Fritzie and I walked in. De Witt’s greeting was con bravado tinged with just the right amount of subservience. “Cops, huh? Well, at least you’re Americans. Never thought I’d be glad to see you guys.”

Fritzie said, “Why start now?” and kicked De Witt in the balls. He doubled over; Fritzie grabbed his duck’s ass scruff and gave him a hard backhand. De Witt started to foam at the mouth; Fritzie let go of his neck and wiped pomade on his sleeve. De Witt hit the floor, then crawled over to the commode and vomited into it. When he tried to get himself upright, Fritzie pushed his head back into the bowl and held it there with a big spit-shined wing-tip brogue. The ex-bank-robber-pimp drank piss water and puke.

Vogel said, “Lee Blanchard’s here in TJ, and you came here flush out of Big Q. That’s a goddamned strange coincidence, and I don’t like it. I don’t like you, I don’t like the syphilitic whore you were born out of, I don’t like being down here in a rat-infested foreign country when I could be at home with my family. I do like inflicting pain on criminals, so you had better answer my questions truthfully, or I’ll hurt you bad.”

Fritzie released his foot; De Witt came up gasping for air. I picked a soiled skivvy shirt up off the floor, and was about to hand it to him when I remembered the lash scars on Kay’s legs. The image made me throw the shirt at De Witt, then grab a chair from the catwalk and reach for my handcuffs. Fritzie swabbed the ex-con’s face, I shoved him into the seat and cuffed his wrists to the back slats.

De Witt looked up at us; his trouser legs darkened as his bladder went. Fritzie said, “Did you know that Sergeant Blanchard is here in Tijuana?”

De Witt shook his head back and forth, spraying off the remnants of his toilet dip. “I ain’t seen Blanchard since my fucking trial!”

Fritzie shot him a little backhand, his Masonic ring severing a cheek vein. “Don’t use profanity with me, and address me as sir. Now, did you know that Sergeant Blanchard is here in Tijuana?”

De Witt blubbered, “No”; Fritzie said, “No, sir,” and slapped him. De Witt hung his head, lolling his chin on his chest. Fritzie prodded it up with one finger. “No, what?”

De Witt screeched, “No, sir!”

Even through my hate haze I could tell he was coming clean. I said, “Blanchard’s afraid of you. Why?”

Twisting in the chair, greasy pompadour wilted over his forehead, De Witt laughed. Wild laughter, the kind that cuts through pain, then makes it worse. Livid, Fritzie balled a fist to punish him; I said, “Let him be.” Vogel relented; De Witt’s loony chuckles trailed off.

Sucking in breath, De Witt said, “Man o Manieschewitz, what a laugh. Lee beauty gotta be scared of me ‘cause of how I flapped my trap at the trial, but all I know is what I read in the papers, and I gotta tell you that little reefer roust put the fear of God into me, if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’. Maybe I was thinkin’ revenge up to then, maybe I was talkin’ trash to my cellies, but when Lee beauty killed them niggers and—”

Vogel right hooked De Witt, toppling him, chair and all, to the floor. Spitting blood and teeth, the aging lounge lizard moaned and laughed at the same time; Fritzie knelt beside him and pinched his carotid artery, shutting off the blood to his brain. “Bobby boy, I do not like Sergeant Blanchard, but he is a fellow officer, and I will not have syphilitic scum like you defaming him. Now you risked a parole violation and a trip back to Q for a trip down here. When I let go of your neck you will tell me why, or I will pinch your neck again until your gray cells go snap, crackle and pop like Kellogg’s Rice Krispies.”

Fritzie released the hold; De Witt’s face went from blue to dark red. With one hand, Vogel grabbed suspect and chair and placed them upright. Lounge lizard Bobby started to laugh again, then sputtered blood and stopped. Looking up at Fritzie, he reminded me of a dog who loves his cruel master because it’s the only one he’s got. His voice was a beaten dog whimper: “I came down to cop some horse and bring it back to LA before I reported in to my PO. The guy I got is supposed to be a softie, you tell him ‘Gee, sir, I been in stir eight years and I hadda get my ashes hauled,’ and he don’t violate you for bein’ late.”

De Witt took a deep breath; Fritzie said, “Snap, crackle, pop.” Bobby boy dog whimpered the rest of his confession rapidamente: “The man down here is this cholo named Felix Chasco. He’s supposed to meet me at the Calexico Gardens Motel tonight. The LA man’s the brother of this guy I knew at Quentin. I ain’t met him and please don’t hurt me no more.”

Fritzie let out a huge whoop and ran out of the cell to report his booty; DeWitt licked blood off his lips and looked at me, his dog master now that Vogel was gone. I said, “Finish up on you and Lee Blanchard. And don’t get hysterical this time.”

De Witt said, “Sir, all that’s between me and Blanchard is that I fucked this cunt Kay Lake.”

I remember moving toward him and I remember picking him up two-handed by the neck, wondering how hard you had to squeeze a dog’s throat to make its eyeballs pop out. I remember him changing color and voices in Spanish, and Fritzie shouting, “His story checks.” Then I remember being hurled backward, thinking, so that’s what bars feel like. Then I remember nothing.

I came to thinking I’d been knocked down in a third Bleichert-Blanchard fight, wondering how much hurt I’d put on my partner. I babbled, “Lee? Lee? Are you all right?” then sighted in on two greaser cops with ridiculous dime store regalia on their blackshirts. Fritzie Vogel towered over them, saying, “I let Bobby boy go so we could tail him to his pal. But he blew the tail while you were catching up on your beauty sleep, which was too bad for him.”

Someone hugely strong lifted me up off the cell floor; coming out of my haze I knew it had to be Big Bill Koenig. Woozy and rubber-legged, I let Fritzie and the Mex cops lead me through the station and outside. It was dusk, and the TJ sky was already lit with neon. A Studebaker patrol car pulled up; Fritzie and Bill ushered me into the backseat. The driver hit the loudest siren the world had ever heard, then gunned it.

We drove west out of town, stopping in the gravel center of a horseshoe-shaped auto court. TJ cops in khakis and jodhpurs were standing guard in front of a back unit, holding pump shotguns. Fritzie winked and offered me his arm to lean on; I spurned it and got out of the car under my own steam. Fritzie led the way over; the cops saluted us with their gun barrels, then opened the door.

The room was a cordite-reeking slaughterhouse. Bobby De Witt and a Mexican man lay dead on the floor, bullet holes oozing blood all over them. Brain spatters leaking fluid covered one entire wall; De Witt’s neck was bruised from where I’d been throttling him. My first coherent thought was that I’d done it during my blackout, vigilante vengeance to protect the only two people I loved. Fritzie must have been a mind reader, because he laughed and said, “Not you, boyo. The spic is Felix Casco, a known dope trafficker. Maybe it was other dope scum, maybe it was Lee, maybe it was God. I say let our Mexican colleagues handle their own dirty laundry and let’s us go back to LA and get the son of a bitch who sliced the Dahlia.”