The Big Nowhere

Chapter Seventeen

He was a cop again, bought and paid for, in with major leaguers playing for keeps. Howard’s bonus had him out of hock with Leotis Dineen, and if the grand jury succeeded in booting the UAES from the studios he’d be minor-league rich. He had a set of keys to Ellis Loew’s house and the use of the City clerks who’d be typing and filing there. He had a “target list” of Pinkos untouched by previous grand juries. And he had the big list: UAES top dogs to glom criminal dirt on, no direct approaches now that they were deep in subterfuge, with newspaper pieces planted that said their investigation was dead. An hour ago he’d had his secretary place query calls to his local Fed contact, City/County DMV/R&I and the criminal records bureaus of California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon States, requesting arrest report information on Claire De Haven, Morton Ziffkin, Chaz Minear, Reynolds Loftis and three unholy-sounding pachucos: Mondo Lopez, Sammy Benavides and Juan Duarte, asterisks after their names denoting them “known youth gang members.” The gang squad boss at Hollenbeck Station had been his only call back; he said that the three were bad apples — members of a zooter mob in the early ’40s before they cleaned up and “got political.” East LA would be his first stop — once his secretary logged in the rest of her responses to his call-outs.

Buzz looked around his office for something to kill time with, saw the morning Mirror on the doormat and picked it up. He flipped through to the editorial page and got bingo! under Victor Reisel’s by-line, less than twenty-four hours after cuckold Mal told Loew his plan.

The title was “Reds 1 — City of Los Angeles 0. 3 Outs, No Witnesses on Base.” Buzz read:

Buzz put the paper down, thinking of crazy Dud circa ’38 — brass-knuckling a nigger hophead half to death for drooling on a cashmere overcoat Ben Siegel greased him with. He hit the intercom. “Sweetheart, any results on those calls yet?”

“Still waiting, Mr. Meeks.”

“I’m going out to East LA. Leave my messages on my desk, would you, please?”

“Yes, sir.”

The morning was cool, with rain threatening. Buzz took Olympic straight out, Hughes Aircraft to Boyle Heights with a minimum of red lights, no pretty scenery, time to think. The .38 he’d strapped on made his rolls of flab hang funny; his ID buzzer and the Racing Form weighted his pockets wrong, bum ballast that had him picking at his crotch to even things out. Benavides, Lopez and Duarte were either White Fence, 1st Flats or Apaches; the Mexes in the Heights were good people, anxious to suck up right and be good Americans. He’d get good information from them — and the idea bored him.

He knew why: he hadn’t been with a woman in years who wasn’t a whore or a starlet looking to get next to Howard. Audrey Anders had him running on her time, brainstorming on her so hard that even this sweetheart of a deal with the DA’s Office came a cropper. Betting with Leotis Dineen was plain stupid; chasing Audrey was stupid that meant something — a reason for him to quit gorging on porterhouse, au gratins and peach pie and lose a shitload of pounds so that his beaucoup wardrobe fit right — even though they’d never be able to go out in public together.

Downtown came and went; the woman stayed. Buzz tried concentrating on the job, turning north on Soto, heading into the terraced hillsides that formed Boyle Heights. The Jews had ceded the neighborhood to the Mexicans before the war; Brooklyn Avenue had gone from reeking of pastrami and chicken stock to reeking of cornmeal and deep-fried pork. The synagogue across from Hollenbeck Park was now a Catholic church; the old men with beanies who played chess under the pepper trees were replaced by pachucos in slit-bottom khakis — strutting, primping, walking the road camp walk, talking the jailhouse talk. Buzz circled the park, eyeing and tagging them: unemployed, mid-twenties, probably pushing fifty-cent reefers and collecting protection off the hebe merchants too poor to move to the new kosher canyon at Beverly and Fairfax. White Fence or 1st Flats or Apaches, with tattoos between their left thumbs and forefingers spelling it out. Dangerous when fired up on mescal, maryjane, goofballs and pussy; restless when bored.

Buzz parked and stuck his billy club down the back of his pants, throwing the fit off even worse. He approached a group of four young Mexicans; two saw him coming and took off, obviously to drop hot shit in the grass somewhere, reconnoiter and see what the fat puto cop wanted. The other two stood there watching a cockroach fight: two bugs in a shoebox placed on a bench, gladiators brawling for the right to devour a dead bug soaked in maple syrup. Buzz checked out the action while the pachucos pretended not to notice him; he saw a pile of dimes and quarters on the ground and dropped a five spot on it. “Finsky on the fucker with the spot on his back.”

The Mexicans did double-takes; Buzz did a quick size-up: White Fence tattoos on two sinewy right forearms; both vatos lean and mean at the welterweight limit; one dirty T-shirt, one clean. Four brown eyes sizing him up. “I mean it. That fucker’s got style. He’s a dancemaster like Billy Conn.”

Both pachucos pointed to the shoebox; Clean T-shirt said, “Billy muerto.” Buzz looked down and saw the spotted bug belly up, stuck to the cardboard in a pool of amber goo. Dirty Shirt giggled, scooped up the change and five-spot; Clean Shirt took an ice cream stick, lifted the winner out of the box and put him on the bark of a pepper tree next to the bench. The bug hung there licking his feelers; Buzz said, “Double or nothin’ on a trick I learned back in Oklahoma.”

Clean Shirt said, “This some goddamn cop trick?”

Buzz fished out his baton and dangled it by the thong. “Sort of. I got a few questions about some boys who used to live around here, and maybe you can help me. I pull off the trick, you talk to me. No snitch stuff, just a few questions. I don’t do the trick, you stroll. Comprende?”

The clean shirt vato started to walk away; Dirty Shirt stopped him and pointed to Buzz’s stick. “What’s that thing got to do with it?”

Buzz smiled and took three steps backward, eyes on the tree. “Son, you set that roach’s ass on fire and I’ll show you.”

Clean Shirt whipped out a lighter, flicked it on and held the flame under the victor bug. The bug scampered up the tree; Buzz got a bead and overhanded his baton. It hit and clattered to the ground; Dirty Shirt picked it up and fingered pulp off the tip. “That’s him. Holy fuck.”

Clean Shirt made the sign of the cross, pachuco version, his right hand stroking his balls; Dirty Shirt crossed the standard way. Buzz tossed his stick in the air, bounced it off the inside crook of his elbow, caught it and twirled it behind his back, let it hit the pavement, then brought it to parade rest with a jerk of the thong. The Mexicans were slack-jawed now; Buzz braced them while their mouths were still open. “Mondo Lopez, Juan Duarte and Sammy Benavides. They used to gangsterize around here. Spill nice and I’ll show you some more tricks.”

Dirty Shirt spat a string of obscenities in Spanish; Clean Shirt translated. “Javier hates 1st Flats like a dog. Like a fucking evil dog.”

Buzz was wondering if Audrey Anders would go for his stick routine. “So those boys ran with the Flats?”

Javier spat on the pavement — an eloquent lunger. “Traitors, man. Back maybe ’43, ’44, the Fence and Flats had a peace council. Lopez and Duarte was supposed to be in on it, but they joined the fuckin’ Sinarquista Nazi putos, then the fuckin’ Commie Sleepy Lagoon putos, when they shoulda been fightin’ with us. The fuckin’ Apaches cleaned the Flats’ and Fences’ fuckin’ clock, man. I lost my cousin Caldo.”

Buzz unclipped two more fivers. “What else have you got? Feel free to get ugly.”

“Benavides was ugly, man! He raped his own fuckin’ little sister!”

Buzz handed out the money. “Easy now. Give me some more on that, whatever else you got and some leads on family. Easy.”

Clean Shirt said, “It’s just a rumor on Benavides, and Duarte’s got a queer cousin, so maybe he’s queer, too. Queerness runs in families, I read it in Argosy magazine.”

Buzz tucked his billy club back in his pants. “What about families? Who’s got family still around here?”

Javier answered. “Lopez’ mother died, and I think maybe he got some cousins in Bakersfield. ’Cept for the maricón, mosta Duarte’s people moved back to Mexico, and I know that puto Benavides got parents livin’ on 4th and Evergreen.”

“A house? An apartment?”

Clean Shirt piped in: “Little shack with all these statues in front.” He twirled a finger and pointed to his head. “The mother is crazy. Loca grande.”

Buzz sighed. “That’s all I get for fifteen scoots and my show?”

Javier said, “Every vato in the Heights hates those cabróns, ask them.”

Clean Shirt said, “We could make up some shit, you could pay us for that.”

Buzz said, “Try to stay alive,” and drove to 4th and Evergreen.

The lawn was a shrine.

Jesus statues were lined up facing the street; there was a stable made out of kid’s Lincoln Logs behind them, a dog turd reposing in baby J.C.’s manger. Buzz walked up to the porch and rang the bell; he saw the Virgin Mary on an end table. The front of her flowing white gown bore an inscription: “Fuck me.” Buzz made a snap deduction — Mr. and Mrs. Benavides couldn’t see too well.

An old woman opened the door. “Quién?”

Buzz said, “Police, ma’am. And I don’t speak Spanish.”

The ginch fingered a string of beads around her neck. “I speak Inglés. Is about Sammy?”

“Yes, ma’am. How’d you know that?”

The old girl pointed to the wall above a chipped brick fireplace. A devil had been drawn there — red suit, horns and trident. Buzz walked over and scoped him out. A photo of a Mex kid was glued where his face should be, and a line of Jesus statues was looking up from the ledge, giving him the evil eye. The woman said, “My son Sammy. Communisto. Devil incarnate.”

Buzz smiled. “It looks like you’re well protected, ma’am. You’ve got Jesus on the job.”

Mama Benavides grabbed a sheaf of papers off the mantel and handed them over. The top sheet was a State Justice Department publicity job — California-based Commie fronts in alphabetical order. The Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee was check-marked, with a line in brackets next to it: “Write P.O. Box 465, Sacramento, 14, California, for membership list.” The old woman snatched the pages, flipped through them and stabbed a finger at a column of names. Benavides, Samuel Tomás Ignacio, and De Haven, Claire Katherine, were starred in ink. “There. Is the truth, anti-Christ Communista y Communisto.”

The ginch had tears in her eyes. Buzz said, “Well, Sammy’s got his rough edges, but I wouldn’t exactly call him the devil.”

“Is true! Yo soy la madre del diablo! You arrest him! Communisto!”

Buzz pointed to Claire De Haven’s notation. “Mrs. Benavides, what have you got on this woman here? Give me some good scoop and I’ll beat that boogie man up with my stick.”

“Communista! Drug addict! Sammy took her to clinica for cure, and she—”

Buzz saw a prime opening. “Where is that clinic, ma’am? Tell me slow.”

“By ocean. Devil doctor! Communista whore!”

Satan’s mother started bawling for real. Buzz blew East LA and headed for Malibu — a sea breeze, a doctor who owed him, no cockroach fights, no fuck me madonnas.

Pacific Sanitarium was in Malibu Canyon, a booze and dope dry-out farm nestled in foothills a half mile from the beach. The main building, lab and maintenance shacks were surrounded by electrified barbed wire; the price for kicking hooch, horse and drugstore hop was twelve hundred dollars a week; detoxification heroin was processed on the premises — per a gentleman’s agreement between Dr. Terence Lux, the clinic’s bossman, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors — the agreement based on the proviso that LA politicos in need of the place could boil out for free. Buzz drove up to the gate thinking of all the referrals he’d given Lux: RKO juicers and hopheads spared jail jolts and bum publicity because Dr. Terry, plastic surgeon to the stars, had given them shelter and him a 10 percent kickback. One still rankled: a girl who’d OD’d when Howard booted her out of his A list fuck pad and back to selling it in hotel bars. He almost burned the three hundred Lux shot him for the business.

Buzz beeped his horn; the gate watchman’s voice came over the squawk box: “Yes, sir?”

Buzz spoke to the receiver by the fence. “Turner Meeks to see Dr. Lux.”

The guard said, “One moment, sir”; Buzz waited. Then: “Sir, follow the road all the way down the left fork to the end. Dr. Lux is in the hatchery.”

The gate opened; Buzz cruised past the clinic and maintenance buildings and turned onto a road veering off into a scrub-covered miniature canyon. There was a shack at the end: low wire walls and a tin roof. Chickens squawked inside it; some of the birds were shrieking bloody murder.

Buzz parked, got out and peered through the wire. Two men in hipboots and khaki smocks were slaughtering chickens, hacking them with razor-bladed two-by-four’s — the zoot sticks Riot Squad bulls used to pack back in the early ’40s, emasculating Mex hoodlums by slashing their threads. The stick wielders were good: single neck shots, on to the next one. The few remaining birds were trying to run and fly away; their panic had them scudding into the walls, the roof and the zoot men. Buzz thought: no chicken marsala at the Derby tonight, and heard a voice behind him.

“Two birds with one stone. A bad pun, good business.”

Buzz turned. Terry Lux was standing there — all rangy gray handsomeness, like a dictionary definition of “physician”. “Hello, Doc.”

“You know I prefer Doctor or Terry, but I’ve always made allowances for your homespun style. Is this business?”

“Not exactly. What’s that? You doin’ your own catering?”

Lux pointed to the slaughterhouse, silent now, the stick men tossing dead chickens in sacks. “Two birds, one stone. Years ago I read a study that asserted a heavy chicken diet is beneficial to people with low blood sugar, which most alcoholics and drug addicts have. Stone one. Stone two is my special cure for narcotics users. My technicians drain out all their existing contaminated blood and rotate in fresh, healthy blood filled with vitamins, minerals and animal hormones. So, I have a hatchery and a slaughterhouse. It’s all very cost-effective and beneficial to my patients. What is it, Buzz? If it isn’t business, then it’s a favor. How can I help you?”

The smell of blood and feathers was making him gag. Buzz noticed a pulley system linking the maintenance huts to the clinic, a tram car stationed on a landing dock about ten yards in back of the chicken shack. “Let’s go up to your office. I’ve got some questions about a woman who I’m pretty damn sure was a patient of yours.”

Lux frowned and cleaned his nails with a scalpel. “I never divulge confidential patient information. You know that. It’s a prime reason why Mr. Hughes and yourself use my services exclusively.”

“Just a few questions, Terry.”

“I suppose money instead is out of the question?”

“I don’t need money, I need information.”

“And if I don’t proffer this information you’ll take your business elsewhere?”

Buzz nodded toward the tram car. “No tickee, no washee. Be nice to me, Terry. I’m in with the City of Los Angeles these days, and I just might get the urge to spill about that dope you manufacture here.”

Lux scratched his neck with the scalpel. “For medical purposes only, and politically approved.”

“Doc, you tellin’ me you don’t trade the skim to Mickey C. for his referrals? The City hates Mickey, you know.”

Lux bowed in the direction of the car; Buzz walked ahead and got in. The doctor hit a switch; sparks burst from the cables; they moved slowly up and docked on an overhang adjacent to a portico with a spectacular ocean view. Lux led Buzz down a series of antiseptic white hallways to a small room crammed with filing cabinets. Medical posters lined the walls: a picture primer for plastic surgeons, facial reconstruction in the style of Thomas Hart Benton. Buzz said, “Claire Katherine De Haven. She’s some kind of Commie.”

Lux opened a cabinet, leafed through folders, plucked one and read from the top page: “Claire Katherine De Haven, date of birth May 5, 1910. Chronic controlled alcoholic, sporadically addicted to phenobarbital, occasional Benzedrine use, occasional heroin skin-popper. She took my special cure I told you about three times — in ’39, ’43, and ’47. That’s it.”

Buzz said, “Nix, I want more. That file of yours list any details? Any good dirt?”

Lux held up the folder. “It’s mostly medical charts and financial accountings. You can read them if you like.”

“No thanks. You remember her good, Terry. I can tell. So feed me.”

Lux put the file back and slid the cabinet shut. “She seduced a few of her fellow patients while she was here the first time. It caused an upheaval, so in ’43 I kept her isolated. She was on remorseful both times, and on her second go-round I gave her a little psychiatric counseling.”

“You a headshrinker?”

Lux laughed. “No, but I enjoy getting people to tell me things. In ’43 De Haven told me she wanted to reform because some Mexican boyfriend of hers got beat up in the zoot suit riots and she wanted to work more efficaciously for the People’s Revolt. In ’47 the Red hearings back east sent her around the twist — some pal of hers got his you-know-what in the wringer. HUAC was good for business, Buzz. Lots of remorse, ODs, suicide attempts. Commies with money are the best Commies, don’t you agree?”

Buzz ran the rest of the target list through his head. “Who got his dick in the wringer, some bimbo of Claire’s?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Morton Ziffkin?”

“No.”

“One of her spics? Benavides, Lopez, Duarte?”

“No, it wasn’t a Mex.”

“Chaz Minear, Reynolds Loftis?”

Bingo on “Loftis” — Lux’s face muscles tensing, coming together around a phony smile. “No, not them.”

Buzz said, “Horseshit. You give on that. Now.”

Lux shrugged — phony. “I had a case on Claire, and so did Loftis. I was jealous. When you mentioned him, that brought it all back.”

Buzz laughed — his patented shitkicker job. “Horse pucky. You’ve only got a case on money, so you fuckin’ give me better than that.”

The doctor got out his scalpel and tapped it against his leg. “Okay, let’s try this. Loftis used to buy heroin for Claire, and I didn’t like it — I wanted her beholden to me. Satisfied?”

A good morning’s work: the woman as a hophead/Mex fucker, Benavides a maybe kiddie raper, Loftis copping H for a fellow Red. “Who’d he glom from?”

“I don’t know. Really.”

“You got anything else good?”

“No. You have any fine young Howard rejects to spice up the ward?”

“See you in church, Doc.”

A stack of messages was waiting back at the office, partial results from his secretary’s phone queries. Buzz leafed through them.

Traffic ticket rebop predominated, along with some stale bread on the spics: unlawful assembly, nonfelony assault and battery resulting in Mickey Mouse juvie time. No sex shit on Samuel Tomás Ignacio Benavides, the “devil incarnate”; no political dirt on any of the three ex — White Fencers. Buzz turned to the last message slip — his secretary’s call back from the Santa Monica PD.

419 South Rimpau was Hancock Park, pheasant under glass acres, old LA money; Reynolds Loftis had a case on Claire De Haven — and now it looked like he addressed the ball from both sides of the plate. Buzz ran an electric shaver over his face, squirted cologne at his armpits and brushed a chunk of pie crust off his necktie. Filthy rich always made him nervous; filthy rich and fruit was a combo he’d never worked before.

Audrey Anders stuck with him on the ride over; he pretended his Old Spice was her Chanel #5 in just the right places. 419 South Rimpau was a Spanish mansion fronted by a huge expanse of grass dotted with rose gardens; Buzz parked and rang the bell, hoping for a single-o play: no witnesses if it got ugly.

A peephole opened, then the door. A peaches-and-cream blonde about twenty-five had her hand on the knob, wholesome pulchritude in a tartan skirt and pink button-down shirt. “Hello. Are you the insurance man here to see Daddy?”

Buzz pulled his jacket over the butt of his .38. “Yes, I am. In private, please. No man likes to discuss such grave matters in the presence of his family.”

The girl nodded, led Buzz through the foyer to a book-lined study and left him there with the door ajar. He noticed a liquor sideboard and thought about a quick one — a mid-afternoon bracer might give him some extra charm. Then “Phil, what’s this in-private stuff?” took it out of his hands.

A short pudgy man, bald with a fringe, had pushed the door open. Buzz held out his badge; the man said, “What is this?”

“DA’s Bureau, Mr. Hartshorn. I just wanted to keep your family out of it.”

Charles Hartshorn closed the door and leaned against it. “Is this about Duane Lindenaur?”

Buzz drew a blank on the name, then remembered it from yesterday’s late-edition Tattler: Lindenaur was a victim in the homo killings Dudley Smith told him about — the job the Sheriff’s dick they just co-opted was set to run. “No, sir. I’m with the Grand Jury Division, and we’re investigating the Santa Monica Police. We need to know if they abused you when they raided the Knight in Armor back in ’44.”

Veins throbbed in Hartshorn’s forehead; his voice was board-room-lawyer cold. “I don’t believe you. Duane Lindenaur attempted to extort money from me nine years ago — spurious allegations that he threatened to leak to my family. I dealt with the man legally then, and a few days ago I read that he had been murdered. I’ve been expecting the police at my door, and now you show up. Am I a suspect in Lindenaur’s death?”

Buzz said, “I don’t know and I don’t care. This is about the Santa Monica Police.”

“No, it is not. This pertains to the spurious allegations Duane Lindenaur made against me and the non sequitur of my happening to be in a cocktail lounge frequented by certain not respectable people when a police raid occurred. I have an alibi for the newspapers’ estimated time of Duane Lindenaur’s and the other man’s deaths, and I want you to corroborate it without involving my family. If you so much as breathe a word to my wife and daughter, I will have your badge and your head. Do you understand?”

The lawyer’s tone had gotten calmer; his face was one massive contortion. Buzz tried diplomacy again. “Reynolds Loftis, Mr. Hartshorn. He was rousted with you. Tell me what you know about him, and I’ll tell the Sheriff’s detective who’s workin’ the Lindenaur case to leave you alone, that you’re alibied up. That sound nice to you?”

Hartshorn folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know any Reynolds Loftis and I don’t make deals with grubby little policemen who reek of cheap cologne. Leave my home now.”

Hartshorn’s “Reynolds” was all wrong. Buzz moved to the sideboard, filled a glass with whiskey and walked up to the lawyer with it. “For your nerves, Charlie. I don’t want you kickin’ off a heart attack on me.”

“Get out of my home, you grubby little worm.”

Buzz dropped the glass, grabbed Hartshorn’s neck and slammed him against the wall. “You’re humpin’ the wrong boy, counselor. The last boy around here you want to fuck with. Now here’s the drill: you and Reynolds Loftis or I go into the living room and tell your little girl that daddy sucks cock at the Westlake Park men’s room and takes it up the ass on Selma and Las Palmas. And you breathe a word to anybody that I leaned on you, and I’ll have you in Confidential Magazine porkin’ nigger drag queens. Do you understand?”

Hartshorn was beet red and spilling tears. Buzz let go of his neck, saw the imprint of a big ham hand and made that hand a fist. Hartshorn tremble-walked to the sideboard and picked up the whiskey decanter. Buzz swung at the wall, pulling the punch at the last second. “Spill on Loftis, goddamnit. Make it easy so I can get the fuck out of here.”

Glass on glass chimed, followed by hard breathing and silence. Buzz stared at the wall. Hartshorn spoke, his voice dead hollow. “Reynolds and I were just a... fling. We met at a party a Belgian man, a movie director, threw. The man was very au courant, and he threw lots of parties at clubs for our... his kind. It never got serious with Reynolds because there was a screenwriter he had been seeing, and some third man they were disturbed over. I was the odd man... so it never...”

Buzz turned and saw Hartshorn slumped in a chair, warming his hands on a whiskey glass. “What else you got?”

“Nothing. I never saw Reynolds after that time at the Knight in Armor. Who are you going to—”

“Nobody, Charlie. Nobody’s gonna know. I’ll just say I got word that Loftis is...”

“Oh God, is this the witchhunts again?”

Buzz exited to the sound of the sad bastard weeping.

Rain had hit while he was applying the strongarm — hard needle sheets of it, the kind of deluge that threatened to melt the foothills into the ocean and sieve out half the LA Basin. Buzz laid three to one that Hartshorn would keep his mouth shut; two to one that more cop work would drive him batshit; even money that dinner at the Nickodell and the evening at home writing up a report on the day’s dirt was the ticket. He could smell the queer’s sweat on himself, going stale with his own sweat; he felt a beaucoup case of the sucker punch blues coming on. Halfway to the office, he cracked the window for air and a rain bracer, changed directions and drove to his place.

Home was the Longview Apartments at Beverly and Mariposa, four rooms on the sixth floor, southern exposure, the pad furnished with leftovers from RKO movie sets. Buzz pulled into the garage, ditched his car and took the elevator up. And sitting by his door was Audrey Anders in a rain-spattered, sequin-spangled, gold lamé gown, a wet mink coat in her lap. She was using it as an ashtray; when she saw Buzz, she said, “Last year’s model. Mickey’ll get me a new one,” and stubbed her cigarette out on the collar.

Buzz helped Audrey to her feet, holding her hands just a beat too long. “Did I really get this lucky?”

“Don’t count your chickens. Lavonne Cohen took a trip with her mah-jongg club and Mickey thinks it’s open season on me. Tonight was supposed to be the Mocambo, the Grove and late drinks with the Gersteins. I pulled a snit and escaped.”

“I thought you and Mickey were in love.”

“Love has its flip side. Did you know you’re the only Turner Meeks in the Central White Pages?”

Buzz unlocked the door. Audrey walked in, dropped her mink on the floor and scoped the living room. The furnishings included leather couches and easy chairs from London Holiday and zebra head wall mounts from Jungle Bwana; the swinging doors leading to the bedroom were scavenged off the saloon set of Rage on the Rio Grande. The carpeting was lime green and purple striped — the bedspread one the Amazon huntress lollygagged on in Song of the Pampas. Audrey said, “Meeks, did you pay for this?”

“Gifts from a rich uncle. You want a drink?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Why not?”

“My father, sister and two brothers are drunks, so I thought I’d give it a pass.”

Buzz was thinking she looked good — but not as good as she did with no makeup and Mickey’s shirt hanging to her knees. “And you became a stripper?”

Audrey sat down, kicked off her shoes and warmed her feet on the mink. “Yes, and don’t ask me to do the tassel trick for you, because I won’t. Meeks, what is the matter with you? I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

He could still smell the queer. “I coldcocked a guy today. It was shitty.”

Audrey wriggled her toes, making the coat jump. “So? That’s what you do for a living.”

“The guys I usually do it to give me more of a fight.”

“So you’re telling me it’s all a game?”

He’d told Howard once that the only women worth having were the ones who had your number. “There’s gotta be somethin’ we’re better at than buttin’ heads and askin’ each other questions.”

The Va Va Voom Girl kicked the mink up in her lap. “Is the bedroom this outré?”

Buzz laughed. “Casbah Nocturne and Paradise Is Pink. That tell you anything?”

“That’s another question. Ask me something provocative.”

Buzz took off his jacket, unhooked his holster and threw it on a chair. “Okay. Does Mickey keep a tail on you?”

Audrey shook her head. “No. I made him stop it. It made me feel cheap.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Three blocks away.”

All green lights to make his best stupid move an epic. “You got it all figured out.”

Audrey said, “I didn’t think you’d say no.” She waved her mink coat. “And I brought a towel for the morning.”

Buzz thought, RIP Turner Prescott Meeks, 1906–1950. He took a deep breath, sucked in his flab, pushed through the saloon doors and started peeling. Audrey came in and laughed at the bed — pink satin spread, pink canopy, pink embroidered gargoyles as foot posts. She got naked with a single flick of a clasp; Buzz felt his legs buckling as her breasts bobbed free. Audrey came to him and slipped off his tie, undid his shirt buttons, loosened his belt. He pried his shoes and socks off standing up; his shirt hit the floor via a bad case of the shivers. Audrey laughed and traced the goosebumps on his arms, then ran her hands over the parts of himself he couldn’t stand: his melon gut, his side rolls, the knife scars running up into his chest hair. When she started licking him there he knew she was okay on it; he picked her up to show her how strong he was — his legs almost blowing it — and put her down on the bed. He got out of his trousers and boxers under his own steam and lay down beside her — and in a half second she was all arms and legs around him, face to face and mouth open, pushing up against him like he was everything she’d ever wanted.

He kissed her — soft, hard, soft; he rubbed his nose into her neck and smelled Ivory Soap — not the perfume he’d played pretend with. He took her breasts in his hands and pinched the nipples, remembering everything every cop had told him about the headliner at the Burbank Burlesque. Audrey made different noises for each part of her he touched; he kissed and tongued between her legs and got one big noise. The big noise got bigger and bigger; her legs and arms went spastic. Her going so crazy got him almost there, and he went inside her so he could be part of it. Audrey’s hips pushing off the covers made him burst going in; he held on and she held him, and he gave her all his strength to smother their aftershocks. Half his weight, she was still able to push him up as she kept coming — and he grabbed her head and buried his head in her hair until he went limp and she quit fighting him.

Pink satin sheets and sweat bound them together. Buzz rolled over on his side, hooking a finger around Audrey’s wrist so they’d keep on touching while he got his breath. Eight years without a cigarette and he was panting like a track dog — and she was lying there all still and calm, a vein on the back of her arm tapping his finger the only thing that said she was still racing inside. His chest heaved; he tried to think of something to say; Audrey made finger tracks on his knife scars. She said, “This could get complicated.”

Buzz got his wind. “That mean you’re thinkin’ angles already?”

Audrey made like her nails were animals’ claws and pretended to scratch him. “I just like to know where I stand.”

The moment was slipping away from him — like it wasn’t worth the danger. Buzz grabbed Audrey’s hands. “So that means we’re lookin’ at a next time?”

“You didn’t have to ask. I’d have told you in a minute or so.”

“I like to know where I stand, too.”

Audrey laughed and pulled her hands away. “You stand guilty, Meeks. You got me thinking the other day. So whatever happens, it’s your fault.”

Buzz said, “Sweetie, don’t underestimate Mickey. He’s sugar and spice with women and kids, but he kills people.”

“He knows I’ll leave him sooner or later.”

“No, he doesn’t. He figures you’re an ex-stripper, a shiksa, you’re thirty-somethin’ and you’ve got no place to go. You give him a little bit of grief, maybe it gets his dick hard. But you stroll, that’s somethin’ else.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. Buzz said, “Sweetie, where would you go?”

Audrey pulled a pillow down and hugged it, giving him both baby browns. “I’ve got some money saved. A bunch. I’m going to buy some grove property in the Valley and bankroll rentals on a shopping center. They’re the coming thing, Meeks. Another ten thousand and I can get in on the ground floor with thirty-five acres.”

Like his acreage: fourteen dollars per on the sure thing that should have made him rich. “Where’d you get the money?”

“I saved it.”

“From Mickey’s handouts?”

Audrey surprised him by chucking the pillow away and poking his chest. “Are you jealous, sweetie?”

Buzz grabbed her finger and gave it a little love bite. “Maybe just a tad.”

“Well, don’t be. Mickey’s all wrapped up in his union business and his drug thing with Jack Dragna, and I know how to play this game. Don’t you worry.”

“Sweetie, you better. Because it is surely for keeps.”

“Meeks, I wish you’d quit talking about Mickey. You’ll have me looking under the bed in a minute.”

Buzz thought of the .38 in the other room and the fruit lawyer with the bruised neck and tear-mottled cheeks. “I’m glad bein’ with you is dangerous. It feels good.”

Chapter Eighteen

Acting Supervisor Upshaw.

Task Force Boss.

Skipper.

Danny stood in the empty Hollywood Station muster room, waiting to address his three men on his homicide case — running the titles down in the single place where the Brenda Allen job caused the most grief. A cartoon tacked to the notice board spelled it out: Mickey Cohen wearing a Jew skullcap with a dollar sign affixed to the top, dangling two uniformed Sheriff’s deputies on puppet strings. A balloon elaborated his thoughts: Boy, did I give it to the LAPD! It’s good I got the County cops to wipe my ass for me! Danny saw little holes all over Mickey’s face; LA’s number-one hoodlum had been used as a dartboard.

There was a lectern and blackboard at the front of the room; Danny found chalk and wrote “Deputy D. Upshaw, LASD,” in boldface letters. He positioned himself behind the stand like Doc Layman with his forensics class and forced himself to think of his other assignment so he wouldn’t get antsy when it came time to lay down the law to his men, three detectives older and much more experienced than he. That job was coming on like a snooze and a snore, maybe a little shot of elixir to keep bad thoughts down and business on; it was why he was standing triumphant in a spot where the County police were loathed more than baby rapers. The deal was like pinching yourself to make sure the great things that were happening weren’t just a dream — and he pinched himself for the ten millionth time since Lieutenant Mal Considine made his offer.

Dudley Smith had called him at home yesterday afternoon, interrupting a long day of nursing watered-down highballs and working on his file. The Irishman told him to meet him and Considine at West Hollywood Station; the fix was in via Ellis Loew, with the temporary detachment order approved by both Chief Worton and Sheriff Biscailuz. He’d brushed his teeth, gargled and forced down a sandwich before he met them — anticipating one question and building a lie to field it. Since they’d already told him he would be planted around Variety International Pictures and they knew he’d incurred bossman Gerstein’s wrath there, he had to convince them that only the gate guard, the rewrite man and Gerstein saw him in his cop capacity. It was Considine’s first question — and a residue of bourbon calm helped him brazen it out. Smith bought it whole, Considine secondhand, when he ran his prerehearsed spiel on how he would completely alter his haircut and clothes to fit the role of Commie idealist. Smith gave him a stack of UAES paperwork to take home and study and made him scan a batch of psychiatric reports in their presence; then it was hard brass tacks.

His job was to approach UAES’s suspected weak link — a promiscuous woman named Claire De Haven — gain entrance to the union’s strategy meetings and find out what they were planning. Why haven’t they called a strike? Do the meetings involve the actual advocacy of armed revolt? Is there planned subversion of motion picture content? Did the UAES brain trust fall for Considine’s sub-rosa move — planting newspaper and radio pieces that said the grand jury investigation had gone down — and just how strongly is UAES connected to the Communist Party?

Career maker.

“You’ll be a lieutenant before you’re thirty.”

“There’s a woman you’ll have to get next to, lad. You might have to fuck the pants off of her.”

A bludgeon to smash his nightmares.

He felt cocky when he left the briefing, taking the nonpsychiatric reports under his arm, promising to report for a second confab this afternoon at City Hall. He went back to his apartment, called a dozen dental labs that Karen Hiltscher hadn’t tapped and got zilch, read a dozen homosexual homicide histories without drinking or thinking of the Chateau Marmont. He then started feeling very cocky, took his 2307 Tamarind blood scrapings to the USC chemistry building and bribed a forensics classmate into typing them, hoping he could combine the wall spray pictures with the victims’ names, reconstruct and get another fix on his man. The classmate didn’t even blink at the bloodwork and did his tests; Danny took home data and put it together with the photographs.

Three victims, three different blood types — the risk of showing illegally obtained evidence was worth it. The Marty Goines AB+ blood matched the sloppiest of the wall sprays; he was the first victim, and the killer had not yet perfected his interior decorating technique. George Wiltsie and Duane Lindenaur, types O — and B+, had their blood spat out separately, Wiltsie in designs less intricate, less polished. Conclusions reinforced and conclusions gained: Marty Goines was a spur-of-the-moment victim, and the killer went at him in a total rage. Although filled with suicidal bravado — as witnessed by his bringing victims two and three to Goines’ apartment — he had to have had an ace reason for choosing Mad Marty, which could be one of three:

He knew the man and wanted to kill him out of hatred — a well-defined personal motive;

He knew the man and found him a satisfactory victim based on convenience and/or blood lust;

He did not know Marty Goines previously, but was intimately acquainted with the darktown jazz strip, and trusted himself to find a victim there.

Have his men recanvass the area.

On Wiltsie/Lindenaur:

The killer bit and gnawed and swallowed and sprayed Wiltsie’s blood first, because he was the one who most attracted him. The relative refinement of the Lindenaur blood designs denoted the killer’s satisfaction and satiation; Wiltsie, a known male prostitute, was his primary sex fix.

Tonight, double-agency sanctioned, he’d brace talent agent/procurer Felix Gordean, connected circumstantially to Wiltsie’s squeeze Duane Lindenaur — and try for a handle on who the men were.

Danny checked the clock: 8:53; the other officers should be arriving at 9:00. He decided to stick behind the lectern, got out his notepad and went over the assignments he’d laid out. A moment later, he heard a discreet throat-clearing and looked up.

A stocky blond man, thirty-fivish, was walking toward him. Danny remembered something Dudley Smith said: a Homicide Bureau “protégé” of his would be on the “team” to grease things and make sure the other men “fell in line.” He pasted on a smile and stuck out his hand; the man gave him a hard shake. “Mike Breuning. You’re Danny Upshaw?”

“Yes. Is it Sergeant?”

“I’m a sergeant, but call me Mike. Dudley sends regards and regrets — the station boss here says Gene Niles has to work the case with us. He was the catching officer, and the Bureau can’t spare any other men. C’est la vie, I always say.”

Danny winced, remembering his lies to Niles. “Who’s the fourth man?”

“One of your guys, Jack Shortell, a squadroom sergeant from the San Dimas Substation. Look, Upshaw, I’m sorry about Niles. I know he hates the Sheriff’s and he thinks the City end of the job should be shitcanned, but Dudley said to tell you, ‘Remember, you’re the boss.’ Dudley likes you, by the way. He thinks you’re a comer.”

His take on Smith was that he enjoyed hurting people. “That’s great. Tell the Lieutenant thanks for me.”

“Call him Dudley, and thank him yourself — you guys are partners on that Commie thing now. Look, here’s the others.”

Danny looked. Gene Niles was walking to the front of the room, giving a tall man with wire-frame glasses a wide berth, like all Sheriff’s personnel were disease carriers. He sat down in the first row of chairs and got out a notepad and pen — no amenities, no acknowledgment of rank. The tall man came up and gave Breuning and Danny quick shakes. He said, “I’m Jack Shortell.”

