriend playing Cathcart--which meant the killers never saw the real Cathcart face-to-face.

THE BOYFRIEND CRAWLING AROUND UNDER THE HOUSE.

Bud got the phone, the operator, an L.A. number: P.C. Bell police information. A clerk came on. "Yes, who's requesting?"

"Sergeant W. White, LAPD. I'm in San Bernardino at RAnchview 04617. I need a list of all calls to Los Angeles from that number, say from March 20 to April 12, 1953. Got that?"

The clerk said, "I copy." Seconds, two minutes plus, the clerk back on. "Three calls, Sergeant. April 2 and April 8, all to the same number, HO-21 118. That's a pay phone, the corner of Sunset and Las Palmas."

Bud hung up. Phone booth calls a half mile from the Nite Owl; the deal or the meet worked out--extra cautious.

Hilda fretted Kleenex. Bud saw a flashlight on an end table. He grabbed it, ran with it.

Outside to the add-on, a foundation crawispace--one tight fit. Down, under, in.

Dirt, wood pilings, a long burlap sack up ahead. Smells: mothballs, rot. An elbow crawl to the bag--mothballs and rot getting stronger. He poked the sack, saw a rat's nest explode.

All around him: rats blinded by light.

Bud ripped burlap. In with the flashlight, rats, a skull caked with gristle. Drop the flash, rip two-handed, rats and mothballs in his face. A huge rip, a bullet hole in the skull, a skeleton hand out a sleeve--"D.C." on flannel.

He crawled out gulping air. Hilda Lefferts was right there. Her eyes said, "Please God, not that."

Clean air; clean daylight almost blinding. White light gave him the idea--his shiv at Exley.

A scandal mag leak. A guy at _Whisper_ owed him--a pinko rag, they bled for Commies and jigs and hated cops.

Hilda, about to shit her drawers. "Was . . . there . . . anything under there?"

"Nothing but some rats. I want you to stay put, though. I'm gonna bring back some mugshots for you to look at."

"May I have that last check?"

The envelope--flecked with rat droppings. "Here. Compliments of Captain Ed Exley."

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

A nice interrogation room-- no bolted-down chairs, no piss smell. Jack looked at Ed Exley. "I knew I was in the shit, but I didn't think I rated the top dog."

Exley: "You're probably wondering why you haven't been suspended."

Jack stretched. His uniform chafed--he hadn't worn it since 1945. Exley looked creepy--skinny, gray-haired, rimless glasses that made his eyes come off brutal. "I was wondering. My guess is Ellis had seconds thoughts on the complaint he filed. Bad publicity and all that."

Exley shook his head. "Loew considers you a liability to his career and his marriage, and leaving that crime scene and assaulting that officer are enough in themselves to warrant a suspension and a dismissal."

"Yeah? Then why haven't I been suspended?"

"Because for the moment I've interceded with Loew and Chief Parker. Any other questions?"

"Yeah, where's the tape recorder and the steno?"

"I didn't want them here."

Jack pulled his chair up. "Captain, what _do_ you want?"

"I'll throw that back at you. Do you want to flush your career down the toilet or would you like to skate for a few months and cash Out your twenty?"

Easy: Karen's face when he told her. "Okay, I'll play. Now what do you want?"

Exley leaned close. "In the spring of '53 your friend and business associate Sid Hudgens was murdered and two detectives who worked the case under Russ Millard told me you referred to Hudgens as 'scum' and were visibly agitated on the morning his body was discovered. During this time frame Dudley Smith asked you to tail Bud White, and you agreed. During this time frame the Nite Owl case was active and you worked a pornography investigation with Ad Vice and repeatedly submitted no-lead reports, when your long-standing procedure was to jam every report you wrote full of filler. During this time two men, Peter and Barter Englekling, came forward to offer state's evidence on an alleged pornography link to the Nite Owl. Russ Millard queried you on it, you went along with your 'no leads' routine. Throughout the smut investigation you repeatedly urged that the job be dropped. Those same two detectives, Sergeants Fisk and Kieckner, overheard you urging Ellis Loew to soft-pedal the Hudgens investigation, and one of your fellow Ad Vice officers recalls you as being atypically nervous throughout the smut job and absent from the squadroom for unusually long periods of time. Put it all together for me, would you, Jack?"

Ten counts guilty--he knew he was gawking, blinking, twitching. "How . . . the . . . fuck did you . . ."

"It doesn't matter. Now let's hear your interpretation of what I want."

Jack caught some breath. "Okay, so I tailed Bud White. Dud was afraid he'd go apeshit over some hooker snuff, 'cause White had that tendency where young stuff was concerned. Okay, so I tailed him and didn't pick up anything worth a damn. You and White hate each other, everyone knows it. You figure someday he'll try to get you for your job on Dick Stensland and you'll cut me slack with Loew and Parker in exchange for some dirt on him. _Is that what you want?_"

"Call that twenty percent of it and give me something you learned about White."

"Such as?"

"How about him and women?"

"White likes women, but that's no news flash."

"IAD ran a personal on White after he passed the sergeant's exam. The report had him seeing a woman named Lynn Bracken. Did White know her back in '53?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know. I never heard that name."

"Vincennes, your face says you're a liar, but put the Bracken woman aside, she doesn't interest me. Was White seeing Inez Soto during the time you were tailing him?"

He almost laughed. "No, not while I had my tail on him. Is that what you're so worked up on? You think White and your--"

Exley raised a hand. "I'm not going to ask you if you killed Hudgens, I'm not going to make you put that spring together for me, not yet and maybe never. Just give me your opinion on something. You were up to your ears on the smut job _and_ you worked the Nite Owl. Do you make the three Negroes for the killings?"

Jack inched back--get away from those eyes. "There's loose ends out there, I knew it then. If it wasn't the three you got, maybe it was some other spooks, maybe they knew where Coates hid his car and planted the shotguns. Maybe it's tied to the smut. Do you care? Those niggers raped your woman, so what you did was right. What's this about, Captain?"

Exley smiled. Jack pegged it: a man sticking one foot off a cliff, hopping on one leg. "Captain, what's this--"

"No, my motives are my business, and here's my first guess. Hudgens was connected to the smut somehow, and he had a file on you. That's why you were all over that mess."

Quicksand. "Yeah, I did something really bad once. You know . . . shit, sometimes I think . . . sometimes I think I don't care who finds out anymore."

Exley stood up. "I've already squared the complaints against you. There'll be no trial board, no charges. Part of the agreement I made with Chief Parker is a stipulation that you voluntarily retire in May. I told him you'd agree, and I convinced him that you deserve a full pension. He didn't question my motives, and I don't want you to question them either."

Jack stood up. "And the trade?"

"If the Nite Owl ever goes wide, you and everything you know belong to me."

Jack stuck out his hand. "Jesus, you turned into a cold son of a bitch."

CALENDAR

FEBRUARY--MARCH 1958

_Whisper_ Magazine, February 1958 issue:

WRONG MAN KILLED IN

NITE OWL SLAUGHTER?

WEB OF MYSTERY SPREADS...

You remember the Nite Owl brouhaha, don't you? On April 14, 1953, three shotgun-toting killers entered the convivial Nite Owl Coffee Shop, just off Hollywood Boulevard in sunny Los Angeles, robbed and murdered three employees and three patrons and got away with an estimated three hundred scoots, which divided by six comes to about fifty bucks a life. The Los Angeles Police Department threw itself into the case with characteristic zeal, arrested three young Negro men on suspicion of committing the murders and also charged them with kidnapping and raping a young Mexican girl. The LAPD was not quite certain that the three Negroes--Raymond "Sugar Ray" Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine--committed the Nite Owl killings, but they were sure that the young men were the rapists of Inez Soto, 21, a college student. The Nite Owl investigation continued, with much attendant publicity and great pressure on the LAPD to solve L.A.'s "Crime of the Century."

The LAPD pursued fruitless leads for two weeks, then discovered the murder weapons inside Ray Coates' car, stored in an abandoned South Los Angeles garage. Shortly after that, Coates, Jones and Fontaine escaped from the Hall of Justice Jail . .

Enter a young police detective: Sergeant Edmund J. Exley of the LAPD. World War II hero, UCLA grad, informant against his fellow cops in the 1951 "Bloody Christmas" police brutality scandal and the son of construction mogul Preston Exley, the builder of Raymond Dieterling's mammoth Dream-a-Dreamland and the massive Southern California freeway system. The plot thickens .

Item: Sergeant Ed Exley was in love with rape victim Inez Soto.

Item: Sergeant Ed Exley located, shot and killed Raymond Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine, with--poetic justice--a shotgun.

Item: Sergeant Ed Exley was promoted (two whole ranks!!!) to captain a week later, a large reward for his justice-by-the-sword resolution of a case the LAPD needed to solve quicksville in order to ensure perpetuation of its (overblown?) reputation.

Item: _Captain_ Ed Exley (a rich kid with a substantial private trust fund left to him by his late mother) soon became very cozy with Inez Soto and bought her a house down the block from his apartment.

Item: we at _Whisper_ have it on very good authority that Raymond Coates, Leroy Fontaine, Tyrone Jones and the man who was sheltering them--Roland Navarette--were unarmed when hero Ed Exley gunned them down . . . and, now, nearly five years since the Nite Owl killings, the plot thickens again .

Now, _Whisper_ is the underdog of what the squaresyule press calls "Scandal Sheet Journalism." We're not the mighty _Hush-Hush_, we're based out of New York and our beat is primarily the East Coast. But we do have our L.A. sources, and among them is a crusading private eye who wishes to remain anonymous. This man has been obsessed with the Nite Owl case for years, has investigated it extensively and has come up with some startling revelations. This man, whom we shall call "Private Eye X," spoke to _Whisper_ correspondents and revealed the following:

Private Eye eye-tem: during the Nite Owl investigation, two brothers, _Peter and Baxter Englekling_, printshop operators from San Bernardino, California, came forth and told authorities an account of how _Nite Owl victim Delbert "Duke" Cathcart_ approached them with a plan to print pornographic material, then theorized that the Nite Owl killings were the result of intrigue within the pornography underworld. The LAPD poohpoohed the brothers' theory in their haste to pin the crime on the Negroes, and now the Engleklings seem to have disappeared off the face of the globe .

