He staked the Harris house out, learning that Annie serviced Officer John Rokkas every Tuesday afternoon when the rest of the family worked at the Harris’ produce stall in Oakland. On a cold November Tuesday, he picked the lock for Des; Des went in and came out twenty minutes later, beaten to a pulp. He stole Desmond’s booty and secreted it in a safe deposit box, establishing a parity of fear between the two Considine brothers. Desmond flunked out of Union Theological Seminary and became a big shot in the used-car racket. Mal went to Stanford, graduated and lollygagged through a year of law school, dreaming of back-alley adventure, prowling for loose women and never really enjoying the capture. When law school became excruciatingly boring, he joined the Los Angeles Police Department, not knowing how long he’d last as a cop—or if he even could last. Then he went home for Christmas, twenty-three years old and a rookie running scared in LA niggertown. He wore his uniform to Christmas dinner: Sam Browne belt, silver-plated whistle, .38 revolver. Car king Desmond, still bearing the scars of Officer John Rokkas’ beating, was terrified of his new persona. He knew he’d be a policeman until the day he died.

Mal segued from his brother to Danny Upshaw, the black box canyon surrounding him, spent ammunition sliding under his feet. How good was he? What would he see? Would what he saw be worth today multiplied fifty times—Ellis Loew stalking grand jury chambers wrapped in the American flag?

“You’ve more stomach for this work than I expected.”

Dudley was right.

Mal picked up a handful of empty shells, hurled them at nothing and drove home to the Shangri-Lodge Motel.

Mickey Cohen’s hideaway was SRO.

The Mick and Davey Goldman were working on a new nightclub routine, a .12 gauge pump substituting for a floor mike. Johnny Stompanato was playing rummy with Morris Jahelka, going over plans for the Cohen-Dragna dope summit between hands. And Buzz was interviewing Mickey’s Teamster goons, taking down picket line scuttlebutt, a last-minute precaution before Mal Considine sent in his operative.

So far, boring Commie jive:

The De Haven cooze and Mort Ziffkin traded clichés about overthrowing the “studio autocracy”; Fritzie “Icepick” Kupferman had a Teamster file clerk tagged as a UAES plant—they’d been spoon-feeding him only what they wanted him to hear for weeks now, letting him run the lunch truck across from the Variety International line. Mo Jahelka had a hinky feeling: UAES pickets weren’t fighting back when shoved or verbally provoked—they seemed smug, like they were biding their time, even old lefty headbashers maintaining their frost. Moey seemed to think UAES had something up its sleeve. Buzz had padded the statements so Ellis Loew would think he was working harder than he was, feeling like a nice, tasty Christian in a lion’s den, waiting for the lion to get hungry and notice him.

Johnny Stomp Lion.

Mickey Lion.

Johnny had been giving him the flsheye ever since he walked in the door, ten days since he kiboshed the squeeze on Lucy Whitehall and bought the guinea sharpster off with five Mickey C-notes. “Hi, Buzz,” “Hi, Johnny,” nothing else. He’d been with Audrey three times now, the one all-nighter at his place, two quick shots at Howard’s fuck pad in the Hollywood Hills. If Mickey had any kind of surveillance on Audrey it was Johnny; if he got wise, it was mortgage his life to the fucker or kill him, no middle ground. If Mickey got wise, it was the Big Adios, when crossed, the little guy got vicious: he’d found the trigger who bumped Hooky Rothman, gave him two hollow points in the kneecaps, an evening of agony with a Fritzie Kupferman coup de grace: an icepick in the ear, Fritzie making like Toscanini conducting Beethoven, little dips and swirls with his baton before he speared the poor bastard’s brain.

Mickey Lion, this bamboo bungalow his den.

Buzz put away his notepad, taking a last look at the four names Dudley Smith had called him with earlier: Reds to be background-checked, more shitwork, probably more padding. Mickey Lion and Johnny Lion were schmoozing by the fireplace now, a picture of Audrey Lioness in pasties and panties on the wall above them. The Mick hooked a finger at him; he walked over.

The comedian had some schtick ready. “A guy comes up and asks me, ‘Mickey, how’s business?’ I tell him, ‘Pal, it’s like show business, there is no business.’ I make a pass at this ginch, she says, ‘I don’t lay for every Tom, Dick and Harry.’ I say, ‘What about me? I’m Mickey!”

Buzz laughed and pointed to the picture of Audrey, eyes hard on Johnny Stomp. “You should put her in your routine. Beauty and the Beast. You’ll bring the house down.”

Goose egg from Johnny; Mickey screwing up his face like he was actually considering the suggestion. Buzz tested the water again. “Get some big jig to play sidekick, make like he’s giving it to Audrey. Coons are always good for a laugh.”

More nothing. Mickey said, “Shvartzes I don’t need, shvartzes I don’t trust. What do you get when you cross a nigger and a Jew?”

Buzz played dumb. “I don’t know. What?”

Mickey sprayed laughter. “A janitor who owns the building!”

Johnny chuckled and excused himself; Buzz eyed the Va Va Voom Girl at twenty and made quick book: a hundred to one he knew less than nothing about them. Mickey said, “You should laugh more. I don’t trust guys who don’t have no sense of humor.”

“You don’t trust anybody, Mick.”

“Yeah? How’s this for trust. February eighth at the haberdashery, my deal with Jack D. Twenty-five pounds of Mex brown, cash split, food and booze. All my men, all Jack’s. Nobody heeled. That is trust.”

Buzz said, “I don’t believe it.”

“The deal?”

“The nobody heeled. Are you fuckin’ insane?”

Mickey put an arm around Buzz’s shoulders. “Jack wants four neutral triggers. He’s got two City bulls, I got this Sheriff’s dick won the Golden Gloves last year, and I’m still one short. You want the job? Five hundred for the day?”

He’d spend the money on Audrey: tight cashmere sweaters, red and pink and green and white, a size too small to show off her uplift. “Sure, Mick.”

Mickey’s grip tightened. “I got a storefront on the Southside. County juice, a little sharking, a little book. Half a dozen runners. Audrey’s keeping the ledgers for me, and she says I’m getting eaten alive.”

“The runners?”

“Everything tallies, but the daily take-in’s been short. I pay salary, the guys enforce their own stuff. Short of shaking down the guys, I got no way to know.”

Buzz slid free of Mickey’s arm, thinking of lioness larceny: Audrey with a hot pencil and a wet brain. “You want me to ask around on the QT? Get the squad boss at Firestone to shake down the locals, find out who’s bettin’ what?”

“Trust, Buzzchik. You nail who’s doing me, I’ll throw some bones your way.”

Buzz grabbed his coat. Mickey said, “Hot date?”

“The hottest.”

“Anybody I know?”

“Rita Hayworth.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, trust me.”

“She red downstairs?”

“Black at the roots, Mick. There’s no business like show business.”

His date was for 10:00 at Howard’s spot near the Hollywood Bowl; Mickey and Johnny’s no-take and the skim story had him running jumpy, his watch set to Audrey standard time, which made killing an hour somewhere pure horseshit. Buzz drove to the lion woman’s house, parked behind her Packard ragtop and rang the bell.

Audrey answered the door, slacks, sweater and no makeup. “You said you didn’t even want to know where I lived.”

Buzz shuffled his feet, making like a swain on a prom date. “I checked your driver’s license while you were asleep.”