o        o          o

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

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

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

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

  Grabber--Bud sat still, worked it up.

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

  First glitch: Spade couldn't have a jacket, no way to check his blood type--he rode in Sheriff Biscailuz' volunteer posse--P.R. stuff--nobody with a yellow sheet allowed.

  Keep grabbing, check the M.E.'s report, "Bloodstream Contents." Page 2, a scorcher--"undigested foodstuffs, semen, a heavily narcotizing amount of food-dispersed opium further verified by tar residue in teeth."

  Bud threw his arms up-like he could reach through the roof and haul down the moon. He banged the ceiling, came back to earth thinking--this was not a solo job, he was hiding out from Exley, Dudley just didn't care. He saw a phone, hit the ceiling, came down with a partner:

  Ellis Loew--sex murders made him drool.

  He grabbed the phone.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Hilda Lefferts tapped a mugshot. "There, that's Susan Nancy's beau. Will you take me home now?"

  Bingo--a pudgy hardcase type, a real Duke Cathcart lookalike. Dean NMI Van Gelder, W.M., DOB 3/4/21. 5'8¾", 178 lbs., blue eyes, brown hair. One armed-robbery bounce--6/42-- ten to twenty, released from Folsom 6/52, full minimum sentence topped--no parole. No further arrests--chalk it up to Bud White's theory--Van Gelder got it at the Nite Owl.

  Hilda said, "That's it--_Dean_. Susan Nancy called him 'Dean,' but he said, 'No, get used to calling me "Duke.""'

  Jack said, "You sure?"

  "Yes, I'm sure. Six hours of looking at these awful pictures and you ask me if I'm sure? If I wanted to lie I would have pointed somebody out hours ago. _Please_, Officer. First you fmd a body under my house, next you subject me to these pictures. Now will you please take me home?"

  Jack shook his head no. Work it: Who? to Van Gelder to Cathcart to the Nite Owl. One parlay made sense--the Englekling brothers to Cathcart to a brush with Mickey Cohen--in stir back in '53. He picked up the phone, dialed 0.

  "Operator."

  "Operator, this is a police emergency. I need to be put through to somebody in administration at McNeil Federal Penitentiary, Puget Sound, Washington."

  "I see. And your name?"

  "Sergeant Vincennes, Los Angeles Police Department. Tell them I'm on a homicide investigation."

  "I see. Circuits to Wasington State have been--"

  "Shit. I'm at MAdison 60042. Will you--"

  "I'll try your call now, sir."

  Jack hung up. Forty seconds by the wall clock--_bbring brinng_.

  "Vincennes."

  "Deputy Warden Cahill at McNeil. This pertains to a homicide?"

  Hilda Lefferts was pouting--Jack turned away from her. "Yeah, and all I need's one answer. Got a pencil?"

  "Of course."

  "Okay. I need to know if a white male named Dean Van Gelder, that's two separate words on the last name, visited an inmate at McNeil say from February through April 1953. All I need's a yes or no and the names of any inmates he visited."

  A sigh. "All right, please hold. This may take a while."

  Jack held counting minutes--Cahill came back on at twelve plus. "That's a positive. Dean Van Gelder, DOB 3/4/2 1, visited inmate David Goldman on three occasions: 3/27/53, 4/1/53 and 4/3/53. Goldman was at McNeil on tax charges. Perhaps you've heard--"

  Work in Davey G.--Mickey Cohen's man. Work in Van Gelder's last visit--two weeks before the Nite Owl, the same time the Englekling brothers lubed Mickey--the meet where they spilled the smut plan. The prison man kept babbling--Jack hung up on him. The Nite Owl case started to shake.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Ed drove Lynn Bracken home, a last shot before having her arrested. She protested, then went along: her day of truth dope, counterdope and browbeating showed--she looked frazzled, exhausted. Call her smart, strong and chemically fortified; she gave up nothing but Pierce Patchett crumbs--however she managed it. Patchett knew a whitewash wouldn't wash; Lynn funneled out her call girl tale--and Patchett had to have lawyers waiting in case that crumb went to indictments. Reopening day one was pure insane: Dudley Smith up in Gaitsville while his hot dogs shook down Darktown; Vincennes' body under the house and his ID on Dean Van Gelder--Davey Goldman's McNeil visitor pre--Nite Owl. Bud White for a runner, then his _Whisper_ leak breaking--he was a fool to trust him for a second. All of that he could take: he was a professional detective used to dealing with chaos.

  But the Atherton case and his father circuiting in was something else. Now he felt suspended, one simple instinct running him: the Nite Owl had a life past any detective's volition--and the will to make its horror known whether he was there to probe evidence or not, whether he was capable of forming plans or just hanging on for the ride.

  He had a plan to work Bracken and Patchett.

  Lynn blew smoke rings out the window. "Down two blocks and turn left. You can stop there, I'm right near the corner."

  Ed braked short. "One last question. At the Bureau you implied that you knew Patchett and Sid Hudgens were planning to work an extortion racket."

  "I don't recall endorsing that statement."

  "You didn't dispute it."

  "I was tired and bored."

  "You endorsed it, implicitly. And it's in Jack Vincennes' deposition."

  "Then perhaps Vincennes lied about that part. He used to be quite a celebrity. Wouldn't you also call him quite a selfdramatist?"

  An opening. "Yes."

  "And do you think you can trust him?"

  Fake chagrin oozing. "I don't know. He's my weak point."

  "So there you are. Mr. Exley, are you going to arrest me?"

  "I'm beginning to think it wouldn't do any good. What did White say when he told you to come in for questioning?"

  "Just to come clean. Did you show him Vincennes' deposition?"

  The truth--make her grateful. "No."

  "I'm glad, because I'm sure it's full of lies. Why didn't you show it to him?"

  "Because he's a limited detective, and the less he knows the better. He's also a protégé of a rival officer on the case, and I didn't want him passing information to him."

  "Are you speaking of Dudley Smith?"

  "Yes. Do you know him?"

  "No, but Bud speaks of him often. I think he's afraid of him, which means that Smith must be quite a man."

  "Dudley's brilliant and vicious to the core, but I'm better. And look, it's late."

  "Can I give you a drink?"

  "Why? You spat in my face today."

  "Well, given the circumstances."

  Her smile made his smile easy. "Given the circumstances, one drink."

  Lynn got out of the car. Ed watched her move: high heels, a shit day--but her feet hardly touched the ground. She led him to her building, unlocked the bottom door and hit a light.

  Ed walked in. Exquisite--the fabrics, the art. Lynn kicked off her shoes and poured brandies; Ed sat on a sofa--pure velvet.

  Lynn joined him. Ed took his drink, sipped. Lynn warmed the glass with her hands. "Do you know why I invited you in?"

  "You're too inteffigent to try to wrangle a deal, so I'll guess you're just curious about me."

  "Bud hates you more than he loves me or anyone else. I'm beginning to see why."

  "I don't really want your opinion."

  "I was leading up to a compliment."

  "Some other time, all right?"

  "I'll change the subject then. How's Inez Soto handling the publicity? She's been all over the papers."

  "She's taking it poorly, and I don't want to talk about her."

  "It galls you that I know so much about you. You don't have information to compete."

  Move the wedge. "I have Vincennes' deposition."

  "Which I suspect you doubt the truth of."

  Throw the change-up. "You mentioned that Patchett financed some early Raymond Dieterling films. Can you elaborate on that?"

  "'Why? Because your father is associated with Dieterling? You see the disadvantages of being the son of a famous man?"

  No hink, a deft touch with the knife. "Just a policeman's question."

  Lynn shrugged. "Pierce mentioned it to me in passing several years ago."

  The phone rang--Lynn ignored it. "I can tell you don't want to talk about Jack Vincennes."

  "I can tell you do."

  "I haven't seen much in the news about him lately."

  "That's because he flushed everything he had down the toilet. _Badge of Honor_, his friendship with Miller Stanton, all of it. Sid Hudgens getting murdered didn't help, since _Hush-Hush_ owed half its filth to Vincennes' shakedowns."

  Lynn sipped brandy. "You don't like Jack."

  "No, but there's part of his deposition that I believe absolutely. Patchett has carbons of Sid Hudgens' private dirt files, including a carbon of a file on Vincennes himself. You can do yourself some good by acknowledging it."

  If she bit she'd start now.

  "I can't acknowledge it, and the next time we speak I'll have a lawyer. But I can tell you that I think I know what such a file would contain."

  First wedge in place. "And?"

  "Well, I think the year was 1947. Vincennes got involved in a gunfight at the beach. He was under the influence of narcotics and shot and killed two innocent people, a husband and wife. My source has verification, including the testimony of an ambulance deputy and a notarized statement from the doctor who treated Jack for his wounds. My source has blood test results that show the drugs in his system and testimony from eyewitnesses who didn't come forth. Is that information you'd suppress to protect a brother officer, Captain?"

  The Malibu Rendezvous: Trashcan's glory job. The phone rang--Lynn let it go. Ed said, "Jesus Christ," no need to fake.

  "Yes. You know, when I read about Vincennes I always thought he had some very dark reasons for persecuting dope users, so I wasn't surprised when I found that out. And, Captain? If Pierce did have file carbons, I'm sure he would have destroyed them."

  Her last bit rang fake--Ed played a lie off it. "I know Jack loves dope, it's been a rumor around the Bureau for years. And I know you're lying about the files and I know Vincennes would do anything to get his file back. You and Patchett shouldn't underestimate him."

  "The way you've underestimated Bud White?"

  Her smile came on like a target--he thought for a second that he'd hit her. She laughed before he could; he leaned in and kissed her instead. Lynn pulled back, then kissed back; they rolled to the floor shedding clothes. The phone rang--Ed kicked it off the hook. Lynn pulled him inside her; they rolled, moved together, trashed furniture. It ended as fast as it started--he could feel Lynn reaching to peak. Seconds apart for that, good enough, rest. His story laid out between sighs, like it was a burden too heavy to carry.

  Rogue cop Jack Vincennes, on dope and too hot to handle. He'd do anything to get his file back, he had to get that file. Captain E. J. Exley had to use him for what he knew--but Vincennes was doped up, boozed up, going psycho on him--

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Bud hit L.A. at dawn, off the midnight bus down from Frisco. His city looked strange, new--like everything else in his life.

  He got a taxi and dozed; he kept snapping awake to Ellis Loew: "It sounds like a great case, but multiple homicides are tricky and Spade Cooley is a well-known figure. I'll put a D.A.'s Bureau team on it and _you stay out of it for now_." Cut to Lynn: calls, the phone off the hook, smothered. Strange, but like her--when she wanted to sleep she wanted to sleep.

  He couldn't believe his life, it was just too goddamn amazing.

