

### Dead Is Dead

### by

### James Gabriel

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 James Gabriel

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Dead Is Dead

Chapter One

Two A.M. and I'm in a hurry out Sunset. A Santa Ana's making the palm fronds rattle like old bones and I've got the top down on the Caddy trying not to sweat on a silk dress shirt cost me forty bucks. Not much traffic this time of night, so I keep the big car in second and the pedal to the floor. When I hang a right through the knockoff Greek temples that flank the entrance to Bel Air, the tires squeal like lost souls.

I'm hustling because of something came over my police radio. I've got one tucked up under the dash real neat, just a knob sticking down for the volume. I keep it turned up when I'm driving around. Beats hell out of Lux Radio Theater, plus you never know when a big name from the Studio will pop up amongst the rapists and prowlers and naked drunks. Like the call I heard an hour ago. I was headed home from Ciro's, feeling sleepy and a little drunk. The police dispatcher was barking numbers and addresses. If you know how to listen, the numbers add up to sad tales of faceless people screaming or bleeding or dying or dead. I've heard those stories before and know how they end, so I was trying not to nod off.

"Ten fifty-four D at 10034 Summit Ridge, code red" said the dispatcher, the static giving the words a sandpaper rasp. That jolts me awake. I pull the Caddy into a quick U turn, skidding across the street car tracks in front of a Oldsmobile, whose driver scowls and leans on his horn.. I'd spotted a phone booth at a Texaco, but while I'm parking a wino beat me to it. A couple slaps on the glass with the flat of my hand got him moving, brushing by me and doing a fast slink around the corner.

Soon as I push my nickel into the slot I figured out why he was moving so fast. There's a pool of piss on the floor, the color of muscatel. All the great outdoors to piss in, and this guy pees in here. Lot of glamour in Hollywood if you know where to find it.

You don't call Lou Carnesi direct. Even me. You have to go through his service, so after a few clicks on the line I'm talking to the night girl, who knows my voice pretty well. I give her the number of the booth, hang up and step outside away from the smell. Sometimes, Lou calls right back and sometimes he doesn't, but since it's me calling in the wee hours I figure he will, and he does.

It isn't more than a minute.

"What is it, Jake?" There's no mistaking that velvet baritone. Lou's the studio shyster - the main one, the shyster in chief. His law degree is strictly night school, but you'd never know it now. As a youngster, he broke knees for the bosses on the Jersey docks. But honest work bored him.

I tell him what I heard on the police radio. I'm on my way, I tell him.

"I thought we'd agreed not to get that joker off the hook again," says Lou. The joker he's talking about is Clifford Langston, a big-shot director, or used to be. Langston's the guy lives on Summit Ridge. The place is famous in certain circles, which is why after a few dozen pay offs, L.B. Mayer has had enough. He told me so himself. It was in his office. We'd been talking about the problem boys, and I'd asked what to do about a public indecency beef involving Langston in the locker room of the downtown Y. Mayer hadn't answered right away. He'd tented his fingers, thinking about it. Then he'd slapped his hands flat on the desk: "Don't lift a hand for the son of a bitch". Which normally would be good enough for me, except tonight it's not the usual lewd conduct beef, and that's more or less what I tell Lou.

For second or two all I can hear is heavy breathing. Lou's the kind of guy waits until he gets his temper under control before he says anything. I'm patient since I can appreciate the problem. Langston's a hophead with short eyes. As he's gotten older the boys have gotten younger which maybe could be tolerated but the work has gone to hell, too. So naturally Mayer's been trying to cut him loose. But there's a contract so it ain't easy, and while all this is being worked out Langston's still one of the family. Any dirt about him is bound to spread. We make family pictures, the kind where grown ups kiss without moving their lips and the dog's always smarter than the kid. So L.B. likes to keep the image clean. Besides which he's a genuine prude is L.B. Mayer – at least when it comes to other people.

The upshot is that we don't want to help this Langston guy but maybe we got to.

Finally Lou's voice came back over the wire. The tone's the same, not mad or anything. There's maybe an edge that wasn't there before, but you'd have to know Lou real well to hear it.

"Alright, Jake. Mr. Meyer won't like it, but I suppose there's no choice. Go up there and take care of it."

I asked him _how_ I'm supposed to take care of it.

"You'll find a way. That's what we pay you for. Just keep it out of the papers," he says as if that's going to be easy. "How long will it take to get there?" I tell him 10 minutes. "Better get going," he says. He hangs up without saying goodbye. I'm used to that, so I jump back in the car and jack it into gear. But first I wiped the wino's piss off my shoes on a little patch of grass.

I like Bel Air. No streetlights for one thing, so you can see the stars - the real ones - which you can't any more down on the flats. And I like the way the Caddy's twin pipes bounce a hushed throb off the walls that separate the rich from you and me. The air here is clean after the hot muck downtown and I breathe deep, taking some satisfaction in the setup. If Langston's in a jam, he had it coming. Plus I got a little history with the guy. I'll get him off whatever hook he's on, but I won't mind watching him wriggle a little first.

The big house is built on a slope hidden from the street by a high wall that steps down the hill like a staircase. The wall is real stone to impress the neighbors, with jagged class embedded on top to discourage the curious, and right now those shards are glinting red and diamond white in the light of a half-dozen police cars. I park the Caddy a little up the hill and walk down and through an iron gate. From here, a circular drive leads up to the house. I can see flashlight beams darting here and there in the shrubbery. A portly cop, all jack boots and Sam Brown belt, moves into my way and pushes a beam in my face. "Hey, bud, where you think you're going," he says, real unfriendly. Then he sees it's me. "Oh, sorry, Jake," he says. "Didn't recognize you." He's embarrassed, which is only right. After all, this is a company town and I'm the man from the company.

A black Chevy panel truck is idling with lights off and back doors swung open. The morgue mobile. I walk a little faster.

The house is a half-timbered monstrosity looming over a cobbled courtyard, a knock-off English country house designed, I happen to know, by a coked up set dresser Langston was diddling at the time. The hot wind swirls around, blowing dead leafs in frantic circles and bringing a jungle smell off the greenery. A short guy in a turd-brown suit stands by the front door, bouncing a little on his toes, hands moving in his pockets. He's chewing gum so loud you can hear it twenty feet away. He's an old-time detective called Archie Tucker, and I've got him on the pad for a couple bills a month, which is just a little more than the city pays him. Tucker carries marbles in his pocket – big ones, boulders we called them when I was kid. He likes to fool with them when he's nervous. He's working those boulders now, clicking away in his pants like he's got glass balls.

"Hey Jake. Didn't think you'd be coming. Word on the street's that you guys are down on Langston"

"What's going on?"

"You're not going to believe it," he says. LA cops get used to everything, but Tucker looks a little twitchy.

"You OK?" I ask him.

"Sure. Nothing wrong with me." He doesn't look me in the eye. But then he never does.

"So come on, what you got?"

"It's over on the side of the house there," he says and leads me around to a side garden where a gaggle of cops are milling around a corpse. Some of those portable klieg lights have been wheeled in, and the scene dazzles like a movie set. The star of the show is lying on her side, her thumb bent up toward her half-open mouth as if she'd fallen asleep sucking it, wearing what's left of a green silk dress torn out the back and trailing off to one side like a cape. Through the tear in the dress you can see white silk panties with lace around the edges. She would look peaceful, except her head's bent off at an angle you don't see outside the circus or the morgue. Still, you can tell she was pretty, even with her skin make dead white in the kabuki glare of the lamps, even with her dead eyes wide open and staring back in the direction the killer must have come. I don't look longer than I have to.

"You got the guy that did it?" I ask Tucker.

"No. But we got a hundred guys inside swearing they didn't."

There's a geezer down on one knee over the body. Dr. John Doogin is deputy medical examiner and has been as long as I can remember. The boys at the station call him "Digger", but not when he can hear. He's in his 'sixties now and all the juice has been squeezed out of him leaving a face like a sucked lemon and a personality to match. But he knows his business. He glances up. "Hello, Jake. Didn't think we'd be seeing you tonight."

"That's what everybody been saying. I'm beginning to feel unwelcome."

"Unwelcome? Must be your delicate feelings, my boy. Too sensitive, that's your problem."

"Speaking of which, what are _you_ doing here, Doc? I didn't think you made house calls any more." Doogin's mostly administration these days, signing certificates and giving talks at the Rotary.

"Orders," he says. "Like you, Jake." As he says it, he probes with the tweezers under a fingernail until he gets a grip on a piece of something. He holds whatever it is up to the light and peers at it. Then he heaves himself to his feet, nodding.

"What's that?" I ask him. He's concentrating on sticking the piece of something into a test tube.

"Skin. A little piece of skin," he says. "She had beautiful nails, you know. Newly sharpened, by the looks of them. She used them, too. Took some hide off the guy before she died. Not that it did her much good."

"So what do you figure?" I ask him.

"I don't figure, Jake. Cause of death, that's my racket. And time, of course, which in this case is a couple hours ago. All scientific. When it comes to figuring, you'll have to consult our good friend Archie here."

Tucker jumps a little when he hears his name. Something sure as hell's got him spooked. He bounces a fast glance off the body. "What's to figure?" he says. "Somebody chased her down. Caught her by the back of that dress where it's ripped out there. Probably wanted to rape her, but she put up a pretty good fight. At least, kept her panties on by the looks of it. But the guy got pissed, or maybe he panics, who knows?

"Broke her beautiful neck for her," Doogin says.

"Have to be pretty strong to do that," I say. "Or pretty mad."

"Alas, some of our fellow creatures _are_ mad, Jake," says Doogin. "From the factory, as it were. Who should know that better than you, eh?"

"How old?"

"The girl?"

"Sure the girl. How old?"

"Oh, not old. Probably not legal, if that's what you're driving at."

Tucker pipes up again. "She was a just a party girl, Jake." He's getting on my nerves.

"Anyone ID her yet?" I ask Tucker.

Tucker looks confused. "I don't know," he says, staring off into the trees.

"You don't know?"

"I been outside here. Gimme a break. Anyway, like I say, she was just a chippy. Somebody got over excited. Open and shut. Easy job for both of us, right?"

Sure, that's right. Easy job. Just another chippy. The hills around here are full of them. You don't even need a license. If she was legal, or close enough, the police won't be too interested and the payoffs will be petty cash. And normally I'd let it go at that. So why am I rattled? Maybe it's the eyes. The side of her face is mottled blue black from a bruise that runs up from her neck. Her painted mouth is slack. But there's something about the eyes that gives you the feeling they're not as dead as the rest of her. Like maybe the windows of her soul are not quite shut. Not yet. "Can't someone cover her up, for chrissakes," I hear myself saying.

Doogin gives me a look, but he motions and a couple of cops drape a sheet on the body. Now it's just a lump under a shroud, but my eyes avoid it. I want to get out of here.

"I'll be in touch, Doc," I say to Doogin. I start back toward the front of the house, Tucker trailing behind.

"Jake's on the job," I hear Doogin say behind me. "Justice is sure to be done."

Chapter Two

As we walk back around front, Tucker tells me the call came in about midnight. "Some guy. The sergeant who took the call said the voice sounded educated, if that means anything. Anyway, this guys says we got to get out here. Somebody's dead. He gives the address and hangs up. When the black and white showed, people were scattering in every direction."

"Who?"

"Men mostly, some women, a few boys, some undecided." Tucker barks a laugh. "Like my wife says: there's somebody in this world for everybody." His right hand is worrying those marbles, clickity-click. "Rounded them all up. Fished some out of the bushes. Lot of faces you'd recognize, Jake, but nobody you have to worry about. Just has-beens, most of them. Oh, and ten or so of the best-looking young babes you ever saw. Hostesses, dressed to the nines. The dead broad was one of them. We put 'em all in the ballroom. Hey, that's rich, don't you think? The guy's got a room just for ballin'. Me and the wife, we gotta use the bedroom, or maybe the kitchen table," and he chuckles at his own joke. When I don't react, he darts a look my way.

"None of this is my idea," he says.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," he says. "Nothing. Who the hell knows?" Then he finally looks me in the eye. "Only do me a favor, Jake. Don't make it complicated." I stare at him for a few seconds, but he's clams up and walks off. So I follow.

We're at the front door, one of those two-story wooden numbers under a peaked iron archway. A pair of stone gargoyles snarl down at us, ragged-toothed jaws hanging over the storm drain. I'm thinking that things are a little out of focus here. Tucker may be stupid, but he's usually reliable. Not tonight. So I make sure we get one thing straight before we go in. "I want to get Langston out of here," I tell him It's the usual thing: get the big shot out of the way, sober him up, wheel in the lawyers. Tucker knows the drill as well as I do, but tonight he's squirmin' around.

"I don't know, Jake," he says.

"Whadda you mean you don't know? You damn well better know."

"Heat's on, Jake. I can't help you as much as I want."

"Things are tough all over. Just make sure we get Langston the hell out of here."

I wait for an answer, but Tucker is busy pushing through the door. It opens with a rush of money'd air and we're in an entry hall out of King Arthur, complete with flags, coats of arms and a checkerboard floor of black and white stone. Our heels click across toward an archway on the long wall to the left. Inside is a wood paneled library filled with the kind of books your decorator buys by the yard. Langston sits on a leather couch, hands braced on knees like a drunk trying to look sober. There's a uniform with him, but Archie shoos the guy out.

I know Langston from the old days when he was making two-reelers for this fly by night outfit in the Valley. He didn't remember me when we met again, but I remembered him. He was a sharp blade once, but he's weathered hard -- hair dyed, nose pocked, skin the color of bacon rind. He's gotten up in a maroon dressing gown with a pale yellow cravat bunched under his chin to hide the wattles. When we come in, he jumps up and scuttles over, rummy eyes fixed on me like I'm Jesus come to save him.

He grabs my forearm with fingers that are all bone. His pupils are the size of buffalo nickels. Close to, I see he's wearing make-up.

"Thank God you're here, Jake!" He sounds like he means it. I try to shake off those fingers, but he has a death grip on my arm.

"Let go, Cliff!" He looks down at his hand as if it's jumped up there on its own.

"Don't call me Cliff," he says, straightening his back. He likes to be called Clifford. I'd have remembered that if I gave a damn. The hand drops to his side.

"What happened here?" I ask him.

"A girl's dead. Outside."

"What _happened_?" I say it slow this time.

"I never saw her before."

This isn't getting me anywhere, so I grab his shoulder and give him a shake. Not hard, but enough to snap his head.

He looks at me, startled. Then he giggles. "Thanks," he says. "I needed that," and he starts to laugh. It's a high-pitched sound like a hopped-up hyena. That lasts maybe five seconds and suddenly he's sober, calm, smiling at me a little, trying for a little drunken dignity.

"It was a party," he says. "Plenty of booze, plenty of everything. I was feeling good. Then I hear a siren and somebody's shouting something about cops. It was all that quick. I was feeling good, then I wasn't." Now he gulps, looks stricken, puts his head in his hands, but a moment later his head is up and he's smiling again.

"Hey, listen, " he says, real palsy. "Tarts like that are a dime a dozen."

I'm getting irritated. "You say it was a party. What kind of party?"

He's still smiling. 'Oh, not what you're thinking," he says. "This was strictly legit. A favor for L.B. – little get together for the exhibitors, hicks in town for a good time. L.B. likes them buttered up, so they won't bitch so much. He _was_ one, for god's sakes." It's true. L.B. Mayer once counted tickets in a hicksville nickelodeon.

"And the girl?"

"No idea. They bused them in. Ran them through costume and makeup. Contract girls. You know how it works. They're supposed to be friendly." Langston barks a laugh. "You should have seen the rubes scatter when the cops showed. Like roaches when you switch on the light."

"Did you see who did it?"

"How do you tell one rube from another? And it happened outside. That's what the cops tell me. I was inside. Didn't see a thing. Until afterward. Then I ran outside to see what had happened. Good-looking honey. Even dead. Shame to waste that sort of talent, know what I mean?"

"Alright, sit down and shut up," I tell him. I don't want him mouthing off until I know what's up.

"Right, Jake, you're the boss," he says. He's eager to please, shuffling backwards towards the couch like a Chinese waiter.

Tucker has been watching Langston. Now he looks at me, spins an index finger in the air by his temple and grins.

That's when I hear shouting from out in the hall. A uniform pops his head in the door looking for Tucker. "The Chief's here," he says before ducking back out. Tucker throws me a worried look and scampers for the hallway. A few seconds later he's back, frantically beckoning for me. Out in the hall stands a blunt looking gent in a rumpled tux surrounded by a crowd of cops and flunkies. He sees me and grins. Jimmy "two-gun" Davis is a whoremaster, gambling den proprietor, communist scourge and chief of police, roughly in that order. He got his nickname because the hardware he packs around – forty-four in a shoulder holster, twenty-two stuffed down his sock. The guns are for show. Jimmy might pistol-whip the odd bum with the barrel of that forty-five just to stay in practice, but he's got plenty of people to do his shooting for him. Plus, he wants to get respectable, maybe run for governor one day. I don't like Jimmy in particular, but I don't dislike him either. He can be good company, and he's honest. You pay him off and he does what he says he'll do. Unless, of course, somebody else pays him more. But it usually has to be a _lot_ more – which is what I mean by honest.

As I come up he sticks out a hand. "Your friends will be the death of me, Jake," he says.

"Why all dressed up, Jimmy" I ask him.

"Fund raiser for Mayor Shaw," he says.

"I thought you did that fund raising thing in private."

He grunts. "Business association. _Ours_ , not that civic virtue bunch. Mayor Shaw was making a speech. Guess what it was about?"

"You're going to tell me."

"The goddam Reds, Jake. They're everywhere. Commie bastards. The well-padded classes eat that crap up with a spoon. And it's a hell of a speech, too. But I've heard it a time or two to be honest, so I was just as happy to get the call."

"Wouldn't have thought they need _you_ to handle a thing like this." I say.

"Well, there are a couple of things about it," he says, turning to the group of hangers on craning in to listen. "Why don't you boys give me and Jake a little room here?" People start shuffling away in every direction. Tucker hesitates, but Davis gives him a look and he scuttles off, too. "That's better. Walk along with me a little, my friend." We head toward the back of the long entry hall, moving slow. He goes to put a friendly hand on my shoulder, but I stare it back off. It doesn't bother him.

"We done some favors for each other over the years, haven't we, Jake?"

"Sure," I say, wondering where this is heading.

"And L.B. knows he got a friend in me, right?

"It's true friendship, Jimmy. Forgive and forget."

"I like the way you put that, Jake," he says. "Just like an old married couple. Forgive and forget. Which is what I want you to do."

"Do I have reason to?"

"You will. Langston's spending the night in the cooler."

"What?"

"Now, just calm down. We're going to have to lock your boy up."

"For murdering that girl? Don't make me laugh."

"Nah, not for the murder. We got somebody else set up for that. In fact, that's one of the things I wanted to show you. Take a look." We're at the end of the hallway in front of a swinging door. Davis pushes through and stands aside to let me walk by. The door opens onto a kitchen like you might find in a restaurant, with a serious-looking stove along the back wall and long stainless steel table down the middle. On the table slumps a blubbering drunk, with a couple of cops are holding him upright. Fronting the drunk is a short, sloped-shoulder detective whose ears stick out from either side of his shaved head like mushrooms on a stump. He's got his coat off and sleeves rolled up, wearing short black gloves that are wet through the knuckles. He's just in the act of pulling the left glove tight as we walk through the door. The smell in here is what you'd get if you flushed a bottle of scotch down a urinal.

Davis eyes the gloves and gets irritated. "What the hell you doing, Lieutenant. You know I don't like you using your hands on suspects." The guy just grins.

"Sorry, Chief.

"You could bust a finger for chrissakes."

"I'll be careful," the guy says. "How ya doing, Jake?"

"You two know each other," Davis asks, and I nod. The guy's name is John Bone. He's a lieutenant for payroll purposes, but his real job is beating the crap out of people with a rubber hose. Some say he invented the technique, but tonight he must have left the hose at the station.

"All right, but take it easy on yourself," Jimmy says as Bone turns back to the where the cops are holding the drunk. He's bouncing up and down on his toes, like a fighter.

"Let him go," Bone barks. The cops do, jumping back a little, and the drunk starts a slow slide to the right. Bone waits a beat, then slaps the drunk hard with a roundhouse left. The shock of the slap sends a spray of snot and tears off the drunk's face and pushes him upright.

Davis is talking in my ear, confidential like. "Found this guy in here, hiding under a table. At least, he thought he was hiding. Had a piece of that girl's dress in his hand." The drunk's trying to focus his eyes as he balances on the perpendicular, but the effort's too much and he starts a slow slump to the left. Bone waits again, judging the angle like a spray hitter judges a curve ball, and just as the drunk's about to topple off the table to the left, lets go with a roundhouse right. Back up comes the drunk, yelping this time. By now he's figured out the drill and fights to stay upright, his torso weaving back and forth like a swami without a snake.

Somebody hands Bone the piece of green silk. It's from the girl's dress, no doubt about that. It all looks like a frame up if you ask me. Why not just tape a signed confession to his shirt? But nobody's asking me. Bone shakes the piece of dress in the drunk's face.

"Where'd you get this?" he shouts. The question stumps the drunk, who starts blubbering again.

"This is a waste of time, Johnny, " says Davis to Bone "And the smell is making my eyes smart. Just hose him off and take him the hell downtown."

"A couple for luck, Chief?" Bone asks, eager

"Sure, why the hell not."

Bone turns and gives the drunk a couple more slaps -- one left, one right – really bending into it now so I swear I can hear his open hand whistling through the air a little before it hits that fat face with a sound like a butcher tenderizing steak. The second slap sends the guy headlong over the edge of the table in a sloppy cartwheel. He hits the floor flat on his back, face up, arms splayed out. And that's when I recognize him. It's none other than Buckaroo Bob Hale, the Prince of the Plains or whatever the hell he used to call himself. The face is twenty-years older and padded with bourbon fat, but there's no mistaking Buckaroo Bob. What the hell is he doing here? The last I heard of him, he was running a riding school out in Pacoima. Somebody else recognizes Bob and tells Davis who it is.

"Jesus yes, you're right," Davis says peering down. "Old Buckaroo Bob. Well, all the better. It'll give those reporter sons of bitches something to chew on. Drag him the hell out of here, boys. I gotta talk with Jake."

Back out in the hall, Davis nods in satisfaction. "Now that's a good night's work," he says.

"You don't really think that old drunk killed the girl, do you, Jimmy?" I ask him.

"Sure I do, Jake. Sure I do. He's a commie, too. A stinking red commie bastard."

"You're hell on the Reds, Jimmy, and everybody knows it." He grins. "And I'm sure you're right about Bob. An undercover Lenin lover. No doubt about it. But you take Langston, now. He hates the commies more than you do. A true blue Wilkie man, I happen to know. Which means you got the murder solved and the menace contained, so what say I just hustle Langston out of here?"

"Can't do it." Davis has been pulling my leg, but now he's serious. "Big push on down at city hall. Hizzoner's up for re-election and taking a lot of shit in the papers. Clean up the city, that sort of thing. Plus, your friend Langston's notorious - faggin' around the public johns out in Griffith Park, for chrissakes. So we gotta take him in."

"Mayer won't be happy."

"You let me worry about that. Meanwhile, I got something else to show you." He pulls me by an arm over in a corner, takes a quick look around, then hands me a billfold made of something that's supposed to look like leather. It's red, with a cheap gold plated clasp. Inside are some of those plastic leafs that fold out accordion style for snap shots. The first thing I notice is a crisp folded C-note stuffed where the bills go, pretty as you please. It's the only cash.

"Cab fare, you figure?" says Davis with a smirk. "Keep looking."

I ruffle through the pictures, trying to make them out in the dim light. Far as I can see, it's the usual stuff. People in awkward groups with artificial grins. That is, until I turn over the last leaf and see somebody familiar. It's a box brownie snapshot, cut down to fit in the little plastic window. There's a car with a man standing next to it. The shot's taken from across some street, a little blurry and out of plumb. But I can see the car's a Cadillac. And I can see the man is me.

"What's the gag?"

"No gag. The dead girl had your picture in her wallet."

"Bullshit. Your boys planted it."

"Why would we do that, Jake? You think we keep a picture of you handy in case some girl gets strangled so we can stuff it in her wallet."

I _am_ thinking again, but coming up blank. Well, not blank exactly. There's something scratching around inside my head, but I can't put a finger on it.

"Somebody snapped it on the fly," I say to Davis. "You can see that. Could have been anybody."

"But it wasn't anybody had it in her wallet. It was the stiff. Any idea why she'd have your picture?"

"Maybe she thought I was Gable. Lotta women make that mistake."

He cocks his head to the side looking at me. "You know," he says, laughing, "now that you mention it, that's gotta be the answer. Gable . The spitting image. Still and all, it's a good thing we got old Bob in there to feed to the press, with a side helping of Langston if necessary. That should keep the vultures happy, at least for a while. And don't worry. We'll keep you strictly out of it. Goes without saying," and he gives me a wink.

It's the wink that does it. Where the hell does Davis get off winking at me? You wink at me, you better be a pretty girl or a guy with a twitch. He's says, "The upshot is, Langston's going downtown. I don't want any trouble about that."

I put my hands out, palms up. "OK, Jimmy, do what you have to. Never did like the son of a bitch anyway. You mind if I break the news to him." He cocks his head at me, like maybe he thinks I should have fought a little harder. And maybe I should have, just for show. Then again, nobody likes Langston, so it makes sense I don't want to put myself out for him. In any case, Jimmy seems to buy it.

"Sure, Jake. Go ahead. We got a lot to clean around here anyway." Tucker's been lurking just out of earshot, and now Davis waves him over. "Jake here wants to talk to Langston again," he tells Tucker. "Go with him. You can protect him if that fairy gets violent." Jimmy turns to me, eyes brimming with fake benevolence. "Forgive and forget. Yes sir, it's the Christian thing to do. Not to mention, it's completely understandable, Jake, you and that girl. I mean, who could blame you, except maybe some judge? As a matter of fact, I like 'em young myself." He throws me another wink and shoulders through the door. As he disappears, I catch a glimpse of him palming the C-note from the girl's wallet.

Tucker and I are walking back toward the library when a photographer busts through the front door, sees us and triggers his Graffix from the hip. The flash blinds me. Pushing past him is a tiny Brunette wearing pants and carrying a notepad. Her face lights up when she sees me, which is not good news.

"Jake Thorne. You're here. So Langston must be the guilty party."

"Don't jump to conclusions, Aggie." It's Aggie Underwood, star reporter of Hearst's Herald-Express. She's a woman making it in a man's game. It doesn't hurt that she has Hearst's money behind her, but she would make it working for anyone. I give her a tip every now and again to keep her sweet, but I can't honestly remember whether I she owes me a favor or I owe her one.

"I'll give you a scoop, Aggie. The cops got the killer. Remember Buckaroo Bob Hale?"

"I didn't know he was still alive, let alone killing people. Is that your scoop?"

"They hustled him out to the wagon a couple minutes ago. You should go take a look. Quite a story."

"It would be if the Chief hadn't just given a statement about it out on the porch. No, the girl's the story, Jake. Young, beautiful and the police won't tell us who she is. Maybe they don't know. That's story enough for anybody And then there's you being here. You wouldn't have stirred yourself outta bed for Buckaroo Bob, no matter how many people he killed. What's up?"

"Off the record?"

"If it's legit."

"We're trying to cut Langston loose. Should happen in the next few days. But we want to keep the lid on until then. Sure, I thought maybe he'd done it. But the cops set me straight, so I was just on my way out when you showed."

She turns to Tucker. "Can I talk with Langston?" Archie looks at me, I shake my head and Aggie laughs. "I'm asking you, detective, not Jake. You're the law, right?"

"Langston's upset," I tell her before Archie can say anything. "Young girl killed in his home, just when he's on the skids. He's liable to say anything."

"Which is why I want to talk with him. Anyway, you owe me."

"How about tomorrow. I'll make sure you get an exclusive. Plus one or two other things I got for you, if you wait." The one or two things won't be a problem; there are always one or two other things.

"Exclusive?" she says, just to make it clear.

"It's a promise. Just lay off tonight." She nods. "I'll hold you to it," she says. I lean in an give her a quick peck on the cheek before she can avoid it, then duck under the right hand she aims at my jaw. I'm on my way back to the library. She tries to follow, but Archie blocks the way.

If Langston's mixed up in a killing, I'll grin when they strap him down and turn on the gas. But he ain't the type. In addition to which, if he's locked up it looks bad for me. People will begin to think maybe I can't do my job, and the next thing you know I won't have one. Then there's this business with the phony picture in the wallet, and Davis using it to warn me off. I don't like that. And finally, for the topper, there's that goddam wink.

It all sticks in my craw, so I decide to take matters into my own hands. To hell with Jimmy Davis. I don't work for him.

I can't let myself worry about the dead girl with her innocent face. In a righteous world, the peasants would march up here with torches like those extras in the Frankenstein movies and pitchfork every one of the sons of bitches, starting with the cops. But they don't allow peasants in Bel Air. No, around here you gotta be like me. You gotta look out for yourself.

Chapter Three

In the library, Langston is sitting on the couch vibrating, like maybe he's gotten into the giggle powder while I was gone. Tucker's still in the hall, screaming at the photographers. That gives me a minute.

When he sees me, Langston bounces up, but I take two long strides and grab his arm before he can say anything.

"Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I want the truth. This killing. Are you even remotely involved?" I give him a little shake for emphasis. But he's got a funny grin on his face. He giggles. "We're _all_ involved, Jake. It's the way of the world," and he swings his free arm in a big arc to indicate the universal order of things. "We're all _connected."_

This isn't doing me any good. "We're getting out of here," I tell him.

He nods four or five times like a nervous twitch, still smiling. "We'll lam, right Jake? Take in on the lam." He chuckles. Then he has second thoughts.

"Where are we going?"

"Don't worry about that. Is there another way out?"

He hesitates a second, looking worried. Then self-preservation kicks in.

"Follow me," he says and he's off at a quick trot. We go through a door at the back of the library into a butler's pantry and then a hallway. That leads to a back door. Langston puts his ear to door like a man cracking a safe, then swings it open and we're through. It's a gravel area outside, surrounded by a wooden fence. One end is lined with garbage cans. We keep going through a wooden gate into service ally behind the house. It's dark here. Langston's whispering out of the side of his mouth, telling me about this beach house, friend of his in Malibu, he'll hole up there a few days, let this thing blow over.

I know different.

I want him under wraps all right, but not where he thinks. The problem is that he won't want to go where I'm going to take him, and he's jacked up enough to make a scene. Luckily, I've got a solution in my pocket. From behind I whisper urgently: "Hold it, Cliff, don't move!" He freezes mid-stride like there's a rattler in the bushes. His voice rises as he bites off the words one at a time: "Don't call me Cli.." But that's as far as he gets before I cold cock him.

I carry a lead sap, a few ounces of metal inside a black leather sleeve. It saved my ass lots of times when I was in the shore patrol, cleaning sailors out of bars in Olongapo. I swing it now and hit him just below the temple, the contact sending a shiver down my arm like when you're a kid and connect with a fastball on the sweet spot. He falls into some bushes.

I mean to hit him just hard enough to do the job, with maybe a little extra kick for his sins. But I hit him harder than that – so hard that it scares me a little, and I lean over to check his breathing. He seems to be managing alright, but even in the dim light I can see a mouse the color of eggplant rising on his cheek.

Did I have to hit him? That's what Carnesi's going to ask. The real answer is, no. I didn't have to hit him. At least, not like that. He wasn't about to give me any real trouble, and if he had, a quick backhand would have settled his hash. So why did I sap him down?

Old scores. That's the truth. I told you I had history with the guy. But I'll have to think of better story before I talk with Lou.

I leave Langston propped against the fence, walk down the alley and out on the street. The Caddy's parked where I left it. A couple of cops are lounging around, smoking and chewing the rag. I give them the high sign, they give me a wave and I'm in the car. Nobody yells 'stop' when I turn up the ally.

Langston's mumbling to himself when we pull up to a guard shack in front of a fancy wrought iron gate. On either side of the gate, a high hedge stretches out into the night. There's no sign to tell you what's behind the hedge. The inmates would rather you didn't know. A couple of spotlights switch on from the top of the guardhouse, glaring in my eyes. A guard in a pretend uniform leans out his little window and sees it's me. He ducks back inside, the lights go out and the metal gate rolls out of the way.

As I drive in, I glance at the back seat. Langston's awake staring up at the stars and looking confused. The mouse is bigger, making his head a little lopsided. I feel a surge of satisfaction.

There's no one to meet us when we pull under the portico in front of swinging glass doors, so I haul Langston out by his satin lapels, put his arm around my shoulder and we shamble in like the losing team in a three-legged race.

If you're important to the Studio and your sins have found you out, you end up here. It's a clinic and sanatorium all in one. There are nice rooms overlooking the courtyard with fresh flowers every morning, and other rooms, in the back, with floor drains and rubber wallpaper. The boss has a major piece of the place, and I do a lot of business here, so there's no questions asked as a couple of orderlies take Langston off my hands and half-drag him through another set of swinging doors and out of sight.

Connie Martinez is at the desk. She's a pretty lady in her early 30's, slim with dark brown hair and little crinkles by her eyes when she smiles. We've been circling each other for a couple of months now.

"Making your nightly delivery, I see," she says as I walk back over to the reception desk. "Any more in the truck?"

"Just one package tonight." I lean elbows on the desk and smile back at her, wondering, as I always do, whether she's just being friendly. She puts her coffee down and picks up a pen.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Broke his crown."

"What happened to Jill?"

"I don't think he goes for Jills."

"I see." She pretends to write that down. "Is he allergic to any drugs?"

"He's spent a lifetime trying to find out."

She laughs. "We'll check him out. What name should I use? Something new, please. We have too many Doe's already."

I think a minute. "How about Cornelius Sweeney, Jr.?"

She laughs again. "Is there a Cornelius Sweeney Senior?"

"Chief of mine in the Navy – big hairy guy, mean as a snake. Called him ape neck behind his back, but told the new guys he liked the name Cornelius. Took a lot of casualties that way." She laughs again. She's humoring me.

"Just between us, does our patient have a real name?"

"It's Clifford Langston."

"Oh, sure. I know him. He's a regular. Didn't recognize him with his mug rearranged like that. What did he do?"

"Jaywalked."

"So you let him off easy."

We're eyeing each other. It's my move. But before I can decide to make it, a tall man comes out of the examining room and heads in our direction. He's dressed in white lab coat over plaid pajama bottoms, shuffling along in leather house slippers with the heels stuck out at an angle. He doesn't look happy. Dr. Zachariah Berrigan runs this place and lives in a bungalow on the grounds. I know he has a standing order with the nurses to be called whenever I show up. Where I'm concerned, he likes to keep tabs. He beckons me across the polished linoleum to an empty waiting room. I smile ruefully at Connie, who's pretending to look down at some papers, but smiling to herself.

"You did quite a job on this one, my friend," Berrigan says when we're alone. "A little more wrist in that shot and we would have sent him out of here in an urn."

"Who said I hit him?" He stands back a little and looks at me.

"Now that you mention it, nobody. Except him, that is. And who's going to believe a junky with a cracked head? So what did he do?"

"Missed bed check."

"He wasn't going to do much sleeping anyway, wired as he was. We about had to club him _again_ to get him sedated."

"So?"

"So he's in there babbling about a dead girl, about how he's guilty -- how we're _all_ guilty. Very philosophical. Me, I'm putting things together. Raving hop head, dead girl, Jake Thorne -- red light! You wanna fill me in?"

"Tell you what, Doc," I say. "Let me make a phone call, we'll get this thing straightened out."

That's OK with him, so I walk back to Connie's desk. She's off somewhere, but I lift the phone from behind the counter and dial Lou Carnesi. I get the night lady again, and give the number penciled in the center of the dial. This time it's thirty seconds before Lou calls me back. Behind me, Berrigan's craning his neck a little to hear what I have to say.

"What"? Lou's voice is not happy. There's snoring in the background, which must be Mrs. Lou, a moneyed lady he married thirty years ago when she probably looked less like W.C. Fields than she does now. I tell him what's happened, keeping it short, explaining about keeping Langston away from the police and the press. I tell him about Langston's babbling, and the fact that Berrigan is getting antsy.

"Was the dead girl one of ours?" He means somebody from the Studio.

"Langston says so. A contract girl."

"What's the name?" That brings me up short. I don't know her name, and that's what I tell him. "Jesus," he says. I don't think he's praying. There's a pause. I can almost hear the mental gears turning. "We'll have to tell the police where Langston is," he says.

"I leave that to you," I tell him. "Can you cover me downtown?"

"If we don't wait too long. I'll call Fitts and offer to have Langston in his office tomorrow afternoon." Buron Fitts is DA in these parts.

"Make it day after tomorrow. He'll be feeling better by then."

"What's wrong with him?"

"I had to use some muscle. Nothing fatal."

"I thought we talked about that, Jake."

"No choice, Lou." Which is not much of an explanation, of course, but I haven't had time to think up a better one.

There's another pause. All I can hear is Lou's wife in the background snoring like a drunken lumberjack. Then he says: "OK. Day after tomorrow. I'll be with him, of course. You be there, too, in case Fitts wants somebody to abuse. That should square it. But the boss won't be happy. Now let me talk to the Berrigan." He doesn't ask me whether Langston killed the girl or not. Lou likes to stick to the point.

I motion Berrigan to the phone, where he listens for a few seconds, then says: "Looks like couple broken bones in his cheek. Nothing permanent." He listens again, then he talks: "We can't get mixed up in this sort of thing, Lou. You understand. There are liability issues. And the scandal." he trails off, listening again He looks even less happy than he did before. "OK", he says finally. "I understand. Forty-eight hours. We'll take care of it." Another pause. "Sure, Lou, I'll tell him."

He hangs up and turns to me. "Lou wants you in Mr. Mayer's office, tomorrow afternoon, three o'clock." It's the only thing about this business that seems to cheer him up.

But now I know Berrigan will play along, which is all that matters. I wave a hand and head for the door. I'm hoping Connie will be back at the desk. She isn't. Then something occurs to me. "Hey, Doc," I call out. He's halfway through the door back to the examining room. "Any scratches on Langston?"

He's wary. "What do you mean, scratches?"

"Like with fingernails for instance."

He shakes his head. "Not that I saw. Got some needle tracks on his arm, a hickey or two. But no scratches."

"Thanks, Doc." I'm on my way out.

