“Niles, shitcan it!”

Danny looked around to see who shouted, felt his throat vibrating and saw that he’d gripped the lectern with blue-white fingers. Niles evil-eyed him; Danny couldn’t match the stare. He thought of the rest of his pitch and delivered it, a trace of a flutter in his voice. “Our last approach is pretty obscure. All three men were slashed by zoot sticks, which Doc Layman says Riot Squad cops used to use. There are no zoot stick homicides on record, and most zoot stick assaults were by Caucasians on Mexicans and not reported. Again, check with your informants on this and make your eliminations against blood type and description.”

Jack Shortell was still scribbling; Mike Breuning was looking up at him strangely, eyes narrowed to slits. Danny turned back to Niles. “Got that, Sergeant?”

Niles had another cigarette going; he was scorching his desk with the tip. “You’re really in tight with the Jews, huh, Upshaw? What’s Mickey Kike paying you?”

“More than Brenda paid you.”

Shortell laughed; Breuning’s strange look broke into a smile. Niles threw his cigarette on the floor and stamped it out. “Why didn’t you report your lead on Marty Goines’ pad, hotshot? What the fuck was happening there?”

Danny’s hands snapped a piece of wood off the lectern. He said, “Dismissed,” with some other man’s voice.

Considine and Smith were waiting for him in Ellis Loew’s office; big Dudley was hanging up a phone with the words, “Thank you, lad.” Danny sat down at Loew’s conference table, sensing the “lad” was flunky Mike Breuning with a report on his briefing.

Considine was busy writing on a yellow legal pad; Smith came over and gave him the glad hand. “How was your first morning as Homicide brass, lad?”

Danny knew he knew—verbatim. “It went well, Lieutenant.”

“Call me Dudley. You’ll be outranking me in a few years, and you should get used to patronizing men much your senior.”

“Okay, Dudley.”

Smith laughed. “Lad, you’re a heartbreaker. Isn’t he a heartbreaker, Malcolm?”

Considine slid his chair next to Danny. “Let’s hope Claire De Haven thinks so. How are you, Deputy?”

Danny said, “I’m fine, Lieutenant,” picking up something wrong between his superiors—contempt or plain tension working two ways—Dudley Smith in the catbird seat.

“Good. The briefing went well, then?”

“Yes.”

“Have you read that paperwork we gave you?”

“I’ve got it practically memorized.”

Considine tapped his pad. “Excellent. We’ll start now, then.”

Dudley Smith sat at the far end of the table; Danny geared his brain to listen and think before speaking. Considine said, “Here’s some rules for you to follow.

“One, you drive your civilian car everywhere, on your decoy job and your homicide job. We’re building an identity for you, and we’ll have a script ready by late tonight. You’re going to be a lefty who’s been living in New York for years, so we’ve got New York plates for your car, and we’ve got a whole personal background for you to memorize. When you go by your various station houses to check reports or whatever, park on the street at least two blocks away, and when you leave here, go downstairs to the barbershop. Al, Mayor Bowron’s barber, is going to get rid of that crew cut of yours and cut your hair so that you look less like a cop. I need your trouser, shirt, jacket, sweater and shoe sizes, and I want you to meet me at midnight at West Hollywood Station. I’ll have your new Commie wardrobe and script ready, and we’ll finalize your approach. Got it?”

Danny nodded, pulled a sheet of paper off Considine’s pad and wrote down his clothing sizes. Dudley Smith said, “You wear those clothes everywhere, lad. On your queer job, too. We don’t want your new Pinko friends seeing you on the street looking like a dapper young copper. Malcolm, give our fair Daniel some De Haven lines to parry. Let’s see how he fields them.”

Considine spoke directly to Danny. “Deputy, I’ve met Claire De Haven, and I think that for a woman she’s a tough piece of work. She’s promiscuous, she may be an alcoholic and she may take drugs. We’ve got another man checking out her background and the background of some other Reds, so we’ll know more on her soon. I spoke to the woman once, and I got the impression that she thrives on banter and one-upmanship. I think that it sexually excites her, and I know she’s attracted to men of your general appearance. So we’re going to try a little exercise now. I’ll feed you lines that I think would be typical of Claire De Haven, you try to top them. Ready?”

Danny shut his eyes for better concentration. “Go.”

“But some people call us Communists. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“That old scarlet letter routine doesn’t wash with me.”

“Good. Let’s follow up on that. Oh, really? Fascist politicians have ruined many politically enlightened people by slandering us as subversives.”

Danny grabbed a line from a musical he saw with Karen Hiltscher. “I’ve always had a thing for redheads, baby.”

Considine laughed. “Good, but don’t call De Haven ‘baby,’ she’d consider it patronizing. Here’s a good one. ‘I find it hard to believe that you’d leave the Teamsters for us.’”

Easy. “Mickey Cohen’s comedy routines would drive anybody out.”

“Good, Deputy, but in your decoy role you’d never get close to Cohen, so you wouldn’t know that about him.”

Danny got a brainstorm: the dirty joke sheets and pulp novels his fellow jailers passed around when he worked the main County lockup. “Give me some sex banter, Lieutenant.”

Considine flipped to the next note page. “But I’m thirteen years older than you.”

Danny made his tone satirical. “A grain of sand in our sea of passion.”

Dudley Smith howled; Considine chuckled and said, “You just walk into my life when I’m engaged to be married. I don’t know that I trust you.”

“Claire, there’s only one reason to trust me. And that’s that around you I don’t trust myself.”

“Great delivery, Deputy. Here’s a curveball: ‘Are you here for me or the cause?’”

Extra easy: the hero of a paperback he’d read working night watch. “I want it all. That’s all I know, that’s all I want to know.”

Considine slid the notebook away. “Let’s improvise on that. ‘How can you look at things so simplistically?’”

His mental gears were click-click-clicking now; Danny quit digging for lines and flew solo. “Claire, there’s the fascists and us, and there’s you and me. Why do you always complicate things?”

Considine, coming on like a femme fatale. “You know I’m capable of eating you whole.”

“I love your teeth.”

“‘I love your eyes.’”

“Claire, are we fighting the fascists or auditing Physiology 101?”

“‘When you’re forty, I’ll be fifty-three. Will you still want me then?’”

Danny, aping Considine’s vamp contralto. “We’ll be dancing jigs together in Moscow, sweetheart.”

“Not so satirical on the political stuff, I’m not sure I trust her sense of humor on that. Let’s get dirty. ‘It’s so good with you.’”

“The others were just girls, Claire. You’re my first woman.”

“How many times have you used that line?”

Aw-shucks laughter—a la a pussy hound deputy he knew. “Every time I sleep with a woman over thirty-five.”

“Have there been many?’”

“Just a few thousand.”

“The cause needs men like you.”

“If there were more women like you around, there’d be millions of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I really like you, Claire.”

“Why?”

“You drink like one of the boys, you know Marx chapter and verse, and you’ve got great legs.”

Dudley Smith started clapping; Danny opened his eyes and felt them misting. Mal Considine smiled. “She does have great legs. Go get your haircut, Deputy. I’ll see you at midnight.”