  The cab dropped him off. He found a note on his door-- "Sergeant Duane W. Fisk" on the letterhead.

Sgt. White--

  Captain Exley wants to see you immediately (something pertaining to _Whisper_ magazine and a body under a house). Report to l.A. immediately upon your return to Los Angeles.

  Bud laughed, packed a bag: clothes, his paper stash--the hooker killings, the Nite Owl--Dudley's for the asking. He threw the note in the toilet, pissed on it.

o        o          o

  He drove to Gardena, checked into the Victory: a room with clean sheets, a hot plate, no bloodstains on the walls. Fuck sleep-he fixed coffee, worked.

  Everything he knew on Spade Cooley--half a longhand page.

  Cooley was an Okie fiddler/singer, a skinny guy, maybe late forties. He had a couple of hit records, his TV show was big for a while. His bass player, Burt Arthur Perkins, a.k.a. "Deuce," did time on a chain gang for sodomy on dogs and was rumored to have a shitload of mob K.A.'s.

  On the investigation:

  Lamar Hinton said Spade smoked opium; Spade played the Lariat Room in Frisco--across from Chrissie Renfro's place of death. Chrissie died with "0" in her system; Spade was currently playing the El Rancho Kiub in L.A., close by Lynette Ellen Kendrick's apartment. Lamar Hinton said Dwight Gilette--Kathy Janeway's old pimp-supplied whores for Cooley's parties.

  Circumstantial--but tight.

  A phone wired to the wall--Bud grabbed it, called the County Coroner's Office.

  "Medical Examinations, Jensen."

  "Sergeant White for Dr. Harris. I know he's busy, but tell him it's just one thing."

  "Hold, please," click, click, click. "Sergeant, what is it this time?"

  "One thing off your autopsy report."

  "You're not even a county officer."

  "Stomach and bloodstream contents on Lynette Kendrick. Come on, huh?"

  "That's easy, because Kendrick won our best stomach award last week. Are you ready? Frankfurters with sauerkraut, french fries, Coca-Cola, opium, sperm. Jesus, what a last supper."

  Bud hung up. Ellis Loew said stay out of it. Kathy Janeway said GO.

o        o          o

  He drove to the Strip, put the M.O. together.

  First the El Rancho Klub, closed, "Spade Cooley and His Cowboy Rhythm Band Appearing Nitely." A publicity still by the door: Spade, Deuce Perkins, three other cracker types. No heavily ringed fingers; a lead rubber-stamped at the bottom: "Represented by Nat Penzler Associates, 653 North La Cienega, Los Angeles."

  Across the street: the Hot Dog Hut, kraut dogs and fries on the menu. Down the Strip by Crescent Heights: a well-known prostie stroll. A mile south at Melrose and Sweetzer: Lynette Ellen Kendrick's apartment.

  Easy:

  Spade picked her up late, no witnesses. He had the food and the dope, suggested a cozy all-nighter, took Lynette home. They got high, chowed down--Spade beat her to death, raped her three times postmortem.

  Bud hooked south to La Cienega. 653: a redwood A-frame, "Nat Penzler Assoc." by the mailbox. The door propped open; a girl inside making coffee.

  Bud walked in. The girl said, "Yes, can I help you?"

  "The boss around?"

  "Mr. Penzler's on the telephone. Can I help you?"

  One connecting door--"N.P." brass-stamped. Bud pushed it open; an old man yelled, "Hey! I'm on a call! What are you, a bill collector? Hey, Gail! Give this clown a magazine!"

  Bud flashed his badge. The man hung up the phone, pushed back from his desk. Bud said, "You're Nat Penzler?"

  "Call me Natsky. Are you looking for representation? I could get you work playing thugs. You have that Neanderthal look currently in vogue."

  Let it go. "You're Spade Cooley's agent, right?"

  "Right. You want to join Spade's band? Spade's a moneymaker, but my shvartze cleaning lady sings better than him, so maybe I can get you a spot, a bouncer gig at the El Rancho at least. Lots of trim there, boychik. A moose like you could get reamed, steamed and dry-cleaned."

  "You through, pops?"

  Penzler flushed. "Mr. Natsky to you, caveman."

  Bud shut the door. "I need to see Cooley's booking records going back to '51. You want to do this nice or not?"

  Penzler got up, blocked his filing cabinets. "Showtime's over, Godzilla. I never divulge client information, even under threat of a subpoena. So amscray and come back for lunch sometime, say on the twelfth of never."

  Bud tore the phone cord from the wall; Penzler slid the top drawer open. "No rough stuff, please, caveman! I do my best work with my face!"

  Bud thumbed folders, hit "Cooley, Donnell Clyde," dumped it on the desk. A picture hit the blotter: Spade, four rings on ten fingers. Pink sheets, white sheets, then blue sheets--booking records clipped by year.

  Penzler stood by muttering. Bud matched dates.

  Jane Mildred Hamsher, 3/8/51, San Diego-Spade there at the El Cortez Sky Room. April '53, Kathy Janeway, the Cowboy Rhythm Band at Bido Lito's--South L.A. Sharon, Sally, Chrissie Virginia, Maria up to Lynette: Bakersfield, Needles, Arizona, Frisco, Seattle, back to L.A., shifting personnel listed on pay cards: Deuce Perkins playing bass most of the time, drum and sax guys coming and going, Spade Cooley always headlining, in those cities on those DODs.

  Blue sheets dripping wet--his own sweat. "Where's the band staying?"

  Penzler: "The Biltmore, and you didn't get it from Natsky."

  "That's good, 'cause this is Murder One and I wasn't here."

  "I am like the Sphinx, I swear to you. My God, Spade and his lowlife crew. My God, do you know what he grossed last year?"

o        o          o

  He called the lead in to Ellis Loew; Loew hit the roof: "I told you to stay out! I've got three _civilized_ men on it, and I'll tell them what you've got, but you stay out and get back to the Nite Owl, _do you understand me?_"

  He understood: Kathy Janeway kept saying GO.

  The Biltmore.

  He forced himself to drive there slow, park by the back entrance, politely ask the clerk where to find Mr. Cooley's party. The clerk said, "The El Presidente Suite, floor nine"; he said "Thank you" so calm that everything went into slow motion and he thought for a second he was swimming.

  The stairs were like swimming upstream--Little Kathy kept saying KILL HIM. The suite: double doors, gold-filigreed-- eagles, American flags. He jiggled the knob, the doors opened.

  High swank gone white trash--three crackers passed out on the floor. Booze empties, dumped ashtrays, no Spade.

  Connecting doors--the one on the right featured noise. Bud kicked it in.

  Deuce Perkins in bed watching cartoons. Bud pulled his gun. "Where's Cooley?"

  Perkins popped in a toothpick. "On a drunk, which is where I'm goin'. You want to see him, come to the El Rancho tonight. Chances are he'll show up."

  "The fuck, he's the headliner."

  "Most times. But Spade's been erratic lately, so I been film' in. I sing good as him and I'm better lookin', so nobody seems to mind. Now, you want to get out of here and leave me alone with my entertainment?"

  "Where's he drinking?"

  "Put that gun away, junior. The worse you got him for's nonpayment of child support, and Spade always pays sooner or later."

  "Nix, this is Murder One, and I heard he likes opium."

  Perkins coughed out his toothpick. "What'd you say?"

  "Hookers. Spade like young girls?"

  "He don't like to kill them, just play hide the tubesteak like you and me."

  "_Where is he?_"

  "Man, I'm not no snitch."

  Backhanded pistolwhips--Perkins yelped, spat teeth. The TV went loud: kids squealing for Kellogg's Cornflakes. Bud shot the screen out.

  Deuce snitched: "Check the '0' joints in Chinatown and please fuckin' leave me alone!"

  Kathy said KILL HIM. Bud thought of his mother for the first time in years.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  The doctor said, "I told this to your Captain Exley, and I told him an interview with Mr. Goldman would most likely prove fruitless--the man is simply not lucid most of the time. However, since he insisted on sending you up here, I'll run through it again."

  Jack looked around. Camarillo was creepy: lots of geeks, geek artwork on the walls. "Would you? The captain wants a statement from him."

  "Well, he'll be lucky to get one. Last July, Mr. Goldman and his confrere Mickey Cohen were attacked with knives and pipes at McNeil Island Prison. Unidentified assailants apparently, and Cohen was relatively unharmed while Mr. Goldman suffered serious brain damage. Both men were paroled late last year, and Mr. Goldman began to behave quite erratically. Late in December he was arrested for urinating in public in Beverly Hills, and the judge ordered him here for ninety days' observation. We've had him since Christmas and we've just recycled him in for another ninety. Frankly, we can't do a thing with him, and the only thing mysterious is that Mr. Cohen visited and offered to transfer Mr. Goldman to a private treatment facility at his own expense, but Mr. Goldman refused and acted terrified of him. Isn't that odd?"

  "Maybe not. Where is he?"

  "On the other side of that door. Be gentle with him, please. The man was a gangster, but he's just a sad human being now."

  Jack opened the door. A small padded room; Davey Goldman on a long padded bench. He needed a shave; he reeked of Lysol. Slack-jawed Davey scoping a _National Geographic_.

  Jack sat beside him--Goldman moved away. Jack said, "This place is the shits. You should've let Mickey spring you."

  Goldman picked his nose, ate it.

  "Davey, you on the outs with Mickey?"

  Goldman held out his magazine--naked Negroes waving spears.

  "Cute, and when they start showing white stuff I'll subscribe. Davey, you remember me? Jack Vincennes? I used to work LAPD Narco and we used to run into each other on the Strip."

  Goldman scratched his balls. He smiled, low voltage, nobody home.

  "Is this an act? Come on, Davey. You and the Mick go way back. You know he'd take care of you."

  Goldman squashed an invisible bug. "Not anymore."

  A gone man's voice--nobody could fake it that good. "Say, Davey, whatever happened to Dean Van Gelder? You remember him, he used to visit you at McNeil."

  Goldman picked his nose, wiped it on his feet. Jack said, "Dean Van Gelder. He visited you at McNeil in '53, right around the time these two guys Pete and Bax Englekling visited Mickey. Now you're afraid of Mickey, and Van Gelder clipped a guy named Duke Cathcart and got clipped himself during the world famous Nite Owl fucking Massacre. You got any brains left to talk about that?"

  No lights blinked on.

  "Come on, Davey. You tell me, you won't feel so sad. Talk to your Uncle Jack."

  "Dutchman! Dutch fuck! Mickey should know to hurt me but he don't. Hub rachmones, Meyer, hub rachmones, Meyer Harris Cohen te absolvo my sins."