Private Eye eye-tem: Mrs. Hilda Lefferts, mother of San Bernardino born and bred _Nite Owl victim Susan Nancy Lefferts_, told Private Eye X that immediately before the killings her daughter had a mysterious, unnamed boyfriend who greatly resembled Duke Cathcart, and she even heard him tell Susan Nancy: "Call me 'Duke.' Get used to the idea."!!! Mrs. Lefferts could not identifyr the man from privately hoarded mugshots that Private Eye X showed her. X then developed what we consider an x-cellent and x-citing theory!

X theory eye-tem: we think that mystery boyfriend X killed Duke Cathcart in an attempt to take over his pornography business, impersonated Duke Cathcart and wound up at the Nite Owl Coffee Shop to do biz with the three men who perpetrated the slaughter. Susan Nancy sat nearby in order to watch her boyfriend wheel and deal. Private Eye X offers the following unimpeachable evidence as proof:

Mrs. Lefferts said boyfriend X looked just like Duke Cathcart.

The body identified as Cathcart's was too decimated to correctly ID. The coroner's final identification was based on a _partial_ dental plate reconstruction crosschecked against Cathcart's prison dental records--yet other prison records listed Cathcart's height at 5'8", while the body discovered at the Nite Owl was 5' 9¼". All in all, unmistakable proof that an impersonator, not Duke Cathcart, was killed at the Nite Owl Coffee Shop . .

X-citing x-trapolations that we believe will lead to some x-tremely interesting revelations, x-asperate the trigger-happy Los Angeles Police Department and perhaps x-onerate the three Negroes falsely accused of the Nite Owl killings. We at _Whisper_ urge the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to x-hume the bodies of the Nite Owl victims; we x-coriate Captain Ed Exley for his cold-blooded murder of four societal victims and x-pressly petition the LAPD: redeem your old wrongs in the name of justice! Reopen the Nite Owl case!!!

EXTRACT: San Francisco _Chronicle_, February 27:

GAITSVILLE SLAYINGS BAFFLE POLICE

Gaitsville, Calif., Feb. 27, 1958--A bizarre double murder has the citizens of Gaitsville, a small town sixty miles north of San Francisco, scared--and the Mann County Sheriff's baffled.

Two days ago, the bodies of Peter and Barter Englekling, 41 and 37, were discovered at their apartment next door to the printshop where they were employed as typesetters. The two brothers, in the words of Mann County Sheriff's Lieutenant Eugene Hatcher, were "shady characters with criminal connections." The lieutenant guardedly elaborated to Chronicle reporter George Woods.

"Both Engleklings had criminal records for narcotics offenses," Lieutenant Hatcher said. "Granted, they've been clean for a number of years, but they were still shady characters. For instance, they were working at the printing shop under assumed names. So far we have no clues, but we do think we're dealing with a torturefor-information scenario."

The Englekling brothers worked at Rapid Bob's Printing on East Verdugo Road in Gaitsville and lived in the apartment building next door. Their employer, Robert Dunkquist, 53, knew the pair as Pete and Bar Girard, and discovered their bodies on Tuesday morning. "Pete and Bar had worked for me for a year and they were as regular as clockwork. When they were late for work on Tuesday I knew something was up. Also, the shop had been ransacked and I wanted them to help me find the culprits."

The Englekling brothers, whose true identities were revealed by a fingerprint teletype check, were shot to death, and Lieutenant Hatcher is certain the killer used a .38 revolver equipped with a silencer. "Our baffistics man found iron shavings embedded in the rounds we took out of the victims. This indicates a silencer and also indicates why the neighbors never reported any shots."

Lieutenant Hatcher would not reveal the status of his investigation, but he did state that all the standard investigatory approaches are being utilized. He stated that both victims were tortured prior to being shot, but would not describe the crime scene. "We want to keep that knowledge private," he said. "Sometimes publicityseeking lunatics confess to crimes like this, even though they didn't commit them. Keeping your facts private helps eliminate the guilty from the innocent."

Peter and Barter Englekling have no known living relatives, and their bodies are being held at the Gaitsville city coroner's office. Lieutenant Hatcher urged all parties who might have information concerning the homicides to contact the Mann County Sheriff's Department.

EXTRACT: San Francisco _Examiner_, March 1:

MURDER VICTIMS LINKED TO CELEBRATED

LOS ANGELES CRIME

Peter and Barter Englekling, murder victims killed in Gaitsville, California, on February 25, were material wimesses in the famous Nite Owl murder case that occurred in Los Angeles in April 1953, Mann County Sheriff's Lieutenant Eugene Hatcher revealed today.

"We got an anonymous tip on it yesterday," Lieutenant Hatcher told the _Examiner_. "A man just called in the information, then hung up. We verified it with the D.A.'s Bureau down in L.A., and they said it was true. I don't think it has anything to do with our case, but I called the Los Angeles Police Department anyway and ran it by them. They gave me the brush-off, so I say the heck with them."

EXTRACT: L.A. _Daily News_, March 6:

NITE OWL REDIVIVUS--SHOCKING NEW

REVELATIONS POINT TO INNOCENT MEN

KILLED

This is an ugly story. The _Daily News_, frankly Los Angeles' only exposé-oriented newspaper and the only Southland paper proud to call itself "muckraking," does not shy away from such stories. This story punctures the hero image of a man considered by many to be a perfect exemplar of law-and-order righteousness, and when heroes possess feet of clay, we at the _Daily News_ believe that it is our duty to expose their shortcomings to public scrutiny. The issues here are great, as notable as the crime that spawned them, so we are frankly sending up a muckraking hue and cry. That hue and cry: the infamous Nite Owl murder case--six people brutally robbed and shotgunned to death at a Hollywood coffee shop in April 1953--was solved incorrectly, at a great cost to justice. We want to see the case reopened and true justice achieved.

Raymond Coates, Leroy Fontaine and Tyrone Jones--do you recall those names? They were the three Negro youths, criminals and sex offenders to be sure, who were railroaded by the Los Angeles Police Department. Arrested shortly after the Nite Owl murders, they offered a heffish alibi: they could not have committed the killings because they were engaged in the kidnap and gang rape of a young woman named Inez Soto. They abused Miss Soto at a deserted building in South Los Angeles, then confessed that they drove her around and "sold her out" to their friends for more sexual abuse. They left Miss Soto with a man named Sylvester Fitch, and an LAPD officer shot and killed him while effecting the brave young woman's escape.

Miss Soto refused to cooperate with the police investigation, which at the time centered on the imperative of establishing where Coates, Jones and Fontaine were at the time of the Nite Owl killings. Were they with her and the other alleged rapists (none of whom, besides Fitch, were ever identified)? Did they have time to drive from South Los Angeles to Hollywood, commit the Nite Owl killings, then return to heap more abuse upon her? Was she conscious throughout the total sum of her degradation?

Unanswered questions--until now.

The police investigation spread into two forks: searching for evidence to corroborate Jones, Coates and Fontaine as the killers; searching for general evidence, standard police work based on the supposition that the three youths were guilty only of kidnap and rape, but not murder. Miss Soto still refused to cooperate. Both investigatory forks proved moot when Coates, Jones and Fontaine escaped from jail and were gunned down by our aforementioned hero: LAPD Sergeant Edmund Exley.

College man, World War II hero, son of the illustrious Preston Exley, Ed Exley used the Nite Owl case as a springboard for his ruthless personal ambition. He was promoted to captain at age 31 and as of this writing will soon become an inspector--at 36, the youngest in LAPD history. He is mentioned as a potential Republican office-seeker almost as often as his construction-king father. A few persistent rumors surround him: that the men killed were unarmed, that D.A. Ellis Loew dreamed up the Nite Owl confession that Coates, Jones and Fontaine allegedly made before they escaped. What is not generally known is that Ed Exley was in love with Inez Soto and condoned her lack of cooperation during the investigation, later bought her a house and has been intimately involved with her for close to five years.

And now, two recent developments have blown the Nite Owl case wide open.

Back in 1953, two men, brothers, came forward as material wimesses with information on the Nite Owl killings. Those men, Peter and Baxter Englekling, asserted that a pornography plot was at the base of the coffee shop massacre, per a scheme devised by one of the victims: ex-convict Delbert "Duke" Cathcart. The LAPD chose to ignore this information. Then, almost five years later, Peter and Baxter Englekling were viciously murdered in the small upstate town of Gaitsville. Those kiffings, which took place on February 25, are unsolved with a complete absence of clues. But a long-unanswered question was about to be answered.

At San Quentin Penitentiary, a Negro prisoner named Otis John Shot-tell read a San Francisco newspaper account of the Englekling brothers' killings, an account which mentioned their tenuous connection to the Nite Owl case. The article got Otis John Shortell thinking. He requested an audience with the assistant warden and made a startling confession.

Otis John Shortell, in prison on an accumulation of grand-theft auto convictions and franldy desiring a sentence reduction as a reward for his cooperation, confessed that he was one of the men Coates, Fontaine and Jones "sold" Inez Soto to. He was with Miss Soto and the three youths between the hours of 2:30 and 5:00 on the morning of the Nite Owl killings, _during the entire murder time frame_. He told the warden that he never came forward to exonerate the three for fear of rape charges being filed against him. He further stated that Coates had a large quantity of narcotics in his car and that that was the reason he never relinquished its location to the police. Shortell cited a recent conversion to Pentecostal Christianity as his reason for finally making his confession, but prison authorities were dubious. Shortell petitioned for an in-cell lie detector test to prove his veracity and was given a total of four polygraph examinations. He passed all four tests conclusively. Shortell's attorney, Morris Waxman, has sent notarized copies of the polygraph examiner's reports to the _Daily News_ and the LAPD. We have advanced this article. What will the LAPD do?

We decry the injustice of shotgun justice. We decry the motives of triggerman Ed Exley. We openly challenge the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the Nite Owl Murder Case.

EXTRACT: L.A. _Times_, March 11:

NITE OWL HUE AND CRY BUILDING

A welter of unrelated events and a fire fanned by a series of articles in the Los Angeles _Daily News_ are pressuring the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the 1953 Nite Owl murder case investigation.