He was at least fifty years old. Danny pointed to his name on the blackboard. “A pleasure, Sergeant.”

“All mine, Deputy. Your first big job?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve worked half a dozen, so don’t be too proud to yelp if you get stuck.”

“I won’t be.”

Breuning and Shortell sat down a string of chairs over from Niles; Danny pointed to a table in front of the blackboard — three stacks of LAPD/LASD paper on the Goines/Wiltsie/Lindenaur snuffs. Nothing speculative from his personal file; nothing on the lead of Felix Gordean; nothing on Duane Lindenaur as a former extortionist. The men got out cigarettes and matches and fired up; Danny put the lectern between him and them and grabbed his first command.

“Most of what we’ve got is in there, gentlemen. Autopsy reports, log sheets, my summary reports as catching officer on the first victim. LAPD didn’t see fit to forensic the apartment where the victims were killed, so there’s some potential leads blown. Of the officers working the two separate jobs, I’ve been the only one to turn up hard leads. I wrote out a separate chronology on what I got, and included carbons in with your official stuff. I’ll run through the key points for you now.”

Danny paused and looked straight at Gene Niles, who’d been staring hot pokers at him since he tweaked LAPD for fumbling the forensic ball. Niles would not move his eyes; Danny braced his legs into the lectern for some more frost. “On the night of January one, I canvassed South Central Avenue, the vicinity where the car that was used to transport Martin Goines’ body was stolen from. Eyewitnesses placed Goines with a tall, gray-haired, middle-aged man, and we know from the autopsy reports that the killer has O+ blood — typed from his semen. Goines was killed by a heroin overjolt, Wiltsie and Lindenaur were poisoned by a secobarbital/strychnine compound. All three men were mutilated in the same manner — cuts from an implement known as a zoot stick, bites with the dentures the killer was wearing all over their abdominal areas. The dentures could not possibly be duplicates of human teeth. He could be wearing plastic teeth or duplicates of animal teeth or steel teeth — but not human ones.”

Danny took his eyes off Niles and scoped all three of his men. Breuning was smoking nervously; Shortell was taking notes; Big Gene was burning cigarette holes in the desktop. Danny looked at him exclusively and dropped his first lie. “So we’ve got a tall, gray-haired, middle-aged white man with O+ blood who can cop horse and barbs, knows some chemistry and can hotwire cars. When he slammed the horse into Goines, he stuffed a towel into his mouth, which means that he knew the bastard’s heart arteries would pop and he’d vomit blood. So maybe he’s got medical knowledge. I’m betting he knows how to make dentures, and yesterday I got a tip from a snitch of mine: Goines was putting together a burglary gang. When you read my summary reports you’ll see that I questioned a vagrant named Chester Brown, a jazz musician. He knew Marty Goines back in the early ’40s and stated that he was a burglar then. Brown mentioned a youth with a burned face who was Goines’ KA, but I don’t think he fits in the picture. So add ‘burglar possible’ to our scenario, and I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.

“Sergeant Shortell, you’ll be making phone queries on the dental work lead. I’ve got a very long list of dental labs, and I want you to call them and get to whoever keeps employment records. You’ve got solid elimination stuff to go with: blood type, physical description, the dates of the killings. Also ask about dental workers who aroused any kind of suspicion at their workplace, and if your instincts tell you someone is suspicious but you’ve got no blood type, call for jail records or Selective Service records or hospital records — or call any place else you can think of where you can get the information.”

Shortell had nodded along, writing it down; Danny gave him a nod and zeroed in on Niles and Breuning. “Sergeant Breuning and Sergeant Niles, you are to check every City, County and individual municipality Vice and sex crime file for biting aberrations and eliminate potential suspects against our man’s blood type and description. I want the files of every registered sex offender in the LA area gone through. I want a more thorough background check on Wiltsie and Lindenaur, and Wiltsie’s male prostitution jacket pulled for KAs with our guy’s stats. I want you to cross-check the sex information against the burglary files of middle-aged white men city- and countywide, and look for arrest reports on youth burglars with burn marks going back to ’43. For every possible you get, I want a set of mugshots.

“There’s an approach that I’ve let lie because of jurisdictional problems, and that’s where the mugs come in. I want every known heroin and goofball pusher to see those pictures — hard muscle shakedowns, especially in jigtown. I want you to shake down your snitches for information, call every Vice Squad commander in every division, City and County, and tell them to have their officers check with their snitches for fruit bar scuttlebutt. Who’s tall, gray, middle-aged and has a biting fetish? And I want you to call County and State Parole for dope on violent loony bin parolees. I want Griffith Park, South Central and the area where Goines’ body was dumped thoroughly recanvassed.”

Breuning groaned; Niles spoke for the first time. “You want a lot, Upshaw. You know that?”

Danny leaned over the lectern. “It’s an important case, and you’ll share credit for the collar.”

Niles snorted. “It’s homo horseshit, we’ll never get him, and if we did, so what? Do you care how many queers he cuts? I don’t.”

Danny flinched at “homo” and “queers”; holding a stare on Niles made his eyes flicker, and he realized that he hadn’t used the word “homosexual” in his profile of the killer. “I’m a policeman, so I care. And the job is good for our careers.”

“For your career, sonny. You’ve got some deal with some Jew DA downtown.”

“Niles, shitcan it!”

Danny looked around to see who shouted, felt his throat vibrating and saw that he’d gripped the lectern with blue-white fingers. Niles evil-eyed him; Danny couldn’t match the stare. He thought of the rest of his pitch and delivered it, a trace of a flutter in his voice. “Our last approach is pretty obscure. All three men were slashed by zoot sticks, which Doc Layman says Riot Squad cops used to use. There are no zoot stick homicides on record, and most zoot stick assaults were by Caucasians on Mexicans and not reported. Again, check with your informants on this and make your eliminations against blood type and description.”

Jack Shortell was still scribbling; Mike Breuning was looking up at him strangely, eyes narrowed to slits. Danny turned back to Niles. “Got that, Sergeant?”

Niles had another cigarette going; he was scorching his desk with the tip. “You’re really in tight with the Jews, huh, Upshaw? What’s Mickey Kike paying you?”

“More than Brenda paid you.”

Shortell laughed; Breuning’s strange look broke into a smile. Niles threw his cigarette on the floor and stamped it out. “Why didn’t you report your lead on Marty Goines’ pad, hotshot? What the fuck was happening there?”

Danny’s hands snapped a piece of wood off the lectern. He said, “Dismissed,” with some other man’s voice.

Considine and Smith were waiting for him in Ellis Loew’s office; big Dudley was hanging up a phone with the words, “Thank you, lad.” Danny sat down at Loew’s conference table, sensing the “lad” was flunky Mike Breuning with a report on his briefing.

Considine was busy writing on a yellow legal pad; Smith came over and gave him the glad hand. “How was your first morning as Homicide brass, lad?”

Danny knew he knew — verbatim. “It went well, Lieutenant.”

“Call me Dudley. You’ll be outranking me in a few years, and you should get used to patronizing men much your senior.”

“Okay, Dudley.”

Smith laughed. “Lad, you’re a heartbreaker. Isn’t he a heart-breaker, Malcolm?”

Considine slid his chair next to Danny. “Let’s hope Claire De Haven thinks so. How are you, Deputy?”

Danny said, “I’m fine, Lieutenant,” picking up something wrong between his superiors — contempt or plain tension working two ways — Dudley Smith in the catbird seat.

“Good. The briefing went well, then?”

“Yes.”

“Have you read that paperwork we gave you?”

“I’ve got it practically memorized.”

Considine tapped his pad. “Excellent. We’ll start now, then.”

Dudley Smith sat at the far end of the table; Danny geared his brain to listen and think before speaking. Considine said, “Here’s some rules for you to follow.

“One, you drive your civilian car everywhere, on your decoy job and your homicide job. We’re building an identity for you, and we’ll have a script ready by late tonight. You’re going to be a lefty who’s been living in New York for years, so we’ve got New York plates for your car, and we’ve got a whole personal background for you to memorize. When you go by your various station houses to check reports or whatever, park on the street at least two blocks away, and when you leave here, go downstairs to the barbershop. Al, Mayor Bowron’s barber, is going to get rid of that crew cut of yours and cut your hair so that you look less like a cop. I need your trouser, shirt, jacket, sweater and shoe sizes, and I want you to meet me at midnight at West Hollywood Station. I’ll have your new Commie wardrobe and script ready, and we’ll finalize your approach. Got it?”

Danny nodded, pulled a sheet of paper off Considine’s pad and wrote down his clothing sizes. Dudley Smith said, “You wear those clothes everywhere, lad. On your queer job, too. We don’t want your new Pinko friends seeing you on the street looking like a dapper young copper. Malcolm, give our fair Daniel some De Haven lines to parry. Let’s see how he fields them.”

Considine spoke directly to Danny. “Deputy, I’ve met Claire De Haven, and I think that for a woman she’s a tough piece of work. She’s promiscuous, she may be an alcoholic and she may take drugs. We’ve got another man checking out her background and the background of some other Reds, so we’ll know more on her soon. I spoke to the woman once, and I got the impression that she thrives on banter and one-upmanship. I think that it sexually excites her, and I know she’s attracted to men of your general appearance. So we’re going to try a little exercise now. I’ll feed you lines that I think would be typical of Claire De Haven, you try to top them. Ready?”

Danny shut his eyes for better concentration. “Go.”

“ ‘But some people call us Communists. Doesn’t that bother you?’ ”

“That old scarlet letter routine doesn’t wash with me.”

“Good. Let’s follow up on that. “Oh, really? Fascist politicians have ruined many politically enlightened people by slandering us as subversives.’ ”

Danny grabbed a line from a musical he saw with Karen Hiltscher. “I’ve always had a thing for redheads, baby.”

Considine laughed. “Good, but don’t call De Haven ‘baby,’ she’d consider it patronizing. Here’s a good one. ‘I find it hard to believe that you’d leave the Teamsters for us.’ ”

Easy. “Mickey Cohen’s comedy routines would drive anybody out.”

“Good, Deputy, but in your decoy role you’d never get close to Cohen, so you wouldn’t know that about him.”

Danny got a brainstorm: the dirty joke sheets and pulp novels his fellow jailers passed around when he worked the main County lockup. “Give me some sex banter, Lieutenant.”

Considine flipped to the next note page. “ ‘But I’m thirteen years older than you.’ ”

Danny made his tone satirical. “A grain of sand in our sea of passion.”

Dudley Smith howled; Considine chuckled and said, “You just walk into my life when I’m engaged to be married. I don’t know that I trust you.”

“Claire, there’s only one reason to trust me. And that’s that around you I don’t trust myself.”

“Great delivery, Deputy. Here’s a curveball: ‘Are you here for me or the cause?’ ”

Extra easy: the hero of a paperback he’d read working night watch. “I want it all. That’s all I know, that’s all I want to know.”

Considine slid the notebook away. “Let’s improvise on that. ‘How can you look at things so simplistically?’ ”

His mental gears were click-click-clicking now; Danny quit digging for lines and flew solo. “Claire, there’s the fascists and us, and there’s you and me. Why do you always complicate things?”

Considine, coming on like a femme fatale. “ ‘You know I’m capable of eating you whole.’ ”

“I love your teeth.”

“ ‘I love your eyes.’ ”

“Claire, are we fighting the fascists or auditing Physiology 101?”

“ ‘When you’re forty, I’ll be fifty-three. Will you still want me then?’ ”

Danny, aping Considine’s vamp contralto. “We’ll be dancing jigs together in Moscow, sweetheart.”

“Not so satirical on the political stuff, I’m not sure I trust her sense of humor on that. Let’s get dirty. ‘It’s so good with you.’ ”

“The others were just girls, Claire. You’re my first woman.”

“ ‘How many times have you used that line?’ ”

Aw-shucks laughter — à la a pussy hound deputy he knew. “Every time I sleep with a woman over thirty-five.”

“ ‘Have there been many?’ ”

“Just a few thousand.”

“ ‘The cause needs men like you.’ ”

“If there were more women like you around, there’d be millions of us.”

“ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ”

“That I really like you, Claire.”

“ ‘Why?’ ”

“You drink like one of the boys, you know Marx chapter and verse, and you’ve got great legs.”

Dudley Smith started clapping; Danny opened his eyes and felt them misting. Mal Considine smiled. “She does have great legs. Go get your haircut, Deputy. I’ll see you at midnight.”

Mayor Bowron’s barber shaped Danny’s outgrown crew cut into a modified pompadour that changed the whole set of his face. Before, he looked like what he was: a dark-haired, dark-eyed Anglo-Saxon, a policeman who wore suits or sports jacket/slacks combos everywhere. Now he looked slightly Bohemian, slightly Latin, more of a dude. The new hairstyle offset his clothes rakishly; any cop who didn’t know him and spotted the gun bulge under his left armpit would shake him down on the spot, figuring him for some kind of outlaw muscle. The look and his banter improvisations made him feel cocky, like the Chateau Marmont was a fluke that nailing Claire De Haven would disprove once and for all. Danny drove back to Hollywood Station to prepare for his second pass at the Marmont and his first shot at Felix Gordean.

He went straight to the squadroom. Mickey Cohen was vilified on the walls: cartoons of him stuffing cash in Sheriff Biscailuz’ pockets, cracking a whip at a team of sled dogs in LASD uniforms, poking innocent citizens in the ass with a switchblade sticking out of his prayer cap. Danny fielded an assortment of fisheyes, found the records alcove and hit the sex offender files — shaking hands with the beast — fuel for his Gordean interrogation.

There were six cabinets full of them: musty folders stuffed with occurrence reports, mugshots clipped to the first inner page. The filing was not alphabetical, and there was no logic to the penal code placements — homosexual occurrences were lumped with straight exhibitionism and child molestation; misdemeanants and felons brushed against each other. Danny scanned the first two files in the top cabinet and snapped why the system was so sloppy; the men on the squad wanted this wretched data out of sight and out of mind. Knowing he had to look, he dug in.

Most of the stuff was homo.

The Broadway Department Store on Hollywood and Vine had a fourth-floor men’s room known as “Cocksucker’s Paradise.” Enterprising deviants had bored holes through the walls of the toilet stalls, enabling the occupants of adjoining shitters to get together for oral copulation. If you parked on a Griffith Park roadway with a blue handkerchief tied to your radio aerial, you were a queer. The corner of Selma and Las Palmas was where ex-cons with a penchant for anal rape and young boys congregated. The Latin inscription on the Pall Mall cigarette pack — “In Hoc Signo Vinces” — translated as “With this sign we shall conquer” — was a tentative means of homo identification — a sure thing when coupled with wearing a green shirt on a Thursday. The muscular Mex transvestite who blew sailors behind Grauman’s Chinese was known as “Donkey Dan” or “Donkey Danielle” because he/she possessed a thirteen-inch dick. The E-Z Cab Company was run by homos, and they would deliver you a boy, queer smut films, extra KY Jelly, bennies, or your favorite liquor twenty-four hours a day.

Danny kept reading, weak in the knees and stomach, learning. When he saw a 1900–1910 birthdate or 6’ and up on a male Caucasian’s yellow sheet, he checked the mugstrip; every man he locked eyes with looked too ugly and pathetic to be his man — and prowling the ensuing arrest reports for blood types always proved him right. Thomas (NMI) Milnes, 6’2”, 11/4/07, exposed himself to little boys and begged the arresting officers to rubber-hose him for it; Cletus Wardell Hanson, 6’1”, 4/29/04, carried a power drill with him to pave the way for new blow job territory, restaurant men’s rooms his speciality. In stir, he put his ass on the line: day room gang bangs, a pack of cigarettes per man. Willis (NMI) Burdette, 6’5”, 12/1/1900, was a syphilitic street whore, beaten brainless by a half dozen johns he’d passed the disease to. Darryl “Lavender Blue” Wishnick, 6’, 3/10/03, orchestrated orgies in the hills surrounding the Hollywood Sign and liked to pork pretty boys dressed in the attire of the United States armed forces.

Four hours in, four cabinets down. Danny felt his stomach settling around hunger pangs and the desire for a drink he usually got in the mid-afternoon. That was comforting; so was the new hairstyle he kept running his fingers through, and the new embellishments on his new identity that he’d mention to Considine tonight: nothing at his apartment should seem settled — he was just in from New York; he should leave his piece, cuffs and ID buzzer at home when he played Commie. Everything in the first four drawers was wrong for his man, not applicable to his bad moments outside Felix Gordean’s window. Then he hit cabinet five.

This set of files was in some kind of order — “No Arraignments,” “Charges Dropped” or “Check Agst. Future Arrests” stamped on the front of each folder. Danny read through the first handful and got straight male-on-male sex that went to arrest but not to court: coitus interruptus in parked cars; male shack jobs snitched by shocked landladies; a toilet assignation where the theater proprietor blew the whistle, then punked out for fear of bad publicity. Straight sex recounted in straight copese: abbreviations, technical terms for the acts, a few humorous asides by waggish Vice officers.

Danny felt shakes coming on. The files carried twin yellow sheets — two mugshot strips, both sex participants in black and white. He eyed the pages for birthdates and physical stats, but kept returning to the mugs, superimposing them against each other, playing with the faces — making them prettier, less conwise. After a half dozen files, he fell into sync: a look at the photos, a scan of the arrest report, back to the mugs and the action visualized with prettified versions of the two plug-uglies clipped to the first page. Mouths on mouths; mouths to crotches; sodomy, fellatio, soixante-neuf, a Man Camera smut job, a little voice going, “It’s for the investigation” when some detail hit him so large that his stomach queased to the point where he thought his bowels would go. No middle-aged tall guy’s stats to make him stop and think; just the pictures, rapid fire, like nickelodeon flickers.

Bedspreads wet from fucking.

A naked blond man catching his breath, veins pumping in his legs.

Zoom-in shots of awful insertions.

“It’s for the investigation.”

Danny broke the string of images — making the pretty ones all gray, all forty-fivish, all his killer. Knowing the killer only had sex to hurt helped put the brakes on his fantasies; Danny got his legs back and saw that he’d twisted a lank of his new hairdo clean off his scalp. He slammed the cabinet shut; he recalled queer vernacular and interposed it into the questions he’d ask Felix Gordean — himself as a smart young detective who came prepared, who’d talk on the level of anyone — even if it was wrong sex to a queer pimp.

Cop to voyeur and back again.

Danny drove home, showered and checked his closet for the best suit to go with his new hair, settling on a black worsted Karen Hiltscher had bought him — too stylish, too tapered and skinny in the lapels. When he put it on, he saw that it made him look dangerous — and the narrow shoulders outlined his .45 revolver. After two shots and a mouthwash chaser, he drove to the Chateau Marmont.

The night was damp and chilly, hinting of rain; music echoed through the Marmont’s inner courtyard — string swells, boogie jumps and odd ballad tremolos. Danny took the footpath to 7941, chafing from the fit of Karen’s suit. 7941 was brightly lit, the velvet curtains he’d peered through open wide; the dance floor of three nights before gleamed behind a large picture window. Danny fidgeted with his jacket and rang the bell.

Chimes sounded; the door opened. A small man with a short dark beard and perfectly layered thin hair stood there. He was wearing a tuxedo with a tartan cummerbund, dangling a brandy snifter against his leg. Danny smelled the same fifty-year-old Napoleon he bought himself once a year as his reward for spending Christmas with his mother. The man said, “Yes? Are you with the Sheriff’s?”

Danny saw that he’d unbuttoned his coat, leaving his gun exposed. “Yes. Are you Felix Gordean?”

“Yes, and I don’t appreciate bureaucratic faux pas. Come in.”

Gordean stood aside; Danny walked in and ran eye circuits of the room where he’d glimpsed men dancing and kissing. Gordean moved to a bookcase, reached behind the top shelf and returned with an envelope. Danny caught an address: 1611 South Bonnie Brae, the Sheriff’s Central Vice operations front, where recalcitrant bookies got strong-armed, recalcitrant hookers got serviced, protections kickbacks got tallied. Gordean said, “I always mail it in. Tell Lieutenant Matthews I don’t appreciate in-person calls with their implied threat of additional charges.”

Danny let Gordean’s hand hover in front of him — buffed nails, an emerald ring and probably close to a grand in cash. “I’m not a bagman, I’m a detective working a triple homicide.”

Gordean smiled and held the envelope down at his side. “Then let me initiate you regarding my relationship with your Department, Mr.—”

“It’s Deputy Upshaw.”

“Mr. Upshaw, I cooperate fully with the Sheriff’s Department, in exchange for certain courtesies, chief among them your contacting me by telephone when you require information. Do you understand?”

Danny got a strange sensation: Gordean’s frost was making him frosty. “Yes, but as long as I’m here...”

“As long as you’re here, tell me how I can assist you. I’ve never been questioned on a triple homicide before, and frankly I’m curious.”

Danny speedballed his three victims’ names. “Martin Goines, George Wiltsie and Duane Lindenaur. Dead. Raped and hacked to death.”

Gordean’s reaction was more frost. “I’ve never heard of a Martin Goines. I brokered introductions for George Wiltsie throughout the years, and I think George mentioned Duane Lindenaur to me.”

Danny felt like he was treading on an iceberg; he knew going in for shock value wouldn’t play. “Duane Lindenaur was an extortionist, Mr. Gordean. He met and attempted to extort money from a man named Charles Hartshorn — who he allegedly met at a party you threw.”

Gordean smoothed his tuxedo lapels. “I know Hartshorn, but I don’t recall actually meeting Lindenaur. And I throw a lot of parties. When was this alleged one?”

“In ’40 or ’41.”

“That’s a long time ago. You’re staring at me very acutely, Mr. Upshaw. Is there a reason for that?”

Danny touched his own lapels, caught what he was doing and stopped. “I usually get at least a ‘my God’ or a twitch when I tell someone that an acquaintance of theirs has been murdered. You didn’t bat an eye.”

“And you find that dismaying?”

“No.”

“Curious?”

“Yes.”

“Am I an actual suspect in these killings?”

“No, you don’t fit my description of the killer.”

“Do you require alibis for me to further assert my innocence?”

Danny snapped that he was being sized up by an expert. “All right. New Year’s Eve and the night of January fourth. Where were you?”

Not a second’s hesitation. “I was here, hosting well-attended parties. If you require verification, please have Lieutenant Matthews do it for you — we’re old friends.”

Danny saw flashes of his party: black-on-black tangos framed in velvet. He flinched and stuffed his hands in his pockets; Gordean’s eyes flicked at the show of nerves. Danny said, “Tell me about George Wiltsie.”

Gordean walked to a liquor cabinet, filled two glasses and returned with them. Danny smelled the good stuff and jammed his hands down deeper so he wouldn’t grab. “Tell me about George Wilt—”

“George Wiltsie was a masculine image that a number of men found enticing. I paid him to attend my parties, dress well and act civilized. He made liaisons here, and I received fees from those men. I imagine that Duane Lindenaur was his lover. That’s all I know about George Wiltsie.”

Danny took the glass Gordean was offering — something to do with his hands. “Who did you fix Wiltsie up with?”

“I don’t recall.”

“You what?”

“I host parties, guests come and meet the young men I provide, money is discreetly sent to me. Many of my clients are married men with families, and keeping a blank memory is an extra service I provide them.”

The glass was shaking in Danny’s hand. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

Gordean sipped brandy. “No, but I expect you to accept that answer as all you are going to get.”

“I want to see the books for your service, and I want to see a client list.”

“No. I write nothing down. It might be considered pandering, you see.”

“Then name names.”

“No, and don’t ask again.”

Danny forced himself to barely touch his lips to the glass; barely taste the brandy. He swirled the liquid and sniffed it, two fingers circling the stem — and stopped when he saw he was imitating Gordean. “Mr. Gor—”

“Mr. Upshaw, we’ve reached an impasse. So let me suggest a compromise. You said that I don’t fit your killer’s description. Very well, describe your killer to me, and I will try to recall if George Wiltsie went with a man like that. If he did, I will forward the information to Lieutenant Matthews, and he can do with it what he likes. Will that satisfy you?”

Danny bolted his drink — thirty-dollar private stock guzzled. The brandy burned going down; the fire put a rasp on his voice. “I’ve got the LAPD with me on this case, and the DA’s Bureau. They might not like you hiding behind a crooked Vice cop.”

Gordean smiled — very slightly. “I won’t tell Lieutenant Matthews you said that, nor will I tell Al Dietrich the next time I send him and Sheriff Biscailuz passes to play golf at my club. And I have good friends with both the LAPD and the Bureau. Another drink, Mr. Upshaw?”

Danny counted to himself — one, two, three, four — the kibosh on a hothead play. Gordean took his glass, moved to the bar, poured a refill and came back wearing a new smile — older brother looking to put younger brother at ease. “You know the game, Deputy. For God’s sake quit coming on like an indignant boy scout.”

Danny ignored the brandy and sighted in on Gordean’s eyes for signs of fear. “White, forty-five to fifty, slender. Over six feet tall, with an impressive head of silver hair.”

No fear; a thoughtful scrunching up of the forehead. Gordean said, “I recall a tall, dark-haired man from the Mexican Consulate going with George, but he was fiftyish during the war. I remember several rather rotund men finding George attractive, and I know that he went regularly with a very tall man with red hair. Does that help you?”

“No. What about men in general of that description? Are there any who frequent your parties or regularly use your service?”

Another thoughtful look. Gordean said, “It’s the impressive head of hair that tears it. The only tall, middle-aged men I deal with are quite balding. I’m sorry.”

Danny thought, no you’re not — but you’re probably telling the truth. He said, “What did Wiltsie tell you about Lindenaur?”

“Just that they were living together.”

“Did you know that Lindenaur attempted to extort money from Charles Hartshorn?”

“No.”

“Have you heard of either Wiltsie or Lindenaur pulling other extortion deals?”

“No, I have not.”

“What about blackmail in general? Men like your clients are certainly susceptible to it.”

Felix Gordean laughed. “My clients come to my parties and use my service because I insulate them from things like that.”

Danny laughed. “You didn’t insulate Charles Hartshorn too well.”

“Charles was never lucky — in love or politics. He’s also not a killer. Question him if you don’t believe me, but be courteous, Charles has a low threshold for abuse and he has much legal power.”

Gordean was holding out the glass of brandy; Danny took it and knocked the full measure back. “What about enemies of Wiltsie and Lindenaur, known associates, guys they ran with?”

“I don’t know anything about that sort of thing.”

“Why not?”

“I try to keep things separate and circumscribed.”

“Why?”

“To avoid situations like this.”

Danny felt the brandy coming on, kicking in with the shots he’d had at home. “Mr. Gordean, are you a homosexual?”

“No, Deputy. Are you?”

Danny flushed, raised his glass and found it empty. He resurrected a crack from his briefing with Considine. “That old scarlet letter routine doesn’t wash with me.”

Gordean said, “I don’t quite understand the reference, Deputy.”

“It means that I’m a professional, and I can’t be shocked.”

“Then you shouldn’t blush so easily — your color betrays you as a naif.”

The empty glass felt like a missile to heave; Danny hit back on “naif” instead. “We’re talking about three people dead. Cut up with a fucking zoot stick, eyes poked out, intestines chewed on. We’re talking about blackmail and burglary and jazz and guys with burned-up faces, and you think you can hurt me by calling me naif? You think you—”

Danny stopped when he saw Gordean’s jaw tensing. The man stared down at the floor; Danny wondered if he’d stabbed a nerve or just hit him on simple revulsion. “What is it? Tell me.”

Gordean looked up. “I’m sorry. I have a low threshold for brash young policemen and descriptions of violence, and I shouldn’t have called—”

“Then help me. Show me your client list.”

“No. I told you I don’t keep a list.”

“Then tell me what bothered you so much.”

“I did tell you.”

“And I don’t feature you as that sensitive. So tell me.”

Gordean said, “When you mentioned jazz, it made me think of a client, a horn player that I used to broker introductions to rough trade to. He impressed me as volatile then, but he’s not tall or middle-aged.”

“And that’s all?”

“Cy Vandrich, Deputy. Your tactics have gotten you more than I would normally have been willing to part with, so be grateful.”

“And that’s all?”

Gordean’s eyes were blank, giving nothing up. “No. Direct all your future inquiries through Lieutenant Matthews and learn to sip fine brandy — you’ll enjoy it more.”

Danny tossed his crystal snifter on a Louis XIV chair and walked out.

An hour and a half to kill before his meeting with Considine; more liquor out of the question. Danny drove to Coffee Bob’s and forced down a hamburger and pie, wondering how much of the Gordean questioning slipped between the cracks: his own nerves, the pimp’s police connections and savoir faire. The food calmed him down, but didn’t answer his questions; he hit a pay phone and got dope on Cy Vandrich.

There was only one listed with DMV/R&I: Cyril “Cy” Vandrich, WM, DOB 7/24/18, six arrests for petty theft, employment listed as “transient” and “musician.” Currently on his sixth ninety-day observation jolt at the Camarillo loony bin. A follow-up call to the bin revealed that Vandrich kept pulling crazy man stunts when he got rousted for shoplifting; that the Misdemeanor Court judge kept recommending Camarillo. The desk woman told Danny that Vandrich was in custody there on the two killing nights; that he made himself useful teaching music to the nuts. Danny said that he might come up to question the man; the woman said that Vandrich might or might not be in control of his faculties — no one at the bin had ever been able to figure him out — whether he was malingering or seriously crazy. Danny hung up and drove to West Hollywood Station to meet Mal Considine.

The man was waiting for him in his cubicle, eyeing the Buddy Jastrow mug blowup. Danny cleared his throat; Considine wheeled around and gave him a close once-over. “I like the suit. It doesn’t quite fit, but it looks like something a young lefty might affect. Did you buy it for your assignment?”

“No, Lieutenant.”

“Call me Mal. I want you to get out of the habit of using rank. Ted.”

Danny sat down behind his desk and pointed Considine to the spare chair. “Ted?”

Considine took the seat and stretched his legs. “As of today, you’re Ted Krugman. Dudley went by your apartment house and talked to the manager, and when you get home tonight you’ll find T. Krugman on your mailbox. Your phone number is now listed under Theodore Krugman, so we’re damn lucky you kept it unlisted before. There’s a paper bag waiting for you with the manager — your new wardrobe, some fake ID and New York plates for your car. You like it?”

Danny thought of Dudley Smith inside his apartment, maybe discovering his private file. “Sure, Lieut — Mal.”

Considine laughed. “No, you don’t — it’s all happening too fast. You’re Homicide brass, you’re a Commie decoy, you’re a big-time comer. You’re made, kid. I hope you know that.”

Danny caught glee wafting off the DA’s man; he decided to hide his file boxes and blood spray pics behind the rolled-up carpet in his hall closet. “I do, but I don’t want to get fat on it. When do I make my approach?”

“Day after tomorrow. I think we’ve got the UAES lulled with our newspaper and radio plants, and Dudley and I are going to concentrate on lefties outside the union — KAs of the brain trusters — vulnerable types that we should be able to get to snitch. We’re going over INS records for deportation levers on them, and Ed Satterlee is trying to get us some hot SLDC pictures from a rival clearance group. Call it a two-front war. Dudley and I on outside evidence, you inside.”

Danny saw Considine as all frayed nerves; he saw that his suit fit him like a tent, the jacket sleeves riding up over soiled shirtcuffs and long, skinny arms. “How do I get inside?”

Considine pointed to a folder atop the cubicle’s Out basket. “It’s all in there. You’re Ted Krugman. DOB 6/16/23, a Pinko New York stagehand. In reality you were killed in a car wreck on Long Island two months ago. The local Feds hushed it up and sold the identity to Ed Satterlee. All your past history and KAs are in there. There’s surveillance pictures of the Commie KAs, and there’s twenty-odd pages of Marxist claptrap, a little history lesson for you to memorize.

“So, day after tomorrow, around two, you go to the Gower Street picket line, portraying a Pinko who’s lost his faith. You tell the Teamster picket boss that the day labor joint downtown sent you out, muscle for a buck an hour. The man knows who you are, and he’ll set you up to picket with two other guys. After an hour or so, you’ll get into political arguments with those guys — per the script I’ve written out for you. A third argument will result in a fistfight with a real bruiser — a PT instructor at the LAPD Academy. He’ll pull his punches, but you fight for real. You’re going to take a few lumps, but what the hell. Another Teamster man will shout obscenities about you to the UAES picket boss, who’ll hopefully approach you and lead you to Claire De Haven, UAES’s member screener. We’ve done a lot of homework, and we can’t directly place Krugman with any UAESers. You look vaguely like him and at worst you’ll be secondhand heard of. It’s all in that folder, kid. Pictures of the men you’ll be pulling this off with, everything.”

A clean day to work the homicides; a full night to become Ted Krugman. Danny said, “Tell me about Claire De Haven.”

Considine countered, “Have you got a girlfriend?”

Danny started to say no, then remembered the bogus paramour who helped him brazen out Tamarind. “Nothing serious. Why?”

“Well, I don’t know how susceptible you are to women in general, but De Haven’s a presence. Buzz Meeks just filed a report that makes her as a longtime hophead — H and drugstore — but she’s still formidable — and she’s damn good at getting what she wants out of men. So I want to make sure you seduce her, not the opposite. Does that answer your question?”

“No.”

“Do you want a physical description?”

“No.”

“The odds that you’ll have to lay her?”

“No.”

“Do you want her sexual background?”

Danny threw his question out before he could back down. “No. I want to know why a ranking policeman has a crush on a Commie socialite.”

Considine blushed pink — the way Felix Gordean told him he blushed; Danny tried reading his face and caught: got me. Call-me-Mal laughed, slid off his wedding band and tossed it in the wastebasket. He said, “Man to man?”

Danny said, “No, brass to brass.”

Considine made the sign of the cross on his vestfront. “Ashes to ashes, and not bad for a minister’s son. Let’s just say I’m susceptible to dangerous women, and my wife is divorcing me, so I can’t chase around and give her ammo to use in court. I want custody of my son, and I will not give her one shred of evidence to spoil my case. And I don’t usually offer my confessions to junior officers.”

Danny thought: this man is so far out on a limb that you can say anything to him and he’ll stick around — because at 1:00 A.M. he’s got no place fucking else to go. “And that’s why you’re getting such a kick out of operating De Haven?”

Considine smiled and tapped the top desk drawer. “Why am I betting there’s a bottle in here?”

Danny felt himself blush. “Because you’re smart?”

The hand kept tapping. “No, because your nerves are right up there with mine, and because you always stink of Lavoris. Brass to rookie, here’s a lesson: cops who smell of mouthwash are juicers. And juicer cops who can keep it on a tight leash are usually pretty good cops.”

“Pretty good cops” flashed a green light. Danny nudged Considine’s hand away, opened the drawer and pulled out a pint and two paper cups. He poured quadruple shots and offered; Considine accepted with a bow; they hoisted drinks. Danny said, “To both our cases”; Considine toasted, “To Stefan Heisteke Considine.” Danny drank, warmed head to toe, drank; Considine sipped and hooked a thumb over his back at Harlan “Buddy” Jastrow. “Upshaw, who is this guy? And why are you so bent out of shape on your goddamn homo killings?”

Danny locked eyes with Jastrow. “Buddy’s the guy I used to want to get, the guy who used to be the worst, the hardest nut to crack because he was just plain nowhere. Now there’s this other thing, and it’s just plain terror. It’s incredibly brutal, and I think it might be random, but I don’t quite go with that. I think I’m dealing with revenge. I think all the killer’s methods are reenactments, all the mutilations are symbolic of him trying to get his past straight in his mind. I keep thinking it all out, and I keep coming back to revenge on old wrongs. Not everyday childhood trauma shit, but big, big stuff.”

Danny paused, drank and sighted in on the mugboard around Jastrow’s neck: Kern County Jail, 3/4/38. “Sometimes I think that if I know who this guy is and why he does it, then I’ll know something so big that I’ll be able to figure out all the everyday stuff like cake. I can get on with making rank and handling meat and potatoes stuff, because everything I ever sensed about what people are capable of came together on one job, and I nailed why. Why. Fucking why.”

Considine’s, “And why you do what you do yourself,” was very soft. Danny looked away from Jastrow and killed his drink. “Yeah, and that. And why you’re so hopped on Claire De Haven and me. And don’t say out of patriotism.”

Considine laughed. “Kid, would you buy patriotism if I told you the grand jury guarantees me a captaincy, Chief DA’s Investigator and the prestige to keep my son?”

“Yeah, but there’s still De Haven and—”

“Yeah, and me. Let’s just put it this way. I have to know why, too, only I like going at it once removed. Satisfied?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

“Do you know why?”

Considine sipped bourbon. “It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

“I used to steal cars, Lieut — Mal. I was the ace car thief of San Berdoo County right before the war. Turnabout?”

Lieutenant Mal Considine stuck out a long leg and hooked the wastebasket over to his chair. He rummaged in it, found his wedding band and slipped it on. “I’ve got a confab with my lawyer for the custody case tomorrow, and I’m sure he’ll want me to keep wearing this fucking thing.”

Danny leaned forward. “Turnabout, Captain?”