  His mouth did the talking--the rest of the man came off dead. Jack parlayed: Van Gelder the Dutchman, Yiddish to Latin, something like betrayal. "Come on, keep going. Confess to Father Jack and I'll make it allll better."

  Goldman picked his nose; Jack shoved him. "Come on!"

  "Dutchman blew it!"

  ?????--maybe--a jail bid on Duke Cathcart. "Blew what, come on!"

  Goldman, a gone monotone. "Franchise boys got theirs three triggers blip blip blip. Fucking slowdown ain't no hoedown, Mickey thinks he'll get the fish but the Irish Cheshire got the fishy and Mickey gets the bones no gravy he is dead meat for the meow monster. Hub rachmones Meyer, I could trust you, not them, it's all on ice but not for us te absolvo . .

  ?????????? "Who are these guys you're talking about?"

  Goldman hummed a tune, off key, familiar. Jack caught the melody: "Take the 'A' Train." "Davey, _talk_ to me."

  Davey sang. "Bumpa--bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump the cute train bump bump bump bump the cute train."

  ???????????????????--worse, like his brain had padded walls. "Davey, just talk."

  Geek talk: "Bzz, bzz bzz talking bug to hear. Betty, Benny bug to listen, Barney bug. Hub rachmones Meyer my dear friend."

  ????????? into just maybe something:

  The Engleklings saw Cohen _in his cell_, pitched him on Duke Cathcart's smut scheme. Mickey swore he did not tell a soul. Goldman found out about it, decided to crash the racket, dispatched Dean Van Gelder to snuff Cathcart--or maybe buy in on the deal. ????????--How--??????--DID HE HAVE A BUG PLANTED IN COHEN'S CELL?

  "Davey, _tell me about the bug_."

  Goldman started humming "In the Mood."

  The doctor opened the door. "That's it, Officer. You've bothered this man long enough."

o        o          o

  Exley okayed it on the phone: a run to McNeil to check for evidence of bugging apparatus in Mickey Cohen's former cell. The Ventura County Airport was a few miles away--he was to fly to Puget Sound, take a cab to the pen. Bob Gallaudet would have a Prison's Bureau man there to run liaison--the McNeil administrators pampered Cohen, probably took bribes for the service, might not cooperate without a push. Exley called the bug theory a long shot; he ranted that Bud White was missing--Fisk and Kleckner were out looking for him, the bastard was probably running from his _Whisper_ piece and the body in San Berdoo-- Fisk left him a note, mentioned the discovery. Parker said Dudley Smith was studying the Englekling case file and would report on it soon; Lynn Bracken was still holding back. Jack said, "What do we do about that?" Exley said, "The Dining Car at midnight. We'll discuss it."

  Scary Captain Ed closing ominous.

  Jack drove to Ventura, caught his ffight--Exley called ahead, vouchered his ticket. A stewardess handed out newspapers; he grabbed a _Times_ and _Daily News_ and read Nite Owl.

  Dudley's boys were ripping up Darktown, hauling in known Negro offenders, looking for the _real_ punks popping shotguns in Griffith Park. Pure bullshit: whoever planted the weapons in Ray Coates' car planted the matching shells in the park, feeding off location leads in the press-only pros would have the brains and the balls to do it. Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle were running a command post at 77th Street Station--the entire squad and twenty extra men from Homicide detached to work the case. No way were crazed darkies guilty--it was starting to look like 1953 all over again. The _Daily News_ showed photos: Central Avenue swarmed by placard-waving boogies, the house Exley bought Inez Soto. A dandy shot in the _Times_--Inez outside Ray Dieterling's place in Laguna, shielding her eyes from flashbulbs.

  Jack kept reading.

  The State Attorney General's Office issued a statement: Ellis Loew outfoxed them by planting a restraining order, but they were still interested in the case and would intercede when the order lapsed--unless the LAPD solved the Nite Owl mess to the satisfaction of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury within a suitable period of time. LAPD issued a press release--a detailpacked doozie on Inez Soto's 1953 gang rape accompanied by a heartwarming rendition of how Captain Ed Exley helped her rebuild her life. Exley's old man got a treatment: the Daily News played up the completion of the Southern California freeway system and reported a late-breaking rumor--Big Preston was soon to announce his candidacy in the governor's race, a scant two and a half months before the Republican primary, the eleventh-hour announcement strategy a ploy to capitalize on upcoming freeway brouhaha. How would his son's bad press affect his chances?

  Jack measured his own chances. He was back on with Karen because she saw he was trying; the best way to keep it going was to cash in his twenty, grab his pension, get out of L.A. The next two months would be a sprint dodging bullets: the reopening, what Patchett and Bracken had on him. Odds you couldn't figure--for a sprinter he was scared and tired--and starting to feel old. Exley had sprint moves in mind--late dinner meets weren't his style. Bracken and Patchett might deal his dirt in; Parker might quash it to protect the Department. But Karen would know, and what was left of the marriage would go down--because she could just barely take that she'd married a drunk and a bagman. "Murderer" was one bullet they both couldn't dodge.

  Three hours in the air; three hours pent up thinking. The plane touched down at Puget Sound; Jack caught a cab to McNeil.

  Ugly: a gray monolith on a gray rock island. Gray walls, gray fog, barbed wire at the edge of gray water. Jack got out at the guard hut; the gatekeeper checked his ID, nodded. Steel gates slid back into stone.

  Jack walked in. A wiry little man met him in the sallyport. "Sergeant Vincennes? I'm Agent Goddard, Prison's Bureau."

  A good handshake. "Did Exley tell you what it's about?"

  "Bob Gallaudet did. You're on the Nite Owl and related conspiracy cases and you think Cohen's cell might have been bugged. We're looking for evidence to support that theory, which I don't think is so farfetched."

  "Why?"

  They walked bucking wind-Goddard talked above it. "Cohen got the royal treatment here, Goldman too. Privileges up the wazoo, unlimited visitors and not too much scrutiny on the stuff brought into their tier, so a bug could have been planted. Are you thinking Goldman crossed Mickey?"

  "Something like that."

  "Well, could be. They had cells two doors apart, on a tier Mickey requested, because half the cells had ruined plumbing and you couldn't house inmates in them. You'll see, I've got the whole row vacated and closed off."

  Checkpoints, the blocks--six-story tiers linked by catwalks. Upstairs to a corridor--eight empty cells. Goddard said, "The penthouse. Quiet, underpopulated and a nice day room for the boys to play cards in. We have an informant who says Cohen got approval on the inmates placed up here. Can you feature the cheek of that?"

  Jack said, "Jesus, you're good. And fast."

  "Well, Exley and Gallaudet carry weight, and the powers that be here didn't have time to prepare. Now check the goodies I brought."

  On the day room table: crowbars, chisels, mallets, a long thin pole with a hook at the end. On a blanket: a tape recorder, a tangle of wires. Goddard said, "First we tear this tier up. I admit it's a long shot, but I brought a recorder along in case we find tape."

  "I'd call that a maybe. Goldman and Cohen got paroled last fall, but they got bushwacked in July and Davey got his brains scrambled. I'm thinking if he was the one monitoring the tape then maybe he was too wet-brained to pull the machine."

  "Enough gabbing. Let's dig."

o        o          o

  They dug.

  Goddard plumbed a line from the heat duct in Cohen's cell to the heat duct in Goldman's, marked a line on the ceilings of the two cells in between, started probing with a mallet and chisel. Jack pried a protection plate off the duct on Mickey's wall, banged around inside the chute with the hook device. Nothing but hollow tin walls, no wires just inside. Frustrating: it was the logical place to plant a microphone. Heat boomed out the duct; Jack changed his mind, Washington was cold, the heat would be on too much of the time, drowning out conversation. He checked the walls and ceiling for other conduits--nothing--then the area around the vent. Irregularly applied spackling dotted with pinholes right by the protector plate; he smashed his mallet until half the wall came down and a small Spackle-covered microphone dangling off a wire came loose. The wire jerked from his hand, straight back into the wall. Five seconds later Goddard stood there holding it--attached to a tape recorder covered with plastic. "Halfway between the cells, a little hidey-hole right off the vent. Let's listen, huh?"

o        o          o

  They fired it up in the day room. Goddard hooked up his machine, changed spools, pushed buttons--tape-recorded tape.

  Static, a dog yipping, "There, there, bubeleh"--Mickey Cohen's voice. Goddard said, "They let him keep a dog in his cell. Only in America, huh?"

  Cohen: "Quit licking your schnitzel, little precious." More yips, a long silence, a click-off sound. Goddard said, "I was timing it. Voice-activated mike. Five minutes and it goes off automatically."

  Jack brushed plaster off his hands. "How'd Goldman get in to change the tape?"

  "He must have had some kind of hook thing, like that pole I gave you. The grate on his heat vent was loose, so we know somebody was poking around in there. Jesus, this thing has been in there how long? And Goldman had to have help, this is no one-man operation. Listen, here that click?"

  Another click, a strange voice: "For how much? I'll have that guard place the bet." Cohen: "A thousand on Basilio, that little guinea is mean. And take a run by the infirmary and see Davey, my God a goddamn turnip those goons turned him into, I swear I will live to see them in a vegetable puree." Overlapping voices, mumbles, Mickey cooing, his dog yipping.

  Nail the time: Goldman and Cohen had been attacked; Mickey laid down an early bet on the Robinson-Basilio fight last September, he was probably out by then--he got down before the odds dropped.

  Click off, click on, forty-six minutes of Mickey and at least two other men playing cards, mumbling, flushing the toilet. The used tape almost gone; click off, click on, the fucking dog yowling.

  Mickey: "Six years and ten months here and to lose Davey's redoubtable brain right before I leave. Such tsurus to go home on. Mickey Junior, quit licking your putt, you faigeleh."

  A strange voice: "Get him a bitch, and he won't have to."

  Cohen: "My God to be so nimble and so hung, like Heifetz on the fiddle with his shlong that dog is, and hung like Johnny Stompanato to boot. And on the topic of boots, I read Hedda Hopper's column and see Johnny's putting the boots to Lana Turner, such a crush he's had for so long, she must have a cunt like chinchilla."

  The strange-voice man cracked up. Cohen: "Enough already, you brownnoser, save some for Jack Benny. Johnny I need now, Johnny I can't locate 'cause he's playing bury the brisket with movie stars. My franchise guys keep getting clipped and I need Johnny to put an ear down for who, but that big dick dago cunt-bandit is nowhere! I want those cocksuckers clipped! I want those shitbirds who hurt Davey to cease residence on this earth!"

  Mickey cough, cough, coughed. Strange Voice: "How about Lee Vachss and Abe Teitlebaum? You could put them on it."