"Hey, Jake." It's Berrigan's turn to call after me. "Lou tells me the boss is a going to run your balls through the ringer over this." I don't turn around. Won't give him the satisfaction.

It's true, of course, the boss won't be happy. But he'll get over it. Langston's head will hurt, but he deserves the pain. The murdered girl, whoever she is, won't spring back to life, but it's a town full of sorrows, and anyway that's for the police to sort out. I can go home, have a drink and forget the whole thing.

Which shows you what I know.

Chapter Four

It's summer in LA, so the sun doesn't come up. The muck just gets lighter and lighter until the city emerges from the haze as if God's shooting it through a filter to hide the scars. By the time I get home, it's pushing six, and I feel like I've had my clothes on for a week.

Home is the Patria Apartments on Santa Monica. From outside, it looks pretty much like twenty others on the same block, but I like it because the walls are thick and there's parking in the basement. I leave the Caddy in my usual spot and take the elevator up.

I doze on the short elevator ride, jerking awake when the bell rings for my floor.

At my apartment, the door jams on something. I put a shoulder against it, but that jams it tighter. It's the last goddam straw. I curse and heave harder against the door, which opens enough to let me in. That's when old lady Conover comes out from across the hall, holding her bathroom close up around her scarecrow throat. She must have left her teeth in the glass, because in this dim light it's like I didn't so much wake her up as resurrect her.

"Anything wrong, Mr. Thorne?"

"Sorry, Mrs. Conover." I _am_ sorry, too. She's a nice lady. Lent me an egg once. "It's been a long day."

She looks me. "Well, young man," she says. "It's tomorrow now."

In the bedroom, I strip, throwing the shirt in the trash. I lie back on the bed naked and kick the covers on the floor.

Usually I don't dream. Tonight I do. It's one of those dreams where you wonder later whether it was real, like maybe you were sleep walking. That's how clear it is, and when I wake up - sun beginning to show through cracks in the drapes -- I lie there a few minutes thinking about it, trying to shake it off.

In the dream, I'm following Doogin the coroner down a corridor. All I can see is the bald back of his head. It's cold. I'm shivering. We're headed toward a closed door, and I don't want to get there, but I keep walking anyway.

At the door, Doogin grabs my arm.

"Time to take a look, Jake," he says, and pushes me through. I can see him grinning at me as I go by.

I'm in the autopsy lab. There's a table in the center of the room, with a body under a shroud. Something makes me lift the shroud. Underneath is the dead girl, beautiful face cold and blue as if I'm looking through a sheet of ice.

There's a tear on her cheek, then another. I realize they're mine. I reach to brush them away, and as I touch her, her lids open and she's looking up at me, her eyes filled with every regret I ever had

That jerks me straight up in bed. I flop down again, but it's no good, so I stumble into the bathroom, turn on the shower cold and stick in my head. That gives me enough of a boost to make for the kitchen, dump grounds in a pan and boil up some coffee. I'm sitting at the kitchen table clearing the mail pile off to the side so I can set down the cup when I notice a cheap envelop scrunched all to hell from last night, which wouldn't be enough to get my attention necessarily. But the handwriting does. It's careful, with all the loops made just so. No man would write like that. And it's slanted backwards like a southpaw would do it. A left-handed woman, then. But not just any left-handed woman. Oh, no. One in particular.

I leave the envelop lying there, get up and pour the last of the coffee out of the pan. I'm circling around the table like a coyote circles bait, but I catch myself at it and sit down. Then I stare at the handwriting until I've drunk the last of the coffee and I got no excuse not to rip the envelop open. Inside is a single sheet of white paper with more of the handwriting on it, but that isn't what jammed the door. What did was a lock of hair – a whole long curl of hair which shines in the light as I hold it up. The note is short. "I need your help" it says. There's an address out in Compton, and that's all. Except her name at the bottom: Beth.

So, she's alive after all, that's all I can think, and I don't know whether I'm relieved or not. The hair is the same color I remember, but if it's hers, she must have cut it off a while ago. A long while.

I'm up again, into the bedroom for my smokes. There's one left in the crumpled pack, and I fish it out. But I can't find my zippo, which turns out to be on the stove. Now I'm mad at myself for wasting ten minutes tossing the goddam bedroom for the goddam lighter.

I sit back down at the kitchen table, light the fag and I'm about to snap the lighter shut but I don't. Instead, I pick up the letter again and stick the flame from the lighter under one corner. The paper catches and I hold it like that as long as I can, the flames licking toward my fingers, then drop it on the linoleum where it curls up black and goes out.

For good measure, I burn the envelop, too. The smoke curls up toward the ceiling taking my memories with it. Then I walk out in the hall to the chute and toss the hair in, trying not to let the lid slam. See, the thing is, I'm done with all that. Finished. She's dead. At least to me.

When I wake up again, it's full daylight. I lie there for a few minutes trying to convince myself I'm still asleep, but eventually I curse, stuff my feet into slippers and shuffle off to the bathroom.

My dad taught me how to shave. I was twelve or thirteen, beard just beginning to show. He stood there in a ratty purple bathrobe that smelled of piss, feet splayed out white and hairy on the bathroom tile while he twirled a shaving brush around in the coffee mug where he kept his soap. He lathered up and let the lather work while he stropped his straight razor, using a leather belt that hung from a hook over the toilet. I couldn't help flinching when he reached for that belt but I don't think he noticed. While he shaved, he craned his chin toward the mirror, taking long strokes and rolling his fierce eyes over to the side to make sure I was paying attention. He shaved with the grain, then lathered up again and shaved against the grain, all the time muttering to me about how you had to get the razor sharp and pull the skin tight. I stood as still as I could, trying to stop my legs from trembling. I knew he was trying to do something nice for me sharing one of the few things he'd learned about being a man. But his mood could change fast, and sure enough he saw me shaking and got mad. His anger was always like that, like opening a furnace door. What the hell was wrong with me, what kind of goddam coward was I couldn't stand there and learn something without crappin' my pants? He grabbed my shoulder hard and jerked me tight against his side. It hurt like hell. Now watch, goddam it! I was crying by this time, but that just made him more determined. So we stood there, father and son, him shaving and me crying, until he was done.

He died when I was in the Navy, and I don't remember anything else he taught me. He was right about shaving, though.

I shave that way now, staring at myself in the mirror. My father's face, blunt and jowly, stares back. But a long hot shower later I feel more like myself, and once I'm dressed the transformation is complete. I got a Jap downtown makes my shirts; I choose a light blue broadcloth, enjoying the clean smell of the starch. The suit's a cream flannel, this real thin wool from England like you can't get here, and it's cut full - a kinda half zoot, but classy. Add a dark blue tie and pocket hanky and I'm ready to go out. I stop to admire the effect in the full length mirror I got on the back of the front door, give myself a little salute and have my hand on the door knob. But I change my mind, go back in the bedroom to get my gun.

I'm not one of those guys who don't feel dressed without a gun. In my line, a gun won't do anything for you that money won't do almost as quick and not so messy. But I've learned to trust my instinct, and today my instinct says Remington.

I keep the gun in my sock drawer, across from the bed – not so close I'm tempted to use it as an insomnia cure, but close enough I'll be able to get to it before somebody can break down the front door. Plus the bad guys never look under the socks.

It took me a long time to get the gun thing right. First off, I went for big – a forty-four automatic so heavy it made me list. So then I went small, with this little .22 revolver that looked like one of those trick cigarette lighters. It made people snicker. Now I've got a .32, a Remington Model 51 – light and reliable but with plenty of punch. I've got this special holster, too. It clips inside my belt in the small of my back. It's a little harder to get to than a shoulder rig. But it's invisible under my coat, added to which it gives me an excuse to practice my draw in front of that full-length mirror.

The gun came with a snubbed-down silencer. Cuts down the range some, and the gun can backfire after a couple of quick rounds. Still, I keep the silencer screwed on. I figure not to need more than a couple chances. And the silencer lets me squeeze off a round with less noise than a rat's cough.

Coat back on, I'm ready to go. I'm not thinking about that letter at all. Like I say. I'm done with that.

Chapter Five

The Santa Ana's blowing stronger than ever when I get outside, bringing haze down from some brush fires in the hills above Whittier. I get the Caddy out of the underground garage, put the top down and drive up Sunset, then over to Beverly and out to Culver City, my eyes smarting from the smoke.

You've seen pictures of the Studio gate, which is all plaster columns and wrought iron. We working stiffs go in the back way, which looks like the factory entrance it is. Once inside, you're in a different world. There are 22 sound stages here, each one the size of a blimp hanger, plus warehouses full of costumes, a commissary that dishes out 3,000 meals a day, a carpentry shop with 200 men building sets, a dentist and even a chiropractor. You could be born, live a full life, die and be buried without ever stepping outside the gate. I park in a little square that fronts the main building, and a couple minutes later I'm sitting hat on knee in the boss's outer office across from his secretary Ida, who's looking at me through frameless lenses with the usual mixture of fondness and disapproval.

"How are you, Jake?" Ida is a lady of uncertain age. Her hair is always tightly curled and henna red, like a hat she puts on every morning. She's the brains of the outfit, and the only one who's never afraid to tell Meyer what she thinks. Like she told him to ignore Gable's jug ears and bad breath when Mayer was about to let Gable slip away. She's also Mayer's connection with the Grand Old Party and with both the Hoover's, Herbert and J. Edgar. A place like this needs friends in politics, and L.B. Mayer's got 'em.

"I'm perfect this morning, Ida."

"I doubt that," she says. "Terrible about that girl being killed last night. Himself is that upset." I hear a muffled curse through the wall. Ida hears it, too. "He must be reading the papers," she says. Then the intercom on her desk buzzes and I hear the boss asking if I'm there. I can hear it through the wall at the same time. Before Ida can answer, I'm up and headed in.

"I'm happy you're in a good mood, my friend," she says to my back. "He has a surprise for you today, and _she's_ due any second." I don't turn around. I think I know who _she_ is, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.

L.B. has an office the size of a tennis court with a wall of windows at the far end

looking out over his domain. Everything is white. The rugs, the upholstery, the curtains, even the circular desk which sits up on a little podium to make sure Mayer's head is higher than yours. With the sun streaming in behind him, he looks like an Old Testament God, only shorter and with better tailoring. He ignores me as I come in, but the dapper dude with the soft face who's sitting next to Mayer's desk jumps up and strides toward me, his hand stuck out for a firm shake and a big smile on his face.

"Jake, good to see you," he says like he means it. It's hard to dislike Howard Strickling, the studio huckster. He's a good judge of talent, a wizard with a press release and maybe the last real family man in Hollywood. Of course the only thing that stops him kissing Mayer's ass is when Mayer sits down, but God knows that ain't unusual in this vicinity. "Bad business at Langston's last night, Jake," says Strickling as he walks me the last mile to Mayer's desk. "Damned messy."

Mayer's reading the newspaper, and gestures me to a chair with a jerky hatcheting of his arm like he's cutting the heads off chickens. Strickling takes a chair on the safe side of the desk. crosses his legs and closes his mouth.

L.B. Mayer is a stylish guy. He made his first buck diving for scrap iron off a rowboat in Canada somewhere, then borrowed some money and bought a run-down burlesque house where he showed the flickers. Now his lapels have that smooth role only London tailors seem to get right. He is fond of mothers, happy endings and any beautiful female on the happy side of puberty. He hates commies, the other studio heads and anything pretending to be art. He finishes reading something in the paper before tossing it with disgust in my general direction. It lands on the floor at my feet, but I can see the screaming headlines about the Langston deal, not to mention the picture of me below the fold - a little stab from Aggie because I didn't let her at Langston last night. I pick up the paper and read the caption under my picture. It gives my name and identifies me as the boss's 'associate', which makes me wince. Doesn't mention me making off with the chief suspect – Lou would have seen to that – but in the picture I sure as hell look guilty of something.

"Associate my ass," the boss says instead of hello. "Was the girl legal age?"

"In Calcutta maybe." Apparently, it's the wrong day to be a wise guy, and the boss looks at me long and hard.

"Goddam perverts," he spits out, though whether he means all of them or just the ones who work for him is hard to tell. I figure Lou Carnesi has filled him in on details, so I just sit.

"I hear you hit Langston pretty hard," he says after a pause.

"He was too strung out to do anything else. He was yakking to the cops, shooting off his mouth. I figured best to get him out of there." That's a better explanation than I came up with when I talked to Lou. But not much better. Still, it seems to do the trick.

"I never did like the son of a bitch," he says. "But the next time you hit somebody, especially somebody on contract, _you_ get the bounce. Unless I tell you otherwise. We understand each other?"

I tell him we do. He nods.

"That's OK, then," he says. "Lou's taking Langston to the DA's office tomorrow. He wants you there. He's talked to Fitts and the fix is in."

"What's the fix?"

"Never mind that. But it cost me too damn much, which I plan to take out of _your_ hide. Meanwhile, Carnesi will clean it up. Just get to that damned meeting tomorrow and otherwise keep your hands off. I've got another job for you."

He pushes the intercom button and shouts, "She there?" Apparently she is. Before Ida can answer, the door opens and in sweeps a short, slender woman in a cloud of perfume. The suit is blue silk with shoulder pads wide as an angel's wings. The eyes, in their mascara'ed sockets, have a hard sparkle, like the diamond rings made special to fit over the dove gray gloves she always wears. But what you notice first is her mouth. It ain't ugly exactly, but something about it reminds you of the places it's been. Strickling hustles over to greet her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders and walking her back to a chair like he's a doctor and she's dying of something painful. She sits down, sniffs into the hanky, crosses her slim legs – the legs are good, I gotta give her that much – and offers her hand up to me, saying 'hello, Jake' and smiling bravely through her tears.

I've known Joan Crawford since I got important enough for her to notice. She asked me to call her Billie once, as all her lovers do. But she's Miss Crawford again since a few years ago, when I found out something about her she didn't want Mayer to know, so to keep me quiet she screwed me cross-eyed for a couple of weeks. I gotta say this for Joan: she's democratic about sex. Men, women, young and old – Joanie will have sex with just about anybody who might do her some good. And I won't say I didn't enjoy it. But I ratted her out anyway, and she found out I had.

"Look, Joan, Jake is here," says Strickling. Mayer is unimpressed.

"Of course he's here, for chrissakes," he says impatiently. "She isn't blind." Crawford isn't one of his favorites: too many scandals and not as much box office as there used to be.

"Hello, Mr. Mayer," says Crawford with a sniff

"Joan has a problem," Strictland says to me, "and she needs your help. Tell Jake about it, Joan."

She's still sniffing, but she pulls herself together and sits up a little straighter. I'm being silly," she says. "Jake, some people are trying to blackmail me."

"Who, and with what?"

"I don't know who they are, but this is what they're using." She reaches into her leather handbag and hands me a can of film. It's small, one of those eight-millimeter reels like they use in home movie cameras. I think I know what this is about, but I ask anyway.

"A _blue_ movie?"

"Yes," she says. The rumor that Crawford made a blue movie in her salad days has been around town for years, but no one's ever actually seen the thing, at least as far as I know. I'd always figured Strickling's people bought up all the copies, if there were any.

"Men, woman and so forth..?" the Boss asks.

"Just..uh..men and women, right Joan?" asks Strickling in a worried voice. They both know the story as well as I do, but it looks like we're going to pretend.

"What are you implying, Howard?" Joan is indignant. "I haven't actually _watched_ it," she says, throwing them a look.

"Then how.. ?" I let the question dangle.

"It says so in the note that came with it," and she hands me a piece of paper. Sure enough, the note says that it's a dirty movie featuring Lucille LeSeure, which is the name on Joan Crawford's birth certificate if such a thing exists. The film will be sent to the papers unless two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars is paid in a way that will be communicated later.

I whistle softly. "Two hundred fifty G's. At least they're not pikers."

"Nick Flanagan's involved in this, Jake," the Boss says. The name stops me short. Flanagan calls himself a producer but earns his keep pimping, pushing a little dope and generally making himself useful. If you're famous enough, good old Nick will pick up your mother at the train station and score a little horse on the way home to help you cope. He was a friend once, but that's a long time ago.

Joan takes up the story. "It was Nick who came to me. This morning. He said some mysterious person handed him an envelop at the track. Just walked up and handed it to him. It had my name on it."

"Why to him?" I asked.

"He's a.... friend," Joan says. "A close friend." Her eyes move demurely to the white carpet. I'm thinking Nick's a little down market for Joan. But as I say, she spreads it around.

"You think he's in on it?" I ask the boss.

"Doesn't have the balls...pardon me, Joanie." The boss doesn't think much of hangers on.

"No, no," Joan says. "He wants to help. He told me he'd go to the police if I wanted him to."

"No police," the boss says like a shot.

"That's what I told him," Joan says. "But now, with that phone call.." She trails off.

"What call?" I ask

"They – or rather, _he_ \-- called this morning, about an hour after Nick left, " Joan says. "The housekeeper picked it up."

I'm thinking the blackmailer must be from out of town. He thought you could blackmail a star like Joan over the phone. A Hollywood crook would have known you have to call her agent first and cut him in for his ten percent.

"Poor Esmeralda was scared to death, and her English isn't all that good, but the man made her repeat his message over and over until she had it right".

"What did he say?", the boss asks.

"He described the film, in the filthiest language. I can't repeat it," and she plunges her face into his hanky and gives her shoulders a little heave. Strickling nods sympathetically. Mayer rolls his eyes and waits for her to stop. I'm trying to think what the blackmailer could have said that was filthier than what she'd said to _me_ when she found out I'd dimed her to the Boss.

Joan is warming to her subject: "Then he said I should come here," she tells the boss. "You could get the money, and you'd better or he'd ruin your _property_. That's the word he used, 'property', like I was real estate or a horse or something."

Now _you're_ thinking the obvious question to ask at this point is whether she actually _made_ the movie in the little metal can. But I'm just smart enough not to ask her that. If I did, I know that hooker's mouth of hers would clamp down into a thin line and she'd scream something about how could I even _think_ such a thing. And asking is a waste of breath anyway. If she didn't do it, what's she so worried about? So, instead, I say: "Anything else?"

She turns to me. "It was strange when I thought about it. He mentioned you, Jake." Now she has my full attention.

"Me?"

"Yes. In the note, I mean. He said he wanted you to deliver the money. He's going to send a postcard to my house with the directions for delivery. Any trouble, and he'll give copies of the film to every reporter in town."

This is beginning to sound fishy as hell, but I keep my mouth shut.

"There's nothing to worry about, darling," Strickling says. He's made the short walk across to her chair and pats her on the shoulder. "We're going to take care of this. We're going to protect you against this awful slander and make sure the people behind it get what's coming to them." It's right out of one of our bodice rippers, and Joan doesn't miss her cue. "Thank, you, Howard," she says laying a hand lightly on his arm. Then she calms down, and her and Mayer talk business. She's heard they're going to make a movie of some Civil War saga that's getting a lot of press. Joan wants the lead. I mean she really wants it. As she talks about it, those eyes are turned up to full glitter and even Mr. Mayer seems a little spooked. He keeps assuring her she'll get a test. I get the impression she's about to leap over desk, sink her teeth into his neck and suck out his blood. In the end, though, she seems as satisfied as she ever gets.

Strickland's on his feet, a signal her time is up. She stands and grabs him in those thin arms like a praying mantis grabs a fly.

"I trust Jake," she says, eyes shining at me. A great exit line. She pecks the air by the Strickling's' cheek and waits, probably hoping that Mayer will see her out. He stays planted, so she spins on a very high heal and stomps toward the door, ass swaying. I catch a look at her face as she's going out. All business.

When he's sure she's gone, Mayer pushes a button and a skinny little guy with a brush mustache comes out of side office pushing a 8mm projector on a cart. "We better take a gander at it," the boss says. He won't enjoy it. He's does his share of screwing around, but he's also a true blue nose. Go figure.

Brush mustache picks the film off the boss's desk, takes out the reel and unwinds a couple hundred frames, holding the strip up to the light.

"Be prepared," he says. "This is a copy of a copy of copy – at least. It's grainy as hell." He threads the projector and points it as the wall. I get the blinds and it's on with the show.

Three young guys are sitting around playing cards on the bed. It's a big room in what must be a big house. That's unusual. Usually they shoot these things in a basement or a flophouse. The holes and scars on the film make it look like the ceiling's falling in, and the lighting comes and goes, as if somebody's moving a floor lamp around to get it right. The card playing goes on for five seconds, a door on the left opens and the shot shifts to a close-up of the three guys, who pantomime surprise. Back to a long shot, and a girl's walking in. I've been hoping for a short blond with a limp, but it's someone about Joan's size and shape, with dark hair cut flapper style. There's a close-up of her, arms thrown high in delight. Oh boy, three guys to poke and paw me for an hour or two! She moves to the bed, lifting her dress over her head as she goes, and the four of them get down to business. Her body is beautiful, slim and smooth, like a water nymph I saw in book once. It makes me wish the film was better.

In the scene, the girl comes to grips with two of the guys, while the other one stands behind and tries to lift off her feet without using his hands. I've seen enough.

"Do we have to watch the whole thing," I ask the boss. "I know how it ends."

"I've seen more than enough," says the boss, and nods at the skinny guy, who cuts the projector. The boss waits until he's rolled his cart back out the door.

"So what do you think?" the boss asks when he's gone.

"I think she starred, directed, wrote the script and sold tickets. But you can't tell by the film. Could be anyone. Which means it doesn't matter a damn."

"Don't take this lightly, Jake," says Strickling. "Joan is important to the studio. People want to see her in the movies, God knows why. This sort of thing could ruin her, and cost us real money."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Fix it, Jake," says the boss. "Find the guy who's blackmailing Joan. Get him to stop, I don't care how." He turns to Strickling. "Can we keep this out of the papers?" he asks.

"The dailies, sure, though it'll cost. Not the Hollywood Reporter, if they get their hands on it. And not Hearst.

Mayer grunts. "I should have bought that goddam Hollywood Reporter when I had the chance. As for Bill Hearst, you leave that to me."

I get up to go. Mayer's already back to the paper.

"And forget about that thing at Langston's," he says from the behind the front page. "That girl was just a whore, Jake. Crawford's a star." As I walk out, it occurs to me that I've never heard Mayer call anybody a whore before.

Later, I think to myself that the boss is right. The world ain't fair in general, so its no big surprise that some bimbo's broken neck don't stack up against a star's hurt feelings.

But it bothers me about the dead girl. Not because she had my picture in her wallet, if she did. And not because she popped up once in my dream, though I've got a feeling she's gonna make a return engagement. Nah, it ain't any of that. So what is it? Good question. I'll let you know when I figure it out myself.

Hands off, the boss said. Which would be the smart thing, I gotta admit.

Chapter Six

Twenty minutes later, the Caddy' parked under a palm tree on Western and I'm sitting at my usual table at Phil's, a five-stool greasy spoon where the waitresses ain't talkative and they keep Tabasco on the counter for your eggs.

I'm waiting for a guy named Sketch, and looking out the big front window I see him coming. He stumps up the sidewalk throwing his good leg out in front then half dragging the bum leg behind, like half of him is goose steppin' in some Nazi parade. Stump, slide, stump, slide – making pretty good time. There's a cat with him, a big, jet-black Tom with jade eyes. Sketch calls him Clem.

Sketch drove an ambulance in the War. He left most of a leg and all of an eye in France. Some guys who knew him after he got back when he was bumming around out in Venice tell me he didn't talk at all for a few years, and when he started again, he didn't always make sense. He won't talk about the War now, not since I've known him. "I seen the elephant, and the son of a bitch stomped me" is all he'll say. Sketch parks cars at the Hollywood Brown Derby nights, sketches tourists in front of Grauman's days, and spends his spare time nursing stray cats. The other boys at the Derby think he has bad ju ju and avoid him. They say he talks to his cats, and the cats talk to him. That's why he knows so much.

There's a simpler explanation. Sketch is one of those invisible guys who work around the rich and famous. Cabbies and elevator operators are like that. Being a cripple missing an eye makes Sketch more invisible than most. People talk like he isn't there. And he's a good listener. That's one reason I buy him lunch a couple days a week.

He shoulders the door open and gives me his lopsided smile, taking the easel off his shoulder and propping it against the wall. I'm happy to see he's wearing a patch today, which he usually does when we have a meal together. He's thoughtful that way. It's a new one, red with a big white cross on it. I've left him the outside chair, and he levers himself into it carefully, his bad leg sticking out straight between tables. Clem settles himself next to a lamppost outside.

"General Pershing. Good morning, sir." At the Derby, Sketch gives everybody a rank according to how much they tip. It cost me a bundle to get my fifth star, but I like being Supreme Commander.

"Morning, soldier," I greet him. "You're looking a little peaked this morning." His eyes have that glint people get when they've been hungry a couple days. I suspect he spends most of his money on food for the cats. That's the other reason I buy him lunch.

He shrugs, still smiling. "I'm fine, Sir. Thanks for asking. The men send their respects." Outside, Clem is pacing up and down, looking worried. Sketch taps on the window and smiles, and Clem calms down. Truth is, the big tom has always spooked me a little.

"Only guy in town walks his cats," I say.

"Oh, you know better, Jake. I don't walk Clem. We just happened to be going in the same direction."

The waitress comes over, licking the end of her pencil, and I order a couple of eggs and bacon. Sketch orders the same, plus hash. As the waitress is walking away, he tells her to add an egg. He's looking down at the front page of the paper and up at me, then down at the paper again. It's getting on my nerves.

"What the hell you doing?"

"Sorry. Nothing. Awful about that girl," he says.

"I don't want to talk about the girl," I hear myself saying.

Sketch shrugs and changes the subject, telling me about a penny-ante producer who's got his claws in a teenage singer. It's something I'd asked him to get a line on. The boss loves the singer. He imagines she's sweet and innocent, and he wants me to keep her that way. Sketch tells me the producer's feeding this kid pills, the kind you can't get _with_ a prescription. I decide to pay the guy a visit.

"He doping her up for sex?" I ask.

"Nah. Sex she does sober. This stuff is to get her going in the morning, and stop her going at night. But she's getting pretty strung out, what I hear."

When the food comes, Sketch empties half the ketchup bottle on his hash, grabs a spoon and starts shoveling it in, army style. We never talk while he's eating, but it doesn't take him long to inhale what's on the plate. Then he sits back with his coffee and a last piece of toast, watching me cut my eggs.

I tell him about the Crawford thing.

"People been talking about that flick for years," he says.

I tell him I've seen it.

"You saw Joan Crawford in a blue movie?"

"I saw someone. Couldn't be sure it was her."

"So what's the big deal? Everybody thinks she did it anyway. Now you seen a film, and you can't tell whether it's her or not. How's anyone going to blackmail her with that?"

"Beats me," I tell him. "But she _thinks_ it's blackmail, so it's working."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Keep your ears peeled. See if you can get a line on who sent the note. Let me know."

He says he'll do it. We shoot the breeze for a minute or two. Sketch is a Giants fan, which is something I've never understood, like stamp collecting or voting Republican. He ribs me because the Giants just swept the Dodgers three games at Ebbetts Field, no less. I've dropped some major dough on those games so I'm in no mood and change the subject.

"You know a guy named Nick Flanagan?" I ask him.

"Sure. Makes book, deals some, pimps some, lousy tipper."

"That's him. He's mixed up in this Crawford business."

"Mixed up how?"

"Supposedly the go between."

"He's the type."

"But I've got my doubts."

"You figure he's running a con?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"I'll see what I can find out. Dumb to try it, though. Mayer'd run him out of town with the rail stuck up his ass."

"But two-fifty large? Could be worth it." Outside, Clem is pacing up and down like he figures we've taken enough time to eat. Sketch watches him.

"So, you got that Langston business wrapped up?" he asks.

"I've been told to keep hands off."

"That right? Then I guess you don't care about something I heard on the subject." He's looking at me, a half smile on his face. But I don't bite, and after a minute he pushes himself out of the chair. "Looks like we got to go, Jake," he says, nodding toward the cat.

"Alright, alright, stop busting my chops. What do you hear?"

He grins. "I hear Langston was in pretty deep to the bookies. Betting on the ponies, which is a sucker bet if you ask me. Anyway, word is he was looking for some fast cash to keep from getting his legs broke."

"When was this?"

"Couple weeks ago."

"He was walking pretty good yesterday.

"Maybe he came up with the dough. Or maybe the bookies cut him some slack, him being such a nice fellah and all."

"That's a definite possibility. You figure Flanagan's his bookie?"

"The thought occurred when you mentioned the name. Not the sort to handle the heavy action, but you never know." Sketch starts toward the door, giving me a half salute. "Permission to go catch a bus, General."

"Permission granted. They letting cats on the bus these days?"

"No. But Clem doesn't know that. I'll see you at the Derby tonight, maybe I'll have something for you."

I tell him I'll be there. He's about out the door, but I have a last question. "You know Compton?"

"What?"

"Compton. You know it?"

"That's what I thought you said," he says. "Don't _know_ it. Been there a time or two." So I mention the address. The one from Beth's letter.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you got me now, 'cause I burnt the letter. Envelop, too. So how do I know the address? Well, I'd _seen_ it, hadn't I? My memory ain't all that long, but it reaches to the end of address. And since I remember what it is, I figure what the hell. Might as well find out _where_ it is.

Not where it is, exactly. I got a map for that. But _where_ it is, if you get my drift.

Sketch gets my drift. "That's out by the big Chevy plant. Wasn't bad before they built that plant. Now, mostly pawnshops and whorehouses. Why you askin'?"

"Aw, nothin' -- nothin'" It occurs to me that Beth ain't working in no pawnshop. I wave a hand to blow the subject away. I have to stop wasting time. I'm done with that.

Sketch gives me a wink and shoulders out the door. Back on the sidewalk, he ignores the cat and starts stumping toward the bus stop. Clem watches him go. After a couple of minutes, the big tom wanders after him. Must be headed in the same direction.

Before I leave Phil's, I take some nickels and park myself at the pay phone on the back wall. It happens I have a contact in the blue movie business, though I ain't seen him in a while. So it takes a few calls. But ten-minutes and two-bits later, I'm jotting down an address.

The street is middle class, tree-shaded houses with well kept lawns. It isn't hard to find the house I'm looking for. Coming up the walk, I start shouting, like this is a raid.

"Spanky Moran, you get your ass out here!" The blinds on the bay window quiver, then the door bangs opens on the chain, and part of a face shows in the crack.

"Who the hell?"

"Spanky? It's me, Alf."

"Why I'm damned if it's not," says the face, after which the chain comes off and my old shore patrol partner is standing there in the open doorway, smiling all over his face. "Alf, you are a sight for sore eyes," he says, pumping my hand and ushering me in. The room is high Victorian, down to the lace grease guards on the backs of the brocade chairs. You'd think that a woman was in residence, but there's too much dust on the furniture. It's a front, you see. Nobody really lives here at all

"Spank, is that really you under all that fat?" He's still wearing his hair cropped short, Navy style, but there's a lot more of him than there used to be.

"I don't get enough exercise, not like the old days, huh, Jake?"

Seaman first class Horace Moran was a tough son of a bitch and looked it, with his hair bristled short and a big anchor tattoo on one bicep. He was 'Spanky' because he liked to spank whores. We'd pick one up for rolling a sailor, say, and instead of turning her over to the Flips, who would fuck her and let her go, Spanky would lay her over his knee, pull her pant down if she was wearing any and let her have it. He claimed it reformed 'em.

I was tall and worked with him, so I got tagged Alfalfa. We busted a lot of skulls together the year we partnered, mostly in Philippines outside the big base at Subic Bay. It got so the swabbies would clear out if they so much as _heard_ Spanky and Alfalfa were on the prowl.

When he finds out who I'm working for now, he fakes surprise: "So that's the deal. They sent you over to recruit me. They heard about my work."

"Nah, Spank, the world needs your stuff more than theirs."

"I'm glad you feel that way, Alf, 'cause I got a couple folks on the clock downstairs. Mind if we talk while I keep working?"

The basement is his studio. It's made up like a doctor's office today, with one of those stirrup tables and a desk. A man and a woman are sitting around in folding chairs smoking, the guy in a white, button-up-the-front doctor jacket with a stethoscope around his neck. He could be Berrigan from the Clinic, except he isn't wearing pants. He does have his black dress shoes on, and black socks bunched around his ankles. He glances up as we come in then goes back to reading the newspaper.

"So I guess he ain't got it back yet," Spanky says when he hits the bottom on the stairs.

"This the guy was shouting,?" whines the woman, in a voice like a streetcar skidding to a stop. She's somewhere in her thirties, with nothing on but a terry cloth robe hanging open in front. Her breasts are a long way from perky, but there's a whole lot of them. "You cost me a lot of work, whoever you are," the woman says, her eyes squinting down to shiny dots.

"This guy can get you in pictures, Glenda," Spanky tells her. "Better watch your mouth."

"I can hardly _feel_ my mouth," says Glenda, and Spanky explains.

"Burt here lost it when you started shouting. Thought you must be the cops. Ain't that right, Burt?" This awakens Burt's sense of professional pride. He puts down the paper in disgust.

"I never agreed to no three films a day," Burt says. "I ain't superman."

"That's for sure," Glenda offers. "I hear superman showers every week."

"Come on, kids," Spanky says, like he's directing a Garland-Rooney musical. "Just one more. There's an extra ten in it for you. Glenda, you're a trooper, baby. Let's see what we can do, OK?"

Glenda shrugs, drops her robe, walks over to Burt and gets down to business.

Meanwhile, Spanky is fiddling with the camera. "OK, Alf, looks like I got a couple of minutes here. What can I do for you?'

"I'm checking out a film. One made about fifteen years ago. Three guys and a girl."

"Come on, Jake. There must be a thousand like that."

"Some people say the girl looks like Joan Crawford."

"Aha," says Spanky, turning to smile at me like he's figured my angle. "Why didn't you say so?" In a far corner, the water heater kicks in, hissing an accompaniment to the slurping sounds Glenda's making. "She sure as hell _did_ look like Crawford. A young Crawford, of course."

"You mean it wasn't her?"

"That's exactly what I mean. And I should know, since I was there."

"Tell me about it."

"That was just after I mustered out," he says over his shoulder. "Had a fifty-dollar bet with this guy on a UCLA game. Guy lost, but didn't have the fifty, so he offers me this camera instead. Professional movie camera, he says, sixteen millimeter, worth maybe two-hundred bucks. Not to me it wasn't, so I beat the shit of him. Now I have this movie camera and I'm wondering what to do with it. Then it hit me! In the whole history of the world, Jake, nobody ever went broke peddling pictures of naked broads. Also, it was better than bouncing drunks for a buck an hour and beers, which is what I was doing at the time.

"So who was the girl?"

"I'm trying to remember her name. Irma something or other. From Topeka, that much I remember. I knew the boyfriend, who's the one talked her into it. Guy thought he was a pool hustler. Turned out he wasn't, so he needed some fast dough. Told her it was just the once, they'd use the money to get married. Fat chance. When I paid off, he grabbed the cash and dumped her."

"So?"

"So you know me, Jake, I got this soft heart. To make a long story short, I bought her a bus ticket home which is why I remember Topeka."

"So it wasn't Crawford?"

"At the time, no it wasn't."

"What the hell do you mean, at the time?"

He laughs. "I'm a businessman, Jake. The film didn't make me a lot of money, so I dumped it down the basement and forgot about it. But a few years later I'm at the movies and see Crawford for the first time. It rings a bell, so I dig out this flick I'd made and see the resemblance. Well, maybe not so much resemblance, really, but I figured what the hell. So I make a few copies, paste labels with Crawford's name on the cans and, as they say, the rest is history. It's been a best seller ever since."

Glenda's voice grates through his story from the front of the room. "I think we're getting something here, Spanky."

"Keep working, baby, I'm coming," Spanky tells her, and then to me: "Listen, I gotta strike when the rod is stiff, my friend. But it wasn't Crawford, that much I can say for certain. Hope that helps you out."

"Might save a certain mogul a heap of cash," I tell him. "I'm going to tell him all about you."

"Don't bother," says Spanky with a grin. "I got reason to know he's familiar with my work."

Lou's voice when it finally comes on the phone is curt. "I'm busy, Jake. Make it short." I tell him that it isn't Crawford in the film.

"What's that got to do with it?" I guess he didn't hear right, so I tell him again. It ain't Crawford. We're off the hook. "It's good news," I tell him.

"You bothered me with _that_?" He can't believe it. "It's beside the point. What did L.B. tell you to do?"

"Find the blackmailer and put a stop to it."

"That's right. So do it. And don't waste my time."

My office is on the first floor of the main building, around in back, overlooking the pirate lagoon. The building is new, but it already feels musty because of this cooling system they put in. To make it work, the windows are all sealed shut. But this system doesn't work some of the time, and when it does the air smells like it was filtered through somebody's old gym shoes. It isn't working today, and it's stuffy as hell, so I leave the door open, pull the blinds, plunk down in my brand new leather chair and sit there trying to sort things out.

I've been sorting for a couple of minutes when Susie Gallagher sticks a head in the door. Susie isn't exactly my secretary. She works across the hall and keeps an eye on things when I'm not here, which is most of the time. She's barely in her twenties with long slim legs I try not to stare at. The rest of her is all shoulders and elbows, but I get the feeling there's a hell of woman in there about to happen. She blows a puff of air up through her Lois Brooks bangs and gives me a grin. "Somebody was scouting out this office, Jake," she says. "This hotshot assistant producer. Young guy. He planned to move in. Said he'd heard it was unoccupied. I had to admit it was."

"Looking out for me, were you?"

"You bet. I looked him straight in the eye and told him he couldn't have the office. He wouldn't believe it. You just admitted it's unoccupied, he said. Sure it's unoccupied, I told him. But it's unoccupied by Jake _Thorne_." That earns her a chuckle.

"You got anything for me?" I ask her. She's holding some mail, which she dumps on the desk. Then she starts reading from a pad.

"OK, let's see. A couple of cranks, three wrong numbers and a creep or two. The usual. I'll leave the list on your desk." She tears off the top piece of paper and plants it in front of me. "Lou Carnesi's secretary called. She said the meeting with some Fitts person is set for tomorrow at three. You _are_ to be there. Said you 'd know what it's about."

"Anything else?"

"As a matter of fact. I got some girlfriend of yours in my office." She's trying to keep a straight face. She's been saving this for last just to see my reaction.

"What!?"

"In the office. She just showed up at my door. Half an hour ago. Name's Gale. Quite a dish, Jake. An old fashioned girl, too." I don't know what she's talking about.