Considine stood up and stretched. “My brother used to blackmail me, threaten to rat me to the old man every time I said something snotty about religion. Since ten strokes with a switch was the old man’s punishment for blasphemy, old Desmond pretty much got his way, which was usually me breaking into houses to steal stuff he wanted. So let’s put it this way: I saw a lot of things that were pretty swell, and some things that were pretty spooky, and I liked it. So it was either become a burglar or a spy, and policeman seemed like a good compromise. And sending in the spies appealed to me more than doing it myself, sort of like Desmond in the catbird seat.”

Danny stood up. “I’m going to nail De Haven for you. Trust me on that.”

“I don’t doubt it, Ted.”

“In vino veritas, right?”

“Sure, and one more thing. I’ll be Chief of Police or something else that large before too long, and I’m taking you with me.”

Chapter Nineteen

Mal woke up thinking of Danny Upshaw.

Rolling out of bed, he looked at the four walls of Room 11, the Shangri-Lodge Motel. One framed magazine cover per wall — Norman Rockwell testimonials to happy family life. A stack of his soiled suits by the door — and no Stefan to run them to the dry cleaners. The memo corkboard he’d erected, one query tag standing out: locate Doc Lesnick. The fink/shrink could not be reached either at home or at his office and the 1942–1944 gaps in Reynolds Loftis’ file had to be explained; he needed a general psych overview of the brain trusters now that their decoy was about to be in place, and all the files ended in the late summer of last year — why?

And the curtains were cheesecloth gauze; the rug was as threadbare as a tortilla; the bathroom door was scrawled over with names and phone numbers — “Sinful Cindy, DU-4927, 38-24-38, loves to fuck and suck” — worth a jingle — if he ever ran Vice raids again. And Dudley Smith was due in twenty minutes — good guy/bad guy as today’s ticket: two Pinko screenwriters who avoided HUAC subpoenas because they always wrote under pseudonyms and blew the country when the shit hit the fan in ’47. They had been located by Ed Satterlee operatives — private eyes on the Red Crosscurrents payroll — and both men knew the UAES bigshots intimately back in the late ’30s, early ’40s.

And getting so chummy with an underling was strange. A couple of shared drinks and they were spilling their guts to each other — bad chain of command policy — ambitious policemen should keep it zipped while they climbed the ladder.

Mal showered, shaved and dressed, running book — De Haven versus Upshaw, even money as his best bet. At 8:30 exactly a car horn honked; he walked outside and saw Dudley leaning against his Ford. “Good morning, Malcolm! Isn’t it a grand day!”

They drove west on Wilshire, Mal silent, Dudley talking politics. “...I’ve been juxtaposing the Communist way of life against ours, and I keep coming back to family as the backbone of American life. Do you believe that, Malcolm?”

Mal knew that Loew had filled him in on Celeste — and that as far as partners went, he could have worse — like Buzz Meeks. “It has its place.”

“I’d be a bit more emphatic on that, given the trouble you’re taking to get your son back. Is it going well with your lawyer?”

Mal thought of his afternoon appointment with Jake Kellerman. “He’s going to try to get me continuances until the grand jury is in session and making hay. I have the preliminary in a couple of days, and we’ll start putting the stall in then.”

Dudley lit a cigarette and steered with one pinky. “Yes, a crusading captain might convince the judge that water is thicker than blood. You know, lad, that I’ve a wife and five daughters. They serve well to keep the reins on certain unruly aspects of my nature. If he can keep them in perspective, a family is an essential thing for a man to have.”

Mal rolled down his window. “I have no perspective where my son is concerned. But if I can keep you in perspective until the grand jury convenes, then I’ll be in grand shape.”

Dudley Smith exhaled laughter and smoke. “I’m fond of you, Malcolm — even though you don’t reciprocate. And speaking of family, I’ve a little errand to run — my niece needs a talking-to. Would you mind a small detour to Westwood?”

“A brief detour, Lieutenant?”

“Very, Lieutenant.”

Mal nodded; Dudley turned north on Glendon and headed up toward the UCLA campus, parking in a meter space on Sorority Row. Setting the brake, he said, “Mary Margaret, my sister Brigid’s girl. Twenty-nine years old and on her third masters degree because she’s afraid to go out and meet the world. Sad, isn’t it?”

Mal sighed. “Tragic.”

“The very thing I was thinking, but without your emphasis on sarcasm. And speaking of youths, what’s your opinion of our young colleague Upshaw?”

“I think he’s smart and going places. Why?”

“Well, lad, friends of mine say that he has no sense of his own place, and he impresses me as weak and ambitious, which I view as a dangerous combination in a policeman.”

Mal’s first thought of rising: He shouldn’t have confided in the kid, because half his juice was front just waiting to crack. “Dudley, what do you want?”

“Communism vanquished. And why don’t you enjoy the sight of comely young coeds while I speak to my niece?”

Mal followed Dudley up the steps of a Spanish manse fronted by a lawn display: Greek symbols sunk into the grass on wood stakes. The door was open; the lounge area buzzed: girls smoking, talking and gesturing at textbooks. Dudley pointed upstairs and said, “Toot sweet”; Mal saw a stack of magazines on an end table and sat down to read, fielding curious looks from the coeds. He thumbed through a Collier’s, a Newsweek and two Life’s — stopping when he heard Dudley’s brogue, enraged, echoing down the second-floor hallway.

It got louder and scarier, punctuated by pleas in a whimpering soprano. The girls looked at Mal; he grabbed another magazine and tried to read. Dudley’s laughter took over — spookier than the bellows. The coeds were staring now; Mal dropped his Weekly Sportsman and walked upstairs to listen.

The hallway was long and lined with narrow wooden doors; Mal followed Ha! Ha! Ha! to a door with “Conroy” nameplated on the front. It was ajar a few inches; he looked in on a back wall lined with photos of Latino prizefighters. Dudley and the soprano were out of sight; Mal eavesdropped.

“...bull banks and piñatas and spic bantamweights. It’s a fixation, lassie. Your mother may lack the stomach to set you straight, but I don’t.”

The soprano, groveling, “But Ricardo is a lovely boy, Uncle Dud. And I—”

A huge hand flashed across Mal’s strip of vision, a slap turned to a caress, a head of curly red hair jerking into, then out of sight. “You’re not to say you love him, lassie. Not in my presence. Your parents are weak, and they expect me to have a say regarding the men in your life. I will always exercise that say, lassie. Just remember the trouble I spared you before and you’ll be grateful.”

A plump girl/woman backed into view, hands on her face, sobbing. Dudley Smith’s arms went around her; her hands turned to fists to keep him from completing the embrace. Dudley murmured sweet nothings; Mal walked back to the car and waited. His partner showed up five minutes later. “Knock, knock, who’s there? Dudley Smith, so Reds beware! Lad, shall we go impress Mr. Nathan Eisler with the righteousness of our cause?”

Eisler’s last known address was 11681 Presidio, a short run from the UCLA campus. Dudley hummed show tunes as he drove; Mal kept seeing his hand about to hit, the niece cowering from her genial uncle’s touch. 11681 was a small pink prefab at the end of a long prefab block; Dudley double-parked, Mal jammed facts from Satterlee’s report:

Nathan Eisler. Forty-nine years old. A German Jew who fled Hitler and company in ’34; CP member ’36 to ’40, then member of a half dozen Commie front organizations. Co-scenarist on a string of pro-Russki turkeys, his writing partner Chaz Minear; poker buddies with Morton Ziffkin and Reynolds Loftis. Wrote under pseudonyms to guard his professional privacy; slipped through the HUAC investigators’ hands; currently living under the alias Michael Kaukenen, the name of the hero of Storm Over Leningrad. Currently scripting RKO B westerns, under yet another monicker, the work fronted by a politically acceptable hack writer who glommed a 35 percent cut. Best pals with Lenny Rolff, fellow writer expatriate, today’s second interrogee.

Former lover of Claire De Haven.

They took a toy-littered walkway up to the porch; Mal looked through a screen door into the perfect prefab living room: plastic furniture, linoleum floor, spangly pink wallpaper. Children squealed inside; Dudley winked and rang the buzzer.

A tall, unshaven man walked up to the screen, flanked by a toddler boy and girl. Dudley smiled; Mal watched the little boy pop a thumb in his mouth, and spoke first. “Mr. Kaukenen, we’re with the District Attorney’s Office and we’d like to talk to you. Alone, please.”

The kids pressed themselves into the man’s legs; Mal saw scared slant eyes — two little half-breeds spooked by two big boogeymen. Eisler/Kaukenen called out, “Michiko!”; a Japanese woman materialized and whisked the children away. Dudley opened the door uninvited; Eisler said, “You are three years late.”

Mal walked in behind Dudley, amazed at how cheap the place looked — a white trash flop — the home of a man who made three grand a week during the Depression. He heard the kids bawling behind wafer-thin walls; he wondered if Eisler had to put up with the same foreign language shit he did — then popped that he probably dug it on general Commie principles. Dudley said, “This is a charming house, Mr. Kaukenen. The color motif especially.”

Eisler/Kaukenen ignored the comment and pointed them to a door off the living room. Mal walked in and saw a small square space that looked warm and habitable: floor-to-ceiling books, chairs around an ornate coffee table and a large desk dominated by a class A typewriter. He took the seat furthest from the squeal of little voices; Dudley sat across from him. Eisler shut the door and said, “I am Nathan Eisler, as if you did not already know.”

Mal thought: no nice guy, no “I loved your picture Branding Iron.” “Then you know why we’re here.”

Eisler locked the door and took the remaining chair. “The bitch is in heat again, despite reports that she had a miscarriage.”

Dudley said, “You are to tell no one that we questioned you. There will be dire repercussions should you disobey us on that.”

“Such as what, Herr—”

Mal cut in. “Mort Ziffkin, Chaz Minear, Reynolds Loftis and Claire De Haven. We’re interested in their activities, not yours. If you cooperate fully with us, we might be able to let you testify by deposition. No open court, probably very little publicity. You slid on HUAC, you’ll slide on this one.” He stopped and thought of Stefan, gone with his crazy mother and her new paramour. “But we want hard facts. Names, dates, places and admissions. You cooperate, you slide. You don’t, it’s a subpoena and open court questioning by a DA I can only describe as a nightmare. Your choice.”

Eisler inched his chair away from them. Eyes lowered, he said, “I have not seen those people in years.”

Mal said, “We know, and it’s their past activities that we’re interested in.”

“And they are the only people that you want to know about?” Mal lied, thinking of Lenny Rolff. “Yes. Just them.”

“And what are these repercussions you speak of?”

Mal drummed the table. “Open court badgering. Your picture in the—”

Dudley interrupted, “Mr. Eisler, if you do not cooperate, I will inform Howard Hughes that you are authoring RKO films currently being credited to another man. That man, your conduit to gainful employment as a writer, will be terminated. I will also inform the INS that you refused to cooperate with a sanctioned municipal body investigating treason, and urge that their Investigations Bureau delve into your seditious activities with an eye toward your deportation as an enemy alien and the deportation of your wife and children as potential enemy aliens. You are a German and your wife is Japanese, and since those two nations were responsible for our recent world conflict, I would think that the INS would enjoy seeing the two of you returned to your respective homelands.”

Nathan Eisler had hunched himself up, elbows to knees, clasped hands to chin, head down. Tears rolled off his face. Dudley cracked his knuckles and said, “A simple yes or no answer will suffice.”

Eisler nodded; Dudley said, “Grand.” Mal got out his pen and notepad. “I know the answer, but tell me anyway. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party, U.S.A.?”

Eisler bobbed his head; Mal said, “Yes or no answers, this is for the record.”

A weak “Yes.”

“Good. Where was your Party unit or cell located?”

“I... I went to meetings in Beverly Hills, West Los Angeles and Hollywood. We — we met at the homes of different members.”

Mal wrote the information down — verbatim shorthand. “During what years were you a Party member?”

“April ’36 until Stalin proved him—”

Dudley cut in. “Don’t justify yourself, just answer.”

Eisler pulled a Kleenex from his shirt pocket and wiped his nose. “Until early in ’40.”

Mal said, “Here are some names. You tell me which of these people were known to you as Communist Party members. Claire De Haven, Reynolds Loftis, Chaz Minear, Morton Ziffkin, Armando Lopez, Samuel Benavides and Juan Duarte.”

Eisler said, “All of them.” Mal heard the kids tromping through the living room and raised his voice. “You and Chaz Minear wrote the scripts for Dawn of the Righteous, Eastern Front, Storm Over Leningrad and The Heroes of Yakustok. All those films espoused nationalistic Russian sentiment. Were you told by Communist Party higher-ups to insert pro-Russian propaganda in them?”

Eisler said, “That is a naive question”; Dudley slapped the coffee table. “Don’t comment, just answer.”

Eisler moved his chair closer to Mal. “No. No, I was not told that.”

Mal flashed Dudley two fingers of his necktie — he’s mine. “Mr. Eisler, do you deny that those films contain pro-Russian propaganda?”

“No.”

“Did you and Chaz Minear arrive at the decision to disseminate that propaganda yourselves?”

Eisler squirmed in his chair. “Chaz was responsible for the philosophizing, while I held that the story line spoke most eloquently for the points he wanted to make.”

Mal said, “We have copies of those scripts, with the obvious propaganda passages annotated. We’ll be back to have you initial the dialogue you attribute to Minear’s disseminating of the Party line.”

No response. Mal said, “Mr. Eisler, would you say that you have a good memory?”

“Yes, I would say that.”

“And did you and Minear work together in the same room on your scripts?”

“Yes.”

“And were there times when he said things along the lines of ‘This is great propaganda’ or ‘This is for the Party’?”

Eisler kept squirming, shifting his arms and legs. “Yes, but he was just being satirical, poking fun. He did not—”

Dudley shouted, “Don’t interpret, just answer!”

Eisler shouted back, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Goddamn you, yes!”

Mal gave Dudley the cut-off sign; he gave Eisler his most soothing voice. “Mr. Eisler, did you keep a journal during the time you worked with Chaz Minear?”

The man was wringing his hands, Kleenex shredding between fingers pumped blue-white. “Yes.”

“Did it contain entries pertaining to your Communist Party activities and your script work with Chaz Minear?”

“Oh God, yes.”

Mal thought of the report from Satterlee’s PIs: Eisler coupling with Claire De Haven circa ’38–’39. “And entries pertaining to your personal life?”

“Oh, Gott in himm... yes, yes!”

“And do you still have that journal?”

Silence, then, “I don’t know.”

Mal slapped the table. “Yes, you do, and you’ll have to let us see it. Only the germane political entries will be placed in the official transcript.”

Nathan Eisler sobbed quietly. Dudley said, “You will give us that journal, or we will subpoena it and uniformed officers will tear your quaint little abode apart, gravely upsetting your quaint little family, I fear.”

Eisler gave a sharp little yes nod; Dudley eased back in his chair, the legs creaking under his weight. Mal saw a Kleenex box on the windowsill, grabbed it and placed it on Eisler’s lap. Eisler cradled the box; Mal said, “We’ll take the journal with us, and we’ll put Minear aside for now. Here’s a general question. Have you ever heard any of the people we’re interested in advocate the armed overthrow of the United States government?”

Two negative shakes, Eisler with his head back down, his tears drying. Mal said, “Not in the way of a formal pronouncement, but that sentiment stated.”

“Every one of us said it in anger, and it always meant nothing.”

“The grand jury will decide what you meant. Be specific. Who said it, and when.”

Eisler wiped his face. “Claire would say ‘The end justifies the means’ at meetings and Reynolds would say that he was not a violent man, but he would take up a shillelagh if it came to us versus the bosses. The Mexican boys said it a million different times in a million contexts, especially around the time of Sleepy Lagoon. Mort Ziffkin shouted it for the world to hear. He was a courageous man.”

Mal caught up on his shorthand, thinking of UAES and the studios. “What about the UAES? How did it tie in to the Party and the front groups you and the others belonged to?”

“The UAES was founded while I was out of the country. The three Mexican boys had found work as stagehands and recruited members, as did Claire De Haven. Her father had served as counsel to vested movie interests and she said she intended to exploit and... and...”

Mal’s head was buzzing. “And what? Tell me.”

Eisler went back to his finger-clenching; Mal said “Tell me. ‘Exploit’ and what?”

“Seduce! She grew up around movie people and she knew actors and technicians who had been coveting her since she was a girl! She seduced them as founding members and got them to recruit for her! She said it was her penance for not getting subpoenaed by HUAC!”

Big time triple bingo.

Mal willed his voice as controlled as Dudley’s. “Who specifically did she seduce?”

Eisler picked and plucked and tore at the tissue box. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I honestly do not know.”

“A lot of men, a few men, how many?”

“I do not know. I suspect only a few influential actors and technicians who she knew could help her union.”

“Who else helped her recruit? Minear, Loftis?”

“Reynolds was in Europe then, Chaz I don’t know.”

“What was discussed at the first UAES meetings? Was there some kind of charter or overview they worked on?”

The Kleenex box was now a pile of ripped cardboard; Eisler brushed it off his lap. “I have never attended their meetings.”

“We know, but we need to know who besides the initial founders were there and what was discussed.”

“I don’t know!”

Mal threw an outside curve. “Are you still hot for Claire, Eisler? Are you protecting her? You know she’s marrying Reynolds Loftis. How’s that make you feel?”

Eisler threw his head back and laughed. “Our affair was brief, and I suspect that handsome Reynolds will always prefer young boys.”

“Chaz Minear’s no young boy.”

“And he and Reynolds did not last.”

“Nice people you know, comrade.”

Eisler’s laughter turned low, guttural — and supremely Germanic. “I prefer them to you, obersturmbahnführer.”

Mal held his temper by looking at Dudley; Mr. Bad Guy returned him the cut-off sign. “We’ll overlook that comment out of deference to your cooperation, and you may call this your initial interview. My colleague and I will go over your answers, check them against our records and send back a long list of other questions, detailed specifics pertaining to your Communist front activities and the activities of the UAES members we discussed. A City Marshal will monitor that transaction, and a court reporter will take your deposition. After that interview, providing you answer a few more questions now and allow us to take your journal, you will be given friendly witness status and full immunity from prosecution.”

Eisler got up, walked on rubber legs to his desk and unlocked a lower drawer. He poked through it, pulled out a leather-bound diary, brought it back and laid it on the table. “Ask your few questions and leave.”

Dudley moved a flat palm slowly down: Go easy. Mal said, “We have a second interview this afternoon, and I think you can help us with it.”

Eisler stammered, “Wh-what, wh-who?”

Dudley, in a whisper. “Leonard Hyman Rolff.”

Their interrogee rasped the single word, “No.” Dudley looked at Mal; Mal placed his left hand over his right fist: no hitting. Dudley said, “Yes, and we will brook no argument, no discussion. I want you to think of something shameful and incriminating indigenous to your old friend Lenny, something that other people know, so that we can put the blame of informing on them. You will inform, so I advise you to think of something effective, something that will loosen Mr. Rolff’s tongue and spare you a return visit from myself — without my colleague who serves so well to restrain me.”

Nathan Eisler had gone slab white. He sat stock-still, looking way past tears or shock or indignation. Mal thought that he seemed familiar; a few seconds of staring gave him his connection: the Buchenwald Jews who’d beat the gas chamber only to sink to an early grave via viral anemia. The memory made him get up and prowl the bookshelves; the dead silence kept going. He was scanning a shelf devoted to Marxist economics when Dudley’s whisper came back. “The repercussions, comrade. Refugee camps for your half-breed whelps. Mr. Rolff will receive his chance for friendly witness status, so if he’s an obstreperous sort, you’ll be doing him a favor by supplying us with information to convince him to inform. Think of Michiko forced to keep body and soul together back in Japan, all the tempting offers she’ll receive.”

Mal tried to look back, but couldn’t make himself; he fixed on Das Kapital — A Concordance, Marx’s Theories of Commerce and Repression and The Proletariat Speak out. Quiet sank in behind him; heavy fingers tapped the table. Then Nathan Eisler’s monotone: “Young girls. Prostitutes. Lenny is afraid his wife will find out he frequents them.”

Dudley sighed. “Not good enough. Try harder.”

“He keeps pornographic pictures of the ones—”

“Too bland, comrade.”

“He cheats on his income tax.”

Dudley ha! ha! ha!’d. “So do I, so does my friend Malcolm and so would our grand savior Jesus Christ should he return and settle in America. You know more than you are telling us, so please rectify that situation before I lose my temper and revoke your friendly witness status.”

Mal heard the kids giggling outside, the little girl squealing in Japanese. He said, “Goddamn you, talk.”

Eisler coughed, took an audible breath, coughed again. “Lenny will not inform as easily as I. He has not so much to lose.”

Mal turned, saw a death’s head and turned away; Dudley cracked his knuckles. Eisler said, “I will always try to think I did this for Lenny and I will always know I am lying.” His next deep breath wheezed; he let it out fast, straight into his snitch. “I was traveling with Lenny and his wife Judith in Europe in ’48. Paul Doinelle was making his masked series with Reynolds Loftis and hosted a party to seek financial backing for his next film. He wanted to solicit Lenny and brought a young prostitute for him to enjoy. Judith did not attend the party, and Lenny caught gonorrhea from the prostitute. Judith became ill and returned to America, and Lenny had an affair with her younger sister Sarah in Paris. He gave her the gonorrhea. Sarah told Judith she had the disease, but not that Lenny gave it to her. Lenny would not make love to Judith for many weeks after he returned to America and took a cure, employing various excuses. He has always been afraid Judith would logically connect the two events and realize what had occurred. Lenny confided in me and Reynolds and our friend David Yorkin, who I am sure you know from your wonderful list of front organizations. Since you are so concerned with Reynolds, perhaps you could make him the informant.”

Dudley said, “God bless you, comrade.”

Mal grabbed Eisler’s journal, hoping for enough treason to make two silver bars and his boy worth the price. “Let’s go nail Lenny.”

They found him alone, typing at a card table in his back yard, clack-clack-clack leading them around the side of the house to a fat man in a Hawaiian shirt and chinos pecking on an ancient Underwood. Mal saw him look up and knew from his eyes that this guy was no pushover.

Dudley badged him. “Mr. Leonard Rolff?”

The man put on glasses and examined the shield. “Yes. You’re policemen?”

Mal said, “We’re with the District Attorney’s Office.”

“But you’re policemen?”

“We’re DA’s Bureau Investigators.”

“Yes, you are policemen as opposed to lawyers. And your names and ranks?”

Mal thought of their newspaper ink — and knew he had no recourse. “I’m Lieutenant Considine, this is Lieutenant Smith.”

Rolff grinned. “Recently portrayed as regretting the demise of the would-be City grand jury, which I now take it is a going concern once again. The answer is no, gentlemen.”

Mal played dumb. “No what, Mr. Rolff?”

Rolff looked at Dudley, like he knew he was the one he had to impress. “No, I will not inform on members of the UAES. No, I will not answer questions pertaining to my political past or the pasts of friends and acquaintances. If subpoenaed, I will be a hostile witness and stand on the Fifth Amendment, and I am prepared to go to prison for contempt of court. You cannot make me name names.”

Dudley smiled at Rolff. “I respect men of principle, however deluded. Gentlemen, would you excuse me a moment? I left something in the car.”

The smile was a chiller. Dudley walked out; Mal ran interference. “You may not believe this, but we’re actually on the side of the legitimate, non-Communist American left.”

Rolff pointed to the sheet of paper in his typewriter. “Should you fail as a policeman you have a second career as a comedian. Just like me. The fascists took away my career as a screenwriter; now I write historical romance novels under the nom de plume Erica St. Jane. And my publisher knows my politics and doesn’t care. So does the employer of my wife, who has full tenure at Cal State. You cannot hurt either of us.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Mal watched Lenny Rolff resume work on page 399 of Wake of the Lost Doubloons. Typewriter clack filled the air; he looked at the writer’s modest stone house and mused that at least he saved more of his money than Eisler and had the brains not to marry a Jap. More clack-clack-clack; Page 399 became pages 400 and 401 — Rolff really churned it out. Then Dudley’s brogue, the most theatrical he had ever heard it. “Bless me father, for I have sinned. My last confession was never, because I am Jewish. I will currently rectify that situation, Monsignors Smith and Considine my confessors.”

Mal turned and saw Dudley holding a stack of photographs; Rolff finished typing a paragraph and looked up. Dudley pushed a snapshot in his face; Rolff said, “No,” calmly. Mal walked around the table and scoped the picture close up.

It was fuzzy black and white, a teenage girl naked with her legs spread. Dudley read from the flip side. “To Lenny. You were the best. Love from Maggie at Minnie Robert’s Casbah, January 19, 1946.”

Mal held his breath; Rolff stood, gave Dudley an eye-to-eye deadpan and a steady voice. “No. My wife and I have forgiven each other our minor indiscretions. Do you think I would leave the pictures in my desk otherwise? No. Thief. Fascist parasite. Irish pig.”

Dudley tossed the photos on the grass; Mal shot him the no hitting sign; Rolff cleared his throat and spat in Dudley’s face. Mal gasped; Dudley smiled, grabbed a manuscript sheet and wiped the spittle off. “Yes, because fair Judith does not know about fair Sarah and the clap you gave her, and I just played a hunch on where you took your cure. Terry Lux keeps meticulous records, and he has promised to cooperate with me should you decide not to.”

Rolff, still voice steady. “Who told you?”

Dudley, making motions: verbatim transcription. “Reynolds Loftis, under much less duress than you were just subjected to.”

Mal thought through the gamble: if Rolff approached Loftis, all their covert questionings were compromised; the UAES might put the kibosh on new members — terrified of infiltration, blowing Danny Upshaw’s approach. He got out pen and pad, grabbed a chair and sat down; Dudley called his own bluff. “Yes or no, Mr. Rolff. Give me your answer.”

Veins pulsed all over Leonard Rolff’s face. He said, “Yes.”

Dudley said, “Grand”; Mal wrote L. Rolff, 1/8/50 at the top of a clean sheet. Their interrogee squared his glasses. “Open court testimony?”

Mal took the cue. “Most likely deposition. We’ll start with—”

Dudley, his voice raised for the first time. “Let me have this witness, counselor. Would you mind?”

Mal shook his head and turned his chair around, steno pad braced on the top slat. Dudley said, “You know why we’re here, so let’s get to it. Communist influence in the motion picture business. Names, dates, places and seditious words spoken. Since I’m sure he’s much on your mind, we’ll start with Reynolds Loftis. Have you ever heard him advocate the armed overthrow of the United States government?”

“No, but—”

“Feel free to volunteer information, unless I state otherwise. Have you some grand tidbits on Loftis?”

Rolff’s tone seethed. “He tailored his policeman roles to make the police look bad. He said he was doing his part to undermine the American system of jurisprudence.” A pause, then, “If I testify in court, will he get the chance to tell about Sarah and me?”

Mal answered, half truth/half lies. “It’s very unlikely he’ll stand as a witness, and if he tries to volunteer that information the judge won’t let him get two seconds in. You’re covered.”

“But outside of court—”

Dudley said, “Outside of court you’re on your own, and you’ll have to rely on the fact that repeating the story makes Loftis appear loathsome.”

Rolff said, “If Loftis told you that, then he must have been cooperative in general. Why do you need information to use against him?”

Dudley, not missing a trick. “Loftis informed on you months ago, when we thought our investigation was going to be centered outside the UAES. Frankly, what with the recent labor troubles, the UAES presents a much nicer target. And frankly, you and the others were too ineffectual to bother with.”

Mal looked over and saw that Rolff bought it: his squared shoulders had relaxed and his hands had quit clenching. His follow-up question was dead on target: “How do I know you won’t do the same thing with me?”

Mal said, “This grand jury is officially on, and you’ll be given immunity from prosecution, something we never offered Loftis. What Lieutenant Smith said about the labor trouble is true. It’s now or never, and we’re here to make hay now.”

Rolff stared at him. “You acknowledge your opportunism so openly that it gives you an awful credibility.”

Dudley ha’ ha’d. “There is one difference between our factions — we’re right, you’re wrong. Now, concerning Reynolds Loftis. He deliberately portrayed American policemen as misanthropic, correct?”

Mal went back to transcribing; Rolff said, “Yes.”

“Can you recall when he said that?”

“At a party somewhere, I think.”

“Oh? A party for the Party?”

“No. No, I think it was a party back during the war, a summertime party.”

“Were any of these people also present and making seditious comments: Claire De Haven, Chaz Minear, Mort Ziffkin, Sammy Benavides, Juan Duarte and Mondo Lopez?”

“I think Claire and Mort were there, but Sammy and Juan and Mondo were busy with SLDC around that time, so they weren’t.”

Mal said, “So this was summer of ’43, around the time the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee was going strongest?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

Dudley said, “Think, comrade. Minear was Loftis’ bedmate. Was he there and acting vociferous?”

Mal caught up on his note-taking, shorthanding Dudley’s flair down to simple questions; Rolff ended a long pause. “What I remember about that party is that it was my last social contact with the people you mentioned until I became friendly with Reynolds again in Europe a few years ago. I recall that Chaz and Reynolds had been spatting and that Reynolds did not bring him to that party. After the party I saw Reynolds out by his car talking to a young man with a bandaged face. I also recall that my circle of political friends had become involved in the Sleepy Lagoon defense and were angry when I took a job in New York that precluded my joining them.”

Dudley said, “Let’s talk about Sleepy Lagoon.” Mal thought of his memo to Loew: nothing on the case should hit the grand jury — it was political poison that made the Pinkos look good. Rolff said, “I thought you wanted me to talk about Reynolds.”

“Digress a little. Sleepy Lagoon. Quite an event, wasn’t it?”

“The boys your police department arrested were innocent. Concerned apolitical citizens joined the Southern California left and secured their release. That made it quite an event, yes.”

“That’s your interpretation, comrade. Mine differs, but that’s what makes for horse races.”

Rolff sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Give me your recollections of the time.”

“I was in Europe for the trial and appeals and release of the boys. I remember the actual murder from the previous summer — ’42, I think. I remember the police investigation and the arrest of the boys and Claire De Haven becoming outraged and holding fund-raisers. I remember thinking that she was currying favor with her many Latin suitors, that that was one reason she was so carried away with the cause.”

Mal butted in, thinking of culling facts from Dudley’s bum tangent, wondering why the tangent. “At these fund-raisers, were there CP bigshots present?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to be getting some SLDC surveillance pictures. You’ll be required to help identify the people in them.”

“Then there’s more of this?”

Dudley lit a cigarette and motioned Mal to quit writing. “This is a preliminary interview. A City marshal and court reporter will be by in a few days with a long list of specific questions on specific people. Lieutenant Considine and I will prepare the questions, and if we’re satisfied with your answers we’ll mail you an official immunity waiver.”

“Are you finished now, then?”

“Not quite. Let’s return to Sleepy Lagoon for a moment.”

“But I told you I was in New York then. I was gone for most of the protests.”

“But you did know many of the SLDC principals. Duarte, Benavides and Lopez, for instance.”

“Yes. And?”

“And they were the ones who most loudly contended that the poor persecuted Mex boys got the railroad, were they not?”

“Yes. Sleepy Lagoon sparked the zoot suit riots, your police department running amok. A number of Mexicans were practically beaten to death, and Sammy and Juan and Mondo were anxious to express their solidarity through the Committee.”

Mal swiveled his chair around and watched. Dudley was on a big fishing expedition, soaking up a big dose of rhetoric in the process — not the man’s style. Rolff said, “If that sounds doctrinaire to you, I’m sorry. It’s simply the truth.”

Dudley made a little pooh-pooh noise. “It always surprised me that the Commies and your so-called concerned citizens never proferred a suitable killer or killers of their own to take the fall on José Diaz. You people are masters of the scapegoat. Lopez, Duarte and Benavides were gang members who probably knew plenty of white punks to put the onus on. Was that ever discussed?”

“No. What you say is incomprehensible.”

Dudley shot Mal a little wink. “My colleague and I know otherwise. Let’s try this. Did the three Mexes or any other SLDC members proffer sincerely believed theories as to who killed José Diaz?”

Gritting his teeth, Rolff said, “No.”

“What about the CP itself? Did it advance any potential scapegoats?”

“I told you no, I told you I was in New York for the bulk of the SLDC time.”

Dudley, straightening his necktie knot with one finger pointed to the street: “Malcolm, any last questions for Mr. Rolff?”

Mal said, “No.”

“Oh? Nothing on our fair Claire?”

Rolff stood up and was running a hand inside his collar like he couldn’t wait to ditch his inquisitors and take a bath; Mal knocked his chair over getting to his feet. He dug for cracks to throw and came up empty. “No.”

Dudley stayed seated, smiling. “Mr. Rolff, I need the names of five fellow travelers, people who are well acquainted with the UAES brain trust.”

Rolff said, “No. Unequivocally no.”

Dudley said, “I’ll settle for the names now, whatever intimate personal recollections you can supply us with in a few days, after a colleague of ours conducts background checks. The names, please.”

Rolff dug his feet in the grass, balled fists at his sides. “Tell Judith about Sarah and me. She won’t believe you.”

Dudley took a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “May 11, 1948. ‘My Dearest Lenny. I miss you and want you in me despite what you carried with you. I keep thinking that of course you didn’t know you had it and you met that prostitute before we became involved. The treatments hurt, but they still make me think of you, and if not for the fear of Judith finding out about us, I would be talking about you my every waking moment.’ Armbuster 304’s are the cheapest wall safes in the world, comrade. A man in your position should not be so frugal.”

Lenny Rolff hit the grass on his knees. Dudley knelt beside him and coaxed out a barely audible string of names. The last name, sobbed, was “Nate Eisler.” Mal double-timed it to the car, looking back once. Dudley was watching his friendly witness hurl typewriter and manuscript, table and chairs helter-skelter.

Dudley drove Mal back to his motel, no talk the whole time, Mal keeping the radio glued to a classical station: bombastic stuff played loud. Dudley’s goodbye was, “You’ve more stomach for this work than I expected”; Mal went inside and spent an hour in the shower, until the hot water for the entire dump was used up and the manager came knocking on the door to complain. Mal calmed him down with his badge and a ten-spot, put on his last clean suit and drove downtown to see his lawyer.

Jake Kellerman’s office was in the Oviatt Tower at Sixth and Olive. Mal arrived five minutes early, scanning the bare-bones reception room, wondering if Jake sacrificed a secretary for rental freight in one of LA’s ritziest buildings. Their first confab had been overview; this one had to be meat and potatoes.

Kellerman opened his inner office door at 3:00 on the dot; Mal walked in and sat down in a plain brown leather chair. Kellerman shook his hand, then stood behind a plain brown wooden desk. He said, “Preliminary day after tomorrow, Civil Court 32. Greenberg’s on vacation, and we’ve got some goyishe stiff named Hardesty. I’m sorry about that, Mal. I wanted to get you a Jew who’d be impressed by your MP work overseas.”

Mal shrugged, thinking of Eisler and Rolff; Kellerman smiled. “Care to enlighten me on a rumor?”

“Sure.”

“I heard you coldcocked some Nazi bastard in Poland.”

“That’s true.”

“You killed him?”

The bare little office was getting stuffy. “Yes.”

Kellerman said, “Mazel tov,” checked his court calendar and some papers on the desk. “At preliminary I’ll start stalling for continuances and try to work out an angle to get you switched to Greenberg’s docket. He’ll fucking love you. How’s the grand jury gig going?”

“It’s going well.”

“Then why are you looking so glum? Look, is there any chance you’ll get your promotion before the grand jury convenes?”

Mal said, “No. Jake, what’s your strategy past the continuances?”

Kellerman hooked two thumbs in his vest pockets. “Mal, it’s a hatchet job on Celeste. She deserted the boy—”

“She didn’t desert him, the fucking Nazis picked up her and her husband and threw them in fucking Buchenwald.”

“Sssh. Easy, pal. You told me the boy was molested as a direct result of being deserted by his mother. She peddled it inside to stay alive. Your MP battalion has got her liberation interview pictures — she looks like Betty Grable compared to the other women who came out alive. I’ll kill her in court with that — Greenberg or no Greenberg.”

Mal took off his jacket and loosened his tie. “Jake, I don’t want Stefan to hear that stuff. I want you to get a writ barring him from hearing testimony. An exclusion order. You can do it.”

Kellerman laughed. “No wonder you dropped out of law school. Writs excluding minor children from overhearing testimony in custody cases cannot be legally sanctioned unless the counsel of both parents approve it — which Celeste’s lawyer will never go for. If I break her down in court — and I will — he’ll want Stefan there on the off-chance he runs to mommy, not daddy. It’s out of our hands.”

Mal saw Stefan Heisteke, Prague ’45, coming off a three-year jag of canned dog food and rape. “You swing it, or you find stuff that happened after the war to hit Celeste with.”

“Like her dutifully schooling Stefan in Czech? Mal, she doesn’t drink or sleep around or hit the boy. You don’t wrest custody from the natural mother because the woman lives in the past.”

Mal got up, his head throbbing. “Then you make me the biggest fucking hero since Lucky Lindy. You make me look so fucking good I make motherhood look like shit.”

Jake Kellerman pointed to the door. “Go get me a big load of Commies and I’ll do my best.”

Mal rolled to the Pacific Dining Car. The general idea was a feast to pamper himself away from Eisler, Rolff and Dudley Smith — the purging that an hour of scalding hot water didn’t accomplish. But as soon as his food arrived he lost interest, grabbed Eisler’s diary and flipped to 1938–1939, the writer’s time with Claire De Haven.

