He met him halfway, a new story brewing, plausible stuff to satisfy a savvy cop. Face to face, he said, “I’m with the Sheriff’s.”

Niles laughed. “You a little bit confused about your jurisdiction, Deputy?”

The “Deputy” was all scorn, like a synonym for “cancer.” Danny said, “I’m working a homicide just like the two you’ve got up the hill.”

Niles bored in with his eyes. “You sleep in those clothes, Deputy?”

Danny squeezed his hands into fists. “I was on a stakeout.”

“You ever hear of carrying a razor on all-nighters, Deputy?”

“You ever hear of professional courtesy, Niles?”

Sergeant Gene Niles looked at his watch. “A man who reads the papers. Let’s try this. How’d you get up here twenty-two minutes after we logged the squeal at the station?”

Danny knew brass balls was the only way to cover his lie. “I was down at the doughnut joint on Western, and there was a black-and-white with the radio on. How come it took you so long? You stop for a manicure?”

“A year ago I’d have reamed you for that.”

“A year ago you were going places. Do you want to hear about my homicide or do you want to sulk?”

Niles picked a piece of lint off his blazer. “The dispatcher said it looks like a queer job. I hate queer jobs, so if you’ve got another queer job, I don’t want to hear about it. Roll, Deputy. And get yourself some decent threads. Mickey Kike’s got a haberdashery, and I know he gives all his prat boys a discount.”

Danny headed back to his Chevy seeing red. He drove down the park road to Los Feliz and Vermont and a pay phone, called Doc Layman and told him two Marty Goines companion stiffs were en route, grab them for autopsy no matter what. A minute later Niles’ car and the Coroner’s wagon went by southbound, no lights or sirens, flunkies killing a fine winter morning. Danny gave them a five-minute lead, took shortcuts downtown and parked in the shade of a warehouse across the street from the City Morgue loading dock. Fourteen minutes passed before the caravan appeared; Niles made a big show of shepherding the sheet-covered gurneys to the ramp; Norton Layman came out to help. Danny heard him berating Niles for separating the bodies.

He settled into his car to wait for Layman’s findings; stretching out on the front seat, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, knowing Doc would be four hours or more on the examinations. Sleep wouldn’t come; a hot day started sizzling, warming up the car, making the upholstery sticky. Danny would begin to drop off, then start remembering his lies, what he could or couldn’t tell whom. He could brazen his lie to the patrolmen, acting sheepish over being at the doughnut stand at 6:00 A.M., implying he’d been with a woman; he had to coddle Karen Hiltscher into keeping his stint at 2307 Tamarind under wraps. He couldn’t let anyone see the contents of his evidence kit; he had to clue in LAPD to the letter that hipped him to Marty Goines’ pad, post-dating the occurrence, making it seem like nothing big, letting them discover the gore for themselves. Leo Bordoni was a wild card, but he was probably con-wise enough to stay quiet; he had to fabricate a story to account for his whereabouts yesterday—a phony summary report to Dietrich was his best bet. And the big fear and big questions: if LAPD canvassed Tamarind, would a local report the tan 1947 Chevrolet parked outside 2307 overnight? Should he take advantage of his private lead, rape the neighborhood for witnesses himself, then report the letter, hoping that the worst they could get him for was not calling the dope in? If LAPD decided to ease off on their two homicides— Niles as catching officer hating “queer jobs”—would they canvass at all? He had taken the call from Lexington State Hospital himself, via Karen Hiltscher’s switchboard. If it all got tricky, would she blab fast to save herself? Would LASD/LAPD rivalry reduce the mess to something that only he cared about?

Heat reflecting off the windshield and too many brain wires short-circuiting on angles lulled Danny to sleep. Cramps and glare woke him up sweaty and itchy; his foot hit the horn and black dreamlessness became sound waves bouncing off four bloody walls. He looked at his watch, saw 12:10 and at least four hours unconscious; the Doc might be done with his dead men. Danny got out of the car, stretched his cramps and walked across the street to the morgue.

Layman was standing near the ramp, eating lunch off an examination slab, a body sheet for a tablecloth. He saw Danny, swallowed a bite of sandwich and said, “You look bad.”

“That bad?”

“You look scared, too.”

Danny yawned; it made his gums ache. “I’ve seen the bodies, and I don’t think LAPD cares. That’s scary.”

Layman wiped his mouth with a sheet corner. “Here’s a few more scares for you, then. Times of death—twenty-six to thirty hours ago. Both men were anally raped—O+ secretor semen. The wounds on their backs were pure zoot stick, identical in size and fiber content to Martin Mitchell Goines. The missing-finger man died from a throat gash made by a sharp, serrated knife. No cause of death on the other man, but I’d be willing to bet barbiturate OD. On our missing-finger friend I found a vomit-coated, punctured capsule, right up under the tongue. I tested some powder in it and got a home compound—sodium secobarbital, one part, one part strychnine. The secobarbital would hit first, inducing unconsciousness, the strychnine would kill. I think missing finger got indigestion, puked up part of his Mickey Finn and fought to live—that that was when he lost his digit—fighting with the knife man. Once I test the blood on both men and pump their stomachs, I’ll know for sure. The missing finger man was bigger—a larger bloodstream, so the compound didn’t kill him like it did our other friend.”

Danny thought of 2307, vomit traces lost in the blood. “What about the stomach bites?”

Layman said, “Not human, but human. I found O+ saliva and human gastric juices on the wounds, and the bites were too frenzied and overlapping to make casts from. But—I got three individual tooth cuts—too large to ascribe to any known human dental abstract and too shredded at the bottom to identify on any single-tooth forensic index. I also took a glob of dental mortar paste out of one of the wounds. He wears dentures, Danny. Most likely on top of his own teeth. They might be steel, they might be some other synthetic material, they might be teeth fashioned from animal carcasses. And he’s rigged up a way to mutilate with them and swallow. They’re not human, and I know this doesn’t sound professional, but I don’t think this son of a bitch is either.”

Ellis Loew performed the ceremony in his office, Mal and Dudley Smith official witnesses. Buzz Meeks stood by the conference table, right hand raised; Loew recited the oath: “Do you, Turner Meeks, hereby swear to loyally and conscientiously perform the duties of Special Investigator, Grand Jury Division of the District Attorney’s Office for the City of Los Angeles, upholding the laws of this municipality, protecting the rights and property of its citizens, so help you God?”

Buzz Meeks said, “Sure.” Loew handed him an ID holder replete with license photostat and DA’s Bureau shield. Mal wondered how much Howard Hughes was paying the bastard, guessing at least three grand.

Dudley joined Meeks and Loew in a back-slapping circle; Mal credited an old rumor still holding: Meeks thought he was behind the shooting that got him his pension, Jack D. blowing it, then forgetting his grudge when the okie was no longer LAPD. Let him think it—anything to keep his new colleague as far away as two cops working the same job could be.

And Dudley. And maybe Loew now, too.

Mal watched the three share a toast, Glenlivet in crystal glasses. He took his notepad down to the far end of the table, Meeks and Dudley trading one-liners, Ellis shooting him a scowl that said, “Let’s work.” Loew’s half nod acknowledged that their bad blood was just temporary. Mal thought: he should owe me, now I owe him. He picked up his pen to doodle, his knuckles throbbed, he knew Loew was right.