"You been conned," I tell her. I'm about to say get rid of her, when the girl in question pushes by Susie and into the room. Susie's surprised, but not for long.

"Hey," she says, all the nice young thing gone from her voice. "You gotta lot of brass." The newcomer pays no attention. She's no older than Susie, but a lot more filled out -- a Brunette with the sort of shape that gets you in the pictures provided you don't mind passing it around a little. The rest of her is standard starlet: blond hair and blue eyes under eyebrows plucked nearly to death.

"Mr. Thorne?" she says. "I'm sorry for busting in like this."

"How'd you make it past the gate?"

"I'm an extra. It's a Robert Montgomery film. We're on break."

"And you thought I was Montgomery, right?"

She looks confused. "What do you mean?"

"Never mind. Private joke. What kind of movie is it?"

"A western."

"That explains the get-up." She's all in gingham, full skirt down to the ground, fitted top buttoned all the way up to the neck. The buttons look strained to capacity. But I don't know about old fashioned. I figure her more for the champagne cocktail type.

"I saw your picture in the paper. I have to talk with you. Alone." She glances at Susie, who's making a fist and eyeing the girl's chin.

"What me to get rid of her, Jake?" Susie asks me.

"What's this about?" I ask the girl.

"I was there," the girl says. "At the party. Where Jeannie was killed."

"Jeannie?"

"Jeannie Jarvis. She was my roommate, the girl who was killed. At that director's house."

"So, you talk to the police?" I ask the girl.

"Sure. For hours and hours. Only.."

"Only what?"

"Only I didn't tell them everything." She looks up at me from under her lashes.

I have a feeling I don't want to hear the everything she didn't tell the cops, so I stand up, scraping back the chair legs. She jerks back a little. "Here's what you do," I tell her. "Go back to the police, and this time _do_ tell them everything. Tell them you forgot before. Now you remember. Simple as that." She looks at me biting her lip, but stays rooted in the chair. So after a pause, I sit down again. I'm thinking maybe she's tougher than she looks.

"They arrested the wrong man." she says.

"All the more reason to go back to the police." She ignores me.

"That ex cowboy joker they have in jail, Buckaroo whatever-his-name-is? He was around, sure, with those big paws of his. He got close to me, tried to... _feel_ me. It was sickening, especially the smell," and she wrinkles her pretty nose at the memory. "But he was harmless."

"How..." I begin, but she cuts me off again, impatient.

"A girl can tell the difference, believe me." Over the girl's shoulder, Suzie nods. "But that doesn't mean he wasn't disgusting. All the girls there, we were signaling each other, you know, with our eyes. And talking in the powder room. Avoid this creep. That's where I talked to Jeannie, the last time I talked with her before...." and suddenly it looks like she's going to cry. My first impulse is to offer her a pull from the bottle in the desk but she shakes her head and gets control. "Anyway, Jeannie told me that the guy hadn't bothered her. She said there was somebody there who would make sure he didn't."

"Who was that?"

"She didn't tell me. But I have a good idea." She looks down at her hands, then glances at Susie, who leaning against the wall with her arms across her chest and a skeptical look on her face.

"I have no secrets from Susie," I tell her. The girl looks doubtful, but I have a feeling she's going to tell me what she wants to tell me whether I want to know or not." Why did you come to me?" I ask her.

"I saw your name in the papers. I know you work with the police. I thought I could tell you, and you could talk to them. The paper said Jeannie was a party girl. That means prostitute, right? I couldn't have people thinking that."

"Ever hear of an anonymous tipster? You could have called the police without leaving your name."

"I was going to keep my mouth shut altogether. I know this is the wrong kind of publicity for somebody like me. I don't want to be 'the room mate', you know?"

It occurs to me that she wants to do the right thing. Sort of.

"You say the murdered girl was named Jeannie?"

"Jeannie Jarvis. Except, I don't think that was her real name. She told me once she just like how it sounded."

"So what was her real name?"

"I don't know. I met her when she answered an ad I put in the Times. I have a little apartment in Pasadena, but I haven't made the big money as soon as I expected so the rent was a problem. She moved in six months ago."

"Didn't she get mail? From her parents, maybe?"

"She told me she was an orphan, but I think she had a mother someplace. At least, a couple times when we were talking, she mentioned her mother like she was still alive, only a long ways from here." She hesitates a minute, chewing her lip again. "Jeannie got a job a couple of months ago," the girl says. "It was for this producer, doing mail and things. Then, a month ago, he started grooming her. He said he had a movie part she'd be perfect for."

"She told you about this?"

"She was really excited. Then, last week, I came home sick from work – I'm waiting tables to make ends meet. It was, like, two PM. I opened the door and this guy was sitting there. On Jeannie's bed. I nearly fainted. He said he was supposed to meet Jeannie, they were going to get her some clothes. She'd told me he was going to buy her a dress for some party where she'd meet the people backing a movie. These people were nervous about casting a newcomer, Jeannie said, so her boss wanted her to look her best."

"What's wrong with that?"

"For one thing, I asked him how he got in and he said he'd knocked but the door was cracked open so he decided to come in and wait out of the heat. But I know that was a lie, because I remembered locking the door. I'm very careful about that sort of thing. But the main thing, he just gave me the heebie jeebies?"

"He make a move on you?"

"Oh no. He just sat on the bed. And he was smiling the whole time. But it was that smile. Like he knew something about you. And it never went away. I just stood inside the door with my hand on the knob. I was about to make some excuse and get out of there when Jeannie came home.

"Was she surprised to see the guy?" I ask.

"I think so, but she covered up. She said hello, and they left. She came back later with this expensive dress. Green silk. I think she was scared of this guy, too".

"Why?"

"Just the way she talked about him, like she was really trying to think he was on the level."

"Well, Miss Gallagher. I hate to say it, but beautiful young women getting dresses from guys calling themselves producers, it's not a new story. That's how Harlow started."

"It wasn't like that. She didn't even like the guy. Sometimes, when she talked about him, it was like he was just a flunky."

"This guy have a name?"

"I don't know it."

"What did he look like."

"About your size. Handsome. But kinda strange, you know. And real smooth. Smooth skin, smooth hair, smooth clothes. Anyway, the main thing is, that night when Jeannie was killed, he was there. I saw them together. They were going out the French doors, out toward the garden. As I was watching, he looked around like he was checking to see if anyone noticed. He saw me looking. I got goose bumps. Then Jeannie was dead, and people were screaming.

I take a pen out of drawer and right Tucker's name and number on a sheet of paper, which I hand to the girl.

"If I were you," I say, "I'd take it to the police. This is the guy to talk to."

"I can't do that. I have to think about my career."

"You don't have a career. What you have is a problem."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. The room mate's dead. This guy you're talking about would be a prime suspect, right? He's a killer. You saw them together, that makes you a witness – a material witness, which is the worst kind from the point of view of a killer. Put two and two together."

She does, and a hand flies up to her mouth. It's the first genuine thing she's done. "What'll I do?" she says.

"Like I said, go to the police?"

"Will they protect me?"

"I wouldn't count on it. But it's something you can do. After that, I'd find another place to live for a while."

"But I don't have any money."

"Got enough for a bus ticket home? If not, I know a guy you can call." That seems to shock her more than the idea of being killed.

"But the paper said you were involved. You can help me."

"The papers were wrong. None of my business," I tell her. She starts to cry again. She seems to be able to cry on cue. I try to ignore it, but I guess I'm getting soft in my old age. "Susie, how about putting Miss Gallagher here up for a couple of days."

"Now wait a minute....", Suzie says. The girl just keeps bawling. I know Suzie has room. She conned me into moving her couch into her new place, way the hell out in Covina.

"You heard."

"So what?"

"So how about putting her up for a couple days."

"No."

"You gotta couch, which I know because my back is still aching."

"You bringing that back thing up again?"

" I'll give you the rest of the afternoon off."

"I don't work for you."

"Don't get technical." Suzie's looking at the girl, who heaves a sob or two.

"A couple of days?"

"Max," I tell her.

"I guess it wouldn't kill me," she says. She walks over and puts a hand on the girl's arm. "OK, toots," Suzie says. "Looks like I'm stuck." The girl gets up and allows herself to be led through the door. "For God sakes, quit your blubbering," Susie says as they head out.

The girl has come out of her daze. "But how about my role?"

"Your what?"

"In the picture."

"Don't worry," I say, trying to sound sincere. "I'll fix it with Bob."

"Bob?"

"Montgomery". I wave Suzie over and hand her ten bucks. "Buy her a toothbrush," I tell her. "And make sure she goes to the cops."

"How about clothes?" Suzie asks.

"Your stuff will fit her." Suzie glances at the girl's bosom just as it gives another heave.

"I wish," she says, ushering the girl out.

When the door closes, I call Tucker. I tell him the girl's story and where to find her. I tell him to move quick. She might bolt. I mention that I'm tired of doing his job for him, and suggest maybe he ought to be laying two bills a month on me, instead of the other way around. Then I sit for a while, staring out my window down at the parking lot. The Caddy's down there. It's a Series 62, cream color with a white top. Sporty. It's got a V-8, a couple of spare tires on side mounts, a rumble seat and a little compartment in front of the rear fender for my golf clubs. Watching the sun glint off the chrome, I decide it's a hell of a day for a drive. Maybe out toward Compton.

The traffic is thick. I'm dodging trucks and streetcars, using the horn and these curses I know that make bad drivers break out in hives. Some stiff in a Oldsmobile cuts me off. What kind of phony would drive a Oldsmobile? I hive the son of a bitch. Whoever it is, he ignores me.

Calm down, I tell myself. She'll still be a whore when you get there.

As I drive, the scenery changes from department stores and nice houses to pawn shops and juke joints, the faces from white to brown to black. I pass a soup kitchen and a long, silent line of guys straggling down the block. A bum in an old top coat picks up a rock when he sees the Caddy. But he clocks me watching him and doesn't throw it. As I drive, it's like my life is unreeling backwards, from where I am to where I've been, and then back to where I started out, all of which explains why I'm making this trip in the first place. If anything does, that is.

The old man took a swing at me when I was sixteen. I ducked. He'd always shoved and slapped me, which I was used to, but this was a grown-up right cross with enough muscle behind it to break something important. As his fist whistled by my chin, I decided not to wait around for him to improve his aim. I ran upstairs, packed a few things and got out.

I ran to where my best friend, Nick was working. Nick Flanagan was about my age but on his own, doing odd jobs at the grain elevator and sleeping where he could. He was tall and blond with blue eyes, handsome enough to get a lot of looks and \-- to hear him tell it -- some honest-to-god tail. He didn't name names, but he did spend hours explaining the mechanics of the process, drawing diagrams in the mud by the creek and pointing out the approximate location of various female parts.

X marked the spot.

The other great thing about Nick was that he was ready to do about anything. If you wanted to jump off something, or steal something, or swim across something wide and deep, Nick was your man. We'd talked a lot about getting the hell out of town and seeking our fortunes, but I had always hung back. Now I was ready to go. He didn't have second thoughts – he never did – and we started laying our plans. The first step, Nick said, was to steal my dad's car.

It was a 1916 Model T. The old man loved that car. He kept it in the garage and washed it every weekend, and he walked to work rather than put miles on it. So stealing it appealed to me, but there was a catch.

"He won't give a damn if I'm gone," I told Nick. "But he'll search to the ends of the earth for the car." Nick's smile broadened as if that just improved the joke. So a couple of nights later, after my dad had passed out, we hack sawed the lock off the garage door, let the Ford roll back onto the street and pushed it out of town. The house backed onto cornfields, so it wasn't long before the few streetlights of town were well behind us. Nick, who had been trying to choke back laughter since we started, sat down on the running board and let out a whoop.

"Goddam, this is fun," he said with that corn fed smile. I could just make out a flash of white teeth by the light of a half moon. 'Think you can get this thing started?"

"Damn right," I said. There wasn't much trick to it. Just disconnect three wires, twist two of them together while Nick turned the crank, retard the spark, pump the gas primer a couple of times and the old Ford bucked to life. We jumped in and headed for Abilene. The sixty miles took us until just before sun up. We ditched the car in a riverbed outside of town, walked the rest of the way, ate breakfast and caught a bus west. A week later, we were in Hollywood. A couple of days after that, we had jobs.

The jobs were the easy part. I just tagged alone behind Nick, who blustered into the offices of Excellent Pictures, told the cigar chewing straw boss we were mechanics, roustabouts, electricians, horse wranglers and brain surgeons if that's what they needed, and the next thing you know we were given five bucks each advance money, and told to show up at 6:00 AM the next morning.

"See there, Jake," Nick laughed. "We're on our way."

It was a sweet deal. Excellent was a mill for two-reelers and the short subjects they show between double features. But it was a big enough to lay on food when we were on location, which we mostly were, and you could scrounge your lunch – and dinner too – if you waited until the actors and directors and union guys had eaten. Plus you got a tent to sleep in. So the ten bucks they paid us was gravy.

We shot comedies in the city. We'd rope off a street, put up some police signs the property guys had stolen and maybe paying the cop on the beat five bucks to look the other way. For westerns, we went out east where the owner of the studio had a couple hundred acres of scrub he called a ranch. We'd unload, then stand around smoking until somebody wanted something done. Work was from sun up to sun down for a week at a stretch if the weather was good, eating cafeteria style and sleeping outside as often as not \-- except for the big shots, who stayed at the house, a ram shackled wooden pile a mile or so back into the hills.

It was great. The actors and crew sat around a lot, bitching or sneaking off for a quickie in the scrub oak. We mostly worked, dragging lights around, shoveling horseshit or washing dishes. But the weather was good, there were plenty of pretty women around and, by God, we were in show biz.

Then there was Langston. He was an assistant director then, a thin handsome guy with a careful tan, not that much older than us. He had one of those pencil mustaches that looked like he'd drawn it on. Even out in the muck and dust, he'd have on polished boots and a fresh shirt every day, which impressed the hell out of me.

Langston's boss was a hack director named Johnson, who'd been A-list once but had passed 'C' a long time ago on his way down. Somebody must have thought his name in the credits had some value, but he could never bring himself to shout 'action', a serious problem if you're a director. Instead, he'd sit in his canvas chair with this stunned look, like a cow in a slaughterhouse. Or he'd get up and start shouting, his face purple, his veins popping, his nose in Langston's face. Langston would stand there taking it, then run off to find some ass to kick. We generally tried to stay out of the way until things cooled down.

I say we, but I was already getting the feeling that it wasn't as much we as it had been. For one thing, Langston never got on Nick. He'd walk right by him on his way to chew my ass, and when I bitched to Nick about it, he'd say that Langston was hot for him, laugh and punch my arm. Then Nick started getting in some scenes. It was just background stuff at first, crowd scenes and the like, but it meant he had to go to costume and make-up and wasn't around as much when the horseshit needed shoveling. But he'd still sleep out next to me, talking about how he was planning to get me laid if it killed him. So everything was fine.

I didn't tell him, but in the getting laid department, I was making my own plans. I had met a continuity girl named Beth. Her job was to make sure the scenes fit. If the star had his hat off in a scene we shot on Tuesday, he shouldn't have his hat on when we shot close-ups on Friday -- that sort of thing. So she spent her day watching the shooting and taking notes, occasionally mentioning things to Langston, since mentioning things to Johnson was a waste of breath. She was tall and blond and good looking, but what got me is that when she caught me looking, she didn't look away.

We were shooting an oater starring Buckaroo Bob Hale, a soft looking Easterner with patent leather hair who knew how to mug it for the cameras but couldn't ride worth a damn. The studio had only rented three horses, so the plan was to use stock footage for the long shots. Then we'd film the close-ups with our rented horses. Shoot 'em from different angles, they looked like a herd. I remember we were filming a scene where Buckaroo Bob and the posse rode up to the corral where the rancher's daughter was waiting. That's when all hell broke lose.

It started with Bob, who suddenly jerked back and held his arm up to shield his eyes. His horse shied at that, dodging left and leaving Bob hanging in mid-air, looking surprised \-- but only for a split second, after which he fell in the dirt flat on his ass.

"What's wrong," shouted Johnson, peering at what was now an empty horse. Bob was struggling off the ground and feeling various parts of his body to see if anything was missing.

"The goddam light blinded me," he screamed, whapping his hat on his leg and coughing up dust. " _That_ goddam light!" and he pointed at one I'd set up. Johnson yelled 'cut', though the cameramen were laughing too hard to hear him, then started stomping around pissing his pants and blundered into another light which fell over making a nice hollow pop and blowing glass all over hell.

That meant we had to clean up the area and set up a new light, then test lighting levels and re-do make-up, and it's clouding over. Langston comes looking for me.

"Who put that fucking light there," he's screaming. Nobody volunteered, but he saw me standing there, since I was damned if I was going to run away from the guy. He came striding over, boots flashing in the sun -- getting there as quick as he could without actually running, which wouldn't be dignified, especially to chew out a piss ant like me. His face was purple under the tan.

"You dumb piece of shit," he screamed, the spittle flying. "You cost us a day of shooting. Get your fucking ass the fuck out of here.' He pointed a rigid finger toward the horizon, like an angel of the Lord giving Adam and Eve the heave ho.

"Hey Clifford, cool down. I put the lamp there." Nick was behind Langston, who hadn't seen him come up. "I'm sorry, I screwed up," Nick said. Langston's eyes kind of veiled over. The arm and finger come down slowly. He was still glaring at me, since he knew it was really me who did it. But he got himself under control. He turned around to Nick and screamed again. But this time it was for effect. His heart wasn't in it.

"Well watch what you're doing, goddamit, and clean up the fucking mess." He stomped off with that stiff-legged stride. I smiled my thanks at Nick who shrugged, but I was thinking, what's this "Clifford" shit? If I called Langston "Clifford" he'd have shoved his megaphone up my ass. It bothered me, but we had to hustle to set up a re-take, so I put it away to think about later.

Working like hell we were ready to take the same shot in the late afternoon. Johnson had gone back to the house to get an early start on the evening's bender, and Langston was in charge. He was still pissed off and shouting at everyone, but the horses got where they were supposed to go and nobody fell off, so he calmed down. The scene was just to get the hero up to where the heroine was standing. Langston was about to shout "action" when Beth went over to him. I happened to be standing behind them and heard what she said.

"The shadows are wrong."

He turned to her shaking his head like he couldn't believe his ears. "What?" he said. Now she was a little scared, but it was her job, so she told him again.

"The shadows are wrong. We shot the set-up in the morning when the sun was over there, but now.." Langston held up a hand, cutting her off.

"You think I give a fuck about the shadows?" he said, glaring at her like she was something he just scraped off his boot. "Do I look like D.W. fucking Griffith to you? This is a two-reeler, for chrissakes." Then he turned back and shouted "action", and she slunk back over to her chair, head down.

As the scene was being shot, I snuck up behind her. "He's still mad at me," I whispered. "Besides which, he's a major asshole." She turned and I was smiling, so she smiled back, and that was the beginning.

That night Nick and I got a good fire going. We'd built a sort of camp for ourselves up a hill overlooking the site. It's was just canvas stretched between a couple trees, but it was nice up there in the scrub oak, scratching in the fire with some branches and watching the sparks fly.

"Thanks again," I told him when we'd been sitting there awhile. "You saved my ass." He didn't say anything, just looked in the fire. But the other thing was bothering me, so I said: "I see you're getting chummy with our friend Clifford."

He smiled. "Well, you know, I'm talent now, not just some shit-shoveler like you," and he leaned over to give me a smack.

It stung, so I gave him a smack back, and pretty soon we're rolling around the fire, and getting way past good natured. He's got twenty pounds on me, so it wasn't long before he was sitting on chest, looking down at me strangely, not to mention a couple of beats too long for comfort.

"Come on, get off me, " I said. He rolled off, got up without looking at me and walked out of the light of the fire. I could hear him for a moment crashing through the brush, then it was quiet. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I wasn't going to chase after him, so I put the fire out and went to sleep.

The next day he was his old self, acting as if nothing has happened, but I didn't see him very much since he had a bit part, this time with a line of mimed dialogue. That night he didn't show up at our camp, and he didn't come the next night either. I don't see him during the day except on the other side of the camera, since he was still doing bits, and without him I was so busy I didn't have time to worry about it.

And anyway, I had something else on my mind. Since that day when we first talked, Beth and I have begun spending time together, eating lunch and walking up through the scrub oak. I told her there was a view of ocean, and she pretended to believe me. It turned out her full name was Beth Billings and she was only seventeen, but looked older and lied about her age to get the job. She told me the real reason Langston chewed her out was because he had invited her to come up to the ranch house for a party, and she'd refused. She'd heard things about what was going on up there and didn't want to be involved. Not, she said, that she had anything against sex.

It was the first time I'd heard a female use the word, and it made me blush. She noticed and laughed, which made me blush more. We were up near the top of a hill, and the sun was going down. There was nothing but a layer of haze turning dark brown near the horizon, but I walked a couple of steps away pretending to look for something. She walked up behind me and put her mouth near my ear.

"How about you?," she said.

"How about me, what?" I didn't recognize my own voice.

"Do you have anything against sex?" She giggled. I wanted to make a smart reply, but only about half my brain was working and it wasn't the smart half. If she'd given me a shove, I would have gone over nose first. But instead, she reached out and took my hand and led me up over the brow of the hill and down the other side, where the shadows made it almost night. There she unbuttoned her blouse and brought my hand inside. After that, things got a little hectic. I was groping around trying to remember those diagrams on the river mud, but she took care of that problem for me and that's one thing, once you got it right, you know it. It was a lot better than I had imagined -- so good that it lasted about 10 seconds. I think she'd expected something like that.

"Now I suppose you're all through for the night," she said with a pout. But I wasn't.

Beth and I were sneaking out every night to have sex, and things would have been perfect but for worry about Nick. He hadn't come back to the camp, and he was avoiding me during the day. When I tried to talk, he'd brush by me, and he looked like hell. He was palling around with an assistant cameraman named Red Blakely, a shifty little squint with pickpocket eyes, and he was even flubbing the few bits Langston gave him to do on camera. The strange thing is that Langston didn't mention the flubs. He'd stand with Nick after a take and put his arm around him, trying to cheer him up. I caught some of the crew watching this and laughing.

One night a couple of days before we left, I was with Beth as usual. We'd requisitioned a blanket from the prop truck and spread it out on the spot where we'd first made love, and we were laying there spent, staring up at the stars when I told her about my worries about Nick and asked her if she knew what was going on. She rolled over, propped on an elbow, and looked down at me for along minute.

"He's made friends with Langston," she said.

"That's bullshit. He makes fun of Langston." She rolled back and looked up at the sky.

"Langston's an evil son of a bitch," she said. "He uses people."

"What do you mean, uses?" She didn't answer directly.

"I think maybe you should accept that Nick isn't going to be around."

"No, no. What do you mean, uses?" That word seemed to solidify thoughts I'd been trying to push away. I could tell Beth didn't want to have this talk, but I was determined and she knew it.

"Ok, you want to know what I think. Langston has a lot of stuff he keeps up at the ranch house. He's got pills and other things that'll make you do what he wants. I think he's been giving some of this stuff to your friend."

"What for? What does he want from Nick?" She turns to look at me again.

"You know what he wants."

But I didn't want to believe it.

"Nick wouldn't do that." I stood up and screamed down at her. She looked sad, but didn't say anything.

"Fuck you," I shouted, running off. She didn't follow

The next day, with one to go, we avoided each other. She's was wearing dark glasses so I couldn't see her eyes, and I was pretending not to look. I'd spent another night on my own at the camp, and Nick was still trying to avoid me. But I waited and ambushed him outside a portable outhouse. I stood behind it, listening to him retch up his guts inside, then popped around when he came out.

"Hang, on, buddy," I say, grabbing his arm. "What the fuck is going on."

"Stay away from me." He tore his arm loose and started to walk away.

"Don't give me that shit," I said and grabbed his arm again.. But as he came around, he pivoted and let loose with a right hand that hit me flush on the side of the face, knocking me to one knee. It hurt like hell. I could feel a tooth swimming around in the blood on my tongue.

"I said to leave me alone. Fucking farm boy," he said, and walked off. I sat there a minute, but some of the crew was looking, so I stood up and tried to walk away like nothing had happened. But a lot had happened, and I was beginning to understand some of it.

That night I caged a half-pint of Four Roses from one of the grips and went for a long walk. Half drunk, I'm thinking about walking to the ocean, which is probably fifty miles West, and it got so dark that I'm tripping over rocks, so I started back. I could see the big house all lit up just over the Hill. Draining the half pint, I tossed the bottle as far as I can and made for the light. The house sat in a grove of eucalyptus, trees. I crept tree to tree until I was twenty yards from the house. At that range, I could hear music, Artie Shaw playing One O'clock Jump. The record came to an end. I could hear the needle scratching against the platter. So, I figured, what the hell, and started a dash across to the veranda, making too much noise on the gravel. On the veranda I crouched down, feeling drunkenly proud of myself, and eased over to a window. The shade was drawn, but there was a crack on one side wide enough to peer through. What I saw shocked me sober in a hurry. The room was lit like a movie set, so it was easy to see every detail of what was happening. In the center of the room I saw Nick and Langston and some others I didn't recognize. There was a camera grinding in one corner. The guy behind it, turning the big handle, was Red Blakely. He was the only one wearing clothes. I just stood there, eye to that crack. I shoulda let out, but I didn't, or at least I didn't soon enough because Nick happened to glance over and saw me. At least, his eyes locked on mine. That's when I ducked and started running back off the porch and toward the trees.

I don't remember the rest, how I got back to the campsite, or what I did then. I remember that Nick didn't come back that night, and that I didn't see him the next day. I was half expecting that he'd taken off entirely, but when I got back up to the camp the last night -- late because we'd gone overtime -- there he was sitting there cross-legged with his shirt off, tossing twigs into the fire. I walked into camp, mostly sober now and remembering that I should be pissed off. He looked up, saws me, then looked back into the fire. I noticed another figure lying next to him, splayed out backwards, eyes closed and a bottle of scotch cradled under one arm. It was the cameraman, Blakely, passed out.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey." I sat down across the fire. He was still staring into it.

"Glad to see you didn't forget where this place was." I was trying for sarcasm, but he ignored my tone.

"No, I didn't forget," he said and went back to looking in the fire.

We sat like that for five minutes or so and I'm thinking of going over to my bedroll when I noticed something in his lap. He saw me looking and picked it up. It was a bundle of three red tubes, each about a foot long, tied with string. Dynamite.

"Red got this for me," he says. "From the prop guy. Traded for a bottle of booze I got up at the house." He nodded at Blakely. "Man can't hold his liquor." He tossed the dynamite up and caught it, as if testing its weight. I could see the three fuses had been twisted into one.

"What are you going to do with it?" I didn't like the way things were going. He ignored the question.

"You know, Jake," he says then. "You never figure you're going to do something you can't _un_ do. Something you can't say you're sorry about, 'cause there's nobody to say it to except yourself."

"Shit, man," I said "It don't make no difference. They give you some stuff and you do things you don't want to do. So what? Fuck them! Let's toss that bundle in a window up at the house and get the hell out of here." I would have done it, too.

"I hear _you're_ having a good time." He says it with something in his voice I can't identify.

"None of your business, " I tell him.

"Guess not," he says. "Listen, I know it's late, but why don't you leave me here for a few minutes. Just take a little walk, OK."

"I'm not taking a fucking walk. I'm going to get some sleep."

"Take a walk, Jake." He was looking right at me.

"Fuck you," I said.

He shook his head. Then he put the end of the dynamite in the fire and the fuses started sizzling. I jumped back, staring at it. Nick was holding the bundle in both hands, high in front of him like the priest holds the bible as he walks down the aisle.

"You better run, Jake," he says, real calm. I was thinking about jumping him and pulling those fuses, but instead I took his advice and beat it the hell out of there, down the hill. I'd gone maybe twenty yards when my conscience caught up with me, but I'd no sooner turned around than there was a flash and what felt like a full body slap. I didn't hear the boom until I was flat on my ass. I lay there a minute, stunned, and then I struggled up. All I could think was that Nick's had blown himself to pieces.

But the joke was on me.

By the time I figured out where I was, the rest of the crew was there with flashlights. Somebody shouted, "The kid's bleeding bad," and sure enough, I was covered with blood. So they ripped my shirt off, trying to find a cut. But the blood wasn't mine.

As it turns out, it wasn't Nick's, either.

An hour later when my head stops buzzing, the police ushered me into a room, and Nick was sitting there. He was trying to look sad, but shot me a grin when the cops weren't looking. When the cops brought us in another room and asked us what happened, Nick told s them that Blakely had been playing with the dynamite, trying to scare us by lighting the fuses and snuffing them out. I'd gone off to take a leak. "I'll spook the kid," Blakely had said, and stuck the fuse back in the fire. But Nick was scared, he said, because the fuse was getting too damn short, so when he heard that fuse sizzling, he'd bolted down the hill after me. That's when he heard the explosion, he said, and pieces of Red started raining down, and Nick put his head in his hands as if it was too much to think about.

It was damn convincing, I'll say that. I half believed it myself.

Of course, Nick's was counting on me to back him up. And I did. At least, I didn't tell the police what I knew. Nick had been my friend, after all, and Blakely was a drunken little squirt with a mean streak. But there was something else, too. I was scared of Nick.

When we were finally outside together, Nick was smiling at me like it was the biggest joke in the world.

"I reckoned you'd blown yourself up," I told him.

"I thought about it," he says. "But it would've hurt like hell. Now _Red_ , on the other hand, he was so drunk he didn't feel a thing." He was trying to keep from laughing, glancing back to make sure no one could overhear. I walked away, and kept away from him after that.

It was 5:00 AM by then, but the whole crew just started packing up. By dawn we're rolling the hell out of there, me in the back of a truck with Beth, who's holding me while I shake.

"You can stay with me," she said.

So we lived together. She worked while I mostly sat around and drank beer. That went on for a couple of months when she told me she was pregnant. I waited until she'd gone to work, packed up a few things, grabbed fifty bucks from a stash she kept in her jewelry box and took off. After a couple of days sleeping on the street, I joined the Navy, and six months later I was doing my drinking in the Philippines.

Eventually I sobered up and re-enlisted. I'd put on a few inches of muscle and gotten into the shore patrol, which let me crack some heads. When I mustered out, I got back to Hollywood and tried finding Beth, but she'd lost her job and disappeared. The studios were looking for security people and I got hired. Turned out I was good at it. Eventually I was making enough to spare a little. I located Beth's mother, but she wouldn't t tell me anything. OK, to tell the truth I didn't press her very hard. But I did send a little dough to her every month anyway, for the kid. I thought it would ease my conscience, but instead my conscience just got bigger over the years, and the check along with it.

I never heard anything back.

The first time I saw Nick after that was in Musso and Franks. He was on the way up, or at least what looked like up to me at the time. I was coming out of the john when he brushed by me. Our eyes met for a second, but neither of us said anything. I saw Langston again at a premiere. I was working the rope on the red carpet, out where the limos pull to the curb. I turned around and there he was, stepping out of Pierce Arrow with some babe on his arm, smiling left and right while the flashbulbs popped and a girl behind me asked her friend: "Who's that?" I'd been half preparing myself for this moment, not knowing what I was going to do. But when he was standing there, I didn't feel anything. He walked by me like I was part of scenery, which I guess I was, and if I'd wanted to, I could have sucker punched him into the middle of next week. Sure, it would have cost me the job, but it was only twenty bucks a week then and lots of free overtime, so no great loss. But I didn't feel anything.

See, I'd decided already. All that stuff was in the past. I was done with it. Anyway, who was I to judge? And the truth is, I sorta liked the job.

Chapter Seven

It takes me an hour to find the address in Compton. It's a three-story clapboard that started life upper middle class. Now the scrawny grass out front is the color of a doormat, and it looks like the local citizenry have built themselves a dump in the lot next door. Nobody's around. This place services the Chevy plant, and business must come in waves when the shifts change. It's six-thirty now: slack tide. I push the button, hear a buzzer and wait a long minute before the lock clicks.

When the door opens, there's a guy plugging the doorframe with his flab. He's big, with an evil baby face, like an overgrown two-year old on a bender. He wears his brown hair long and so slicked up it looks like the grease must be oozing out from inside. Behind him, I see a dark hallway with stairs going up on one side.

He takes a drag on his cigarette and squints at me through the smoke.

"Don't know you", he says. The voice is a permanent whine.

"Name's John" I say.

"Sure, right. So whadda want, John?"

"What do John's usually want?"

He smirks. "Beat's me, buddy."

"Not buddy. John." I want him to get it right.

"Sure. _John_. Anyway, all I know is, this is a private house where nobody knows nobody named John. And I gotta get back to practicing the piano. So suppose you beat it."

"Do me a favor first, and give this to the proprietor." I hand him my card.

"I'm in charge," he says, glancing at the card, "and it don't say John."

"Give it to the real boss, and maybe there's a sawbuck in it for you."

"Big deal," he says and slams the door, blowing a blast of air past my face. The card gets me in nearly everywhere, but I haven't tried it in a cheap whorehouse, so just to make sure I lean on the buzzer again. In a couple of minutes, the door opens. It's the same guy, looking mad.

"Get your finger off that button, bud, or I'm going to make you eat it."

"The button or my finger?" But I let go and the buzzing stops.

"Somebody here says that if that's really your card, I should let you in. So I'm letting you in, but that better be your card." With this he backs up a step and gestures toward a doorway off the entry on my left. I walk by him and across the threshold of what used to be the parlor. The kid's going to follow me in, but the doorbell rings again. More business. He's torn between curiosity and profit; profit wins. He turns back toward the front, and I walk into the parlor, shutting the door behind me.

I'm in a sort of office, decorated in a whore's idea of class -- heavy drapes, shiny maroon wallpaper and dark mahogany furniture you'd need a dozen strong men to lift. To the right, a door is cracked to a kitchen and the air is heavy with the smell of boiling corn beef and cabbage. Must be feeding time.

The big desk facing me is covered with porcelain figurines: bow-mouthed girls, blue-jacketed boys, a smiling man selling porcelain balloons -- a whole tiny town, perfect except for the crone's face hovering over it like an evil god. The face is powdered dead white, lipsticked and rouged in trollop red, and topped with an auburn wig you could clean pots with. Somewhere under all this is an old trot who looks like she worked her way up from the ranks.

"You put an ape on the door, you're going to scare away the business," I say by way of giving her some advice. I've never run a whorehouse, but I imagine I'd be good at it.

"Leroy's careful," she says. There are a lot of cigarettes in the voice. "And you didn't look like our regulars." So the bouncer's name is Leroy, plus he's got that high voice and this is a bad neighborhood. Kid must be tougher than he looks.

"What do your visitors look like?"

"Desperate. More or less. Especially these days. You don't. And they mostly don't send in their cards. Or wear expensive suits, come to that. Leroy thought you was a cop. But you ain't no cop."

"I ain't? That's a relief."

"You ain't. I can tell by the shoes. Loafers. Never knew a cop yet wore loafers. So what can I do for you?" You don't get to be boss whore without being a good judge of character, but she doesn't know what to make of me.

"I'm looking for somebody," I tell her. She relaxes and seems about to smile. I'm not looking forward to it.

"Ain't that the way of the world," she says, then sucks the life out of the Lucky Strike that's glowing bright red at the end of a blunt amber holder. A double lungful of smoke waifs across the desk. "I won't kid you, Mister, I think you come to the wrong place. All we got are nobodies around here." She chuckles at her joke, which sets off a coughing fit. When she stops coughing there's a little yellow something on her lower lip and she dabs at it with a lace hanky.

"This is a woman in her mid-thirties, 5'9 or so, used to be blond," I tell her "Got a big splotchy birth mark on the back of her neck." Her eyes twitch a little. She knows who I'm talking about.

"Nobody like that here. Why you looking for her?" I reached into my jacket, not taking it slow enough apparently because her eyes grow big and she's raring back to scream for Leroy when another coughing fit hits her, worse this time, and she doubles over trying to bring up a lung. She's hacking and stabbing at a panic button under the drawer when I bring out four twenties and fan them on her desk.

"Let's stop bull shitting. I'm willing to pay for the time. Why do you care why I want it?" You could spend a _week_ with any whore in this place for eighty bucks, meals and laundry included. The hand reaches out, palsied with the last of her coughing fit, and the money vanishes. Just like that. A tight half moon of dentures appears, pink with lipstick. It's meant as a smile.

"Nothing like money to tune up the memory. Turns out, you're in luck. Beth's her name, all right. She's tall like you say and I seen that birthmark. Not working any more, though. Stone junky, our Beth, ain't she ever. I been meaning to kick her the hell out of here, like I should a done months ago."

"See what good deeds will get you," I say. "You kept her around out of the goodness of your heart, and it was worth eighty bucks. Where can I find her?"

"Just a second, honey." She cups a hand to her mouth and shouts for Leroy, who opens the door and saunters in, eyeing me with no trace of fellow feeling. Now that I see them together, I notice the resemblance. It's a family business.

"Whadda you want, Mabel?" Leroy asks.

"Take this gentleman up to Beth's room, please."

"What am I, the fucking porter all of a sudden?"

"Leroy," she says, eyes imploring, teeth clinched like some demented ventriloquist. But Leroy's got that baby face set like stone.

I raise a hand. "Thanks. I'll find my own way. Wouldn't want to take Leroy away from his duties." Leroy doesn't like any of it and shakes his head at Mabel. The old lady fingers the bills in her lap and smiles. I start for the door, but Mabel's voice grates me to a stop.

"Leroy'll have to pat you down, Mister."

I turn around. Leroy doesn't look enthusiastic about the idea, but Mabel's trying to throw him a fig, so he starts toward me. I shrug, take my hands out of my pockets and raise my arms out to the side, careful to keep the sap out of sight in my right fist. Leroy parts my coat with his hands. He does my ankles looking for a holster, squatting down off to the side to keep out of range. Then he heaves himself to his feet and nods at Mabel. He doesn't check the small of my back. Amateurs never do.

"He don't look like no freak to me," Mabel says. She means it as a compliment, but I figure it's the eighty bucks talking. "Show 'em where to go, honey. And you, Mister, just remember that Leroy's around. I get frustrated with Beth, sure, and she don't produce nothing no more, but we keep her warm and safe. I don't want no harm coming to her."

"I figured you for an old softy," I say and head for the door. Leroy looks like he might block my way, in which case I have a tentative plan to kick him in the balls. But he moves stiffly aside as I go by him. I'm through the door and into the hall when the old lady calls after me.

"Just up the stairs there. The waiting room's on the landing. One of the girls will help you out."