No explicitness, just analysis.

The woman hated her father, screwed Mexicans to earn his wrath, had a crush on her father and got her white lefty consorts to dress stuffed-shirt traditional like him — so she could tear off their clothes and make a game out of humiliating paternal surrogates. She hated her father’s money and political connections, raped his bank accounts to lavish gifts on men whose politics the old man despised; she went to tether’s end on booze, opiates and sex, found causes to do penance with and fashioned herself into an exemplary leftist Joan of Arc: organizing, planning, recruiting, financing with her own money and donations often secured with her own body. The woman’s political efficacy was so formidable that she was never dismissed as a camp follower or dilettante; at worst, only her psyche and motives were viewed as spurious. Eisler’s fascination with Claire continued after their affair ended; he remained her friend through-out her liaisons with pachuco thugs, dryouts at Terry Lux’s clinic, her big penance number over Sleepy Lagoon: a Mex boyfriend beat up in the zoot riots, a boilout at Doc Terry’s and then a full social season, stone cold sober, with the SLDC. Impressive. Dudley’s Smith’s lunatic fixation aside, the seventeen kids accused of snuffing José Diaz were by all accounts innocent. And Claire Katherine De Haven — Commie rich girl slut — was a major force behind getting them sprung.

Mal leafed through the journal; the De Haven entries dwindled as he hit ’44 and ’45. He picked at his food and backtracked through a glut of pages that made Eisler look intelligent, analytical, a do-goodnik led down the primrose path by Pinko college professors and the spectre of Hitler looming over Germany. So far, zero hard evidence — if the diary were introduced to the grand jury it would actually make Eisler appear oddly heroic. Remembering the man as a Reynolds Loftis friend/Chaz Minear co-worker, Mal scanned pages for them.

Minear came off as weak, the nance of the two, the clinging vine. Mal read through accounts of Chaz and Eisler scripting Eastern Front and Storm Over Leningrad together circa 1942–1943, Eisler pissed at Minear’s sloppy work habits, pissed at his mooning over Loftis, pissed at himself for despising his friends’ homosexuality — tolerable in Reynolds because at least he wasn’t a swish. You could see Minear’s impotent rage building back in the Sleepy Lagoon days — his crying on Eisler’s shoulder over some fling Loftis was having — “My God, Nate, he’s just a boy, and he’s been disfigured” — then refusing to go any further on the topic. Hindsight: in ’47, Chaz Minear hit back at his faithless lover — the snitch to HUAC that got Reynolds Loftis blacklisted. Mal made a mental note: if Danny Upshaw couldn’t infiltrate the UAES braintrust, then Chaz Minear, homosexual weak sister, might be ripe for overt bracing — exposure of his snitch duty the lever to get him to snitch again.

The rest of the diary was a bore: meetings, committees, gatherings and names for Buzz Meeks to check out along with the names Dudley coerced from Lenny Rolff. Mal killed it off while his steak got cold and his salad wilted in the bowl; he realized that he liked Nathan Eisler. And that with the journal checked out and dinner attempted, he had no place to go except back to the Shangri-Lodge Motel and nothing he wanted to do except talk to Stefan — a direct violation of Jake Kellerman’s orders. All the motel had to offer was women’s names scrawled on the bathroom door, and if he called Stefan he’d probably get Celeste, their first amenities since he reworked her face. Restless, he paid the check, drove up into the Pasadena foothills and parked in the middle of a totally dark box canyon: “Cordite Alley,” the spot where his generation of LAPD rookies got fried on kickback booze, shot the shit and target practiced, tall clumps of sagebrush to simulate bad guys.

The ground held a thick layer of spent shells; dousing his headbeams, Mal saw that the other cop generations had blasted the sagebrushes to smithereens and had gone to work on the scrub pines: the trees were stripped of bark and covered with entry holes. He got out of the car, drew his service revolver and squeezed off six rounds into the darkness; the echo hurt his ears and the cordite stink smelled good. He reloaded and emptied the .38 again; over the hill in South Pasadena skid other guns went off, like a chain of dogs barking at the moon. Mal reloaded, fired, reloaded and fired until his box of Remingtons was empty; he heard cheers, howls, shrieks and then nothing.

The canyon rustled with a warm wind. Mal leaned against the car and thought about Ad Vice, operations, turning down the Hat Squad, where you went in the door gun first and cops like Dudley Smith respected you. In Ad Vice he busted a string of Chinatown whorehouses deemed inoperable — sending in fresh-scrubbed recruits for blow jobs, followed five minutes later by door-kicking harness bulls and lab techs with cameras. The girls were all straight off the boat and living at home with mama-san and papa-san, who thought they were working double shifts at the Shun-Wong Shirt Factory; he had a cordon of muscle cops accompany him to the storefront office of Uncle Ace Kwan, LA’s number-one boss chink pimp. He informed Uncle Ace that unless he took his whores over the line to the County, he would show the pictures to the papa-sans — many of them Tong-connected — and inform them that Kwan-san was getting fat off daughter-san’s diet of Caucasian dick. Uncle Ace bowed, said, yes, complied and always sent him a candied duck and thoughtful card at Christmastime, and he always thought about passing the greeting on to his brother — while he was still on speaking terms with him.

Him.

Desmond.

Big Des.

Desmond Confrey Considine, who coerced him into dark houses and made him a cop, an operator.

Three years older. Three inches taller. An athlete, good at faking piety to impress the Reverend. The Reverend caught him boosting a pack of gum at the local Pig and Whistle and flayed his ass so bad that Big Des popped a bunch of tendons trying to get free of his bonds and was sidelined for the rest of the football season, a first-string linebacker with a third-string brain and a first-class case of kleptomania that he was now terrified to run with: no legs and no balls, courtesy of Liam Considine, first-string Calvinist.

So Desmond recruited his gangly kid brother, figuring his whippet thinness would get him inside the places he was now afraid to B&E, get him the things he wanted: Joe Stinson’s tennis racquet, Jimmy Harris’s crystal radio set, Dan Klein’s elk’s teeth on a string and all the other good stuff he couldn’t stand to see other kids enjoying. Little Malcolm, who couldn’t stop blaspheming even though the Reverend told him that now that he was fourteen the penalty was a whipping — not the dinner of pine tar soap and castor oil he was used to. Little Mally would become his stealer, or the Reverend would get an earful of Jesus doing it with Rex the Wonder Dog and Mary Magdalene jumping Willy, the old coon who delivered ice to their block on a swayback nag — stuff the Reverend knew Des didn’t have the imagination to come up with.

So he stole, afraid of Desmond, afraid of the Reverend, afraid to confide in Mother for fear she’d tell her husband and he’d kill Des, then go to the gallows and leave them to the mercy of the cheapshit Presbyterian Charity Board. Six feet and barely one-ten, he became the San Francisco Phantom, shinnying up drainpipes and popping window latches, stealing Desmond sporting junk that he was too afraid to use, books he was too stupid to read, clothes he was too big to wear. He knew that as long as Des kept the stuff he had the goods on him — but he kept playing the game.

Because Joe Stinson had a snazzy sister named Cloris, and he liked being alone in her room. Because Dan Klein had a parrot who’d eat crackers out of your mouth. Because Jimmy Harris’ roundheels sister caught him raiding the pantry on his way out, took his cherry and said his thing was big. Because en route to swipe Biff Rice’s National Geographics he found Biff’s baby brother out of his crib, chewing on an electrical cord — and he put him back, fed him condensed milk and maybe saved his life, pretending it was his kid brother and he was saving him from Des and the Reverend. Because being the San Francisco Phantom was a respite from being a stick-thin, scaredy-cat school grind with a crackpot father, doormat mother and idiot brother.

Until October 1, 1924.

Desmond had sent him on a second run to Jimmy Harris’ place; he squeezed in through the woodbox opening, knowing round-heels Annie was there. She was there, but not alone: a cop with his blue serge trousers down to his ankles was on the living room carpet pumping her. He gasped, tripped and fell; the cop beat him silly, signet rings lacerating his face to shreds. He cleansed his wounds himself, tried to get up the guts to break into Biff Rice’s place to see if the baby was okay, but couldn’t get up the nerve; he went home, hid Desmond’s burglary stash and told him the tables were turned: ripped tendons or not, the ringleader had to steal for the thief or he’d spill the beans to the Reverend. There was only one thing he wanted, and then they’d be quits — one of Annie Harris’ negligees — and he’d tell him when to pull the job.

He staked the Harris house out, learning that Annie serviced Officer John Rokkas every Tuesday afternoon when the rest of the family worked at the Harris’ produce stall in Oakland. On a cold November Tuesday, he picked the lock for Des; Des went in and came out twenty minutes later, beaten to a pulp. He stole Desmond’s booty and secreted it in a safe deposit box, establishing a parity of fear between the two Considine brothers. Desmond flunked out of Union Theological Seminary and became a big shot in the used-car racket. Mal went to Stanford, graduated and lollygagged through a year of law school, dreaming of back-alley adventure, prowling for loose women and never really enjoying the capture. When law school became excruciatingly boring, he joined the Los Angeles Police Department, not knowing how long he’d last as a cop — or if he even could last. Then he went home for Christmas, twenty-three years old and a rookie running scared in LA niggertown. He wore his uniform to Christmas dinner: Sam Browne belt, silver-plated whistle, 38 revolver. Car king Desmond, still bearing the scars of Officer John Rokkas’ beating, was terrified of his new persona. He knew he’d be a policeman until the day he died.

Mal segued from his brother to Danny Upshaw, the black box canyon surrounding him, spent ammunition sliding under his feet. How good was he? What would he see? Would what he saw be worth today multiplied fifty times — Ellis Loew stalking grand jury chambers wrapped in the American flag?

“You’ve more stomach for this work than I expected.”

Dudley was right.

Mal picked up a handful of empty shells, hurled them at nothing and drove home to the Shangri-Lodge Motel.

Chapter Twenty

Mickey Cohen’s hideaway was SRO.

The Mick and Davey Goldman were working on a new nightclub routine, a .12 gauge pump substituting for a floor mike. Johnny Stompanato was playing rummy with Morris Jahelka, going over plans for the Cohen-Dragna dope summit between hands. And Buzz was interviewing Mickey’s Teamster goons, taking down picket line scuttlebutt, a last-minute precaution before Mal Considine sent in his operative.

So far, boring Commie jive:

The De Haven cooze and Mort Ziffkin traded clichés about overthrowing the “studio autocracy”; Fritzie “Icepick” Kupfer-man had a Teamster file clerk tagged as a UAES plant — they’d been spoon-feeding him only what they wanted him to hear for weeks now, letting him run the lunch truck across from the Variety International line. Mo Jahelka had a hinky feeling: UAES pickets weren’t fighting back when shoved or verbally provoked — they seemed smug, like they were biding their time, even old lefty headbashers maintaining their frost. Moey seemed to think UAES had something up its sleeve. Buzz had padded the statements so Ellis Loew would think he was working harder than he was, feeling like a nice, tasty Christian in a lion’s den, waiting for the lion to get hungry and notice him.

Johnny Stomp Lion.

Mickey Lion.

Johnny had been giving him the fisheye ever since he walked in the door, ten days since he kiboshed the squeeze on Lucy Whitehall and bought the guinea sharpster off with five Mickey C-notes. “Hi, Buzz,” “Hi, Johnny,” nothing else. He’d been with Audrey three times now, the one all-nighter at his place, two quick shots at Howard’s fuck pad in the Hollywood Hills. If Mickey had any kind of surveillance on Audrey it was Johnny; if he got wise, it was mortgage his life to the fucker or kill him, no middle ground. If Mickey got wise, it was the Big Adios, when crossed, the little guy got vicious: he’d found the trigger who bumped Hooky Rothman, gave him two hollow points in the kneecaps, an evening of agony with a Fritzie Kupferman coup de grace: an icepick in the ear, Fritzie making like Toscanini conducting Beethoven, little dips and swirls with his baton before he speared the poor bastard’s brain.

Mickey Lion, this bamboo bungalow his den.

Buzz put away his notepad, taking a last look at the four names Dudley Smith had called him with earlier: Reds to be back-ground-checked, more shitwork, probably more padding. Mickey Lion and Johnny Lion were schmoozing by the fireplace now, a picture of Audrey Lioness in pasties and panties on the wall above them. The Mick hooked a finger at him; he walked over.

The comedian had some schtick ready. “A guy comes up and asks me, ‘Mickey, how’s business?’ I tell him, ‘Pal, it’s like show business, there is no business.’ I make a pass at this ginch, she says, ‘I don’t lay for every Tom, Dick and Harry.’ I say, ‘What about me? I’m Mickey!’ ”

Buzz laughed and pointed to the picture of Audrey, eyes hard on Johnny Stomp. “You should put her in your routine. Beauty and the Beast. You’ll bring the house down.”

Goose egg from Johnny; Mickey screwing up his face like he was actually considering the suggestion. Buzz tested the water again. “Get some big jig to play sidekick, make like he’s giving it to Audrey. Coons are always good for a laugh.”

More nothing. Mickey said, “Shvartzes I don’t need, shvartzes I don’t trust. What do you get when you cross a nigger and a Jew?”

Buzz played dumb. “I don’t know. What?”

Mickey sprayed laughter. “A janitor who owns the building!”

Johnny chuckled and excused himself; Buzz eyed the Va Va Voom Girl at twenty and made quick book: a hundred to one he knew less than nothing about them. Mickey said, “You should laugh more. I don’t trust guys who don’t have no sense of humor.”

“You don’t trust anybody, Mick.”

“Yeah? How’s this for trust. February eighth at the haber-dashery, my deal with Jack D. Twenty-five pounds of Mex brown, cash split, food and booze. All my men, all Jack’s. Nobody heeled. That is trust.”

Buzz said, “I don’t believe it.”

“The deal?”

“The nobody heeled. Are you fuckin’ insane?”

Mickey put an arm around Buzz’s shoulders. “Jack wants four neutral triggers. He’s got two City bulls, I got this Sheriff’s dick won the Golden Gloves last year, and I’m still one short. You want the job? Five hundred for the day?”

He’d spend the money on Audrey: tight cashmere sweaters, red and pink and green and white, a size too small to show off her uplift. “Sure, Mick.”

Mickey’s grip tightened. “I got a storefront on the Southside. County juice, a little sharking, a little book. Half a dozen runners. Audrey’s keeping the ledgers for me, and she says I’m getting eaten alive.”

“The runners?”

“Everything tallies, but the daily take-in’s been short. I pay salary, the guys enforce their own stuff. Short of shaking down the guys, I got no way to know.”

Buzz slid free of Mickey’s arm, thinking of lioness larceny: Audrey with a hot pencil and a wet brain. “You want me to ask around on the QT? Get the squad boss at Firestone to shake down the locals, find out who’s bettin’ what?”

“Trust, Buzzchik. You nail who’s doing me, I’ll throw some bones your way.”

Buzz grabbed his coat. Mickey said, “Hot date?”

“The hottest.”

“Anybody I know?”

“Rita Hayworth.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, trust me.”

“She red downstairs?”

“Black at the roots, Mick. There’s no business like show business.”

His date was for 10:00 at Howard’s spot near the Hollywood Bowl; Mickey and Johnny’s no-take and the skim story had him running jumpy, his watch set to Audrey standard time, which made killing an hour somewhere pure horseshit. Buzz drove to the lion woman’s house, parked behind her Packard ragtop and rang the bell.

Audrey answered the door, slacks, sweater and no makeup. “You said you didn’t even want to know where I lived.”

Buzz shuffled his feet, making like a swain on a prom date. “I checked your driver’s license while you were asleep.”

“Meeks, that’s not something you do to somebody you’re sleeping with.”

“You’re sleepin’ with Mickey, ain’t you?”

“Yes, but what does—”

Buzz slid past Audrey, into a bargain basement front room. “Savin’ money on furnishings to bankroll your shopping center?”

“Yes. Since you ask, I am.”

“Sweetie, you know what Mickey did to the ginzo killed Hooky Rothman?”

Audrey slammed the door and wrapped her arms around herself. “He beat the man senseless and had Fritzie what’s his name drive him over the state line and warn him never to come back. Meeks, what is this? I can’t stand you this way.”

Buzz shoved her against the door, pinned her there and put his hands on her face, holding her still, his hands going gentle when he saw she wasn’t going to fight him. “You’re skimmin’ off Mickey ’cause you think he won’t find out and he wouldn’t hurt you if he did and now I’m the one that has to fuckin’ protect you because you are so fuckin’ dumb about the fuckin’ guys you fuck and I’m in way over my fuckin’ head with you so you get fuckin’ smart because if Mickey hurts you I’ll fuckin’ kill him and all his fuckin’ kike guinea pigshit—”

He stopped when Audrey started bawling and trying to get out words. He stroked her hair, bending down to listen better, turning to jelly when he heard, “I love you, too.”

They made love on the bargain basement living room floor and in the bedroom and in the shower, Buzz pulling the curtain loose, Audrey admitting she cheapskated on the bathroom fixtures, too. He told her he’d check with an ex-Dragna paper man he knew and show her how to redoctor Mickey’s books — or fix an angle to lay the onus off on some nonexistent welcher; she said she’d quit skimming, straighten up, fly right, and play the stock market like a squarejohn woman who didn’t screw gangsters or Red Squad bagmen. He said, “I love you” fifty times to make up for her saying it first; he got her sizes so he could blow all his kickback take on clothes for her; they went down on each other to seal a pact: nobody was supposed to mention Mickey unless absolutely necessary, nobody was to talk about their future or lack of it, two dates a week was their limit, Howard’s fuck pads rotated, her place or his place as a treat once in a while, their cars stashed where the bad guys wouldn’t see them. No outside dates, no trips together, no telling friends what they had going. Buzz asked Audrey to do the tassel trick for him; she did; she went on to model her stripper outfits, then all the clothes in her wardrobe. Buzz figured that if he spent his gambling output on threads he wanted to see her in, he’d never be bored staying inside with her: he could take the clothes off, make love to her, watch her dress again. He thought that if they stayed inside forever, he’d tell her everything about himself, all the shitty stuff included, but he’d lay it out slowly, so she’d get to know him, not get scared and run. He talked a blue streak; she talked a blue streak; he let slip about the Doberman pinscher he killed when he burglarized a lumberyard in Tulsa in 1921, and she didn’t care. Toward dawn, Audrey started falling asleep and he started thinking about Mickey and got scared. He thought about moving his car, but didn’t want to upset the perfect way his lioness had her head tucked against his collarbone. The scare got worse, so he reached to the floor, grabbed his .38 and stuck it under the pillow.

Chapter Twenty-One

The nut bin waiting room featured tables and plasticene couches in soothing colors: mint green, ice blue, pale yellow. Artwork by the nuts was tacked to the walls: finger paintings and draw-by-the-numbers jobs depicting Jesus Christ, Joe DiMaggio and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Danny sat waiting for Cyril “Cy” Vandrich, dressed in Ted Krugman garb: dungarees, skivvy shirt, steel-toed motorcycle boots and a bombardier’s leather jacket. He’d been up most of the night studying Mal Considine’s scenario; he’d spent yesterday doing his own background checks on Duane Lindenaur and George Wiltsie, prowling their Valley hangouts and getting nothing but a queasy sense of the two as homo slime. Slipping into the Ted role had been a relief, and when he drove up to the Camarillo gate the guard had double-taked his get-up and New York plates and openly challenged him as a cop, checking his ID and badge, calling West Hollywood Station to get the okay. So far, Upshaw into Krugman was a success — the acid test this afternoon at the picket line.

An orderly ushered a thirtyish man in khakis into the room — a shortish guy, skinny with broad hips, deep-set gray eyes and a hepcat haircut — one greasy brown lock perfectly covering his forehead. The orderly said, “Him,” and exited; Vandrich sighed, “This is a humbug. I’ve got connections on the switchboard, the girl said this is about murders, and I’m not a murderer. Jazz musicians are Joe Lunchmeat to you clowns. You’ve been trying to crucify Bird for years, now you want me.”

Danny let it go, sizing up Vandrich sizing him up. “Wrong. This is about Felix Gordean, Duane Lindenaur and George Wiltsie. I know you’re not a killer.”

Vandrich slumped into a chair. “Felix is a piece of work, Duane what’s his face I don’t know from Adam and George Wiltsie padded his stuff so he’d look big to impress all the rich queens at Felix’s parties. And why are you dressed up like rough trade? Think you’ll get me to talk that way? That image is from hunger, and I outgrew it a long time ago.”

Danny thought: smart, hep, probably wise to the game. The rough trade crack washed over him; he fondled his jacket sleeves, loving the feel of the leather. “You’ve got them all buffaloed, Cy. They don’t know if you’re crazy or not.”

Vandrich smiled; he shifted in his chair and cocked a hip toward Danny. “You think I’m a malingerer?”

“I know you are, and I know that Misdemeanor Court judges get tired of giving the same old faces ninety days here when they could file on them for Petty Theft Habitual and get them some felony time. Quentin time. Up there they don’t ask you for it, they take it.”

“And I’m sure you know a lot about that, with your tough leather goods and all.”

Danny laced his hands behind his head, the jacket’s soft fur collar brushing him. “I need to know what you know about George Wiltsie and Felix Gordean, and maybe what Gordean does or doesn’t know about some things. Cooperate, you’ll always pull ninetys. Dick me around, the judge gets a letter saying you withheld evidence in a triple homicide case.”

Vandrich giggled. “Felix got murdered?”

“No. Wiltsie, Lindenaur and a trombone man named Marty Goines, who used to call himself the ‘Horn of Plenty.’ Have you heard of him?”

“No, but I’m a trumpeter and I used to be known as the ‘Lips of Ecstasy.’ That’s a double entendre, in case you haven’t guessed.”

Danny laughed off the vamp. “Five seconds or I walk and nudge the judge.”

Vandrich smiled. “I’ll play, Mr. Policeman. And I’ll even give you a free introductory observation. But first I’ve got a question. Did Felix tell you about me?”

“Yes.”

Vandrich did a little number, crossing his legs, making mincy hand motions. Danny saw it as the fuck going nance in order to knuckle to authority; he felt himself start to sweat, his lefty threads too hot, too much. “Look, just tell me.”

Vandrich quieted down. “I knew Felix during the war, when I was putting on a crazy act to get out of the service. I played that act everywhere. I was living off an inheritance then, living it up. I went to Felix’s parties and I trucked with Georgie once, and Felix thought I was non compos mentis, so if he sent you to see me he was probably playing a game. There. That’s my free introductory observation.”

And his Gordean instincts confirmed: the pimp couldn’t draw breath without trying an angle — which meant that he was holding back. Danny said, “You’re good,” got out his notebook and turned to the list of questions he’d prepared.

“Burglary, Vandrich. Did you know George Wiltsie to be involved in it, or do you know of anyone connected to Felix Gordean who pulls burglaries?”

Vandrich shook his head. “No. Like I said, George Wiltsie I trucked with once, talk wasn’t his forte, so we stuck to business. He never mentioned that guy Lindenaur. I’m sorry he got killed, but I just take nice things from stores, I don’t associate with burglars.”

Danny wrote down “No.” “The same thing on dentists and dental technicians, men capable of making dentures.”

Vandrich flashed perfect teeth. “No. And I haven’t been to a dentist since high school.”

“A young man, call him a boy — with a scarred, burned-up face in bandages. He was a burglar, and this would be back during the war.”

“No. Ugh. Awful.”

Two more “Nos.” Danny said, “A zoot stick. That’s a long wooden stick with a razor blade or razor blades attached at the end. It’s a weapon from the war days, for cutting up the zoot suits that Mexicans used to wear.”

Vandrich said, “Double ugh and an ugh on pachucos in zoot suits in general.”

No, no, no, no — underlined. Danny put out his ace question. “Tall, gray-haired men, mid-forties now. Nice silver hair, guys who know jazz spots, hep enough to buy dope. Homosexual men who went to Gordean’s parties back when you did.”

Vandrich said, “No”; Danny turned to fresh paper. “This is where you shine, Cyril. Felix Gordean. Everything you know, everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve thought about him.”

Vandrich said, “Felix Gordean is... a... piece of... work,” drawing the words out into a lisp. “He doesn’t truck with man, woman or beast, and his only kick is bringing guys out, getting them to admit what they are, then... procuring for them. He has a legitimate talent agency, and he meets lots of young men, really sensitive creative types... and... well... they’re prone to being like...”

Danny wanted to scream QUEER, FAGGOT, FRUIT, HOMO, PEDERAST, BRUNSER, PUNK, COCKSUCKER and ram slime from the Hollywood Squad reports down Vandrich’s throat, making him spit it out in the open where he could spit on it. He kneaded his jacket sleeves and said, “He gets his thrills getting guys to admit that they’re homosexuals, right?”

“Uh, yes.”

“You can say it, Vandrich. Five minutes ago you were trying to flirt with me.”

“It... it’s hard to say. It’s so ugly and clinical and cold.”

“So Gordean brings these homosexuals out. Then what?”

“Then he enjoys showing them off at his parties and fixing them up. Getting them acting jobs, then taking their money for the introductions he arranges. Sometimes he has parties at his beach house and watches through these mirrors he has. He can look in, but the fellows in the bedroom can’t look out.”

Danny remembered his first pass at the Marmont: peeping, his stuff pressed to the window, jazzing on it. “So Gordean’s a fucking queer voyeur, he likes watching homos fuck and suck. Let’s try this: Does he keep records for his introduction service?”

Vandrich had pushed his chair into the wall. “No. He didn’t back then, at least. The word was that he had a great memory, and he was terrified of writing things down... afraid of the police. But...”

“But what?”

“B-but I h-heard he loves to keep it all in his head, and once I heard him say that his biggest dream was to have something on everybody he knew and a profitable way to use it.”

“Like blackmail?”

“Y-yes, I thought of that.”

“Do you think Gordean’s capable of it?”

No lisp, stutter or hesitation. “Yes.”

Danny felt his soft fur collar sticky with sweat. “Get out of here.”

Gordean holding back.

His talent agency a tool to fuel his voyeurism.

Blackmail.

No suspicious Gordean reactions on Duane Lindenaur, extortionist; Charles Hartshorn — “Short and bald as a beagle” — eliminated as a suspect on his appearance, that fact buttressed by Sergeant Frank Skakel’s assessment of his character and his take on Hartshorn’s juice — the lawyer unapproachable for now. If Gordean himself was some sort of extortionist, it had to be coincidental to Lindenaur — both men moved in a world rife with blackmailees. The talent agency was the place to start.

Danny took PCH back to LA, all the windows down so he could keep his jacket on and buttoned full. Per Considine’s orders, he parked three blocks from Hollywood Station and walked the rest of the way, heading into the muster room dead on time for the noon meeting he’d called.

His men were already there, sitting in the first row of chairs, Mike Breuning and Jack Shortell gabbing and smoking. Gene Niles was four seats over, picking at a pile of papers on his lap. Danny grabbed a chair and sat down facing them.

Shortell said, “You still look like a cop.” Breuning nodded agreement. “Yeah, but the Commies won’t get it. If they were so smart they wouldn’t be Commies, right?”

Danny laughed; Niles said, “Let’s get this over with, huh, Upshaw? I’ve got lots of work to do.”

Danny got out pad and pen. “So do I. Sergeant Shortell, you first.”

Shortell said, “Cut and dried. I’ve called ninety-one dental labs, run the descriptions by the people in charge and got a total of sixteen hinkers: strange-o’s, guys with yellow sheets. I eliminated nine of them by blood type, four are currently in jail and the other three I talked to myself. No sparks, plus the guys had alibis for the times of death. I’ll keep going, and I’ll call you if anything bites me.”

Danny said, “Just make sure it’s a denture bite,” and turned to Breuning. “Mike, what have you and Sergeant Niles got?”

Breuning consulted a big spiral notebook. “What we’ve got is the old goose egg. On the biting MO, we checked LAPD, County and the muni files. We got a shine queer who bit his boyfriend’s dick off, a fat blond guy with a kiddie raper jacket who bites little girls and two guys who match our description — both in Atascadero for aggravated assault. On the queer bar scuttlebutt, zero. Biters do not hang out at homo cocktail lounges and say, ‘I bite. Want some?’ The fruit detail cops I talked to laughed me out on that one. On the Vice and sex offender file eliminations, nothing. Burglary, ditto. I cross-checked them, nothing duplicated. Nothing on a kid with burn scars. There were six middle-aged gray-haired possibles — all either in custody on the nights of the killings or alibied — squarejohn witnesses. On the recanvassing — nada — it’s too old now. Niggertown, Griffith Park, the area where Goines was dumped, nothing. Nobody saw anything, nobody gives a shit. On checking with snitches, forget it. This guy is a loner, I’d bet my pension he does not associate with criminal riffraff. I personally leaned on the only three possibles I got from State and County Parole — two queers and a real sweetheart — this tall, gray preacher type who cornholed three Marines back during the war, used to lube his prong with toothpaste. All three were in for curfew at the Midnight Mission — alibied by no less than Sister Mary Eckert herself.”

Breuning stopped, out of breath, and lit a cigarette. He said, “Gene and I muscled every southside H man we could find, which wasn’t many — it’s dry all over. Rumor has it that Jack D. and/or Mickey C. are getting ready to move a load of cut-rate. Nothing. We leaned on the jazz musician angle, nothing with our man’s description. Ditto on goofballs. Nothing. And we leaned hard.”

Niles chuckled; Danny looked at his own absent doodling: a page of concentric zeros. “Mike, what about the zoot stick angle? — the assault files and snitch calls?”

Breuning eyes narrowed. “Another goose. And that’s old Mex stuff, pretty far afield. I know Doc Layman tagged the back wounds as zoot stick, but don’t you think he could be wrong? As far as I’m concerned, it just doesn’t play.”

A Dudley Smith stooge patronizing Norton Layman, MD, PhD. Danny reached for some frost. “No. Layman’s the best, and he’s right.”

“Then I don’t think it’s a real lead. I think our guy just read about the damn sticks or eyeballed one of the zoot riots and got a kick out of them. He’s a fucking psycho, there’s no reason to those guys.”

Something about Breuning’s take on the sticks was off; Danny shrugged to cover the thought. “I think you’re wrong. I think the zoot sticks are essential to the way the killer thinks. My instincts tell me he’s revenging old wrongs, and the specific mutilations are a big part of it. So I want you and Niles to comb the station files in Mex neighborhoods and check old occurrence reports — ’42, ’43, around in there, the zoot riots, Sleepy Lagoon — back when the Mexes were taking heat.”

Breuning stared at Danny; Niles groaned and muttered, “My instincts.” Danny said, “Sergeant, if you’ve got comments, address them to me.”

Niles cracked a grin. “Okay. One, I don’t like the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and their good buddy Mickey Kike, and I’ve got a County pal who says you’re not the goody two shoes you pretend to be. Two, I’ve been doing a little work on my own, and I talked to a couple of Quentin parolees who said no way was Marty Goines a queer — and I believe them. And three, I think you personally fucked me by not calling in Tamarind Street, and I don’t like that.”

No Bordoni. No Bordoni. No fucking Bordoni. Danny, calm. “I don’t care what you like or what you think. And who were the parolees?”

Two hard stares locked; Niles glancing down at his notebook. “Paul Arthur Koenig and Lester George Mazmanian. And four, I don’t like you.”

The bluff called. Danny looked at Niles, spoke to LASD Sergeant Shortell. “Jack, there’s a poster on the notice board that shits on our Department. Rip it up.”

Shortell’s voice, admiring. “My pleasure, skipper.”

Ted Krugman.

Ted Krugman.

Theodore Michael Krugman.

Teddy Krugman, Red Commie Pinko Subversive Stagehand.

Friends with Jukey Rosensweig of Young Actors Against Fascism and Bill Wilhite, a cell boss with the Brooklyn CP; ex-lover of Donna Patrice Cantrell, leftist firebrand at Columbia University circa ’43, jumper suicide in ’47 — a dive off the George Washington Bridge when she got the news that her socialist father attempted suicide over his HUAC subpoena, turning himself into a permanent vegetable via ingestion of a scouring powder cocktail that scoured his brain down to sub-idiot quality. Ex-member of AFL–CIO, North Shore Long Island CP, Garment Workers’ Defense Committee, Concerned Americans Against Bigotry, Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Fair Play for Paul Robeson League. Socialist summer camps as a kid, New York City College dropout, not drafted because of his subversive politics, liked to work as a theater grip because of all the politically enlightened people you met and pussy. Worked a long string of Broadway shows, plus a handful of B movies shot on location in Manhattan. Slogan shouter, brawler, hardcase. Loved to attend meetings and demonstrations, sign petitions and talk Commie rebop. Active in the New York leftist scene until ’48 — then nowhere.

Pictures.

Donna Patrice Cantrell was pretty but hard, a softer version of her dad the Ajax guzzler. Jukey Rosensweig was a big fat guy with bulging thyroid eyes and thick glasses; Bill Wilhite was white-bread handsome. His supporting cast of characters, caught in Fed surveillance snaps, were just faces attached to bodies wielding placards: names, dates and causes on the back, to shore him up with some more history.

Parked on Gower just north of Sunset, Danny ran through his script and photo kit. He had his co-stars’ faces down pat: the Teamster picket boss he was supposed to introduce himself to, the goons he’d be picketing and arguing with, the LAPD Academy muscleman he’d fight — and finally — if Considine’s scenario played to perfection — Norman Kostenz, UAES picket boss, the man who’d take him to Claire De Haven. Deep-breathing, he locked his gun, badge, cuffs and Daniel Thomas Upshaw ID in the glove compartment, sliding Theodore Michael Krugman license photostats into the sleeves in his wallet. Upshaw into Krugman completed; Danny walked over, ready to do it.

The scene was pandemonium divided into two snakelike strips of bodies: UAES, Teamsters, banners on sticks, shouts and catcalls, three feet of sidewalk separating the factions, a debrisfilled gutter and studio walls bracketing the lines down a quarter-mile-long city block. Newsmen standing by their cars on the opposite side of Gower; lunch trucks dispensing coffee and doughnuts; a bunch of oldster cops stuffing their faces, watching newshounds shoot craps on a piece of cardboard laid across the hood of an LAPD black-and-white. Duelling bullhorns bombarding the street with squelch noise and static-layered repetitions of “REDS OUT!” and “FAIR PAY NOW!”

Danny found the Teamster picket boss, picture pure; the man winked on the sly and handed him a pine slab with UAES — UNAMERICAN ESCAPED SUBVERSIVES printed on reinforced cardboard at the top. He went through a rigmarole of laying down the law and making him fill out a time card; Danny saw the guy working the Teamster lunch truck eyeball the transaction — obviously the UAES plant man mentioned in Considine’s info package. The shouts got louder; the picket boss hustled Danny over to his marching buddies, Al and Jerry, picture perfect in their grubby work clothes. Tough-guy salutations per the script: three hard boys who brook no horseshit getting down to business. Then him — Ted Krugman — starring in his own Hollywood epic, surrounded by extras, one line of good guys, one of bad guys, all of them moving, separate lines going in opposite directions.

He marched, three abreast with Al and Jerry — pros who knew their stuff; signs came at him: FISCAL JUSTICE NOW!; END THE STUDIO AUTOCRACY!; NEGOTIATE FAIR WAGES! Teamster elbows dug into UAES rib cages; the bad guys winced, didn’t elbow back, kept marching and yelling. It was Man Camera with something like Sound-O-Vision thrown in; Danny kept imagining mixmasters, meat grinders, buzz saws and cycle engines working overtime, not letting you think or sight on a fixed image. He kept talking his pre-planned diatribe, feeding Jerry, right on the button with Considine’s first cue: “You’re talkin’ the fuckin’ Moscow party line, pal. Who’s fucking side are you on?”

Himself, coming back: “The side that’s paying me a fucking buck an hour to picket, pal!”

Jerry, grabbing his arm as UAESers stood aside and watched: “That’s not good enough—”

He broke free and kept walking and shouting per the scenario; per the scenario the picket boss came over and issued him a warning about team play, hauling Al and Jerry over, making them all shake hands like kids in a schoolyard, a bunch of anemic lefties scoping it out. All three of them played it sullen; the picket boss hotfooted it to the lunch truck; Danny saw him talking to the coffee man — UAES’s plant — hooking a thumb back at the little fracas he just refereed. Al said, “Don’t goldbrick, Krugman”; Jerry muttered anti-Red epithets; Danny launched his “I’m one of the guys” spiel, real real Krugman stuff in case the bad guys had a close ear down, stuff Considine yanked out of an old NYPD Red Squad report: garment worker unions bashing heads insanely, the “bosses” on both sides fucking over the rank and file. Him pleading with philistine Al and Jerry to see the reason behind what he was saying; them shaking their heads and picketing away from him, disgusted at working the same line as a rat fucker Commie traitor.

Danny marched, banner high, shouting, “REDS OUT!” meaning it, but savoring the curve he’d just pitched. His Man Camera started working, everything seemed contained and controlled like he’d just had his four shots and didn’t want a fifth, like he was born for this and the queer shit at Gordean’s pad didn’t really send him. It felt like chaos in a vacuum, being shoved into a meat grinder and laughing as you got chopped up. Time passed; Al and Jerry brushed by him: once, twice, three times, side-mouthing ugly stuff, bringing the LAPD goon with them on their fourth go-round, a brick shithouse blocking his path, fingers on his chest, the hump improvising on Considine’s script: “This guy’s a tough guy Commie? He looks like a weak sister to me.”