  Cohen: "Such a shmendrik you are for a confidant, but you do play cribbage good. No, Abe has grown too soft to work muscle, too much grease noshed at his deli, such grease clogs the arteries that inspire mayhem, and Lee Vachss loves death too much to be discerning. Lana, what a snatch she must have, like cashmere."

  The tape ran out. Goddard said, "Mickey sure does have a verbal style, but what did all that have to do with the Nite Owl case?"

  "How's 'nothing' sound?"

CHAPTER SIXTY

  One wall of his den was now a graph: Nite Owl related case players connected by horizontal lines, vertical lines linking them to a large sheet of cardboard blocked off into information sections--events culled from Vincennes' deposition. Ed wrote margin notes; his father's call still hammered him: "Edmund, I'm running for governor. Your recent notoriety may have hurt me, but put that aside. I don't want the Atherton case resurrected in print and tied to your various cases, and I don't want Ray Dieterling bothered. I want you to direct all your queries along those lines to me, and between the two of us we'll work things out."

  He agreed. It rankled. It made him feel like a child--like sleeping with Lynn Bracken made him feel whorish. And too many Dieterling names were popping up on the graph.

  Ed crossed lines.

  Sid Hudgens lined to the ink smut Vincennes found in '53; the smut lined to Pierce Patchett. Line to: Christine Bergeron, her son Daryl and Bobby Inge, smut posers who disappeared almost concurrent with the Nite Owl. Have Fisk and Kleckner initiate a new search for them; attempt to identify the other posers--one more time. Put the smut/Hudgens line to the Atherton case aside, former Inspector Preston Exley would make discreet inquiries when asked.

  A theoretical line--Pierce Patchett to Duke Cathcart. Lynn Bracken denied it, a lie, Vincennes' deposition had Patchett pushing the smut Cathcart planned to distribute--_but who made it?_ Hudgens to Patchett and Bracken: the dirtmonger was terrified that Vincennes was nosing around Fleur-de-Lis; Lynn told Jack that Patchett and Hudgens were going in on a gig together, she now denied it, another lie. He needed another graph just to chart lies--he didn't have a room big enough to hold it.

  More lines:

  Davey Goldman to Dean Van Gelder to Duke Cathcart and Susan Nancy Lefferts--incomprehensible until Vincennes reported back from McNeil Island, and Bud White, obviously hiding out, was questioned on what he might be suppressing. Vocational lines--Patchett, the Englekling brothers and their father possessed chemistry backgrounds; Patchett, a reputed heroin sniffer, had plastic surgery connections to Dr. Terry Lux, the owner of a booze/dope sanitarium. Dudley Smith's report to Parker stated that Pete and Bax Englekling were tortured to death with corrosive chemicals, no other details added. Conclusion: the link to decipher every interconnected line had to be Patchett--his whores, his smut posers, Patchett the conduit to the man who made the blood smut, killed Hudgens and formed the final line stretching back to 1934 and his own father's glory case.

  Too many lines to ignore.

  Patchett bankrolled early Dieterling films. Dieterling's son Billy and boyfriend Timmy Valburn used Fleur-de-Lis; Valburn was a Bobby Inge K.A. Billy worked on Badge of Honor, the first focus of the Hudgens homicide investigation. Badge of Honor co-star Miller Stanton was a Dieterling kid star around the same time that Wee Willie Wennerholm was murdered--by Loren Atherton? Slash lines--Atherton to the smut to Hudgens; lines of coincidence too convenient not to cut at family loyalty-- seventeen years post-Atherton, Preston Exley builds Dreama-Dreamland.

  Governor Exley. Chief of Detectives Exley.

  Ed thought of Lynn, tasted her, shuddered. A quick jump to Inez--a new line to utilize.

  He drove to Laguna Beach.

o        o          o

  The press, swarming: perched by their cars, playing cards on Ray Dieterling's lawn. Ed pulled around the block, walked up, sprinted.

  They saw him, chased him. He made the door, slammed the knocker. The door opened--straight into Inez.

  She slammed it, bolted it. Ed walked into the living room-- Dream-a-Dreamland smiled all around him.

  Gimcracks, porcelain statues: Moochie, Danny, Scooter. Wall photos: Dieterling and crippled children. Canceled checks encased in plastic--six figures to fight kids' diseases.

  "See, I've got company."

  Ed turned to face her. "Thanks for letting me in."

  "They've been treating you worse than me, so I figured I owed you."

  She looked pale. "Thanks. And you know it'll pass, just like last time."

  "Maybe. You look lousy, Exley."

  "People keep telling me that."

  "Then maybe it's true. Look, if you want to stay and talk awhile, fine, but please don't talk about Bud or all this _mierda_ that's going on."

  "I wasn't planning on it, but small talk was never our forte."

  She walked up. Ed embraced her; she grabbed his arms and pushed herself away. Ed tried a smile. "I saw some gray hairs. When you're my age you'll probably be as gray as I am. How's that for small talk?"

  "Small, and I can do better. Preston's running for governor, unless his notorious son ruins his chances. I'm going to be his campaign coordinator."

  "Governor Dad. Did he say I'd ruin his chances?"

  "No, because he'd never say bad things about you. Just try to do what you can not to hurt him."

  Reporters outside--Ed heard them laughing. "I don't want Father to be hurt either. And you can help me prevent it."

  "How?"

  "A favor. A favor between you and me, nobody else to know."

  "What? Explain it."

  "It's very complicated, and it involves Ray Dieterling. Do you know the name 'Pierce Patchett'?"

  Inez shook her head. "No, who is he?"

  "He's an investor of sorts, that's all I can tell you. I need you to use your access at Dream-a-Dreamland to check his financial connections to Dieterling. Check back to the late '20s, very quietly. Will you do that for me?"

  "Exley, this sounds like police business. And what does it have to do with your father?"

  Recoiling: doubting the man who formed him. "Father might be in some tax trouble. I need you to check Dieterling's financial records for mention of him."

  "Bad trouble?"

  "Yes."

  "Check back to '50 or so? When they began planning for Dream-a-Dreamland?"

  "No, go back to 1932. I know you've seen the books at Dieterling Productions, and I know you can do it."

  "With explanations to follow?"

  More recoil. "On Election Day. Come on, Inez. You love him almost as much as I do."

  "All right. For your father."

  "No other reason?"

  "All right, for what you've done for me and the friends you gave me. And if that sounds cruel, I'm sorry."

  A Moochie Mouse clock struck ten. Ed said, "I should go, I've got a meeting in L.A."

  "Go out the back way. I think I still hear the vultures."

o        o          o

  The recoil got squared driving back.

  Call it standard elimination procedure:

  If his father really did know Ray Dieterling during the time of the Atherton case, he had a valid reason for not revealing it, he was probably embarrassed at plumbing business deals with a man he once rubbed shoulders with in the process of a hellish murder investigation. Preston Exley believed that policemen striking friendships with influential civilians was inimical to the concept of impartial absolute justice, and if he fell short of his own standards it was understandable that he would not want the fact known.

  Squared with love and respect.

  Ed made the Dining Car early; the maître d' said his guest was waiting. He walked back to his favorite booth--a private nook behind the bar. Vincennes was there, holding a tape spool.

  Ed sat down. "That's tape off a bug?"

  Vincennes slid the spool over. "Yeah, filled with Mickey C. running off at the mouth on stuff that has nothing to do with the Nite Owl. Too bad, but I think we can put Davey down as a traitor to Mickey, and I think he must have heard the Engleklings offer Mick the Cathcart deal. He liked the sound of it and sent Van Gelder after Duke. And that's as far as I can take it."

  The man looked shot. "Good work, Jack. Really, I mean it."

  "Thanks, and that first name bit just went over large."

  Ed picked up a menu, emptied his pockets underneath it. "It's midnight and I'm all out of subtlety."

  "You're working up to something. What'd you get out of Bracken?"

  "Nothing but lies. And you're right, Sergeant. The McNeil end is dead for now."

  "So?"

  "So tomorrow I'm hitting Patchett. I'm sealing l.A. off from Dudley and his men and bringing in Terry Lux, Chester Yorkin and every Patchett flunky that Fisk and Kleckner can find."

  "Yeah, but what about Bracken and Patchett?"

  Ed saw Lynn naked. "Bracken tried to buy out of your deposition. She snitched you on that escapade in Malibu, and I played her back on it."

  Trash slammed his head down on two clenched fists. Ed said, "I told her you'd do anything to get the file back. I told her you still love dope and you're in hock to some bookies. You're up for a trial board and you want to crash Patchett's rackets."

  Vincennes raised his head--pale, knuckle-gouged. "So tell me you'll square what's in the file."

  Ed picked up his menu. Underneath: heroin, Benzedrine, a switchblade, a 9mm automatic. "You're going to shake Patchett down. He snorts heroin, so you offer him some. If you want some stuff to get your own juice up, you've got it. You're going after him to get your file back and to find out who made the blood smut and killed Hudgens. I'm working on a script, and you'll have it by tomorrow night. You're going to scare the shit out of Patchett and you're going to do whatever it takes to get what we both want. I know you can do it, so don't make me threaten you."

  Vincennes smiled. He almost hit the chord--the old big-time Big V. "Suppose it goes bad?"

  "Then kill him."

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Opium fumes banged his head; chink backtalk banged it worse: "Spade not here, my place have police sanction, I pay I pay!" Uncle Ace Kwan sent him to Fat Dewey Shin, who sent him to a string of dens on Alameda--Spade was there, but Spade was gone, "I pay! I pay!," try Uncle Minh, Uncle Chin, Uncle Chan. The Chinatown runaround, it took him hours to figure it out, a shuffle from enemy to enemy. Uncle Danny Tao pulled a shotgun; he took it away from him, blackjacked him, still couldn't force a snitch. Spade was there, Spade was gone--and if he took one more whiff of "0" he knew he'd curl up and die or start shooting. The punch line: he was shaking Chinatown for a man named Cooley.

  Chinatown dead for now.

  Bud called the D.A.'s Bureau, gave the squad whip his Perkins/Cooley leads; the man yawned along, signed off bored. Out to the Strip; the Cowboy Rhythm Band on stage, no Spade, nobody had seen him in a couple of days. Hillbilly clubs, local bars, night spots--no sightings of Donnell Clyde Cooley. 1:00 fucking A.M., no place to go but Lynn's--"Where _were_ you?" and a bed.

  Rain came on--a downpour. Bud counted taillights to stay awake: red dots, hypnotizing. He made Nottingham Drive near gone--dizzy, numb in the limbs.

  Lynn on her porch, watching the rain. Bud ran up; she held her arms out. He slipped, steadied himself with her body.

  She stepped back. Bud said, "I was worried. I kept calling you last night before things got crazy."

  "Crazy how?"