As I walk up the stairs, the sounds of an argument come muted from the office behind me, with Leroy's tenor \-- full of complaint -- doing most of the talking. I catch something from the old lady about "two birds with one stone."

The doorframe at the top of the stairs is hung with those bead ropes that are mandatory whorehouse decoration. I sweep them aside with a flourish, like Coop the Legionnaire come to flirt with Dietrich. I'm in the inspection area. It's full daylight outside, but they keep it dim in here, and I can see why. This is the whorehouse dog shift, and the ladies arraying themselves for my inspection are not the first stringers. Even with the gauzy light, it's a prospect you wouldn't want to face sober.

There's a variety to pick from: blondes, brunettes, a couple thin, a couple fat, a few black, one oriental, all smiling and half-dressed in various rayon things that probably looked sexy in the catalogue. The smell is lilac face powder with an edge of sweat.

"I'm looking for Shanghai Lil'," I say in my best Gary Cooper voice. That gets a chuckle. Whores go to a lot of movies.

"She just stepped out," says a blond in a bustier. Her cleavage is tiger-striped with stretch marks. "You'll just have to make do with what's here." She's leaning over to show more of the wares when I notice a movement in the gloom a little down a hallway. It's off to the right, and leads to the cribs. I walk over that way.

"Ah shit!" one of the whores says.

There's a girl in the shadows, sitting on a wood chair tilted back against the wall. The hair's bleached nearly white; the body's adolescent skinny. The stare she gives me is a whole lot older than she is. A pair of high heels lies discarded, one on either side of the chair. She sees me glancing at them.

"The goddam things hurt like hell," she says. As I give her the once over, the same whore voice is bitching in the background.

"How in Christ's name we gonna compete with that?"

The girl ignores it. Her eyebrows had been shaved and new ones drawn in as perfect half circles like Garbo. She's pretty anyway, and will get lot prettier if she has the chance. Straight nose, high cheekbones and a pouty mouth. She's wearing a chemise that's meant to show the product. She lets me look for a while

"So, you wanna fuck me or what?"

"Who could resist a pitch like that? You gotta name?"

"Pick one you like. I'm usually Trixie, but maybe you like something else. What's your daughter's name? Lotta customers like that. I'll call you Daddy."

"Not me," I say. Something in my voice gets her attention. I soften it up. "I get my kicks from real names." I smile at her. "Not your last name, just your first. Tell me the truth, I'll tip big."

"Lilly," she says.

"It's a nice name."

"That's why I chose it." She's matter of fact.

"OK, Lilly. The ladies out front seem down on you."

"They think I take too much business. Old bags. One of them give me this," and she pulls back her hair to show a scratch running down her cheekbone to her jaw. Even in the dim light it looks painful. "Not my fault they got cow tits." She tips the chair forward with a thud and stands up.

"I gotta wear the shoes?" she asks.

"No, that's OK. You got nice feet." I let her lead the way.

"My room's upstairs, in the back." She pads splayfoot down the gloomy hall kicking up little puffs of dust from the carpet runner. Her shoulder bones stick out of her skinny back like coat hangers.

"Aren't you a little young for this business?" It's a stupid thing to say. She thinks so, too.

"So I used a fake ID, OK?" She says it with a backward smirk. "I'll tell you my life story when we get up to the room. No extra charge." She starts back toward the stairs.

"Do me a favor first. Show me where Beth lives." She stops again, turning back toward me this time, annoyed. She wants to get this over with.

"A three-way costs extra," she says. "And I don't think Beth's trickin' any more."

"Why do they keep her around?"

She shrugs. "Maybe they got a good retirement plan. How the hell would I know?"

"Let's pay her a visit just the same."

"I got to check with Leroy first," she says, starting back toward me.

"Don't bother him." She gets within a couple of feet and stops. The eyes look up at me warily, but there's no scared in her voice, just resignation.

"You're gonna get me in deep shit," she says. I don't say anything. "Sure, whadda _you_ give a damn." She shrugs again. "OK, Mister, follow me. But we're on the clock, OK?" I nod. She turns back toward the stairs. "Just happens it's on the way."

The stair treads groan l as we creak our way to the third floor. There are more beads hung in the doorway, then a sharp turn to the right and a narrow hall. A single naked bulb has turned the gloom up here a dusty yellow. Halfway down the hall, Lilly stops at a closed door, looks back at me, and knocks. Nothing.

"Guess she ain't home," Lilly says, starting again down the hall toward a door at the end.

"Let's see," I say.

"Door's locked, Mister. Like I said, Beth ain't doing business anymore." She backs up a little as I move to the door. "Leroy's the only one's got a key. And Mabel, I guess."

I never could pick a lock worth a damn, but the door doesn't look all that stout. So I lean against it, crouch down a little and shove. There's a muffled splintering sound, the lock gives and we're in. Or at least I am.

"Oh shit," Lilly says behind me, and makes a dash for the stairs. I grab her arm. It runs through my hand like an eel, but her hand catches and I haul her into the room after me.

We're in a space cramped under the rafters, just enough room for an iron bedstead, sagging mattress, and a night stand pushed crooked against the wall. There's an empty water pitcher on the floor by the bed, and something that smells like a full chamber pot. Twisted in the sour sheets on the bed is a woman.

My eyes adjust and I see the works strewn out on the top of the nightstand. There's still a hint of smoke in the air from the candle used to dissolve the scag. I walk over to the bed, pulling Lilly behind me, and look down at the remains of the girl I left behind me. She's nodding, in the first blessed minutes of her fix, the silk stocking she's used to tie off a vein loose under one arm. She's junky thin. Her skin is the color of mucous and so translucent it seems you can stare look right through it and watch life flickering out. Still holding Lilly, I sit down on the edge of the bed. There's a pulse and her breathing is steady. So this is why she needed help.

"Jesus Christ," Lilly chokes out. "She dyin'?" I let go Lilly's hand and point to a corner where I can keep an eye on her.

"Go over there, stay put and shut up." Lilly goes meekly where I'm pointing and stands with her hands clasped in front. But her eyes are moving, looking for a way out. I shake Beth gently, and then not so gently, until her eyelids crack open. It takes them a minute to focus, and another for the brain to sort out what they see.

"Hello, Jake," she says, her voice a croak. "Long time."

"Hello, Beth. How you feeling?"

"Feel fine, Jake. Just fine." She starts nodding off again, but I shake her and her eyes opened. "Could I talk with you later, Jake. I'm sleepy now."

"You can sleep again in a minute, sweetheart." She smiles that half smile.

"I remember you called me that. I liked it when you called me that." She's still got that fond look on her face, as if we were back in her apartment all those years ago and I'd just kissed her goodnight. Maybe she thinks that's where she is. I lean over now and kiss her forehead. "I look awful, Jake." There's a long pause while she gathers her thoughts. "Why don't you come back in a couple of hours. I'll get presentable."

"Sure, sweetheart. That's what I'll do. You sleep now." She looks grateful and closes her eyes again. In a few seconds she's back floating on her cloud. I look at Lilly, still standing in the corner.

"Where's she get the stuff?" I ask.

"Why you asking me? How would I know?"

I just stare. She moves back in the corner as far as she can.

"Leroy mostly. Some other guy brought her some once. But mostly, it's Leroy. Fixes her too, half the time."

"Why would he do that?"

"Once a month a check comes. They cut her off for a day before. By the time Leroy brings the check up, she's yellin' for it. She signs the check and gets what she needs. But.." She hesitates, looking down at the emaciated figure on the bed.

"But what?"

"But I think they're maybe tired of having her around, Leroy and Mabel. I sneak down to the top of the stairs sometimes, to see who's coming in, see if I should hide for a while. I got good eyes. A couple days ago, I was up on the landing, watching Leroy. He was writing a signature over and over. Covered a whole sheet with it."

I'm thinking I know exactly how much the check is for. It's enough to make it worth the effort. There's a creaking of stairs through the open door. Somebody heavy's coming up. Lilly sees me listening. "That's Leroy," she says. "I can tell." I haven't come back down for the key, like he thought I'd have to, which is probably why he let me come up here alone. But it's been too long, and he figures to check things out. It doesn't sound like he's in a hurry.

"Ok, " I tell Lilly. " Just stand there. Don't move." By the time Leroy lumbers down the hall and shoves his face into the room, I've got the Remington under the sheet beside me. He stands in the doorway a second, checking out the splintered lock. He glances at the bulge in the sheet next to me. If he has his own piece with him, he isn't showing it.

I welcome him. "Come on in, friend. Don't bother to knock."

"That door'll be another twenty bucks, bud," he says. "Pay up and hit the road." He's not sure how far he can push it.

"Just leaving," I say. "Glad you came up. My friend here asked for my help, and I hate to turn down a friend. I'm taking her to the car, and I don't want to carry her all the way down those stairs. So _you're_ going to do it "

"That's rich," he snorts.

Mabel's head appears around his bulk. She must have smelled trouble and scuttled up after him. Now she peers in, eyelids fluttering. I take out the gun and point it at her, pulling back the hammer. The sound freezes her. She has her hand on Leroy's arm, but he jerks it free and starts into the room. She grabs him again and hangs on for all she's worth.

"He can't just shoot me," Leroy says, annoyed, like she's just grounded him on a Friday night.

"He can shoot you as much as he wants, " the old lady says. He has nerve, but she knows the score.

"Goddam it. I told you we shouldn't have let him up here. What's eighty bucks, for chrissakes?" Leroy wants to continue the argument they'd started downstairs, but I'm impatient.

"Pick her up, Leroy," I say, gesturing at Beth. "I'll be behind you, tell you where to go."

"Fuck you!" he objects.

I squeeze the trigger. The gun makes a chugging sound and a hollow point buries itself in the wood of the door, six inches from his knee. He jumps. He's mad at himself for coming up here with nothing in his pants but his dick. I put another slug in the wood, six inches above the first one, admiring the nice tight pattern. He jumps again. It makes him even madder. If he charges me quick now, the silenced little Remington is good for maybe another round, maybe not. But he doesn't know that.

"Just pick her up, honey," urges the old lady, the mother showing in her voice. I stand up and step aside. Leroy's got his baby face screwed up light a fist, but he walks over to the bed slips his arms under Beth and picks her up. He seems surprised how little she weighs. Now that he's doing what I want, Leroy has to rescue some manhood, so he's talking.

"You fucker, you think you can come in here and take one of our girls and walk out, nothing going to happen. Bullshit. I'm coming after you, you cock sucker." He says other things of a similar nature. I let him work off some steam. When he breaks for breath, I looked over at Lilly, still cowering in the corner. If she's enjoying what's happening to Leroy, she isn't showing it.

"You're coming with," I tell her.

"Ah, _shit_!" Leroy's exasperated.

"Whyn't you leave me alone?" she pleads. I don't answer. I don't _know_ the answer. Maybe I just like her. So I point at the door, make a sweeping gesture with my gun hand like a headwaiter, and she moves silently beside Leroy and Beth.

With the old lady leading the way, we make a strange parade down the stairs and out to the street. It 's late afternoon now, and pedestrians are out. A mother with a baby carriage sizes us up before doing an abrupt about face and pushing the pram at a run in the opposite direction. But mostly people ignore us as hard as they can. Leroy is still sputtering, but stops when we get near the car. My guess is he can't sputter and scheme at the same time, and he's scheming a swipe for the gun. If he was smart, he'd drop Beth on the pavement to distract me, then make his move. But he isn't that smart. So while he still has his hands busy, putting Beth in the back seat, I jam the business end of the Remington in his ear and back him up.

"She's going to be screamin' in a couple of hours," Leroy says when he's back standing with the old lady. I want to shoot him. I want to shoot him so bad my finger cramps up on the trigger. Instead, I shove Lilly in the front seat, and give Leroy some advice. If you can't shoot somebody, I always say, giving advice is the next best thing.

"Go back to your pimping, young fellah. There's nothing you can do about this. Be good, and I won't be back."

Mabel's nodding like her heads on ball bearings. "We won't give you no trouble, Mister," she croaks.

"Not even if you try," I tell her.

The Caddy rumbles over the pavement, leaving them standing there. In the rear view, I see their argument starting up again, which should keep them occupied for a while.

I take Beth to the Clinic, drag her out of the car and carry her in. The guard from the gate offers to help, but I tell him to stay there and make sure the girl in the car doesn't run off. Connie hasn't come in yet, which I'm glad about. Beth is still only half-conscious. But she opens her eyes when the orderlies lower her into a bed.

"It's not your fault, Jake," she says.

But I know it is.

Chapter Eight

When I get back to the car, Lilly's still in the corner of the seat. She's staring out the window.

"Now, what am I going to do with you?" I say. She doesn't offer any suggestions. So I take her to my place, toss her some pajamas and show her where the bathroom and bedroom are. Then I grab a pillow and blanket from the closet and bunk down on the couch. I hear her moving around in the bedroom, but after while it's quiet and I fall asleep. The sound of the safety chain grating in its race wakes me. There's dawn in the gray light through the blinds.

"Where are you going?" I croak.

"None of your damn business. Outta here, that's for sure". With her makeup smeared she looks maybe twelve, but her jaw is set and she's ready to run if she has to.

I yawn. "Nobody's keeping you," I tell her. "Probably got a long waiting line back at the whorehouse."

She cracks the door. "What's that to you?"

"Nothing. It just doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd hustle back to."

"Getting fucked there or getting fucked here, what difference does it make?"

"You could a left last night."

"I was going to."

"Why didn't you?"

"Fell asleep before you did." She opens the door.

"You cook?"

She smiles a crooked smile. "Sure. I'm a fucking chef. Don't you see my big hat?"

"It doesn't matter. I don't eat here anyway."

"I figured. Wasn't shit in the ice box."

She's about to go, so I say something I'll probably regret. "As likable as you are kid," I tell her, "I got a deal for you."

"What you got is not enough time to get your ass off that couch before I'm gone."

"Might have made it ten years ago. Anyway, here's the deal. You can stay for a couple days, decide what to do. I'm not here much. I'll give you a few bucks to lay in some groceries, maybe get some clothes. I won't try anything funny. I prefer grown ups for that sort of thing, which is why I'm here, like you say, with my ass on the couch instead of in the bedroom rolling off of you."

"So what's in it for you?" she asks.

I figure this is the key question. Telling her I don't want anything from her is like telling her I can walk on the ceiling. Everybody has always wanted something from her. Usually the same thing.

"Maybe later you can do stuff for me. Not what you're thinking, and nothing you don't want. Cleaning, ironing – how the hell do I know? Something. Give me a few days and I'll find you another place to stay. Whadda you say?"

"I've been a lot of weirdo's in my time, buddy, but you take the cake. See you around." She's through the door and gone.

I let her go. She's right about not being able to catch her anyway. And maybe it was a stupid idea in the first place. I hear her through the wall scrambling fast down the stairs and find myself hoping she's picked my wallet for a few bucks. But I check and she hasn't. Why I'm worrying about it, I don't know. Tough as she is, she won't last long on the street, but so what? No whore shortage in LA, last I heard.

A thought I've been shoving to the bottom of my brain has bobbed to the top again. I shove it back down and hold it this time until the bubbles stop rising. Nah, I tell myself, you're imagining things. Don't be a fool.

I'm in the kitchen boiling some coffee when the phone rings. It's Tucker.

"Hey Jake, thought you'd want to know. They kicked Buckaroo Bob free. He made bail."

"Bail? I thought he was up on murder one."

"Nah, the DA went murder two. The guy had no history with the girl, and he was too drunk to premeditate anything. At least, that's what the DA says. But the truth is, Jake, and this has got to be on the QT that it came from me, OK?"

"Sure, Tucker, sure.

"The truth is, the case ain't there. Turns out Hale has these big hands, like baseball mitts." That strikes a bell. I remember it was a problem in the old days, when Bob had to fake a fast draw. He couldn't get his sausage fingers through his trigger guard. They had to hacksaw the thing off. "The girl was strangled," Tucker says. "She had bruises on her neck. Thing is, the bruises don't match the hands. They're not big enough, the bruises I mean. At least, that's what Doogin says. The DA ain't buyin' it yet, not altogether. He's waiting for a blood test from that skin Doogin' got outta the girl's nails. But, it got Hale a reduced charge. And there's something else fishy."

"What?"

"Well, bail was a hundred grand. DA trying to save face, you ask me. No sooner is the bail set than Bugs Looper shows up with the bond. You know Bugs?" I tell him I do. "Well, then you know that he's pretty careful. So, my question is, where does an old rummy like this Hale get the money for a bond like that?" It's a good question No way Buckaroo Bob is going to front for a bond that size. So somebody with dough must want him on the street. But who and why? And why should it matter to me? I decide that the last question is the only important one, and push it out of my mind.

"I hear you're coming in later, Jake," Tucker says. I tell him that's right. This is the day for Langston' meeting with the DA. "Well, stop by my desk. I've got something else to show you. And Jake, it's the beginning of the month, know what I mean. I do, and make a mental note to stick some twenties in my wallet.

Chapter Nine

A short drive later, I park at a meter across from the hall of justice, a great stone pile with Greek columns on the top. I'm here for Langston's meeting with the DA, hoping it gets over quick.

The DA's name is Buron Fitts. Call him "Al" like his campaign posters do. He had statewide ambitions until he got caught in a scandal. Seems Fitts sold a worthless orange grove for a lot of money to a millionaire who, by coincidence, was under indictment for trying to reduce the number of fourteen-year old virgins in town to zero. The indictment was quashed, and some killjoys in the State Attorney's office connected the dots. Eventually, Fitts beat that rap, then ran for DA on the reform ticket. Now he's treading a fine line. He can't shut down the gambling dens and whorehouses without throwing a lot of cops out of work, but he's got to do something virtuous or even the LA Times will desert him.

When I open the door to Fitt's outer office, Carnesi and Langston are already there. Lou's dressed in his lawyer's pinstripes. Langston's dressed in tweeds and a tie with little tennis rackets on it. The right side of Langston's head is purple and shiny like an eggplant; an eye glitters at me from the slit where his eye socket used to be.

Lou gets up and we shake hands, his other hand gripping my shoulder. He's got every slick gray hair in place and smells of frankincense and myrrh. The good life has put a layer of pudge on him, but the handshake is firmer than you'd think. Langston sits there looking sullen..

"Clifford and I were just talking about the other night," Lou greets me.

"My ears were burning."

"Clifford's willing to let it pass."

"Forgive and forget?"

Lou leans in to mutter in my ear. "Don't be a wise ass, Jake It's not the time."

I nod. His grip on my shoulder eases up. "I've already had a talk with brother Fitts," says Lou loud enough for Langston to hear. I think we can work things out." In other words, the fix is in.

He turns his head as the door to the inner office opens and Fitts appears. He's a sleek headed man with the pointed face of a weasel – not the sort of face to give the big predators pause, but just the thing for snatching helpless animals out of their holes. A lot of hand shaking and shoulder squeezing later he ushers us into his office, sitting opposite in a wingback leather chair that doesn't look like Department issue.

Fitts is affable. "I've seen your movies, Cliff, and I must say you have a great talent. By the way, may I call you Cliff?"

"Clifford." Langston may be down, but he's not quite out.

"OK, Clifford. That's a bad bruise.. I hope it isn't too painful." Langston dismisses the pain with a wave of his hand, Lou smiles benignly and I try not to yawn. Then Fitts ends the guff and gets down to business.

He starts with a couple of soft balls, right over the heart of the plate. Langston makes good contact. No, he didn't know the girl. Yes, he had seen her at the party, but doesn't know who brought her. Yes, he feels moral responsibility. As a matter of fact, he's tried to find the parents to see if he could help them financially, but there don't seem to be any parents \- or next of kin at all, for that matter.

All is going according to plan. But the next Fitts delivery is a change up. "It was a very serious thing you did leaving the scene the other night. Makes us look bad. Some here would like to prosecute you. I think I can head that off, but I'm going to need your cooperation."

The normal side of Langston's head begins to turn the same shade as the swollen side. He swivels toward Lou. I wonder if he's going to rat on me. Won't do him any good. Fitts knows all about it. Still, Lou gives Langston a warning look.

"Of course my client will cooperate," Lou says. "I assume he's not under suspicion."

Fitts makes a 'halt' gesture with his palm. "I didn't say that," Fitts says.

That's a nasty curve in on the letters, a pitch Langston wasn't expecting. He looks upset.

Fitts goes on after a pause. "But he's certainly not our main suspect at the moment." Langston relaxes a little.

"We just need some information," Fitts goes on. "Tell me about this party you were hosting."

So Langston describes how the publicity department had called and asked him to host these theater managers who were coming to tow. He'd wanted to turn them down, but he knew that L.B. was personally interested in showing them a good time, and L.B. could make or break his next project, so it made sense to look willing, especially since the publicity boys promised to do all the work. He'd figure he'd show up, shake a few hands, stick around an hour and beat it upstairs for a drink and a hot bath. How bad could it be?

Fitts asks if the publicity department had arrange for the girls to be there. Langston tells him how it works, that the girls are kept on contract to do things like this, that most of them are happy with the arrangement. All he was supposed to do, Langston repeats, was show up. And that's what he'd done.

"How about Bob Hale," Fitts asks.

"How about him?" Langston wants to know. I sense Carnesi coming to attention.

"How did he get on the invitation list?

"Listen, all that stuff was handled by the publicity department. They bring these has-beens in. Hell, Billy Haines was there for a while, and Vilma fucking _Bankey_ , for God's sake.

"Calm down, Clifford," say Lou.

"We talked to the publicity department," Fitts says. "They say Hale wasn't on their invitation list. They had no idea what he was doing there."

Langston raises his eyes to the ceiling, appealing to the Gods for justice. Then he heaves a sigh and leans in, speaking man to man. "OK, you got me. See what you get trying to be a nice guy?" he says. "Sure, that's right, I invited Hale. I used to work with him, in the old days when I was starting. He's been down on his luck. I like to help people out, you know, so I invite old timers like him to things like this, just to get them cleaned up at least for a night. He's not the only one. A couple of people even recognized him, if you can believe it. Wouldn't have thought so. He was never very big. But it boosted him up, you could tell."

"You say you do this all the time," Fitts asks.

"Sure, you know, doing my bit." Carnesi still looks calm, but his eyes are intent. I think he knows what's coming.

"Give me a couple of other names", Fitts says, casually. "A couple other old timers you've had up to the place."

Langston looks confused. "I don't know," he says. "A lot of them."

Carnesi breaks in: "He's had a concussion, Al," Lou says. "I've got a letter here from the doctor. His memory's a little haywire since it happened."

"How _did_ it happen?" Fitts wants to know.

Lou glances at me. "That's the main thing he doesn't remember." Fitts follows his look and smiles

Fitts questions Langston for another ten minutes, and Langston follows the script. No, he didn't notice the girl at the party. There were a lot of girls there. Nothing special about this one. Yes, someone had told him about the body, but not until the police were coming in the door.

I'm getting bored again. Fitts is still on the mound, but he's laboring. Then, out of nowhere, he winds up and uncorks the old chin music, a heater right at Langston's head.

"Now, about these drugs we found at your home, Mr. Langston."

What happened to 'Clifford'? Langston shoots Lou a panicked look. He thought the inning was over.

Lou's indignant. "Wait a second, Al. This isn't part of the deal. I said I'd bring Clifford here to answer questions about the murder. He's cooperated. You said you weren't going to make trouble for him."

"Well, I'm sorry," says Fitts, doing his best not to look it. "The drugs may have contributed to the murder. The police found cocaine, heroin, some morphine a little opium and pills. I could put Mr. Langston away for five years on the heroin alone. And I will, unless he tells me what really went on that night."

Langston turns on Lou with fire in his good eye. "I thought you said.." Lou's hand flashes up and for an instant I think he's going to clamp his palm across Langston's mouth. Langston must think so too because the rest of the sentence dies in his throat. When he's sure Langston has shut up, Lou turns to Fitts.

"You're out of line here, Al."

"I don't think so," says Fitts. "In fact, I have a warrant here for Mr. Langston's arrest." He flips some papers up onto the desk. Lou grabs them. While he's reading, Langston's craning his neck to see what the papers say, but even I can see the word 'warrant' in bold type across the top.

"Looks to be in order," Lou says, putting the papers back on Fitts' desk.

"Take my word," says Fitts. "I've got an officer outside ready to execute it."

"Can't you do anything, Lou?" Langston pleads, but Lou shakes his head.

"Nothing he _can_ do," Fitts says. "You tell me what really went on last night, or you're going out of here in handcuffs." This is strange. Since when has the DA's office become a guardian of public order? But Fitts looks like he means business, and Lou is avoiding Langston's eyes.

"Wait a second," Lou says. "You're treating my client like a murder suspect. I can bring in twenty people who were with him when the murder took place. And you already have the murderer. So what's going on?"

"The case against Mr. Hale is not as strong as we thought."

"That doesn't implicate Mr. Langston here." Lou seems genuinely angry.

"No, but it does mean the investigation is reopened, and the we need his..ur..cooperation, which we haven't really gotten so far." Carnesi chews that over.

"You better tell him what he wants to know, Clifford," Lou says. Langston looks like he's strangling on something, but he's boxed in.

"I saw Flanagan walk outside with the girl," he says. "Nick Flanagan. He's a producer, comes around the house sometimes." I'm thinking that connects with what the girl said in my office. "But that's all I saw. I don't know who the girl was. The only reason I noticed at all is that I was looking for Flanagan just then".

"Is Flanagan your pusher," Fitts asks like he's making conversation. Langston snaps his head toward Lou, but Lou just nods. Langston's face is a bright hue of red now, but he gulps back his anger.

"He gets things for me from time to time" he says, staring down at his fingers.

Carnesi doesn't like the way things are going. "Mind if we have a private consultation, Al.".

"No, go right ahead," Fitts says, picks up a Herald from his desk and leans back. Carnesi and Langston huddle together whispering, and I stick an ear in to listen.

"Jesus Christ, Lou," Langston is saying. "Flanagan is a dangerous guy. He'll _kill_ me if he finds out about this."

"I'll take care of Flanagan," Lou says. "Don't worry. And I'll get you out of this drug thing, too. Just take it easy."

Carnesi turns to Fitts "We're talking immunity from the drug charges if he testifies, right?"

"If I what?!" Langston says, but Lou puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Absolutely," says Fitts, with the hint of a smile. Lou whispers something in Langston's ear that I don't hear. Langston looks pained, but finally nods, and Lou turns back to Fitts.

"It's a deal," Lou says.

"Jesus Christ," says Langston.

After he stuffs Langston in an elevator, Lou walks me down the hall.

"Didn't you and Fitts have an arrangement?" I ask. "He double crossed you in there."

"Jake, you're so naïve. It's what I like about you, my boy, but I'm afraid you'd never make a good lawyer."

"You mean it was a set up?"

"Of course. And nicely done, if I do say so."

"Fitts was squeezing him pretty hard."

"That was his end of the deal," Lou says. "Police reform is in the air again, so our friends at City Hall want to show results. You found that out the other night. Our end of the deal was Langston's agreeing to testify, and, by the way, admitting to the drug possession."

"So what? The Studio's dumping Langston anyway. The boss told me."

"But Langston has a _contract_ , Jake. If we just fire him, he'll have to be _paid_. Not like you, kiddo," and he winks to pretend he's joking. "Fortunately, the contract contains a morals clause, put there by yours truly. No illegal drugs. Period. If Langston goes to court the drug business will come out and we won't have to pay. But the Studio gets bad publicity. This way, we've got him on the record but not in the papers. And he's seen that warrant, of which I may find occasion to remind him at a suitable time."

"In short?"

"To put it crudely, Jake, we can fire him, stiff him, and he can't squawk."

Damn slick, I think to myself, making yet another mental note to watch my back where Lou is concerned.

"I thought lawyers were sworn to protect their clients."

"Ah yes, a sacred duty. But Langston's not my client, Jake, the studio is – though I admit it's not a distinction I emphasized in my consultations with him."

"So Langston's been screwed?"

He feigns surprise. "Of course not. You didn't think Clifford's performance in there was spontaneous, did you? Such innocence, Jake, it's touching."

I have to laugh. Shyster is right.

"Truth is," Lou goes on, "our friend Clifford was eager to sell Flanagan down the river. He's frightened to death. He won't feel safe until Flanagan's locked up, or gassed -- preferably both."

"So he didn't really see Flanagan walk out with the girl?"

"No, he saw _that_ alright. And Flanagan saw him looking. Or, at least, that's what Clifford tells me, and I tend to believe it, or at least to believe it as much as anything he tells me. No, Jake, I'd never let someone lie to the DA. That would be unethical. We did rehearse, after Langston told me what he was trying to do. But that's just so it would be _convincing_. That's perfectly ethical. You _do_ see the distinction?"

"Oh, absolutely," I say with a smile. "You're nothing if not ethical, Lou."

"Good. I'll regard that comment in its most positive sense."

"And Fitts bought it."

"If I know my friend Al he most assuredly did. Chances are he'll go after Flanagan now. Which is a good thing, on the whole, don't you think? After all, Flanagan doesn't work for the studio and chances are he did kill the girl, or knows who did, and society is certainly better off if he's put away. He'll make a perfect villain for the newspapers, too. All in all, a good day's work," and he pats his belly in satisfaction. "It only remains to give Clifford the bad news about his job."

"When are you going to do that?"

"Oh, not _me_ , Jake. You. As soon as possible, please. Don't worry about Clifford. He still has a name in the business, strangely enough. He won't starve. And now, as for you, my boy, the boss wants you on this Crawford business full time. Are you making any progress there?"

I tell him I'm working on it.

"Well, work on it harder," Lou says.

"I'm wasting my time," I tell him. "The film is in general release, for chrissakes. We got first run movies been seen by fewer people. I can't fix that. Even if it was her in the film, which it's not."

"It isn't _about_ the film, Jake. How many times do I have to tell you. It's about _Joan_. Don't you see? She wants to be cherished, a little more every birthday. So we will cherish her, until the end of time or until her grosses tank, whichever comes first. You're going after the blackmailer because we _care_ so much about her. She'll see that. Then she'll be happy and make more movies and stop complaining, or at least complaining as much."

"Even if I don't find the guy?"

"But we _looked_ , Jake. We put our best man on it, just as she asked us to. And the harder we look, the happier she'll be, and the sooner she'll forget all about it. Do you understand now?"

I tell him I do, and he turns with a satisfied smile. Then he turns back. "You know, Langston's not the only one who should be hoping that Flanagan goes over for murdering the girl." He's waiting for me to react, but I wait him out. "You have a stake, too, Jake. After all, the girl had your picture in her wallet. So let's all do what we can to make sure the police keep the focus on Flanagan."

"You know about the picture?"

"It's my business to know." Always playing the angles, our Lou. The picture in the wallet deal bothers me, but I'm not going to let him see that.

"Let me ask you something, Lou. Suppose I did murder the girl. What then?"

Lou leans a little toward me. He's smiling a wide, prosperous, contented smile. "Do me a favor, my boy. If you did, for heaven's sake don't tell me."

My bookie, Charlie Two Bits, explained Hollywood to me. Charlie's a skinny little guy with a pencil mustache who handles most of the action from people at the Studio since Charlie Four Bits, his big brother, started a stretch upstate. We were at the Coconut Grove, sitting at Charlie's table under a palm tree in the back, Charlie dressed as always in black tie and patent leather pumps. Both the table and the business belong to his big brother, who'll get them back, Two-Bits swears, just as soon as Four Bits makes parole, which he just might one of these days – provided that whoever's paying off the chairman of the parole board decides to stop, which Two Bits has reason to think isn't going to happen any time soon.

I'm not a major account in Two Bit's little black book, but I lose enough to keep him in boutonnieres. I was paying off that night, a couple hundred, on account of a fixed fight. It was a middleweight named O'Reilly. I liked the kid. He had fast hands and some twinkle in his toes. He was fighting a mob-up palooka nicknamed 'the Anvil' on account of everybody beating on him all the time. The kid was raw, but he'd won a couple of fights and I figured the boys were grooming him for bigger things. And maybe they were, but this wasn't going to be his night. The Anvil lumbered through a couple of rounds, the kid bouncing punches off his head like bee bee's off a plate glass window, and I'm feeling pretty good about my money when the Anvil lets go a right hand so slow that I have time to shout 'duck' before it arrives. But the kid's following the script and leans right into it. Goodbye, kid. Goodbye two-hundred bucks. Which means I'm not in a radiant mood as I sit there at Two-bit's table counting twenties into a little stack in front of him. "The damn fights are fixed," I tell him.

Charlie makes do with single long eyebrow that crawls across his forehead like a caterpillar and jumps when he gets excited. It gives a jump as Charlie picks up my twenties and deposits them in his inside coat pocket.

"What's your gripe, Jake?"

"Whadda ya mean, what's my gripe? My gripe is, the fights are fixed."

Charlie blinked in astonishment. "Of course they're fixed. That's what makes the system work."

"For you," I said.

"No, no Jake. For everybody". He explains in a patient tone like he's talking to a four-year old. "The important thing is consistency," he says. "The fights are _always_ fixed. If they're _always_ fixed, it's the same as if they were _never_ fixed, except without the element of chance. See?"

Which is what told me I was now a Hollywood native. Because, the thing is, it made perfect sense to me. "At least they could make it _look_ honest," I tell him.

"Now that's a valid complaint, Jake. I'll certainly pass it on. Yes indeed I will."

On the way out of the station, I go by to see Tucker in the squad room. The place is bustling with the usual parade of spivs, whores, grifters and dips, and that's just the cops. Tucker is alone at this desk. He's typing, biting his lip and stabbing one finger at the keyboard like he's crushing ants. I push an envelope across the desk at him. It's a couple of C-notes, studio money – six weeks' take home for a guy like him.

"Somebody must have dropped this," I say. "And by the way, thanks for your help the other night." He takes the envelop, palms the bills and throws the empty envelop in the wastebasket, all in one smooth, practiced motion.

"Protect and serve," he says with a broad smile.

I plunk myself in the metal chair by his desk.

"So what's the deal on Buckaroo Bob making bail?" I ask him.

"Good question. Bugs Looper showed up with the money. You say you know Bugs?"

I tell him I do.

"So ask him. But wadda you care? Your guy's in the clear, right?"

"In the clear. Sure, right," I say.

"Which reminds me. The whore who got killed at Langston's? We got the preliminary from Doogin on the autopsy."

"She wasn't a whore, Tucker."

"Whatever you say, Jake. Want to hear about the autopsy?"

"Not particularly." He's going to tell me anyway.

"No drugs, no alcohol in her body. In fact, nothing wrong with her at all, if she weren't dead." He giggles at his joke, then glances at my face and stops. "Why so touchy?" he asks.

I don't say anything. I don't know the answer. Maybe it's just that face still bothering me. I've known a lot of whores. I've known two-bit hookers in Manila who could service the dog watch on top the bar and give value for money. I've known hundred-buck call girls who could say 'Oh, baby' at the sight of your half-stiff pecker and make you believe it. I've known everything in between, on the street and off. And I know that whatever or whoever the dead girl was, she wasn't a whore.

At the office, Suzie is exasperated.

"You gotta get her out of my apartment, Jake."

"Who's that?" I ask, trying to look innocent. She's taken aback. Then she sees me grin.

"Gloria Big Tits, that's who, as if you didn't know. I can't get in my own damned bathroom. I can't use my own damn phone. And she's secretive, Jake. Always turning her back and whispering into the phone. Next time one of these guys calls, I'm going to ask him to help pay the rent."

"Couple more days, Susie. I'm working on something." In fact, I've forgotten all about Gloria. I guess I'd been hoping that she and Susie would become room mates. No chance now, apparently.

"Forty-eight hours, Jake. After that, she can pack her D cups and take a hike. She's crimping my style. I have a love life too, you know."

"You do?"

"Wise guy," she says.

I drive out Western to pay a call on my old friend, Bugs Looper, bail bondsman to the stars. Why I drive I think about young girls, and sin and damnation and try not to think about why, exactly, I'm driving out to see my old friend Bugs Looper.

It's just a loose end, that's what I tell myself. Just part of my job. Sure, maybe it looks like Langston's in the clear. And maybe the boss will give me the boot if he gets wind I'm still nosing around. But I got my pride. Langston may yet be put in the frame. And, as Lou was kind enough to remind me, I'm not in the clear myself. I was in the Caddy cruising home when the girl was killed, but nobody saw me. If Flanagan has an alibi, the cops will need a warm body, and they're not above picking mine. So it's time to find out who else is involved. What I'm saying is, it ain't _about_ the girl -- who she was, why she died, why I can't get her face out of my head. Case closed. It's good to know I'm not getting soft and sentimental. Of course, maybe I'll find out something about the girl, too. Incidentally like. It isn't the reason I'm doing this. But it wouldn't hurt.

The storefront on Pico has a neon 'Acme Bail Bonds' sign in the window. The placard next to it promises fast, courteous service. There's construction on the street, so I have to maneuver the Caddy amongst the saw horses, watching not to scratch the paint, then tiptoe to keep the Johnston and Murphy's out of the mud as I step up on the sidewalk.

A bell rings when I push through the door, but there's no one in the reception area to hear it.

"Who's there?" The voice from the inner office sounds like a tuba filled with gravel. I walk through the empty waiting room and into a cloud of smoke. It smells like someone's burning trash. In the middle of the cloud, exhaling, sits Bugs Looper. Bugs is seriously fat. His head sits atop his multiple chins like a basketball on a wedding cake, except this wedding cake needs a shave. He's smoking a White Owl and has four more stuffed in his shirt pocket. If he wasn't so fat, his face would be breaking into a grin as he squints at me. As it is, his jowls pull back from the corners of his mouth like the curtain going up at the Orpheum.

"Jake the Dude," he says, rising his abundant ass an inch or so off the chair and sticking out a beefy hand. The hand has been out of sight under the desktop until now. Dangerous work, posting bonds.

"Hello Bugs. Still smoking dried turds, I see."

"A hell of cigar for a nickel," he says, squashing a stub in an overfilled ashtray and pulling a fresh one from his pocket. "Want one"

"I smoke Havana."

He lights up the White Owl "These are made in Bayonne. Same difference. Take a load off, Jake. You slummin' or what? Don't tell me some legend of the silver screen needs to get sprung."

"The folks from my studio are all good people, Bugs, you know that."

"Above the law, Jake. Not underneath it like us. So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I wanted to see for myself."

"OK, Jake, I'll bite. See what?"

"See a man of your profession with a heart of gold. You're a rare breed, you know that, pal? Like the platypus. And now that I mention it, I'm noticing the family resemblance here."