The wrong words, then, “Make it good you County fuck,” whispered up close. Danny improvised, bending the shithouse’s fingers back, snapping them at the bottom digit. The man shrieked and swung a bum left hook; Danny stepped inside with a counter one-two to the solar plexus. The LAPD man doubled over; Danny shot him a steel-toed right foot to the balls, crashing him into a group of UAES pickets.

Shouts all around; whistles blowing. Danny picked up a discarded pine slab and got ready to swing it at his co-star’s head. Then blue uniforms surrounded him and billy clubs beat him to the ground and he was pummeled, lifted, pummeled, lifted, dumped and kicked at. He went stone cold out — then he tasted blood and sidewalk and felt hands lifting him up until he was face to face with Norman Kostenz, looking just like Mal Considine’s surveillance pic, a friendly guy who was saying, “Ted Krugman, huh? I think I’ve heard of you.”

The next hour went Speed-O-Vision fast.

Friendly Norm helped him clean himself up and took him to a bar on the Boulevard. Danny came out of his thumping quickly, thudding pains in the soft part of his back, loose teeth, side aches. The bluesuits had to have been in on Considine’s plan — improvising in his favor — or they’d have cracked his head open for real. The script had called for them to break up a fistfight, separating the combatants, some minor roughhouse before cutting them loose. They’d obviously played off his improvisation, the kicks and gutter dump their aside for his wailing on one of their own. Now the question was how hard “Call me Mal” would come down on him for the damage he’d done — he was an ex-LAPD man himself.

At the bar it was all questions, back to Ted Krugman, no time to think of repercussions.

Norm Kostenz took his photograph for a record of the assault and kissed his ass, a tough-guy worshiper; Danny moved into Ted, nursing a beer and double shot, making like he rarely boozed, that it was just to ease his aching, fascist-thumped bones. The liquor did help — it took the bite off his aches and got him moving his shoulders, working out the kinks that would come later. The juice downed, he started feeling good, proud of his performance; Kostenz ran a riff on how Jukey Rosensweig used to talk about him and Donna Cantrell. Danny put out a sob number on Donna, using it to segue into his missing years: Prof Cantrell a vegetable, his beloved Donna dead, the fascists responsible, but him too numbed by grief to organize, protest or generally fight back. Kostenz pressed on what he had been doing since Donna’s suicide; Danny gave him an Upshaw/Krugman combo platter: real-life car thief stories under Red Ted’s aegis, phony East Coast venues. Friendly Norm ate it up, vicarious kicks on a platter; he called for a second round of drinks and asked questions about the garment district wars, the Robeson League, stuff Jukey had told him about. Danny winged it, flying high: names and pictures from Considine’s kit, long spiels extolling the virtues of various lefties, borrowing from the actual personalities of deputies and San Berdoo townies he’d known. Kostenz licked his plate and begged for more; Danny went sky high, all his aches lulled, kneading his jacket sleeves like they were his second skin. He spun tales out of thin air and Considine’s facts: a long schtick about his loss of political faith, his rapacious womanizing with the Commie quail from Mal’s surveillance pics, his long cross-country odyssey and how self-hatred and a desire to scope the scene brought him to the Teamster picket line, but now he knew he could never be fascist muscle — he wanted to work, fight, organize and help UAES end the bloodsucking tyranny of the studio bosses. Almost breathless, Norm Kostenz took it in, got up and said, “Can you meet me and our member screener tomorrow? The El Coyote on Beverly at noon?”

Danny stood up, weaving, knowing it was more from his Academy Award acting than from booze and a beating. He said, “I’ll be there,” and saluted like Uncle Joe Stalin in a newsreel he’d seen.

Danny drove home, checked to make sure his files and pictures were secure in their hiding place, hot-showered and daubed linament on the bruises that were starting to form on his back. Naked, he performed intro lines to Claire De Haven in front of the bathroom mirror, then dressed from his lefty wardrobe: wool slacks with a skinny belt, T-shirt, his workboots and the leather jacket. Ted Krugman but a cop, he admired himself in the mirror, then drove to the Strip.

Dusk was falling, twilight darkening over low rain clouds. Danny parked on Sunset across from the Felix Gordean Agency, hunkered down in the seat with binoculars and fixed on the building.

It was a one-story gray French Provincial, louvered windows and an arched doorway, deco lettering in brass above the mailbox. An enclosed autoport was built on, the entrance illuminated by roof lights. Three cars were parked inside; Danny squinted and wrote down three Cal ’49 license numbers: DB 6841, GX 1167, QS 3334.

Full darkness hit; Danny kept his eyes on the doorway. At 5:33, a twenty-fivish male Caucasian walked out, got into green Ford coupé GX 1167 and drove away. Danny wrote down a description of the car and the man, then went back to straight surveillance. At 5:47, a white prewar La Salle, Cal ’49 TR 4191, pulled in; a handsome young Latin type wearing a suitcoat and pegged pants got out, rang the buzzer and entered the agency. Danny jotted his stats down, kept looking, saw two older, dark-haired men in business suits leave, walk to the carport and get into DB 6841 and QS 3334, back out and go off in opposite directions on Sunset. The Latin type left ten minutes later; Danny filled in his descriptions of the men — none of whom matched his suspect.

Time dragged; Danny stayed glued, smelling linament, feeling his muscle aches return. At 6:14 a Rolls-Royce pulled into the carport; a man in a chauffeur’s outfit got out, rang the agency buzzer, spoke into the intercom and walked across the street and out of sight. Lights went off inside — until only a single window was glowing.

Danny thought: Gordean’s driver leaving his car, probably no more “clients” coming in. He spotted a phone booth on the corner, walked over, gave the box a coin and called the DMV Police Line.

“Yes? Who’s requesting?”

Danny eyed the one light still on. “Deputy Upshaw, West Hollywood Squad, and make this fast.”

The operator said, “We’re a little bit backlogged on vehicle registrations, but—”

“This is the police line, not DMV Central. I’m a Homicide detective, so you kick loose for me.”

The man sounded chastised. “We were helping regis — I’m sorry, Deputy. Give me your names.”

Danny said, “I’ve got the numbers and the vehicle descriptions, you give me the names. Four California ’49s: DB 6841, GX 1167, QS 3334 and TR 4191. Go fast.”

The operator said, “Yessir.” The line buzzed; Danny watched the Felix Gordean Agency. Seconds stretched; the DMV man came back on the line. “Got them, Deputy.”

Danny braced his notepad against the wall. “Go.”

“DB 6841 is Donald Willis Wachtel, 1638 Franklin Street, Santa Monica. GX 1167 is Timothy James Costigan, 11692 Saticoy Street, Van Nuys. On QS 3334, we’ve got Alan Brian Marks with a K-S, 209 4th Avenue, Venice, and TR 4191 is Augie Luis — that’s L-U-I-S — Duarte, 1890 North Vendome, Los Angeles. That’s it.”

No sparks on the names — except the “Duarte” seemed vaguely familiar. Danny hung up just as the light in the window went off; he ran back to his car, got in behind the wheel and waited.

Felix Gordean walked out the door a few moments later. He checked the lock and flipped a switch that doused the carport lights, backed the Rolls out and hung a U-turn, then headed west on Sunset. Danny counted to five and pursued.

The Rolls was easy to track — Gordean drove cautiously and stuck to the middle lane. Danny let a car get in front of him and fixed on Gordean’s radio aerial, a long strip of metal with an ornamental Union Jack at the top, oncoming headlight glare making it stand out like a marker.

They cruised west, out of the Strip and into Beverly Hills. At Linden the middle car hung a right turn and headed north; Danny closed the gap on Gordean, touching the Rolls’ bumper with his headlights, then idling back. Beverly Hills became Holmby Hills and Westwood; traffic thinned out to almost nothing. Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, looming greenery dotted with Spanish houses and vacant lots — Sunset Boulevard winding through blackish green darkness. Danny caught the reflection of highbeams in back of him.

He let the throttle up; the beams came on that much stronger, then disappeared. He looked in the rear-view, saw low headlights three car lengths back and no one else on the road; he hit the gas and jammed forward until Gordean’s Rolls was less than a short stone’s throw from the snout of his Chevy. Another check of the rear-view; the back car right on his ass.

Tail.

Moving surveillance on him.

Three-car rolling stakeout.

Danny swallowed and glimpsed a string of vacant lots, dirt shouldered, off the right side of the street. He downshifted, swung a hard right turn, hit the shoulder and fishtailed across rock-strewn dirt, wracking the Chevy’s undercarriage. He saw the tail car on Sunset, lights off and zooming; he cut hard left, went down to first gear, back off dirt onto good hard blacktop. High beams on; second and third, the gas pedal floored. A brown postwar sedan losing ground as he gained on it; him right on the car’s ass, mud smeared across its rear plate, the driver probably near blinded by his lights.

Just then the sedan turned hard right and hauled up a barely lit side street. Danny downshifted, hit the brakes and skidded into a full turnaround brody, stalling the car facing the flow of traffic. Headlights were coming straight at him; he sparked the ignition, popped the clutch and gas, banged over the curb and up the street, horns blasting down on Sunset.

Bungalows lined both sides of the street; a sign designated it “La Paloma Dr, 1900 N.” Danny speeded up, the blacktop getting steeper, no other moving cars in sight. Bungalow lights gave him some illumination; La Paloma Drive became a summit and leveled off — and there was his brown sedan on the roadside, the driver’s door open.

Danny pulled up behind it, hit his brights, unholstered his piece. He got out and walked over, gun arm first. He looked in the front seat and saw nothing but neat velveteen upholstery; he stepped back and saw a ’48 Pontiac Super Chief, abandoned on a half-developed street surrounded by totally dark hills.

His heart was booming; his throat was dry; his legs were butter and his gun hand twitched. He listened and heard nothing but himself; he scanned for escape routes and saw a dozen driveways leading into back yards and the entire rear of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Danny thought: think procedure, go slow, you’re interagency Homicide brass. The “brass” calmed him; he tucked his .45 into his waistband, knelt and checked out the front seat.

Nothing on the seat covers; the registration strapped to the steering column — right where it should be. Danny undid the plastic strip without touching flat surfaces, held it up to the light of his highbeams and read:

Wardell John Hascomb, 9816 1/4 South Iola, Los Angeles. Registration number Cal 416893-H; license number Cal JQ 1338.

LA South Central, darktown, the area where the killer stole the Marty Goines transport car.

HIM.

Danny got fresh shakes, drove back to Sunset and headed west until he spotted a filling station with a pay phone. With shaky hands, he slipped a nickel in the slot and dialed DMV Police Information.

“Yeah? Who’s requesting?”

“D-Deputy Upshaw, West Hollywood Squad.”

“The guy from half an hour or so ago?”

“Goddamn — yes, and check the Hot Sheet for this: 1948 Pontiac Super Chief Sedan, Cal JQ 1338. If it’s hot, I want the address it was stolen from.”

“Gotcha,” silence. Danny stood in the phone booth, warm one second, chilled the next. He took out his pad and pen, ready to write down what the operator gave him; he saw “Augie Luis Duarte” and snapped why it seemed familiar: there was a Juan Duarte in the UAES info he studied — meaning nothing — Duarte was as common a Mex name as Garcia or Hernandez.

The operator came back. “She’s hot, clouted outside 9945 South Normandie this afternoon. The owner is one Wardell J. Hascomb, male Negro, 9816 South—”

“I’ve got that.”

“You know, Deputy, your partner was a whole lot nicer.”

“What?”

The operator sounded exasperated, like he was talking to a cretin. “Deputy Jones from your squad. He called in for a repeat on those four names I gave you, said you lost your notes.”

Now the booth went freezing. No such deputy existed; some-one — probably HIM — had been watching him stake Gordean’s office, close enough to overhear his conversation with the clerk and glom the gist — that he was requesting vehicle registrations. Danny shivered and said, “Describe his voice.”

“Your partner’s? Too cultured for a County plainclothes dick, I’ll—”

Danny slammed the receiver down, gave the phone his last coin and dialed the direct squadroom line at Hollywood Station. A voice answered, “Hollywood Detectives”; Danny said, “Sergeant Shortell. Tell him it’s urgent.”

“Okay,” a soft click, the old-timer cop yawning, “Yes? Who’s this?”

“Upshaw. Jack, the killer was tailing me in a hot roller.”

“What the—”

“Just listen. I spotted him, and he rabbited and abandoned the car. Write this down: ’48 Pontiac Super, brown, La Paloma Drive off Sunset in the Palisades, where it flattens out at the hill. Print man to dust it, you to canvass. He took off on foot and it’s all hills there, so I’m pretty sure he’s gone, but do it anyway. And fast — I won’t be there to watchdog.”

“Holy fuck.”

“In spades, and get me this — records checks on these four men — Donald Wachtel, 1638 Franklin, Santa Monica. Timothy Costigan, 11692 Saticoy, Van Nuys. Alan Marks, 209 4th Avenue, Venice, and Augie Duarte, 1890 Vendome, LA. Got it?”

Shortell said, “You’ve got it”; Danny hung up and trawled for HIM. He cruised back to La Paloma and found the car exactly the way he left it; he hung his flashlight out the window and shone it at bungalows, alleyways, back yards and foothills. Squarejohn husbands and wives taking out the trash; dogs, cats and a spooked coyote transfixed by the glare in its eyes. No tall, middle-aged man with lovely silver hair calmly making his getaway from a count of Grand Theft Auto. Danny drove back to Sunset and took it slowly out to the beach, scanning both sides of the street; at Pacific Coast Highway, he dug in his memory for Felix Gordean’s address, came up with 16822 PCH and rolled there.

It was on the beach side of the road, a white wood Colonial built on pilings sunk into the sand, “Felix Gordean, Esq,” in deco by the mailbox. Danny parked directly in front and rang the bell; chimes like the ones at the Marmont sounded; a pretty boy in a kimono answered. Danny badged him. “Sheriff’s. I’m here to see Felix Gordean.”

The boy lounged in the doorway. “Felix is indisposed right now.”

Danny looked him over, his stomach queasing at blond hair straight from a peroxide bottle. The living room backdropping the boy was ultramodern, with one whole wall mirrored — tinted glass like the one-ways in police interrogation stalls. Vandrich on Gordean: he perved watching men with men. Danny said, “Tell him it’s Deputy Upshaw.”

“It’s all right, Christopher. I’ll talk to this officer.”

The pretty boy jumped at Gordean’s voice; Danny walked in and saw the man, elegant in a silk robe, staring at the one-way. He kept staring; Danny said, “Are you going to look at me?”

Gordean pivoted slowly. “Hello, Deputy. Did you forget something the other night?”

Christopher went over and stood by Gordean, giving the mirror a look-see and a giggle. Danny said, “Four names that I need rundowns on. Donald Wachtel, Alan Marks, Augie Duarte and Timothy Costigan.”

Gordean said, “Those men are clients and friends of mine, and they were all at my office this afternoon. Have you been spying on me?”

Danny stepped toward the two, angling himself away from the mirror. “Get specific. Who are they?”

Gordean shrugged and put his hands on his hips. “As I said, clients and friends.”

“Like I said, get specific.”

“Very well. Don Wachtel and Al Marks are radio actors, Tim Costigan used to be a crooner with the big bands and Augie Duarte is a budding actor who I’ve found commercial work for. In fact, maybe you’ve seen him on television. I found him a job playing a fruit picker in a spot for the California Citrus Growers’ Association.”

Pretty Boy was hugging himself, entranced by the mirror; Danny smelled fear on Gordean. “Remember how I described my suspect the other night? Tall, gray-haired and forty-fivish?”

“Yes. So?”

“So have you seen anyone like that hanging out around your office?”

A deadpan from Gordean; Christopher turning from the mirror, his mouth opening. A brief hand squeeze, pimp to Pretty Boy; the kid’s deadpan. Danny smiled, “That’s it. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

Two men walked into the living room. They were wearing red silk briefs; one man was removing a sequined mask. Both were young and overly muscular, with shaved legs and torsos slicked down with some kind of oil. They eyed the three standing there; the taller of them threw Danny a kissy face. His partner scowled, hooked his fingers inside his briefs, pulled him back to the hallway and out of sight. They trailed giggles; Danny felt like vomiting and went for the door.

Gordean spoke to his back. “No questions about that, Deputy?”

Danny turned around. “No.”

“Wouldn’t you say it runs contrary to your life? I’m sure you’ve got a nice family. A wife or a girlfriend, a nice family who would find that shocking. Would you like to tell me about them over a glass of that nice Napoleon brandy you enjoy so much?”

For a split second Danny felt terrified; Gordean and Pretty Boy became paper silhouettes, villains to empty his gun into. He about-faced out the door, slamming it; he puked into the street, found a hose attached to the adjoining house, drank and doused his face with water. Steadied, he pulled his Chevy around to the opposite side of PCH and parked, lights off, to wait.

Pretty Boy left the house twenty minutes later, walking toward an overpass to the beach. Danny let him get to the steps, cut him five seconds’ more slack, then ran over. His motorcycle boots thunked on cement; the kid looked around and stopped. Danny slowed and walked up to him. Christopher said, “Hello. Want to enjoy the view with—”

Danny hooked him to the gut, grabbed a handful of bottle blond hair and lashed slaps across his face until he felt his knuckles wet with blood. The moon lit up that face: no tears, eyes wide open and accepting. Danny let the boy kneel to the cement and looked down at him huddling into his kimono. “You did see that man hanging around Gordean’s office. Why didn’t you talk?”

Christopher wiped blood from his nose. He said, “Felix didn’t want me to talk to you about it,” no whimper, no defiance, no nothing in his voice.

“Do you do everything Felix tells you to do?”

“Yes.”

“So you saw a man like that?”

Christopher got to his feet and leaned over the railing with his head bowed. “The man had really beautiful hair, like movie star hair. I do file work at the agency, and I’ve seen him out at the bus stop on Sunset a lot the last few days.”

Danny worked the kinks out of his knuckles, rubbing them on his jacket sleeve. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you seen him with a car?”

“No.”

“Have you seen anybody talking to him?”

“No.”

“But you told Felix about him?”

“Y-yes.”

“And how did he react?”

Christopher shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t react much at all.”

Danny leaned over the railing, fists cocked. “Yes, he fucking did, so you fucking tell me.”

“Felix wouldn’t like me to tell.”

“No, but you tell me, or I’ll hurt you.”

The boy pulled away, gulped and spoke fast, a fresh-turned snitch anxious to get it over with. “At first he seemed scared, then he seemed to be thinking, and he told me I should point the man out from the window the next time I saw him.”

“Did you see him again?”

“No. No, I really didn’t.”

Danny thought: and you never will, now that he knows I’m wise to his stakeout. He said, “Does Gordean keep records for his introduction service?”

“No. No, he’s afraid of it.”

Danny shot the boy an elbow. “You people like playing games, so here’s a good one. I tell you something, you put it together with Gordean, who I’m sure you know real well. And you look at me, so I can tell if you’re lying.”

The kid turned, profile to full face, pretty to beaten and slack-featured. Danny tried to evil-eye him; trembly lips made him look at the ocean instead. “Does Gordean know any jazz musicians, guys who hang at the jazz clubs down in darktown?”

“I don’t think so, that’s not Felix’s style.”

“Think fast. Zoot stick. That’s a stick with razor blades at the end, a weapon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A man who looks like the one you saw by the bus stop, a man who uses Gordean’s service.”

“No. I’d never seen that man by the bus stop before, and I don’t know any—”

“Dentists, dental workers, men who can make dentures.”

“No. Too chintzy for Felix. Oh God, this is so strange.”

“Heroin. Guys who push it, guys who like it, guys who can get it.”

“No, no, no. Felix hates needle fiends, he thinks they’re vulgar. Can we please hurry up? I never stay out on my walks this long, and Felix might get worried.”

Danny got the urge to hit again; he stared harder at the water, imagining shark fins cutting the waves. “Shut up and just answer. Now the service. Felix gets his kicks bringing guys out, right?”

“Oh Jesus — yes.”

“Were any of those four men I mentioned queers that he brought out?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Queers in general?”

“Donald and Augie, yes. Tim Costigan and Al Marks are just clients.”

“Did Augie or Don ever turn tricks for the service?”

“Augie did, that’s all I know.”

“Christopher! Did you fall in and drown!”

Danny shifted his gaze, wave churn to beach. Felix Gordean was standing on his back porch, a tiny figure lit by a string of paper lanterns. A glass door stood half open behind him; the two musclemen, barely visible, were entwined on the floor inside. Christopher said, “Please, can I go now?”

Danny looked back at his sharks. “Don’t you tell Gordean about this.”

“What should I tell him about my nose?”

“Tell him a fucking shark bit you.”

“Christopher! Are you coming!”

Danny drove back to La Paloma Drive. An arclight was shining down on the abandoned Pontiac; Mike Breuning was sitting on the hood of an LAPD unmarked, watching a print man dust for latents. Danny killed his engine and beeped the horn; Breuning walked over and leaned in the window. “No prints except the shine the car belongs to — we eliminated him from a gun registration set he had on file at the station. No records on those four names you gave Shortell, and he’s out canvassing now. What happened? Jack said you said the killer was tailing you.”

Danny got out of the car, pissed that Breuning was goldbricking. “I was staking a place on the Strip — a talent agency run by a guy who queer-pimps on the side. I got some license numbers and called the DMV, and somebody called up impersonating a cop and got them too. I was tailed out here, and the guy rabbited when I spotted him. This car was stolen from darktown — right near where the Marty Goines transport car was grabbed. I’ve got an eyeball witness that places a man matching the killer’s description hanging around outside the pimp’s office, which means that those four men should be put under surveillance.Now.”

Breuning whistled; the print man called out, “Nothing but the guy from the elimination set.” Danny said, “You and Jack keep shaking down the citizens. I know it’s a long shot, but do it anyway. When you finish, check cab company log sheets for pickups in the Palisades and Santa Monica Canyon and shake down the bus drivers working the Sunset line. He had to blow the area somehow. He might have stolen another car, so check with the desks at West LA Station, Samo PD and the Malibu Sheriff’s. I’m going home for a minute, then I’ll head down to the Southside and check around where the Pontiac was clouted.”

Breuning pulled out a notebook. “Will do, but where do you expect to get the extra men for your stakes on those names? Gene and Jack and I have got work up the wazoo already, and Dudley told me he’s got you busy on that Commie thing.”

Danny thought of Mal Considine. “We’ll get the men, don’t worry.”

The arclight went off; the stretch of roadway went dark. Breuning said, “Upshaw, what’s with this name Augie Luis Duarte? The killer ain’t Mex and none of his victims were, so why’d you call it in?”

Danny decided to spill on Gordean. “It’s part of a lead I’ve been following up on my own. The pimp is a man named Felix Gordean, and he runs a classy introduction service for homos. George Wiltsie worked for him, the killer was staking his office out, Duarte was one of the names I gave the DMV clerk, and he’s an ex-Gordean whore. Satisfied?”

Breuning whistled again. “Maybe Dudley can get us the extra men. He’s good at that.”

Danny slid back in the car, catching a funny jolt — Dudley Smith’s toady was stringing him along. He said, “You and Jack go to work, and if you get anything hot, call me at home.” He U-turned and took La Paloma down to Sunset, thinking of a sandwich, a weak highball and jigtown canvassing. Sunset was rife with late-evening drivers; Danny turned east and joined a jetstream of lights. His mind went nicely blank; miles passed. Then, hitting the Strip, he got terrified like the half second at the beach house — this time around Man Camera short takes.

Cy Vandrich vamping him.

Breuning going strange over the zoot sticks, like one of the things was slashing at him.

Niles and his two parolees; his “I got a County pal who says you’re not the goody two shoes you pretend to be.”

“Make it good you County fuck” and an LAPD man bloody at his feet.

The chase, like a car thief gig reversed; it had to be him, it couldn’t be him, it was too wrong to be him and too right not to be him.

Gordean making like a mind reader.

Strong-arming a pathetic homo.

The takes dissolved into a cold craving for a drink that saw him the rest of the way home. Danny opened the door and blinked at unexpected light in his living room; he saw the bottle on the coffee table and thought he was entering a hallucination. He drew his gun, snapped that it was a crazy-man stunt and put it back; he walked up to the table, saw a note propped against the jug and read:

Danny began sobbing, racking sobs that wouldn’t go into tears. He kept sobbing, forgetting all about the liquor.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chief DA’s Investigator.

Two Silver Bars, an extra 3.5 grand a year, prestige for the custody battle. The command of twenty-four detectives culled from other police agencies on the basis of their brains and ability to collect evidence that would stand up in court. Substantial say-so in the decision process: when or when not to seek major felony indictments. The inside track for LAPD Chief of Detectives and Big Chief. Power: including rank over Dudley Smith and the noblesse oblige to make an afternoon of shitwork with Buzz Meeks tolerable.

Mal walked into the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Ellis Loew had called early; he and Meeks were to meet at INS, “Try to bury whatever hatchet exists between you,” and check the service’s files on UAES sympathizers born outside the United States for deportation levers. Loew had phrased it like an order; captain or not, he had no choice. The DA had also requested a detailed memo on his non-UAES questionings and an update on the overall investigation — which he was late on — eyeballing Danny Upshaw’s performance had cost him an afternoon — he’d been playing operator boss while Dudley was out shaking down the Pinkos Lenny Rolff ratted on.

Mal settled into the file room the records supervisor had arranged for them to use. He checked his watch and saw that he was early: Meeks wasn’t due until 9:00; he had forty minutes to work before the fat man slimed in. Stacks of files had been arranged on a long metal table; Mal shoved them to the far corner, sat down and started writing.

Writing out his new title gave Mal the chills; he thought of buying a fancy pen to commemorate the occasion. He moved down to the file stacks, heard “Think fast” and saw a little blue object lobbing toward him, Buzz Meeks the lobber. He caught it on reflex — a velvet jeweler’s box. Meeks said, “A peace offering, skipper. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend the day with a guy who mighta had me shot without kissin’ some ass.”

Mal opened the box and saw a pair of shiny silver captain’s bars. He looked at Meeks; the fat man said, “I’m not askin’ for a handshake or a ‘Gee, thanks, old buddy,’ but I sure would like to know if it was you sent those torpedoes after me.”

Something about Meeks was off: his usual slimy charm was subdued and he had to know that whatever happened in ’46 had no bearing on now. Mal snapped the box shut and tossed it back. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Meeks palmed the gift. “My last shot at civility, skipper. When I moved on Laura, I didn’t know she was a cop’s wife.”

Mal smoothed his vest front; Meeks always made him feel like he needed steam cleaning. “Take the files on the end. You know what Ellis wants.”

Meeks shrugged and complied, a pro. Mal dug into his first file, read through a long INS background check report, sensed a solid citizen type with bum politics spawned by the big European inflation and put the folder aside. Files two and three were more of the same; he kept stealing glances at Meeks grinding notes, wondering what the cracker wanted. Four, five, six, seven, eight, all Hitler refugee stuff, poison that made drifts to the far left seem justified. Meeks caught his eye and winked; Mal saw that he was happy or amused about something. Nine and ten dawdled over, then a rap on the file room door. “Knock, knock, who’s there? Dudley Smith, so Reds beware!”

Mal stood up; Dudley came over and gave him a barrage of hard back slaps. “Six years my junior, and a captain you are. How grand! Lad, you have my most heartfelt congratulations.”

Mal saw himself trashing the Irishman, making him eat orders and kowtow. “Congratulations accepted, Lieutenant.”

“And you’ve a wicked wit to match your new rank. Wouldn’t you say so, Turner?”

Meeks rocked in his chair. “Dudley, I can’t get this boy to say much of anything.”

Dudley laughed. “I suspect there’s old fury between you two. What it derives from I don’t know, although cherchez la femme might be a good bet. Malcolm, while I’m here let me ask you something about our friend Upshaw. Is he sticking his snout into our investigation past his decoy work? The other men on the homo job resent him and seem to think he’s a meddler.”

“While I’m here” echoed; “cherchez la femme” thundered — Mal knew Dudley had the story on him and Meeks. “You’re as subtle as a freight train, Lieutenant. And what is it about you and Upshaw?”

Dudley ha’ ha’d; Meeks said, “Mike Breuning’s ditzed on the kid, too. He called me last night and ran a list of names by me, four guys Upshaw wanted tails put on. He asked me if they were from the queer job or the grand jury. I told him I didn’t know, that I never met the kid, all I got on him was third-hand.”

Mal cleared his throat, ticked at being talked around. “What third hand, Meeks?”

The fat man smiled. “I was workin’ an angle on Reynolds Loftis, and I came up with a lead from Samo PD Vice. Loftis was rousted at a queer bar back in ’44, pallin’ with a lawyer named Charles Hartshorn, a big wheel downtown. I braced Hartshorn, and he thought at first I was a Homicide dick, ’cause he was acquainted with one of the dead homos from Upshaw’s job. I knew the guy was no killer. I leaned on him hard, then bought myself off on him rattin’ me by tellin’ him I’d keep the County heat away.”

Mal remembered Meeks’ memo to Ellis Loew: their first outside corroboration of Loftis’ homosexuality. “You’re sure Hartshorn wasn’t essential to Upshaw’s case?”

“Boss, that guy’s only crime is bein’ a homo with money and a family.”

Dudley laughed. “Which is preferable to being a homo with no money and no family. You’re a family man, Malcolm. Wouldn’t you say that’s true?”

Mal’s chain snapped. “Dudley, what the fuck do you want? I’m running this job and Upshaw is working for me, so you just tell me why you’re so interested in him.”

Dudley Smith did a master vaudeville take: a rebuked youth shuffling his feet, going hangdog with hunched shoulders and a pouting lower lip. “Lad, you hurt my feelings. I just wanted to celebrate your good fortune and make it known that Upshaw has incurred the wrath of his fellow officers, men not used to taking orders from twenty-seven-year-old dilettantes.”

“The wrath of a Dragna bagman with a grudge on the Sheriff’s and your protégé, you mean.”

“That’s one interpretation, yes.”

“Lad, Upshaw is my protégé. And I’m a captain and you’re a lieutenant. Don’t forget what that means. Now please leave and let us work.”

Dudley saluted crisply and walked out; Mal saw that his hands were steady and his voice hadn’t quivered; Meeks started applauding. Mal smiled, remembered who he was smiling at and stopped. “Meeks, what do you want?”

Meeks rocked his chair. “Steak lunch at the Dining Car, maybe a vacation up at Arrowhead.”

“And?”

“And I’m not hog-wild about this job and I don’t like the idea of you makin’ voodoo eyes at me till it’s over and I liked you standin’ up to Dudley Smith.”

Mal half smiled. “Keep going.”

“You were scared of him and you dressed him anyway. I liked that.”

“I’ve got rank on him now. A week ago I’d have let it go.”

Meeks yawned, like it was all starting to bore him. “Pal, bein’ afraid of Dudley Smith means two things: that you’re smart and you’re sane. And I outranked him once and let him slide, because that is one smart fucker that never forgets. So, accolades, Captain Considine, and I still want that steak lunch.”

Mal thought of the two silver bars. “Meeks, you’re not the type to offer amends.”

Buzz stood up. “Like I said, I’m not hog-wild about this job, but I need the money. So let’s just say it’s got me thinkin’ about the amenities of life.”

“I’m not hog-wild about it either, but I need it.”

Meeks said, “I’m sorry about Laura.”

Mal tried to remember his ex-wife naked, and couldn’t. “It wasn’t me that had you shot. I heard it was Dragna triggers.”

Meeks tossed Mal the velvet box. “Take it while I’m feelin’ generous. I just bought my girl two C-notes’ worth of sweaters.”

Mal pocketed the insignia and stuck out his hand; Meeks gave him a bonecrusher. “Lunch, Skipper?”

“Sure, Sarge.”

They took the elevator down to ground level and walked out to the street. Two patrolmen were standing in front of a black-and-white sipping coffee; Mal picked a string of words out of their conversation: “Mickey Cohen, bomb, bad.”

Meeks badged the two, hard. “DA’s Bureau. What’d you just say about Cohen?”

The younger cop, a peach-fuzz rookie type, said, “Sir, we just heard on the radio. Mickey Cohen’s house just got bombed. It looks bad.”

Meeks took off running; Mal followed him to a mint green Caddy and got in — one look at the fat man’s face telling him “why?” was a useless question. Meeks hung a tire-screeching U-ey out into Westwood traffic and hauled west, through the Veterans Administration Compound, out onto San Vicente. Mal thought of Mickey Cohen’s house on Moreno; Meeks kept the pedal down, zigzagging around cars and pedestrians, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” At Moreno, he turned right; Mal saw fire engines, prowl units and tall plumes of smoke up the block. Meeks skidded up to a crime scene rope and got out; Mal stood on his tiptoes and saw a nice Spanish house smoldering, LA’s number-one hoodlum standing on the lawn, unsinged, ranting at a cadre of uniform brass. Rubberneckers were choking the street, the sidewalk and adjoining front lawns; Mal looked for Meeks and couldn’t see him anywhere. He turned and gave his backside a shot — and there was his grand jury cohort, the most corrupt cop in LA history, engaged in pure suicide.

Buzz was just past the edge of the commotion, smothering a showstopper blonde with kisses. Mal recognized her from gossip column pics: Audrey Anders, the Va Va Voom Girl, Mickey Cohen’s on-the-side woman. Buzz and Audrey kissed; Mal gawked from a distance, then turned around and checked the lovebirds’ flank, scoping for witnesses, Cohen goons who’d squeal to their master. The whole crowd was contained behind the crime scene ropes, occupied with Mickey’s tirade; Mal kept scanning anyway. He felt a hard tap on his shoulder; Buzz Meeks was there wiping lipstick off his face. “Boss, I am in your power. Now we gonna go get that steak?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“...And Norm says you can fight. He’s a prizefighting fan, so it must be true. Now the question is, are you willing to fight in other ways — and for us.”

Danny looked across the table at Claire De Haven and Norman Kostenz. Five minutes into his audition; the woman all business so far, keeping friendly Norm businesslike with little taps that chilled his gushing about the picket line fracas. A handsome woman who had to keep touching things: her cigarettes and lighter, Kostenz when he gabbed too heavy or said something that pleased her. Five minutes in and he knew this about acting: a big part of the trick was sneaking what was really going on with you into your performance. He’d been up all night canvassing darktown straight off a weird jag of sobbing, coming up with nothing on the stolen Pontiac, but sensing HIM watching; the La Paloma Drive canvassing was a zero, ditto the bus line and cab company checks, and Mike Breuning had called to tell him he was trying to wangle four officers to tail the men on his surveillance list. He felt tired and edgy and knew it showed; he was running with his case, not this Commie shit, and if De Haven pressed for background verification he was going to play pissed and bring the conversation down to brass tacks: his resurgence of political faith and what UAES had for him to prove it with. “Miss De Haven—”

“Claire.”

“Claire, I want to help. I want to get moving again. I’m rusty with everything but my fists, and I have to find a job pretty soon, but I want to help.”

Claire De Haven lit a cigarette and sent a hovering waitress packing with a wave of her lighter. “I think for now you should embrace a philosophy of nonviolence. I need someone to come with me when I go out courting contributors. You’d be good at helping me secure contributions from HUAC widows, I can tell.”

Danny took “HUAC widows” as a cue and frowned, wounded by sudden memories of Donna Cantrell — hot love drowned in the Hudson River. Claire said, “Is something wrong, Ted?”; Norm Kostenz touched her hand as if to say, “Man stuff.” Danny winced, his muscle aches kicking in for real. “No, you just reminded me of someone I used to know.”

Claire smiled. “I reminded you or what I said did?”

Danny exaggerated a grimace. “Both, Claire.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not quite yet.”

Claire called the waitress over and said, “A pitcher of martinis”; the girl curtsied away, writing the order down. Danny said, “No more action on the picket line, then?”

Kostenz said, “The time isn’t right, but pretty soon we’ll lower the boom”; Claire shushed him — a mere flicker of her zealot’s eyes. Danny horned in, Red Ted the pushy guy who’d step on anybody’s toes. “What ‘boom’? What are you talking about?”

Claire played with her lighter. “Norm has a precipitate streak, and for a boxing fan he’s read a lot of Gandhi. Ted, he’s impatient and I’m impatient. There was a grand jury investigation forming up, sort of a baby HUAC, but now it looks like it went bust. That’s still scary. And I listened to the radio on the ride over. There was another attempt on Mickey Cohen’s life. Sooner or later, he’ll go crazy and sic his goons on the picket line at us. We’ll have to have cameras there to catch it.”

She hadn’t really answered his question, and the passive resistance spiel sounded like subterfuge. Danny got ready to deliver a flirt line; the waitress returning stopped him. Claire said, “Just two glasses, please”; Norm Kostenz said, “I’m on the wagon,” and left with a wave. Claire poured two all ones; Danny hoisted his glass and toasted, “To the cause.” Claire said, “To all things good.”

Danny drank, making an ugh face, a nonboozer notching points with a juicehead woman; Claire sipped and said, “Car thief, revolutionary, ladies’ man. I am suitably impressed.”

Cut her slack, let her move, reel her in. “Don’t be, because it’s all phony.”

“Oh? Meaning?”