LAPD Chief William H. Parker called the controversy "a powder keg with a wet fuse. It's all a bunch of baloney. The testimony of a degenerate criminal and an unrelated double murder do not constitute a reason to reopen a case successfully solved five years ago. I stood by Captain Ed Exley's actions in 1953 and I stand by them now."

Chief Parker's references allude to the February 25 murders of Peter and Baxter Englekling, material witnesses to the original Nite Owl investigation, and the recent testimony of San Quentin inmate Otis John Shortell, who claimed to be with the three formerly accused killers during the time frame of the Nite Owl murders. Citing Shot-tell's in-prison lie detector tests, his attorney Morris Waxman stated, "Polygraphs don't lie. Otis is a religious man who carries a great burden of guilt for not coming forth to exonerate innocent men five years ago, and now he wants to see justice done. He has given three dead victims a lie detector validated alibi and now he wants to see the real killers punished. I will not cease publicizing this matter until the LAPD agrees to do their duty and reopen the case."

Richard Tunstell, city editor of the Los Angeles _Daily News_, echoed that sentiment. "We've got our teeth sunk into something important. We're not going to let go."

BANNERS

L.A. _Daily News_, March 14:

J'ACCUSE--LAPD IN NITE OWL COVER-UP

L.A. _Daily News_, March 15:

OPEN LETTER TO TRIGGERMAN EXLEY

L.A. _Times_, March 16:

CONVICT'S LAWYER PETITIONS

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL

FOR NITE OWL CASE

REOPENING

L.A. _Herald-Express_, March 17:

PARKER TO THE PRESS: NITE OWL

A DEAD ISSUE

L.A. _Daily News_, March 19:

CITIZENS DEMAND JUSTICE--PICKETS

STALK THE LAPD

L.A. _Herald-Express_, March 20:

PARKER/LOEW IN HOT SEAT

GOVERNOR KNIGHT: NITE OWL

A "POWDER KEG"

L.A. _Mirror-News_, March 20:

THE WAGES OF DEATH--

EXCLUSIVE PICS OF EXLEY/SOTO

LOVE NEST

L.A. _Examiner_, March 20:

POLICE SWITCHBOARDS

FLOODED: CITIZENS VOICE

NITE OWL OPINIONS

L.A. _Times_, March 20:

PARKER BACKS EXLEY AND HOLDS FIRM:

"NO NITE OWL REOPENING"

L.A. _Daily News_, March 20:

JUSTICE MUST PREVAIL!

DEMAND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY!

REOPEN THE NITE OWL CASE NOW!

PART FOUR

Destination: Morgue

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The phone rang: odds on the press 20 to 1. Ed picked up anyway. "Yes?"

"Bill Parker, Ed."

"Sir, how are you? And thanks for that quote in the _Times_."

"I meant it, son. We're going to tough this thing out and let it pass. How's Inez taking it? The publicity, I mean."

"My father said she's staying at Ray Dieterling's place in Laguna. And we broke it off a few months ago. It just wasn't working."

"I'm sorry. Inez is a plucky girl, though. Compared to what she's been through, this thing should be cake."

Ed rubbed his eyes. "I'm not so sure it'll pass."

"I think it will. The Gaitsville Police won't cooperate on the Englekling homicides and that Negro at Quentin has nil value as a witness. His polygraph seems valid, but his attorney is a grandstanding shyster only interested in getting his client out of--"

"Sir, all that aside, I don't think the men I killed did the Nite Owl and--"

"Don't interrupt me and don't tell me you're so suicidally naive as to think reopening the case will do one whit of good. Now, I'm waiting for it to pass and the attorney general up in Sacramento is waiting for it to pass. Bad publicity, petitions for justice and the like _always_ peak out and pass."

"And if it doesn't?"

Parker sighed. "If the A.G. orders a state-run special investigation, I'll file an LAPD injunction against him and preempt him with an investigation of our own. I have Ellis Loew's full support on that strategy--but it will pass."

Ed said, "I'm not so sure I want it to."

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Mobster Squad duty: room 6, the Victory Motel. Bud, Mike Breuning, a Frisco boy cuffed to the hot seat--Joe Sifakis, three loanshark falls, snatched off a train at Union Station. Breuning worked the hose; Bud watched.

Fourteen hundred on the dresser--a police charity donation. A get-out-of-town pitch in high gear--dental work coming up. Bud checked his watch--4:20--Dudley was late. Sifakis screamed.

Bud walked into the bathroom. Four obscene walls: sex ditties, some dated. '53 entries--he thought Nite Owl straight off. Scary: the Nite Owl big-time news, Dud wanted to talk to him bad. He turned on the sink--cover the screams. He tested _his_ Nite Owl string, found it watertight.

Nobody knew he leaked his story to _Whisper_--if the high brass knew he would have heard--and Cathcart's stiff was still under the house. Nobody knew he tipped the Gaitsville Sheriff's to the Englekling connection to the Nite Owl. Lucky breaks: the brothers dead, the spook up at Quentin--probably a legit alibi. He was clean on the evidence he suppressed in '53--if Dudley had an inkling he was holding stuff back it probably tied to his fix on the Kathy snuff. Dud was the Nite Owl supervisor, he'd want the brouhaha to pass--a reopening would make him look like a supporting player chump--second banana to hero chump Ed Exley. Parker was trying to keep a reopening kiboshed, call the odds against it 5 to 1, 5 to 1 that Exley would come out smelling--

Sifakis screamed--the door shook.

Bud doused his head in the sink. A scrawl by the mirror: Meg Greunwitz fucks good--AX-74022. Girls' names on the walls; last week the L.A. Sheriff's bagged a dead hooker, add it to his list: Lynette Ellen Kendrick, age 21, DOD 3/17/58. Beaten, ring lacerations, three-hole rape--the county cops wouldn't give him the time of--

Sifakis started babbling. The bathroom got too hot to take.

Bud walked out. Sifakis, snitch-frenzied. ". . . and I know things, I _hear_ things. Like, dig, with the Mick out it's open season. Things was on this weird slowdown while he was inside, but these shooter teams took out these guys that was running his franchises, then these maverick guys, three triggers bang bang bang, they 86'd Mickey's men and these guys trying to crash his loanouts. Everybody used to respect Dud S. as a trucemaker, but now he don't do a damn thing. You want a prostie roust? Huh? Huh? You want a good tip on a . -

Breuning looked bored. Bud went out to the courtyard: crabgrass, barbed-wire fenced. Fourteen empty rooms--LAPD bought the property cheap.

"Lad."

Dudley on the sidewalk. Bud lit a cigarette, walked over.

"Lad, I'm sorry I'm late."

"It don't matter, you said it was serious."

"Yes, it is all of that. How are you enjoying the Hollywood squad, lad? Is it to your liking?"

"I liked Homicide better."

"Grand, and I'll see to it that you return sometime soon. And have you been relishing the spectacle of friend Exley ridiculed by the fourth estate?"

Smoke made him cough. "Yeah, sure. Too bad the case won't get reopened and really make him squirm. Not that I'd want to see you stand heat for it, though."

Dudley laughed. "I see the conflicts inherent in your perspective. And I feel a certain ambivalence myself, especially since a little birdie in Sacramento has informed me that the attorney general will soon press to reopen the case. Ellis Loew has an injunction prepared should things get dicey, so I think it is safe to assume that the Nite Owl is regrettably our hot potato once again. Political infighting, lad. The pinko Democrats have taken the tack of jigaboos wrongly accused, intend to press the issue during the primary elections, and the Republican A.G. has sidestepped and counterpunched. Lad, do you possess any Nite Owl information that you haven't presented to me?"

Ready, prepared. "No."

"Ah, grand. That aside then, I have an assignment for you here at the Victory tonight. A very large and muscular man requires a bracing, and frankly Mike and Dick lack the presence to appropriately impress him. It's a small world, lad--I think this chap knew our friend Duke Cathcart back in '53. Maybe he can give you some information on your Kathy Janeway fixation. Does fair Kathy's fate still concern you, lad?"

Bud swallowed--dry.

"Lad, forget that I asked. Fixations like that are like prostitutes--they can reform, but their old ways still linger. Tonight at 10:00, lad. And be of good cheer. I have some extracurricular work for you soon, work that should rekindle your old fearsome habits."

Bud blinked.

Dudley smiled, walked to room 6.

Prostitute equals Lynn. Janeway jibe equals just how much?

Joe Sifakis screamed--through four walls, out to the edge of the courtyard.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Gallaudet slipped him the news: the Attorney General's Office was set to press for a reopening: statefinanced, state-run. Ellis Loew was set to usurp their investigation-- the LAPD, Nite Owl redux. Time to call it all in.

Ed in a coffee shop on La Brea. Jack Vincennes due, paperwork on the table: Nite Owl, notes on the Hudgens case.

Check mark: was the man at San Quentin telling the truth? Most likely yes--whatever his motives.

Check mark: did the Englekling killings tie in to the Nite Owl? No way to tell until the Mann Sheriff's shared their information.

Check mark: the purple car by the Nite Owl. A hunch: it was an innocent vehicle, the real killers followed the publicity, located Ray Coates' car before the LAPD, planted the shotguns. This meant--astoundingly--that they planted the spent shells found in Griffith Park. Hall of Justice Jail records '35 to '55 had been destroyed--if the killers gleaned the information as part of a jail connection, finding that connection would most likely prove impossible. Have Kleckner and Fisk thoroughly investigate every logical possibility pertaining to the purple car/planted shotguns.

Check mark: victim Malcolm Lunceford, ex--LAPD officer/wino security guard. Did he tie in to some kind of criminal conspiracy that resulted in the Nite Owl massacre? Answer: unlikely--he was a certified, long-term Nite Owl habitué, late nights always.

Ed sipped coffee, thought POWER. Abused: IAD was autonomous inside and outside the Department; he'd had Fisk and Kleckner working toward a possible reopening--LAPD's or his own. Vincennes admitted his tail on Bud White and lied about White knowing his sporadic girlfriend--Lynn Bracken--during the spring of '53. Lynn Bracken was placed under loose surveillance; Fisk just submitted a report.