"You going to tell me what you're talking about?"

"I'm talking about you putting up a hundred large to spring Buckaroo Bob Hale." Bugs leans back, puffs the cigar and grins.

"Right, it was _my_ money. It's a charity I run for washed up western stars."

"So, wanna tell me who actually put up the money."

"That's what the cops wanted to know. I'll tell you what I told them. Guy calls, tells me he wants me to post the bond, asks me how much I'll charge. Naturally, I tell him I'll have to check it out. Cops tell me the perp's in for murder two, guy's got no priors – which turns out to a mistake, the guys actually got a couple rapes on the record and, lately, a bunch of pissing in the park type beefs. They tell me the bond's a hundred G's. I don't recognize the name Robert Hale, who the hell is that? But Buckaroo Bob, well, that's different. I wasted a lot of my youth watching him put away the bad guys. So when the desk sergeant tips me who I'm dealing with, well, as a loyal member of Buckaroo Bob's Junior Riders, what could I do? What I actually did, of course, was call around a little, found out old Bob was a drunk, down on his luck, well past molesting anybody except himself and no threat to flee. So, I call the guy back, tell him fifteen percent. An hour later, messenger shows up with a cashier's check for fifteen grand. It's a little strange, but I figure after I pay the sharks, it's still an easy five g's in my pocket. Which I'm still thinking unless you're going to tell me different."

"The fellah who posted the bond. He have a name?"

"I'm sure he does. I was positive it'd be on the check. It wasn't. But I figure the money spends the same. All I care about is that Bob show's up at the arraignment, and _that_ I can take care of myself."

"On the phone. What did the guy sound like?"

"Good question, Jake. You'd make a hell of a sleuth, you know that? Well, let's see. He sounded five eleven, black hair and blue eyes. What'ya mean, what did he sound like?"

"Was he disguising his voice – you know, holding his nose, talking through a rag, doing Wallace Beery, anything like that?"

"He sounded like an accountant, tell you the truth. Very precise. He gave me his phone number and waited after each number to make sure I wrote it down right. It was a phony. Tried calling five or six times. Finally, some old broad picks up and tells me she's at the Greyhound depot. Thought I was calling _her_ , kept asking what I wanted. So I started worrying, wondering what's going on. I mean, maybe it ain't so straightforward. Maybe Bob's going to ride into the sunset, and how will I come up with a hundred grand to pay Ice Pick Freddie. You know Freddie?"

I say I know him by reputation.

"Then you know he didn't get that name by being no bartender." He scratches chin number four with the tip of a pencil, obviously distressed at this example of free enterprise. "Anyway, I thought I better check up on Bob. And I found him, sleeping one off in that room of his downtown. I had to shake him awake. That's a smelly man, Jake. The more I shook him, the more he stank. I hadda take my clothes to the cleaners. Anyway, me and Bob had a little talk about stickin' around. In short, I wouldn't say he's sound, but he's safe enough, which eased my mind a trifle."

"But you still don't know who posted the bond."

"Either did he. Surprised him, he said, which is why he decided to celebrate. But I ain't no slouch, and I'm working an angle. Like I told you, I got my fee from a cashier's check. Nothing on the check to say who paid for it. "But," he taps his temple with a forefinger, "I got this friend works for this fancy Beverly Hills bank where the check was cut. Not a friend exactly. Actually, the guy's a peeper, sneaks around back yards out in Westwood. But he's clumsy, see?" He laughs. "Gold mine for a guy like me."

"So what?"

"So, I figure, whoever got that check cut at this bank maybe took the dough out of an account at the _same_ bank. See what I'm talkin'? If so, the bank has a record. Check that big'd be easy to trace. I'm checking it out"

"Let me know," I tell him.

"I'll do that, Jake." The phone rings, Bugs grabs it and starts yammering, waving a fat hand at me as I make for the door.

I'm in the outer office headed out when I get this feeling I sometimes get. There's no explanation for it. It's just that 'something ain't right' feeling, but I've learned to trust it over the years and now it has me stepping onto the sidewalk with eyes on a swivel. The first thing I see is this Oldsmobile parked down the block a little ways. I've seen it before, but I can't remember where. The second thing I see is stars. That's because somebody hits me in the back with what feels like the flat side of a plank.

Lucky for me, the guy makes a couple of mistakes. One is, he hits me with the _flat_ side of the plank. That spreads the force some. Second, he hits me too low, meaning that the padded holster catches part of the damage. But not all. There's still more than enough punch to send me pitching forward on to hands and knees over a pool of mud and in the path of a yellow cab. I hear tires squealing as the cab swerves to avoid me, and then a crash as it knocks hell out of a pile of lumber stacked along the sidewalk.

I stop thinking straight for a few seconds. When I come out of the haze, I hear the cabby start to bitch. Then he must size up the situation, because the next thing is the whine of the cab backing the hell out of there. I'm trying to push off my hands to my feet, but somebody swings a foot into my forearm, dumping the rest of me face down into a mud puddle. The muddy grit's in my mouth now, which makes me choke.

I'm thinking I'll never get the mud out of my favorite suit.

"How about _that_ , you fucker," says a familiar voice. It's whorehouse Leroy. What the hell's he doing here?

"Shut up," somebody says between clenched teeth.

I'm trying to get my mind straight enough to do something, though the only thing that occurs is maybe give prayer a try. From my vantage point, face in the mud, all I can make out are a couple pair of shoes a few inches away. Dress shoes on the left, hobnail boots on the right. I expect there'll be a short interlude for gloating and then the stomping will begin, but it seems the gloating interlude has been cancelled because one of the hobnails – it's a shoe meant for kicking people in the head, so I figure it must be Leroy -- moves back out of my range of sight. Chances are Leroy is cocking that particular foot, having in mind to use my head for the game winning extra point.

Hello, Jesus? You up there?

Turns out Jesus must be listening, because I've no sooner thought the thought than I hear a sound straight from heaven.

There's no other sound like it. It's the oily metallic snick- snick of the slide on a pump action Remington Model 1897 trench sweeper shotgun like the one Bugs keeps in an improvised holster in the foot well of his desk. It's the kind of gun you don't have to use much. Just jacking a round into the chamber gets most minds off mischief. Which is what happens now. The shoe that disappeared doesn't reappear, but the shoe still on the ground starts hoping around. Leroy's must be posing up there like a fat ballerina, trying to keep his balance and scared that if he moves the foot he's got cocked, Bus will pull the trigger on that scattergun and shorten him up a few inches.

I hear Bugs' voice maybe twenty-feet away. "You fellahs clear out," he says. You'll have gathered that Bugs is a tough son of a bitch, and the voice gets the shoes moving. First, the boot that disappeared comes back into view, but put down gently, toe first. Then both sets of footwear start moving, slow, then faster, after which a car doors opens and slams and a car – I'm guessing' that Oldsmobile – crunches into gear and peels out.

When I raise my head I see Bugs waddling in my direction, the gun cradled in the crook of his elbow. He's smiling. "Jake," he says. "I can't take my eyes off you for a minute, can I?" Bugs helps me up and back into his office. My legs are tingling, but they seem to work. He helps me out of the suit jacket. "This is for the trash," he says, holding it between two fingers. "Good thing for you that cab hit the timbers. Got me looking up. I _do_ like a good wreck. Still, I'm not as quick as I used to be, so it was nip and tuck to save that pretty smile of yours."

I'm in a chair now, picking gravel out of my palms and waiting for feeling to creep back into my lower extremities. I check my gun, which seems to be OK

"So what was that about?" Bugs asks me.

"They didn't bother to explain."

"You acquainted with those fellahs?"

"One of them. In passing."

"It's a good thing he didn't know you _better_."

"What did they look like?"

"Couldn't tell you. They were wearing masks. Honest to God. Like the Masked Marauder, only I don't guess they battle the forces of evil."

"Give me a break, Bugs," I say. He laughs.

"Truth is, Jake, I'd make one of them for a kid. Big, over six-foot, and pudgy. Wearing jeans. The other one was smaller, maybe five ten and slim. Like I say, I couldn't see faces. The smaller one was well dressed, though. No off the rack stuff. You attract a good class of mugger, my friend." I'm thinking about the shoes I saw, brown oxfords, custom made and gleaming. I'll know them if I see them again.

On the way home I remember where I've seen the Oldsmobile before, trying to beat a bus across the light on Pico. So somebody's been tailing me. Whoever it is probably trailed me out to Mabel's, saw me jamming' Leroy and offered Leroy a chance to get me back. Leroy's no killer, so the point was to warn me off. But Leroy's not dependable either, so the guy came along to see the job done right.

"That must be it. There are lots of holes in my theory but I decide to ignore them. Because if that _isn't_ it, I don't know _what_ the hell is going on.

Chapter Ten

Langston's 's house is a lot more impressive in the daytime when you can see the battlements, the sweep of lawn, the six-car garage and the tennis court out back. The place looks deserted as I ease the Cadillac through the iron gates and up the driveway. The doorbell button sets off a muted bong that echoes around inside. I bong a couple of more times without result, then walk around the outside of the house, thinking maybe Langston's out by the pool working on his tan. But there isn't anybody by the pool, which looks a little murky, like nobody's cleaned it in a while.

I go around the far side of the house looking for an open window. This is where they found the girl, but the only evidence now is some freshly turned dirt and a partly-smoked cigar in the foliage. It's a good one – fat and still mostly there. It's all I can do to keep myself from picking it up. Old habits die hard. I'm about to come out to the front again, when I hear a second floor window go up.

"Whadda you want." Langston is leaning out the window, staring down at me. I can just make the gleam off the barrel of a long gun he's trying to hide in the shadows behind him.

"I want to talk, Clifford. How about letting me in."

"You alone?" he asks, craning his neck out to try to see toward the back of house.

"And _so_ lonely," I tell him.

"Hold out your coat."

I hold the coat open to show him I'm not packing. It's another advantage of that lightweight holster.

"I'll go stand out front and you can check from the windows if you want." He doesn't answer, but the window slams down. So I go around the front and stand where he can see me from upstairs. I can hear windows going up and down around the house as he takes my advice. It's hot on the cobbles, and I'm getting a little less patient when the big door finally cracks open and a hand snakes out to wave me in. After he slams the door, he has me hold my coat open again. But he doesn't pat me down, probably because he can't figure out how to do that without me grabbing the Purdy over and under six gauge he's got cradled under one arm. A six gauge will bring down an elephant, or two if they happen to be standing side by side. I admire the scroll work etched around the hammers.

There's not much light in the library with the drapes shut, but even in the murk it's easy to see Clifford's housekeeping isn't up to much. Dirty plates are scattered around and the place smells both animal and vegetable. Clifford is skittering about, checking the drapes, sitting down then popping up, probably wondering if he can dip into his stash with me there. It's hard not to feel sorry for the guy. But I manage.

"Clifford, put the gun down." He looks at it as if he'd forgotten he had it, then thinks it over. Finally, he leans it against one arm of the sofa, but I notice that he stays between the gun and me.

"You should fire the maid, not the gun."

"Wise guy," he says. "They all quit."

"Butler, too?" He doesn't answer, but does make an effort to stop shaking.

"Just a guess now, Clifford," I say looking around me. "But I'm thinking you're scared."

"So what are you going to do to protect me? That's you job isn't it?" Why does my job sound so crappy when he describes it and so good when I'm explaining it to some broad in a bar after a couple of drinks?

"So what should I protect you from?"

"From _all_ of them." He sweeps an arm in a broad circle.

"Could you be a little more specific?"

"Tucker, for one. He won't leave me alone."

"Asking questions? That's his job."

"He isn't asking questions," Langston says, as if I'm the village idiot. His sentences tumble out, short clips of works fueled by whatever he's been sniffing. "He doesn't have to ask. He knows. He's just keeps pushing me. Pushing, all the time. Warning me. Well, I've had enough. Get him off my back." He's jerking his head left and right, as if afraid that Tucker is about to duck out from behind a bookcase. Langston seems to have left reality far behind, but I figure maybe playing into his fantasy will get me some information.

"So, Tucker's in on it, too."

His eyes snap to center and he looks at me impatiently. "Of course. They're _all_ in on it. Everyone. They wanted me in on it too, but I wouldn't do it. Maybe can't stop them. Maybe gotta play along, just 'till I'm back on my feet. You're in on it, that much I know. That's why you hit me."

"In on what, Clifford?"

"They showed me that picture." Suddenly, he seems to concentrate. His hand edges along the couch toward where the shotgun is leaning against he cushion. I keep calm, move over to the couch and pick up the gun just as he makes a lunge for it.

"Nice piece, Clifford," I say, examining the carving on the maple stock. He back on his end of the couch, staring down at his hands and fighting.

"Got it in London. Better days," and he glances quickly up at me then back at his hands. Hey, listen," he says then, " I really have to go the bathroom."

"Knock yourself out." He's off the couch and through the bathroom door in a rush. He comes out a couple minutes later looking less strung out. He comes over and sits down, as if to demonstrate he can now stay in one place for more than ten seconds.

"So what are you going to do for me? Your job is to keep me safe, right?"

"Wait a second. You were saying that I was in on it."

"What are you talking about?"

"A minute ago."

"In, out, who the hell knows? All I know is that you're supposed to keep me safe. So what are you doing about that?" I get up, and walk over and open the door he just came through. It's a not a john. It's an alcove and there's a phone on the table. I pick it up, get a dial tone, and slam it back down. When I come back in the room, Langston's smiling a little victory smile at me, which makes it all the easier to tell him what I have to tell him.

"My job," I tell him, "is to keep studio _employees_ safe. You ain't one."

"What are you saying?"

"That you're off the payroll, as of this morning. The boss asked me to come by and deliver the message."

"He can't do that, goddam it. I have a contract."

I explain to him about the set up in Fits' office and the morals clause. While I'm talking, his expression goes from outrage through indignation to self-pity, where it stays. Langston may be pretty far gone, but he knows when he's been screwed.

Then, to my surprise, he starts to laugh. He can't seem to stop. He rocking back and forth on the couch, holding his knees, the tears streaming down his face. Never let it be said the man can't take a joke. I think about going over and slapping him. I saw that in a movie once, and it seemed to work. There's an old show biz adage that says always leave them laughing when you go. He's laughing, so I go.

What I need is a night on the town. And I want to talk to Sketch. So later, instead of sitting home and getting pickled, I head out to the Brown Derby where I figure Sketch should just about be coming on shift.

There are three Derby's in town. The one that looks like a hat is strictly tourist. There's another one way the hell out Western somewhere. But the insiders go to the Hollywood Derby, on Vine just around the corner from Sunset. That's the one that looks like a Moroccan cat house. The only thing that looks like a Derby is the neon sign on the roof.

The stars go in the back way, stepping out of their long limos next to the little statue of a black jockey holding a hitching ring -- which is why you, standing across the street out front clutching your autograph book, probably aren't going to see one.

It's Thursday, which is the cook's night off in this part of the world, so I know the Derby will be packed. As I roll the Caddy up to the canopy out back, I've got eyes out for Sketch. But he isn't around, so I figure I'll go inside to suck up some glamour while I wait for him to show. As soon as I go through the door, the smell hits me: seared steak over old scotch with a hint of fine cigar on a bed of naked ambition. I fill my lungs and grin.

Bill Chilias, always in black tie and wing collar, handles the velvet rope. If he knows your name either you're a star or you've been tipping too much. They say he clears ten grand from tips at Christmas alone.

"Good evening, Mr. Thorne," he says as I come in. "I see you're alone. Would you like me to find you space in the dining room?"

"I'll just have a drink, thanks Bill." He's Bill, never Billy. I mosey back along he edge of the main dining room, checking along the way with a couple waiters I pay to keep an eye on things. But it's quiet night, apparently, so I wander into the Bamboo Room, a hokey saloon with fake bamboo trees and a floor supposed to look like sand. Benny Massi is behind the bar with his greased black hair and brass buttons shining on his white barman's dickey, as handsome as any leading man. He gives me the big hello and has two fingers of Johnny Red on the bar for me before I can prop a foot on the rail.

"Guy was looking for you, Jake," he says, sliding the glass over to me. "Asked me if you'd been in yet?"

"What guy?" I ask, pushing a fin across the bar.

"Actually, that guy." The man he's pointing to sees me, smiles big and moves my direction.

Sin has kept Nick Flanagan looking much as he did back in Iowa twenty years ago. He uses a better brand of grease on his blond hair these days, and the tan doesn't come from the sun anymore. But he still projects that sense of youthful recklessness I remember. He's dressed in cream slacks and a pinch back light yellow sport coat over a deep maroon shirt open at the collar and he's carrying a lighted cigar the size of a Louisville slugger. He strides up, giving me the grin, his hand stuck out in front to shake mine. I know what he is and what's he done, or at least some of it. But can't help thinking there's something innocent about him.

"Jesus, Jake," he says. "You've grown a couple pounds of jowl since I saw you last," and he claps me on the back.

"That's some stogie," I tell him. "You must be doing pretty good in life." I don't want to show it, but damned if I'm not happy to see him.

"Everything's perfect, Jake, old son. Absolutely perfect. Here, have one " He draws another cigar out of coat pocket. "Guy in Havana rolls them special for me. Hey Benny," he calls out to the barman. "A couple more of these." Benny puts two glasses in front of us and glides down the bar out of earshot.

"I've been looking for you. Even went by that so-called office you've got, over at the Studio. Say, that young thing minding the store over there is a pistol. You getting any of that?" and he laughs to show me he's joking.

"I've been keeping an eye out for you too, Nick."

"And I know why," he says. "It's this Crawford thing, isn't it?" I nod, taking a sip of the drink.

"I hear you're involved," I tell him.

"Whoever thought back in Iowa that we'd be screwing big stars, huh Jake? Or, that _I_ would be anyway," and he gives me that merry laugh. "She's just about worn me out. Such _energy._ When we're doing it, I feel like an innocent bystander, know what I mean?"

"Matter of fact," I say.

"Well damn," he shouts, hitting me on the back again. "Though it ain't surprising. I ran into somebody the other day who _hadn't_ screwed her. Now, _that_ was a shock. Which is surprising when you think about it, 'cause that is _not_ a good-looking woman."

"She looked pretty good in that film."

"Twenty years ago."

"So why don't you tell me what you know about that."

He takes a drink, thinking about it. "Know something, Jake. The cells in your body are constantly reproducing and dying off. Takes eight years. Every eight years, you're a new man. That's science, Jake. A true fact. Got it from the Readers' Digest, which you should read you know. Real education. So tell Joanie not to worry. Even if it is her it that flick, that was two and one half Joanie's ago. And something has definitely been lost in the translation."

"So you've seen the movie."

" _Everybody's_ seen the movie, Jake. It's a _requirement_ to join the Rotary, for chrissakes. They give a test. When I think how much seed has been spilled on barren ground because of that movie, I worry about the fate of our species. But I can see my biblical allusions are wasted on you. You never were a church goer."

"Quit screwing around, Nick. You know what I want."

"The bible and science, both wasted on you. OK, here it is. Back in the old days, I used to make a few bucks dealing blue material. All pretty conventional stuff, no underage, nothing kinky. Long time ago, of course, but we're old friends so I don't mind admitting it." He takes another swallow of scotch "Anyway, I still have some contacts from those days, guys I see around sometimes, you know? So I was out at the track a couple of weeks ago, Santa Anita, when one of these guys comes up, gives me the big hello and makes the pitch. He tells me he knows I'm in with Crawford and the Studio -- all the old gang are proud of me he tells me, can you imagine! -- and then he tells me about this film they have. Says they're all big fans, these guys, but business is business and they're going to the tabloids with this thing unless some money changes hands. Quite a bit of money, in fact. Told me to tell her, which I did. My guess is, they thought she'd cave and pay up. Or somebody would. But L.B. always was a tightwad. Now you're involved."

"They don't have proof. The girl in the film could be anybody."

"But here's the gimmick. They got a guy who says he was _in_ the film. This guy is willing to testify."

"Testify hell. This thing ain't going to court."

"Not court, Jake. The Lord. He'll testify before the Lord. In public, of course. This guy's now a minister of the Gospel. Ordained and everything."

"What's his name?"

"Calls himself Brother Paul." I know the name. Brother Paul is a minor celebrity. He runs a string of cemeteries and while-you-wait crematoria catering to the folks who can only dream of Forest Lawn. One stop shopping, that's his gimmick. Everything from picking up the stiff to consoling the widow, all on the installment plan.

"He ain't exactly the Pope," I point out.

"Ah, but he's got plenty of pull in the business. Word is, he kicks back to God jockeys all over LA – for referrals, you know.. Plus, he lays out a lot of cash come election time. Would you believe it, the guy runs prayer breakfasts over at City Hall. He prays for salvation; the rest of them pray they won't get caught."

"It doesn't follow he'd cop to earning his living with his dick, even if it was a long time ago."

"That's not what these guys say. They say it's all they can do to restrain him. He's eager to make peace with the Lord." He laughs. "Of course, they say, a little something in the collection plate would persuade him to repent in silence.'" I look at him skeptically. "I didn't buy it either," he says, "so I asked around. Word is these fellahs got something even worse on the good Reverend, sometime that could get him a stretch in stir. I don't know what it is. Something about money and the City, that's all I could find out".

"These fellahs you were talking about. What did they say was in it for you?"

"Oh, Jake, what a thing to say. I'm a disinterested party, my friend." I just stare at him, and he laughs again. "OK, can't fool you, right? The answer is, ten G's. If I'll be the go-between, that's what they'll pay. Don't look at me like that. If it wasn't me, it was going to be somebody else. And don't forget, I'm telling you this as a friend. I would not appreciate you tipping La Crawford or Meyer."

"Then give. A name. Who's your contact?"

"Can't do that. What I can do is cut you in \-- if you back off."

"How much?"

"Let's say five."

"You get twenty and give me five."

"I told you I get ten."

"I know what you told me."

He makes a shot at looking insulted, then he laughs. "Damn, Jake, I always liked you, you know that. OK, ten it is. Fifty-fifty."

Tell me about the girl."

"Any girl you want. Which one did you have in mind?"

"The dead one."

"You mean at Langston's?" What's that to you? The cops have old Buckaroo Bob set up to take the fall. Remember the way he used to teeter around on that horse, Jake. Never laughed so hard."

"I've got a personal interest."

"Langston?"

"The Police think he maybe helped set it up."

"Sure they think that, because they're not good thinkers. But tell me, Jake. Suppose _you_ were planning a job, something tricky, the sort of thing if it goes wrong you might end up in the gas chamber. Who'd you trust to do his bit and keep his mouth shut? That zonked out fruitcake, right? The hell you would."

"Plus, the girl had my picture in her wallet."

He leans back on his stool and stares at me. The gesture is phony, but the surprise seems real. "She did, huh? Well, I'm damned." He looks down at the bar, smiling to himself and shaking his head. "Don't ask me to explain that one, Jake. But it does add a note of interest." He polishes off the drink and raises a finger to Benny, who brings another. It occurs to me that Nick's had a few. There's a little weave in his hand as he reaches for the glass. Benny arches an eyebrow at me, but I wave him off.

"The thing that bothers me," I tell him, "is you. You're the go-between for the Crawford film. Alright, that figures. You're shady enough to know the blackmailers, and connected enough to know Joanie."

"You always did have a silver tongue."

"But now I hear you're tied to the girl's murder."

"The hell I am."

"I got an eyewitness tells me she saw you at Langston's, going outside with the girl before she was murdered."

" _You_ got an eyewitness. When did you join the cops?"

"People tell me things."

"The police know about this?"

"Not yet."

"You going to tell them?"

"We'll see." Of course, the eyewitness is eager to blab to the cops, just as soon as she can figure out how to get some good publicity out of it, but I don't think I'll tell him that.

He shrugs. "Sure, I went outside with her. She asked me to. The old Buckaroo had been trying to paw her, wouldn't let her alone. I got her outside, sat with her awhile. She wanted to calm down, and I had business inside, so I left her there.

"Why would she ask _you_?"

"We knew each other. We'd done some business."

"What kind of business?"

"What kind do you think?"

"She was a hooker?"

"Not like you're thinking She wasn't above supplementing her income from time to time."

"And you turned her out."

"I made _connections_ for her. As a favor, you understand. Not a favor for her, who I hardly knew, but for some other people around town. Influential people."

"People who could do you some good."

"Sure. It's how the game's played. You know, Jake, this high and mighty attitude of yours, I really think you should drop it. It'll make people laugh."

"How do I know it's not you?"

"What do you mean?" It jolts him. He's trying to look nonchalant, but when he reaches for his glass he jars the glass and sloshes scotch on the bar.

"I mean, how do I know you didn't just make up this crap about some guy at the track?"

"Oh shit, Jake. Let's talk about one thing at a time here." He's mad at himself for being crossed up. He's given something away, and he knows it.

I tell him the way I figure, he stumbled on the film and reckoned he could get himself a payday. Maybe he was already friendly with Crawford, maybe not. Either way it would be a cinch to get next to her for a good looking guy like him. Then he sprang a story about blackmailers, after which L.B. coughs up the dough, the blackmailers disappear, Jeannie shows some of her patented brand of gratitude and he pockets the loot. Works out all the way around.

It doesn't phase him. "Suppose that's true," he says. "Just supposing, mind. And suppose you lay off and let it happen, in return for which you get a nice payday. Let's say 25 G's. It's chump change for L.B., Joanie's happy, and the whole blue movie thing goes away for good. So who's worse off?"

"Nobody," I say

"Well then.." and he laughs.

"As long as I get to blow the whistle on you."

"Good old Jake," he says.

"So _is_ it you?"

"You were my best friend," he says. "Damn, it's a while ago, isn't it. These days there's no one wouldn't sell me out for the right price. Or even for nothing, some of them. The way I know _that_ is, there's no one _I_ wouldn't sell out. If the money was right. Except you, old friend," and he winks and squeezes my arm.

"So, is it _you?_ "

"No, Jake. But I know how your mind works. You're thinking it _is_ me. You're thinking I told you about the 10 G's because it gives me a motive, other than just being a nice guy. You're thinking all you have to do is tell Joanie and the whole business will blow away and me along with it. But you're wrong, my friend. Go ahead. You tell her anything you want. She'll tell you she trusts me, that I couldn't be a thief. She'll get mad and say you're just making the story up to save the Studio some money, that L.B. has put you up to it and the studio doesn't care about her. That's when she'll start screaming and ranting. And only one thing will make her shut up, Jake, and that's when the money is paid. It's not the film you're paying for. It's Joanie's pride." He slides off the barstool and throws a twenty on the bar.

"I'm protecting you, Jake," he says. He looking at me and there's something in his eyes. Is it pity?

"Protecting me from what?"

"From yourself, old sport." All the joking is gone from his voice.

"Why?"

"Old time sake. And because you protected _me_. Remember. You could have sent me over when I killed Red. Why didn't you?"

"I don't know. Seemed like killing Red was a public service."

He laughs. "It surely was. But I think it was more than that. You covered for me because you thought you knew _why_ I killed him. You thought he was an evil man who lured me into doing something I wouldn't have done otherwise. I saw you that night, out on the porch. You thought I blamed him for what happened. But you were wrong, Jake. I didn't kill him because I was ashamed of what I did."

"Then why?"

"I killed him because I _wasn't_ ashamed." He makes a barrel of his right index finger and squeezes off a round in my direction, then he winks as he turns to go. "I'll keep in touch," he says.

"Hey Nicky," I call after him. He turns around.

"Nice shoes." They're expensive brown loafers, bench made by the look of them. I've seen them before, close to. He just stands there a minute, face blank, working it out. Then he throws back his head and gives me the first real laugh of the day.

"Glad you like them. Guy in London makes them for me. I'll give you his name."

I'm on my way out when Bill, the maitre de, glides to my elbow so silently I didn't hear him coming. He touches my arm and tells me there's woman wants to see me. When he tells me who, I raise an eyebrow, then follow him through the arched portal and into the main room.

The big dining room at the Derby is the size of your high school gym, with a ceiling that swoops to a peak maybe twenty feet up. Down on the floor are red leather banquettes in back to back U's like the sides of a zipper, with more U's along the sides of the room where the stars like to sit. Every inch of wall is covered with caricatures of the rich and famous. The prestige spot is the front wall, but anywhere will do. When your picture goes up, it means you've arrived. When they take it down, it means you're dead, whether you know it or not.

Everybody's yammering, drinking, hoping tables and craning to find someone nearby they'd rather be with. Bill points toward booth number five, where the woman in question is holding court.

When she sees me coming, she gestures wildly. I thread my way through the tables on the floor, saying hello here and there 'til I reach where she's sitting with a big guy in an expensive tux.

"Jake Thorne, come sit with us," she cries jumping up and wrapping her long arms around my neck. I can smell her perfume mixed with a strong whiff of gin and vermouth. Carole Lombard is thoroughly pickled. She still manages to dazzle in a slink number that looks like it's made out of Christmas tinsel.

"Why not," says the big guy in the tux. "Let's get the latest news from the horse's ass. I mean mouth." I've known Clark Gable since before he grew the mustache. The romance between him and Lombard is the talk of the town: Lombard, foul mouthed and sexy, and Gable, the King. Word is that they'd get married if he could shed his high society wife, who's hanging on to him for dear life.

"Be nice to Jake, Clark," Lombard sits there with her elbows on the table, her head below those beautiful shoulders, regarding me owlishly. She puts her hand to her mouth and leans over to whisper a secret loudly in my ear. "He doesn't have any teeth," she says, pointing at Gable. "Some he-man. Wears dentures," and she waves a finger in front of her own teeth to illustrate. "You know what a toothless man is good for?"

I shake my head. She leans even closer to my ear and tells me, then laughs until gin comes out her nose.

I laugh, too. Gable is a lucky guy.

"Never date a drunk," he advises me with a tolerant smile at Lombard.

"Anyway," she says, taking his arm and pulling him closer. "That's not why I was waving to you. I wanted to tell you something. Are you ready?"

"Ready," I tell her.

"She did it. Definitely, no doubt, none, none, none, none," and she waves away doubt like an umpire calling somebody safe at home.

I'm puzzled. "Who did what?"

"Crawford, slut that she is, _she_ did it. She made that filthy movie. She'll do anything, things even I wouldn't do – well, more than once, anyway."

"How do you know."

"She told me. That's when we were friends. She even told me she'd been paid fifty dollars. She said it was out of town, up north, and she was young and needed money. I always knew she'd do anything. She even made a play for my Clarkie. But you resisted her, didn't you, my darling?"

"I meant to," Gable says, and she gives him a playful whack on the arm. From what I hear, Gable is still resisting Crawford a couple times a week when Lombard is out of town.

"Why do you suppose people prefer a movie about doing it to, well, _doing_ it?" Lombard asks no one in particular. Gable recoils in mock horror.

"Did you just feel the foundations shake," he asks me, pretending to hold the table steady. He turns to Lombard with a scolding look. "Don't say things like that, darling. Not in Hollywood, for God sake. She didn't mean it, Jake."

"I never pay any attention to what she says," I tell him.

Lombard isn't listening. "Now, everybody knows that Jake Thorne, that's you, darling, is snooping around to get her off the hook. My hair stylist was talking about it this morning. Or maybe some man mentioned it at a party."

"Tall guy, good looking, blond?"

"They're all tall, good looking and blond, Jake."

A waiter comes over holding a telephone. That's the big thing at the Derby. They bring phones to the table. Some people have friends call them, just to be seen getting a call. But not everybody likes it.

Gable looks up at the waiter. "Bill knows we don't take calls at the table," he says, irritated that the maitre de would let somebody bother them. The waiters at the Derby are used to the moods of the famous, and this one doesn't blanche.

"The call's for Mr. Thorne," he says. Gable looks at me, faking respect.

"Oh, sorry, _Mister_ Thorne," he says, getting up and pulling Lombard up after him. "You'll be wanting some privacy, and we have early calls. Come on, darling." He holds Lombard's white fox for her while she stabs a hand at an armhole, finally making it. Gable gives me a wave with his free hand. "See you around, Jake. And by the way, I've seen that flick, and it ain't Crawford."

"How do you know?"

"Only three guys," he says with a wink, and they're off.

I wave to them and pick up the phone receiver.

"Mr. Thorn, it's Gloria." It take me a second to place the voice; it's the dead girl's room mate, the one presently parking her impressive superstructure on Susie's couch.

"I remember. How did you know to call me here."

"Susie. She said on Thursday nights..."

"Sure, OK. What do you want?"

"I wanted to tell you that the man called, the one I saw with Susie the night she died. He called me here, yesterday when Susie was at work. He threatened me, Mr. Thorne. He said if I said anything to anybody about seeing him with Jeannie he was going to do to me what he did to here. He meant it. I'm scared to death."

"Let me get this straight. The blond guy you saw with the girl just before she died..."

She cuts me off. "Yes, that's the one. And I learned his name. Today, at the Studio, I asked some of the girls. A lot of them knew about him. His name is Flanagan.

Out by the limo line, Sketch shows. I spot him as he pulls up in a Lincoln, holds the door for some blond in a sequined ass hugger, then pockets his tip. When he sees me he snaps to attention and throws a regulation salute. Then he comes over to where I'm standing, slamming the good foot down and dragging the bad leg behind him like he always does.

"Evening, General Pershing," he says, saluting again

"Call me Blackjack, soldier." I return his salute with a lazy one of my own. He winks his good eye. He's wearing a pillbox hat cocked to one side and held on by a black patent strap that runs under his chin.

"The General is joking. Shall we summon the staff car, sir?"

"On the double," I say, and he walk/marches off. In a minute, he's back and the Caddy is purring by the curb. I walk around as he plants the stiff leg and heaves himself off the seat like a pole-vaulter. I hand him a double sawbuck and Nick's Havana.

"Have a smoke on me, soldier," I say. He bites the end off and lights up.

"Thank you, sir" says Sketch. "The men will follow you anywhere."

"Better not let me catch them at it."

He laughs at that. "We live in the shadows," he says.

"You see Nick Flanagan come out this way?"

"No," he says, taking a drag on the cigar. "Flanagan parks his own car off the premises. It's a Cord with those chrome side pipes. Nice car. He told one of the guys he doesn't want anybody scratching it, as if I ever scratched a customer's car." Sketch has professional pride. "Ask me, he's too cheap the pay the tip." He takes another drag, then holds the cigar at arms length, eyeing it appreciatively. "This is a damn fine smoke, Jake. Thanks again."

"Flanagan just gave it to me. Inside."

"Well, he ain't a big tipper, but he knows his cigars. Why you askin' about him, if you already saw him inside?"

"We talked. But he may not have been telling me the whole truth.".

"You don't say. Whadda a surprise," Sketch says, deadpan.

The valets work for tips, take customers in turn, and watch each other like hawks. Sketch's turn won't come again for a few minutes, so we lean on the fender. He takes a long pull on the cigar; the smoke comes out in a contented sigh.

"Do people come back from the dead?" I ask him.

"No," he says.

"You sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. The dead don't come back. Dead is dead. " He blows a puff of smoke, thinking it over. " Of course," he says reflectively, "some are slow to leave Unfinished business, some of them. There's a big difference, Jake." Sometimes I think Sketch knows more about how things works than he's letting on.

"Dead people keep popping up on me lately," I tell him.

"That so?" He doesn't seem surprised. "Uneasy spirits," he says. I wait for more, but that seems to conclude his thoughts on the matter.

We gab for a while about business. Sketch tells me that girl singer the boss is worried about is pretty strung out, starting to do things for the dope. The agent's a guy named Sid Cohen. Sketch has Cohen's office address on a piece of paper, and I tuck it in my wallet.

We smoke in silence. Our front, the cars keep pulling in.

"The name Brother Roberts ring a bell with you?" I ask him.

He grins. "Sure. He'll lay you away on the lay away plan."

"That's the guy. He got his toes in the Crawford business, along with everybody else in town, seems like. I hear the blackmailers are blackmailing Roberts to get him to cooperate. Something to do with money and City. Think you could check it out?" He says he'll put his top man on it. "Clem has a lot of contacts in the cemetery business."

"I'll bet he does. But I'm serious about this."

"I know." We smoke a while more. "So, the police find out any more about that dead girl?" he asks. He's staring off into the middle distance.

"How would I know?"

"That's right. How would _you_ know? You ain't the cops - like you keep telling me."

"Damn right."

"Yeah."

I toss my cigar stub in the gutter. "The answer is no. They don't know, and they don't wanna know, you ask me. They'll wait a couple more days, see if any grieving relatives show up, then plant her."

"And the other girl, the one you pulled out of that whorehouse. What happened to her?"

"No idea. Back to the whorehouse I guess."

"Too bad," he says. His turns coming up out front, and he pushes himself off the fender. "Lot of things are too bad." He moves off. He says something without turning around. I can't quite make it out.

"What was that?" I shout after him.

He turns around. "Lots of things are too bad," he says again.

"That's not all you said," I tell him.

"No," he says. Then he smiles. "I said lots of things are too bad. So we ought to fix the things we can." Then he stumps off in the direction of the limo line.

I hate it when he says things like that.

It isn't as hard as you'd think. The key is, she didn't pick my wallet. Which means she's broke. She could have always hitched back to Mabel's, but I gotta feeling that would be a last resort. For one thing, Leroy would have hurt her for leaving. Hurt her bad. I know it was me dragged her out of there. But that wouldn't have mattered. Whorehouse has rules, just like any other business. It wasn't for rules, where would we be? At least that's how Leroy would have looked at it.

The other thing she'd avoid – I'm guessing again – is letting the City get hold of her. That would mean going to a place a lot like Mabel's, except with gray walls, better locks and crappier food.

So she needed money, and she only had one thing to sell. Makes sense she'd be out there selling it. And if she was going to do _that_ , there were only a few places to go. See, you can't just stick a gardenia in your hair and go lean on any old lamppost. You gotta fish where the fish are. But the best fishin' holes are all staked out, with some very nasty people watching to see no new hooks get thrown in the water. That means new fisherman gotta work around the fringes. And I know where the fringes are.

It means some cruising around, but finally I spot her, half way out of an alley, eying the traffic. By the time I'm out of the car, she's ducked back in the shadows. The street light cuts the gloom for a few feet. It's dark after that, but I hear her breathing, quick and shallow, like she's scared but trying to keep it quiet. I stand there at the end of the alley, under a cone of yellow from a greens metal fixture high on the wall.

"Lilly, how you doing?"

Her voice comes out of the blackness. "I'd be doing better if you'd leave me alone."

