Dudley smiled—a bland shark. “I would not want that lad’s unstable violent behavior to upset his work for our grand jury, and I would no more divulge the names of my snitches than you would, Captain.”

“No, but you’d smear a brother officer. A man who I think is a dedicated and brilliant young policeman.”

“I’ve always heard you had a soft spot for your operatives, Malcolm. You should be more circumspect in displaying it, though. Especially now that you’re a captain. I personally consider Upshaw capable of murder. Violence is often the province of weak men.”

Mal thought that with the right conditions and one drink too many, the kid could shoot in cold blood. He said, “Chief, Dudley’s persuasive, but I don’t make Upshaw for this at all.”

Thad Green stubbed out his cigarette. “You men are too personally involved. I’ll put some unbiased officers on it.”

The phone rang. Danny reached for the bedside extension, saw that he’d passed out on the floor and tripped over dead bottles and file folders getting to it. “Yeah? Jack?”

Jack Shortell said, “It’s me. You listening?”

Danny blinked away wicked sunlight, grabbed paper and a pencil. “Go.”

“First, Breuning’s tails were all fake. I called in an old favor at LAPD Homicide, checked the work sheets for the men Dudley uses regularly and found out they were all working regular assignments full-time. I looked around for Gene Niles to see if I could sweet-talk him and get some more dope on it, but that bastard is nowhere. LAPD canvassed the area where Duarte’s body was found—they caught the squeal and some rookie squadroom dick out of Central hopped on it. Nothing so far. Doc Layman’s grid-searching for trace elements there—he wants complete forensics on Duarte so he can put him in his next textbook. He thinks the rain will kibosh it, but he’s trying anyway, and on the autopsy it’s the same story as the first three: sedated, strangled, mutilated after death. I called the other men on your tailing list, and they’re going on little vacations until this blows over. Danny, did you know that guy Hartshorn you told me about killed himself?”

Danny said, “Yeah, and I don’t know if it plays with our case or not.”

“Well, I went by Wilshire Station and checked the report, and it looks clean—no forced entry, no struggle. Hartshorn’s daughter said Pops was despondent over your grand jury.”

Danny was getting nervous; the scene with De Haven was coming back: she knew, they knew, no more Red Ted. “Jack, have you got anything hot?”

Shortell said, “Maybe a scorcher. I was up all night on the wolverine thing, and I got a great lead on an old man named Thomas Cormier, that’s C-O-R-M-I-E-R. He’s an amateur naturalist, famous, I guess you’d call him. He lives on Bunker Hill, and he rents weasel genus things to the movies and animal shows. He has a batch of individually penned-up wolverines, the only known batch in LA. Now listen, because this is where it gets good.

“Last night I went by the West Hollywood Substation to talk to a pal of mine who just transferred over. I heard the girl at the switchboard ragging you to the watch sergeant, and I played nice and sweet-talked her. She told me she was dragging her heels on her set of dental queries because she thought you were just using her. She gave me a list that had notes on it—negative on the killer’s description, but positive on the animal teeth—Joredco Dental Lab on Beverly and Beaudry. They do animal dentures for taxidermists, and they’re the only lab in LA that works with actual animal teeth—that lead you had that said all taxidermists use plastic teeth was wrong. And Beverly and Beaudry is seven blocks from Thomas Cormier’s house—343 South Corondelet.”

Red hot and biting.

Danny said, “I’m rolling,” and hung up. He put muscling Felix Gordean aside, cleaned up and stashed his files, cleaned up his person and dressed as Daniel T. Upshaw, policeman, replete with badge, gun and official ID. Ted Krugman dead and buried, he drove to Bunker Hill.

343 South Corondelet was an eaved and gabled Victorian house sandwiched between vacant lots on the west edge of the Hill. Danny parked in front and heard animal yapping; he followed the sounds down the driveway and around to a terraced back yard with a picture postcard view of Angel’s Flight. Lean-tos with corrugated metal roofs were arranged in L-shapes, one to each level of grass; the structures were fronted by heavy wire mesh, and the longest L had what looked like a generator device built onto its rear side. The whole yard reeked of animals, animal piss and animal shit.