  "The morning, it's too long a story for now. How did it--" Lynn touched his lips. "I told them things about Pierce that you already know, and I've been getting misty with the rain and thinking about telling them more."

  "More what?"

  "I'm thinking that it's over with Pierce. In the morning, sweetie. Both our stories for breakfast."

  Bud leaned on the porch rail. Lightning lit up the street--and dry tears on Lynn's face. "Honey, what is it? Is it Exley? Did he hardnose you?"

  "It's Exley, but not what you're thinking. And I know why you hate him so much."

  "What do you mean?"

  "That he's just the opposite of all the good things you are. He's more like I am."

  "I don't get it."

  "Well, it's a credibility he has for being so calculating. I started out hating him because you do, then he made me realize some things about Pierce just by being who he is. He told me some things he didn't have to, and my own reactions surprised me."

  More lightning--Lynn looked god-awful sad. Bud said, "For instance?"

  "For instance Jack Vincennes is going crazy and has some kind of vendetta against Pierce. And I don't care half as much as I should."

  "How did you get so friendly with Exley?"

  Lynn laughed. "_In vino veritas_. You know, sweetie, you're thirty-nine years old and I keep waiting for you to get exhausted being who you are."

  "I'm exhausted tonight."

  "That's not what I meant."

  Bud turned on the porch light. "You gonna tell me what happened with you and Exley?"

  "We just talked."

  Her makeup was tear streaked--it was the first time he'd seen her not beautiful. "So tell me about it."

  "In the morning."

  "No, now."

  "Honey, I'm as tired as you are."

  Her little half smile did it. "You slept with him."

  Lynn looked away. Bud hit her--once, twice, three times. Lynn faced straight into the blows. Bud stopped when he saw he couldn't break her.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  IAD--packed.

  Chester Yorkin, the Fleur-de-Lis delivery man, stashed in booth --1; in 2 and 3: Paula Brown and Lorraine Malvasi, Patchett whores--Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth. Lamar Hinton, Bobby Inge, Christine Bergeron and son could not be located; ditto the smut posers--Fisk and Kleckner failed to make them from extensive mugbook prowls. In booth 4: Sharon Kostenza, real name Mary Alice Mertz, a plum off Vincennes' deposition-- the woman who once bailed Bobby Inge out of jail and paid a surety bond for Chris Bergeron. In booth 5: Dr. Terry Lux, his attorney--the great Jerry Geisler.

  Ray Pinker standing by with counterdope--so far none of the new fish looked drugged.

  Two officers guarding the squadroom--private interrogations--strict l.A. autonomy.

  Kleckner and Fisk grilling Mertz and pseudo Ava--armed with deposition copies, smut photos, a case summary. Yorkin, Lux and phony Rita cooling their heels.

  Ed worked in his office: draft three of Vincennes' script. A thought nagged him: if Lynn Bracken reported to Patchett in full, he would have yanked his people before the police could bring them in--the way Inge, Bergeron and son disappeared immediately pre--Nite Owl. Two possibles on that--she was playing an angle or their rutting had her confused and she was stalling to figure the upshot. Most likely the former--the woman cut her last confused breath at birth.

  He could still taste her.

  Ed drew lines on paper. Inez to check Dieterling connections to Patchett and his father--that thought still made him wince. Two l.A. men out looking for White--apprehend the bastard and break him. Billy Dieterling and Timmy Valburn to be questioned--kid gloves, they had prestige, juice. A line to the Hudgens kill and the Hudgens/Patchett "gig"--Vincennes' deposition stated that Hudgens' _Badge of Honor_ files were missing at the time of his death, anomalous, the show was a Hudgens fixation. The _Badge of Honor_ people were alibied for the murder--but another reading of the case file was in order.

  Half his maze of cases read extortion.

  Line to an outside issue--Dudley Smith, going crazy for a quick Darktown collar. Line to a rumor: Thad Green was going to take over the U.S. Border Patrol come May. A theoretical line: Parker would choose his new chief of detectives solely on the basis of the Nite Owl case--him or Smith. Dudley might send White back to break his autonomy; criss cross all lines to keep his case sealed.

  Kleckner walked in. "Sir, the Mertz woman won't cooperate. All she'll say is that she lives under that Sharon Kostenza alias and that she makes bail for Patchett's people when they get arrested for outside charges. Nobody's ever been arrested working for him, we know that. She says she can't ID the people in the photos and she's mum on that extortion angle you told me to play up. She deadpanned the Nite Owl--and I believe her."

  "Release her, I want her to go to Patchett and panic him. What did Duane get off Ava Gardner?"

  Kleckner passed him a sheet of paper. "Lots. Here's the high points, and he's got the actual interview on tape."

  "Good. You go soften up Yorkin for me. Bring him a beer and baby sit him."

  Kleckner walked out smiling. Ed read Fisk's memo.

  Witness Paula Brown 3/25/58

  1. Witness revealed names of numerous P.P. call girl/male prostitute customers (specifics to follow in separate memo & on tape)

  2. Could not ID people in photos (seems truthful on this)

  3. Extortion hook got her talking

  a. P.P. gave his girls/male prostitutes bonuses to get their customers to reveal intimate details of their lives

  b. P.P. makes his prosts quit at 30 (apparent bee in his bonnet)

  c. On in-home prostitution assignments, P.P. had prosts leave doors/windows open so men with cameras could take compromising photos. Prosts also made wax impressions of locks on certain rich casts doors

  d. P.P. had famous (T. Lux obviously) plastic surgeon cut male/female prosts to look like movie stars and thus make more $

  e. Male prosts extorted $ from married homosexual custs & split take with P.P.

  f. Bored by Nite Owl quests (obviously has no guilty knowledge)

  Astounding audacious perversion.

  Ed hit sweatbox row, checked the mirrors. Fisk and phony Ava talking; Kleckner and Yorkin drinking beer. Terry Lux reading a magazine, Jerry Geisler fuming. Lorraine Malvasi alone in a cloud of smoke. Astounding audacious perversion--the woman had Rita Hayworth's face down to the bone, up to the hairdo from _Gilda_.

  He opened the door. Rita/Lorraine stood up, sat down, lit a cigarette. Ed handed her Fisk's memo. "Please read this, Miss Malvasi."

  She read, chewing lipstick. "So?"

  "So do you confirm that or not?"

  "So I'm entitled to a lawyer."

  "Not for seventy-two hours."

  "You can't hold me here that long."

  "Caaant"--a bad New York accent. "Not here, but we can hold you at the Woman's Jail."

  Lorraine bit at a nail, drew blood. "You caan't."

  "Sure I can. Sharon Kostenza's in custody, so she can't make bail for you. Pierce Patchett is under surveillance and your friend Ava just spilled what you read there. She talked first, and all I want you to do is fill in some blanks."

  A little sob. "I caan't."

  "Why not?"

  "Pierce has been too nice to--"

  Cut her off. "Pierce is finished. Lynn Bracken turned state's on him. She's in protective custody, and I can go to her for the answers or save myseW the trouble and ask you."

  "I caaan't."

  "You can and you will."

  "No, I caaan't."

  "You'd better, because you're an accessory to eleven felonies in Paula Brown's statement alone. Are you afraid of the dykes at the jail?"

  No answer.

  "You should be, but the matrons are worse. Big husky bull daggers with nightsticks. You know what they do with those--"

  "All right all right all right! All right I'll tell you!"

  Ed took out a notepad, wrote "Chrono." Lorraine: "It's not Pierce's fault. This guy made him do it."

  "What guy?"

  "I don't know. Really, for real, I don't know."

  "Chrono" underlined. "When did you start working for Patchett?"

  "When I was twenty-one."

  "Give me the year."

  "1951."

  "And he had Terry Lux perform surgery on you?"

  "Yes! To make me more beautiful!"

  "Easy now, please. Now a second ago you said that a guy--"

  "I don't know who the guy is! I caan't tell you what I don't know!"

  "Sssh, please. Now, you confirmed Paula Brown's statement and you said that a 'guy,' _whose identity you don't know_, coerced Patchett into the extortion plans detailed in that statement. Is that correct?"

  Lorraine put out her cigarette, lit another one. "Yes. Extortion is like blackmail, right, so yes."

  "When, Lorraine? Do you know _when_ 'this guy' approached Patchett?"

  She counted on her fingers. "Five years ago, May."

  "Chrono" hard underlined. "That's May of 1953?"

  "Yeah, 'cause my father died that month. Pierce called us kids in and said we had to do it, he didn't want to, but this guy had him by the you-know-whats. He didn't say the guy's name and I don't think none of the other kids know it either."

  "Chrono" one month post--Nite Owl. "Think fast, Lorraine. The Nite Owl massacre. Remember that?"

  "What? Some people got shot, right?"

  "Never mind. What else did Patchett tell you when he called you in?"

  "Nothing."

  "_Nothing_ else on Patchett and extortion? Remember, I'm not asking you if you did any of this. I'm not asking you to incriminate yourself."

  "Well, maybe three months or so before that I heard Veronica--I mean Lynn--and Pierce talking. He said him and that scandal mag man who got killed later were gonna run this squeeze thing where Pierce would tell him about our clients' secret little . . - you know, fetishes, and the man would threaten the clients with being in _Hush-Hush_. You know, pay money or be in the scandal mag."

  _Extortion theory validated_. An instinct: on some level Lynn was playing straight, she hadn't told Patchett to prepare--he never would have let these people come in. "Lorraine, did Sergeant Kieckner show you some pornographic pictures?"

  A nod. "I told him and I'll tell you. I don't know any of the people and those pictures gave me the creeps."

  Ed walked out. Duane Fisk in the hallway. "Good work, sir. When you got her on that 'this guy' bit, I went back and ran it by Ava. She confirmed it and confirmed that no ID."

  Ed nodded. "Tell her that Rita and Yorkin have been booked, then release her. I want her to go back to Patchett. How's Kieckner doing with Yorkin?"

  Fisk shook his head. "That boy's a hardcase. He's practically daring Don to make him talk. Hey, where's Bud White now that we need him?"

  "Amusing, but don't keep it up. And right now I want you to take Lux and Geisler to lunch. Lux is here voluntarily, so be nice. Tell Geisler that this is a multiple homicide major conspiracy case, and tell him Lux gets full collateral immunity for his cooperation and a signed promise of no courtroom testimony. Tell him it's already in writing, and if he wants verification to call Ellis Loew."

  Fisk nodded, walked down to booth 5. Ed checked the #1 look-in.

  Chester Yorkin wising off at the mirror: making faces, flipping the bird. Skinny, a pompadour flopped over his eyes oozing grease. Welts on his arms--maybe old needle marks.

  Ed opened the door. Yorkin said, "Hey, I know you. I read about you."

  Tracks confirmed--scar tissue on the welts. "I've been in the news."