“Meaning I was a punk kid revolutionary and a scared car thief.”

“And the ladies’ man?”

The hook baited. “Let’s just say I was trying to recapture an image.”

“Did you ever succeed?”

“No.”

“Because she’s that special?”

Danny took a long drink, booze on top of no sleep making him misty. “She was.”

“Was?”

Danny knew she’d gotten the story from Kostenz, but played along. “Yeah, was. I’m a HUAC widower, Claire. The other women were just not...”

Claire said, “Not her.”

“Right, not her. Not strong, not committed, not...”

“Not her.”

Danny laughed. “Yeah, not her. Shit, I feel like a broken record.”

Claire laughed. “I’d give you a snappy rejoinder about broken hearts, but you’d hit me.”

“I only beat up fascists.”

“No rough stuff with women?”

“Not my style.”

“It’s mine occasionally.”

“I’m shocked.”

“I doubt that.”

Danny killed the drink. “Claire, I want to work for the union, more than just lubing old biddies for money.”

“You’ll get your chance. And they’re not old biddies — unless you think women my age are old.”

A prime opening. “How old are you? Thirty-one, thirty-two?”

Claire laughed the compliment out. “Diplomat. How old are you?”

Danny reached for Ted Krugman’s age, coming up with it maybe a beat too slow. “I’m twenty-six.”

“Well, I’m too old for boys and too young for gigolos. How’s that for an answer?”

“Evasive.”

Claire laughed and fondled her ashtray. “I’ll be forty in May. So thanks for the subtraction.”

“It was sincere.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Hook her now, get to the station early. “Claire, do I have political credibility with you?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Then let’s try this on the other. I’d like to see you outside our work for the union.”

Claire’s whole face softened; Danny got an urge to slap the bitch silly so she’d get mad and be a fit enemy. He said, “I mean it,” Joe Clean Cut Sincere, Commie version.

Claire said, “Ted, I’m engaged”; Danny said, “I don’t care.” Claire reached into her purse, pulled out a scented calling card and placed it on the table. “We should at least get better acquainted. Some of us in the union are meeting at my house tonight. Why don’t you come for the end of the meeting and say hello to everybody. Then, if you feel like it, we can take a drive and talk.”

Danny palmed the card and stood up. “What time?”

“8:30.”

He’d be there early; pure cop, pure work. “I look forward to it.”

Claire De Haven had gotten herself back together, her face set and dignified. “So do I.”

Krugman back to Upshaw.

Danny drove to Hollywood Station, parked three blocks away and walked over. Mike Breuning met him in the muster room doorway, grinning. “You owe me one, Deputy.”

“What for?”

“Those guys on your list are now being tailed. Dudley authorized it, so you owe him one, too.”

Danny smiled. “Fucking A. Who are they? Did you give them my number?”

“No. They’re what you might wanta call Dudley’s boys. You know, Homicide Bureau guys Dudley’s brought up from rookies. They’re smart guys, but they’ll only report to Dud.”

“Breuning, this is my investigation.”

“Upshaw, I know. But you’re damn lucky to have the men you’ve got, and Dudley’s working the grand jury job too, so he wants to keep you happy. Have some goddamn gratitude. You’ve got no rank and you’re running seven full-time men. When I was your age, I was rousting piss bums on skid row.”

Danny moved past Breuning into the muster room, knowing he was right, pissed anyway. Plainclothesmen and bluesuits were milling around, chuckling over something on the notice board. He looked over their shoulders and saw a new cartoon, worse than the one Jack Shortell ripped down.

Mickey Cohen, fangs, skullcap and a giant hard-on, pouring it up the ass of a guy in an LASD uniform. The deputy’s pockets were spilling greenbacks; Cohen’s speech balloon said: “Smile, sweetie! Mickey C. gives it kosher!”

Danny shoved a line of blues aside and pulled the obscenity off the wall; he pivoted around, faced a full contingent of enemy cops and tore the piece of cardboard to shreds. The LAPD men gawked, simmered and plain stared; Gene Niles pushed through them and faced Danny down. He said, “I talked to a guy named Leo Bordoni. He wouldn’t blab outright, but I could tell he’d been questioned before. I think you rousted him, and I think it was inside Goines’ pad. When I described the place it was like he’d already fucking been there.”

Except for Niles, the room was a blur. Danny said, “Not now, Sergeant,” brass, the voice of authority.

“Up your ass, not now. I think you B&E’d in my jurisdiction. I know you didn’t catch that squeal at the doughnut stand, and I’ve got a damn good lead where you did get it. If I can prove it, you’re—”

“Niles not now.”

“Up your ass, not now. I had a good robbery case going until you came along with your crazy homo shit. You’ve got a queer fix, you’re cuckoo on it and maybe you are a fucking queer!”

Danny lashed out, quick lefts and rights, short speed punches that caught Niles flush, ripped his face but didn’t move his body back one inch. The enemy cops dispersed; Danny launched a hook to the gut; Niles feinted and came in with a hard uppercut, slamming Danny into the wall. He hung there, a stationary target, pretending to be gone; Niles telegraphed a huge right hand at his midsection. Danny slid away just before contact; Niles’ fist hit the wall; he screeched into the sound of bones crunching. Danny sidestepped, swung Niles around and rolled sets at his stomach; Niles doubled over; Danny felt the enemy cops moving in. Somebody yelled, “Stop it!”; strong arms bear-hugged and picked him up. Jack Shortell materialized, whispering, “Easy, easy,” in the bear hugger’s ear; the arms let go; another somebody yelled “Watch Commander walking!” Danny went limp and let the old-timer cop lead him out a side exit.

Krugman to Upshaw to Krugman.

Shortell got Danny back to his car, extracting a promise that he’d try to sleep. Danny drove home, woozy one second, all jitters the next. Finally pure exhaustion hit him and he employed Ted-Claire repartee to stay awake. The banter saw him straight to bed, a pass on Mal Considine’s bottle. With the Krugman leather jacket as his blanket, he fell asleep immediately.

And was joined by odd women and HIM.

The San Berdoo High senior hop, 1939. Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey on the PA system, Susan Leffert leading him out of the gym and into the boys’ locker room, a Mason jar of schnapps as bait. Inside, she fumbles at his shirt buttons, licking his chest, biting the hair. He tries to drum up enthusiasm by staring at his body in the dressing mirror, but keeps thinking of Tim; that feels good, but hurts, and finally having it both ways is just bad. He tells Susan he met an older woman he wants to be loyal to, she reminds him of Suicide Donna who bought him his nice bombardier jacket, a real war hero number. Susan says, “What war?”; the action fades because he knows something’s off, Pearl Harbor is still two years away. Then this tall, faceless man, silver-haired, naked, is there, all around him in a circle, and squinting to see his face makes him go soft in Susan’s mouth.

Then a whole corridor of mirrors, him chasing HIM, Karen Hiltscher, Roxy Beausoleil, Janice Modine and a bevy of Sunset Strip gash swooping down while he hurls excuses.

“I can’t today, I have to study.”

“I don’t dance, it makes me self-conscious.”

“Some other time, okay?”

“Sweetie, let’s keep this light. We work together.”

“I don’t want it.”

“No.”

“Claire, you’re the only real woman I’ve met since Donna.”

“Claire, I want to fuck you so bad just like I used to fuck Donna and all the others. They all loved it because I loved doing it so much.”

He was gaining ground on HIM, gaining focus on the gray man’s brick shithouse build. The apparition twirled around; he had no face, but Tim’s body and bigger stuff than Demon Don Eversall, who use to hang out in the shower, trap water in his jumbo foreskin, hold his thing out and croon, “Come drink from my cup of love.” Hard kissing; bodies mashed together, the two of them inside each other, Claire walking out of the mirror, saying, “That’s impossible.”

Then a gunshot, then another and another.

Danny jolted awake. He heard a fourth ring, saw that he’d sweated the bed sopping, felt like he had to piss and threw off the jacket to find his trousers wet. He fumbled over to the phone and blurted, “Yes?”

“Danny, it’s Jack.”

“Yeah, Jack.”

“Son, I cleared you with the assistant watch commander, this lieutenant named Poulson. He’s pals with Al Dietrich, and he’s reasonable about our Department.”

Danny thought: and Dietrich’s pals with Felix Gordean, who’s got LAPD and DA’s Bureau pals, and Niles is pals with God knows who on the Sheriff’s. “What about Niles?”

“He’s been yanked from our job. I told Poulson he’d been riding you, that he provoked the fight. I think you’ll be okay.” A pause, then, “Are you okay? Did you sleep?”

The dream was coming back; Danny stifled a shot of HIM. “Yeah, I slept. Jack, I don’t want Mal Considine to hear about what happened.”

“He’s your boss on the grand jury?”

“Right.”

“Well, I won’t tell him, but somebody probably will.”

Mike Breuning and Dudley Smith replaced HIM. “Jack, I have to do some work on the other job. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Shortell said, “One more thing. We got minor league lucky on our hot car queries — an Olds was snatched two blocks from La Paloma. Abandoned at the Samo Pier, no prints, but I’m adding ‘car thief’ to our records checks. And we’re a hundred and forty-one down on the dental queries. It’s going slow, but I have a hunch we’ll get him.”

HIM.

Danny laughed, yesterday’s wounds aching, new bone bruises firing up in his knuckles. “Yeah, we’ll get him.”

Danny segued back to Krugman with a shower and change of clothes, Red Ted the stud in Karen Hiltscher’s sports jacket, pegged flannels and a silk shirt from Considine’s disguise kit. He drove to Beverly Hills middle-lane slow, checking his rear-view every few seconds for cars riding his tail too close and a no-face man peering too intently, shining his headlights too bright because deep down he wanted to be caught, wanted everyone to know WHY. No likely suspects appeared in the mirror; twice his trawling almost got him into fender benders. He arrived at Claire De Haven’s house forty-five minutes early; he saw Caddies and Lincolns in the driveway, muted lights glowing behind curtained windows and one narrow side dormer cracked for air, screened and shade covered — but open. The dormer faced a stone footpath and tall shrubs separating the De Haven property from the neighboring house; Danny walked over, squatted down and listened.

Words came at him, filtered through coughs and garbled interruptions. He picked out a man’s shout: “Cohen and his farshtunkener lackeys have to go nutso first”; Claire’s “It’s all in knowing when to squeeze.” A soft, mid-Atlantic drawl: “We have to give the studios an out to save face with, that’s why knowing when is so important. It has to hit the fan just right.”

Danny kept checking his blind side for witnesses; he heard a long digression on the ’52 presidential election — who’d run, who wouldn’t — that degenerated into a childish shouting match, Claire finally dominating with her opinion of Stevenson and Taft, fascist minions of varying stripes. There was something about a movie director named Paul Doinelle and his “Cocteau-like” classics; then an almost complete duet: the soft-voiced man chuckling over “old flames,” a man with a stentorian Southern accent punch-lining, “But I got Claire.” Danny recalled the psychiatric files: Reynolds Loftis and Chaz Minear were lovers years ago; Considine told him that now Claire and Loftis were engaged to be married. He got stomach flip-flops and looked at his watch: 8:27, time to meet the enemy.

He walked around and rang the bell. Claire opened the door and said, “Right on time”; Danny saw that her makeup and slacks suit tamped down her wrinkles and showed off her curves better than the powder job and dress at the restaurant. He said, “You look lovely, Claire.”

Claire whispered, “Save it for later,” took his arm and led him into the living room, subtle swank offset by framed movie posters: Pinko titles from the grand jury package. Three men were standing around holding drinks: a Semitic-looking guy in tweeds, a small, trim number wearing a tennis sweater and white ducks, and a dead ringer composite for HIM — a silver-maned man pushing fifty, topping six feet by at least two inches, as lanky as Mal Considine but ten times as handsome. Danny stared at his face, thinking something about the set of his eyes was familiar, then looked away — queer or ex-queer or whatever, he was just an image — a Commie, not a killer.

Claire made the introductions. “Gentlemen, Ted Krugman. Ted, left to right we have Mort Ziffkin, Chaz Minear and Reynolds Loftis.”

Danny shook their hands, getting, “Hey there, slugger,” from Ziffkin, “A pleasure,” from Minear and a wry smile out of Loftis, an implicit aside: I allow my fiancée to dally with younger guys. He gave the tall man his strongest grip, snapping hard into Ted K. “The pleasure’s all mine, and I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Minear smiled; Ziffkin said, “Attaboy”; Loftis said, “You and Claire have a good strategy talk, but get her home early, you hear?” — a Southern accent, but no syrup and another aside: he was sleeping with De Haven tonight.

Danny laughed, knowing he’d just memorized Loftis’ features; Claire sighed, “Let’s go, Ted. Strategy awaits.”

They walked outside. Danny thought of rolling tails and steered Claire to his car. She said, “Where do you want to strategize”; her aside, her parody on Loftis playing cute. Danny opened the passenger door, getting an idea: prowl darktown with the protective coloration of a woman in tow. It was nearly two weeks since he’d gone strongarming down there, he probably wouldn’t be recognized in his non-cop outfit and HE was near the Southside strip just yesterday. “I like jazz. Do you?”

“I love it, and I know a great spot in Hollywood.”

“I know some places on South Central that really bop. What do you say?”

Claire hesitated, then said, “Sure, sounds like fun.”

East on Wilshire, south on Normandie. Danny drove fast, thinking of his midnight meeting and ways to chill Considine on the Niles ruckus; he kept checking the rear-view mock casual, gifting Claire with a smile each time so she’d think he was thinking of her. Nothing strange appeared in the mirror; Reynolds Loftis’ face stayed in his mind, a $$$ to make the face jump out and bite him. Claire chain-smoked and drummed her nails on the dashboard.

The silence played right, two idealists deep in thought. East on Slauson, south on Central, more mirror checks now that they were on HIS stomping ground. Danny pulled up in front of the Club Zombie; Claire said, “Ted, what are you afraid of?”

The question caught him checking his waistband for the sap he always packed on niggertown assignments; he stopped and grabbed the wheel, Red Ted the persecuted Negro’s buddy. “The Teamsters, I guess. I’m rusty.”

Claire put a hand on his cheek. “You’re tired and lonely and driven. You want to please and do the right thing so badly that it just about breaks my heart.”

Danny leaned into the caress, a catch in his throat like when he saw Considine’s bottle. Claire took her hand away and kissed the spot she’d touched. “I am such a sucker for strays. Come on, strong silent type. We’re going to listen to music and hold hands, and we’re not going to talk about politics.”

The catch stuck; the kiss was still warm. Danny walked ahead of Claire to the door; the bouncer from New Year’s Day was there and eyed him like he was just another white hepcat. Claire caught up just as the cold air got him back to normal: Krugman the Commie on a hot date, Upshaw the Homicide cop on overtime. He took her arm and led her inside.

The Zombie interior was just like two weeks before, with an even louder, more dissonant combo wailing on the bandstand. This time the clientele was all Negro: a sea of black faces offset by colored lighting, a flickering canvas where a white/gray face would stand out and scream, “Me!” Danny slipped the maitre d’ a five-spot and requested a wall table with a floor view; the man led them to seats near the back exit, took their order for a double bonded and a dry martini, bowed and motioned for a waitress. Danny settled Claire into the chair closest to the bandstand; he grabbed the one facing the bar and the audience.

Claire laced her fingers through Danny’s and beat time on the table with their hands, a gentle beat, counterpoint to the screechy bebop that filled the room. The drinks arrived; Claire paid, a fiver to the high-yellow waitress, her free hand up to refuse the change. The girl sashayed off; Danny sipped bourbon — cheap house stuff that burned. Claire squeezed his hand; he squeezed back, grateful for loud music that made talk impossible. Looking out at the crowd, he sensed that HIM here was just as impossible — he’d know the police now had him pegged as a darktown car thief — he’d avoid South Central like the plague.

But the place felt right, safe and dark. Danny closed his eyes and listened to the music, Claire’s hand on his still making a beat. The combo’s rhythm was complex: drums shooting a melody to the sax, the sax winging it off on digressions, returning to simpler and simpler chords, then the main theme, then the trumpet and bass taking flight, going crazy with more and more complicated riffs. Listening for the handoffs was hypnotic; half the sounds were ugly and strange, making him wish for the simple, pretty themes to come back. Danny listened, ignoring his drink, trying to figure the music out and predict where it was going. He felt like he was getting the synchronization when a crescendo came out of nowhere, the players quit playing, applause hit like thunder and bright lights came on.

Claire dropped his hand and started clapping; a mulatto lounge lizard sidled by the table, saying, “Hello, sweet. I ain’t seen you in a dog’s age.” Claire averted her eyes; Danny stood up; the mulatto said, “Forget old friends, see if I care,” and kept sidling.

Claire lit a cigarette, her lighter shaking. Danny said, “Who was that?”

“Oh, a friend of a friend. I used to have a thing for jazz musicians.”

The mulatto had made his way up to the bandstand; Danny saw him slip something into the bass player’s hand, a flash of green picked up at the same time. Considine on De Haven: she was a skin-popper and devotee of pharmacy hop.

Danny sat down; Claire stubbed out her cigarette and sparked another one. The lights were dimmed; the music started — a slow, romantic ballad. Danny tried the beating time maneuver, but Claire’s hand wouldn’t move. Her eyes were darting around the room; he saw the exit door across from them open up, spotlighting Carlton W. Jeffries, the grasshopper he’d strong-armed for a snitch on H pushers. The doorway cast a strip of light all the way over to Claire De Haven making with rabbity eyes, a rich white girl with a snout for lowlife afraid that more embarrassment might ruin her date with an undercover cop out to get her indicted for treason. The door closed; Danny felt her fear jump on him and turn the nice, dark, safe place bad, full of crazy jungle niggers who’d eat him whole, revenging all the niggers he’d pushed around. He said, “Claire, let’s leave, okay?”

Claire said, “Yes, let’s.”

The ride back was all Claire with the jitters, rambling on what she’d accomplished with what organizations — a litany that sounded harmless and probably contained not one shred of information that Considine and Loew would find interesting. Danny let it wash over him, thinking of his meeting, wondering what Leo Bordoni told Gene Niles, if Niles really had a County source to place him inside 2307, and if he could prove it, would anybody care? Should he grease Karen Hiltscher on general principles, her being the only real snitch possibility, even though her even knowing Niles was unlikely? And how should he lay off the blame for the fight? How to make Considine think his future exec beating up one of his own men was kosher, when that man might just have him by the balls?

Danny turned onto Claire’s block, thinking of good exit lines; slowing down and stopping, he had two at the ready. He smiled and prepared to perform; Claire touched his cheek, softer than the first time. “I’m sorry, Teddy. It was a lousy first date. Rain check?”

Danny said, “Sure,” going all warm, the catch again.

“Tomorrow night, here? Just us, strategy and whatever the spirit moves us to?”

Her hand had reversed itself, knuckles lightly tracing his jawline. “Sure... darling.”

She stopped then, eyes shut, lips parted. Danny moved into the kiss, wanting the soft hand, not the hungry mouth painted pinkish red. Just as they touched, he froze and almost pulled away. Claire’s tongue slid across his teeth, probing. He thought of Reynolds Loftis, gave the woman his face and did it.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mal was watching Buzz Meeks eat, thinking that suicide love must be good for the appetite: the fat man had devoured a plate of stuffed shrimp, two double-thick pork chops with onion rings, and was now killing a huge piece of peach pie buried in ice cream. It was their second meal together, with INS file work and his run by Jake Kellerman’s office in between; at lunch Meeks had wolfed a porterhouse, home fries and three orders of rice pudding. Mal picked at a plate of chicken salad and shook his head; Meeks said, “A growin’ boy’s got to feed. What time’s Upshaw due?”

Mal checked his watch. “I told him midnight. Why, do you have plans?”

“A late one with my sweetie. Howard’s usin’ his spot up by the Bowl, so we’re meetin’ at her place. I told her I’d be there by one at the latest, and I mean to be punctual.”

“Meeks, are you taking precautions?”

Buzz said, “We use the rhythm method. Her place when Howard’s rhythm moves us.” He dug in his coat pockets and fished out an envelope. “I forgot to tell you. When you were at your lawyer’s, Ellis came by. I gave him your memo, and he read it and wrote you one. Apparently, your boy traded blows with some LAPD dick. Ellis said to read this and abide by it.”

Mal opened the envelope and pulled out a slip of paper covered with Ellis Loew’s handwriting. He read:

Mal wadded the paper up and hurled it blindly; it bounced off the back of the booth and landed on Meeks’ butter plate. Buzz said, “Whoa, partner”; Mal looked up and saw Danny Upshaw hovering. He said, “Sit down, Deputy,” ticked until he noticed the kid’s hands were shaking.

Danny slid into the booth next to Meeks. Buzz said, “Turner Meeks” and gave him a shake; Danny nodded and turned to Mal. “Congratulations, Captain. And thanks for the jug.”

Mal eyed his decoy, thinking that right now he looked not one iota cop. “Thank you, and my pleasure. And before we get to business, what happened with Sergeant Niles?”

Danny gripped an empty water glass. “He’s got a crazy idea I B&E’d the place where the second and third victims were found. Essentially, he’s miffed at taking orders from me. Jack Shortell told me the watch commander yanked him off the case, so I’m glad he’s out of my hair.”

The answer sounded rehearsed. Mal said, “That’s all of it?”

“Yes.”

“And did you B&E?”

“No, of course not.”

Mal thought of the “queer” remark, but let it pass. “All right, then consider this a reprimand, from Ellis Loew and myself. No more of that, period. Don’t let it happen again. Got that?”

Danny raised the glass, looking chagrined when he found it empty. “Yes, Captain.”

“It’s still ‘Mal.’ Do you want something to eat?”

“No thanks.”

“A drink?”

Danny pushed the glass away. “No.”

Buzz said, “Save your dukes for the Police Golden Gloves. I knew a guy made Sergeant beatin’ up on guys his CO hated.”

Danny laughed; Mal wished that he’d order a shot for his nerves. “Tell me about the approach. Have you met with De Haven?”

“Yeah, twice.”

“And?”

“And she’s making a play for me.”

His operative was actually blushing. Mal said, “Tell me about it.”

“There’s not much to tell yet. We had a date tonight, we’ve got another one set for tomorrow night. I listened outside her house while a meeting was going on, and I picked up some stuff. Pretty vague, but enough to tell me that they have some kind of extortion angle going against the studios and they’re planning to time it with the Teamsters going crazy on the picket line. So tell Mickey to keep his guys in check. I could tell this angle is important to their strategy, and when I see De Haven tomorrow, I’m going to press her for details.”

Mal kicked the dope around, thinking that it played true to his take on the brain trusters: they were duplicitous, they talked a lot, they took their own sweet time acting and let outside events call the tune. “Who have you met besides Kostenz and De Haven?”

“Loftis, Minear and Ziffkin, but just briefly.”

“How did they impress you?”

Danny made an open-handed gesture. “They didn’t really impress me at all. I only spoke to them for a minute or so.”

Buzz chuckled and loosened his belt. “You were lucky old Reynolds didn’t jump your bones instead of De Haven. Nice-lookin’ young guy like you would probably get that old prowler stiffin’ up a hard yard.”

Danny flushed again. Mal thought of him working two twenty-four-hour-a-day cases, jamming them into one twenty-four-hour day. He said, “Tell me how your other job’s going.”

Danny’s eyes were darting, flicking over the neighboring booths, lingering on men at the bar before returning to Mal. He said, “Slow but well, I think. I’ve got my own home file, all the evidence and all my impressions, and that’s a help. I’ve got a bunch of records checks going, and so far that’s slow, but steady. Where I think I’m getting close is on the victims, putting them together. He’s not a random psycho, I know that. If I get closer, I might need a decoy to help draw him out. Would it be possible to get another man?”

Mal said, “No” ’ he watched Danny’s eyes follow two men walking past their booth. “No, not after your stunt with Niles. You’ve got those four officers Dudley Smith swung you—”

“They’re Dudley’s men, not mine! They won’t even report to me, and Mike Breuning’s jerking my chain! For all I know he’s bunked out on the whole job!”

Mal slapped the table, bringing Danny’s eyes back to him. “Look at me and listen. I want you to calm down and take things slow. You’re doing all you can on both your assignments, and aside from Niles you’re doing great. Now you’ve lost one man, but you’ve got your tailing officers, so just figure you’ve cut your goddamn losses, knuckle down and be a professional. Be a policeman.”

Danny’s eyes, blurry, held on Mal. Buzz said, “Deputy, you got any hard leads on your victims, any whatcha call common denominators?”

The operative spoke to his operator. “A man named Felix Gordean. He’s a homosexual procurer connected to one of the victims, and I know the killer’s got some kind of fix on him. I haven’t leaned on him too hard yet, because he’s paying off County Central Vice and he says he’s got influence with LAPD and the Bureau.”

Mal said, “Well, I’ve never heard of him, and I’m top Bureau dog. Buzz, do you know this guy?”

“Sure do, boss. Large City juice, larger County. One lean and mean fruitfly, plays golf with Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, puts a few shekels in Al Dietrich’s pockets come Christmastime, too.”

As he said the words, Mal knew it was one of the finest moments of his life. “Lean on him, Danny. I’ll stand the heat, and if anyone gives you grief, you’ve got the Chief DA’s Investigator for the City of Los Angeles in your corner.”

Danny stood up, looking heartbreaker grateful. Mal said, “Go home and sleep, Ted. Have a nightcap on me.” The decoy left, saluting his brother officers; Buzz breathed out slowly. “That boy is up on a tall old tree limb lookin’ down at a tall old boy with a saw, and you’ve got more balls than brains.”

It was just about the nicest thing anyone ever told him. Mal said, “Have another piece of pie, lad. I’m picking up the check.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The hall window scraping, three soft footsteps on the bedroom floor.

Buzz stirred, rolled away from Audrey, reached under the pillow and palmed his .38, camouflaging the movement with a sleep sigh. Two more footsteps, Audrey snoring, light through a crack in the curtains eclipsed. A shape coming around his side of the bed; the sound of a hammer being cocked; “Mickey, you’re dead.”

Buzz stiff-armed Audrey to the floor, away from the voice; a silencer snicked and muzzle flash lit up a big man in a dark overcoat. Audrey screamed; Buzz felt the mattress rip an inch from his legs. In one swipe, he grabbed his billy club off the nightstand and swung it at the man’s knees; wood-encased steel cracked bone; the man stumbled toward the bed. Audrey shrieked, “Meeks!”; a shot ripped the far wall; another half second of muzzle light gave Buzz a sighting. He grabbed the man’s coat and pulled him to the bed, smothered his head with a pillow and shot him twice in the face point-blank.

The explosions were muffled; Audrey screeching was siren loud. Buzz moved around the bed and bear-hugged her, killing her tremors with his own shakes. He whispered, “Go into the bathroom, keep the light off and your head down. This was for Mickey, and if there’s a back-up man outside, he’s comin’. Stay fuckin’ down and stay fuckin’ calm.”

Audrey retreated on her knees; Buzz went into the living room, parted the front curtains and looked out. There was a sedan parked directly across the street that wasn’t there when he walked in; no other cars were stationed curbside. He did a run-through on what probably happened:

He looked like Mickey from a distance; he drove a green ’48 Eldo. Mickey’s house was bombed yesterday; Mickey, wife and pet bulldog survived. He parked his car the standard three blocks away; half-assed surveillance convinced the gunman he was Mickey, a short fat okie subbing for a short fat Jew.

Buzz kept eyeballing the sedan; it stayed still, no tell-tale cigarette glow. Five minutes went by; no cops or backup men appeared. Buzz took it as a single-o play, walked back to the bedroom and flicked on the overhead light.

The room reeked of cordite; the bed was soaked in blood; the pillow was solid saturated crimson. Buzz lifted it off and propped up the dead man’s head. It had no face, there were no exit wounds, all the red was leaking out his ears. He rifled his pockets — and the wicked bad willies came on.

An LAPD badge and ID buzzer: Detective Sergeant Eugene J. Niles, Hollywood Squad. An Automobile Club card, vehicle dope in the lower left corner — maroon ’46 Ford Crown Victoria Sedan, Cal ’49 JS 1497. A California driver’s license made out to Eugene Niles, residence 3987 Melbourne Avenue, Hollywood. Car keys and other keys and pieces of paper with Audrey’s address and an architectural floor plan for a house that looked like Mickey’s pad in Brentwood.

Old rumors, new facts, killer shakes.

The LAPD was behind the shootout at Sherry’s; Jack D. and Mickey had buried the hatchet; Niles worked Hollywood Division, the eye of the Brenda Allen storm. Buzz ran across the street on fear overdrive, saw that the sedan was ’46 Vicky JS 1497, unlocked the trunk and ran back. He hauled out a big bed quilt, wrapped Niles and his gun up in it, shoulder-slung him up and over to the Vicky and locked him in the trunk, folding him double next to the spare tire. Panting, sweat-soaked and shaky, he walked back and braced Audrey.

She was sitting on the toilet, naked, smoking. A half dozen butts littered the floor; the bathroom was a tobacco cloud. She looked like the woman from Mars: tears had melted her makeup and her lipstick was still smudged from their lovemaking.

Buzz knelt in front of her. “Honey, I’ll take care of it. This was for Mickey, so I think we’re okay. But I should stay away from you for a while, just in case this guy had partners — we don’t want them figurin’ out it was you and me instead of you and Mickey.”

Audrey dropped her cigarette on the floor and snuffed it with her bare feet, no pain registering. She said, “All right,” a hoarse smoker’s croak.

Buzz said, “You strip the bed and burn it in the incinerator. There’s bullets in the mattress and the wall, you dig ’em out and toss ’em. And you don’t tell nobody.”

Audrey said, “Tell me it’ll be all right.” Buzz kissed the part in her hair, seeing the two of them strapped down in the gas chamber. “Honey, this will surely be all right.”

Buzz drove Niles’ car to the Hollywood Hills. He found gardening tools in the back seat, a level patch of hardscrabble off the access road to the Hollywood Sign and buried Mickey Cohen’s would-be assassin in a plot about 4 by 4 by 4, working with an earth spade and grub hoe. He packed the dirt hard and tight so coyotes wouldn’t smell flesh rot and get hungry; he put branches atop the spot and pissed on it: an epitaph for a fellow bad cop who’d put him in the biggest trouble of his trouble-prone life. He buried Niles’ gun under a thornbush, drove the car out to the Valley, wiped it down, yanked the distributor and left it in an abandoned garage atop Suicide Hill — a youth gang fuck turf near the Sepulveda VA Hospital. Undrivable, the Vicky would be spare parts inside twenty-four hours.

It was 4:30 A.M.

Buzz walked down to Victory Boulevard, caught a cab to Hollywood and Vermont, walked the remaining half mile to Melbourne Avenue. He found a pay phone, glommed “Eugene Niles” from the White Pages, dialed the number and let it ring twenty times — no answer. He located 3987 — the bottom left apartment of a pink stucco four-flat — and let himself in with Niles’ keys, set to prowl for one thing: evidence that other men were in on the Mickey hit.

It was a typical bachelor flop: sitting/sleeping room with Murphy bed, bathroom, kitchenette. There was a desk facing a boarded-up window; Buzz went straight for it, handling everything he touched with his shirttails. Ten minutes in, he had solid circumstantial evidence:

A certificate from the U.S. Army Demolition School, Camp Polk, Louisiana, stating that Corporal Eugene Niles successfully completed explosives training in December 1931 — make the fucker for the bomb under Mickey’s house.

Letters from Niles’ ex-wife, condemning him for trucking with Brenda Allen’s hookers. She’d read the grand jury transcript and knew her husband did his share of porking in the Hollywood Station felony tank — Niles’ motive to want Mickey dead.

An address book that included the names and phone numbers of four ranking Jack Dragna strongarms, listings for three other Dragna bagmen — cops he knew when he was LAPD — and a weird listing: “Karen Hiltscher, W. Hollywood Sheriff’s,” with “!!!!” in bright red doodles. That aside, more verification of Niles hating Mickey before the truce with Jack D. All told, it looked like a poorly planned single-o play, Niles desperate when his bomb didn’t blow the Mick to shit.

Buzz killed the lights and wiped both sides of the doorknob on his way out. He walked to Sunset and Vermont, dropped Niles’ house and car keys down a sewer grate and started laughing, wildly, stitches in his side. He’d just saved the life of the most dangerous, most generous man he’d ever met, and there was no way in the world he could tell him. The laughter got worse, until he doubled over and had to sit down on a bus bench. He laughed until the punch line sucker-punched him — then he froze.

Danny Upshaw beat up Gene Niles. The City cops hated the County cops. When Niles was tagged as missing, LAPD would be like flies over shit on a green kid already in shit up to his knees.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Danny was trying to get Felix Gordean alone.

He’d begun his stakeout in the Chateau Marmont parking lot; Gordean foiled him by driving to his office with Pretty Boy Christopher in tow. Rain had been pouring down the whole three hours he’d been eyeing the agency’s front door; no cars had hit the carport, the street was flooded and he was parked in a towaway zone with his ID, badge and .45 at home because he was really Red Ted Krugman. Ted’s leather jacket and Considine’s sanction kept him warm and dry with the window cracked; Danny decided that if Gordean didn’t leave the office by 1:00, he’d lean on him then and there.

At 12:35, the door opened. Gordean walked out, popped an umbrella and skipped across Sunset. Danny turned on his wiper blades and watched him duck into Cyrano’s, the doorman fussing over him like he was the joint’s most popular customer. He gave Gordean thirty seconds to get seated, turned up his collar and ran over, ducking rain.

The doorman looked at him funny, but let him in; Danny blinked water, saw gilt and red velvet walls, a long oak bar and Felix Gordean sipping a martini at a side table. He threaded his way past a clutch of businessman types and sat down across from him; Gordean almost swallowed the toothpick he was nibbling.

Danny said, “I want to know what you know. I want you to tell me everything about the men you’ve brought out, and I want a report on all your customers and clients. I want it now.”

Gordean toyed with the toothpick. “Have Lieutenant Matthews call me. Perhaps he and I can effect a compromise.”

“Fuck Lieutenant Matthews. Are you going to tell me what I want to know? Now?”

“No, I am not.”

Danny smiled. “You’ve got forty-eight hours to change your mind.”

“Or?”

“Or I’m taking everything I know about you to the papers.”

Gordean snapped his fingers; a waiter came over; Danny walked out of the restaurant and into the rain. He remembered his promise to call Jack Shortell, hit the phone booth across from the agency, dialed the Hollywood Station squadroom and heard, “Yes?” Shortell himself speaking, his voice strained.

“It’s Upshaw, Jack. What have you got on—”

“What we’ve got is another one. LAPD found him last night, on an embankment up from the LA River. Doc Layman’s doing him now, so—”

Danny left the receiver dangling and Shortell shouting, “Upshaw!”; he highballed it downtown, parked in front of the City Morgue loading dock and almost tripped over a stiff on a gurney running in. Jack Shortell was already there, sweating, his badge pinned to his coat front; he saw Danny, blocked the path to Layman’s examination room and said, “Brace yourself.”

Danny got his breath. “For what?”

Shortell said, “It’s Augie Luis Duarte, one of the guys on your tailing list. The bluesuits who found him ID’d him from his driver’s license. LAPD’s had the stiff since 12:30 last night — the squad guy who caught didn’t know about our team. Breuning was here and just left, and he was making noises that Duarte blew his tail last night. Danny, I know that’s horseshit. I was calling around last night looking for you, to tell you our car thief and zoot stick queries were bust. I talked to a clerk at Wilshire Station, and she told me Breuning was there all evening with Dudley Smith. I called back later, and the clerk said they were still there. Breuning said the other three men are still under surveillance, but I don’t believe him.”

Danny’s head boomed; morgue effluvia turned his stomach and stung his razor burns. He beelined for a door marked “Norton Layman MD,” pushed it open and saw the country’s premier forensic pathologist writing on a clipboard. A nude shape was slab-prone behind him; Layman stepped aside as if to say, “Feast your eyes.”

Augie Duarte, the handsome Mex who’d walked out the Gordean Agency door two nights ago, was supine on a stainless steel tray. He was blood-free; bite wounds extruding intestinal tubes covered his stomach; bite marks ran up his torso in a pattern free of overlaps. His cheeks were slashed down to the gums and jawbone and his penis had been cut off, inserted into the deepest of the cuts and hooked around so that the head extended out his mouth, teeth clamped on the foreskin, rigor mortis holding the obscenity intact. Danny blurted, “Oh God fuck no”; Layman said, “The rain drained the body and kept the cuts fresh. I found a tooth chip in one of them and made a wet cast of it. It’s unmistakably animal, and I had an attendant run it down to a forensic orthodontist at the Natural History Museum. It’s being examined now.”

Danny tore his eyes off the corpse; he walked out to the dock looking for Jack Shortell, gagging on the stench of formaldehyde, his lungs heaving for fresh air. A group of Mexicans with a bereaved-family look was standing by the loading ramp staring in; a pachuco type stared at him extra hard. Danny strained to see Shortell, then felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was Norton Layman. He said, “I just talked to the man at the Museum, and he identified my specimen. The killer wears wolverine teeth.”

Danny saw a blood W on cheap wallpaper. He saw W’s in black and white, W’s burned into Felix Gordean’s face, W’s all over the rosary-clutching wetbacks huddled together grieving. He saw W’s until Jack Shortell walked up the dock and grabbed his arm and he heard himself say, “Get Breuning. I don’t trust myself on it.”