"Everybody's going to leave you alone if you stand in the dark. You want the business you gotta get a little light on the product. Lotta whores even stand out by the curb." Suddenly, a rock whizzes by my head, then another one.

"Go the fuck away." An empty beer is next; I catch it one-handed and drop it with a clink to the cement.

"You must be running out of ammunition." But I've spoken too soon, and just manage to duck out of the way of a brick moving faster than I would have expected. It hits the pavement behind me and breaks into a dozen pieces. The girl has quite an arm.

"Hey, kid" I shout. You ever think about maybe tryin' for the majors. The Dodgers could use an arm like that." I can hear her rummaging around for something else to throw. I hope there are no empty bottles at her end. "I see your problem," I tell her. "No pimp. You're scared to get one, and scared of what the other whores will do to you if you don't. So you're hiding in the dark, where the business ain't easy. Why not go back to Mabel and Leroy?"

"I called. They told me to get lost. They're scared of you."

"Smart. But not good for you. So you decided to chance it, see if you could turn a couple of tricks on the sly, get enough for a room, a little food, give yourself time to think about what to do."

"A mind reader, too. You should go in the circus."

"But it ain't working. If you're out here long enough to earn a few bucks, some pimp is going to scoop you up, or some whores are going to cut you, or maybe both. You got no clothes, no place to sleep, no one to protect you, no..."

'OK, OK, so I got a lot of nothin'. Who are you to give a shit? How do I know you ain't a pimp? You got a pimp's car." That hurts, but I let it go.

"Come out here a little so I don't have to talk to shadows." Nothing happens. She must be fresh out of bricks. "Come on, for God's sakes. You think I can't come down there if I want to." She edges out into the light. She's made a try at keeping herself presentable, but she's been crying and it's been a couple of days now, so the effect is like a six-year old who needs a bath and has gotten into mom's makeup. Her knee's bleeding from where she scrapped it. There was a bottle after all. She's got it in her right hand, keeping it in reserve.

I take out one of my cards, lay it on the ground and back up a couple of steps, gesturing for her take a look. She edges forward like a deer out of hiding, picks up the card and holds it to the light.

"Doesn't mean shit to me," she says defiantly. "Anybody can get cards printed, two bucks the thousand."

"So what does it say?"

"Nothin' important," she answers, her voice breaking, and she turns her head away, deeper into the shadows.

"You can't read."

"You the fucking truant officer suddenly? Just go away," she's shouting now, working herself up so she can fight off the tears. As I move slowly toward her she cocks the arm with the bottle, but doesn't throw it. I take it gently from her, and then take her by the arm.

"It'll be OK," I say. "It'll be OK." She lets me lead her over to the car, then slides into the front seat. As I drive away, she's huddled in the far corner, crying to herself.

I stop at a pay phone. Ten minutes later we're at Connie's place, in a new apartment house out Wiltshire. Connie opens the door, still in her white uniform, sizes up the situation, puts an arm around the girl, leading her in. Lilly doesn't resist.

I keep up this way and I'll have girls stashed all over town.

Connie signals me to wait and keeps the door open a crack. In a minute she's back. "I've been trying to get in touch with you," she says. "You're never home."

"What's up."

"That woman. The one you brought in? She's in pretty bad shape, Jake."

"How bad."

"Bad."

"I'll go by."

"I wouldn't wait too long," she says, and closes the door.

Chapter Eleven

"Who's paying, that's all I want to know," Berrigan says. He looks like he's had a bad night.

We're in the windowless wing of the Clinic where they keep the lost souls. It's dawn outside, but eternal twilight in here. Behind one of the doors, someone's talking about Jesus, or maybe with Jesus, it's hard to tell. A woman is moaning a plea for help, over and over. Someone else is screaming in quick bursts, like a factory whistle.

It's a short hallway, three doors a side, each with a small observation window. Berrigan stops at the second door on the right. As I go to push past him, he puts his hand on my chest.

"It's expensive," he says. "I can't bill this as usual, you know." I look down at the hand, and it drops to his side. "I'm just saying."

"So what are you doing for her?"

"Keeping her fed, cleaning her up. Nothing much else we _can_ do. Couple of hundred a day, and that's cost, you understand."

"I'll cover it," I tell him

He relaxes, and gestures toward the observation window, getting out of the way so I can take a look. The room is bare except for a cot. A flickering neon bulb on the ceiling makes the whole scene seem unreal. Beth is curled up on the cement in one corner, holding her knees as if trying to squeeze the pain out of her body. She's wearing a white smock, the kind that buttons up the front. Her face is blush red and drenched with sweat. From under her, a stream of something runs down to central drain.

"How much extra to mop up the piss?" I ask Berrigan, who doesn't meet my eye.

"I'll get somebody on it," he says. I turn back to the window, wishing I didn't have to. He leaves, unlocking the main door behind me. Then I'm alone.

Beth is looking down, her lank hair in front of her face, dripping sweat from every strand. I can't tell whether her eyes are open, but as soon as I crack the door, her head jerks up like a nerve's snapped. Her face reminds me of Jesus on the cross behind the altar when I was a kid, except for her eyes. They're rimmed in red, and they fix me with a stare that raises the hairs on my neck. I have to will myself to walk across the room, one step at a time.

"How you doing, sweetheart?" I ask

"Insects," she says, "Roaches." She spits out the word with a shudder.

"There are no roaches, baby. No roaches here."

"Inside," she says. "I can feel their legs," and she runs her fists down her body, pressing hard, trying to squeeze her insides out like toothpaste. The buttons fly off the smock she's wearing, and before I can get across the room and grab her wrists, her nails have left red tracks across her breasts. For a minute she tries to rip herself free of my hands, then I can feel her strength ebb. I let go and back away a step. Her head goes down and she hugs her knees again until the skin turns white. She's saying something I have to bend down to hear.

"Gotta find Jake," she's whispering over and over.

"It's Jake, Beth. I'm here."

"Too many bodies," she whispers. "I can't protect her. God, I need a fix."

"You sent me a note, Beth. You wanted to see me." Now for the first time as she looks up, I see some recognition in her eyes.

"Jake, can you get me some help?"

"Sure, Beth."

"Just a taste." Her head's back down and she's shaking it from side to side, flipping drops of sweat on my pant leg. I kneel down, put a finger under her chin and try to bring her head back up. "Just something to let me sleep," she says.

"Why did you want to see me? Do you remember?" She shakes her head again and hugs her knees even tighter.

"Where's our baby?" She looks up at me, and now her eyes look sane. "Jake, can you help me find our baby? I can't find her. I can't protect her."

"I'll keep her safe."

She looks at me sharply, her eyes suddenly focused. "What are you talking about?' she barks at me. "Our baby's dead." Our baby's dead? She can't be dead. Beth must be talking about her nightmares."

"Dead!" She spits out the word, then her eyes lose focus and as I lean toward her she shrinks back into the corner as if trying to press herself through the cement. I want to reassure her. "Stay away," she screams, and her hands come up in front of her face. Her eyes through her splayed fingers are staring at me as if _I'm_ whatever it is that haunts her dreams. I reach a hand toward her, but she shrinks back further. Now the scream is a continuous wail, loud and cutting. The smock she's wearing has mostly pulled off her shoulders. Her skin draped on bone like a shroud, blood from her breast running in a thin stream to pool in the hollow of her belly.

I reach out to touch her, but before I can the seizure hits. It hits her hard and fast, snapping her body like a steel whip. She goes rigid, cheeks pulled back off her teeth, neck tendons taut, eyes rolled back to white so it looks like her soul is staring out at me.

All I can do is run back to the locked door and begin banging hard as I can. Berrigan has been lurking somewhere outside and his face appears in the observation window. In the next instant he's pushing by me

"Get a nurse," he shouts to me, leaning down over Beth. I run for a nurse, hating myself for being glad to get out of that hellish room.

Berrigan comes out ten minute later and tells me Beth's dead. I'm not surprised.

"Maybe it's for the best," he says, like he's probably said a thousand times.

"I guess."

"You know her well?" he asks.

"Pretty well. A long time ago."

He asks about next of kin, and I tell him there's a mother back East. Probably a daughter too somewhere. He asks where to send her stuff, and I tell him I'll take care of it.

"Just a purse, few odds and ends," he says. He goes away and comes back a minute later with a paper bag.

Connie's just coming on shift as I reach the lobby. "I just heard about your friend," she says. "Sorry, Jake." She means it, like everything she says.

"Thanks. How's the girl?"

"She's fine. Sleeping most of the time. My guess is, it's the first safe place she's ever been. She looks at me intently. "You're ,sure going out of your way for that girl."

"Probably a waste of time. Too much damage."

"She's got a lot of grit."

"Any parents or relatives."

"Not that she knows of. Born and raised in a whorehouse.

"I want to talk to her."

"Good, because she keeps telling me, whenever she wakes up, that she wants to talk with you."

"I'll come tonight."

I drive home in the rain. It doesn't rain much in LA in the summer. Almost never. But it's raining now, and the radio tells me it will keep raining for a couple of days. Farmers will be happy. It's not your fault, Jake, is what she said. A last gift for someone who doesn't deserve it and never did. But what was she talking about? What wasn't my fault? I thought when she said it that she was talking about herself. Now I'm not so sure. How old is Lilly. Fourteen, fifteen, maybe sixteen at a stretch. Connie's right. That girl's a pistol. Tough, smart. I do the math in my head. Sixteen years. So it's possible, I guess. And even in her delirium, Beth reached out to me for help. She'd never asked anything for herself, even when she on the downhill slide. For a daughter, though, it would be different. Would she have told the girl they were mother and daughter? Would she have told her about me? Probably not. Of course, Lilly doesn't look like either of us, so it's all probably just my imagination working. I must be getting old or stupid or both.

As it turns out, it doesn't take me long to find out how stupid it is. At home, I dump the bag out on my dining table. Like the doctor said, there isn't much. A couple of cheap lipsticks, a stick of gum, hairpins, the works for injecting heroin tied up in a silk stocking, a packet of letters and a picture in a heart-shaped leather frame. It isn't a picture of Lilly. It's the picture of the girl I saw dead at Langston's, lying in the soft dirt beside the house. I lever the picture out of the frame and turn it over. On the back there's a name written in ink in Beth's careful, left-handed script: Jean Marie Thorn it says. Lilly is alive, but she isn't my daughter. Beth was right. Our daughter is dead.

An hour later, I visit her at the morgue. Doogin opens the locker door, pulls out the gurney then leaves me alone. A wave of cold rolls out of the open locker, and my breath makes a cloud as I pull the sheet away from her head. Her chin is tucked down, partially covering the purple bruise her throat. Her skin looks like damp putty.

But I see now what I'd missed before.

By the time I was old enough to look at my mother as a human being, scrounging, booze and the old man had worn her down to nothing. So it was a shock, going through her things when she died, to find an old black and white picture turned yellow around the edges, the fading image of a pretty young woman smiling, with a farm house in the background.

It's the same face I'm looking at now. But there's nothing behind it. Gone beyond reach, before I knew her, before I could tell her how sorry I am.

I take out a handkerchief and slip it between her head and the stainless steel. It's the first time I've touched her. My breath billows down and around her face, leaving tiny droplets on her dead skin.

Doogin's outside the swinging door, half-sitting on the orderly's desk He's got his legs stretched out, taking a belt from a half-pint. He drains the bottle and aims it a basket over by the wall, but is misses a mile and clatters off across the cement floor.

"The great Jake Thorn," he shouts when he see me. "Defender of the smug."

"Half pint's a bad sign, John," I tell him.

"Nothing bigger will fit in my pocket," he says, smacking his lips. "Wish I had _another_ one. My problem, Jake my friend, is that I never drank enough. Which meant I had to do this job sober. Can you imagine?"

"Something on your mind?

"Too much," he says. "But I'm sworn to confidentiality, sir." He smirks a little, then has to grab the edge of the desk to steady himself.

"So you know who she was."

"Oh yes. Yes. Archie Tucker told me."

"He didn't tell _me_."

"He was working himself up to it. In fact, Jake, until you came storming in here, I thought you were the only one who didn't know."

"I'll have a talk with him. '

"Oh, don't blame Archie. He's afraid of you." His blinks his watery eyes at me. "Are you a drinking man, Jake?" he asks. "I hope so. You got even more reason than me."

"You gonna tell me what's on your mind."

"The autopsy. That's what. Never get used to them, you know. Not after all these years. Didn't even tell Tucker about it."

"What about it?"

"She was pregnant, Jake."

I go home and sleep. I wake about three AM, but a couple of slugs of Scotch put me back under and it's the middle of the morning before I crack my eyes again.

I inhale a couple of eggs at Phil's, half expecting Sketch to show. I'll go looking for him later. Right now I have something else to do.

About two-thirty, I'm parked in an alley out back of the whore house in Compton. No use sitting here on the off chance that he'll decide to take a stroll this way, so to speed thing up I walk over to a row of metal garbage cans lined up against the high wooden whore house fence.

I'm in a bad mood. On the way out here I've been listening to a Dodger game on the radio. The game's from Chicago, Dodgers and the Cubs, one of those simulated broadcasts with some announcer in a studio in LA reading the ticker, making the sound effects and pretending to be excited. He screams about a Cox single to right. He goes nuts when the Cubs knock Preacher out in the fifth.

It's hard to get interested. The game ended an hour ago, and Two-Bits called with the bad news just before I left. Twenty- bucks shot to hell. I grab a couple of clubs from my bag, including my driver, which I'm going to replace anyway since the ball never goes straight. Using that driver, I start hammering on those cans as hard as I can. The lid flies off one and then another, but I go on hammering, making all the racket I can until I hear the back door of the whore house opening and a heavy man hustling down the wooden stairs shouting bad words.

He jerks open the gate in that high wooden open, and before he can react I poke the now broken head of that driver in his face, hard. His hands shoot up to investigate, and while he's occupied I take a short swing and knock him in the temple. Not as hard as possible, but hard enough. He goes down, spilling out into the alley so I have to jump back a little to keep from getting blood on my shoes. Now he's down making a lot of noise. But nobody around here's about to come out to help so I have the time to practice a few shots.

Going through the golf bag earlier I debated with myself about the right club. The putter was out of the question, and I just bought my new wedge. I considered a long iron, but I never could hit a long iron worth a damn. No, the right choice was my two wood, my trusty niblick. I like that club, and I hate the thought of damaging it; but you can't play good golf without sacrifice.

Leroy's squinting at me, probably wishing he'd taken it a little slower opening that gate. What he sees, as his eyes widen, is classic form, if I do say so myself. Everything's working just right. I'm uncoiling, getting my hips out of the way, remembering to keep my left arm straight and let the club head do the work. And it pays off. There's a whooshing noise as the shaft cuts the air and the polished persimmon hits Leroy with a fleshy crunch up inside his left knee. Pain like that overloads the system. The brain waits an instant, hoping it's a false alarm. So there's a stunned second before his eyes bulge out and he screams a curse. I'm lining up my next shot, wondering whether it's time for an iron. When the pain fades a little, Leroy sees what I'm doing.

"Jesus Christ," he yells. "What did you do that for? What did you hit me for?"

"The Dodgers lost."

"So what, the fucking Dodgers lost? So you break my fucking knee!?" He's trying to drag himself back toward the gate with his arms, not making much progress, breathing hard and gritting his teeth to back the pain.

"Added to which," I say, assessing the heft of the wood and deciding to use it again, "there's what you did to Beth."

"You mean the junky?" He can't believe it. He's so stunned he forgets to snatch his foot out of the way as the head of my niblick whistles through. His shoe cushions the blow a little, but I can still hear the cracking sound of breaking bone. Leroy howls.

I'm leaning on the club, waiting until he stops yelling so we can talk. "I caught that last one pretty good," I say to myself, shading my eyes and peering down the alley. "Looks like a six iron to the green." I start back toward my golf bag

"What do you want to know?" he shouts out to me. "I'll tell you what you want to know. Just stop hitting me." I'm back with my six iron, studying my lie. I plant my feet and get into my waggle.

"Too bad for you," I tell him. "I know what you want to tell me. I know it was you who jumped me. I know a guy named Flanagan was with you. I don't know why he wanted to warn me off, but I doubt he'd have told you about that anyway. No, Leroy, I'm not beating you for information. I'm beating you for the joy of it." I take a practice swing. It ain't bragging to say I can hit a six iron maybe 180 yards on a good day. Leroy sees me setting up out of the corner of his eyes and starts talking fast.

"I didn't know his name," Leroy says.

"So what?"

"But I knew him. He'd been here before."

"That right? Tell me about it."

"Don't hit me."

"For the moment."

"He showed up out of the blue, last week. Said he knew the junky from the old days and wanted to see her."

"That was OK with you?"

"Hell no, it wasn't OK with me. We had a good deal going; it paid us some money to keep her around. I didn't want to screw that up. It was the same when you came. But Mabel's a greedy old bitch, goddam her."

"How often this guy show up?"

"Couple times."

"What was he doing up in her room?"

"I didn't care. He wasn't killing her. He must of brought some horse with him, because after he'd gone, I went up there and she'd already had her fix. He showed up again after you took her away. He was pissed. I thought he was going to go for me for letting you take her. But then he said he supposed you didn't give me a choice. And he laughed."

"How much Flanagan pay you to help roust me?"

"He laid fifty on me. Said he wanted to bruise you a little. Nothing major. I was happy to do it, after that thing you pulled taking our girls out of here. Not to mention, it got him off my back."

I stand there for a minute, pondering. Leroy is gritting his teeth against the pain. "You gonna leave me alone now?"

"Sure," I tell him. He relaxes a little. "Just as soon as I'm on the green."

"What," he wails. "Shit, man. You crippled me up. We're even."

"Sure, _we're_ even. But there's still the matter of my friend to settle." I grip the six iron, get set in my stance and start back into my waggle. Leroy's jabbering a mile a minute, trying to talk me out of it. It's bad manners, talking during a man's swing. But he wouldn't know that.

"You think it was me made her a junky? _I'm on the balls me feet, my weight shifting toward my back leg, getting a good shoulder turn. Eat your heart out, Hogan_! "You think it was me turned her out?" _My hips begin to release. I keep my head down, remembering to hit on through._ "Bullshit! She'd been hustling a long time when I met her. A junky for fifteen years, she told me so herself. Somebody screwed her over when she was young, that much I know. But it sure wasn't me. You're beating on the wrong guy, buddy."

It takes a real effort to pull up at the last instant and let the club head whistle past his shoulder so close it snaps the fabric of his shirt. He's already screwed his face up for the impact and it stays screwed a second after the club head whiffs by him. Then he peeks up at me. I'm standing there leaning on the club looking at him and thinking about what he said. He waits for me to wind up again

"Broke my wrists too soon," I tell him, shaking my head in disgust. "I need lessons."

"What you need is a bullet between the ears. And I'm just the boy to put it there."

I turn away, crunch back to the Caddy and throw the club in the back seat. I start the car. He's screaming at me. Must think I'm going to run him over. And I do give it a thought. Instead, I stop the car next to him. He's made it up on one leg, leaning back against the fence, trying to balance while he shoulders his way back to Mabel's gate. When I role down the window, he flinches back and covers his face with his forearms.

"It pains me, Leroy," I tell him, "but I gotta admit. When you're right, you're right."

If anything, I feel worse than before.

Next morning starts at noon, with me staring in the fridge at a grapefruit half, trying to remember when I put it there. I can't, so I get dressed and go down to Musso and Franks for lunch. I sit at the bar. Bill Faulkner is a few stools away, nursing a scotch, but I don't want to buy him his next one, so I just nod.

I call Connie from a pay phone and make a date to see her and the girl in the afternoon. She says the girl is doing fine, and that cheers me up a little. When I'm done, I walk a few blocks to Grauman's. I'm looking for Sketch. It's a beautiful day, the kind in the postcard pictures, and Grauman's is opening a new Shirley Temple flick, so people are thick on the plaza outside waiting for the show to start. Vendors move among the crowd hawking the sort of thing tourists buy.

Sketch is out near the sidewalk with his easel. He sits on a canvas chair with his good leg tucked under him, the bad one stretch out straight. Today's eye patch is baby blue with little white stars on it. He's sketching a fat lady in a flowered dress while her husband stands to one side and eyeballs a blond walking by. There's a saucer of milk for Clem, who's curled in a watchful ball under Sketch's chair next to a dappled Persian with beefeater whiskers.

I come up behind Sketch as he draws a swooping cheek with the charcoal. He doesn't turn around, but he knows I'm there.

"Pardon me for not standing, General," he says.

"At ease, soldier. Hello, men." I direct this to the cats, who blink at me with the sort of absolute disinterest only cats can show.

"Are you a General?" The lady is excited.

"Yes ma'am, he is," Sketch says, still drawing. The face takes shape on the paper almost quicker than the eye can follow. "That's General Pershing. Black Jack himself." She looks skeptical. Sketch finishes the drawing, rips it off his pad and hands it to the lady.

"Why, this doesn't look like me," she says. "Phillip, does this look like me?" Her husband is still eyeing the blond, but jerks back around in the nick of time and squints at the drawing.

"That'll be a buck," Sketch tells them, sitting patiently.

"I'm not paying for no drawing that doesn't look like me. A buck for a couple of minutes work. I never! And I don't think this is General Pershing, neither." From where I'm standing, the problem is that the sketch _does_ look like her, but her husband isn't about to say so. They're going to walk off, taking the drawing with them. But I move in front of them. I've got the sap in my hand, tapping it into a palm.

"Didn't you ever wonder how I got that nickname Black Jack," I say to the lady," and I give my palm a little harder slap. "That'll be two bucks." The man looks around frantically, probably hoping to find a cop strolling by. No luck.

"He said a buck," the guy says, looking nervous.

"Plus tip," I tell him

"Pay the man, Howard," says the lady, but Howard is already thrusting a couple of bills at me.

"Not me. Him," I say, nodding at Sketch. The guys hustles over and presses the bills on Sketch, who lifts his patch off his puckered socket and pretends to stare at them. The fat lady makes a face.

"They look genuine," says Sketch, smiling up at me.

"Well don't bite them," I tell him. I don't have to tell the couple to beat it; they're already half way across the plaza and moving fast.

"Thanks, General," Sketch says with a smile. "I get one or two of those a week. Cost of doing business. They notice I can't chase them."

"I see the chair is empty. How about doing _me_?"

"Sure, sit on down. It's a buck whether you like the sketch or not." He takes a long look at me. "Maybe gonna need more charcoal", he says.

"Just get on with it," I tell him. He's already sketching, hand moving quick. After a few seconds he starts talking.

"You can get buried in LA when you're not dead, did you know that, Jake?" he says, not looking up from his drawing. "Matter of fact, you can get buried if you've never been born."

"I assume that's apropos of something."

"A-pro _-poh_ , Jake. The 's' is silent. And the answer is yes. Baldo Agajanian, that's who its apropos of."

"Whom," I point out, just to stay even. "Never heard of him."

"Exactly." He says, as if I've just made his point.

"What do you mean, exactly?"

"Nobody's every heard of him. That 's the _beauty_ of the operation."

"Now you're making sense." He pretends not the hear the sarcasm.

"Baldo is a county employee. Los Angeles county. Works for the Department of Health. In charge of cemeteries"

"Forest Lawn and like that?"

"Nah, those are private. We're talking about the county here. Los Angeles county doesn't _own_ cemeteries. Not like New York, for example. There, they got their own municipal dump, municipal cemetery, municipal every thing. LA's different."

"He's in charge of cemeteries for a county that don't have cemeteries. So what does this guy do all day?"

"He tends the tomb of the unknown bum. In a manner of speaking that is."

"Big tourist attraction is it?"

"You think I'm kidding? How many bums you think die up at LA General every week?

"I dunno."

Sketch chuckles. "That just it. _Nobody_ does. Except Baldo Agajamian. I tell you Jake, it's the perfect gag."

"What are we talking about?"

"Brother Roberts. You asked me to find out how he was being squeezed. Do you see now?"

"Sure."

"I thought you'd get the picture. Here's the way it works. Hospital gets a lot of John Doe's in there every week. Bums, winos, guys who just die for no reason and got no ID. What they do is, they keep the bodies in morgue for a while to see if anybody claims 'em. If nobody does, they got to get rid of 'em. Some they ship over to UCLA to the medical school. State pays the county fifty bucks a pop, but demand is limited. So most of the corpses they bury."

"And they don't have cemeteries to bury them in."

He chuckles. "That's the scam. What they do is, they buy space in some of the private graveyards around the County. Not Forest Lawn, naturally. Just normal places. Times are hard for everybody, graveyards included. A steady stream of stiffs from the county is a nice little sideline. And Baldo is the guy who decides who gets what.

"And them that gets kick back a little to keep Baldo sweet?"

"That's the way it started. But then somebody figured out a way to eliminate the middle men."

"Baldo?"

"Not Baldo. The stiffs. See, the cemeteries don't _need_ an actual body, and they sure don't want 'em. A body means you gotta dig a hole and waste a perfectly good pine box. Hard to make money that way on what the County pays. What they need is a death certificate. If they got one of those, they get the money. So Baldo hooked up with a Doctor at LA General. With all these John Doe's coming through every week, who's going to notice if there are few more death certificates than stiffs? Nobody."

"Where do they get the names."

"I dunno. Out of the white pages. Doesn't matter. Maybe they make them up."

"Pretty neat. So how's Brother Roberts involved?"

"He was around, running tent revivals, doing a little healing – that sort of thing. Not one of your major league bible thumpers, but making a decent living. Then a few years ago, he begins buying up these little grave yards. Nobody knows this guy, but his money is good and like I said, times is hard. Pretty soon he's got a most of the available space wrapped up, and all the imaginary stiffs from Baldo are ending up in Robert's operation. He gets into the crematorium business, too. The real corpses, he shovels into the furnace. The imaginary ones go directly into his bank account. With a percentage for Baldo, of course."

"What happens if a long lost relative shows up to see the grave? Or an inspector from the County?"

"Baldo's the inspector, so they got that covered. Any relatives show, they hold 'em in the office while somebody hustles out and plants a little stake with the stiff's name on a mound of dirt. Then they drive the family out, talking about how the county don't pay for headstones or perpetual care or planting the grass or scaring off the coyotes – any of those little extras which, however, they're positive the grieving relative is going to want, and for which they have a convenient installment plan, please don't ask about the interest rate. It's fool proof."

"Couldn't be so fool proof if _you_ could find out about it."

Sketch smiles and nods out toward Clem, who lifts his head and fixes us with those emerald eyes. "Like I told you before, I got associates in the cemetery business," he says. "Plus I used the old noggin and started asking around down at the union hall. Grave diggers are unionized, did you know that, Jake? Those guys are great talkers. Plus Baldo got greedy. It was _too_ easy, know what I mean? A lot of bums dying in LA, but not 500 of 'em a week. Which means that the book keepers down at the County office building have to be paid off, and I got some contacts down there."

"You sure about all this?"

"Jake." Sketch looks hurt. "Baldo pulls down twenty-four hundred and seventy dollars per annum from the county. You could look it up. And guess where he lives, Jake. Brentwood. Added to which, those union guys? They told me working for Brother Roberts is the best gig in town. No digging'."

"So someone threatens to blow the whistle and Roberts agrees to bare his soul about the Crawford movie if L.B don't pay up. Wonder who got to him."

"Roberts would know."

"So he would."

But will he tell me, that's the question. I decide to hustle out there and find out. "You done yet?" I ask Sketch. He leans back a little, staring at his work, then makes a couple more passes with the charcoal. Satisfied, he rips the big sheet of paper from the easel and hands it to me. I stare at it a long minute, trying to figure out what bothers me about it. It's my face, I suppose. Eyes, nose, mouth, jaw, all pretty much where they're supposed to be. So why do I look so goddam sad?

"That ain't me," I tell him.

"That's what the fat lady said." He holds out his hand. "Where's my buck?"

There are only a few reasons you'd want to go to Gardena. It's a good place to pawn things. Three or four pawnshops right out on the main drag. They've got a fifty cent burlesque house where you can spend a few happy hours checking out the various shapes women come in, some of which will surprise you. Or maybe you need work. Chevy ain't t hiring. But the synthetic rubber plant just opened in the middle of town has put on a third shift. Doing a lot of business with Germany, or so they say. Of course, the air on a still day will take the enamel off your teeth. The "smell of prosperity" the mayor calls it.

That's about it, unless you come to be buried in the Garden of Peaceful Repose, a division of Roberts Enterprises, Inc. There are stone pillars flanking the entry and a long driveway leading up to a mansion complete with wisteria - like a Southern plantation house, except from the squat smoke stack poking up out back. I park a little way from the main building and take a stroll among the stones, penciling a couple of names and dates on a pad I've brought special for the occasion. I do this behind a tree, so I can't be seen from the house. A few jap gardeners are snipping at things here and there, and one of them pauses to look over at me. Then he goes back to snipping.

As I walk back to the Cadillac, I see a figure casing the car from behind the blinds in one of the front windows, and when I push through the double front door a smooth dresser in sharkskin oils up smiling a sympathetic smile. He's a big guy run to fat, the smell of breath mints hovering around him like an accusation. One hand's sticking out at me from a starched French cuff. He's got a butt cupped in the other one, out of sight behind his back. I shake the hand without the butt. It feels slick and cold.

"I wonder if I might be of assistance to you, sir," he says in a voice like gear oil. "My name is Blanchard"

"Baldo sent me, Mr. Blanchard." The smile disappears, the butt comes out from behind his back and he jerks his head toward a door up the stairs.

"Up on the landing to the right, mac," he says, walking away.

Upstairs the atmosphere changes from mansion to counting house. There's a fogged glass door with 'Brother J.T. Roberts - Private' written on it in gold leaf. A brunette in pearls and a pink twin set sits behind the desk repairing her makeup, but shoves the compact in a drawer when I come in. The door closes behind me with a sigh

"Baldo sent me," I tell her. That name seems to have a magic effect around here.

"What name shall I say," she asks, just like they tell you to at secretarial school. I give her my name. She keys the squawk box and relays the message. The voice from inside says to send me in.

"Brother Roberts?"

He's a puffy individual with that ruddy complexion bartenders know well, his snow white hair set off nicely by the broken capillaries on his nose. He seems to be debating whether to come out for a shake or stay on the safe side of the big mahogany desk. He opts for protection.

"Mr. Thorne," he says, and gestures toward a chair. "Please sit down." There's a humidor on his desk.

"Do you mind?" I say, lifting the lid. It's filled with Romeo and Julietas, which happens to be my favorite cigar. I grab a couple. He reacts like I just reached into his pants, but recovers and starts searching through the papers on his desk for the lighter.

"That's OK, thanks," I say, sticking the cigars in my suit pocket. "I'll smoke 'em later."

"Er, you told my Secretary that Mr. Agajanian sent you."

"Baldo sends his regards."

"It's a little, uh, unusual," he says. "Normally, we deal with Mr. Agajanian personally."

"I know all about it, so let's cut the crap. Baldo sent me over here because he's under the gun. You guys, too."

Brother Roberts doesn't like the sound of this. The big leather chair creeks as he leans back a little, as if trying to duck whatever's coming next.

"The thing is," I tell him, "Baldo hears there's an exhumation order coming from the county court."

"Exhumation Order?" It seems to be a new concept for him.

"Turns out they arrested some faggot up in Atherton's been picking up hitch hikers, bums mostly. Committed unnatural acts with them, this guy did. Then killed them. _Some_ people, huh?" I shrug at the weakness of humanity. Brother Roberts twitches a smile in agreement. "Anyway," I say, "this faggot fellah got caught and started confessing. He's spouting names right and left. Seems he collects wallets from the guys he kills. Mementos, you might say. He's got a list, would you believe it? One of the names he mentions is, let me see now..." I make a show of drawing out my pad of paper and reading the name. "Robert Anderson. That's it, Robert Anderson."

"A common name."

"Sure it is. But the cops check county records and find out this Anderson guy is supposed to be buried here."

"Anderson, you say?"

"Robert Anderson. Buried a year ago, the county thinks." Brother Roberts fingers the intercom.

"Most inconvenient," he says. He punches the button and asks the girl to pull the file on a Robert Anderson, and to send Blanchard up. Blanchard must have been hovering around because he ankles in the door right away. Brother Roberts beckons him over, whispers in his ear and nods at me, and Blanchard ankles back out. A minute later, twin set comes in with a file folder. Brother Roberts reads for a minute and looks up at me.

"This appears to be one of, ur, special cases," he says.

"That's what Baldo told me."

It was a bit of a gamble, I admit. The names came from a fresh stone I checked when I was walking around. Might have been a real one, but it seems not. "Anyway," I say, "it's a murder case now and the coroner wants to dig up this Robert Anderson. Only, like we both know, there ain't no Robert Anderson, at least not this particular one, and not where he's supposed to be"

Brother Roberts sits back in his leather chair. "Stupid!" He spits it out.

"Who you calling stupid?" I'm indignant. He pays no attention.

"Stupid," he says again, balling up his pink hands into fists and pounding on the desk. "Robert Anderson, for the love of God. Couldn't they think of a better name than Robert Fucking Anderson? Jesus H. Christ, there must be a thousand of them in the phone book."

"Ain't it a bitch." But Brother Roberts has got himself under control. He's figuring.

"Of course," he says, "we could always arrange for a body."

"No good," I tell him. "They got dental records. This Anderson guy was a regular in county jail."

"Does Baldo have any suggestions?"

"Matter of fact. Baldo says he can switch the records around a little, maybe grease a few palms, tell the cops he made a mistake and this Anderson wasn't really buried at all."

"Cremated?"

"Sure, that's what Baldo can tell them. Cremated. Mix up in the records. But Baldo's sticking his neck out, know what I mean. So he wanted me to ask you who's in the know."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on. Who knows about the scam?"

"Nobody, of course. We agreed."

"That ain't what Baldo thinks," I tell him

"Baldo's mistaken," he says just as Blanchard comes in again, shutting the door behind him and leaning back against it.

"Baldo never heard of no Jake Thorne," Blanchard says. Brother Roberts doesn't seem to know whether to be relieved or worried.

"You see how _careful_ Baldo is." I'm all admiration. " He ain't giving nothing out over the phone." I say this with a straight face, but Brother Roberts isn't buying.

"Bruce, escort this man to the gate," he commands.

"Oh, I couldn't let him do that," I say with a shake of my head.

Blanchard is coming at me, reaching into his coat. He gets a hand on whatever he has in there, but not quick enough. I'm on my feet and throw a short right hand, aiming at a spot about six inches the other side of his skull, twisting my fist a little at impact. His head jerks back, his knees fold and he slumps against me. I move out of the way and let him hit the carpet. Brother Roberts has meanwhile grabbed up an imitation Beardsley bronze from a bookcase behind his desk. It's a tall lady in a swoopy dress, and she flirts with me over her shoulder as he waves her around.

"Get out," he shouts, his voice breaking. I take the Beardsley away from him as gently as I can and grab him by the knot on his expensive tie. He's cringing back from me, trying to bring his hands up in front of his face, but I'm inside them and slap him hard enough to send his upper plate flying across the room. It hits the door just as twin set opens it, eyes wide. She screams.

"What do you want?" the good Brother asks me, choking a little on the blood.

I tell him I want a name.

He gives it to me.

I sleep most of the day, almost forgetting about my date with Connie.

Her apartment is in a ten-story brick apartment house at Wiltshire and Patterson, a couple blocks from the Tar Pits. When she opens the door in a little black dress with her hair done, it shuts me up for a second. She wearing makeup that brings out her dark brown eyes, and there's a softness about her I don't see when she's at work. She notices my surprise and laughs.

"I'll take that as a compliment," she says. "Come on in." As she leads the way, I can't help looking at her legs. She catches me at it and laughs again.

"Eyes front there, sailor."

"I'm used to seeing you at work," I say, lamely.

"It feels nice to dress up once in a while," she says, and leads me toward a couch that looks out on her view. There are a couple glasses of wine already poured, and some crackers and cheese. When we sit down I can smell her perfume. It makes me wish I'd shaved better. She sits well away at the other end of the couch, picks up a wine glass and regards me over the rim.

"Here's to you, Jake Thorn."

"Why to me?"

"For rescuing that girl," and she takes a long drink from the glass, looking at me all the time. "I didn't know if she was going to thank you, so I wanted to do it for her." She leans over and kisses me. It's a soft kiss. She smells and feels just like I seem to remember women do . So when she breaks off and leans back, I want some more.

There are a lot of ways of impressing women, but lunging at them isn't one of them. She places a hand in the middle of chest and looks me sternly in the eye.

"I'm not interested if it's just sex, Jake," she says.

My mind is yelling that there's no such thing as 'just' sex. I have just enough self control not to say it out loud.

"And I wouldn't have been interested at all before you did what you did." I'm back in my place, trying to look suave. "So don't give up, OK?"

"Where's Lilly." I'm trying to change the subject.

"She was sitting where you are 'til she heard you knock, then she ran into the bedroom. She's nervous about seeing you. In fact, she doesn't want to be around men at all."

"She's had a hard time," I say.

"Tell me what you know." So I tell her about Mabel and Leroy, about taking Lilly to my place and about her leaving and going back on the street.

"I've talked with her a little." Connie says. "She doesn't remember a time when twenty-four hours passed without someone using her body. It's what she expects. She's never been to school, never had a friend her own age. It's like she was stranded as a baby on some island run by monsters. That's her frame of reference."

"But she survived."

"I hope she did. I think so. Some people crack. I see it all the time at the clinic. Other people have a core. No matter what happens to them, no matter what people do, nothing gets at it. You're like that, I think. So is Lilly."

"I hope you're right."

"About you or Lilly?"

"Both of us, " I say with a smile.

"There's something else. After she left your place, before you found her again and brought her here, something really scared her. She couldn't stop shaking. I asked her if she was scared of you. She just shook her head. But she won't tell me what it was."

"On the street like she was, it's smart to be scared."

"That wasn't it," says a voice from behind me. It's Lilly, standing in the shadows just inside the hallway. When I look around, she moves a little into the light. She's dressed in Connie's clothes, a dark skirt and light blouse, both too big. Her hair's been washed and pulled back, and she isn't wearing makeup, which makes her look a lot younger and a lot prettier.

"Come on in and sit with us," Connie says, patting the sofa cushion.

"I'll stay here, if you don't mind," Lilly replies in a quiet voice.

"You want to tell me about it?" I ask.