  Giggle, giggle. "This is an old one, _kemo sabe_. Something like you saying, 'I never hit suspects 'cause that's the cop lowered to the level of the criminal.' You wanta hear my answer? I never snitch, 'cause cops are all cocksuckers who get their cookies off making guys talk."

  "You through?"--Bud White's stock line.

  "No. Your father takes it up the ass from Moochie Mouse."

  Scared, but he did it--an elbow to the windpipe. Yorkin gasped; Ed got behind him, cuffed him, shoved him to the floor.

  Scared, but steady hands: look, Dad, no fear.

  Yorkin backed into a corner.

  Scared, another Bad Bud move: a chair, a roundhouse swing, the chair smashed to the wall just above the suspect's head. Yorkin tried to squirm away; Ed kicked him back to his corner. Slow now: don't let your voice break, don't let your eyes go soft behind your glasses. "_Everything_. I want to know about the smut and the other shit you push through Fleur-de-Lis. _Everything_. You start with those tracks on your arms and why a smart man like Patchett trusts a junkie like you. And you know one thing right now--Patchett is finished and I'm the only one who can cut you a deal. _Do you understand me?_"

  Yorkin bobbed his head yes yes yes. "Test pilot! I flew for him! Test pilot!"

  Ed unlocked his cuffs. "Say that again."

  Yorkin rubbed his neck. "Guinea pig."

  "What?"

  "I let him test horse on me. Here and there, a little at a time."

  "Start over. Slowly."

  Yorkin coughed. "Pierce got this heroin stolen off this Cohen-- Jack Dragna deal years ago. This guy Buzz Meeks left some with these guys Pete and Bar Englekling, just a sample, and they gave it to their father, who was some kind of chemistry hotshot. He taught Pierce in college, and he laid the shit off to him and died, a heart attack or something. This other guy, I don't know his name so don't ask me, he killed Meeks or something like that. He got the rest of the shit, like eighteen pounds' worth. Pierce has been developing compounds with the stuff for years. He wants to make the cheapest and the safest and the best. I just . . . I just take some test pops."

  Astounding lines crossing. "You were making deliveries for Fleur-de-Lis five years ago, right?"

  "Right, yeah, sure."

  "You and Lamar Hinton."

  "I ain't seen Lamar in years, you can't pin Lamar's shit on me!"

  Ed grabbed the spare chair, brandished it. "I don't want to. Give me an answer on this, and if I like it I'll owe you a solid. It's a test and you're a test pilot, so you should do well. Who shot at Jack Vincennes outside the Hollywood drop back in '53?"

  Yorkin cringed. "Me. Pierce told me to clip him. I shouldn't of done it by the drop. I fucked up and Pierce got pissed."

  Patchett nailed: attempted murder on a police officer. "What did he do to you for that?"

  "He tested me bad. He gave me all these bad compounds he said he had to eliminate. He made me take these bad fucking flights."

  "So you hate him for it."

  "Man, Pierce ain't like regular people. I hate him, but I dig him too."

  Ed pushed the chair away. "Do you remember the Nite Owl shootings?"

  "Sure, years ago. What's that got to do--"

  "Never mind, and here's the important thing. If you fill this in for me, I'll give you a written immunity statement and put you up in protective custody until Patchett's down. Smut, Chester. You remember those orgy books Fleur-de-Lis was running five years ago?"

  Yorkin bobbed his head yes.

  "The ink blood on the pictures, do you remember that?"

  Yorkin smiled--snitching eager now. "I know that story good. Pierce is going down for real?"

  Ten hours from the script. "Maybe tonight."

  "Then fuck him for all those bad flights."

  "Chester, just tell me slowly."

  Yorkin stood up, worked the kinks from his legs. "You know what's a bitch about Pierce? He'd say all these things around me when I was on a flight, like I was harmless 'cause I couldn't remember nothing he said."

  Ed got out his notebook. "Try to tell it in order."

  Yorkin rubbed his throat, coughed. "Okay, Pierce had this old string of girls that he let go, this was around when we were moving them picture books. Some guy, I don't know his name, he talked some of the girls and their johns into posing for them pictures. He made books out of them and went to Pierce to get money to move the books wide, you know, he promised Pierce a cut. Pierce, he liked the idea, but he didn't want to expose his girls or their johns. He bought a bunch of the books off the guy to move through Fleur-de-Lis, you know, just a close distribution he called it, like a test market, he figured he could keep track of the stuff that way."

  Old lines crossing: the close distribution wasn't that close, Ad Vice retrieved throwaway copies--Vincennes to the case. "Keep going, Chester."

  "Well, the guy who made the stuff, somehow he weaseled some info on the Englekling brothers out of Pierce, how they had this printing press place and was always bent for money. He found himself a front man, and the front man, he approached the brothers. You know, a plan to make the shit bulk and move it."

  The front man: Duke Cathcart. Zigzag lines from Cohen to the brothers, the brothers to Patchett, back on a sideswipe: Mickey at McNeil Island--then Goldman and Van Gelder. _Line the heroin to the pornography_. "Chester, how do you know all this?"

  Yorkin laughed. "I'd be on a mainline flight and Pierce, he'd be on safe old white horse up the nose. He'd just jaw at me like I some kind of dog you talk to."

  "So Patchett and the smut are dead, right? All he's interested in is pushing the heroin."

  "Nix. That guy who brought Pierce the eighteen pounds years ago? Well, he's got a hard-on for the smut. He's got lists of all these rich perverts and all these contacts in South America. Him and Pierce, they sat on the original pictures for years, then they had some new books made up who-knows-where. They got the shit in a warehouse someplace, I don't know where, just waiting to go. I think Pierce was waiting for some kind of heat to die down."

  No new lines crossed. A phrase sunk in: _profit motive_. Pornography by itself was chancy; twenty pounds of heroin _developed_ meant millions. Yorkin said, "One more 'case you get antsy on my deal. Pierce has got him a booby-trapped safe by his house. He's got money, dope, all kinds of stuff stashed there."

  Ed kept thinking MONEY.

  Yorkin: "Hey, talk to me! You want the new drop address? 8819 Linden, Long Beach. Exley, talk to me!"

  "Steak in your cell, Chester. You've earned it."

o        o          o

  Fresh lines--Ed pulled Fisk's and Kleckner's summaries, added the Yorkin/Malvasi revelations.

  Heroin and pornography lined. "The Guy" who made the smut books as Sid Hudgens' killer, his front man Duke Cathcart--killed by Dean Van Gelder, ordered killed or merely approached by Davey Goldman--who learned of the smut proposal via the bug in Mickey Cohen's cell. Cohen omnipresent--his stolen heroin ended up with both the Engleklings and "The Man" who brought Patchett the eighteen pounds of "H" for development, "The Man" who also loved pornography and convinced Patchett to manufacture new books from the 1953 prototypes. An instinct: Cohen was Mr. Patsy going back eight years, in and out of jail, a focal point who never dealt his own hand into the welter of cases. A line to a conclusion: the Nite Owl killings were semiprofessional at least, an attempt to take over the heroin and pornography rackets of Pierce Patchett. Cathcart, attempting to push the smut on his own, was the focus of the kiffings. Did he misrepresent his importance to the wrong people, or did the shooters deliberately take out Van Gelder, knowing or not knowing he was a Cathcart impersonator? Lines to organized crime intrigue, semipro at least, with all mob lines dead or incapacitated: Franz Englekling and sons--dead, Davey Goldman a vegetable, Mickey Cohen befuddled by the action going on around him. A question line: who clipped Pete and Bar Englekling? The terror line: Loren Atherton, 1934. How could it be?

  Fisk rapped on the door. "Sir, I brought Lux and Geisler back."

  "And?"

  "Geisler gave me a prepared statement."

  "Read it."

  Fisk pulled Out a sheet. "'Pertaining to my relationship with Pierce Morehouse Patchett, I, Terence Lux, M.D., do offer the following notarized statement. To wit: my relationship with Pierce Patchett is professional: i.e., I have performed extensive plastic surgery on a number of male and female acquaintances of his, perfecting already existing resemblances to exact resemblances of several notable actors and actresses. Unsubstantiated rumors hold that Patchett employs these young people for purposes of prostitution, but I have no conclusive evidence that this is true. Duly sworn,' et cetera."

  Ed said, "Not good enough. Duane, you take Yorkin and Rita Hayworth across the street and book them. Aiding and Abetting, and leave the arrest dates blank. Allow them one phone call each, then go down to Long Beach and seize 8819 Linden. That's a Fleur-de-Lis drop, and I'm sure Patchett's cleaned it out, but do it anyway. If you find the place virgin, bust it up and leave the door open."

  Fisk swallowed. "Uh, sir? Bust it up? And no booking date on our suspects?"

  "_Bust it up. Make a statement. And don't question my orders_."

  Fisk said, "Uh, yes, sir." Ed closed the door, buzzed Kleckner. "Don, send Dr. Lux and Mr. Geisler in."

  "Yes, sir," loud on the intercom. Whispered: "They're pissed, Captain. Thought you should know."

  Ed opened the door. Geisler and Lux walked up--brusque.

  No handshakes. Geisler said, "Franidy, that lunch didn't begin to cover the hourly rate I'm going to have to charge Dr. Lux. I think it's reprehensible that he came here voluntarily and was kept waiting so long."

  Ed smiled. "I apologize. I accept the formal statement you offered and I have no real questions for Dr. Lux. I have just one favor to ask and a large one to grant in return. And send me your bill, Mr. Geisler. You know I can afford it."

  "I know your father can. Continue, please. You're holding my interest so far."

  Ed to Lux. "Doctor, I know who you know and you know who I know. And I know you deal in legal morphine cures. Help me with something and I'll pledge my friendship."

  Lux cleaned his nails with a scalpel. "The _Daily News_ says you're obsolescent."

  "They're mistaken. Pierce Patchett and heroin, Doctor. I'll settle for rumors and I won't ask for your sources."

  Geisler and Lux went into a huddle--a step out the door, whispers. Lux broke it off. "I've heard Pierce is connected to some very bad men who want to control the heroin trade in Los Angeles. He's quite the chemist, you know, and he's been developing a special blend for years. Hormones, antipsychotic strains, quite a brew. I've heard it puts regular heroin to shame, and I heard it's ready to be manufactured and sold. One in my column, Captain. Jerry, take the man at his word and send him my bill."

o        o          o

  Semipro, pro--his new lines all spelled HEROIN. Ed called Bob Gallaudet, left a message with his secretary: Nite Owl maybe breaking--call me. A picture on his desk hooked him: Inez and his father at Arrowhead. He called Lynn Bracken.

  "Hello?"

  "Lynn, it's Exley."