Then he saw plain blood.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A stakeout for his own son.

Mal sat on the steps outside Division 32, Los Angeles Civil Court. He was flanked by lawyers smoking; keeping his back to them kept light conversation away while he scanned for Stefan, Celeste and her shyster. When he saw them, it would be a quick men’s room confab: don’t believe the bad things you hear about me; when my man gets ugly about your mother, try not to listen.

Ten of the hour; no Stefan, Celeste and lawyer. Mal heard an animated burst of talk behind him.

“You know Charlie Hartshorn?”

“Sure. A nice guy, if a bit of a bleeding heart. He worked the Sleepy Lagoon defense for free.”

“Well, he’s dead. Suicide. Hung himself at his house last night. Beautiful house, right off Wilshire and Rimpau. It was on the radio. I went to a party at that house once.”

“Poor Charlie. What a goddamn shame.”

Mal turned around; the two men were gone. He remembered Meeks telling him Reynolds Loftis was connected to Hartshorn via a queer-bar roust, but he didn’t mention the man being associated with the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee at all. There was no mention of Hartshorn in any of the psychiatric or other grand jury files, and Meeks had also said that the lawyer had turned up — as a non-suspect — in Danny Upshaw’s homicide investigation.

The Hartshorn coincidence simmered; Mal wondered how Meeks would take his suicide — he said he’d gut-shot the man with his queerness. Looking streetside, he saw Celeste, Stefan and a young guy with a briefcase get out of a cab; his boy glanced up, lit up and took off running.

Mal met him halfway down the steps, scooped him up laughing and pinwheeled him upside down and over. Stefan squealed; Celeste and briefcase double-timed; Mal whipped his son over his shoulder, quick-marched inside and turned hard into the men’s room. Out of breath, he put Stefan down and said, “Your dad’s a captain,” dug in his pockets and pulled out one of the insignia Buzz gave him. “You’re a captain, too. Remember that. Remember that if your mother’s lawyer starts talking me down.”

Stefan squeezed the silver bars; Mal saw that he had that bewildered fat-kid look he got when Celeste stuffed him with starchy Czech food. “How have you been? How’s your mother been treating you?”

Stefan spoke hesitantly, like he’d been force-fed old country talk since the breakup. “Mutti... wants that we should move out. She said we... we must move away before she decides to marry Rich-Richard.”

Richard.

“I... I don’t like Richard. He’s nice to Mutti, but he’s n-nasty to his d-d-dog.”

Mal put his arms around the boy. “I won’t let it happen. She’s a crazy woman, and I won’t let her take you away.”

“Malcolm—”

“Dad, Stefan.”

“Dad, please not to don’t hit Mutti again. Please.”

Mal held Stefan tighter, trying to squeeze the bad words out and make him say, “I love you.” The boy felt wrong, flabby, like he was too skinny wrong as a kid. “Sssh. I’ll never hit her again and I’ll never let her take you away from me. Sssh.”

The door opened behind them; Mal heard the voice of an old City bailiff who’d been working Division 32 forever. “Lieutenant Considine, court’s convening and I’m supposed to bring the boy into chambers.”

Mal gave Stefan a last hug. “I’m a captain now. Stefan, you go with this man and I’ll see you inside.”

Stefan hugged back — hard.

Court convened ten minutes later. Mal sat with Jake Kellerman at a table facing the judge’s bench; Celeste, her attorney and Stefan were seated in chairs stationed diagonally across from the witness stand. The old bailiff intoned, “Hear ye, hear ye, court is now in session, the Honorable Arthur F. Hardesty presiding.”

Mal stood up. Jake Kellerman whispered, “In a second the old fart’ll say, ‘Counsel will approach the bench.’ I’ll hit him for a first continuance for a month from now, citing your grand jury duties. Then, we’ll get another stay until the jury convenes and you’re gold. Then we’ll get you Greenberg.”

Mal gripped Kellerman’s arm. “Jake, make this happen.”

Kellerman whispered extra low, “It will. Just pray a rumor I heard isn’t true.”

Judge Arthur F. Hardesty banged his gavel. “Counsel will approach the bench.”

Jake Kellerman and Celeste’s lawyer approached, huddling around Hardesty; Mal strained to hear and picked up nothing but garbles — Jake sounding agitated. The huddle ended with a gavel slam; Kellerman walked back, fuming.

Hardesty said, “Mr. Considine, your counsel’s request for a one-month continuance has been denied. Despite your police duties, I’m sure you can find enough time to consult with Mr. Kellerman. All parties will meet here in my chambers ten days hence, Monday, January 22. Both contestants should be ready to testify. Mr. Kellerman, Mr. Castleberry, make sure your witnesses are informed of the date and bring whatever documents you wish to be considered as evidence. This preliminary is dismissed.”

The judge banged his gavel; Castleberry led Celeste and Stefan outside. The boy turned around and waved; Mal flashed him the V for victory sign, tried to smile and couldn’t. His son was gone in a breath; Kellerman said, “I heard Castleberry heard about your promotion and went batshit. I heard he leaked the hospital pictures to one of Hardesty’s clerks, who told the judge. Mal, I’m sorry and I’m angry. I’m going to tell Ellis what Castleberry did and make sure that punk gets reamed for it.”

Mal stared at the spot where his son waved goodbye. “Ream her. Pull out all the stops. If Stefan has to hear, he has to hear. Just fucking take her down.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Looking around Ellis Loew’s living room, Buzz set odds:

Twenty to one the grand jury handed down beaucoup UAES indictments; twenty to one the studios booted them on the treason clause prior to the official word, with the Teamsters signing to take their place inside twenty-four hours. If he convinced Mickey to make book on the proceedings, he could lay a bundle down and get well on top of Howard’s bonus. Because the action in Loew’s little command post said the Pinkos were buying one-way tickets for the Big Fungoo.

Except for tables and chairs set aside for clerks, all the furniture had been removed and dumped in the back yard. Filing cabinets filled with friendly witness depositions covered the fireplace; a corkboard was nailed to the front window, space for reports from the team’s four investigators: M. Considine, D. Smith, T. Meeks and D. Upshaw. Captain Mal’s stack of interrogation forms — questions tailored to individual lefties, delivered and notarized by City Marshals — was thick; Dudley’s field summaries stacked out at five times their width — he had now turned fourteen hostiles into groveling snitch friendlies, picking up dirt on over a hundred snitchees in the process. His own reports comprised six pages: Sammy Benavides porking his sister, Claire De Haven skin-popping H and Reynolds Loftis as a homo bar hopper, the rest padding, all of it snoozeville compared to Mal’s and Dudley’s contributions. Danny Upshaw’s stuff ran two pages — eavesdrop speculation and necking with Pinko Claire — him and the kid were not exactly burning down barns in their effort to destroy the Communist Conspiracy. There were tables with “In” and “Out” baskets for the exchange of information, tables for the photographic evidence Crazy Ed Satterlee was accumulating, a huge cardboard box filled with cross-referenced names, dates, political organizations and documented admissions: Commies, pinkers and fellow travelers embracing Mother Russia and calling for the end of the U.S.A. by means fair and foul. And — across the broadest stretch of bare wall — Ed Satterlee’s conspiracy graph, his grand jury thumbscrew.

In one horizontal column, the UAES brain trust; in another, the names of the Communist front organizations they belonged to; in a vertical column atop the graph the names of friendly witnesses and their “accusation power” rated by stars, with lines running down to intersect with the brainers and the fronts. Each star was Satterlee’s assessment of the number of days’ testimony a friendly was worth, based on the sheer power of time, place and hearsay: which Pinko attended where, said what, and which recanted Red was there to listen — a brain-frying, mind-boggling, super-stupendous and absolutely amazing glut of information impossible to disprove.

And he kept seeing Danny Upshaw smack in the middle of it, treading shit, even though the kid was on the side of the angels.

Buzz walked out to the back porch. He’d been brainstorming escape routes under the guise of writing reports for hours; three phone calls had fixed Audrey’s skimming spree. One was to Mickey, handing him a convoluted epic on how a bettor skimmed an unnamed runner who was screwing the bettor’s sister and couldn’t turn him in, but finally made him cough up the six grand he’d welched — the exact amount Audrey had grifted off the Mick. The second was to Petey Skouras, a tight-lipped runner who agreed to play the lovesick fool who finally made good to his boss for a cool grand — knowing Johnny Stompanato would come snouting around for the name Buzz wouldn’t give on, find him acting hinky and pound a confession out of him — the returned cash his assurance that that was his only punishment. The third was to an indy shylock: seven thousand dollars at 20 percent, $8,400 due April 10 — his woman out of trouble, his gift for her grief: Gene Niles with his face blown off on her bed. Seven come eleven, thank God for the Commie gravy train. If they didn’t succumb to the hots for each other, he and his lioness would probably survive.

The kid was still the wild card he didn’t know how to play.

It was twelve hours since he’d prowled Niles’ pad. Should he go back and make it look like Niles hightailed it? Should he have planted some incriminating shit? When the fucker was missed, would LAPD fix on him as a Dragna bad apple and let it lie? Would they make him for the bomb job and press Mickey? Would they assume a snuff and go hog-wild to find the killer?

Buzz saw Dudley Smith and Mike Breuning at the back edge of the yard, standing by Ellis Loew’s couch, left out in the rain because the DA put business before comfort. A late sun was up; Dudley was laughing and pointing at it. Buzz watched dark clouds barrelling in from the ocean. He thought: fix it, fix it, fix it, be a fixer. Be what Captain Mal told the kid to be.

Be a policeman.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Danny unlocked his door and tapped the wall light. The blood W’s he’d been seeing since the morgue became his front room, spare and tidy, but with something skewed. He eyed the room in grids until he got it: the rug was puckered near the coffee table — he always toed it smooth on his way out.

He tried to remember if he did it this morning. He recalled dressing as Ted Krugman, nude to leather jacket in front of the bathroom mirror; he remembered walking outside thinking of Felix Gordean, Mal Considine’s “Lean on him, Danny” ringing in his ears. He did not remember his methodical rug number probably because Teddy K. wasn’t the meticulous type. Nothing else in the room looked askew; there was no way in the world HE would break into a policeman’s apartment...

Danny thought of his file, ran for the hall closet and opened the door. It was there, pictures and paperwork intact, covered by wadded-up carpeting puckered just the right way. He checked the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom, saw the same old same old, sat down in a chair by the phone and skimmed the book he’d just bought.

The Weasel Family — Physiology and Habits, hot off a back shelf at Stanley Rose’s Bookshop.

Chapter 6, page 59: The Wolverine.

A 40- to 50-pound member of the weasel family indigenous to Canada, the Pacific Northwest and the upper Midwest; pound for pound, the most vicious animal on earth. Utterly fearless and known for attacking animals many times its size; known to drive bears and cougars from their kills. A beast that cannot stand to watch other creatures enjoying a good feed — often blitzing them just to get at what remained of their food. Equipped with a highly efficient digestive system: wolverines ate fast, digested fast, shit fast and were always hungry; they possessed a huge appetite to match their general nastiness. All the vicious little bastards wanted to do was kill, eat and occasionally fuck other members of their misanthropic breed.

W

W

W

W

W

W

W

W

The Wolverine.

Alter ego of a biting, gouging, raping, flesh-eating killer of immense hunger: sexual and emotional. A man who possessed total identification with an obscenely rapacious animal, an identity he has assumed to right old wrongs, animal mutilations the specific means, his specific inner reconstruction of what was done to him.

Danny turned to the pictures at the back of the book, ripped three wolverine shots out, dug through his file for the 2307 blood pics and made a collage above the bed. He tacked the awful weasel thing in the middle; he shone his floor lamp on the collection of images, stood back, looked and thought.

A fat, shuffle-footed creature with beady eyes and a thick brown coat to ward off the cold. A slinky tail, a short, pointed snout, sharp nails and long, sharp teeth bared at the camera. An ugly child who knew he was ugly and made up for it by hurting the people he blamed for making him that way. Snap flashes as the animal and 2307 merged: the killer was somehow disfigured or thought he was; since eyewitnesses tagged him as not facially marred, the disfigurement might be somewhere on his body. The killer thought he was ugly and tied it to sex, hence Augie Duarte slashed cheek to bone with his thing sticking out his mouth. A big snap, all instinct, but feeling gut solid: HE knew the burned-face burglar boy, who was too young to be the killer himself; HE drew inspiration or sex from his disfigurement — hence the facial slashing. Zoot stick assaults were being tapped at station houses citywide; car thief MO’s were being collated; he told Jack Shortell to start calling wild-animal breeders, zoo suppliers, animal trappers and fur wholesalers, cross-reference them with dental tech and go. Burglar, jazz fiend, H copper, teeth maker, car thief, animal worshiper, queer, homo, pederast, brunser and devotee of male whores. It was there waiting for them, some fact in a police file, some nonplussed dental worker saying, “Yeah, I remember that guy.”

Danny wrote down his new impression, thinking of Mike Breuning bullshitting him on the Augie Duarte tail, the other tails probably horseshit. Breuning’s only possible motive was humoring him — keeping him happy on the homicide case so he’d be a good Commie operative and keep Dudley Smith happy on his anti-Red crusade. Shortell had called the other three men, warned them of possible danger and was trying to set up interviews: the only cop he could trust now, Jack would be tapping into Dudley’s “boys” to see if the three Gordean “friends” had ever been under surveillance at all. He himself had stuck outside Gordean’s agency trawling for more license plates, more potential victims, more information and maybe Gordean alone for a little strongarm — but the carport had stayed empty, the pimp hadn’t showed and there was no traffic at his front door — rain had probably kept the “clients” and “friends” away. And he’d had to break the stakeout for his date with Claire De Haven.

A thud echoed outside the door — the sound of the paperboy chucking the Evening Herald. Danny walked out and picked it up, scanning a headline on Truman and trade embargoes, opening to the second page on the off-chance there was an item on his case. Another scan told him the answer was no; a short column in the bottom right corner caught his attention.

Danny put the paper down, stunned. Hartshorn was Duane Lindenaur’s extortionee in 1941; Felix Gordean said that he attended his parties and was “unlucky in love and politics.” He never questioned the man for three reasons: he did not fit the killer’s description; the extortion was nearly nine years prior; Sergeant Frank Skakel, the investigating officer on the beef, had said that Hartshorn would refuse to talk to the police regarding the incident — and he stressed old precedents. Hartshorn was just another name in the file, a tangent name that led to Gordean. Nothing about the lawyer had seemed wrong; aside from Gordean’s offhand “politics” remark, there was nothing that tagged him as having a yen for causes, and there were no notations in the grand jury file on him — despite the preponderance of Sleepy Lagoon information. But he was questioned by a member of the grand jury team.

Danny called Mal Considine’s number at the DA’s Bureau, got no answer and dialed Ellis Loew’s house. Three rings, then, “Yeah? Who’s this?”, Buzz Meeks’ okie twang.

“It’s Deputy Upshaw. Is Mal around?”

“He’s not here, Deputy. This is Meeks. You need somethin’?”

The man sounded subdued. Danny said, “Do you know if anybody questioned a lawyer named Charles Hartshorn?”

“Yeah, I did. Last week. Why?”

“I just read in the paper that he killed himself.”

A long silence, a long breath. Meeks said, “Oh shit.”

Danny said, “What do you mean?”

“Nothin’, kid. This on your homicide case?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“Well, I braced Hartshorn, and he thought I had to be a Homicide cop, ’cause a guy who tried to shake him down on his queerness years ago just got bumped off. This was right around when you joined up with us, and I remembered somethin’ about this dink Lindenaur from the papers. Kid, I was a cop for years, and this guy Hartshorn wasn’t holdin’ nothin’ back ’cept the fact he likes boys, so I didn’t tell you about him — I just figured he was no kind of suspect.”

“Meeks, you should have told me anyway.”

“Upshaw, you gave me some barter on the old queen. I owe you on that, ’cause I had to rough him up, and I bought out by tellin’ him I’d keep the Homicide dicks away. And kid, that poor sucker couldn’t of killed a fly.”

“Shit! Why did you go talk to him in the first place? Because he was connected to the Sleepy Lagoon Committee?”

“No. I was trackin’ corroboration dirt on the Commies and I got a note said Hartshorn was rousted with Reynolds Loftis at a fruit bar in Santa Monica in ’44. I wanted to see if I could squeeze some more dirt on Loftis out of him.”

Danny put the phone to his chest so Meeks wouldn’t hear him hyperventilating, wouldn’t hear his brain banging around the facts he’d just been handed and the way they might just really play:

Reynolds Loftis was tall, gray-haired, middle-aged.

He was connected to Charles Hartshorn, a suicide, the blackmail victim of Duane Lindenaur, homicide victim number three.

He was the homosexual lover of Chaz Minear circa early ’40s; in the grand jury psychiatric files, Sammy Benavides had mentioned “puto” Chaz buying sex via a “queer date-a-boy gig” — a possible reference to Felix Gordean’s introduction service, which employed snuff victims George Wiltsie and Augie Duarte.

Last night in darktown, Claire De Haven had been all nerves; the killer had picked up Goines on that block and a hop pusher at the Zombie had addressed her. She sloughed it off, but was known to the grand jury team as a longtime hophead. Did she procure the junk load that killed Marty Goines?

Danny’s hands twitched the receiver off his chest; he heard Meeks on the other end of the line — “Kid, you there? You there, kid?” — and managed to hook the mouthpiece into his chin. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“There something you ain’t tellin’ me?”

“Yes — no — fuck, I don’t know.”

The line hung silent for good long seconds; Danny stared at his wolverine pinups; Meeks said, “Deputy, are you tellin’ me Loftis is a suspect for your killin’s?”

Danny said, “I’m telling you maybe. Maybe real strong. He fits the killer’s description, and he... fits.”

Buzz Meeks said, “Holy fuckin’ dog.”

Danny hung up, thinking he’d kissed Reynolds Loftis in his mind — and he liked it.

Krugman into Upshaw into Krugman, pure Homicide cop.

Danny drove to Beverly Hills, no rear-view trawling. He Man Camera’d Reynolds Loftis wolverine slashing; the combination of 2307 pictures, Augie Duarte’s body and Loftis’ handsome face rooting in gore had him riding the clutch, shifting when he didn’t need to just to keep the images a little bit at bay. Pulling up, he saw the house lights on bright — cheery, like the people inside had nothing to hide; he walked up to the door and found a note under the knocker: “Ted. Back in a few minutes. Make yourself at home — C.”

More nothing to hide. Danny opened the door, moved inside and saw a writing table wedged against a wall by the stairwell. A floor lamp was casting light on it; papers were strewn across the blotter, a leather-bound portfolio weighing them down, nothing to hide blinking neon. He walked over, picked it up and opened it; the top page bore clean typescript: “MINUTES AND ATTENDANCE, UAES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 1950 MEETINGS.”

Danny opened to the first page. More perfect typescript: the meeting/New Year’s party on 12/31/49. Present — scrawled signatures — were C. De Haven, M. Ziffkin, R. Loftis, S. Benavides, M. Lopez, and one name crossed out, illegible. Topics of discussion were “Picket Assignments,” “Secretary’s Report,” “Treasurer’s Report” and whether or not to hire private detectives to look into the criminal records of Teamster picketers. The soiree commenced at 11:00 P.M. and ended at 6:00 A.M.; Danny winced at the gist: the ledger could be construed as an alibi for Reynolds Loftis — he was here during the time Marty Goines was snatched and killed — and the minutes contained nothing at all subversive.

Too much nothing to hide.

Danny flipped forward, finding a meeting on 1/4/50, the same people in attendance during the time frame of the Wiltsie/Lindenaur killings, the same strange crossout, the same boring topics discussed. And Loftis was with Claire last night when Augie Duarte probably got it — he’d have to check with Doc Layman on the estimated time of death. Perfect group alibis, no treason on the side, Loftis not HIM, unless the whole brain trust was behind the killings — which was ridiculous.

Danny stopped thinking, replaced the ledger, jammed his jumpy hands into his warm leather pockets. It was too much nothing to hide, because there was nothing to hide, because none of the brain trusters knew he was a Homicide cop, Loftis could have forged his name, a five-time corroborated alibi would stand up in court ironclad, even if the alibiers were Commie traitors, none of it meant anything, get your cases straight and identities straight and be a policeman.

The house was getting hot. Danny shucked his jacket, hung it on a coatrack, went into the living room and pretended to admire the poster for Storm Over Leningrad. It reminded him of the stupid turkeys Karen Hiltscher coerced him to; he was making a note to lube her on 2307 when he heard, “Ted, how the hell are you?”

HIM.

Danny turned around. Reynolds Loftis and Claire were doffing their coats in the foyer. She looked coiled; he looked handsome, like a cultured blood sport connoisseur. Danny said, “Hi. Good to see you, but I’ve got some bad news.”

Claire said, “Oh”; Loftis rubbed his hands together and blew on them, “Hark, what bad news?”

Danny walked up to frame their reactions. “It was in the papers. A lawyer named Charles Hartshorn killed himself. It said he worked with the SLDC, and it implied he was being hounded by some fascist DA’s cops.”

Clean reactions: Claire giving her coat a brush, saying, “We’d heard. Charlie was a good friend to our cause”; Loftis tensing up just a tad — maybe because he and the lawyer had sex going. “That grand jury went down, but it took Charlie with them. He was a frail man and a kind one, and men like that are easy pickings for the fascists.”

Danny flashed: he’s talking about himself, he’s weak, Claire’s his strength. He moved into close-up range and hit bold. “I read a tabloid sheet that said Hartshorn was questioned about a string of killings. Some crazy queer killing people he knew.”

Loftis turned his back, moving into a shamefully fake coughing attack; Claire played supporting actress, bending to him with her face averted, mumbling, “Bad for your bronchitis.” Danny held his close-up and brain-screened what his eyes couldn’t see: Claire giving her fiancé guts; Loftis the actor, knowing faces don’t lie, keeping his hidden.

Danny walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with sink water, a break to give the players time to recover. He walked back slowly and found them acting nonchalant, Claire smoking, Loftis leaning against the staircase, sheepish, a Southern gentleman who thought coughing déclassé. “Poor Charlie. He liked Greek revelry once in a while, and I’m sure the powers that be would have loved to crucify him for that, too.”

Danny handed him the water. “They’ll crucify you for anything they can. It’s a shame about Hartshorn, but personally, I like women.”

Loftis drank, grabbed his coat and winked. He said, “So do I,” kissed Claire on the cheek and went out the door.

Danny said, “We’ve got bad luck so far. Last night, your friend Charlie.”

Claire tossed her purse on the table holding the meeting ledger — too casual. Her tad too-studied glance said she’d arranged the still life for him — Loftis’ alibi — even though they couldn’t know who he was. The threads of who was who, knew who, knew what got tangled again; Danny quashed them with a lewd wink. “Let’s stay in, huh?”

Claire said, “My idea, too. Care to see a movie?”

“You’ve got a television set?”

“No, silly. I’ve got a screening room.”

Danny smiled shyly, proletarian Ted wowed by Hollywood customs. Claire took his hand and led him through the kitchen to a room lined with bookcases, the front wall covered by a projection screen. A long leather couch faced the screen; a projector was mounted on a tripod a few feet behind it, a reel of film already fed in. Danny sat down; Claire hit switches, doused the lights and snuggled into him, legs curled under a swell of skirt. Light took over the screen, the movie started.

A test pattern; a black-and-white fade-in; a zoftig blonde and a Mexican with a duck’s ass haircut stripping. A motel room backdrop: bed, chipped stucco walls, sombrero lamps and a bullfight poster on the closet door. Tijuana, pure and simple.

Danny felt Claire’s hand hovering. The blonde rolled her eyes to heaven; she’d just seen her co-star’s cock — huge, veiny, hooked at the middle like a dowsing rod. She salaamed before him, hit her knees and started sucking. The camera caught her acne scars and his needle tracks. She sucked while the hophead gyrated his hips; he pulled out of her mouth and sprayed.

Danny looked away; Claire touched his thigh. Danny flinched, tried to relax but kept flinching; Claire fingered a ridge of coiled muscle inches from his stuff. Hophead screwed Pimples from behind, the insertion close in. Danny’s stomach growled — worse than when he was on a no-food jag. Claire’s hand kept probing; Danny felt himself shriveling — cold shower time where you shrunk down to nothing.

The blonde and the Mexican fucked with abandon; Claire kneaded muscles that would not yield. Danny started to cramp, grabbed Claire’s hand and squeezed it to his knee, like they were back at the jazz club and he was calling the shots. Claire pulled away; the movie ended with a close-up of the blonde and the Mex tongue-kissing.

Film snapped off the cylinder; Claire got up, hit the lights and exchanged reels. Danny uncramped into his best version of Ted Krugman at ease — legs loosely crossed, hands laced behind his head. Claire turned and said, “I was saving this for après bed, but I think we might need it now.”

Danny winked — his whole head twitching — lady-killer Ted. Claire turned the projector on and the lights off; she came back to the couch and snuggled down again. The second half of their double feature hit the screen.

No music, no opening credits, no subtitles like in the old silents — just blackness — gray flecks the only indication that film was running. The darkness broke down at the corners of the screen, a shape took form and a dog’s head came into focus: a pit bull wearing a mask. The dog snapped at the camera, the screen went black again, then slowly dissolved into white.

Danny remembered the dog breeder and his tale of Hollywood types buying pits to film; he jumped to the masked men at Felix Gordean’s house; he saw that he’d shut his eyes and was holding his breath, the better to think who knew what, said what, lied what. He opened his eyes, saw two dogs ripping at each other, animated red splashed in surreal patterns across black-and-white celluloid, disappearing and coloring the real blood its real color, a spritz fogging the camera lens, gray first, cartoon red next. He thought of Walt Disney gone insane; as if in answer, an evil-looking Donald Duck flashed on the screen, feathered phallus hanging to his webbed feet. The duck hopped around, impotent angry like the real Donald; Claire laughed; Danny watched the snapping dogs circle each other and charge, the darker dog getting a purchase on the speckled dog’s midsection, plunging in with his teeth. And he knew his killer, whoever he was, had gone crazy watching this movie.

A black screen; Danny going light-headed from holding his breath, sensing Claire’s eyes on him. Then all color footage, naked men circling each other just like the dogs, going for each other with sucking mouths, 69 close-ups, a pullback shot and Felix Gordean in a red devil costume, capering, prancing. Danny got hard; Claire’s hand went there — like she knew. Danny squirmed, tried to shut his eyes, couldn’t and kept looking.

A quick cut; then Pretty Boy Christopher, naked and hard, pointing his thing at the camera, the head nearly eclipsing the screen like a giant battering ram, white background borders looking just like parted lips and teeth holding the image intact through rigor mortis—

Danny bolted, double-timed to the front of the house, found a bathroom and locked the door. He got his shakes chilled with a litany: BE A POLICEMAN BE A POLICEMAN BE A POLICEMAN; he made himself think facts, flung the medicine cabinet open and got one immediately: a prescription bottle of sodium secobarbital, Wiltsie’s and Lindenaur’s death ticket in a little vial, Reynolds Loftis’ sleep pills administered by D. Waltrow, MD, 11/14/49. Fumbling through shelves of ointments, salves and more pills got him nothing else; he noticed a second door, ajar, next to the shower stall.

He pushed it open and saw a little den all done up cozy, more bookshelves, chairs arranged around a leather ottoman, another desk with another cluttered blotter. He checked the clutter — mimeographed movie scripts with hand scrawl in the margins — opened drawers and found stacks of Claire De Haven stationery, envelopes, rolls of stamps and an old leather wallet. Flipping through the sleeves, he saw expired Reynolds Loftis ID: library card, membership cards to Pinko organizations, a ’36 California driver’s license with a tag stuck to the back side, Emergency Medical Data — allergic to penicillin, minor recurring arthritis, O + blood.

HIM?

Danny closed the drawers, unlocked the bathroom door, wiped a towel across his face and slow-walked back to the screening room. The lights were on, the screen was blank and Claire was sitting on the couch. She said, “I didn’t think a tough boy like you would be so squeamish.”

Danny sat beside her, their legs brushing. Claire pulled away, then leaned forward. Danny thought: she knows, she can’t know. He said, “I’m not much of an aesthete.”

Claire put a warm hand to his face; her face was cold. “Really? All my friends in the New York Party were mad for New Drama and Kabuki and the like. Didn’t the movie remind you of Cocteau, only with more of a sense of humor?”

He didn’t know who Cocteau was. “Cocteau never jazzed me. Neither did Salvador Dali or any of those guys. I’m just a square from Long Island.”

Claire’s hand kept stroking. It was warm, but the to-die-for softness of last night was all gone. “I used to summer in Easthampton when I was a girl. It was lovely.”

Danny laughed, glad he’d read Considine’s tourist brochure. “Huntington wasn’t exactly Easthampton, sweetie.”

Claire cringed at the endearment, started to let her hand go, then made with more caresses. Danny said, “Who filmed that movie?”

“A brilliant man named Paul Doinelle.”

“Just for friends to see?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s smut. You can’t release films like that. It’s against the law.”

“You say that so vehemently, like you care about a bourgeois law that abridges artistic freedom.”

“It was ugly. I was just wondering what kind of man would enjoy something like that.”

“Why do you say ‘man’? I’m a woman, and I appreciate art of that nature. You’re strictured in your views, Ted. It’s a bad trait for people in our cause to have. And I know that film aroused you.”

“That’s not true.”

Claire laughed. “Don’t be so evasive. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you want to do with me.”

She was going to fuck him just to get what he knew, which meant she knew, which meant—

Danny made Claire a blank frame and kissed her neck and cheeks; she sighed — phony — sounding just like a Club Largo girl pretending stripping was ecstasy. She touched his back and chest and shoulders — hands kneading — it felt like she was trying to restrain herself from gouging him. He tried to kiss her lips, but her mouth stayed crimped; she reached between his legs. He was frozen and shriveled there, and her hand made it worse.

Danny felt his whole body choking him. Claire took her hands away, reached behind her back and removed her sweater and bra in one movement. Her breasts were freckled — spots that looked cancerous — the left one was bigger and hung strange and the nipples were dark and flat and surrounded by crinkled skin. Danny thought of traitors and Mexicans sucking them; Claire whispered, “Here, babe,” a lullaby to mother him into telling what he knew, who he knew, what he lied. She fondled her breasts toward his face; he shut his eyes and couldn’t thought of boys and Tim and HIM and couldn’t—

Claire said, “Ladies’ man? Oh Teddy, how were you ever able to pull that charade off?” Danny shoved her away, left the house slamming doors and drove home thinking: SHE CANNOT KNOW WHO I AM. Inside, he went straight for his copy of the grand jury package, prowled pages to prove it for sure, saw “Juan Duarte — UAES brain trust, extra actor/stagehand at Variety Intl Picts” on a personnel sheet, snapped to Augie Duarte choking on his cock on a morgue slab, snapped to the three Mexes on the Tomahawk Massacre set the day he questioned Duane Lindenaur’s KAs, snapped on Norm Kostenz taking his picture after the picket line brawl. Snap, snap, snap, snap to two final snaps: the Mex at the morgue who eyed him funny was a Mex actor on the movie set, he had to be an Augie Duarte relative, Juan Duarte the spic Commie actor/stagehand. The crossout on the meeting ledger had to be his name, which meant that he saw Kostenz’ picture and told Loftis and Claire that Ted Krugman was a police detective working on Augie’s snuff.

Which meant that the ledger was a setup alibi.

Which meant that the movie was a device to test his reactions and find out what he knew.

Which meant that the Red Bitch was trying to do to him what Mal Considine set him up to do to her.

WHICH MEANT THAT THEY KNEW WHO HE WAS.

Danny went for the shelf over the refrigerator, the place were he stashed his Deputy D. Upshaw persona. He picked up his badge and handcuffs and held them to himself; he unholstered his .45 revolver and aimed it at the world.

Chapter Thirty

Chief of Detectives Thad Green nodded first to Mal, then to Dudley Smith. “Gentlemen, I wouldn’t have called you in this early in the morning if it wasn’t urgent. What I’m going to tell you has not been leaked yet, and it will remain that way.”

Mal looked at his LAPD mentor. The man, rarely grave, was coming on almost funereal. “What is it, sir?”

Green lit a cigarette. “The rain caused some mudslides up in the hills. About an hour ago, a body was found on the access road going up to the Hollywood Sign. Sergeant Eugene Niles, Hollywood Squad. Buried, shot in the face. I called Nort Layman in for a quick one, and he took two .38’s out of the cranial vault. They were fired from an Iver-Johnson Police Special, which you know is standard LAPD/LASD issue. Niles was last seen day before yesterday at Hollywood Station, where he got into a fistfight with your grand jury chum Deputy Daniel Upshaw. You men have been working with Upshaw, and I called you in for your conclusions. Mal, you first.”

Mal made himself swallow his shock, think, then speak. “Sir, I don’t think Upshaw is capable of killing a man. I reprimanded him on Niles night before last, and he took it like a good cop. He seemed relieved that Niles was off his Homicide detail, and we all know that Niles was in up to here on Brenda Allen. I’ve heard he ran bag for Jack Dragna, and I’d look to Jack and Mickey before I accused a brother officer.”

Green nodded. “Lieutenant Smith.”

Dudley said, “Sir, I disagree with Captain Considine. Sergeant Mike Breuning, who’s also working that Homicide detail with Upshaw, told me that Niles was afraid of the lad and that he was convinced that Upshaw had committed a break-in in LAPD territory in order to get evidence. Niles told Sergeant Breuning that Upshaw lied about how he came to get word of the second and third victims, and that he was going to try to accrue criminal charges against him. Moreover, Niles was convinced that Upshaw had a very strange fixation on these deviant killings he’s so concerned with, and Niles calling Upshaw a ‘queer’ was what precipitated their fight. An informant of mine told me that Upshaw was seen threatening a known queer pimp named Felix Gordean, a man who is known to heavily pay off Sheriff’s Central Vice. Gordean told my man that Upshaw is crazy, obsessed with some sort of homo conspiracy, and that he made extortion demands on him — threatening to go to the newspapers unless he gave him special information — information that Gordean asserts does not even exist.”

Mal took the indictment in. “Who’s your informant, Dudley? And why do you and Breuning care so much about Upshaw?”

Dudley smiled — a bland shark. “I would not want that lad’s unstable violent behavior to upset his work for our grand jury, and I would no more divulge the names of my snitches than you would, Captain.”

“No, but you’d smear a brother officer. A man who I think is a dedicated and brilliant young policeman.”

“I’ve always heard you had a soft spot for your operatives, Malcolm. You should be more circumspect in displaying it, though. Especially now that you’re a captain. I personally consider Upshaw capable of murder. Violence is often the province of weak men.”

Mal thought that with the right conditions and one drink too many, the kid could shoot in cold blood. He said, “Chief, Dudley’s persuasive, but I don’t make Upshaw for this at all.”

Thad Green stubbed out his cigarette. “You men are too personally involved. I’ll put some unbiased officers on it.”

Chapter Thirty-One

The phone rang. Danny reached for the bedside extension, saw that he’d passed out on the floor and tripped over dead bottles and file folders getting to it. “Yeah? Jack?”

Jack Shortell said, “It’s me. You listening?”

Danny blinked away wicked sunlight, grabbed paper and a pencil. “Go.”

“First, Breuning’s tails were all fake. I called in an old favor at LAPD Homicide, checked the work sheets for the men Dudley uses regularly and found out they were all working regular assignments full-time. I looked around for Gene Niles to see if I could sweet-talk him and get some more dope on it, but that bastard is nowhere. LAPD canvassed the area where Duarte’s body was found — they caught the squeal and some rookie squadroom dick out of Central hopped on it. Nothing so far. Doc Layman’s grid-searching for trace elements there — he wants complete forensics on Duarte so he can put him in his next textbook. He thinks the rain will kibosh it, but he’s trying anyway, and on the autopsy it’s the same story as the first three: sedated, strangled, mutilated after death. I called the other men on your tailing list, and they’re going on little vacations until this blows over. Danny, did you know that guy Hartshorn you told me about killed himself?”

Danny said, “Yeah, and I don’t know if it plays with our case or not.”

“Well, I went by Wilshire Station and checked the report, and it looks clean — no forced entry, no struggle. Hartshorn’s daughter said Pops was despondent over your grand jury.”

Danny was getting nervous; the scene with De Haven was coming back: she knew, they knew, no more Red Ted. “Jack, have you got anything hot?”

Shortell said, “Maybe a scorcher. I was up all night on the wolverine thing, and I got a great lead on an old man named Thomas Cormier, that’s C-O-R-M-I-E-R. He’s an amateur naturalist, famous, I guess you’d call him. He lives on Bunker Hill, and he rents weasel genus things to the movies and animal shows. He has a batch of individually penned-up wolverines, the only known batch in LA. Now listen, because this is where it gets good.

“Last night I went by the West Hollywood Substation to talk to a pal of mine who just transferred over. I heard the girl at the switchboard ragging you to the watch sergeant, and I played nice and sweet-talked her. She told me she was dragging her heels on her set of dental queries because she thought you were just using her. She gave me a list that had notes on it — negative on the killer’s description, but positive on the animal teeth — Joredco Dental Lab on Beverly and Beaudry. They do animal dentures for taxidermists, and they’re the only lab in LA that works with actual animal teeth — that lead you had that said all taxidermists use plastic teeth was wrong. And Beverly and Beaudry is seven blocks from Thomas Cormier’s house — 343 South Corondelet.”

