"Yes."

"He musm't know that I know. Will you promise not to tell him?"

Ed nodded, looked in the room. The Big V begged for communion.

A file room at the main DMV- boxes stacked shoulder-high. A confirmation search-a riff on Johnny and Kikey's last hink. Riff in, out, back, around-he was so high he could think it through and prowl registration records at the same time.

Make Stomp, Teitlebaum and Lee Vachss for the Nite Owl triggers; make them the shooter gang bumping upstart mobsters and Cohen franchise holders. Deuce Perkins was part of the gang-the others didn't know he beat hookers to death-they'd consider it amateur shit, wouldn't tolerate it. Dudley was the leader-he couldn't be anything else. All his job offer stuff was a try at recruiting him; the Lamar Hinton roust was Dud frosting out loose ends on the Patchett side of things-make Patchett and Smith some kind of K.A.'s, make Hinton dead, Breuning and Carlisle part of the gang. "Contain," "Contained," "Containment," "Profit Dispensation." Call it Dudley trying to control the L.A. rackets-and pin the Nite Owl on a new bunch of jigs.

Bud tore through boxes: auto registrations, early April '53. Schoolboy thinkm he figured the car by the Nite Owl was a plant; the shotguns in Coates' car, the shells in Griffith Park, both plants-the killers followed the case, got lucky on the Merc, found some boogies to take the heat. Wrong-LAPD conspirators were in on the job. They read crime reports, got hipped to some joyriding spooks firing shotguns-lay the onus on them- they figured the arresting officers would kill them, case closed.

So they got themselves a car that matched the crime report description. They made sure it was spotted near the Nite Owl. They wouldn't steal a car-cops wouldn't risk a late night roust. They didn't buy a purple car-they bought a different colored one and painted it.

Bud kept working. No logic to the file mess: Mercs, Chevies, Caddies, L.A., Sacramento, Frisco, whoever registered the car would've used a phony name. One luck-out: the registers' race, DOB and physical stats listed on cards attached to the initial purchase carbons. Facts to eliminate against, like he learned in school: '48-'50 Mercs, Southern California purchasers, stats that matched to Dudley, Stomp, Vachss, Teitlebaum, Perkins, Carlisle and Breuning. Hours of digging, a pile inches thick-then a strange one that felt warm.

1948 primer-gray Merc coupe, purchased April 10, 1953. Register: Margaret Louise March, W.F., DOB 7/23/18, brown and brown, 5 '9", 215 lbs. Register's address: 1804 East Oxford, Los Angeles. Phone number: NOrmandie 32758.

Warm to scalding-Fat Dot Rothstein's specs. Oxford ran north-south-not east-west. The call to Dot from the Noshery- DU-32758-the dumb dyke tacked her own number onto a different exchange.

And bought herself some purple paint.

Bud whooped, punched the air, kicked boxes. Two cases made in one day-if anyone believed him. All dressed up and no one to kill. Circumstantial Dudley evidence-no hard proof. Dudley too well placed to fall, nobody who cared like he did.

Except Exley.

A stakeout on the house he grew up in. He couldn't go in and question his father; he couldn't ask for his help. He couldn't tell the man he confided secrets to a woman-and gave a brutal enemy the means to patricide. He brought the Atherton file with him-there was nothing in it he didn't already know, the man who made the smut and killed Sid Hudgens was intrinsic to the Atherton murders, maybe the killer himself-truths Preston Exley would dispute out of pride. He couldn't go in; he couldn't stop thinking. He counted memories instead.

His father bought the house for his mother; it was really just a sop to his pride-the Exleys flee the middle class grandly. They never had Christmas lights on the lawn-Preston Exley said it was lowlife. Thomas fell off balconies-and had the style not to cry. His father threw him a "back from the war" party-only the mayor, the City Council and LAPD men who could further his career were invited.

Art De Spain walked to his car, looking frail, one arm bandaged. Ed watched him drive off, his father's man, his Dutch uncle. Memory: Art said he wasn't cut out to be a detective.

The house loomed big and cold. Ed drove back to the hospital.

