Puker opened his mouth, but closed it when he saw the look on the big man’s face. Then he said, “Hey, dude, you can’t threaten me. I’m a citizen of Los Angeles. Haven’t you guys figured out you can’t go attacking civilians?”

Jack wrapped his fist around the neck of Puker’s T-shirt, raised him onto his toes. “Listen to me, you little puke, I want to see those photos this minute or we’ll book you for extortion and interfering with a police investigation. We’ll get the photos anyway, and you’ll have no chance at all with the studio.”

Puker looked at Detective Vasquez, who was studying his fingernails. He shrugged.

“The photos,” Jack said, and shook him. “Now.”

“I want to call my lawyer, he’ll-”

Jack said in the same pleasant voice, “Last chance, Puker. Really, you don’t want to mess with me or I just might stuff you in your fridge.” And Jack smiled at him, released his shirt and smoothed it, tough since it was so wrinkled.

Puker jumped back, splayed his hands toward them. “Hey, my fridge isn’t all that bad.”

Daniel said, “If you don’t suffocate in the fridge, then I’ll take you down to my jail, let you think things over in a holding cell with a dozen or so other upstanding citizens. How’s that?”

Puker looked undecided, then he belched, shrugged. “All right. Come back here. I made my second bedroom into a darkroom.”

Daniel grinned at the back of Puker’s head as they followed him to his makeshift darkroom.

Puker closed the door and flipped on an overhead red light. The room looked like any professional darkroom Jack had ever seen, everything neatly in its place and well cared for, quite unlike the mess in the rest of the apartment.

“The photos are here.” Puker handed them three color prints, still a bit damp at the edges.

Daniel turned on a lamp back in the living room and studied the photos. “Well, I’ll be,” he said after only a moment. “How about that?”

“What?” Jack asked. “You know this guy?”

“Yeah, I think most everybody at my station knows him.” He turned to Puker. “See how easy it is to be a fine upstanding citizen, Mr. Hodges? Thank you for your invaluable assistance in this case. It’s very possible that Mary Lisa won’t be inclined now to press any charges against you. But who knows? Keep your nose clean.”

Neither man spoke until they were in Daniel’s car, the air-conditioning turned on high.

“Well?”

“Jack, my man, this here is Stuart Clapper, been in and out of prison since the age of thirteen, not very bright, but street-smart. He does coke, sells on the side, sent up for assault a few years ago. I think he beat a rape charge once. There’s a problem though.”

Jack arched a black brow. “Yeah, what?”

“I’ve never heard of him having a thing for any female celebrities.”

“Well, there’s always a first time.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll track down an address for him. We should have time to show his photo to Mary Lisa, see if she recognizes him. Lou Lou too. She’s so sharp it’s scary. She would remember him if he’s been around Malibu.”

“Where does Lou Lou live?”

“She doesn’t make the big bucks Mary Lisa makes, so she lives inland, about four blocks. Not that it matters, she’s at Mary Lisa’s house-along with half of Malibu-most of the time.”

Daniel opened his cell. After a couple of minutes, he said to Jack, “Clapper just finished up ten months of parole. His P.O. only had his last known address. It’s real common, the day the parolees are through, they’re gone. Still, we’ll check.”

They drove in silence, Daniel weaving southeast, through the bleakest parts of central L.A. that had Jack thinking of the fresh sea air in Goddard Bay.

Daniel asked, “What’s with you and Mary Lisa?”

“Nothing,” Jack said. “At least nothing anymore. We had what you might call a meeting of the minds.”

“You groveled, huh?”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“Okay, here we are, Sixty-four Kemper Street.” Daniel pulled to the curb, pointed up at a tired, peeling gray four-story building that looked like it was condemned, or should have been. There were air-conditioning units hanging out of a few of the windows, but no fire escapes that Jack could see. “It’ll smell like cabbage in the hallways,” Daniel said. “It always does. I don’t know why that is.”

Jack said, “It’s true in Chicago too.”

It took them thirty minutes to get past the sullen stares and mumbled responses of two of the neighbors and find out from the super that Stuart Clapper had been gone for three weeks as best he could figure, no forwarding address. He’d cleared parole three weeks and two days ago.

Before Star Wars, Mark Hamill played Nurse Jessie’s nephew on General Hospital.

“I’ve never seen this guy before. Lou Lou, have you?”

Lou Lou scrutinized the three photos and slowly, regretfully, shook her head. “This is the guy trying to whack Mary Lisa?”

“That sure makes me feel warm and fuzzy, Lou Lou.”

“Probably not,” Daniel said.

Lou Lou said thoughtfully, “Do you know, he kind of looks familiar. Maybe-”

Mary Lisa smacked her head with the heel of her palm, and cut her off. “Big duh. Guys, I think Puker pulled a fast one on you.”

Jack frowned at her. “What makes you say that? What do you mean?”

“Puker told me the photos showed a guy with a baseball cap inside a car. This man’s wearing a raincoat and walking in a park in these photos. He can’t be the same guy, or at least not the same photos. Puker fooled you both. We’ve got to readjust our thinking here-I had no idea he was that good.” Mary Lisa grabbed her purse and headed for the front door. “It’s my turn to see that little schmuck now, talk this all over with him. You guys coming?”

She had her hand on the doorknob before Jack slammed his palm against the door above her head.

“You’re not going anywhere near that rathole.”

“Rathole? What’s that supposed to mean? I thought you said he lives in a nice place.”

“It’s a cop term,” Daniel said. “It simply means a place where rats live. It could be a mansion, doesn’t matter.”

Meanwhile, Lou Lou had dialed her cell phone. She spoke quietly into it, and punched off. “Okay, you can stop playing tough guy, Jack. Mary Lisa, Clyde is getting Puker’s address for us, so we can go by ourselves if you like.”

Jack planted himself in front of both of them. “I don’t want either of you going near that guy.”

Mary Lisa smiled at him. “You trying to lose ground here, Jack?”

“It’s our job, not yours. Daniel and I will go see him again.”

“You’re not going to move, are you? You better lighten up, or I’ll morph into Schwarzenegger and shred you.”

“Yeah? Who says? He should be so lucky.”

A hank of her red hair hung into her face, nearly covering her eyes, but she ignored it, so angry she was nearly foaming at the mouth at him. He looked down into her pale furious face and thought, Yep, a really big step backward. “All right, I don’t want to turn into a toad again for you, Mary Lisa. We were doing so well. Daniel, if it’s all right with you, why don’t all of us go see Puker? That okay with you?”

“I don’t think-”

Mary Lisa began humming. “Lou Lou, what are you doing tonight, around midnight?”

“Hmm, maybe driving to this address hoping to find a rathole?”

Mary Lisa nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Well, then.” Lou Lou turned to Detective Vasquez. “What is your problem? You look like Moses ready to smite the Egyptians-nothing’s going to happen to us.”

Daniel looked like he wanted to handcuff both of them to the big sofa leg. “Puker isn’t exactly dangerous,” he muttered to Jack. “But they’re still civilians, dammit.”

Lou Lou patted Daniel’s arm. “Sometimes you just gotta suck it up, Danny.”