“The smell getting to you, Officer?”

Danny turned around. The mind reader was a grizzled old man wearing dungarees and hipboots, walking toward him waving a fat cigar that blended in perfectly with the shit stink and made it worse. He smiled, adding bad breath to the effluvia. “Are you from Animal Regulation or Department of Health?”

Danny felt the sun and the smell go to work on his skinful of booze, sandpapering him. “I’m a Sheriff’s Homicide detective. Are you Thomas Cormier?”

“I am indeed, and I’ve never killed anyone and I don’t associate with killers. I’ve got some killer mustelids, but they only kill the rodents I feed them. If that’s a crime, I’ll take the blame. I keep my mustelidae in captivity, so if they called a bum tune, I’ll pay the piper.”

The man looked too intelligent to be an outright loony. Danny said, “Mr. Cormier, I heard you’re an expert on wolverines.”

“That is the God’s truth. I have eleven in captivity right this instant, my baby refrigeration unit keeping them nice and cool, the way they like it.”

Danny queased on cigar smoke and halitosis; he willed himself pro. “This is why I’m here, Mr. Cormier. Four men have been killed between New Year’s and now. They were mutilated by a man wearing denture plates with wolverine teeth attached. There’s a dental lab several blocks from here—the only one in LA that manufactures actual animal dentures. I think that’s a strange coincidence, and I thought maybe you could help me out with it.”

Thomas Cormier snuffed his cigar and pocketed the butt. “That is just about the strangest thing I have heard in my entire time on this planet, which dates back to 1887. What else have you got on your killer?”

Danny said, “He’s tall, middle-aged, gray-haired. He knows the jazz world, he can purchase heroin, he knows his way around male prostitutes.” He stopped, thinking of Reynolds Loftis, wondering if he’d get anything that wasn’t circumstantial on him. “And he’s a homosexual.”

Cormier laughed. “Sounds like a nice fellow, and sorry I can’t help you. I don’t know anybody like that, and if I did, I think I’d keep my back to the wall and my trusty rifle out when he came to call. And this fellow’s enamored of Gulo luscus?”

“If you mean wolverines, yes.”

“Lord. Well, I admire his taste in mustelids, if not the way he displays his appreciation.”

Danny sighed. “Mr. Cormier, do you know anything about the Joredco Dental Lab?”

“Sure, just down the street. I think they make animal choppers.”

A clean take. Danny saw takes from Claire De Haven’s movie, pictured HIM seeing it, getting aroused, wanting more. “I’d like to see your wolverines.”

Cormier said, “Thought you’d never ask,” and walked ahead of Danny to the refrigeration shed. The air went from warm to freezing; the yapping became snarling; dark shapes lashed out and banged the mesh fronts of their pens. Cormier said, “Gulo luscus. Carcajou—evil spirit—to the Indians. The most insatiable carnivore alive and pound for pound the meanest mammal. Like I said, I admire your killer’s taste.”

Danny found a good sun angle—light square on a middle pen; he squatted down and looked, his nose to the wire. Inside, a long creature paced, turning in circles, snapping at the walls. Its teeth glinted; its claws scraped the floor; it looked like a coiled muscle that would not stop coiling until it killed and slept in satiation— or died. Danny watched, feeling the beast’s power, feeling HIM feeling it; Cormier talked. “Gulo luscus is two things: smart and intractable. I’ve known them to develop a taste for deer, hide in trees and toss nice edible bark down to lure them over, then jump down and rip the deer’s jugular out clean to the windpipe. Once they get a whiff of blood, they will not stop persisting. I’ve heard of wolverines stalking cougars wounded in mating battles. They’ll jab them from behind, take nips out and run away, a little meat here and there until the cougar nearly bleeds to death. When the poor fellow’s almost dead, Gulo attacks frontally, claws the cougar’s eyes out of his head and eats them like gumballs.”