The woman was rumored to be an ex-prostitute; she co-owned a dress shop in Santa Monica. Her partner: Pierce Morehouse Patchett, age fifty-six. Kleckner secured a fmancial report: Patchett emerged as a wealthy investor known to pimp call girls to business associates. The financial kicker:

Patchett owned an apartment building in Hollywood. A weird shootout took place there--in the middle of the Nite Owl time frame. He caught the squeal himseffi no suspects apprehended, sadomasochist gear in a shot-riddled downstairs unit. The manager claimed not to know the building's owner--he was paid by mail, suspected a dummy corporation issued him his paycheck. He knew the first name of the apartment's tenant--"Lamar," a "big blond guy." The manager blamed Lamar for the shootout; a Hollywood Division follow-up report stated that Lamar had not been seen since the incident. Incident closed.

Trashcan was late. Move to the Hudgens notes.

God-awful butchery, no hard suspects, Hudgens roundly hated. A lackluster investigation--heat fell briefly on Max Peltz and the _Badge of Honor_ crew--_Hush-Hush_ published an article "exposing" Peltz and his lust for teenage girls. Peltz passed a polygraph test; the rest of the "crew" proffered alibis. Between the lines--Parker considered the victim scum, short-shrifted the case.

Still no Trash. Ed skimmed the alibi sheet.

Max Peltz engaged in statutory rape--heavily implied, no charges filed. Script girl Penny Fulweider home with her husband; Billy Dieterling alibied--Timmy Valburn. Set designer David Mertens--a sickly man suffering from epilepsy and other ailments--alibied by Jerry Marsalas, his live-in male nurse. Star Brett Chase at a party; co-star Miller Stanton likewise. A bust--but Hudgens' death had to play central to Vincennes' spring '53.

Trashcan walked up, sat down. No preims. "You're calling it in?"

"I'm meeting with Parker tomorrow. I'm sure he's going to announce a reopening."

Vincennes laughed. "Then don't look so grim. If you're crazy enough to want it, at least act happy."

Ed placed six shell casings on the table. "Three of these are target rounds I retrieved from your last range practice, three are rounds I took out of a Hollywood Division evidence locker. Identical lands and grooves. April '53, Jack. You remember that shootout on Cheramoya?"

Trash grabbed the table. "Keep going."

"Pierce Patchett owns that building on Cheramoya, and it's a nicely hidden ownership. S&M gear was found on the premises, and Patchett is a K.A. of Lynn Bracken, Bud White's girlfriend, who you denied knowing. You were working a smut job for Ad Vice then, and smut and sadomasochist paraphernalia are in the same ballpark. The last time we talked you admitted that Hudgens had a file on you, that that was why you were all over the place then. Here's my big leap, so correct me if I'm wrong. Bracken and Patchett were K.A.'s of Hudgens."

Vincennes dug his hands in--the table shook. "So you're a smart fucker. So what?"

"So did Bud White know Hudgens?"

"No, I don't think--"

"What does White have on Patchett and Bracken?"

"I don't know. Exley, look--"

"No, _you_ look. And you answer me. Did you get Hudgens' file on you?"

Trashcan, sweating. "Yeah, I did."

"Who from?"

"The Bracken woman."

"How did you get it out of her?"

"Deposition threat. I wrote out a deposition on her and Patchett, everything I put together about them. I made carbons and stashed them in safe-deposit boxes."

"And you--"

"Yeah, I've still got them. And they've still got a carbon on me."

Educated guess. "And Patchett was pushing that smut you were chasing?"

"Yeah. Exley, look--"

"No, Vincennes, _you_ look. Do you still have copies of the smut books?"

"I've got the depositions and the books. You want them, I get my evidence suppression wiped. And half the Nite Owl collar."

"A third. There's no way to make the case without White."

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Room 6 at Victory. Dudley, a muscle creep chained to the hot seat. Dot Rothstein ogling _Playboy_. Bud watched her scope cheesecake: a bull-dyke cop in a Hughes Aircraft jumpsuit.

Dudley skimmed a rap sheet. "Lamar Hinton, age thirty-one. One ADW conviction, a former telephone company employee strongly suspected of installing bootleg bookie lines for Jack 'The Enforcer' Whalen. A parole absconder since April 1953. Lad, I think it is safe to refer to you as an organized crime associate, thus someone in need of reeducation in the ways of polite society."

Hinton licked his lips; Dudley smiled. "You came along peacefully, which is to your credit. You did not give us a song and dance about your civil rights, which, since you don't have any, speaks well of your intelligence. Now, my job is to deter and contain organized crime in Los Angeles, and I have found that physical force often serves as the most persuasive corrective measure. Lad, I will ask questions, you will answer them. If I am satisfied with your answers, Sergeant Wendell White will remain in his chair. Now, why did you abscond your parole in April 1953?"

Hinton stuttered. Bud threw backhands--eyes on the wall so he wouldn't have to see. Left/right/left/right/left/right--Dot flashed the cut-off sign.

Cease fire. Dudley: "A little admonishing to show you what Sergeant White is capable of. Now, from here on in I will accommodate your stammer. Do you recall the question? Why did you abscond your parole in April 1953?"

Stut-stut-stutter: Hinton with his eyes squeezed shut.

"Lad, we're waiting."

Hinton: "H-h-had b-b-blow t-town."

"Ah, grand. And what precipitated your need to leave?"

"J-just w-woman t-t-trouble."

"Lad, I don't believe you."

"Th-th-the t-truth."

Dudley nodded. Bud threw backhands--pulled, fake full force. Dot said, "This boy could take a lot of grief. Come on, sugar, make it easy on yourself. April '53. Why'd you blow town?"

Bud heard Breuning and Carlisle next door. It hit him: 4/53--the Nite Owl.

"Lad, I overestimated the power of your memory, so let me help it along. Pierce Patchett. You were acquainted with him back then, weren't you?"

Bud, chills: evidence suppression, he shouldn't know Patchett existed--

Hinton jerked, thrashed.

"Ah, grand, I think we touched a nerve."

Dot sighed. "God, such muscles. I should have such muscles."

Dudley howled.

Kill the chills: he's on the reopening--maybe Hinton works in. _If he knew about my evidence dance I wouldn't be here_.

Dot sapped Hinton: the arms, the knees. Muscles took it stoic: no yelps, no whimpers.

Dudley laughed. "Lad, you have a high threshold for discomfort. Comment on the following, please: Pierce Patchett, Duke Cathcart and pornography. Be concise or Sergeant White will test that threshold."

Hinton, no stutter. "Fuck you, Irish cocksucker."

Ho, ho, ho. "Lad, you're a regular Jack Benny. Wendell, show our organized crime associate your opinion of unsolicited comedy acts."

Bud grabbed Dot's sap. "What are you looking for, boss?"

"Full and docile cooperation."

"Is this the Nite Owl? You said Duke Cathcart."

"I want full and docile cooperation on all topics. Have you objections to that?"

Dot said, "White, just do it. God, I should have such muscles." Bud got close. "Let me play him solo. Just a couple minutes." "A return to your old methods, lad? It's been a while since you evinced enthusiasm for this kind of work."

Bud whispered. "I'm gonna let him think he can take me, then shiv him. You and Dot wait outside, okay?"

Dudley nodded, walked Dot out. Bud turned the radio on: a commercial, used-car values at Yeakel Olds.

Hinton rattled his chains. "Fuck you, fuck that Irish guy and fuck that fucking diesel dyke."

Bud pulled up a chair. "I don't like this stuff, so you be good and give me some answers on the side and I'll tell the man to cut you loose. You got that? No parole roust."

"Fuck you."

"Hinton, I think you know Pierce Patchett, and maybe you knew Duke Cathcart. You can tell me some side stuff and I'll--"

"Fuck your mother."

Bud threw Hinton and his chair across the room. The hot seat landed sideways--slats popped off. Shelves collapsed--the radio broke, spewing static.

Bud uprighted the chair one-handed. Hinton pissed his pants. Bud heard himself talking, a weird voice like a brogue. "Give me some pimp stuff, lad. Cathcart, a coon named Dwight Gilette-- they both ran this girl Kathy Janeway. She got snuffed and I don't like that. You got information on them, _lad?_"

Eyeball to eyeball--Hinton's wide wide. No stutter, don't rile the fucking animal. "Sir, I just had this driver job for Mr. Patchett, me and this guy Chester Yorkin. All we did was deliver these . . . these illegal things . . . and Cathcart, him I don't know from Adam. I heard Gilette was a swish, all I know's he used to get hooers for Spade Cooley's parties. You want skinny on Spade? I know he blows opium, he's a righteous degenerate dope fiend. He's playing the El Rancho now, you roust him. But I don't know no hooer killers and I don't know no girl Kathy Janeway."

Bud shook the chair--Hinton kept snitching. "Sir, Mr. Patchett, he ran call girls. Gorgeous tail, all fixed up like movie stars. His favorite was this gorgeous cunt Lynn, looked just like--"

Bud went straight for his face. The face went red, big men pressed in--arms around him--lifting him. The ceiling zooming down, cracked stucco swirls going black.

o o o

Questions and answers through black, shouts and whimpers through gauze--a wall that held faces back. Stag books, Cathcart, Pierce P.--the full drift couldn't get through. A strain to hear "Lynn Bracken," no yield on the name, the black going that much blacker. Mickey Cohen, '53 and why'd you run--he tore at the gauze for that name. Shrieks that made him burrow into softness--snapshots of Lynn all around him.

Lynn blond and a whore, brunette and herself. Lynn on his thing with Inez: "Be kind to her and spare me the details." Lynn filling up her diary while he punked out on reading it because he knew she had him down cold. Lynn thinking two steps ahead of him, drifting in and out of his life while he drifted in and out of hers. That black gauze throbbing--questions, answers. Black silence, cracked stucco swirls going light.

Room 7 at the Victory: cots for the Mobster Squad guys. The door to 6 wide open.

Bud rolled off his cot, stood up. His head throbbed, his jaw ached, he'd ripped up his pillow burrowing in. Into 6, a shambles: the hot seat, blood on the walls. No Hinton, no Dot, no Dudley and his boys. 1:10 A.M.--no way to figure out the questions and answers.

He drove home woozy, too trashed to think. He unlocked his door yawning--the overhead light went on. Something/somebody grabbed him.