  "God, hello."

  "You didn't go to Patchett, did you?"

  "Did you think I would? Were you setting me up to?"

  Ed laid the picture face down. "I want you to get out of L.A. for a week or so. I have a place at Lake Arrowhead, you can stay there. Leave this afternoon."

  "Is Pierce . . ."

  "I'll tell you later."

  "Will you come up?"

  Ed checked the Vincennes script. "As soon as I set something up. Have you seen White?"

  "He came and went, and I don't know where he is. Is he all right?"

  "Yes. No, shit, I don't know. Meet me at Fernando's on the lake. It's right by my place. Say six?"

  "I'll be there."

  "I figured you'd take some convincing."

  "I've already convinced myself of lots of things. Leaving town just makes it easier."

  "_Why_, Lynn?"

  "The party was over, I guess. Do you think keeping your mouth shut's a heroic act?"

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Bud woke up at the Victory. Dusk out the window--he'd slept through half a night and a day. He rubbed his eyes; Spade Cooley locked right back on him. He smelled cigarette smoke, saw Dudley sitting by the door.

  "Bad dreams, lad? You were thrashing a bit."

  Nightmare: Inez trashed by the press, his fault--what he did to nail Exley.

  "Lad, in repose you reminded me of my daughters. And you know I care for you no less."

  He'd sweated the sheets through. "What's with the job? What's next?"

  "Next you listen. I've long been involved in containing hard crime so that myself and a few colleagues might someday enjoy a profit dispensation, and that day will soon be arriving. As a colleague, you will share handsomely. Grand means will be in our hands, lad. Imagine the means to keep the nigger filth sedated and extrapolate from there. One obstreperous Italian you've dealt with in the past is involved, and I think you can be particularly useful in keeping him in line."

  Bud stretched, cracked his knuckles. "I meant the reopening. Talk straight, okay?"

  "Edmund Jennings Exley is as straight as I can be. He's trying to prove bad things against Lynn, lad. Salt on all the old wounds he's given you."

  Live wires buzzing. "You knew about us. I should've known."

  "There is precious little I don't know, and nothing I would not do for you. Coward Exley has touched the only two women you've loved, lad. Think of grand ways to hurt him."

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  They made love straight off-- Ed knew they'd have to talk if they didn't, Lynn seemed to sense the same thing. The cabin was musty, the bed unmade--stale from last time with Inez. Ed kept the lights on: the more he saw, the less he'd think. It helped him through the act; counting Lynn's freckles kept him from peaking. Slow on the act, both of them, making up for their tumble off the couch. Lynn had bruises; Ed knew they came from Bud White. For a tightrope act they were gentle; their long embrace after felt like payback for their lies. When they started talking they'd never stop. Ed wondered who'd say "Bud White" first.

  Lynn said it. Bud was the fulcrum that convinced her to lie to Patchett: the police investigation was a joke, they were grasping at straws. White knew of Patchett's milder doings, she was afraid he'd get in trouble if Pierce fought back. Pierce might try to buy his friendship, he thought everyone had a price tag, he didn't know her Wendell couldn't be bought. Bud got her thinking; the more she thought the more she hurt; a certain police captain kissing a certain ex-whore at the only moment she would have let him just added to the party's over, Pierce made me but he's bad deep down, if I let him go then maybe I'll get back some of the good things he's killed in me. Ed winced through the words, knew he couldn't return her candor--now Jack Vincennes was going in barefoot, he'd counted on Lynn to push Patchett to panic, past Fisk taking a fire axe to the drop, past his people grilled and arrested. Lynn met his silence with words--excerpts from her diary, a show-and-tell for fugitive lovers her pronouncement. Funny, sad--old tricks derided, a monologue on carhop hookers that almost had him laughing. Lynn on Inez and Bud White--he loved her here and there and mostly at a distance because her rage was worse than his, drained him, a night here and there was all he could take. No jealousy--so his own jealousy jumped up, almost forced him to shout questions: heroin and extortion, astounding audacious perversion, just how much do you know? The gift she gave him wouldn't let him; soft hands on his chest made him throw out a parity in candor before he started interrogating or lying just to have something to say.

  He went straight to his family, spiraled past to present. Mama's boy Eddie, golden boy Thomas, the jig he danced when his brother stopped six bullets. Being a policeman/patrician from a long line of Scotland Yard detectives. Inez, four men killed out of weakness; Dudley Smith going crazy to find a suitable scapegoat that Ellis Loew and Chief Parker just might accept as a panacea. A headlong rush to the great Preston Exley in all his intractable glory and how ink-embossed pornography lined to a dead scandalmonger, vivisected children and his father and Raymond Dieterling twenty-four years ago. A rush until there was nothing left to say and Lynn kissed his lips shut and he fell asleep touching her bruises.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Rogue cop Big V--give Exley credit for good casting. He synced his approach call to the drop raid--Patchett said, "Yes, I'll talk to you. Eleven tonight, and come alone."

  He wore a tape wire hooked across a bulletproof vest.

  He carried a bag of heroin, a switchblade, a 9mm automatic. Exley's Benzedrine down the toilet, grief he didn't need.

  He walked up, rang the bell--stage fright all the way. Patchett opened the door. Pinned-back eyes like Exley predicted--a nose junkie.

  Jack, per the script: "Hello, Pierce"--all contempt. Patchett shut the door. Jack threw the dope in his face. It hit him, fell to the floor.

  Ad lib time. "Just a peace offering. Not up to that shit you tested on Yorkin anyway. Did you know my brother-in-law's the City D.A.? He's a bonus you get if you make a deal with me."

  Patchett: "Where did you get that?" Calm, the stuff up his nose wouldn't let him show fear.

  Jack pulled out the knife, scratched his neck with the blade. He felt blood, licked it off a finger--Academy Award psycho. "I shook down some niggers. You know all about that, right? _Hush-Hush_ Magazine used to write me up. You and Sid Hudgens go way back, so you should know."

  No fear. "You made trouble for me five years ago. I still have that file carbon on you, and I think it's fair to say that you broke your part of our bargain. I'm assuming you've shown your superiors your deposition."

  Knife bit: the tip of the blade in one palm, a little push to retract it. More blood, a key Exley line. "I'm way past you in the information department. I know about the heroin you got from the Cohen-Dragna deal and what you've been doing with it. I know about the smut you were pushing in '53, and I know all about those extortion shakedowns with your whores. And all I want is my file and some information. You give me that and I'll put the fritz to everything Captain Exley has."

  "What information?"

  The script, verbatim. "I made a deal with Hudgens. The deal was my file destroyed and ten grand in cash in exchange for some juicy dirt I had on the LAPD high brass. I knew Sid was going to work a shakedown scheme with you, and I'd already backed down on Fleur-de-Lis--you know that's true. Sid got killed before I could pick up the money and the file, and I think the killer got both of them. I need that money, 'cause I'm getting shitcanned off the Department before I can collect my pension, and I want the fucker who robbed me dead. You didn't make that smut back in '53, but whoever did killed Sid and robbed me. Give me the name and I'm yours."

  Patchett smiled. Jack smiled--one last push before the pistolwhipping. "Pierce, the Nite Owl was smut and heroin--yours. Do you want to swing for that?"

  Patchett pulled out a piece, shot him three times. Silencer thwaps--the slugs shattered the tape gizmo, bounced off his vest.

  Three more shots--two in the vest, one wide.

  Jack crashed into a table, came up aiming. A jammed slide, Patchett on him, two misfire clicks right up close. Patchett in his face, the knife out, a blind stab, a scream--the blade catching.

  Patchett's left hand nailed to the table. Another scream, his right hand arcing--a hypo in it. The needle mainline close, stab, zooooom somewhere nice. Shots rifle loud, "No, Abe, no, Lee, no!" Flames, smoke, rolling away from the grief, so he could live to love the needle again, maybe see the funny man with his hand shivved to the table.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  The clock in his head was way off, his watch had quit working--he wasn't sure if it was Wednesday or Thursday. His Nite Owl "disclosure" ate up a whole evening--Dudley was so far ahead of him he never even took notes. The man left him at midnight, pumped up with bold language, no date for the strongarm cop's ball. Dud's date was Exley: clear the Nite Owl and ruin his career, seconds for Bad Bud White: "Think of grand ways to hurt him." Murder was all he could think of--a fair trade for Lynn; killing an LAPD captain was the springs in his clock all snapping--one more span of skewed time and he'd do it. Some point early A.M. Kathy Janeway hit him up--Kathy the way she looked then. She found him a date for the wee small hours--the man who killed her.

  And Spade Cooley stood him up.

  He went by the Biltmore, talked to the Cowboy Rhythm Band--Spade was still gone, Deuce Perkins was off on his own toot. The D.A.'s Bureau night clerk gave him the brush--were they even on the case? Another tear through Chinatown, a run by his apartment--a couple of I.A. hard-ons parked out front. A wolfed meal at a burger stand, dawn creeping up, a pile of _Heralds_ that told him it was Friday. A Nite Owl headline: jigs crying police brutality, Chief Parker promising justice.

  He felt tired one second, keyed up the next. He tried to set his watch to the radio; the hands stuck; he threw a hundred-dollar Gruen out the window. Tired, he saw Kathy; keyed up, he saw Exley and Lynn. He drove to Nottingham Drive to check cars.

  No white Packard--and Lynn always parked the same place. Bud walked around the building--no sign of Exley's blue Plymouth. A neighbor woman bringing in milk. She said, "Good morning. You're Miss Bracken's friend, aren't you?"

  The old snoop-Lynn said she peeped bedrooms. "That's right."

  "Well, as you can see, she's not here."

  "Yeah, and you don't know where she is."

  "Well..."

  "Well what? You seen her with a man? Tall, glasses?"

  "No, I haven't. And mind your tone, young man. Well what, indeed."

  Bud badged her. "_Well what_, lady? You were gonna tell me something."

  "Until you got cheeky, I was going to tell you where Miss Bracken went. I heard her talking to the manager last night. She was asking for directions."

  "_Where to?_"

  "Lake Arrowhead, and I would have told you before you got cheeky."

o        o          o

  Exley's place, Inez told him about it, a cabin flying flags: American, state, LAPD. Bud drove to Arrowhead, cruised by the lake, found it: banners cutting wind, no blue Plymouth. Lynn's Packard in the driveway.

  A brodie to the porch; a leap up the steps. Bud punched in a window, unlatched the door. No response to the noise--just a musty front room done up hunting lodge provincial.

  He walked into the bedroom. Sweat stink, lipstick blots on the bed. He kicked the feathers out of the pillows, dumped the mattress, saw a leather binder underneath. Lynn's "Scarlet Letters" for sure--she'd been talking up her diary for years.