"You were wrong about me standing in the shadows that night because I was scared," Lilly says in a flat voice, as if she's talking about something that happened to somebody else. "I'd been out on the curb. I thought I'd chance one night. I was hungry, and it doesn't take long to find a John, not when you're my age. Ten minutes, I figured, I could get away with. Then this car pulls up. I see a guy inside beckoning to me with his finger," and she crooks a finger to show us. "So I walked over. The window's down on my side, and he's leaning across the seat. I figure we're going to negotiate, so I lean in, and he grabs my wrist and pulls me halfway into the car." She holds up her left wrist. The purple bruise rings it like a bracelet. "It hurt like hell. But that isn't what scared me."

"What did?"

"He had a knife. Long blade, thin. One of those flip blade things. He was holding it in his other hand, sort of hefting it. He kept pulling me toward him, dragging me in through the window. I'm kicking and screaming, but it wasn't helping. It felt like being sucked down a drain. He was going to push that knife into my eye and get his jollies at the same time. That's when I cut him."

"You cut him?"

"With this." She tosses something on the floor at my feet. It's a Gillette Blue Blade, double edged with tape wrapped thick around one side. "I pinched it from Leroy, and kept it under the belt of that dress. Not much, but something, you know? I had a free hand, so I sliced at his wrist." She makes a gesture like a cat scratching the furniture. "He screamed. But he didn't let go. His eyes lit up, I swear. Like there was fire inside. I could feel the pull getting stronger. My feet were off the ground. But he slipped."

"And you fell out."

"Lucky for me. I was screaming and he hit the gas. I tried to hide."

"What did he look like? Tall guy, blond with a bottle tan. Anything like that?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Nothing. What did this guy look like."

"Not like that. But I know who you're talking about. I saw that guy at Mabel's. I remember because he was a lot different from the run of the mill. I told you that Leroy mostly gave Beth her fix, but that once I'd seen this other guy in there, doing it. That what this guy looked like. I heard voices as was going back downstairs with a john, so I looked in and saw this guy bending over, tying off Beth's vein, all the time talking to her."

"You hear what they said?" I ask her.

"He was asking about whether you knew. That's all I heard. "Does Jake know?" He had her tied off, with that needle above her arm, but just holding it there. She kept shaking her head. She would have told him anything. His voice was low, but he was talking like he knew her. She wasn't paying much attention, just hoping he'd hurry up about it. But I got a pretty good look at him. It was just like you said."

"Did this guy use a name?" I'm all ears now.

"No. Just something she told me about the guy later. We were talking in her room, and she told me she'd known this guy in the old days, but now he scared her. . "Did she say why?"

"She said the guy was a dead man."

When I get back to my place, there's a message on my service to call Lou Carnesi. When I do, he tells me that the directions for delivery of the blackmail money have shown up on a postcard at Joanie's.

He also tells me to meet him there at 6:00 PM.

You can get a map to Crawford's house from the blowsy lady who sits under an umbrella at Hollywood and Vine. It's in a place called Holmby Hills. That's like Beverly Hills, except the hills are a little higher, the ocean a little closer and the money a lot older.

The house is a big stucco pile painted an eye-piercing white and surrounded by rows of square hedges cut Prussian style. I slip off my loafers in the entry hall – Joan doesn't allow footwear on the carpeting –and follow a liveried butler down a long hallway and into a vast room at the back that runs the width of the house and looks out over the azure blue of a swimming pool. Lou's a sitting on a chintz sofa, an alligator briefcase balanced on his knees. He's lifting a cup of tea to his mouth as I come in, pinky stuck off at an angle. His eyes swivel, but there's no hitch in the arm movement as he takes a long sip and completes his follow through.

"Where is she?" I say.

"She wants to make an entrance," Lou says. I look at my watch: 6:01.

Joan floats in wearing a floor length mauve caftan tucked in at the waist, her hair covered by a silk turban -- your standard Hollywood lounging about the mansion outfit. Lou stands up. She nods to him on her way over to me where she offers her hand, knuckles up, for a kiss. I smooch the air, smelling her coconut hand cream and tying to avoid getting a lip impaled on the jagged setting of a star sapphire ring.

"Jake," she says, "I can't tell you have comforting it is to have you involved in this awful business." Lou's holding the alligator brief case and smiling a benevolent smile as he waits his turn to be recognized. "Hello, Lou. I didn't mean to ignore you," and she walks over to put a hand on his shoulder and run her cheek a couple of inches from his. "Is that the money?"

"Yes, just as the blackmailer wanted." He puts the briefcase down on the coffee table, snaps the latches and lifts the lid, smiling at her like a Fuller Brush salesman showing the wares. "Used hundreds, fifty to a pack, fifty packs, non-consecutive numbers," he says. "As ordered."

"Just exactly what I owe my bookie," I say. Joan isn't pleased.

"This isn't a laughing matter, Jake," she says. She must think I'm joking. Behind her, Lou winks at me while he shuts the lid and snaps the lock.

"That's a nice case," I tell him. "Mind if I give this guy the money in a paper bag and keep it?"

"You're incorrigible," says Joan, and stomps off to fetch a cigarette from a silver box on the fireplace mantle.

"No use paying more wages of sin than we have to," I say, but Lou is silently shaking his head for me to knock it off. Joan turns around and stands dramatically in front of the fireplace, tapping one foot while she holds the unlighted cigarette at port arms. Lou has his gold Dunhill at the ready and scampers over to give her a light. It may be gold, and it may be a Dunhill, but Lou has to thumb the thing a couple of times to get a flame. Not like my Zippo. When he finally succeeds, Joanie sucks in a lungful of smoke, blows it out and thanks him curtly.

"Tell Jake what he's supposed to do," she says.

"Here's the postcard," says Lou, taking it out of his inside pocket. He hands it to me. It's a map, hand drawn with major road numbers included, along with a time and a date: today at 9:00 PM.

"It's pretty obvious," Lou says.

"So I go to this place, whatever it is, at this time on the card here, bring the money and make sure I'm not followed, especially by the police."

"Exactly," Lou says.

"And I give him the money?"

"It's chickenfeed. Joan is one of our biggest stars, if not _the_ biggest." Not for nothing does this guy get fifty an hour. "L.B. won't see her damaged in any way, especially by this kind of hoax. But make sure you get the master of the film. If you can get a description of the blackmailer, or blackmailers, all the better." Lou hands me the briefcase, and gives me a 'we're counting on you, my boy' smile.

I heft it and think how little a quarter million weighs.

Joan drops her pose at the fireplace and comes up to me with furrowed brow. She crushes the cigarette out on the way so she can put both hands on my shoulders and look soulfully into my eyes.

"The main thing is to keep _yourself_ safe, Jake," she says, her big browns scanning my face with little twitches of worry.

"Don't worry, Miss Crawford. If I have to, I'll dump the money and run."

"Wait a second, there," says Lou, before he realizes I'm joking. Then he gives with a practiced chuckle. "I great kidder, Jake is."

"He's a brave man," says Joan, still in character. She plants a kiss on my cheek, automatically turning on the suction. Then she drops her arms, stands back a couple of feet, gives me another soulful stare and sweeps off through the door, consigning me to my fate.

It seems to me she might at least have offered her scarf to tuck in my buckler.

When he's sure she's gone, Lou takes my arm and leads me to the door.

"Let's get out of here," he says. I've got a handkerchief out, rubbing a few ounces of lipstick off my cheek.

Outside, the chauffeur ghosts up next to us in Lou's Limo, which I can't help noticing is a Cadillac V-16 Imperial Sedan. Lou opens the back door, beckoning me closer. After another glance satisfies him that Joanie isn't peaking out an upstairs window, he crooks a finger for the alligator briefcase. I hand it over. He throws it on the floor in the back, takes a cheap cardboard case off the seat and hands it to me. This one's empty.

All this has gone on out without a word being said. I'm holding an empty briefcase, trying not to laugh.

" _This_ one you can keep," Lou says in a half whisper. He sees my expression. "Well, you didn't think we'd send you out there with a quarter million, did you? Among other things, we like you, Jake. We'd like to see you again."

"Couldn't you have at least put some rocks in it?" I ask him, shaking the empty case.

"Now look, Jake," he says like he's about to tell me to cop a plea, "we want the film back but we want to hang on to our money even more."

"So you want me to charm the guy out it?"

"Charm, guile and cunning," he says.

"Sounds like a law firm," I tell him. "What was that performance in there all about?"

"Joan wants to be cherished, Jake – a little more every birthday. So we cherish her, and will until her grosses tank. In short, if you get the film, fine. If you come back without it, also fine. Although in that case, it will help if you're shot or beaten up or something." He sees me about to protest and raises a hand. "It isn't absolute necessary, you understand. We can always just mess up your hair and put a little dirt on your suit. But we have to prove to Joan that we tried our best, don't you see?"

"What if I don't get the film and he calls her again?"

"We'll tell her he's just trying to up the ante. We'll make a fuss. We'll treat her like the star she is. Our concern will know no bounds. And so forth."

"And if he gives the film to the press?"

"LB's talked to Bill Hearst. They're old friends, you know. The upshot is that no paper in the country will print anything about it. And the two old bags" – he's talking about Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, who oversee all gossip in our little village – "are scared of Hearst and actually like Joan, if you can believe it."

"So every body's covered but me."

"We have confidence in you, my boy. Get what you can, but don't take any risks."

"If the guy wants to shoot me, I'll tell him to call you first."

"That's the spirit," Lou says, getting into the back seat of the Limo. The chauffeur in his gray cap has come around and shuts the door, giving me a little salute. The last I see of Lou, he's smiling out at me benignly as the big limo glides silently down the drive and out the gate.

But the truth is, I don't care one way or the other. I don't care about Lou, or Joan, or the money, and especially I don't care about that damned film. I'm going because I have a feeling I'm going to meet my old friend Nick again, face to face. Then I'm going to kill him.

Chapter Twelve

Back at my place, I take out a map of the LA basin. Once I've figured out the highway numbers, the place isn't that hard to locate, although I'll to have to follow my nose when I get off the main road. I check the clock over the stove and see I've got four hours to make it. It's going to take every minute of that.

Before leaving, I look around for something heavy to give the briefcase a little heft, just in case. What to pick? It would be a shame to waste a bottle of scotch. I like all my books. I settle on the economy-size bottle of aftershave an ex-girlfriend gave me one Christmas. It's nice to get some use out of it. I pad it with an old pillow.

My route leads through the grime of East LA, then over the hills into orange groves through Pomona, Claremont and Azusa. In Cucamonga, I turn south, then five miles later, peering again at the post card, I turn east. The hills here are brown and bare, except for some scrub oak in the ravines. The traffic thins down to nothing.

The map on the postcard shows a turnoff around here, but there's no highway number marked so I have to play it by ear, looking down every turn off to see what I can see. Most lead to farm house and these are sparse as I get further from town. The sun has been down for twenty minutes or so when I spot a wooden sign, sagging on some posts off the highway to my right.

The faded paint on the sign is impossible to read until I light it up with the Caddy's baby spot. Then I see the faded words "Wilson's Western Town" and an arrow painting off over a low hill to the south. I recognize the place. I figured this might be the destination. It would fit Nick's sense of humor. It's the western set where we shot that movie all those years ago. Our first job, when I met Beth and Nick blew that camera man to kingdom come. As far as I know, nobody's used it in a long time, at least since the studios built up their back lots. I'm surprised there's still something here.

The western buildings sit down in a little hollow. From the crest of the hill, it looks like a real town, except dark. The only thing moving are dust devils on the evening breeze blowing down main street.

There's a locked gate in front of me, but the wire mesh fence that used to run around the place is mostly gone and there's an opening about twenty feet to the right. I turn the spotlight back on and pick up a couple of fresh tire tracks leading off in that direction. I follow them, driving carefully down the hill, watching for bushwhackers and sharp rocks.

The car jounces around on the rough ground, but it gets me onto the main street. I park in the middle of the street just at the edge of town facing straight down toward some sage brush at the other end, then shut off the engine and sit. No one strikes up the band or offers me the keys to the city.

Closer to, I see that the buildings are mostly ruins. There was glass in the windows once, but what remains are jagged shards sticking up from the frames to catch the fading light. There are maybe ten buildings on either side of me, running down a couple hundred feet to where the desert starts again. The biggest has a Saloon sign on the false front above the street. One swinging saloon door is missing. I train the spotlight through the opening next to it and shine up part of an old bar, but the rest of the room seems to shrink away from the light.

I turn the spot off again and sit there for a minute longer. The daylight is going fast, and the buildings have turned into black cutouts against a blue-black sky.

I sweep the spotlight across the brush behind me, flushing a coyote that's been checking me out. Nothing, so I turn the light off to save the battery. With the coyote gone, nothing moves. I step out of the car and walk around to lean on the hood, still facing down the street. I've got the briefcase with me, held high across my belly hiding the little Remington in my hand.

I don't have to wait long. As my eyes adjust, I notice a faint light spilling out the door of the saloon. I walk that way, staying off the crumbling boardwalk to keep the noise down. Not that my arrival hasn't been noticed, but no reason to present a bigger target than I have to. I can hear a sputtering hiss coming from the saloon as I get closer. The sounds turns out to come from a Coleman lantern set up on the bar and turned down low so its barely glowing. I walk closer to the door. Most of the room is black, but there's plenty enough light to make out Buckaroo Bob Hale,, standing behind the table holding a six shooter and pointing it -- sort of -- at me.

"OK, buddy," he says in what would be a growl if he were sober. "Put the case on the table."

"You're the boss, Sheriff". I want to cooperate. "But first, there's something here I don't reckon."

"Don't what?"

"Don't reckon hardly."

"Stop screwing around. Put the goddam case on the table."

"What I don't hardly reckon is, what's an old cow poke like you doing mixed up with these blackmailin' varmints. I never figured you for a dry gulcher, Bob".

"Shut up," he says. He raises the barrel of the colt, steadies it over his forearm, clicks back the hammer and tries to take a bead. I've stopped a little further from the light than he'd like, and he's squinting into the gloom while the barrel of that gun weaves around.

"It's enough to make me turn in my Buckaroo Bob badge".

"Shut up, goddam it. You think I won't use this thing?"

"No, I think you _can't_ use it, Bob."

"That's what you think, you sumbitch" Bob says, and pulls the trigger. There's a click. Bob looks down at the gun, going slightly cross-eyed to bring it into focus. Everything seems to be in order, so he thumbs the hammer and pulls the trigger again. Another click. "Damn," says Bob. I start walking toward him. He sees me coming and gives it another try. This time the gun goes off with a bang, exploding out of Bob's hand and flying through the air in a glinting arch before it hits the floor with a thud. "Oh Jesus," cries Bob, bending over holding his gun hand. "The goddam thing broke my hand." I walk over, pick up the gun and take a good look. Even in the dim light, I'd spotted that sawed-off trigger guard. It's the prop gun from the old days, the one that fired so many blanks to dispatch so many bad guys in all those two-reelers. That's why I could act so brave. But somebody put a real cartridge in the thing and it backfired. I think I know who the culprit is.

"Where are you, Nick?" I shout. Bob's still bent over, still whimpering about his broken hand. I hear a chair scrape from the darkness at the back of the room, then the barrel of a forty-four automatic pokes into the cone of lantern light. It's followed by a well tailored sleeve and then by the rest of Nick Flanagan, smiling in a tweed sport coat and flannel slacks.

"You wouldn't expect me to let old Bob here have a real gun, would you, Jake? He'd shoot a foot off. Probably mine." His tone is light, but then he turns to Bob. "Wait outside," he says, no more nonsense in his voice. Bob's eyes widen and he heads for the door in half crouch, skulking off faster and straighter than I would have expected. "Never send a Buckaroo to do a man's job," Nick says. "You knew all along."

"That you were around somewhere? Sure. Who'd trust Bob with that much money."

"That it was me with the film."

"Oh that. I wasn't absolutely sure. But then I had a little talk with Brother Roberts."

"Ah, spilled the beans, did he? Probably suffered a pang of conscience, or." and now he smile widens, "more likely a pang of Jake, up along side his head. Well, I suppose it _was_ a little too clever. A little icing on the cake, I thought." He sighs. "But enough about me. Suppose you put that case up on the table here, Jake, and snap it open. Turn up that lamp. I want to see what you've got. And careful now. I would be loath to shoot an old friend." I do like he says. The lamp hiss gets louder. The case snaps open. Nick moves carefully forward. "What's that goddam stink. " he says, peering into the case.

"If you believe the label, it's supposed to be a manly scent with a hint of heather," I tell him. Moving my arm slow, I reach into the case and lift out the bottle of aftershave. The cap must have been loose because the stuff has soaked the pillow.

"Jesus Christ," Nick says, making a face. "Who smells so bad that stuff would be an improvement? Put it back and close the lid. Quick." Which I do.

"So where's the money?." Nick's good humor seems to have deserted him.

"No money."

"No money at all?"

"None."

"Even the case is cheap."

"Cardboard," I point out, helpfully.

"Damn!"

"You didn't really think they were going to give you that kind of dough, did you Nick? A quarter million?"

His shoulders slump, but the gun stays level. "I'll go to the papers."

"The Studio would still like to have the film, if you've really got it, that is."

"You didn't hear me. I said I'm taking it to the papers."

"I heard you. So, why don't you just hand it over now, the film I mean, and we can go get a drink."

"That's rich. Why should I give it to you"

"Why not? Won't do _you_ any good. You could set up a projector in Griffith Park, two shows a night and free popcorn. Wouldn't matter. There's nothing to prove the girl in the film is Crawford, the studios will deny it and all the papers will be on her side. Oh, and Brother Roberts has decided _not_ to bare his soul in public after all. All in all, it will just be more publicity for Joanie, who - let's face it - can use a little pumping up these days. In other words, a big nothing. But here's the good news. If you turn over the film, they won't prosecute. Can't be fairer than that."

"It's not a hoax, you know."

"Sure it is. The whole town's a hoax. Why should this be different?" Nick laughs at that. Laughing, he sticks the gun in his belt and plunks himself down in one of the rickety chairs.

"Well, I'm damned," he says, arms on the table, grinning up at me. He looks relaxed again, but the skin on his face is a little too tight. "Besides which I broke my cardinal rule, which is never point a gun at somebody you don't intend to shoot. Sorry about.." He stops abruptly when he sees the gun in my hand, pointed at him. "You have the same rule, don't you, old pal?"

"Sometimes," I say, reaching over with my free hand to turn down the Coleman.

"Friendship don't count like it used to, I guess," he says. The gun in my hand seems to add to his amusement. "So, you going to shoot me now?"

"I want some answers."

"We're all looking for answers, Jake." My patience for bullshit is small, so I thumb back the hammer. He raises a hand, palm up in supplication. "Ok," he says. "Ok. It was just a scam, like you said. See if I could squeeze a little money out of Mayer. It didn't work out."

"That's not what I want answers about."

He looks at me long and hard. The smile disappears. "I know," he says finally. "You want to know about your daughter. Right?" I nod. "And you think I had something to do with that." I nod again. "Well, I suppose I did. But not like you're thinking."

"Tell me."

He gives me a long look, turns his head a little and shouts toward the street. "You out there, Bob!!?"

The response comes from just outside, full of complaint: "Jesus Christ, my goddam hand's broke."

"Go get in the car. And I want to here that car door _close_. You understand."

"My hand hurts"

"Get moving." I hear the boardwalk creek and a minute later a car door opens and slams shut. Nick turns back to me. "He ain't getting the other fifty bucks, I can tell you that. Pitiful old drunk."

"Why'd you hire him?"

"Somebody better might have actually shot you. Or looked closer at that gun."

I just look at him.

" _She_ came to _me_ , Jake," he says. "That's the first thing to understand. I didn't know who she was, not at first. She was working on one of those geisha contracts for the Studio. You know how it goes. Fifty a week to look pretty, maybe suck a little cock, they keep you around for a year, a new busload shows up and they cut you free. Every five years or so, somebody breaks through, like Lucille Ball. Somebody with a little extra. Jeannie's little extra was looks, I saw that right away. But she couldn't act. Boy, could she ever not act." He shakes his head at the memory "You gotta be a good liar to be a good actor, and she wasn't. Like her mother that way. I even bought her some acting lessons before I figured it out. Hopeless."

"But unlike a lot of them, she knew she was no actress. She knew her time at the Studio was short. And she needed money. That's why she came to me."

"Why you?"

"A couple of the other girls put her on to me. She didn't know who I was. But she'd heard that I was discrete and reliable with a good clientele. Guys who could afford to pay big for it. So she gave me a call. I bought her lunch and checked her out. Prime goods. We started to do business. And whether you believe it or not, I was careful for her. No crazies, no spankers, nobody at all under forty and not too many of those.

"Why?"

"Because I liked her, Jake. Strangely enough. And don't worry. I _never_ try anything with the girls I run. Interferes with business. Plus, you do that and they get the idea they can start running you. But with her I wouldn't have anyway. I liked her. I'd buy her dinner now and again, just to talk. She was suspicious at first, thought I was up to something. But gradually, over the months, she opened up a little. That's when she told me what she needed the money for."

"Beth?"

"I didn't know it then. Just that she had a mother strung out in this whorehouse in Compton. She told me about this madam and her pimp son claiming the mother owed them money. But it was just ransom, Jake. They wanted 10 g's to let Beth go, but the bill kept going up. Living expenses, they said. However much money Jeannie sent, it wasn't enough. She asked me for the 10 G's, but everything I could lay my hands on was going to the bookies. And Jeannie was not the earner I thought she'd be. Part of it was me not wanting to work her too hard. But the main thing was, like I say, she wasn't good at the acting part. She couldn't behave like she gave a damn. I got complaints. And the tips weren't the best."

"That's what you told her?"

"Sure. I level with the girls, Jake. I think she was proud about being lousy at the game. As beautiful as she was, she didn't have to be. But it did cut the take."

"So you went out there, to Compton."

"Dumb, eh? Didn't know why I was doing it, except I liked her. I bribed my way past that baby-faced baboon at the door and went up to her room. Soon as I saw her, I knew it was Beth. And, of course, I knew who Jeannie must be. Jake Thorne's daughter, Jesus Christ! Only, you didn't know it. Now I really had a reason to help her. So I put the arm on that ape to spring Beth, but no dice. He wanted money and I didn't have any. I went back a couple of times."

"You fixed her?"

He looks long at me and the gun. Then he shrugs. "Sure, I brought her some stuff. They were keeping her half strung out all the time. I couldn't stand it. So I gave her some relief. You want to shoot me for that, go ahead."

"Tell me about that night my daughter died."

"I'll tell you in the car."

"Tell me now."

He shrugs. "I didn't even know she was going to be there. It was a recruiting trip for me. Langston owed me money so he tipped me to the action. He told me a flock of new contract players were going to be at his house, I should come by and check 'em out -- and, oh, by the way, could I give him a little more time on his note. There were flock of old timers there, including Buckaroo Bob. I guess you know that. Don't know how the hell he got invited; he was probably the only guy in town Langston _didn't_ owe. But there he was, in his cups, and pawing the ladies. He tried that on Jeannie, and she gave him the old stiff arm right to the chops. It reminded me why I liked her, so I wandered over to say hello. And as I say, I had some good news for her."

"What good news."

"I'd figured out how to get some money to get Beth out of that whorehouse. It had all come together in my mind that night. I'd know about Brother Shoebank's burial scam for a while. I'd been keeping it on file, until I could figure out how to use it. And then I met Crawford,, and discovered how frightened she is about everything. I'd seen the film, of course, like everybody. I knew it would be a cinch to get a copy. So all this was sort of floating around in my mind, and suddenly the idea was there. I could solve my money problem, take care Beth and maybe help set Jeanne up in something legit. That's what I wanted to tell her. It was noisy in the ballroom, so we went outside. I told her what I just told you, that I was putting together a scam that was sure to make me a bundle. I'd see her right and her mom, too. I guess she thought I was stringing her along. She told me she'd solved the problem. Everything was going to be OK. Then she clammed up. So, after a while, I wondered back into the party. The next thing I knew, people were screaming, so I just beat it out the back door. I didn't know why they were screaming, but I don't need the hassle, know what I mean? Found out what had happened in the paper the next morning.

"Why didn't you tell me about the girl?"

"We hadn't been on good terms, now had we, Jake? Even if we had been, what was I going to tell you. That I'm pimpin' your daughter? Then, after she was dead, what was the point?" He pauses. "Added to which, she asked me not to."

"She knew about me?"

"Sure. She knew all about you. I didn't know she'd go so far as to put your picture in her wallet. On her dartboard, maybe, not in her wallet."

"But she didn't come to _me_ for help."

"She wasn't going to come to you at all, not until she'd made it. Then she was going to rub it in your face, old friend. I think that's what kept her going."

"And you don't know who strangled her?"

"The police say it wasn't Buckaroo Bob. So I don't know."

"Langston?"

"Wouldn't be surprised at anything Langston did. But what's the motive? She lured away one of his young men maybe?" He shrugs. "Stranger things have happened."

"Which leaves you."

"I tell you, I _liked_ her, Jake. And something else. I knew by then who she was, and I figured that you'd find out, too, eventually. I know you, Jake. You're stubborn and you got a mean streak. Even if I'd had a motive to kill her, which I didn't, I wouldn't have touched her. I knew that anything I did to her, you'd do to me. Which is why I stopped pimping for her once I found out who she was."

"Why did you try to roust me with the baboon."

"That was stupid. It comes from not being in touch. I figured maybe I could scare you off, which might have worked when you were eighteen. But you are a tougher proposition these days, old friend, and we'd been in touch I would have known. I went along to watch the kid, since I'd told him I didn't want him doing any real damage. Here," he sticks out his chin, "go ahead, land one on me. Make us even."

"How about that film?"

He shrugs and starts reaching into his coat, but I raise the barrel of the gun a little and he stops. He smiles, holds the coat open so I can see what's inside, then fishes a 8mm can out of his inside pocket and tosses it on the table. The can has a piece of white tape plastered across the side with the word 'original' in ink.

"You sure there's a film in there?" I ask him

"Sure there is."

"Where'd you get it?"

"On the street. Twenty bucks. Joan draws top dollar."

"So it's not the original."

"You're joking. Of course not. Doubt there is one any more."

"Joanie won't swallow it."

"Joannie always swallows it, Jake. You know that. She'll know it's not the master, of course. But it isn't about the _film_ , Jake."

"So everyone keeps telling me."

"Now, you gonna let me go?"

"No. I'm going to send you over."

"For what? Blackmail? You think anyone wants you to do that? Not the Studio, and not Joan, that's for sure. So they arrest me. I'm on the street in the twenty-four hours. But the story, Jake. The story runs forever. You're supposed to be keeping it out of the papers, remember?

"You think I care about that? Get up!" He looks at me ruefully.

"You don't think I killed your daughter. If you did, you'd shoot me now.'

"Probably."

"So what is it?"

"You always did tell a good story, Nick. But maybe it's just a story. So I'm gonna check it out, but I want you safe in the cooler while I do. If your story checks, fine. You can deal with the police. Maybe L.B. will let it slide, like you say. Maybe Joan will insist that the Studio puts the screws to you. Who knows? In the meantime, if your story doesn't check out, I'll know where to find you. Then I _will_ kill you. Now get moving."

He can see that he's not going to argue me out of it, so he does what he's told, moving toward the door. I'm behind him, close enough to keep him in view but not so close that he might be tempted to go for the gun. Pretty smart, I'm thinking to myself. Good technique. And it would have been, too, in the daytime. But daylight is long gone, and there's nothing quite as dark as the dessert on a moonless night when you're fifty miles from civilization. So by the time I reach the door, Nick's slid smoothly through and been swallowed up in night blacker than a producer's heart. The lantern light from inside reaches maybe three feet out the door, there's, a strip of starry sky overhead, and everything else is as dark as despair. I can hear the Cadillac's engine still popping somewhere off on the left and faint cursing from Bob. But otherwise nothing. No sound of steps. No boards creaking. So what do I _do_? I stand there like the village idiot in the only patch of light for fifty miles – and wait for my eyes to adjust. Stupid? You bet. I find out _ho_ w stupid when a fist whistles in from the darkness and slams into my temple. Not just a fist, but a fist with brass knuckles attached. That creates a brief flash of brilliant white light tinged with red, but the light is inside my skull instead of outside and it's the last thing I notice for a while. From a great distance I can sense myself slumping down on the rough boards. From an even greater distance I can feel someone rummaging through my pants. And then I've gone away completely and don't feel anything.

It's so dark when I come to that I can't tell whether my eyes are open or not. Only Bob's moaning and my skull's throbbing convince me that I'm not dead. I pat myself down, taking inventory. The gun is gone. The Cadillac's keys are gone. My sap is where it's supposed to be, and so is my trusty Zippo. It lights the scene enough for me to see Buckaroo Bob, sitting on his ass in the patch of dusty street. Bob looks at the flame from the lighter and says: "My goddam hand is broke." The tone of his voice says he blames me. The Cadillac is still there. Its headlights gleam back at me with glassy indifference.

I snap the lid on the Zippo and try to stand up. But in the dark, with my head broke, I can't tell which way is up. So I flick the lighter again and give it another try. This time I make it to my feet and start heading for the Cadillac, holding the Zippo out front like a torch. I can see the car, which is maybe ten feet away. But my direction finder must be broke because I can't seem to walk in that direction. I point that way, but drift left. Finally, it occurs to me to lead the car like a receiver. Pretend it's moving, I tell myself. That works. I decide to rest a minute on the running board, but Cadillac is a snappy new design that doesn't have a running board, so my ass hits the dirt again and I have to slump against the door for a minute to regain my bearings.

"My goddam hand is broke," shouts Bob from the darkness.

"How's the hand, Bob?" I shout back.

"Broke," he screams. That makes me grin. Good to know I haven't lost my sense of humor.

My six iron is still on the back seat where I threw it after my session with Leroy in the alley. After a couple of tries, I manage to jam it up behind the dashboard and lever the wires out of the ignition. Am I going to throw up? You bet, but I get my head mostly out the door before my lunch comes up and spatters in the dust. The lighter flame is sputtering now, low on fuel. There's just enough left to let me tell the red wire from the black wire. When I touch them together the snap of a spark startles me into dropping the lighter in my lap, which burns like hell and snuffs the flame. On the second try, I'm more careful. I twist the wires together, push the starter and the big engine starts on the second turn, as it always does. Some dizziness and dry heaving later, I've got the car in gear. I would shake my head to clear it, but it would hurt too much, so I squint instead. I do a wobbly u-turn down the street and head back down the phony main street toward the highway, stopping where Bob is still sitting there holding his hand.

"Get in," I tell him.

"Fuck you," he says.

So I drive off.

As the crow flies, it's a mile or so to the highway. It's half-mile further by the road, and maybe three miles on the route I take, which involves a lot weaving around and gunning the Cadillac out of ditches. I keep waiting for my head to clear, but things just keep getting foggier and that makes driving an adventure. I run off the road in Ontario, and I have a scare in Pomona when a highway patrol cruiser pulls on to the highway in back of me with his siren going.

The good news is, he's headed somewhere else, and screams by on the left. The bad news is that he's a quarter mile ahead before I realize that anything unusual has happened.

I'm thinking straight enough to realize that I have a concussion, and that I'm not going to make it all the way home. And then I remember Susie's new place in Covina. The next thing I know, I'm sitting in front of her apartment house with my head hurting like hell and not quite sure how I got there. There are twenty apartments and that equals twenty buttons by the little brass mail boxes inside the front door. She's written her name on hers, but I can't seem to stab the right button. When I finally hear Susie's voice over the intercom, sleepy and mad, there are a couple of other sleepy people on the speaker wanting to know who the hell I am.

"Who is it?" Suzie's voice says. I tell her who it is. "Well you can't come up. You sound drunk. What were you thinking, Jake? You're too old for me." I must say something in return, because the next thing I know, she's in front of me in a pink robe, her face scrubbed for bed as clean as innocence itself. I manage to stay upright up the elevator and into her apartment, where I slump on chair in her tiny breakfast noon while Susie dabs at my ear with a washcloth soaked with some sharp smelling liquid that stings like sin.

"You may lose that ear," she says, but I'm fading again. When I come to, she's shining a flashlight in my eyes. I try to swat it away with one hand, but miss.

"Stop that," she commands.

"What are you doing?".

"Be quiet. Your irises are different sizes."

"Birth defect."

"Birth defect hell. You've got a concussion, Jake. I gotta get you to the hospital."

"No hospital. You have a drink?"

"Of water?"

"Scotch."

"Heavens no. It's the hospital for you, young man. I think that ear's still bleeding." She dabs more of the stinging stuff on my ear. I don't know if it's helping my ear, but it does bring me into focus a little better. I try to duck as she heads at me with the washcloth. "Sit still," she commands.

"Where's your room mate?" I ask her.

"Our Lady of the Bursting Bra? She took a powder. Left this morning. Found a sugar daddy who's taking her down Mexico way. She was bragging about it as she as she flounced out the door with her new leather luggage. Leather luggage! Tonight in Tijuana, that's what she said."

"Tijuana? _Some_ big shot."

"Oh, that's the just first stop. After that, the Grand Tour. Rio, Buenos Ares, the South Pole for all I know. Then this big shot is going make Gloria a star. She's got it all figured out. I'm calling an ambulance."

"Who's this big..shot?" I'm having a little trouble putting thoughts together. "She wouldn't tell me. But if it's the same guy who's been calling her on my phone all the damn time. I can tell you one thing about him. He's old. Real old. Older than you even. Now there, that's better." She leans back, staring at the side of my head. "It's still oozing a little. You gonna tell me who hit you?"

"An old friend."

"OK, so _don't_ tell me."

"I should have been more careful."

"On the job, were you?"

"A little delivery for Carnesi."

"Oh, damn, that reminds me," she says. "Some guy called for you at the office. This morning. Said his name was Bugs. Tell Jake Bugs called, he said. Sounds like the kind of guy you'd know. Anyway, he said it was important to tell you this friend of his at the bank – he said you'd know which one – found a withdrawal matching the cashiers check. Said you'd know about that, too. He was laughing. He said you'd love it. The money came from Carnesi's account. Lou Carnesi."

And just like that, the pieces come together. Or some of them, anyway. I know who killed my daughter.

"Tell me about this guy who called for your roommate."

"Stop calling her that."

"What did he sound like?"

"I don't know. Like I say, old."

"Come on, come on. What did he sound like?" My tone makes her recoil a little.

"Jesus, Jake. I couldn't tell. The time I heard, he was sort of talking in a whisper, you know. It was late. He just sounded normal."

"You can do better than that."

"No, no. Just normal, that's all. The only thing struck me as odd was this sound in the background. Like a gravel truck dumping its load. I mean, who would be delivering gravel that time of night? And then it hit me. It was snoring. A woman. Snoring".

And just like that, I know why he killed her.

I give Susie five minutes to put on her clothes. When I tell her where we're going she looks at me as if I'm crazy. So I have to explain, which takes few minutes. My head hurts worse than before, and the details are too complicated so I keep to the essentials. Carnesi murdered the girl, he's headed for South America with Gloria and a quarter million dollars in an alligator briefcase.

"So, _Gloria's_ in on it, too?. Jake, it's the crack on your head talking. I mean I didn't like her rubbing those boobs in everybody's face, but she's no murderer. She came to you with information, remember. Why would she do that?"

"It was bad information. She was trying to set up Flanagan."

"Who?"

"Never mind. Just get your damn keys."

"Why don't you just call the police?"

"First, Carnesi's probably over the border by now. Second, he's got more pull with the cops than I do."

"But you're hurt bad, Jake."

"The keys." It's a couple hundred miles of two-lane down to the border, and I know I'd never make it on my own. She still doesn't want to do it, so I tell her she can damn well stay and start for the door. The problem is that the door won't stay in one place. Suzie's got that cute little jaw set, but something in my stagger must convince her she's got to help.

"You'd go anyway, wouldn't you," she says, coming over to grab my arm. I try to push her aside, still determined to find that door. "Damn you, Jake Thorne. Just lean on me. I don't know what the hell you're doing, but I can't let you do it alone, not in the shape you're in." She helps me out the door and down the corridor and out to the car. When we get there, I slump in on the passenger side. "Can you drive?" I ask her.

"Sure, sure." She says.

"Sure?"

"Sure. I mean, how hard can it be?" It turns out she's joking, although we lurch a couple of times while she learns the clutch. At the highway she starts to turn right, toward LA. But I head her left out east to highway 56 which runs straight south, cutting seventy-five miles off the trip. Then I must pass out for a while because the next thing I know Susie's shaking my shoulder and telling me we're running out of gas. Fifty-six runs through scrub oak country where hills are sizable and towns are sparse. It's only the Cadillac's good humor that keeps us going as far as Temecula, where Suzie spots a bar with a gas pump out front. The pump is locked, but the bar is open and Susie's maiden in distress act gets the bartender out with his key. I see him hustling out to the car, all smiles for Susie who's playing him up pretty good. Then he sees me slumped on the passenger side and his good mood evaporates. Just in time, she flashes my twenty dollar bill. He snatches it with a disappointed grunt, unlocks the pump and fills her up. He doesn't offer to check the tires, and he pockets the change.

We drive in silence after that. I'm in and out of reality. At one point, a Coyote's eyes shine in the headlights just to the side of the road. A little later, the Cadillac hits a pothole, sending a stab of pain through my head. I'm fighting to stay alert and to figure out what I'm going to do when we hit the border, so I start explaining to Suzie what I've just begun to figure out myself. She knows about the murder, of course. But she won't believe that Carnesi is the murderer.

"Carnesi wouldn't murder anybody. He's a lawyer, for God's sake." So I tell her about Carnesi's background, about his years breaking knees for the bosses in Jersey and about Mrs. Carnesi, daughter of the mogul, Lou's fat and sagging claim to respectability.

"You heard her snore," I say. "What do you think she looks like?"

"A hippopotamus?"

"If she shaped up a little, she would." I tell Susie about the rumors I'd been hearing for years about how the wife kept Lou on a short leash, financially speaking, which helped explain why they stayed married. Of course, everybody knew that Lou was screwing the younger talent, but there was nothing remarkable in that. It came with the territory. Which is why Nick Flanagan, always looking for an angle, had introduced Lou to his new girl. Young and beautiful – even by Lou's standard. It wouldn't have been a financial thing, I tell Suzie. No money would change hands. Lou wasn't to know that Nick was slipping Jeannie a couple hundred every time the two of them went out. And why not? From Nick's perspective, it was the perfect set up. He's pimping for a guy who could do him a lot of good in the business, and meanwhile Jeannie's actually grateful. Or so he thought. Of course, he didn't know she was working an angle of her own."

"How do you know this?"