Cuffs on his wrists. Ed Exley, Jack Vincennes--square in front of him. A side check: Fisk and Kleckner--I.A. shitbirds-- pinning his arms.

Exley slapped him. Fisk grabbed his neck, popped a finger on his carotid.

A folder in his face. Exley: "l.A. ran a personal on you when you made sergeant, so we already know about Lynn Bracken. Vincennes had a tail on you back in '53, and he's got you, Bracken and Pierce Patchett in this deposition here. You braced Patchett on the Kathy Janeway homicide, and you were all over the Nite Owl like a plague. I need what you know, and if you don't cooperate I'll begin an I.A. investigation into your evidence suppression immediately. The Department needs a scapegoat on the old Nite Owl job--and I'm too valuable to take the fall. If you don't cooperate, I'll use every bit of my juice to ruin you."

The choke hold went slack--Bud tried to pull away. Kleckner and Fisk dug in. "You fuck, I'll fucking kill you."

Exley laughed. "I don't think so, and if you play you get your evidence suppression chilled, part of the collar and a little plum--a liaison to those hooker snuffs you care so much about."

Black gauze coming back. "Lynn?"

"She's our first interrogation--with pentothal. If she's clean, she walks."

He doesn't know about _Whisper_, I've still got that stiff in San Berdoo. "And you and me when it's over."

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

No sleep--Vincennes' deposition wouldn't let him. The wake-up call he didn't need: a reporter at 6:00 A.M. Radio news riding over: reopening speculation, a _mano a mano_ with his father--the freeway system near done, the Nite Owl hero now a villain. Parking lot pickets--Commie types demanding justice.

Early--for the most important meeting of his career.

Parker's conference room was set up--notepads on the table. Ed wrote "Patchett," "Bracken," "Patchett's 'deal' with Hudgens-- extortion?"; he underlined "Pornography pictures match Hudgens mutilations--have Vincennes bring smut books to Bureau." White's contribution: "Patchett hinked on smut in '53"; "Patchett/Englekling bros and father chem background"; "Duke Cathcart's pad tossed & San Berdoo Yellow Pages (printshops) ruffled." White was still holding back--he knew it.

Deposition underlined: "Patchett involved (through Fleurde-Lis racket) in (contained) distribution of smut Ad Vice chasing in '53, smut Cathcart developed distribution scheme around, smut connected to mutilations on Hudgens' body."

Conclusion:

A dense series of criminal conspiracies at least five years old resulting in no fewer than four and perhaps as many as a dozen major crimes.

The other men filed in--Parker, Dudley Smith, Ellis Loew. Nods, quick sit-downs.

Parker said, "We're reopening. The A.G.'s Office wants to usurp the job, but Ellis has filed a restraining order against them, which should buy us two weeks' time. We've got two weeks to clear the case and recover the respect we lost. We've got two weeks before Sacramento comes down here and makes us a laughingstock. I want this case cleared, legally inviolate and in the hands of the grand jury within twelve days. Do you understand, gentlemen?"

Nods all around. Loew said, "I'm personally in a difficult position here, since Coates, Jones and Fontaine did confess to me. On reflection, I must admit that they were stupid and naive boys psychologically susceptible to suggestion, so--"

Smith cut in. "Ellis, that's blood under the bridge. We simply got the wrong coloreds, not the ones who fired off those shotguns in Griffith Park. The real culprits are some smart Darktown strutters who knew where Coates stashed his car, then planted the weapons. Lads who knew niggertown well and simply beat us to the location. The purple car seen by the Nite Owl was just a coincidence that the killers capitalized on. I think the Griffith Park car was stolen or out of state, and in any event I think it's not applicable. We have to begin by shaking down the southside again."

Ed smiled--Smith's tack played into his plan. "Essentially I agree, and I've got one of my I.A. men checking old registrations. But aren't we ahead of ourselves? Shouldn't we set up a chain of command first?"

Loew coughed. "Ed, I think your shooting those thugs was a noble act, whatever your motives. But I think giving you the command would just make the press and the public more resentful. I think you should take a subsidiary role in this investigation."

Outrage down pat. "I'm tired of being the bad guy on the six o'clock news and I'm tired of my sex life in the papers. I'm also the best detective in the--"

Parker cut in. "You are the best detective we have, and I understand your need to cut your losses. But Ellis is right, this is too personal with you. I've given Dudley the command. He'll recruit a team from Homicide and various squadrooms and take it from there."

"And me? Do I get a piece of the case?"

Parker nodded. "I'll give you anything within reason."

The kill. "I want the chance to develop my own evidence with I.A. autonomy. I want the use of my two personal aides from I.A. and my choice of two officers to serve as field runners."

"That's fine by me. Dudley?"

"Yes, I think that's fair. Lad, who did you have in mind for runners?"

"Jack Vincennes and Bud White."

Smith almost gawked. Parker said, "Strange bedfellows, but then it's a strange case. Twelve days, gentlemen. Not one minute longer."

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Jack woke up on the couch, wrote Karen a note.

Sweetie--

Fairs fair & yeah I screwed up with Ellis. But this goddamn sofa for two months isn't fair & if the Department can forgive me then you should be able to too. I haven't had a drink for six weeks, which if you checked the calendar by my closet you'd know. I don't expect you to think that makes everything right with us, but give me some credit for trying. I'll try--you want to go to law school, great, but I bet you'll hate it. In May I'll retire, maybe I can get a police chief job in some hick town near a good law school. I'll try, but cut me some slack because this deep freeze number is driving me crazy & right now I can't afford to be crazy because I've been detached back to work plainclothes on something that's very important to me. I'll probably be working late for the next week or so, but I'll call & check in.

J.

He dressed, waited for the phone to ring. Coffee in the kitchen, a note from Karen.

J.--

I've been a bitch lately. I'm sorry and I think we should try to figure some things out. You were asleep when I got home or I would have invited you into the boudoir.

XXXXX--K

P.S. A girl at work showed me this magazine that I thought you might be interested in seeing. I know you know that man Exley it mentions and it certainly is pertinent to what's been in the papers lately.

On the table: _Whisper_--"All the Dirt That's Fit to Print." Jack thumbed it smiling, caught a Nite Owl spread.

Hopped-up stuff--"Crusading Private Eye," "Duke Cathcart impersonator," smut speculation. Ed Exley raked over hot coals--Exley hatred big. A snap take: "P.I." Bud White shivs Exley--a February issue on sale in January, out before the Englekling brothers got clipped and that shine up at Quentin dropped that alibi. East Coast circulation, you probably couldn't find the rag in L.A. Exley and the high brass couldn't have seen it--or _he_ would have heard.

The phone rang--Jack grabbed it. "Exley?"

"Yes, and you're officially detached. White talked to Lynn Bracken. She's agreed to be pentothaled, and I want you to bring her in. She'll be waiting at that Chinese restaurant across from the Bureau in an hour. Meet her there and bring her up to I.A., and if she's got a lawyer get rid of him."

"Look, I saw something I think you should see."

"Just bring me the woman."

o o o

The woman five years post-file burning--Lynn Bracken sipping tea at Al Wong's. Jack watched her through the window.

Still a showstopper. A brunette now, a thirty-fivish beauty drawing stares. She saw him. Jack got flutters: his file.

She walked out. Jack said, "I didn't want this to happen."

"You let it. And aren't you afraid of what I know about you?" Something skewed: she was too calm five minutes from a bracing. "I've got this scary captain looking after me. If it came out, I'm betting he'd kibosh it."

"Don't make any bets you can't cover. And I'm only doing this because Bud told me he'd get hurt if I didn't."

"What else did Bud tell you?"

"Bad things about your scary captain. Can we go now? I want to get this over with."

They walked across the street, up the back Bureau stairs. Fisk met them outside I.A., steered them to Exley's office. A scary set-up: scary Captain Ed. Ray Pinker, a desk covered with medical stuff--vials, syringes. A polygraph machine--backup if the truth juice failed.

Pinker filled a hypo. Exley pointed Lynn to a chair. "Please, Miss Bracken."

Lynn sat down. Pinker swabbed her left arm, fitted a tourniquet. Exley, all business. "I don't know what Bud White told you, but essentially this is an investigation involving several interrelated criminal conspiracies. If you provide us with viable information we're prepared to grant you immunity on any possible criminal charges you might accrue."

Lynn made a fist. "I can't very well lie. Can we get this over with, please?"

Pinker took her arm, injected her. Exley punched a tape machine. Lynn went dreamy-eyed--not quite pentothal gaga. Exley talked into a hand mike. "Witness Lynn Bracken, March 22, 1958. Miss Bracken, please count backward from one hundred."

Slurs right off. "Hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninetysev, nine-six . .

Pinker checked her eyes, nodded. Jack grabbed a chair. Still too calm--he could taste it.

Exley coughed. "3/22/58, present with the witness are myself, Sergeant Duane Fisk, Sergeant John Vincennes and forensic chemist Ray Pinker. Duane, transcribe in shorthand."

Fisk grabbed a notepad. Exley said, "Miss Bracken, how old are you?"

A slight slur. "Thirty-four."

"And your occupation?"

"Businesswoman."

"Do you own Veronica's Dress Shop in Santa Monica?"

"Yes."

"Why did you choose the name 'Veronica's'?"

"A personal joke."

"Please elaborate."

"It's a name from my old life."

"How specifically?"

A dreamy smile. "I used to be a prostitute made up to resemble Veronica Lake."

"Who convinced you to do that?"

"Pierce Patchett."

"I see. Did Pierce Patchett kill a man named Sid Hudgens in April 1953?"

"No. I mean I don't know. Why would he?"

"Do you know who Sid Hudgens was?"

"Yes. A scandal-sheet writer."

"Did Patchett know Hudgens?"

"No. I mean if he did know him, he would have told me, a famous man like that."

A lie--she couldn't be full on the juice. She had to know he knew she was lying--she was thinking he'd cover her to protect himself.

Exley: "Miss Bracken, do you know who killed a girl named Kathy Janeway in the spring of 1953?"

"No."

"Do you know a man named Lamar Hinton?"

"Yes."

"Please elaborate."

"He worked for Pierce."

"In what capacity?"

"As a driver."

"And when was this?"

"Several years ago."

"Do you know where Hinton is now?"

"No."

"Elaborate on your answer, please."