Red hot and biting.

Danny said, “I’m rolling,” and hung up. He put muscling Felix Gordean aside, cleaned up and stashed his files, cleaned up his person and dressed as Daniel T. Upshaw, policeman, replete with badge, gun and official ID. Ted Krugman dead and buried, he drove to Bunker Hill.

343 South Corondelet was an eaved and gabled Victorian house sandwiched between vacant lots on the west edge of the Hill. Danny parked in front and heard animal yapping; he followed the sounds down the driveway and around to a terraced back yard with a picture postcard view of Angel’s Flight. Lean-tos with corrugated metal roofs were arranged in L-shapes, one to each level of grass; the structures were fronted by heavy wire mesh, and the longest L had what looked like a generator device built onto its rear side. The whole yard reeked of animals, animal piss and animal shit.

“The smell getting to you, Officer?”

Danny turned around. The mind reader was a grizzled old man wearing dungarees and hipboots, walking toward him waving a fat cigar that blended in perfectly with the shit stink and made it worse. He smiled, adding bad breath to the effluvia. “Are you from Animal Regulation or Department of Health?”

Danny felt the sun and the smell go to work on his skinful of booze, sandpapering him. “I’m a Sheriff’s Homicide detective. Are you Thomas Cormier?”

“I am indeed, and I’ve never killed anyone and I don’t associate with killers. I’ve got some killer mustelids, but they only kill the rodents I feed them. If that’s a crime. I’ll take the blame. I keep my mustelidae in captivity, so if they called a bum tune, I’ll pay the piper.”

The man looked too intelligent to be an outright loony. Danny said, “Mr. Cormier, I heard you’re an expert on wolverines.”

“That is the God’s truth. I have eleven in captivity right this instant, my baby refrigeration unit keeping them nice and cool, the way they like it.”

Danny queased on cigar smoke and halitosis; he willed himself pro. “This is why I’m here, Mr. Cormier. Four men have been killed between New Year’s and now. They were mutilated by a man wearing denture plates with wolverine teeth attached. There’s a dental lab several blocks from here — the only one in LA that manufactures actual animal dentures. I think that’s a strange coincidence, and I thought maybe you could help me out with it.”

Thomas Cormier snuffed his cigar and pocketed the butt. “That is just about the strangest thing I have heard in my entire time on this planet, which dates back to 1887. What else have you got on your killer?”

Danny said, “He’s tall, middle-aged, gray-haired. He knows the jazz world, he can purchase heroin, he knows his way around male prostitutes.” He stopped, thinking of Reynolds Loftis, wondering if he’d get anything that wasn’t circumstantial on him. “And he’s a homosexual.”

Cormier laughed. “Sounds like a nice fellow, and sorry I can’t help you. I don’t know anybody like that, and if I did, I think I’d keep my back to the wall and my trusty rifle out when he came to call. And this fellow’s enamored of Gulo luscus?”

“If you mean wolverines, yes.”

“Lord. Well, I admire his taste in mustelids, if not the way he displays his appreciation.”

Danny sighed. “Mr. Cormier, do you know anything about the Joredco Dental Lab?”

“Sure, just down the street. I think they make animal choppers.”

A clean take. Danny saw takes from Claire De Haven’s movie, pictured HIM seeing it, getting aroused, wanting more. “I’d like to see your wolverines.”

Cormier said, “Thought you’d never ask,” and walked ahead of Danny to the refrigeration shed. The air went from warm to freezing; the yapping became snarling; dark shapes lashed out and banged the mesh fronts of their pens. Cormier said, “Gulo luscus. Carcajou — evil spirit — to the Indians. The most insatiable carnivore alive and pound for pound the meanest mammal. Like I said, I admire your killer’s taste.”

Danny found a good sun angle — light square on a middle pen; he squatted down and looked, his nose to the wire. Inside, a long creature paced, turning in circles, snapping at the walls. Its teeth glinted; its claws scraped the floor; it looked like a coiled muscle that would not stop coiling until it killed and slept in satiation — or died. Danny watched, feeling the beast’s power, feeling HIM feeling it; Cormier talked. “Gulo luscus is two things: smart and intractable. I’ve known them to develop a taste for deer, hide in trees and toss nice edible bark down to lure them over, then jump down and rip the deer’s jugular out clean to the windpipe. Once they get a whiff of blood, they will not stop persisting. I’ve heard of wolverines stalking cougars wounded in mating battles. They’ll jab them from behind, take nips out and run away, a little meat here and there until the cougar nearly bleeds to death. When the poor fellow’s almost dead, Gulo attacks frontally, claws the cougar’s eyes out of his head and eats them like gumballs.”

Danny winced, transposing the image: Marty Goines, HIM, the creature he was watching. “I need to look at your records. All the wolverines you’ve lent out to movies and animal shows.”

Cormier said, “Officer, you can’t lend Gulos out, much as I’d like to make the money. They’re my private passion, I love them and I keep them around because they shore up my reputation as a mustelidologist. You lend Gulos out, they’ll attack anything human or animal within biting range. I had one stolen out of its pen five or six years ago, and my only consolation was that the stealer sure as hell got himself mangled.”

Danny looked up. “Tell me about that. What happened?”

Cormier took out his cigar butt and fingered it. “In the summer of ’42 I worked nights at the Griffith Park Zoo, resident zoologist doing research on nocturnal mustelid habits. I had an earlier bunch of wolverines that were getting real fat. I knew somebody must have been feeding them, and I started finding extra mouse and hamster carcasses in the pens. Somebody was lifting the food latches and feeding my Gulos, and I figured it for a neighborhood kid who’d heard about my reputation and thought he’d see for himself. Truth be told, it didn’t bother me, and it kind of gave me a cozy feeling, here’s this fellow Gulo lover and all. Then, late in July, it stopped. I knew it stopped because there were no more extra carcasses in the cages and my Gulos went back to their normal weights. About a year and a half or so went by, and one night my Gulo Otto was stolen. I laughed like hell. I figured the feeder had to have a Gulo for himself and stole Otto. Otto was a pistol. If the stealer got away with keeping him, I’m sure Otto bit him real good. I called hospitals around here to see if they stitched a bite victim, but it was no go, no Otto.”

Bit him real good.

Danny thought of sedation — a wolverine Mickey Finned and stolen — HIM with his own evil mascot — the story might just play. He looked back in the pen; the wolverine noticed something and lashed the wire, making screechy blood W noises. Cormier laughed and said, “Juno, you’re a pistol.” Danny put his face up to the mesh, tasting the animal’s breath. He said, “Thanks, Mr. Cormier,” pulled himself away and drove to the Joredco Dental Lab.

He was almost expecting a neon sign facade, an animal mouth open wide, the address numbers done up as teeth. He was wrong: the lab was just a tan stucco building, a subtly lettered sign above the door its only advertisement.

Danny parked in front and walked into a tiny receiving area: a secretary behind a desk, a switchboard and calendar art on the walls — 1950 repeated a dozen times over, handsome wild animals representing January for local taxidermist’s shops. The girl smiled at him and said, “Yes?”

Danny showed his badge. “Sheriff’s. I’d like to speak to the man in charge.”

“Regarding?”

“Regarding animal teeth.”

The girl tapped an intercom switch and said, “Policeman to see you, Mr. Carmichael.” Danny looked at pictures of moose, bears, wolves and buffalos; he noticed a sleek mountain cat and thought of a wolverine stalking it, killing it off with sheer ugly persistence.

A connecting door swung open; a man in a bloody white smock came in. Danny said, “Mr. Carmichael?”

“Yes, mister?”

“It’s Deputy Upshaw.”

“And this regards, Deputy?”

“It regards wolverine teeth.”

No reaction except impatience — the man obviously anxious to get back to work. “Then I can’t help you. Joredco is the only lab in Los Angeles that fashions animal dentures, and we’ve never done them for a wolverine.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because taxidermists do not stuff wolverines — they are not an item that people want mounted in their home or lodge. I’ve worked here for thirteen years and I’ve never filled an order for wolverine teeth.”

Danny thought it over. “Could someone who learned the rudiments of animal-denture making here do it himself?”

“Yes, but it would be bloody and very slapdash without the proper tools.”

“Good. Because I’m looking for a man who likes blood.”

Carmichael wiped his hands on his smock. “Deputy, what is this in regard to?”

“Quadruple homicide. How far back do your employment records go?”

The “quadruple homicide” got to Carmichael — he looked shaken under his brusqueness. “My God. Our records go back to ’40, but Joredco employs mostly women. You don’t think—”

Danny was thinking Reynolds Loftis wouldn’t sully his hands in a place like this. “I think maybe. Tell me about the men you’ve had working here.”

“There haven’t been many. Frankly, women work for a lower wage. Our current staff has been here for years, and when we get rush orders, we hire bums out of day labor and kids from Lincoln and Belmont High School to do the scut work. During the war, we hired lots of temporaries that way.”

The Joredco connection felt — strangely — like it was clicking in, with Loftis clicking out. “Mr. Carmichael, do you have a medical plan for your regular employees?”

“Yes.”

“May I see your records?”

Carmichael turned to the receptionist. “Sally, let Deputy whatever here see the files.”

Danny let the remark slide; Carmichael went back through the connecting door. Sally pointed to a filing cabinet. “Nasty prick, if you’ll pardon my French. Medicals are in the bottom drawer, men in with the women. You don’t think a real killer worked here, do you?”

Danny laughed. “No, but maybe a real live monster did.”

It took him an hour to go through the medical charts.

Since November ’39, sixteen men had been hired on as dental techs. Three were Japanese, hired immediately after the Jap internment ended in ’44; four were Caucasian and now in their thirties; three were white and now middle-aged; six were Mexican. All sixteen men had, at one time or another, given blood to the annual Red Cross Drive. Five of the sixteen possessed O+ blood, the most common human blood type. Three of the men were Mexican, two were Japanese — but Joredco still felt right.

Danny went back to the shop and spent another hour chatting up the techs, talking to them while they pried teeth out of gum sections removed from the heads of elk, deer and Catalina Island boar. He asked questions about tall, gray-haired men who acted strange; jazz; heroin; guys with wolverine fixations. He breathed blood and animal tooth infection and stressed strange behavior among the temporary workers who came and went; he threw out teasers on a handsome Hollywood actor who just might have made the scene. The techs deadpanned him, no’d him and worked around him; his only lead was elimination stuff: most of the temps were Mex, wetbacks going to Belmont and Lincoln High sans green cards, veterans of the Vernon slaughterhouses, where the work was twice as gory and the money was even worse than the coolie wages Mr. Carmichael paid. Danny left thinking Reynolds Loftis would faint the second he hit the Joredco line; thinking the actor might be circumstantial linkage only. But Joredco/Cormier still felt right; the blood and decay smelled like something HE would love.

The day was warming up; heat that felt all the worse for coming after heavy rain. Danny sat in the car and sweated out last night’s drunk; he thought elimination, thought that the day labor joints kept no records in order to dodge taxes, that the high school employment offices were long shots he had to try anyway. He drove to Belmont High, talked to the employment counselor, learned that her records only went back to ’45 and checked the Joredco referrals — twenty-seven of them — all Mexes and Japs. Even though he knew the age range was wrong, he repeated the process at Lincoln: Mexes, Japs and a mentally deficient white boy hired because he was strong enough to haul two deer carcasses at a time. Gooser. But the rightness kept nagging him.

Danny drove to a bar in Chinatown. After two shots of house bonded, he knew this was his last day as Homicide brass: when he told Considine Ted Krugman was shot, he’d be shot back to the West Hollywood Squad, packing some large blame if Ellis Loew thought he’d jeopardized the chance for a successful grand jury. He could keep looking for HIM on his off-hours — but there was a good chance Felix Gordean would talk to his golf buddies Sheriff Biscailuz and Al Dietrich and he’d get dumped back into uniform or jail duty. He’d made an enemy of Gene Niles and pissed off Dudley Smith and Mike Breuning; Karen Hiltscher wouldn’t play pratgirl for him anymore; if Niles could prove he B&E’d 2307, he’d be in real trouble.

Two more shots; warm wisps edging out the gloom. He had a friend with rank and juice — if he could make up for blowing his decoy job, he could still ride Considine’s coattails. A last shot; HIM again, HIM pure and abstract, like there was never a time when he didn’t exist, even though they’d been together only a few weeks. He thought of HIM free of Reynolds Loftis and last night with Claire, taking it back chronologically, stopping at Augie Duarte dead on a stainless steel slab.

The facial cuts. Jump forward to last night’s file work. His instinct: the killer knew Marty Goines’ pal — the youth with the bandaged face — and drew sexual inspiration from him. Jump to Thomas Cormier, whose wolverines were overfed — worshiped? — during the summer of ’42, Sleepy Lagoon summer, when zoot sticks were most in use. Cormier’s interpretation: a neighborhood kid. Jump to Joredco. They hired youths, maybe youths out of skid row day labor, where they didn’t keep records. The burn boy was white; all the high school referrals were Mex and Jap, except for the non-play retard. Maybe the workers he talked to never met the kid because he only worked there briefly, maybe they forgot about him, maybe they just didn’t notice him. Jump forward to now. The burned-face boy was a burglar — Listerine Chester Brown tagged him as burglarizing with Goines circa ’43 to ’44, his face bandaged. If he was the one who stole Thomas Cormier’s wolverine some eighteen months after his summer of ’42 worship, and he was a local kid, he might have committed other burglaries in the Bunker Hill area during that time period.

Danny drove to Rampart Station, the LAPD division that handled Bunker Hill felonies. Mal Considine’s name got him the squad lieutenant’s attention; a few minutes later he was in a musty storeroom checking boxes of discarded occurrence reports.

The boxes were marked according to year; Danny found two grocery cartons stencilled “1942.” The reports inside were loose, the multi-page jobs stapled together with no carbons in between. There was no rhyme or reason to the order they were filed in — purse snatchings, muggings, petty thefts, burglaries, indecent exposures and loiterings were all lumped together. Danny sat down on a box of ’48 reports and dug in.

He scanned upper right corners for penal code numbers — Burglary, 459.1. The two boxes for ’42 yielded thirty-one; location was his next breakdown step. He carried the reports into the squadroom, sat at an empty desk facing a wall map of Rampart Division and looked for Bunker Hill street names to match. Four reports in, he got one; six reports in, three more. He memorized the ten north-south and eight east-west blocks of the Hill, tore through the rest of the pages and ended with eleven burglaries, unsolved occurrences, on Bunker Hill in the year 1942. And the eleven addresses were all within walking distance of Thomas Cormier’s house and the Joredco Dental Lab.

Next was dates.

Danny flipped through the reports again quickly; the time and date of occurrence were typed at the bottom of each first page. May 16, 1942; July 1, 1942; May 27, 1942; May 9, 1942; June 16, 1942, and six more to make eleven: an unsolved burglary spree, May 9 to August 1, 1942. His head buzzing, he read “Items Stolen” — and saw why Rampart didn’t put out beaucoup men to catch the burglar:

Trinkets, family portraits, costume jewelry, cash out of purses and wallets. A deco wall clock. A cedar cigar humidor. A collection of glass figurines. A stuffed ringneck pheasant, a stuffed bobcat mounted on rosewood.

More HIM, more not Loftis HIM. It had to be.

Danny tingled, like he was being dangled on electric strings. He went back to the storeroom, found the ’43 and ’44 boxes, looked through them and got zero Bunker Hill trinket jobs — the only burglary occurrence reports for those years denoted real 459.1’s, real valuables taken; burglary reports resulting in arrest had already been checked City- and Countywide. Danny finished and kicked at the boxes; two facts kicked him.

The killer was ID’d as middle-aged; he had to be connected to the wolverine-worshiping burglar — a youth — who was emerging from today’s work. Chester Brown told him that Marty Goines and his burned-face accomplice B&E’d in the San Fernando Valley ’43 to ’44; station houses out there might have occurrence reports — he could roll there after he muscled a certain Commie stagehand. And summer ’42 was the height of the wartime blackout, curfew was rigidly enforced and field interrogation cards were written up on people caught out after 10:00 P.M. — when the wolverine lover was most likely prowling. If the cards were saved—

Danny tore the storeroom apart, throwing empty boxes; he sweated out his booze lunch, got sprayed with cobwebs, mildew and mouse turds. He found a box marked “FI’s ’41–’43,” thumbed back the first few cards and saw that they were — amazingly — in chronological order. He kept flipping; the late spring and summer of ’42 yielded eight names: eight white men aged nineteen to forty-seven stopped for being out after curfew, questioned and released.

The cards were filled out slapdash: all had the name, race and date of birth of the interrogee; only half had home addresses listed — in most cases downtown hotels. Five of the men would now be middle-aged and possibles for HIM; the other three were youths who could be the burned-face boy pre-burns — or — if he was tangential to the case — Thomas Cormier’s neighborhood kid wolverine lover.

Danny pocketed the cards, drove to a pay phone and called Jack Shortell at the Hollywood squadroom. The squad lieutenant put the call through; Shortell came on the line sounding harried. “Yeah? Danny?”

“It’s me. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, except I’m getting the fisheye from every City bull in the place, like all of a sudden I’m worse than worse than poison. What have you got?”

“Names, maybe a hot one right in the middle. I talked to that Cormier guy and hit Joredco, and I couldn’t put them straight together, but I’m damn sure our guy got kissing close to Cormier’s wolverines. You remember that old burglary accomplice of Marty Goines I told you about?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I’ve got a line on him, and I just about think he plays. There was a bunch of unsolved burglaries on Bunker Hill, May to August of ’42. Mickey Mouse stuff clouted, right near Cormier and Joredco. LAPD was enforcing curfew then, and I picked out eight possible FI cards from the area — May through August. I’ve got a hunch the killings stem from then — the Sleepy Lagoon killing and the SLDC time — and I need you to do eliminations — current address, blood type, dental tech background, criminal record and the rest.”

“Go, I’m writing it down.”

Danny got out his cards. “Some have addresses, some don’t. One, James George Whitacre, DOB 10/5/03, Havana Hotel, Ninth and Olive. Two, Ronald NMI Dennison, 6/30/20, no address. Three, Coleman Masskie, 5/9/23, 236 South Beaudry. Four, Lawrence Thomas Waznicki with a K-1, 11/29/08, 641 1/4 Bunker Hill Avenue. Five, Leland NMI Hardell, 6/4/24, American Eagle Hotel, 4th and Hill Streets. Six, Loren Harold Nadick, 3/2/02, no address. Seven, David NMI Villers, 1/15/04, no address. And Bruno Andrew Gaffney, 7/29/06, no address.”

Shortell said, “All down. Son, are you getting close?”

Another electric jolt: the Bunker Hill burglaries ended on August 1, 1942; the Sleepy Lagoon murder — the victim’s clothes zoot stick slashed — occurred on August 2. “Almost, Jack. Some right answers and luck and that fucker is mine.”

Danny got to Variety International Pictures just as dusk was falling and the picket lines were breaking up for the day. He parked in plain view, put an “Official Police Vehicle” sign on his windshield and pinned his badge to his coat front; he walked to the guard hut, no familiar faces, pissed that he was ignored. The gate man buzzed him in; he walked straight back to Set 23.

The sign on the wall had Tomahawk Massacre still in production; the door was open. Danny heard gunfire, looked in and saw a cowboy and an Indian exchange shots across papier-mâché foothills. Lights were shining down on them; cameras were rolling; the Mexican guy he’d seen outside the morgue was sweeping up fake snow in front of another backdrop: grazing buffalos painted on cardboard.

Danny hugged the wall going over; the Mex looked up, dropped his broom and took off running, right in front of the cameras. Danny ran after him, sliding on soap flakes; the moviemaking stopped; someone yelled, “Juan, goddamn you! Cut! Cut!”

Juan ran out a side exit, slamming the door; Danny ran across the set, slowed and eased the door open. It was slammed against him, reinforced steel knocking him back; he slid on phony snow, hauled outside and saw Duarte racing down an alley toward a chain-link fence.

Danny ran full out; Juan Duarte hit the fence and started climbing. He snagged his trouser legs; he kicked, pulled and twisted to get free. Danny caught up, yanked him down by his waistband and caught a hard right hand in the face. Stunned, he let go; Duarte collapsed on top of him.

Danny kneed upward, a jerky shot; Duarte hit down, missing, smashing his fist on the pavement. Danny rolled away, came up behind him and pinned him with his weight; the Mex gasped, “Puto fascist shitfuck fascist cop fascist shitfuck.” Danny fumbled out his cuffs, ratcheted Duarte’s left hand and attached the spare bracelet to a fence link. The Mex flopped on his stomach and tried to tear the fence down, spitting epithets in Spanish; Danny got his breath, let Duarte shake and shout himself out, them knelt beside him. “I know you saw my picture, and you saw me at the morgue and you snitched me to Claire. I don’t care and I give a fuck about UAES and the fucking Red Menace. I want to get Augie’s killer and I’ve got a hunch it goes back to Sleepy Lagoon. Now you can talk to me, or I’ll nail you for Assault on a Police Officer right here. Call it now.”

Duarte shook his cuff chain; Danny said, “Two to five minimum, and I don’t give a shit about the UAES.” A crowd was forming in the alley; Danny waved them back; they retreated with sidelong looks and slow head shakes. Duarte said, “Take these things off me and maybe I’ll talk to you.”

Danny unlocked the cuffs. Duarte rubbed his wrist, stood up, got rubber-legged and slid down to a sitting position, his back against the fence. He said, “Why’s a hired gun for the studios give a damn about my dead fag cousin?”

Danny said, “Get up, Duarte.”

“I talk better on my ass. Answer me. How come you care about a maricón who wanted to be a puto movie star like every other puto in this puto town?”

“I don’t know. But I want the guy who killed Augie nailed.”

“And what’s that got to do with you trying to get next to Claire De Haven?”

“I told you I don’t care about that.”

“Norm Kostenz said you sure care. When I told him you were the fucking law, he said you should get a fucking Oscar for your bonaroo portrayal of Ted Krug—”

Danny squatted by Duarte, holding the fence. “Are you going to spill or not?”

Duarte said, “I’ll spill, pendejo. You said you thought Augie’s snuff went back to Sleepy Lagoon, and that got my interest. Charlie Hartshorn thought that too, so—”

Danny’s hand shook the fence; he braced his whole body into it to stay steady. “What did you say?”

“I said Charlie Hartshorn thought the same thing maybe, so maybe talking to a puto cop ain’t all poison.”

Danny slid down the fence so he could eyeball Duarte close. “Tell me all of it, slow and easy. You know Hartshorn killed himself, don’t you?”

Duarte said, “Maybe he did. You tell me.”

“No. You tell me, because I don’t know and I’ve got to know.”

Duarte stared at Danny, squinty-eyed, like he couldn’t figure him out. “Charlie was a lawyer. He was a maricón, but he wasn’t a swish or nothing. He worked Sleepy Lagoon, filing briefs and shit for free.”

“I know that.”

“Okay, here’s what you don’t know, and here’s the kind of guy he was. When you saw me at the morgue it was my second time there. I got a call from a buddy who works there, maybe one in the morning, and he told me about Augie — the zoot cuts, all of it. I went to Charlie’s house. He had legal juice, and I wanted to see if he’d goose the cops so they’d give Augie’s snuff a good investigation. He told me he’d been goosed by some cop about the death of a guy named Duane Lindenaur, even though the cop pretended he didn’t care about that. Charlie read this scandal rag that said Lindenaur and some clown named Wiltsie got cut up by a zoot stick, and my morgue buddy said Augie got chopped like that, too. I told Charlie, and he got the idea all three snuffs went back to Sleepy Lagoon. He called the cops and spoke to some guy named Sergeant Bruner or something—”

Danny cut in. “Breuning? Sergeant Mike Breuning?”

“Yeah, that’s him. Charlie told Breuning what I just told you and Breuning said he’d come to see him at his crib right away to talk to him about it. I took off then. So if Charlie thought there was something to this Sleepy Lagoon theory, maybe you ain’t such a cabrón.”

Danny’s brain stoked on overdrive:

Breuning’s curiosity on the zoot stick queries, his making light of them. His strange reaction to the four surveillance names — Augie Duarte singled out — because he was Mex, a KA of a Sleepy Lagoon Committee member? Mal telling him that Dudley Smith asked to join the grand jury team, even though, as an LAPD Homicide lieutenant, there was no logical reason for him to work the job. Mal’s story: Dudley brutally interrogating Duarte/Sammy Benavides/Mondo Lopez, stressing the Sleepy Lagoon case and the guilt of the seventeen youths originally charged with the crime — even though the questioning tack was not germane to UAES.

Hartshorn mentioning “zoot stick” on the phone to Breuning.

Jack Shortell’s oral report: Dudley Smith and Breuning were seen hobnobbing at Wilshire Station the night before last — the night Hartshorn killed himself. Did they make a quick run to Hartshorn’s house — a scant mile from the station — kill him and return to the Wilshire squadroom, hoping that no one saw them leave and return — a perfect cop alibi?

And why?

Juan Duarte was looking at him like he was from outer space; Danny got his brain simmered down to where he could talk. “Think fast on this. Jazz musicians, burglary, wolverines, heroin, queer escort services.”

Duarte slid a few feet away. “I think they all stink. Why?”

“A kid who worships wolverines.”

Duarte put a finger to his head and twirled it. “Loco mierda. A wolverine’s a fucking rat, right?”

Danny saw Juno’s claws lashing out. “Try this, Duarte. Sleepy Lagoon, the Defense Committee, ’42 to ’44 and Reynolds Loftis. Think slow, go slow.”

Duarte said, “Easy. Reynolds and his kid brother.”

Danny started to say, “What?”, stopped and thought. He’d read the entire grand jury package twice on arrival and twice last night; he’d read the psychiatric files twice before Considine took them back. In all the paperwork there was no mention of Loftis having a brother. But there was a gap — ’42 to ’44 — in Loftis’ shrink file. “Tell me about the kid brother, Duarte. Nice and slow.”

Duarte spoke rapidamente. “He was a punk, a lame-o. Reynolds started bringing him around the time the SLDC was hot. I forget the kid’s name, but he was a kid, eighteen, nineteen, in there. He had his face bandaged up. He was in a fire and he got burned bad. When he got his burns all healed up and the bandages and gauze and shit came off, all the girls in the Committee thought he was real cute. He looked just like Reynolds, but even handsomer.”

The new facts coming together went tap, tap, tap, knocks on a door that was still a long way from opening. A Loftis burn-faced brother put the actor back in contention for HIM, but contradicted his instinct that the killer drew sex inspiration from the youth’s disfigurement; it played into Wolverine Prowler and Burn Face as one man and tapped the possibility that he was a killing accomplice — one way to explain the new welter of age contradictions. Danny said, “Tell me about the kid. Why did you call him a punk?”

Duarte said, “He was always sucking up to the Mexican guys. He told this fish story about how a big white man killed José Diaz, like we were supposed to like him because he said the killer wasn’t Mexican. Everybody knew the killer was Mexican — the cops just railroaded the wrong Mexicans. He told this crazy story about seeing the killing, but he didn’t have no real details, and when guys pressed him, he clammed up. The SLDC got some anonymous letters saying a white guy did it, and you could tell the kid brother sent them — it was crazy-man stuff. The kid said he was running from the killer, and once I said, ‘Pendejo, if the killer’s looking for you, what the fuck you doing coming to these rallies where he could grab your crazy ass?’ The kid said he had special protection, but wouldn’t tell me no more. Like I said, he was a lame-o. If he wasn’t Reynolds’ brother, nobody woulda tolerated him at all.”

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Danny said, “What happened to him?”

Duarte shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t see him since the SLDC, and I don’t think nobody else has either. Reynolds don’t talk about him. It’s strange. I don’t think I’ve heard Chaz or Claire or Reynolds talk about him in years.”

“What about Benavides and Lopez? Where are they now?”

“On location with some other puto cowboy turkey. You think this stuff about Reynolds’ brother has got something to do with Augie?”

Danny brainstormed off the question. Reynolds Loftis’ brother was the burned-face burglar boy, Marty Goines’ burglar accomplice, very possibly the Bunker Hill prowler/wolverine lover. The Bunker Hill B&Es stopped August 1, 1942; the next night, José Diaz was killed at the Sleepy Lagoon, three miles or so southeast of the Hill. The kid brother alleged that he witnessed a “big white man” killing José Diaz.

Tap, tap, tap. Jump, jump, jump.

Dudley Smith was a big white man with a bone-deep cruel streak. He joined the grand jury team out of a desire to keep incriminating Sleepy Lagoon testimony kiboshed, thinking that with access to witnesses and case paperwork, he could get the jump on damaging evidence about to come out. Hartshorn’s zoot stick call to Mike Breuning scared him; he and Breuning or one of them alone drove over from Wilshire Station to talk to the man; Hartshorn got suspicious. Either premeditatedly or on the spur of the moment, Smith and/or Breuning killed him, faking a suicide. Tap, tap, tap — thunder loud — with the door still closed on the most important question: How did Smith killing José Diaz, his attempts to keep possible evidence quashed and his killing charles Hartshorn connect to the Goines/Wiltsie/Lindenaur/Duarte murders? And why did Smith kill Diaz?

Danny looked around at set doors spilling glimpses: the wild west, jungle swampland, trees in a forest. He said, “Vaya con Dios,” left Duarte sitting there and drove home to hit the grand jury file, thinking he’d finally made detective in the eyes of Maslick and Vollmer. He walked in his building, light as air; he pushed the elevator button and heard footsteps behind him. Turning, he saw two big men with guns drawn. He reached for his own gun, but a big fist holding a set of big brass knucks hit him first.

He came awake handcuffed to a chair. His head was woozy, his wrists were numb and his tongue felt huge. His eyes homed in on an interrogation cubicle, three fuzzy men seated around a table, a big black revolver lying square in the middle. A voice said, “.38’s are standard issue for your Department, Upshaw. Why do you carry a .45?”

Danny blinked and coughed up a bloody lunger; he blinked again and recognized the voice man: Thad Green, LAPD Chief of Detectives. The two men flanking Green fell into focus; they were the biggest plainclothes cops he’d ever seen.

“I asked you a question, Deputy.”

Danny tried to remember the last time he had a drink, came up with Chinatown and knew he couldn’t have gone crazy while fried on bonded. He coughed dry and said, “I sold it when I made detective.”

Green lit a cigarette. “That’s an interdepartmental offense. Do you consider yourself above the law?”

“No!”

“Your friend Karen Hiltscher says otherwise. She says you’ve manipulated her for special favors ever since you made detective. She told Sergeant Eugene Niles you broke into 2307 Tamarind and knew that two murder victims had recently been killed there. She told Sergeant Niles that your story about a girlfriend near the doughnut stand on Franklin and Western is a lie, that she phoned you the information off the City air. Niles was going to inform on you, Deputy. Did you know that?”

Danny’s head woozed. He swallowed blood; he recognized the man to Green’s left as the knuck wielder. “Yeah. Yes, I knew.”

Green said, “Who’d you sell your .38 to?”

“A guy in a bar.”

“That’s a misdemeanor, Deputy. A criminal charge. You really don’t care much for the law, do you?”

“Yes, yes, I care! I’m a policeman! Goddamn it, what is this!”

The knuck man said, “You were seen arguing with a known homo procurer named Felix Gordean. Are you on his payroll?”

“No!”

“Mickey Cohen’s payroll?”

“No!”

Green took over. “You were given command of a Homicide team, a carrot for your grand jury work. Sergeant Niles and Sergeant Mike Breuning found it very strange that a smart young officer would be so concerned about a string of queer slashes. Would you like to tell us why?”

“No! What the fuck is this! I B&E’d Tamarind! What do you fucking want from me!”

The third cop, a huge bodybuilder type, said, “Why did you and Niles trade blows?”

“He was ditzing me with Tamarind Street, threatening to rat me.”

“So that made you mad?”

“Yes.”

“Fighting mad?”

“Yes!”

Green said, “We heard a different version, Deputy. We heard Niles called you a queer.”

Danny froze, reached for a comeback and kept freezing. He thought of ratting Dudley and kiboshed it — they’d never believe him — yet. “If Niles said that, I didn’t hear it.”

The knuck cop laughed. “Strike a nerve, Sonny?”

“Fuck you!”

The weightlifter cop backhanded him; Danny spat in his face. Green yelled, “No!”

The knuck man put his arms around weightlifter and held him back; Green chained another cigarette, butt to tip. Danny gasped, “Tell me what this is all about.”

Green waved the strongarms to the back of the cubicle, dragged on his smoke and stubbed it out. “Where were you night before last between 2:00 and 7:00 A.M.?”

“I was at home in bed. Asleep.”

“Alone, Deputy?”

“Yes.”

“Deputy, during that time Sergeant Gene Niles was shot and killed, then buried in the Hollywood Hills. Did you do it?”

“No!”

“Tell us who did.”

“Jack! Mickey! Niles was fucking rogue!”

The knuck cop stepped forward; the weightlifter cop grabbed him, mumbling, “Spit on my Hathaway shirt you queer-loving hump. Gene Niles was my pal, my good buddy from the army, you queer lover.”

Danny dug his feet in and pushed his chair against the wall. “Gene Niles was an incompetent bagman son of a bitch.”

Weightlifter charged, straight for Danny’s throat. The cubicle door opened and Mal Considine rushed in; Thad Green shouted commands impossible to hear. Danny brought his knees up, toppling the chair; the monster cop’s hands closed on air. Mal crashed into him, winging rabbit punches; the knuck cop pulled him off and wrestled him out to the corridor. Shouts of “Danny!” echoed; Green stationed himself between the chair and the monster, going, “No, Harry, no,” like he was reprimanding an unruly monster dog. Danny ate linoleum and cigarette butts, heard, “Get Considine to a holding tank”, was lifted, chair and all, to an upright position. The knuck man went behind him and unlocked his cuffs; Thad Green reached for his .45 on the table.

Danny stood up, swaying; Green handed him his gun. “I don’t know if you did it or not, but there’s one way to find out. Report back here to City Hall, room 1003, tomorrow at noon. You’ll be given a polygraph test and sodium pentothal, and you’ll be asked extensive questions about these homicides you’re working and your relationships with Felix Gordean and Gene Niles. Good night, Deputy.”

Danny weaved to the elevator, rode to the ground floor and walked outside, his legs slowly coming back. He cut across the lawn toward the Temple Street cabstand, stopping for a soft voice.

“Lad.”

Danny froze; Dudley Smith stepped out of a shadow. He said, “It’s a grand night, is it not?”

Small talk with a murderer. Danny said, “You killed José Diaz. You and Breuning killed Charles Hartshorn. And I’m going to prove it.”

Dudley Smith smiled. “I never doubted your intelligence, lad. Your courage, yes. Your intelligence, never. And I’ll admit I underestimated your persistence. I’m only human, you know.”

“Oh, no you’re not.”

“I’m skin and bone, lad. Eros and dust like all us frail mortals. Like you, lad. Crawling in sewers for answers you’d be better off without.”

“You’re finished.”

“No, lad. You are. I’ve been talking to my old friend Felix Gordean, and he painted me a vivid picture of your emergence. Lad, next to myself Felix has the finest eye for weakness I’ve ever encountered. He knows, and when you take that lie detector test tomorrow, the whole world will know.”

Danny said, “No.”

Dudley Smith said, “Yes,” kissed him full on the lips and walked away whistling a love song.

Machines that know.

Drugs that don’t let you lie.

Danny took a cab home. He unlocked the door and went straight for his files: facts you could put together for the truth, Dudley and Breuning and HIM nailed by 11:59, a last-minute reprieve like in the movies. He hit the hall light, opened the closet door. No file boxes, the rugs that covered them neatly folded on the floor.

Danny tore up the hall carpet and looked under it, dumped the bedroom cabinet and emptied the drawers, stripped the bed and yanked the medicine chest off the bathroom wall. He upended the living room furniture, looked under the cushions and tossed the kitchen drawers until the floor was all cutlery and broken dishes. He saw a half-full bottle by the radio, opened it, found his throat muscles too constricted and hurled it, knocking down the venetian blinds. He walked to the window, looked out and saw Dudley Smith haloed by a streetlight.

And he knew he knew. And tomorrow they would all know.

Blackmail bait.

His name in sex files.

His name bandied in queer chitchat at the Chateau Marmont.

Machines that know.

Drugs that don’t let you lie.

Polygraph needles fluttering off the paper every time they asked him why he cared so much about a string of queer fag homo fruit snuffs.

No reprieve.

Danny unholstered his gun and stuck the barrel in his mouth. The taste of oil made him gag and he saw how it would look, the cops who found him making jokes about why he did it that way. He put the .45 down and walked to the kitchen.

Weapons galore.

Danny picked up a serrated-edged carving knife. He tested the heft, found it substantial and said goodbye to Mal and Jack and Doc. He apologized for the cars he stole and the guys he beat up who didn’t deserve it, who were just there when he wanted to hit something. He thought of his killer, thought that he murdered because someone made him what he himself was. He held the knife up and forgave him; he put the blade to his throat and slashed himself ear to ear, down to the windpipe in one clean stroke.