“I don’t know anything about that sort of thing.”

“Why not?”

“I try to keep things separate and circumscribed.”

“Why?”

“To avoid situations like this.”

Danny felt the brandy coming on, kicking in with the shots he’d had at home. “Mr. Gordean, are you a homosexual?”

“No, Deputy. Are you?”

Danny flushed, raised his glass and found it empty. He resurrected a crack from his briefing with Considine. “That old scarlet letter routine doesn’t wash with me.”

Gordean said, “I don’t quite understand the reference, Deputy.”

“It means that I’m a professional, and I can’t be shocked.”

“Then you shouldn’t blush so easily—your color betrays you as a naif.”

The empty glass felt like a missile to heave; Danny hit back on “naif” instead. “We’re talking about three people dead. Cut up with a fucking zoot stick, eyes poked out, intestines chewed on. We’re talking about blackmail and burglary and jazz and guys with burned-up faces, and you think you can hurt me by calling me naif? You think you—”

Danny stopped when he saw Gordean’s jaw tensing. The man stared down at the floor; Danny wondered if he’d stabbed a nerve or just hit him on simple revulsion. “What is it? Tell me.”

Gordean looked up. “I’m sorry. I have a low threshold for brash young policemen and descriptions of violence, and I shouldn’t have called—”

“Then help me. Show me your client list.”

“No. I told you I don’t keep a list.”

“Then tell me what bothered you so much.”

“I did tell you.”

“And I don’t feature you as that sensitive. So tell me.”

Gordean said, “When you mentioned jazz, it made me think of a client, a horn player that I used to broker introductions to rough trade to. He impressed me as volatile then, but he’s not tall or middle-aged.”

“And that’s all?”

“Cy Vandrich, Deputy. Your tactics have gotten you more than I would normally have been willing to part with, so be grateful.”

“And that’s all?”

Gordean’s eyes were blank, giving nothing up. “No. Direct all your future inquiries through Lieutenant Matthews and learn to sip fine brandy—you’ll enjoy it more.”

Danny tossed his crystal snifter on a Louis XIV chair and walked out.

An hour and a half to kill before his meeting with Considine; more liquor out of the question. Danny drove to Coffee Bob’s and forced down a hamburger and pie, wondering how much of the Gordean questioning slipped between the cracks: his own nerves, the pimp’s police connections and savoir faire. The food calmed him down, but didn’t answer his questions; he hit a pay phone and got dope on Cy Vandrich.

There was only one listed with DMV/R&I: Cyril “Cy” Vandrich, WM, DOB 7/24/18, six arrests for petty theft, employment listed as “transient” and “musician.” Currently on his sixth ninety-day observation jolt at the Camarillo loony bin. A follow-up call to the bin revealed that Vandrich kept pulling crazy man stunts when he got rousted for shoplifting; that the Misdemeanor Court judge kept recommending Camarillo. The desk woman told Danny that Vandrich was in custody there on the two killing nights; that he made himself useful teaching music to the nuts. Danny said that he might come up to question the man; the woman said that Vandrich might or might not be in control of his faculties—no one at the bin had ever been able to figure him out—whether he was malingering or seriously crazy. Danny hung up and drove to West Hollywood Station to meet Mal Considine.

The man was waiting for him in his cubicle, eyeing the Buddy Jastrow mug blowup. Danny cleared his throat; Considine wheeled around and gave him a close once-over. “I like the suit. It doesn’t quite fit, but it looks like something a young lefty might affect. Did you buy it for your assignment?”

“No, Lieutenant.”

“Call me Mal. I want you to get out of the habit of using rank. Ted.”

Danny sat down behind his desk and pointed Considine to the spare chair. “Ted?”

Considine took the seat and stretched his legs. “As of today, you’re Ted Krugman. Dudley went by your apartment house and talked to the manager, and when you get home tonight you’ll find T. Krugman on your mailbox. Your phone number is now listed under Theodore Krugman, so we’re damn lucky you kept it unlisted before. There’s a paper bag waiting for you with the manager—your new wardrobe, some fake ID and New York plates for your car. You like it?”

Danny thought of Dudley Smith inside his apartment, maybe discovering his private file. “Sure, Lieut—Mal.”

Considine laughed. “No, you don’t—it’s all happening too fast. You’re Homicide brass, you’re a Commie decoy, you’re a big-time comer. You’re made, kid. I hope you know that.”

Danny caught glee wafting off the DA’s man; he decided to hide his file boxes and blood spray pics behind the rolled-up carpet in his hall closet. “I do, but I don’t want to get fat on it. When do I make my approach?”

“Day after tomorrow. I think we’ve got the UAES lulled with our newspaper and radio plants, and Dudley and I are going to concentrate on lefties outside the union—KAs of the brain trusters—vulnerable types that we should be able to get to snitch. We’re going over INS records for deportation levers on them, and Ed Satterlee is trying to get us some hot SLDC pictures from a rival clearance group. Call it a two-front war. Dudley and I on outside evidence, you inside.”

Danny saw Considine as all frayed nerves; he saw that his suit fit him like a tent, the jacket sleeves riding up over soiled shirtcuffs and long, skinny arms. “How do I get inside?”

Considine pointed to a folder atop the cubicle’s Out basket. “It’s all in there. You’re Ted Krugman, DOB 6/16/23, a Pinko New York stagehand. In reality you were killed in a car wreck on Long Island two months ago. The local Feds hushed it up and sold the identity to Ed Satterlee. All your past history and KAs are in there. There’s surveillance pictures of the Commie KAs, and there’s twenty-odd pages of Marxist claptrap, a little history lesson for you to memorize.

“So, day after tomorrow, around two, you go to the Gower Street picket line, portraying a Pinko who’s lost his faith. You tell the Teamster picket boss that the day labor joint downtown sent you out, muscle for a buck an hour. The man knows who you are, and he’ll set you up to picket with two other guys. After an hour or so, you’ll get into political arguments with those guys—per the script I’ve written out for you. A third argument will result in a fistfight with a real bruiser—a PT instructor at the LAPD Academy. He’ll pull his punches, but you fight for real. You’re going to take a few lumps, but what the hell. Another Teamster man will shout obscenities about you to the UAES picket boss, who’ll hopefully approach you and lead you to Claire De Haven, UAES’s member screener. We’ve done a lot of homework, and we can’t directly place Krugman with any UAESers. You look vaguely like him and at worst you’ll be secondhand heard of. It’s all in that folder, kid. Pictures of the men you’ll be pulling this off with, everything.”

A clean day to work the homicides; a full night to become Ted Krugman. Danny said, “Tell me about Claire De Haven.”

Considine countered, “Have you got a girlfriend?”

Danny started to say no, then remembered the bogus paramour who helped him brazen out Tamarind. “Nothing serious. Why?”

“Well, I don’t know how susceptible you are to women in general, but De Haven’s a presence. Buzz Meeks just filed a report that makes her as a longtime hophead—H and drugstore—but she’s still formidable—and she’s damn good at getting what she wants out of men. So I want to make sure you seduce her, not the opposite. Does that answer your question?”

“No.”