"No, he went away, I don't know where he went."

"Did Hinton attempt to kill Sergeant Jack Vincennes in April 1953?"

"No."

She told him no back then.

"Who did try to kill him?"

"I don't know."

"Who else worked or works as a driver for Patchett?" "Chester Yorkin."

"Please elaborate."

"Chet, Chester Yorkin, he lives in Long Beach somewhere."

"Does Pierce Patchett suborn women into prostitution?"

"Yes."

"Who killed the six people at the Nite Owl Coffee Shop in April 1953?"

"I don't know."

"Does Pierce Patchett sell a variety of illegal items through a service known as Fleur-de-Lis?"

"I don't know."

A huge lie. Hink on her face: veins pulsing.

Exley: "Does Dr. Terry Lux perform plastic surgery on Patchett's prostitutes in order to increase their resemblance to movie stars?"

Veins smoothing out. "Yes."

"Is Patchett in fact a long-term procurer of expensive call girls?"

"Yes."

"Did Patchett distribute expensive and artfully produced pornography during the spring of 1953?"

"I don't know."

White knuckles. Jack grabbed a notepad, wrote: "Patchett a chem whiz. L.B.'s lying & I think she's on dope to counter pentothal. Get blood sample."

"Miss Bracken, does--"

Jack passed the note. Exley scanned it, passed it to Pinker. Pinker fixed up a spike.

"Miss Bracken, does Patchett possess secret files stolen from Sid Hudgens?"

"I don't kn--"

Pinker grabbed Lynn's arm, fed the needle. Lynn jerked up; Exley grabbed her. Pinker pulled out the spike; Exley pinned Lynn to his desk. She thrashed and kicked--Fisk got behind her and cuffed her. Spitting now--she caught Exley in the face. Fisk wrestled her out to the hall.

Exley wiped his face--red, mottled. "I wasn't sure myself. I thought she might have been confused."

Jack handed him _Whisper_. "I knew how she should answer better than you. Captain, you should see this."

Scary: that red face, those eyes. Exley read the piece, tore the rag in half. "White did this. You go up to San Bernardino and talk to Sue Lefferts' mother. I'm going to break that whore."

o o o

San Berdoo in an uproar: Exley breaking that whore as a slide show. "Hilda Lefferts" in the phone book, directions, the house: white shingles, a cinderblock add-on.

A granny type watering the lawn. Jack parked, taped up the rip job on _Whisper_. The old girl saw him and rabbited--a run for the door.

He ran over. She squealed, "Let my Susie rest in peace!"

Jack shoved _Whisper_ in her face. "An L.A. policeman talked to you, right? Big man about forty? You told him your daughter had a boyfriend who looked like Duke Cathcart right before the Nite Owl. He told her 'get used to calling me "Duke."' The policeman showed you mugshots and you couldn't make the boyfriend. Is this true? You read this and tell me."

She read, fast, squinting away sunlight. "But he said he was a policeman, not a private detective. Those were police-type pictures he showed me, and it wasn't my fault that I couldn't identify Susie's beau. And I want to go on record as stating that Susie was a virgin when she died."

"Ma'am, I'm sure she was--"

"And I want it to go on record that that policeman or whatever checked underneath the new wing on my house and found not a thing amiss. Young man, you're a policeman, aren't you?"

Jack shook his head--it felt sludgy. "Lady, what are you teffing me?"

"I'm telling you that Mr. Private Eye Policeman or whatever crawled around under my house two months or so ago, because I told him Susan Nancy's beau did the same thing right after this ruckus they had with this other fellow right before that Nite Owl thing that you people keep tormenting me over, may Susie and the other victims rest in peace. All he found were rodents, not signs of foul play, so there."

So there.

Granny pointed to a crawlspace flush with the ground--so there.

It fucking could not be. Bud White did not have the brains to let a card that strong sit.

Jack took a flashlight down under--Hilda Lefferts stood watching, so there. Dust, rot, mothball stink--light on dirt, rats, rat eyes glowing. Burlap, mothballs, gristle-caked bones, a skull with a hole between the eyes.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Ed watched Lynn Bracken through the two-way.

Kleckner was questioning her, a nice guy set-up for Mr. Bad Guy--himself. She'd been repentothaled; Ray Pinker was testing her blood. Three hours in a cell hadn't broken her--she was still lying with style.

Ed turned the speaker up. Kleckner: "I'm not saying that I don't believe you, I'm just saying my policeman's experience has shown me that pimps usually hate women, so I don't buy Patchett as such a philanthropist."

"You have to look at his background, how he lost a little girl to crib death. I'm sure your policeman's mentality can grasp the cause and effect, even if you can't accept it."

"Let's talk about his background then. You've described Patchett as a fmancier with L.A. roots going back thirty years. You've said that he puts deals together, so be specific about the deals."

Lynn sighed--pure panache. "Movie financing deals, real estate and contracting deals. Here's one for all you movie fans in the audience: Pierce told me he'd financed a few of Raymond Dieterling's early shorts."

Cozy: Bud White's girlfriend's pimp knew Preston Exley's good buddy. Kleckner changed tape. Ed studied the whore.

Beautiful--a good part of it hung on the fact that she wasn't perfect. Her nose was too pointed; she had crease lines on her forehead. Big shoulders, big hands--beautifully formed, all the more stunning for being large. Blue eyes that probably danced when a man said the right thing; she probably thought Bud White had primitive integrity and respected him for not trying to impress her with gifts he didn't have. She kept her clothing subtle because she knew it would make more of an impression on the people she wanted to impress; she thought most men were weak and trusted her brains to slide her through anything. Suppositions leading up to a hunch: couple her brains with the counterdope in her system and you got a pentothal-immune witness dissembling with impunity--and style.

"Captain, you got a call. It's Vincennes."

Fisk had his phone, stretched to the end of the cord. Ed took it. "Vincennes?"

"Yeah, and listen close, 'cause that scandal sheet story was kosher and there's lots more."

"White?"

"Yeah, White was that phony P.I., and he braced old lady Lefferts two months or so ago. She told him that story of her daughter's boyfriend who looked like Duke Cathcart and another doozie."

"_What?_"

"Just listen. A couple weeks before the Nite Owl, a neighbor saw Susie and the boyfriend alone at the house and heard them get into a ruckus with another guy. The boyfriend was seen crawling around under the house later that same day. Now, when White braced the old lady, he called P.C. Bell and checked their records for toll calls from the house to L.A. mid-March to mid-April '53. I did the same thing and got three tollers, all to a pay phone in Hollywood near the Nite Owl. Now, you think that's hot, you--"

"Goddammit--"

"Captain, _listen_. White crawled around under the house and told granny there was nothing there. I went under and found a stiff, wrapped in mothballs to kill the stink and a fucking bullet hole in the head. I got Doc Layman up to San Berdoo. He brought Duke Carthcart's prison dental file, the Coroner's Office copy. It was a perfect match. The first ID was bogus, off a partial plate, just like that article said. Fuck, I can't believe White put all this together and just left the stiff there. Captain, you there?"

Ed grabbed Fisk. "Where's Bud White?"

Fisk looked scared. "I heard he went up north with Dudley Smith. The Mann Sheriff's decided to kick loose on the Engleklings."

Back to Trashcan. "That article said the woman saw some mugs."

"Yeah, White brought back some shots marked 'State Records Bureau.' Now we both know the state sets run light, so my guess is White didn't want to bring her down here to check our books. Anyway, she couldn't ID the boyfriend, and if the boyfriend was one of the Nite Owl stiffs we'll have him, 'cause Nort Layman took prison dental plate fragments out of his head back in '53. Bring her down? Show her our books?"

"Do it."

Fisk took the phone. Ray Pinker walked up, holding a chem sheet. "Prestilphyozine, Captain. It's an extremely rare experimental antipsychotic drug used to tranquilize violent mental patients. Somebody professional slipped it to our lady friend, because only a pro would know this breed of phyozine would be likely to counteract penthothal. Skipper, you should sit down, you look like you're about to have a coronary."

Chemistry whiz Patchett; the Englekling brothers' father: a themist who developed antipsychotic compounds. Bud White's whore across the glass--alone now, a tape recorder spinning.

Ed walked in. Lynn said, "You again?"

"That's right."

"Don't you have to charge me or release me?"

"Not for another sixty-eight hours."

"Aren't you violating my constitutional rights?"

"Constitutional rights have been waived for this one."

"_This one?_"

"Don't play dumb. This one is Pierce Patchett distributing pornography, including picture-book photographs that exactly match the mutilations on a murder victim, namely his late 'partner' Sid Hudgens. This one is one of the supposed Nite Owl victims tied in to a conspiracy to distribute that pornography and your friend Bud White withholding major evidence on who the real victim was. Now, White told you to cooperate and you came here under the influence of a drug to counteract penthothal. That's against you, but you can still save yourself _and White_ a lot of trouble by cooperating."

"Bud can look after himself. And you look terrible. Your face is all red."

Ed sat down, turned off the tape. "You don't even feel the dosage, do you?"

"I feel like I've had four martinis, and four martinis just make me that much more lucid."

"Patchett sent you in without a lawyer to buy time, I know it. He knows you were called in as part of the Nite Owl reopening, so he knows he's a material witness at least. Personally, I don't see him as a killer. I know a great deal about Patchett's various enterprises, and you can save him a great deal of trouble by cooperating with me."

Lynn smiled. "Bud said you were quite smart."

"What else did he say?"

"That you were a weak, angry man competing with your father."

Let it pass. "Then let's concentrate on my smarts. Patchett is a chemist, and it may be reaching, but I'm betting he studied under Franz Englekling, a pharmacologist who developed drugs such as the antipsychotic compound Patchett put you under to beat the pentothal. Englekling had two sons, who were murdered in Northern California last month. Those two men came forward during the base Nite Owl investigation and mentioned a quote crazy sugar daddy-o unquote who had access to lots of quote high-class call girls unquote. Obviously Patchett, obviously tied to a would-be smut merchant named Duke Cathcart, one of the alleged Nite Owl victims. Obviously Patchett is all over this thing and in for some trouble he doesn't need and you can help circumvent."

Lynn lit a cigarette. "So you're very, very smart."