"I don't. I'm guessing. It was something Nick said just before he cold cocked me. He was careful with her, he said. Nobody under forty."

"What was her angle? Jake. Jake! ' I must be nodding off again. "Stay with me, Jake. What was her angle?"

"She was trying to get pregnant. And she did. Looking for the big payday. She was playing them all for suckers. She figured Carnesi would squeal, but then pay up. But Lou was no patsy. She was going to have the baby, which meant that even if he paid her off, she'd be back for more. So he had to kill her."

"Where did Miss Big Tits come in."

"She told me somebody had come to see Jeannie. She wanted me to think it was Nick Flanagan. But I'm betting it was Lou. Maybe he'd come to do the deed right there, with maybe a quickie first just for luck. Gloria knew Jeannie was pregnant, of course. They were room mates after all. Gloria'd been trying to ride those tits of hers to fame and fortune, but it wasn't working out. Now here was a guy who could make it happen. So my guess is that she took a deep breath, leaned way over and gave Lou a look at the promised land. Now he had two more reasons to kill the girl."

What's it all to you? Why are you chasing this guy to Mexico at two in the morning, you with a cracked head. So maybe he made off with some of LB's dough. So what?"

"Why don't you shut up and drive. My head hurts."

"This isn't like you, Jake Thorne. You jerk me out of my pajamas just as I'm going to bed and now I'm driving to Tijuana, of all places, so that you can play policeman. And what will you do if you find him? You can't arrest him. You can't shoo....Oh my God!" Her hands flies to her mouth and she looks over at me. The Cadillac heads for a ditch, but she snaps her eyes back to the road and saws the wheel left just in time. "Tell me you aren't going to shoot him, Jake. I can't help you if you're going to do that."

"I don't have a gun. Somebody took it." I reach around and unclip my empty holster from my belt in the small of my back and show it turn her. She squints at it in the dim light of the dashboard.

"Well, that's relief," she says.

"I'll just have to beat him to death."

She shoots me a quick look to see if I'm joking. I smile to pretend I am.

"Lord, Jake. Anybody'd think it was _your_ money."

"Nah, it wasn't my money he took."

"So...."

"It was my daughter."

I sleep for an hour or so. I don't have to worry about Susie getting cold feet and turning around. Since I told her the story, she's kept her hands clinched on the steering wheel and the gas peddle to the floor. By 1:00 A.M. we've hit the main highway outside Imperial Beach, and ten minutes later we're at the border crossing.

Tijuana sucks up to the border like a leech fastened hard to the crossing point, bloated body stretching out a mile or so in either direction. Prohibition made the place what it is, and every other sign in town advertises some of kind of booze. Four Roses, Jack Daniels – the cheaper the booze, the bigger the sign Once we're through the border we're on TJ's main drag, under a banner commanding us to 'Drink Mexicali Beer" and past the big name joints in town: the Foreign Club, the Kentucky Barrel House, the fancy rococo front of the Club San Francisco. I've been coming here for fifteen years, occasionally to drag some actor out of the local whorehouse, more often to play the ponies. Aqua Caliente is just outside of town, and it's the best track south of San Francisco. Knowing Tijuana the way I do, I've been doing a little deducing about Lou's plan, and I think I've got a pretty good idea.

See, Lou would have been eager to get out of the country. He knew Nick was coming for him because of the money. Even worse would be the guys his missus would hire when she found out what he was up to. The quickest way to T.J. is on the morning flight that brings bettors down to Aqua. It's a Ford Trimotor so slow that birds perch on the wings as it thrashes along; but it'll get you there in an hour and a half, versus five on the road. The plane is how I usually go. I've seen Lou on it a couple of times. From the airport, I figure Lou and the girl would take a limo to the track to stash his dough. They know him there, and they're used to handling large amounts of cash. A quarter million wouldn't raise an eyebrow, or at least one that couldn't be lowered again for a couple thousand bucks. They could wire it anywhere Lou wanted, which would solve the problem of running around Mexico with that kind of cash in his pocket. So far so good. Of course, Lou would want to get himself and the girl out of Tijuana as fast as he could, headed south. But in that direction, Tijuana is a long way from anywhere. Driving was chancy. Driving at night was plain stupid. But I happen to know there's a morning plane from Tijuana that ends up in Mexico City. Once he got to Mexico City, he could breathe easy.

That meant spending the night in Tijuana. Or, at least, that's what I'm betting. So where would the two love birds be now? I think I know.

At one AM in Tijuana, things are just starting to jump. Neon lights are flashing and music spills out of a hundred bars. Whores strut their stuff, pimps eye the crowd and shoeshine boys pluck at your sleeve ready to spit on your shoe, rub it with a brush and charge you a buck. Suzie is wide eyed as we cruise the avenue, bumper to bumper with other gringos looking for action.

"Those women standing out by the street, Jake. Are those whores?"

"Sure. They're _all_ whores. Not all of them are women."

"Don't think I've ever seen a whore before."

"You work with a bunch of them."

"I mean a real one. How could they do it?

"It's just a job, Suzie. Like anything else."

"I don't know how you can say that."

"They're not all bad people. Some just need the money."

"I'd never do that for money." She gives a little shiver of distaste.

"You've never needed money that bad." It doesn't take long to get to the end of the strip, where Suzie does a U turn and starts back.

"What are we going, Jake. You expect to see Carnesi out on the street? Why don't we find someplace to sleep, then head out to the airport at sunup. This isn't doing us any good." But I've caught a glimpse of something down a side street and I want to take another look.

"Turn left," I tell her. Sure enough, a block or so down, parked by itself where it isn't likely to get a scratch, is a nifty little Cord Roadster, a street light glimmer bouncing off its chrome side pipes. Sketch told me that Nick Flanagan owns a Cord, and that he parks it himself to keep the paint from getting scratched. If I could figure out where Carnesi was headed, it makes sense that Nick could, too. Is this his car? Only one way to find out. I tell Suzie to park a little down the street where it's dark. I take the six iron off the seat in back of me and start to get out. But another wave of dizziness hits me. I'm pawing at the door about to and pitch over on my nose when Suzie slips in under my arm and catches my weight. The effort bends her knees a little, but she gives a heave and straightens up. I'm still listing heavily in that direction, but I'm upright more or less.

"Next time you wanna dance, just ask," I tell her.

"Sit down," she grunts.

"I'll be OK. Just lean me on the back bumper for a minute. Here, take this," and I hand her the golf club. "Now, break the window."

"Do what?"

"Break the window. The side widow. The front is safety glass."

"Why do you want me to break the window. Who's car is this, anyway?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Now break the damn window." She still looks doubtful, but rears back to give it a solid swing when a voice shouts 'Hey, what the hell.!?" stopping Suzie in mid-swing. I know that voice, and hearing it means we don't have to break the window after all.

Nick is hustling down the street in our direction. Suzie, looking guilty, hands me the six iron.

"Damn it, Jake. You're getting to be a pain the ass, you know that?" Nick says, a little of breath.

"Just checking to see if it's your car."

"I'll show you the pink ship. Save both of us a lot of trouble. Especially me. This is the girl from your office, right Jake. Suzie, isn't it?" Suzie nods.

"Jake told me to..." she begins.

"Oh, that's Ok", says Nick, flashing those teeth at her. "Not your fault. You're just hanging around with bad company." He surveys the side of my head and whistles. "You're one tough guy, know that," he says. When he peers in to get a better look, I have a chance to take a wild swing at his head with the six iron. He leans casually back out of way. "Damn. I did more damage that I thought," he says. I take another swing, missing by a wider margin than before. It seems to amuse him. He sticks his chin out. "Three swings for a quarter, bud." I figure he's waiting for another roundhouse right, so instead I jab the six iron straight at his chin. He moves his head a little and the club head shoots by. The effort overbalances me and I fall to the pavement, giving an involuntary yelp as my knee hits the grit.

"You about done with that?" Nick says. "Take that stick away from him, would you, young lady?" Suzie's just staring, hand to her mouth, so Nick leans over and snatches the six iron out of my grip. When he leans down, I take a swipe at his legs with my arm, but miss again. "Get it out of your system, Jake." I'm panting on the ground waiting for the red haze of pain to fade.

"We've got to get him to a hospital," Suzie says.

"No hospital," I manage to grunt.

"Would it help if I apologized, Jake? Would _that_ help? I really didn't mean to hit you that hard. But it was dark, and I couldn't take a chance, you know, not with you holding that gun and all. So. Are we still friends?" A well manicured hand open for a shake extends into my field of vision.

"Stop it," says Suzie.

"Go to hell," I say. The hand withdraws.

"It's not _me_ you want anyway," says Nick. "It's Carnesi. _He's_ the killer. Killed Jeannie. Killed Langston, too, in case you didn't know it. Made him eat both barrels of that Purdy. Awful way to use a gun like that. Ruins the bluing. Carnesi described it to me. Not that you give a damn about Langston, but just to show you what a complete homicidal son of a bitch Carnesi is. The thing is, I can _give_ you Carnesi, Jake – if you'll stop trying to knock my block off."

I'm thinking a little straighter now. I motion Suzie to help me up. Nick wants to help, too, but he remembers the blood, glances down at his nice panama suit and decides to supervise instead. "Get him under the arm there. Quit grabbing at her, Jake." With Suzie's help I manage to get more or less upright, although I'm half sitting on the pontoon fender of Nick's Cord.

"You're just after the money," Suzie spits at him.

"True enough," says Nick, talking to her now. "I want the money. Jake, on the other hand, wants revenge. But Jake doesn't know where Carnesi is, and even if he did, what could he do about it? He doesn't have a gun, does he?" At this point Nick whips my Remington out of the front of his trousers with a flourish. "Carnesi, on the other hand, has a .45 automatic. So, let's sum the situation up: one guy's got a big bore handgun, the other guy's got a golf club. I know where I would put my money, and that's supposing Jake knew where Carnesi was or had any way of finding out, which, of course, he doesn't. Do you, Jake?"

"So where is he?" I manage to ask.

"That's for me to know and you to find out...at least for the moment. But I'll give you a hint. Right there where you're standing, you're not more than a hundred yards from Lou's overnight love nest. A five-minute stumble at most."

"How do you know?"

He taps his temple with a finger. "I have an informant, Jake, a stool pigeon watching him every minute. As soon as Lou and the girl got all set up real cozy, I got a call up to my room. In fact, that's my window right up there," he's pointing at the side of the hotel. I like to park where I can keep an eye on my car, especially around here. I was checking out my window and I saw you and this little lady busting into it.

"So why don't you just go surprise Lou and get the money?"

"Because now _you're_ here, Jake. Truth to tell, I was half expecting you, and thinking about what to do if you showed up. Bring you along, that's what I decided. So come on, Jake, we'll go get Lou together, you and me, like old times. You can cover my back."

"Leave the girl here," I tell him. It's as much as I can manage.

"Sure. That's the plan."

"I go where Jake goes," says Suzie, but before she can get the whole sentence out, Nick has her by the elbow. I can only watch in my half daze while he gets her arms behind her back and pins her elbows behind her. A couple of whores pass with their johns headed for a staircase down the street, and one of the guys looks like he might try to do something, but the whore tugs at his arm and they keep moving. Suzie is game and thrashing around, but Nick is faster and strong enough to hold her with one arm while he levers the Cord trunk open. The next thing I know, she's in the trunk with lid slammed down. She's still screaming, but it's muffled. .Probably won't draw attention. Nothing unusual, I'm guessing, in this part of town.

'You ready to go, Jake?"

"I don't think I can walk."

"Sure you can. I'll help." I've hoped to catch him by surprise, but I can't seem to raise the golf club. He notices me trying. "Listen, old friend," he says, gritting his teeth with the effort of keeping me upright. "You've had your swings. If I was going to kill you, you'd be dead by now. If you were able to kill me, I'd be dead. Guess what. Both of us are alive. So just calm down and come along. And try not to bleed too much on the suit." There's nothing to do but let him half-carry me down the street and around the corner onto the main drag. And he's right. I need him to find Lou.

"Where are we going?," I ask him.

"To Caesar's, of course."

"Makes sense."

"Lou didn't _want_ to stay there. He figured in a Hollywood hangout like Caesar's he'd run into every swinging dick he ever knew. But that young dolly insisted. She wasn't coming to Tijuana and stay at no dump, that's what she told him, and if he wanted to get his bugle blown tonight he'd damn well take her to a class place. And there's only one of those in town. When I found out where Lou was staying, I got myself a room there, too. Might as well be comfortable."

The entrance to Caesar's is just around the corner. Inside the big double doors there's a long tile floored arcade stretching back to a bronze-doored elevator. We get some attention shuffling through, but Nick stays calm: "Just keep the legs moving and the mouth shut," he tells me. We'll be there in a second." We're coming up on the elevator now. The operator, a reedy Mexican in a button front uniform, smiles his automatic smile and waves us in, but an elegantly bald gent in a grey suit blocks our progress.

"Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Thorne, can I be of help?" It's the owner, Caesar Cardini, a piece of European jetsam washed on these shores after the War. He's the guy who first thought to mix raw eggs in salad. It's disgusting if you ask me, but it made him rich and famous and he's learned to act that way. Behind him there's a powerful looking Mexican hard case in a double breasted white suit, which is a good thing to wear if your packing heavy hardware. I figure him for the house dick.

"Caesar, old buddy, how you doing?" says Nick.

"Good to see you, Mr. Flanagan. Going up to your room?"

"Sure enough. Jake here got mugged. I remember when Tijuana was a nice place. Fellah could walk on the streets at night. I'm going to give him a stiff drink. He'll be alright."

"Perhaps I should send a doctor up," says Caesar in a tone which says he's going to do it whether we like it or not, and maybe the house dick into the bargain.

"Sure, Caesar, you do that. You know my room number."

"Of course. Take them to three," he says to the elevator operator.

"We'll be waiting," says Nick. The next second, we're in the elevator. When we get to three, a bell dings and door opens. The operator has his back to us. Nick's still holding me up with one hand, but with the other he takes my rod out of his pocket and plants it, butt first, into the back of the operator's head. The Mex says _madre_ something or other and slumps into the hall. Nick and I step over him.

"We gotta take the stairs," Nick says. The door to the stairs is at the end of the hall, but I'm not going to make it, so Nick picks me up, fireman's carry, pushes through the door and starts down the stairs toward the second floor. "It'll take 'em a few minutes to find the guy, then they'll go to my room. After that, all hell will break loose, but we should be done with our business by then" Luckily for Nick, who's breathing hard under my weight, the room we're going to is next to the stairwell. It's a big door at the end of the hallway with a brass plaque. I feel myself sliding off his shoulder and propped up, nose first, against the door. I groan

"Who's there?" It's Lou's voice from inside.

"Open the door, Jake," Nick whispers to me.

"No key," I grunt, trying to think straight.

"Don't worry," Nick says. I feel his arm reach around me and grab the knob. "It's open." He turns the knob, the door swings wide and Nick shoves me on through. I stumble a couple of steps and head for the floor not far from where Lou Carnesi is standing in a shocked embrace with the bounteous Gloria. They're mostly naked. The girl's wearing white knee socks over patent leather pumps. Lou's in tented-front boxer shorts. He's shirtless, his chest thick and hairy with four long, scabbed over scratch marks running down his shoulder blade.

I watch the rest of it from the floor. "Nick, baby, what took you so long." This from the naked girl, who jumps back from Lou as if he's suddenly electrified, bounces across the bed and snuggles up to Nick. That solves the problem of where Nick's information was coming from. " I unlocked the door when he was in the bathroom. He didn't hear me. I was scared to death."

"Sure, baby, sure. Good job. Now put on some clothes, we're getting out of here." The girl scrambles after her blouse and Nick looks at Lou, who's mouth is slack. "So what did you think, Lou " he asks him. "That she was with you for the great sex? Is that the money?" Nick is nodding at the alligator case which sits on a night stand."

"That's it," says Gloria, buttoning her blouse. "He was nervous about having it in the room. Want to take it to the bank here and wife it the Mexico City. But the banks were closed." Nick has the top of the alligator case open and is looking down with a smile at all those neat stacks of twenties, just where they were when I saw them in Crawford's living room. Nick admires them for a moment, then snaps the lid shut and hand the case to the girl, who's looking respectable again.

Gloria's all buttoned up now. "Let's get out of here," she says.

"Just a minute," says Nick. He walks over to where I'm laying, bends down, slips an arm under my shoulder and half lifts, half pushes me onto a chair. Meanwhile, Lou seems to be coming out of his shock. "Take the money," he says to Nick. "The girl, too. Just get out of here." Just then somebody hammers on the door.

"Mr. Carnesi. Open up." I figure it's the blunt little Mexican who rousted us in the lobby, and he seems to mean business.

"Open this door!" It sounds like Cardini's voice, with most of the polish off.

"Are you in there, Jake?" That's Suzie, screaming in the background. Well, well, the gang's all here.

"Oh Jesus Christ," says Gloria, who sounds discouraged. But all those voices in the hall seem to cheer Lou up.

"I got friends around here, wise guy," he says to Nick. " They'll put you in jail to rot."

Nick doesn't seem to be bothered. He's leaning over me, pressing something into my hand. I recognize the cold slickness of my little Remington

The girl is amazed. "Don't give him the gun, baby. What are you doing?"

Nick ignores her. He's threading my trigger finger through the guard and whispering in my ear. "Shoot him, Jake. Shoot the son of a bitch!"

I'm thinking about it. Carnesi is losing some of his composure, babbling about something or other, his arms out. I can't make sense of what he's saying, though it occurs to me he's pleading for his life. I wonder absently whether Jeannie pleaded with him before he strangled her. Somehow, I don't she did.

"I'm in hurry, Jake," says Nick. "Shoot him!" He lifts my gun hand

"Goddamit," says the girl.

"Shoot him, Jake!" Nick says.

"Why..?" is all I can manage.

Nick is leaning real close to my ear. "Like I told you. I _liked_ her, Jake. I really did. Now _shoot him_!"

I want to. I think I can, if I concentrate. The shouting from the hall is getting louder. Nick glances in that direction.

"Oh well," he says. I feel the gun being taken from my hand. "You always did need someone to do the dirty work." The cough from the silencer and the splat of the bullet hitting Lou in the chest are almost simultaneous. I'm trying to keep from slipping down the black slope. Lou has a hole in his shoulder above the heart, and there's a spray of blood on the wall behind him. But he's still standing.

The banging on the door is louder. Somebody's fumbling out there to get the key in the lock. "We're coming in," a voice shouts.

"Shoots a little left, Jake" says Nick. He's watching Lou with interest. Lawyers, like rats, are hard to kill, and Lou looks more puzzled than scared.

"What good will this do you?" he asks, blood streaming from the side of his mouth.

"None," says Nick. He pulls the trigger again. The gun coughs and the bullet splats into Lou's chest dead center. The big man starts to sway, catches himself, falls backward against the wall then topples over to the side. As he does, the door bursts open. The short Mexican comes in the room low, a gun in his hand, but Nick has whipped around and has the little Remington trained on him. I can see him squeeze the trigger. But the gun backfires. I'm thinking I should have warned Nick about that silencer as the Mexican's shot buries itself in Nick's face, right below his left eye.

When I come to again, it's in a hospital in LA a couple of days later. Suzie is the first thing I see. She's arranging a bunch of yellow roses on the bedside table. I depart this world again for a while. The next few hours are a mix of dreams and sensations. At one point I think Sketch is sitting in the metal chair on the other side of the room, with the damn tomcat in his lap. Jeannie and Beth hover over the bed. I talk to them, but they just look down. Then Suzie's there again, in the chair where I remember Sketch sitting. She's got her legs crossed reading a fan magazine. Dietrich is on the cover. I ask her what the hell she's doing, and to my surprise she gets up and runs out. But she's back in a minute with a doctor in tow

"He said something, doctor," she says.

"Big deal," I croak. The doctor is shining this damned flashlight in my eyes and

the next thing you know he's shot a needle in my arm with something that puts me out again.

When I wake up this time, Connie is leaning over me in her starched whites, that a stiff angel cap perched on her head. She's adjusting something above my head, and I use the opportunity to stare down the neck of her uniform, which gets her attention. She stands up, but with a smile that makes me forget the ache in my head.

"So, I made it to heaven after all," I say. She leans over and kisses my forehead.

"You will just as soon as you're feeling a little better. I promise" she says. Then she kisses my forehead again.

I know where I am, of course. It's the clinic, the nice wing with the flowers and the windows. Connie is taking my case personally, and eventually I get to where I can sit up and eat and talk. The next time Suzie shows, I'm feeling maybe thirty percent. She tells me that in the confusion after Nick and Lou were killed, she'd had a chance to rifle Lou's wallet, which she'd just happen to discover in the pocket of his pants over the back of a chair. Figured he must have a little walking around money in there. Sure enough, there was a cool grand in hundred dollar bills. She took it to pay an ambulance, complete with nurse, to get me back.

"I hope you took it all."

"I wouldn't have if I hadn't need to get you to a hospital. I'm not a thief, Jake."

"Bet the ambulance didn't cost you the whole grand," I tell her. "So what did you do with the change?"

She's arranging carnations in a hospital vase. "Got myself a dress to replace the one you bled on," she says. "And with the rest, I bought these flowers." She gives them a final flounce just as I fall asleep again.

My first day back at the office is a few weeks later, and when I get there I find a note on the door. Mr. Mayer wants to see me. So I walk down the hall, up a couple flights – pausing a couple of times since I don't feel that chipper yet – and into L.B.'s outer office. When Ida sees me come through the door, she gets flustered. I plant my hat on the rack and give her a big smile.

"Hi yaw, Ida" I say.

"Hello, Jake," she says with a nervous smile. "Mr. Mayer's on the phone. He's going to be tied up. Unexpectedly. He's asked Howard to talk with you.

"What's up," I ask her. "Somebody die?"

"Oh no, no. Nothing like that." She's about to say something else, but instead puts on some dictation headphones and turns back to the typewriter. She clicks away, then stops, then starts, then throws the headphones down on the desk and bolts past me out the door.

Howard Strickland's office is down the hall, and he's waiting for me in the hallway.

"Jake, you're looking better than ever. We were worried about you for a while there. How are you feeling?"

"What's up, Howard."

"Come on in, Jake.

"I was supposed to see L.B."

"I know. He's asked me to talk with you. Come in", and he ushers me from the door past his secretary and into his inner office. He's got back to back sofas in front of his desk, and when I'm safely placed in one of them, he plunks himself down in the other, takes a big breath and gets down to business

"I've got news for you, Jake," he says. "We've just assigned Crawford to make a blockbuster. Big project, a couple million."

"I'm happy for her"

"That's the team spirit, Jake. That's what I always say about you. Jake has team spirit."

"You wanted to see me about something."

He makes the long stretch up to pat me on the back. "The point is, Jake, L.B. is taking you out of the lineup."

"Putting me on the bench?"

"We don't have a bench, Jake, you know that. Either you're playing, or you're off the team. You're off the team. As of this morning."

"I thought I'd been picking up some yards for our side, Howard. Moving that old pigskin."

"And so you were, Jake, so you were. But the thing is, Joan is important to the studio. One of our stars. One of our _greatest_ stars. Not the sort of person we can substitute for, if you see what I mean. There isn't anyone like her." He muses on that for a minute. "It's comforting when you think about it."

"So what does that have to do with me?"

"You've offended the lady, Jake. God knows how, but it isn't hard you know. She thinks you were a little insensitive about the business with the -- off color movie. If you ask me, she just wants to put the whole incident behind her. Including your part in it, I'm afraid. That's what she says, at any rate. But who knows, eh?"

"It wasn't her in the movie."

"Yes, well, who's to say. Anyway, L.B. argued with her about it. But she's a lady of iron whim, and she seems to have conceived a strong dislike to you. A very strong dislike. I'm afraid that's all there is to it, really," and he holds up his hand and shrugs at the infinite mystery of women.

I get up. I'm waiting to feel mad about getting the bounce, but all I feel is liberated. One reason is that I have just realized that I wouldn't have screwed Joanie even if I'd known this would be the result. That must represent personal growth. And what's more important than personal growth?

"I'll go back and clean out my office," I tell him. He walks around the desk, shakes my hand, squeezes my shoulder and hustles me toward the door like the bouncer he used to be.

"No need, no need. We've taken care of that, my boy. Couldn't have you straining something after all. It's in a box at the gate. Oh, except for the print, sailboat was it? That's Studio property. Just sign the receipt and the rest is all yours."

Somehow, I know they've already changed the locks.

Charlie Two-bits, my bookie and all-purpose guru, explained life to me. We were at his usual table, the one he's keeping warm for his brother. I was drinking scotch and counting twenties on to the table cloth. He was drinking ten-buck a bottle French wine and watching the waiter fork a pound of tenderloin on to his plate. We were talking about the ponies. I tell him I figure the races at Hollywood Park are fixed. Like this horse Quicksilver I'm paying off on. Off his form, he shouldn't have worked a sweat against a field of nags the dog food people would have looked twice at. And sure enough, he broke on top. At the head of the stretch, he's cruising. Then the jock starts letting him drift so wide I think for a second he must be headed back to the barn. I'm shouting at the son of a bitch, waving my arm, pointing. Hey, bozo, the finish line's that way! The rest of the horses are doing a mile and an eighth, just like it says in the racing form, but thanks to this crooked jock, my nag is running at least six furlongs, and even then he's only second by a length of two. And why, I want to know.

Charlie interrupts me. "You just don't like losing?"

"Damn right I don't. Especially if the races are fixed."

"Of course they're fixed," says Charlie, whose mother must have forgotten to explain about not talking with your mouth full.

"So how's a fellah supposed to win?"

"You're not supposed to win, Jake. You're supposed to lose."

"I never thought about it like that," I tell him, real sarcastic. But Charlie isn't having any.

"That's your problem, Jake, you don't mind me saying." He diddling with a swizzle stick, waiting for me to eat and go. He's got other collections to make. But then it's like he decides on something, so he puts the swizzle stick down and leans over to me.

"Jake," he says, "I've known some bad gamblers in my time, but you're the worst. Those handicappers you're complaining about? I wouldn't be surprised they follow you around, wait until you bet and then slide the odds the other way. It's getting to where I hate to take your money, and when a bookie tells you that, you know you have a problem. In addition to which, I gotta listen to you whine about it. So I'm going explain something to you. You say you go to Hollywood Park, right?" I nod. "So, what do you pay to get in?"

"You know as well as I do, Charlie. Two bucks. That's the grandstand, of course. Used to be six bits, I remember. And that's another thing.." he holds a hand to cut me off.

"You ever notice how many people are working there?" He asked.

"Never paid any attention."

"Well, _think_ about it. You got your valets parking cars, and your ticket takers and your clerks working the Para mutual, not to mention the gardeners – nice lawn out there, right? Then you got your grooms and your hot walkers and your exercise boys and the guys who shovel up the horseshit. A lot of overhead. Not to mention, they _do_ have to pay off on a bet every so often, since not everybody who plays the ponies is as dumb as you."

"So, what's your point?"

"You think your two _bucks_ pays for all that? Think again. Two bucks from every jerk who ever leaned on a rail wouldn't pay to shovel a week's worth of horseshit and truck it out to Pomona, not to the mention all the rest of it. So what does pay for it? I'll tell you," and here he leans in and sticks a finger in my face. "The _take_. The take pays for it. They don't call it the give, Jake. They call it the _take_." The way he says the word, it sounds like a sacrament. "Lose? Of _course_ you lose. Losing is just your end of the deal."

"Don't give me that crap, Charlie. A con's a con."

He exasperated. "Let me ask you something, Jake. You have a good time at the track?"

"Sometimes."

"You keep going back."

"I suppose. Like I said, sometimes I have a good time."

"So here's my advice. The track is like life. Enjoy it when you can. But always remember that somebody's got to shovel the horseshit."

"You know everything, don't you, Charlie."

"Yes I do, Jake. Yes I do."

I spot the big tom cat outside Phil's as I get near the door. He's curled up on top a newspaper vending machine, eyes closed. Inside, Sketch is already sitting at the table, his bad leg stuck out straight into the aisle.

"Pardon me for not standing to attention, General," he says as I come in.

"Your guard is sleeping on duty," I tell him.

"Oh, he ain't sleeping, General. He's feigning. Confuses the enemy." I take the seat by the window and stare out at the traffic on Pico. The waitress shouts over from the counter, asking if we want the usual. We both nod, and Sketch gives her a smile.

"So," he says after a minute. "Hear you got the boot. That mean I'm going to have to start buying my own lunch?"

"Plus three squares a day for your old buddy," I tell him. "I'd move _in_ with you, but I got a feeling your place smells of cat."

"Never noticed," he says.

"I'll bet."

"What are you going to do?"

"I figure I'll set up on my own," I say.

"Doing what?"

I tell him. I've been thinking about it for a while, even before all this business of the last few weeks. The question I asked myself was, why is Mayer paying me? He was paying me for what I knew, and the people I knew, and what I knew about the people I knew. Plus a little muscle from time to time. If he was willing to pay for it, I figure other people might, too. So earlier this morning I put a deposit on a little office above a dry cleaners over on Santa Monica. It's got what I need: a couple of telephone lines, a desk with a drawer for my scotch. No separate toilet in the office, but I do have the bottle of toilet cleaner. It was in the box of stuff I picked up on my way out of MGM.

"So what are you going to call yourself," Sketch asks.

"Whadda you mean."

"I mean, in the phone book. What's the title?"

"Security Consultant," I tell him.

He tries to look impressed.

The other thing I've brought from the old office, I tell him, is Susie. I told her that I couldn't afford to pay her what she's making at the Studio. "In fact, you'll be working for tips," I said, which made her grin. She told me that would be OK, as long as she didn't have to drink with the customers.

"Congratulations," he says when I'm finished describing my plans. "I suppose, under the circumstances, you'll be wanting to put me on retainer."

"You're eating it," I tell him.

He thinks about that a minute, chewing his hash. The he nods. "Well, Colonel" he says, and he's grinning now, "I guess I can live with that."

Damn! Busted down to Colonel. No staff car, no swagger stick, no parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Well, I worked my way up from the ranks once, I can do it again.

"I hear they aren't going to prosecute that girl." Sketch says.

"The funny thing is," I tell him, "she turned out to be a fine actress after all. When she told Fitts how Carnesi had held her as a love slave – don't laugh, that's what she said – and how she'd played along looking for a chance to get away and find out more about his plans, and then how she tricked him into leaving the rest of us alive, I damn near believed it myself. She was crying and heaving her bosom and clenching those little fists until her knuckles turned white."

"And the DA bought it."

"Well sure, why not? Of course, it might have helped that some money changed hands. Quite a bit, from what I hear."

"I guess L.B. didn't want anybody opening his can of worms."

"He did not. If the girl had gone to trial, the whole business would have come out. The next thing you know, Joan would have been ranting all over his desk and the papers would be having a field day."

"That would have been just peachy with the DA, of course."

"Well, like I say, a lot of money changed hands."

"Still, Carnesi got his."

"He did."

"And your old buddy, Nick Flanagan, too."

"Right."

"But maybe Flanagan didn't deserve it?"

"He'd done enough at one point or other to deserve just about anything bad that happened to him. Nick was always fighting a little above his weight. He thought he could use the Crawford connection and con Mayer out of a few hundred grand. He should have stuck to penny ante."

"So he never had a chance."

"Even Jeannie was using him, as it turned out. He was at the party that night to do some recruiting for his string, just like he told me. But he'd already played his role in Jeannie's plan. She was pregnant and ready to squeeze Carnesi. I think she'd probably called and told Carnesi to be there. She wanted to see him alone. Which suited Lou fine. After he strangled her, he made through the bushes. He only lived a couple of blocks away. By the time I called, he was home cleaning the blood off his shirt."

"Carnesi had some dough. He could have paid them all off."

"But most of the money belonged to his missus. He'd married her to get his hands on it, but she's a canny old bird and never got around to putting Lou's name on the bank account. And Then he probably figured Nick would put two and two together. Nick would squeeze him until he was bone dry, then probably blow the whistle on him just for the hell of it. Plus Lou was in love. He needed to get out from under."

"Carnesi didn't know that Jeannie was your daughter."

"Not at first, anyway. But Flanagan did, and he was worried. What if I found out? Maybe I already knew. So he followed me around in that Oldsmobile. And he went to see Jeannie again, to ask her. But she was pretty far gone, but the visit spooked her. She'd avoided me for seventeen years, but now she was scared for herself and for Jeannie. I was the only one who would believe her about Nick, and could do something about it. That's why she sent me that note."

"So why didn't Nick blow the whistle on Carnesi when he saw the blackmail money wasn't in the case?"

"Because he still wanted it. And he needed it now, because chances were he would have to get out of town. And, thanks to that girl, he knew where Carnesi was going."

"You had this all figured at the time."

"No. But I knew something was fishy. Nick hadn't been mad enough when the money wasn't there. Shocked, at first. But not mad. His mind was already working, and he had a back up plan."

"And you ended up being a golden opportunity. He'd just have to make sure it was your finger on the trigger. Then he'd grab the money and the girl and blow south, with nobody chasing."

"That was probably it."

"What do you mean, probably?"

"I think there was something else."

"What?"

"I think Nick wanted me to be the shooter. But the main thing is, he wanted Lou shot. Not just because of the money, either."

"Why else?"

"Because of Jennie Like he said. I think he actually liked her."

Chapter Thirteen

A week later, I'm in a good mood. I've been talking to Lilly. She's still at Connie's, looking more like her age by the day. She brags she'll be walking without a limp by the end of the month. Connie's teaching her to read.

A priest I know runs a girl's boarding school. She'll have to be baptized and she's bitching about that, which is a good sign, I suppose. My guess is, she'll be running the place in a month.

I'm feeling better, too. I still get these headaches and double vision now and then, and I still have spells where I think I'm Calvin Coolidge, but generally speaking I'm back in fighting trim. And I'm kidding about the Coolidge thing, since, as you probably know, he was a Republican, and I've never felt _that_ bad.

One thing, though. I'm less tolerant. Not just professionally, but in general. I just don't goddam well _tolerate_ some things any more. Which is why, although L.B. fired me and I've got nothing to do with the Studio any more, I'm parking the Cadillac in front of this new, arty ten-story office building on Vine. I've going to have a heart to heart with that producer Sketch told me about, the one feeding pills to the teenage singer.

I called the guy's office to make an appointment. The secretary said that since I didn't work for the Studio anymore, he wanted to know my business. I told her. I could hear him in the back ground saying I could go fuck myself, that's not how she put it when she came back on, the line.

The Santa Ana's finally blown itself out, there's a breeze from the West, and you can smell the ocean like a promise.

The producer's a slick operator named Pickering, and when I bust into his office he's sitting behind a big, blond-wood desk, a puffy bald guy with a waxed scalp who needs to shave twice a day but doesn't. As soon as he sees me, he stands up with a jerk, knocking his chair over against the window behind him. He knows why I'm here. He starts jabbering about his connections and about how I don't know who I'm dealing with. Meanwhile he's looking side to side like he's hoping maybe there's a back way out he's forgotten about. But there's only one door, and it's behind me.

I don't bother with hello. I just stride up to the desk and then over it, using a chair for a step stool and planting a foot in the middle of the head shots he's been reviewing. He'd been thinking I'd have to come around one side of the desk or the other, then he could scamper the other way and make his break. People aren't supposed to walk on your desk. When it dawns on him that I've done it anyway, it's too late. All he can do is stand there, a sheen of sweat beading on is upper lip.

I don't say anything. I don't have to. He knows what's coming and why.

I put a foot behind his knee, swing him around and dump him on the rug. He's got one of those big-shot-producer-wall-to-wall carpets, plenty thick. But he hits it with a grunt, hard enough to knock the wind out. He's trying to scramble up, but before he can I'm sitting on his chest, holding one of those amber pill bottles in front of his face. You know, the kind you get at the drug store. I've had a friend make up some little blue pills; they rattle around in there when I show him the bottle. He's sweating more than ever; the vapor from his aftershave rises up like a fog, stinging my eyes. Unscrewing the lid on my little bottle, I reach down and pinch those fate cheeks together, digging my fingernails in, forcing his mouth open like you'd give pills to a dog. He's trying to say something, but it's hard to talk with your tongue in a vice so it sounds like the squeak a rat makes in a trap. Holding his cheeks with one hand, I tip a trickle of pills into his mouth, ram the heel of my hand up under his chin and force his mouth closed. He's trying not to swallow, so I use my other hand to pinch his nose closed. It's an old doctor trick. Try it some time. Swallow you will.

Behind me in the outer office I can hear the secretary shouting something into the phone.

"Those pills in your mouth," I say. "It's the same stuff you been feeding that singer. A bigger dose, of course." I let that register. "You listening to me," I ask. He tries to nod his head against the hell of my hand. "OK, pay attention. Have your stomach pumped. In the future, be a good boy. Because the next time you're tempted to play drug store with somebody underage, I'm going to be tough on you. Not easy like this. You understand?" I can feel him trying to nod his head again. He probably thinks he's going to die. I hope his squalid life is flashing before his eyes.

I let go his chin and get up. He rolls over and begins spitting pills onto the carpet. He's hacking a cough, trying to bring them all up. I consider telling him it's just a laxative, but why spoil the fun? And everyone should have a good stomach pumping once in a while; it cleans you out and discourages bad behavior. I'm doing the guy a favor. I walk out past the secretary, who's back in the corner clutching a letter opener to her chest and watching me go.

Yeah, I'm definitely less tolerant. But otherwise I'm feeling pretty good.

The graves are on a ridge outside Pacific Palisades, in a small private cemetery that doesn't take county business. You walk through the ranks of marble angels to a section with simple stones set into the ground.

I remembered how Beth and I spent our time together, me telling her we might get a view of the ocean, so I've made sure to get her an ocean view. I never knew our daughter, but I imagine she'd like it, too. So here they are, side by side. A priest is there to read over the grave. I don't understand the Latin, but something comes through that makes me feel a little better. It's getting on to evening when he finishes, and I walk him back to the cab. Then I go back to graves and watch the ocean swallow the sun.

Connie and Lilly offered to come, and Suzie and Sketch too. But I told them I wanted to do this alone. So I _am_ alone, except for a black cat that seems to be doing picket duty fifty yards away.

When we were sitting together by the fire that last night before all this started, Nick said something that keeps coming back to me. He said you never think you're going to do something you can't un-do, some bad thing that's just going to get worse and worse no matter how sorry you are or how much you try to stop it.

I didn't know what he was talking about then.

Now I do.

The End

