Russ smiled. “What about you, bright penny?”

“She’s covering on the Mex angle. I think she might have been screwing him regularly, and now she’s protecting him from a smut rap. I’d also lay odds the guy is white, that the Mex routine is a cover-up to go along with the TJ stuff—which I do buy—because that place is a cesspool, and most of the smuthounds I rousted working Patrol got their stuff there.”

Millard winked a la Lee Blanchard. “Bucky, you are a very bright penny today. Harry, I want you to talk to Lieutenant Waters here. Tell him to hold the girl incommunicado for seventy-two hours. I want a private cell for her, and I want Meg Caulfield detached from Wilshire Clerical to play cellmate. Tell Meg to give her a good pumping and report in every twenty-four hours.

“When you finish that, call R&I and Ad Vice for the rap sheets on white and Mexican males with pornography convictions, then call Vogel and Koenig and send them down to Gardena to check the bars for Lorna’s movie man. Call the Bureau too, and tell Captain Jack we’ve got a little Dahlia film to look at. Then call the Times and give them the smut lead before Ellis Loew sits on it. Give them a Jane Doe for Lorna, have them add an appeal for pornography tips and pack a bag, because we’re going down to Dago and TJ later tonight.”

I said, “Russ, you know this is a long shot.”

“The biggest one since you and Blanchard beat the crap out of each other and became partners. Come on, bright penny. It’s blue movie night at City Hall.”

A projector and screen had already been set up in the muster room; an all-star cast was awaiting the all-star smut movie. Lee, Ellis Loew, Jack Tierney, Thad Green and Chief of Police C.B. Horrall himself were seated in front of the screen; Millard handed the film can to the clerical stooge manning the projector, muttering, “Where’s the popcorn?”

The big chief walked over and gave me a gladhander’s shake. “A pleasure, sir,” I said.

“A mutual pleasure, Mr. Ice, and my wife sends her belated regards for the pay raise you and Mr. Fire got us.” He pointed to a seat next to Lee. “Lights! Camera! Action!”

I sat down beside my partner. Lee looked drawn, but not dope-juiced. A Daily News was unfolded on his lap; I saw “Boulevard-Citizens Mastermind to be Released Tomorrow—LA Bound After 8 Years in Custody.” Lee checked out my raggedy state and said, “Getting any?”

I was about to respond when the lights went off. A blurred image hit the screen; cigarette smoke wafted into it. A title flashed Slave Girls From Hell—then a big, high-ceilinged room with Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls came into view in grainy black and white. Pillars shaped like coiled serpents were stationed throughout the room; the camera zoomed in for a close-up of two inset plaster snakes swallowing each other’s tails. Then the snakes dissolved into Betty Short, wearing only stockings, doing an inept hoochie-koochie dance.

My groin clenched; I heard Lee draw a sharp breath. An arm entered the screen, passing a cylindrical object to Betty. She took it; the camera moved in. It was a dildo, scales covering the shaft, fangs extending from the large circumcised head. Betty put it in her mouth and sucked it, eyes wide open and glassy.

There was an abrupt cut, then Lorna, naked, was lying on a divan, her legs spread. Betty entered the picture. She knelt between Lorna’s legs, stuck the dildo inside her and simulated sex with it. Lorna buckled and rotated her hips, the screen went out of focus, then blipped to a close-up—Lorna writhing in phony ecstasy. Even a two-year-old could tell she was contorting her face to hold back screams. Betty re-entered the frame, poised between Lorna’s thighs.

She looked up at the camera, mouthing, “No, please.” Then her head was shoved down, and she worked her tongue next to the dildo in a shot so close in that every ugly detail seemed to be magnified ten million times.

I wanted to shut my eyes, but couldn’t. Next to me, Chief Horrall said calmly, “Russ, what do you think? You think this has got anything to do with the girl’s murder?”

Millard answered with a hoarse voice. “It’s a long shot, Chief. The movie was made in November and from what the Martilkova girl said, the Mexican doesn’t play as a killer. It’s got to be checked out, though. Maybe the Mex showed the movie to somebody, and he got a case on Betty. What I—”

Lee kicked his chair over and shouted: “Who gives a fuck if he didn’t kill her! I’ve sent Boy Scouts to the green room for less than that! So if you won’t do something about it, I will!”

Everyone sat there, shock-stilled. Lee stood in front of the screen, blinking from the hot white light in his eyes. He wheeled and ripped the obscenity down; the screen and tripod hit the floor with a crash. Betty and Lorna continued their sex on a chalked-up blackboard; Lee took off running. I heard the projector knocked over in back of me; Millard yelled, “Bleichert, get him!”

I got up, tripped, got up again and tore out of the muster room, catching sight of Lee stepping into the elevator at the end of the hall. When the doors shut and the elevator descended, I ran for the stairs, hurtled down six flights and out into the parking lot just in time to see Lee peeling rubber northbound on Broadway. There was a string of unmarked cruisers lined up on the Department’s side of the lot; I jogged over and checked under the driver’s seat of the nearest one. The keys were right there. I hit the ignition, then the gas, and took off.

I gained ground quickly, coming up behind Lee’s Ford as he swerved into the middle lane on Sunset, heading west. I gave him three short horn blasts; he responded by tapping his horn in the LAPD semaphore that meant “Officer in Pursuit.” Cars pulled over to let him through—there was nothing I could do but hit my own horn and stay glued to his tail.

We hauled ass out of downtown, through Hollywood and over the Cahuenga Pass to the Valley. Turning onto Ventura Boulevard, I got spooked by the proximity of the lez bar block; when Lee ground his Ford to a halt smack in the middle of it, I choked on a wave of panic and thought: He can’t know about my brass girl, there’s no way; the lezzie film must have flipped his switch. Then Lee got out and pushed through the door of La Verne’s Hideaway. Worse panic made me stomp the brakes and fishtail the cruiser into the sidewalk; thoughts of Madeleine and evidence suppression raps propelled me into the dive after my partner.

Lee was facing off booths full of daggers and femmes, shouting curses. I flailed with my eyes for Madeleine and the barmaid I’d rousted; not seeing them, I got ready to cold cock my best friend.

“You fucking quiff divers seen a little movie called Slave Girls From Hell? You buy your stag shit from a fat Mex about forty? You—”

I grabbed Lee from behind in a full nelson and spun him around toward the door. His arms were clenched and his back was arched, but I was able to use his weight against him. We stumbled outside, then tripped together in a jumble of arms and legs and hit the pavement. I kept the hold clamped on with all my strength, then heard a siren approaching and snapped that Lee wasn’t resisting—he was just lying there, muttering “Partner” over and over.

The siren wailed louder, then died; I heard car doors slamming. I extricated myself from Lee and helped him, rag doll limp, to his feet. And Ellis Loew was right there.

Loew had murder in his eyes. It hit me that Lee’s explosion came from his weird chastity, a week of death and dope and its pornographic capper. Safe myself, I put an arm around my partner’s shoulders. “Mr. Loew, it was just that goddamn movie. Lee thought the dykes here could give us a lead on the Mex.”