"Yes, and I'm a very good detective with a five-year backlog of withheld evidence to work from. I know about your file-burning episode, I know about Patchett's proposed extortion plan with Hudgens. I've read the deposition Vincennes bargained you with and I know all about Patchett's various enterprises, including Fleur-de-Lis."

"So you're assuming that Pierce has some very damaging information on Vincennes."

"Yes, which the district attorney and I will quash in the interest of protecting the reputation of the Los Angeles Police Department."

Fluster: Lynn dropped her cigarette, fumbled her lighter. Ed said, "You and Patchett can't win. I've got twelve days to square this thing right, and if I can't do it I'm going to start looking for subsidiary indictments. There's at least a dozen I can hang on Patchett, and believe me if I don't make this case I'll do anything I can to make myself look good."

Lynn stared at him. Ed stared back. "Patchett made you, didn't he? You were a pom-pom girl from Bisbee, Arizona, and a whore. He taught you how to dress and talk and think, and I am very impressed with the results. But I've got twelve days to keep my life out of the toilet, and if I can't do it I'm going to take you and Patchett down."

Lynn turned on the tape player. "Pierce Patchett's whore for the record. I'm not afraid of you and I've never loved Bud White more. It makes me happy that he withheld evidence and got the better of you, and you're a fool for underestimating him. I used to be jealous of him sleeping with Inez Soto, but now I respect the poor girl's good sense in leaving a moral coward for a man."

Ed pressed "Erase," "Stop," "Start." "For the record, sixtyseven hours to go and my next interrogation won't be so cordial."

Kleckner opened the door, passed him a folder. "Captain, Vincennes brought the Lefferts woman in. They're checking out mugs, and he said you wanted these."

Ed stepped outside. A thick folder--glossy-paper smut.

The top books: pretty kids, explicit action, colorful costumes. Some of the heads had been cropped and taped back on--per the deposition--Jack tried to ID the posers from mugshots and thought cropping would facilitate the effort. Ugly/arty stuff-- just like Trashcan said.

The bottom books--plain black covers--Trashcan's garbage can find. The first inked-in shots--embossed red streaming from disembodied limbs, posers linked orifice to orifice. The homicide match: a spread-eagled boy in sync to the Hudgens crime scene stills.

Past astonishing--and whoever posed the smut pics killed Hudgens.

Ed hit the last book, froze. A nude pretty boy, arms spread--ink/blood gouting off his torso. Familiar, too familiar, not from a Hudgens coroner's shot. He turned pages and caught a foldout: boys, girls, offset limbs touching, ink designs linking them.

AND HE KNEW.

He ran down the hall to Homicide, found their 1934 records, found "Atherton, Loren, 187 P.C. (multiple)." Three thick folders, then the photos--shot by Dr. Frankenstein himself.

Children immediately after their dismemberment.

Their arms and legs arranged just off their torsos.

White waxed paper under the bodies.

Blood fingerpainted around their limbs, red on white, intricate designs identical to the pornographic ink shots, limb spreads identical to the Hudgens severings.

Ed mangled his fingers slamming the cabinet, Code 2'd to Hancock Park.

o o o

A party at Preston Exley's mansion: valets parking cars, music in the back--probably a rose garden bash. Ed went in the front door and stopped short--his mother's library was gone.

Replacing it: a long space eclipsed by a model--lengths of highway over papier-mâché cities. Directional markers at the perimeters--the entire freeway system.

Perfection--it jerked him out of his filth-picture haze. Boats in San Pedro Harbor, the San Gabriel Mountains, tiny autos on asphalt. Preston Exley's greatest triumph on the eve of its completion.

Ed pushed a car--ocean to foothills. His father's voice: "I thought you'd be working South Central today."

Ed turned around. "What?"

Preston smiled. "I thought you'd be making up for your recent bad press."

Non sequiturs--the Atherton photos came back. "Father, excuse me, but I don't know what you're talking about."

Preston laughed. "We've seen each other so seldom lately that we've forgotten the amenities."

"Father, there's something--"

"I'm sorry, I was referring to Dudley Smith's statement to the _Herald_ today. He said the reopening investigation was being centered on the southside, that you're looking for another Negro gang."

"No, that's not the way it's going."

Preston put a hand on his shoulder. "You look frightened, Edmund. You do not look like a ranking policeman and you did not come here to enjoy my completion celebration."

The hand felt warm. "Father, outside of the Department, who's seen the old Atherton photographs?"

"Now I'll say 'what?' You're referring to the photographs in the case file? The ones I showed you and Thomas years ago?"

"Yes."

"Son, what are you talking about? Those photographs are sealed LAPD evidence, never released to the press or the public. Now tell me--"

"Father, the Nite Owl is collateral to several other major crimes, and Negro gangs have nothing to do with it. One of them is--"

"Then explain the evidence the way I taught you. I've had cases like--"

"Nobody has ever had a case like this, I'm a better detective than you _ever_ were and _I've_ never had a case like this."

Preston clamped both hands down--Ed felt his shoulders go numb. "I'm sorry for that, but it's true and I've got a five-year-old mutilation homicide connected to the Nite Owl case that says so. The victim was cut _identically_ to Loren Atherton's victims and _identical_ to some ink-embossed pornographic photographs tangential to the Nite Owl. Which means that either somebody saw the Atherton pictures and took it from there or you got the wrong suspect in '34."

The man didn't even blink. "Loren Atherton was incontrovertibly guilty, with a confession and eyewitness vertification. You and Thomas saw his photographs, and I doubt seriously that those photographs have ever left the Homicide pen downtown. Unless you hypothesize a policeman killer, which I find absurd, then the only explanation is that Atherton showed the photographs to some person or persons prior to his arrest. _You_ got the wrong men in your glory case--I did not make that error. _Think_ before you raise your voice to your father."

Ed stepped back--his legs brushed the model, broke off a piece of freeway. "I apologize, and I should be asking your advice, not competing with you. Father, is there anything about the Atherton case you haven't told me?"

"Apology accepted, and no, there isn't. You, Art and I went over the case constantly during our seminar period, and I expect that you know it as well as I do."

"Did Atherton have _any_ known associates?"

Preston shook his head. "Emphatically no. He was the very model of a psychotic loner."

A deep breath. "I want to interview Ray Dieterling."

"Why? Because one of his child stars was killed by Atherton?"

"No, because a witness identified Dieterling as a K.A. of a criminal tangential to the Nite Owl."

"How long ago?"

"Thirty years or so."

"This person's name?"

"Pierce Patchett."

Preston shrugged. "I've never heard of him and I don't want you bothering Raymond. Emphatically no, a thirty-year-old acquaintanceship does not warrant bothering a man of Ray Dieterling's stature. _I'll_ ask Ray about him and report back to you. Will that suffice?"

Ed looked at the model. Hypnotic: L.A. grown huge, Exley Construction containing it. His father's hands, gentle now. "Son, you've come very far and you've earned my respect absolutely. You've taken a beating for Inez and those men you killed, and I think you're bearing up strongly. For now, though, I want you to consider this. The Nite Owl case got you where you are today and a quick resolution on the reopening will keep you there. Collateral homicide investigations, however compelling, might seriously distract you from your main objective and thus destroy your career. Please remember that."

Ed squeezed his father's hands. "Absolute justice. Remember that?"

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Both crime scenes sealed--the printshop, the pad next door. One Mann sheriff--a fat guy named Hatcher. A lab man talking nonstop.

Crime Scene 1: the back room at Rapid Bob's Printing. Bud scoped Dudley nonstop, flashing back to _his_ pitch: "We thought you were going to kill him, so we stopped you. I'm sorry if we were untoward, but you were a handful. Hinton is associated with some very bad people, and I'll elaborate in all due time."

He didn't press it--Dud might have stuff on him.

Lynn in custody.

Exley's slap in the face.

The lab man pointed to a rack of dumped shelves.". . . okay, so the front of the shop looked hunky-dory, so our perpetrator didn't bother with it. We found cigarette butts in an ashtray here, two brands, so let's assume the Engleklings were working late. Let's assume the perpetrator picked the front door lock, tiptoed up and got the drop on them. Glove prints on the jamb of the connecting door, so that backs it up. He comes in, he makes our boys open those cabinets I showed you, he doesn't find what he wants. He gets pissed and yanks those shelves to the floor, glove prints on the fourth shelf up indicate a right-handed man of average height. The brothers open the boxes that spilled off--we got a whole load of smudged latents that indicate Pete and Bax were a bit panicked by this time. So, the perpetrator obviously didn't find what he wanted and marched our boys across the driveway to their apartment. Gentlemen, follow me."

Out the door, across an alley. The lab guy carried a flashlight; Bud stuck to the back.

Lynn cocky--convinced she could beat truth juice with her brains.

Dud probably had his own insider leads--but he still kept talking up niggers.

The lab man said, "Note the dirt on the driveway. On the morning the bodies were found our tech crew discovered and photographed three sets of footmarks too shallowly placed to make exemplers from. Two sets walking ahead of a single set, which indicates a march at gunpoint."

Over to a bungalow court. Dudley stone quiet--on the plane he hardly talked.

Would _Whisper_ hit?

Play the stiff under the house against Exley--HO W?

Tape on the door--Hatcher peeled it off. The lab man opened up with a pass key. Lights inside--Bud squeezed in first.

A shambles--all forensicked up.

Blood spills on a wall-to-wall carpet--tape-marked. Glass tubes on the floor--circled, held in see-through evidence bags. Scattered around: photo negatives--dozens---cracked, scalded surfaces. Overturned chairs, a dumped dresser, a sofa with the stuffing ripped out. Tucked in the largest rip: a glassine bag tagged "Heroin."

The lab guy spieled. "Those tubes contain chemicals that we've ID'd as antipsychotic drugs. The negatives were mostly too blurred to identify, but we were able to figure out that most of them were pornographic photographs. The images were mostly burned off with chemicals taken from the refrigerator in the kitchen: our boys owned a whole cornucopia of corrosive solutions. I'll hypothesize here: Peter and Baxter Englekling were tortured before they were shot to death--that we know. I think the killer showed them each negative individually, asked them questions, then burned them--and the pictures. What was he looking for? I don't know, maybe he wanted the picture participants identified. We found a magnifying glass under the couch, so I'm leaning toward that theory now. Also, note the plastic bag marked 'Heroin' extruding from the couch, the contents of which, of course, we locked up. Four bags total in a safe little hidey-hole. The killer left a small fortune in salable dope behind."