Trash was up, giving Fisk a statement. Ed watched from the doorway.

"… and I was playing off Exley's script. I don't remember exactly what I said, but Patchett pulled out a gun and shot me. That shit piece Exley gave me jammed, and Patchett slammed me with a hypo. Then I heard shots and 'No, Abe, no, Lee, no.' And now you know as much as I do."

From the hall, loud: "Abe Teitlebaum, Johnny Stompanato and Lee Vachss. They did the Nite Owl. Throw in Deuce Perkins as part of the gang and get ready to shit when I tell you who else I got."

Ed smelled his sweat, his breath. White pushed him inside- firm, not too rough. "Put our stuff aside for a minute. Did you hear what I said?"

The names registered: gang muscle, a not-bad line to HEROIN. 'White looked insane-disheveled, a zealot. Fisk said, "Sir, do you want me to..

Ed moved his shoulders-White dropped his hands right on cue. "Two minutes, «Captain»."

Scared-»be a captain». "Duane, go get yourself some coffee. White, get my interest before I ream you for the Chinamen."

Fisk walked out. Ed said, "Jack, you stay. White, you keep my interest."

White closed the door. Disheveled: soiled clothes, inksmudged hands. "Good I heard the radio on you, Trashcan. I didn't know you were here, I mighta tried to do it all myself."

Vincennes, on the bed looking queasy. "Do «what?» Abe, Lee. You make Teitlebaum and Vachss for Patchett, spell it out."

Ed: "You look Crim 101, White. Make like you're writing an occurrence chronology."

White smiled-pure kamikaze. "I been tracking a string of hooker killings for years. It started with this girl Kathy Janeway. She got snuffed back in '53, right around the Nite Owl. She was Duke Cathcart's girlfriend."

Ed nodded. "I know that story. I.A. ran a personal on you when you passed the sergeant's exam."

"Oh, yeah? What you don't know is that a few years ago my case broke. I thought my killer was Spade Cooley-his band was in all the hooker snuff cities on the DODs. I was wrong. Cooley ratted off the real killer-Burt Arthur Perkins."

Vincennes spoke up. "I buy Deuce as a woman killer. He's wrong to the core."

White said, "You should know, 'cause Cooley said he was pals with Johnny Stompanato, and back around '52 you told me you rousted him hanging out with Johnny Stomp, Kikey T. and Lee Vachss. Cooley told me Johnny and Deuce were tight, so I went looking for Johnny."

Ed said, "All right, so you went to Stompanato."

White lit a cigarette. "Nix. Now I tell you that Dudley Smith has been using me for strongarm jobs on the Mobster Squad going back years. You know how he talks? 'Containment,' that's one of his favorite words. Contain crime, contain this, contain that. He's been beating around the bush about offering me outside work, and the other night he said I could be useful keeping the 'obstreperous Italian' that's afraid of me in line. Johnny Stomp's afraid of me-he used to snitch for me and I used to muscle him good. You know how Dud's this so-called gangland peacemaker? Well, the other night him, Carlisle and Breuning worked over this guy Lamar Hinton at the Victory, supposedly a Mobster Squad job. Bullshit-all Dudley asked him about was Nite Owl stuff-smut, Pierce Patchett."

Ed, bug-eyed: this can't be coming. "So you went to Stompanato looking for Perkins."

"Right. I go to Kike's deli, and Johnny's there with Kikey. I ask Johnny about Deuce, and Johnny's all hiked. Kikey's hinked worse and they both lie and say Deuce is just some bumfuck acquaintance. They deny that Deuce is tight with Lee Vachss, when I know goddamn otherwise. Johnny uses the word 'containment,' which is not a Johnny-type word. Hink all over these guys, and I drop that I'm on the Nite Owl reopening and they almost shit, Deuce for the Nite Owl, ho, ho. I leave, go to a pay phone and have P.C. Bell put a fifteen-minute trace on all calls out of the deli. Two calls-one to Dot Rothstein, Dudley's good pal and Kikey's cousin, one to Dudley's house."