  Bud grabbed it, got ready to rip--down the spine like his old phone book trick. The smell made him stop-if he didn't look, he was a coward.

  Flip to the last page. Lynn's handwriting, bold black ink, the gold pen he'd bought her.

March 26, 1958

  More on E.E. He just drove off and I could tell he was chagrined by all the things he told me last night. He looked vulnerable in the A.M. light, stumbling to the bathroom without his glasses. I pity Pierce his misfortune in encountering such an essentially frightened and unyielding man. E.E. makes love like my Wendell, like he never wants it to end, because when it ends he will have to return to what he is. He is perhaps the only man I have ever met who is as compromised as I am, who is so smart, circumspect and cautious that you can always see his wheels turning and thus wish you could always talk in the dark so that face value would be less complex. He is so smart and pragmatic that he makes W.W. appear childish and thus less heroic than he really is. And considering his dilemma, my betiayal of Pierce's friendship and patronage seem frankly callow. This man has been so obsessively beholden to his father for so long that the crux of it must influence every step he takes, yet he is still taking steps, which amazes me. E.E. didn't delve too far into specifics, but the basic thrust is that some of the more artful pornographic books that Pierce was selling five years ago have diagrams that match the mutilations on Sid Hudgens' body and the wounds on the victims of a murderer named Loren Atherton, who was apprehended by Preston Exley in the 1930s. P.E. is soon to announce his candidacy for governor and E.E. now considers that his father solved the Atherton case incorrectly and inferred that he suspects P.E. of establishing business relations with Raymond Dieterling at the time of that case (one of Atherton's victims was a Dieterling child star). Another strange crux: E.E., my trIs smart pragmatist, considers his father such a moral exemplar and paragon of efficacy that he is terrified of accepting normal incompetence and rational business self-interest as within the bounds of acceptable human behavior. He is afraid that solving his "Nite Owl related" cases will reveal P.E.'s fallibility to the world and destroy his gubernatorial chances, and he is obviously even more afraid of having to accept his father as a mortal, especially difficult since he has never accepted himself as one. But he will go ahead with his cases, deep down he seems quite determined. As much as I love him, in the same situation my Wendell would just shoot everyone involved, then look for somebody a bit more inteffigent to sort out the bodies, like that urbane Irishman Dudley Smith he always mentions. More on this and related matters after a walk, breakfast and three strong cups of coffee.

  Now he ripped--down the spine, across the grain, leather and paper shredded to bits.

  The phone, IAD direct. Buzz, buzz, "Internal Affairs, Kleckner."

  "It's White. Put Exley on."

  "White, you're in troub--" a new voice on the line. "This is Exley. White, where are you?"

  "Arrowhead. I just read Lynn's diary and got the whole story on your old man, Atherton and Dieterling. _The whole fucking story_. I'm running a suspect down, and when I find him it's your daddy on the six o'clock news."

  "I'll make a deal with you. Just listen."

  "Never."

o        o          o

  Back to L.A., the old Spade routine: Chinatown, the Strip, the Biltmore, his third circuit since time went haywire. The chinks were starting to look like the Cowboy Rhythm Band, the El Rancho guys were growing slant eyes. Every known haunt triple-checked, three times everything--except for a single hit on his agent.

  Bud drove to Nat Penzler Associates. The connecting door was open--Mr. Natsky was eating a sandwich. He took a bite, said, "Oh shit."

  "Spade's been ditching out on his gig. He must be costing you money."

  Penzler eased a hand behind his desk. "Caveman, if you knew the grief my clients cause me."

  "You don't sound so concerned."

  "Bad pennies always turn up."

  "Do you know where he is?"

  Penzler brought his hand up. "My guess is on the planet Pluto, hanging out with his pal Jack Daniels."

  "What were you doing with your hand?"

  "Scratching my balls. You want the job? It pays five yards a week, but you have to kick back ten percent to your agent."

  "Where is he?"

  "He is somewhere in the vicinity of nowhere I know. Check with me next week and write when you get brains."

  "Like that, huh?"

  "Caveman, if I knew would I withhold from a bruiser like you?" Bud kicked him out of his chair. Penzler hit the floor; the chair spun, tipped. Bud reached under the desk, pulled out a bundle wrapped with string. A foot on top, a jerk on the knot--clean black cowboy shirts.

  Penzler stood up. "Lincoln Heights. The basement at Sammy Ling's, and you didn't get it from Natsky."

o        o          o

  Ling's Chow Mein: a dive on Broadway up from Chinatown. Parking spaces in back; a rear entrance to the kitchen. No outside basement access, steam shooting from an underground vent. Bud circled the place, heard voices out the vent. Make the trapdoor in the kitchen.

  He found a two-by-four in the lot, went in the back way. Two slants frying meat, an old geek skinning a duck. A fix on the trapdoor, easy: lift the pallet by the oven.

  They spotted him. The young chinks jabbered; Papa-san waved them quiet. Bud held his shield out.

  The old man rubbed fingers. "I pay! I pay I pay! You go!"

  "Spade Cooley, Papa. You go downstairs and tell him Natsky brought the laundry. Chop-chop."

  "Spade pay! You leave alone! I pay! I pay!"

  The kids circled. Papa-san waved his cleaver.

  "You go now! Go now! I pay!"

  Bud fixed a line on the floor. Papa stepped over it.

  Bud swung his stick--pops caught it waist-high. He crashed into the stove, his face hit a burner, his hair caught fire. The kids charged; Bud got their legs in one shot. They hit the floor tangled up-Bud smashed in their ribs. Pops doused his head in the sink, charged with his face scorched black.

  A roundhouse to the knees--Papa went down glued to that cleaver. Bud stepped on his hand, cracked the fingers--Papa let go screaming. Bud dragged him to the oven, kicked the pallet loose. Yank the trapdoor, drag the old man downstairs.

  Fumes: opium, steam. Bud kicked Papa-san quiet. Through the fumes: dope suckers on mattresses.

  Bud kicked through them. All chinks--they grumbled, swatted, sucked back to dreamland. Smoke: in his face, up his nose, breathing hard so he took it down his lungs. Steam like a beacon: a sweat room at the back.

  He kicked over to the door. Through a mist: naked Spade Cooley, three naked girls. Giggles, arms and legs cockeyed--an orgy on a slippery tile bench. Spade so tangled up in women that you couldn't shoot him clean.

  Bud flipped a wall switch. The steam died, the mist fizzled. Spade looked over. Bud took his gun out.

  KILL HIM.

  Cooley moved first: a shield, two girls pressed tight. Bud moved in--yanking arms, legs, nails raking his face. The girls slipped, stumbled, tumbled out the door. Spade said, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

  Smoke inside him, brewing up his very own dreamland. Last rites, stretch the moment. "Kathy Janeway, Jane Mildred Hamsher, Lynette Ellen Kendrick, Sharon--"

  Cooley yelled, "GODDAMN YOU IT'S PERKINS!"

  The moment snapped--Bud saw his gun half-triggered. Colors swirled around him; Cooley talked rapid fire. "I saw Deuce with that last girlie, that Kendrick. I know'd he liked to hurt hooers, and when that last girlie turned up dead on the TV I asked him 'bout it. Deuce, he like to scared me to death, so's I took off on this here toot. Mister, you gotta believe me."

  Color flashes: Deuce Perkins, plain vicious. One color blinking-- turquoise, Spade's hands. "Those rings, where'd you get them?"

  Cooley pulled a towel over his lap. "Deuce, he makes them. He brings a hobby kit with him on the road. He's been crackin' all these vague-type jokes for years, how they protects his hands for his intimate-type work, and now I know what he means."

  "Opium. Can he get it?"

  "That cracker shitbird steals my shit! Mister, you gotta believe me!"

  Starting to. "My killing dates put you in the right place to do the jobs. Just you. Your booking records show different goddamn guys traveling with you, so how do you--"

  "Deuce, he's been my road manager since '49, he always travels with me. Mister, you gotta believe me!"

  "_Where is he?_"

  "I don't know!"

  "Girlfriends, buddies, other perverts. _Give_."

  "That miserable sumbitch got no friends I know of 'cept that wop shitbird Johnny Stompanato. Mister, you gotta believe--"

  "I believe you. You believe I'll kill you if you scare him away from me?"

  "Praise Jesus, I believe."

  Bud walked into the smoke. The chinks were still on the nod, Papa was just barely breathing.

o        o          o

  R&I on Perkins:

  No California beefs, clean on his Alabama parole--he'd spent '44--'46 on a chain gang for animal sodomy. Transient musician, no known address listed. K.A. confirmation on Johnny Stompanato--ditto Lee Vachss and Abe Teitlebaum--mob punks all. Bud hung up, remembered a talk with Jack Vincennes--he'd rousted Deuce at a _Badge of Honor_ party-- Johnny, Teitlebaum and Vachss were there with him.

  Kid gloves: Johnny used to be his snitch, Johnny hated him, feared him.

  Bud called the DMV, got Stomp's phone number--ten rings, no answer. Two more no-answers: the Cowboy Rhythm Band at the Biltmore, the El Rancho. Kikey Teitlebaum's deli next-- Kikey and Johnny were tight.

  A run out Pico, shaking off fumes. A keen edge settling in: get Perkins alone, kill him. Then Exley.

  Bud parked, looked in the window. A slow afternoon, pay dirt--Johnny Stomp, Kikey T. at a table.

  He walked in. They spotted him, whispered. Years since he'd seen them--Abe was fatter, Stomp still guinea slick.

  Kikey waved. Bud grabbed a chair, carried it over. Stomp said, "Wendell White. How's tricks, _paesano?_"

  "Tricky. How's tricks with Lana Turner?"

  "Trickier. Who told you?"

  "Mickey C."

  Teitlebaum laughed. "Must have a hole like the Third Street Tunnel. Johnny's leaving for Acapulco with her tonight, and me, I shack with Sadie five-fingers. White, what brings you here? I ain't seen you since Dick Stens used to work for me."

  "I'm looking for Deuce Perkins."

  Johnny tap-tapped the table. "So talk to Spade Cooley."

  "Spade don't know where he is."

  "So why ask me? Mickey tell you Deuce and me are close?" No ritual question: what do you want him for? And fat-mouth Kikey too quiet. "Spade said you and him were acquaintances."

  "Acquaintances is right. We go back, _paesano_, so I'll tell you I haven't seen Deuce in years."

  Change-up pitch. "You ain't my _paesano_, you wop cocksucker." Johnny smiled, maybe relieved, their old cop-snitch game one more time. A look at Kikey--the fat man working on spooked. "Abe, you're tight with Perkins, right?"

  "Nix. Deuce is too meshugeneh for me. He's just a guy to say hi to once in a blue fucking moon."