Into the kitchen, more chaos, the icebox open--spilling tubes, bottles marked with chemical symbols. Stacked by the sink: something like printing press plates.

The tech man pointed to the mess. "Another hypothesis, gentlemen. In my crime scene report you'll note that I've listed no less than twenty-six separate chemical substances found on the premises. The killer tortured Pete and Bax Englekling with chemicals, and he knew which chemicals would scald flesh. I'd call his torture method a means of opportunity, so I'm betting the man had an engineering, a medical or a chemistry background. Now the bedroom."

Bud thought: PATCHETT.

Back to the bedroom, blood drops in the hall along the way. A small room, a twelve-by-twelve slaughterhouse.

Two body outlines-one on the bed, one on the floor, dried blood tape-to-tape both places. Clothesline sash wrapped around the bedposts; more sash on the floor; taped circles on the bedsheets, the floor, a nightstand by the bed. A bullet hole circled on one wall; a forensic display on a corkboard: more scalded negatives.

Lab man: "Just glove prints and Englekling prints on the negatives, we dusted every one of them, then placed most of them back in their original locations. The ones on the board were found here in the bedroom, which as you can tell was where the torture and the killings took place. Now, those small circles on the bed and elsewhere indicate sections of torso, arm and leg tissue scalded off the Englekling brothers, and if you look closely at the floor you'll be able to see patches of singed carpet caused by chemical spills. Both men were shot twice with a silencerfitted .38 revolver. Baffling threads we took off the shells indicate the silencer and indicate why no shots were heard. The bullet hole in the wall is our one real lead, and it's easy to reconstruct what happened. Bax Englekling got free of his bonds, got ahold of the gun and fired a wounding shot before the killer got the gun back and shot him. The shell we took out of the wall had shredded Caucasian flesh and gray arm hair stuck to it, along with 0-plus blood. Both Englekling boys were AB-minus, so we know the perpetrator was hit. The blood drops leading out to the living room and the negatives that he took out to look at indicate that it wasn't a major wound. Lieutenant Hatcher's crew found a blood-soaked 0-plus towel in a sewer down the street, so that was his tourniquet. My last hypothesis is that this bastard really had a hard-on for those negatives."

Hatcher spoke up. "And we've got nothing. We've canvassed two dozen times, we've got no eyewitnesses and those goddamned brothers did not have a single K.A. that we've been able to turn. We hit doctors' offices, emergency rooms, train stations, airports and bus stations looking for sightings of a wounded man and got nothing. If the brothers had an address book, it was taken. Nobody saw anything or heard anything. Like my science buddy says, our guy really had a boner for those negatives, which might--and I emphasize 'might'--have something to do with our victims coming forth on that Nite Owl case of yours years ago. They had a dirty-picture theory then, right?"

Dudley said, "They did indeed, quite unsubstantiated."

"And the L.A. papers said you just reopened the case."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Captain, I regret that we didn't decide to cooperate with you earlier, but put that aside. Have you got anything to give me on the new end of your case that I can use?"

Dudley smiled. "Chief Parker has authorized me to secure a copy of your case file to read. He said that if I find evidential links to our homicides, he'll release a transcription of the Englekling brothers' 1953 testimony."

"Which you say pertains to pornography, which our case sure as hell does."

Dudley lit a cigarette. "Yes, if it doesn't pertain to heroin just as much."

Hatcher snorted. "Captain, if our boy got his chops licked over white horse, he'd have stolen that stuff stashed in the couch."

"Yes, or the killer was simply a frothing-at-the-mouth psychopath who evinced a psychopathic reaction to the negatives for unfathomable reasons of his own. Frankly, the heroin angle interests me. Have you any evidence that the brothers were either selling or manufacturing it?"

Hatcher shook his head. "None, and as far as _our_ case goes, I don't think it plays. Have you got a pornography angle on the reopening?"

"No, not as yet. Again, after I've read your case file I'll be in touch."

Hatcher--ready to bust. "Captain, you came all the way up here for our evidence, and you got nothing to give in return?"

"I came up here at the urging of Chief Parker, who pledges his full cooperation should your case warrant reciprocity."

"Big words, sahib, that I don't like the sound of." Getting ugly--Dudley dug in with a big blarney smile. Bud walked out to the curb, dug in by their rental.

Scared, standing on GO.

Dudley walked out; Hatcher and the lab man locked the printshop. Bud said, "I don't follow you at all these days, boss."

"Starting when, lad?"

"Let's try last night with Hinton."

Dudley laughed. "You were your old cruel self last night. It warmed my heart and convinced me that the extracurricular work I have planned for you remains within your grasp."

"What work?"

"In due time."

"What happened to Hinton?"

"We released him well-chastised and terrified of Sergeant Wendell White."

"Yeah, but what were you pressing him on?"

"Lad, you have your extracurricular secrets, I have mine. We'll hold a clarification session soon."

GO. "No. I just want to know where we both stand on the Nite Owl. _Now_."

"Edmund Exley, lad. We both stand there."

"What?"--scared to his own ears.

"_Edmund Jennings Exley_. He's been your raison d'être since Bloody Christmas, and he's why you don't tell me certain things. I love you, so I respect your omissions. Now reciprocate my love and respect my lack of clarification for the next twelve days and you'll see him destroyed."

"'What are you--" a little kid's voice.

"You've never accorded him credit, so I'll tell you now. As a man he's less than negligible, but as a detective he far exceeds even myself. There. God and yourself witness plaudits for a man I despise. Now will you respect my omissions--as I respect yours?"

Past GO. "No. Just fucking tell me what you want me to do. Just explain it."

Dudley laughed, smiled. "Do nothing for now but listen. I've found out that Thad Green will be retiring to take over the U.S. Border Patrol later this spring. Our new chief of detectives will be either Edmund Exley or myself. His upcoming inspectorship gives Exley the inside track, and Parker favors him personally. I plan on using certain aspects of our mutually withheld evidence to clear the Nite Owl posthaste, establish myself as the new front-runner and ruin Exley in the process. Lad, bear with me for a few more days and I'll guarantee you your own personal revenge."

The deal was Exley/Dudley vs. Exley.

No contest.

Past GO: the crumbs he spilled to Exley, Exley's promise-- liaison, the hooker snuffs. "Boss, is there a carrot in this for me?"

"Besides our friend's downfall?"

"Yeah."

"And in exchange for a full disclosure? Beyond what you gave Exley as part of your field runner agreement?"

Jesus, what the man knew. "Right."

Ho Ho Ho. "Lad, you drive a hard bargain, but will a Chief of Detectives' Special Inquiry suffice? Say 187 P.C. multiple, various jurisdictions?"

Bud stuck out his hand. "Deal."

Dudley said, "Stay away from Exley and treat yourself to a grand clean room at the Victory. I'll be by to see you in a day or so.,,

"You take the car, I got business in Frisco first."

o o o

He blew forty bucks on a cab, cruised the Golden Gate high on adrenaline. Double cross: a bad deal to survive, then a good deal to win--up from the minors to the majors. Exley had insider tips and sad Trashcan Jack; Dudley had insider juice that almost went psychic. Turnaround: he lied to Dudley to burn down Exley; five years later the man calls it in: lies forgiven, two cops, one torch. San Francisco bright in the distance, Dudley Smith's voice: "Edmund Jennings Exley." Chills just saying the name.

Over the bridge, a stop at a pay phone. Long-distance: Lynn's number, ten rings, no answer. 9:10 P.M., a spooker--she should have been home from the Bureau by dark.

Across town for the drop-off: San Francisco Police Department, Detective Division HQ. Bud pinned on his badge, walked in.

Homicide on floor three--arrows painted on the wall pointed him up. Creaky stairs, a huge squad bay. Nightwatch lull: two men up by the coffee.

They walked over. The younger guy pointed to his shield. "L.A., huh? Help you with something?"

Bud held his ID out. "You've got an old 187, like one a pal of mine on the L.A. Sheriff's caught. He asked me to check out your case file."

"Well, the captain's not here now. Maybe you should try in the morning."

The older man checked his ID. "You're the guy that's bugs on prostie jobs. The captain said you keep calling up and you're a royal pain in the keester. What's the matter, you got another one?"

"Yeah, Lynette Ellen Kendrick, L.A. County last week. Come on, ten minutes with the file and I'm out of your hair."

The young guy: "Hey, catch the drift? The captain wanted you to see the file, he woulda sent you an invitation."

The old guy: "The captain's a jack-off. What's our victim's name and DOD?"

"Chrissie Virginia Renfro, July 16, '56."

"Well then, I'll tell you what you do. You hit the records room around the corner, find your 1956 unsolved cabinet and go to the R's. You don't take anything out and you skedaddle before junior here has a migraine. Got it?"

"Got it."

o o o

Autopsy pictures: orifice rips, facial close-ups--pulp, no real face, ring fragments embedded in cheekbones. Wide-angle shots: the body, found at Chrissie's pad--a dive across from the St. Francis Hotel.

Pervert shakedown reports--local deviates brought in, questioned, released for lack of evidence. Foot fuckers, sadist pimps, Chrissie's pimp himself--in the Frisco City Jail when Chrissie was snuffed. Panty sniffers, rape-o's, Chrissie's regular johns--all alibied up, no names that crossed to the other case files he'd read.

Canvassing reports: local yokels, guests at the St. Francis. Six loser sheets, a grabber.

7/16/56: a St. Francis bellhop told detectives he caught Spade Cooley's late show at the hotel's Lariat Room, then saw Chrissie Virginia Renfro, weaving--"maybe on hop"--walk into her building.

Grabber--Bud sat still, worked it up.

Grab Lynette Ellen Kendrick, DOD L.A. County last week. Grab an unrelated snitch--Lamar Hinton stooling everything in sight. Grabs: Dwight Gilette--Kathy Janeway's ex-pimp----supplied whores for Spade Cooley's parties. Spade was an opium smoker, a "degenerate dope fiend." Spade was in L.A., playing the El Rancho Klub on the Strip-a mile from Lynette Kenthick's pad.