“No.”

“George Wiltsie?”

Tilt: Loftis crossing and recrossing his legs, licking his lips. “No.”

Buzz said, “Horse fucking pucky, you don’t. Give.”

“I said I never knew him!”

“Then why’d you describe him in the past tense?”

“Oh God—”

Mal flashed two fingers, then his left hand over his right fist: He’s mine, no hitting. “Augie Duarte, Loftis. What about him?”

“I don’t know him”—a dry tongue over dry lips.

Buzz cracked his knuckles—loud. Loftis flinched; Mal said, “George Wiltsie was a male prostitute. Did you ever traffic with him? Tell the truth or my partner will get angry.”

Loftis looked down at his lap. “Yes.”

Mal said, “Who set it up?”

“Nobody set it up! It was just… a date.”

Buzz said, “A date you paid for, boss?”

“No.”

Mal said, “Felix Gordean set you up with him, right?”

“No!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No!”

Mal knew a straight admission was out; he jabbed Loftis hard on the shoulder. “Augie Duarte. Was he just a date?”

“No!”

“Tell the truth, or I’ll leave you alone with the sergeant.”

Loftis pinched his knees together and hunched his shoulders down. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes. We dated once.”

Buzz said, “You sound like a one-night stand man. A date with Wiltsie, a date with Duarte. Where’d you meet those guys?”

“Nowhere… at a bar.”

“What bar?”

“The Oak Room at the Biltmore, the Macombo, I don’t know.”

“You’re rattlin’ my cage, boy. Duarte was Mex and those joints don’t serve spics. So try again. Two goddamn queer slash murder victims you got between the sheets with. Where’d you meet them?”

Reynolds Loftis stayed crimped up and silent; Buzz said, “You paid for them, right? It ain’t no sin. I’ve paid for pussy, so why shouldn’t somebody of your persuasion pay for boys?”

“No. No. No, that’s not true.”

Mal, very soft. “Felix Gordean.”

Loftis, trembling. “No no no no no.”

Buzz twirled a finger and smoothed his necktie—the switcheroo sign. “Charles Hartshorn. Why’d he kill himself?”

“He was tortured by people like you!”

Mal’s switcheroo. “You copped horse for Claire. Who’d you get it from?”

“Who told you that?”—Loftis actually sounding indignant. Buzz leaned over and whispered, “Felix Gordean”; Loftis jerked back and banged his head on the wall. Mal said, “Duane Lindenaur worked at Variety International, where your friends Lopez, Duarte and Benavides are working. Juan Duarte is Augie Duarte’s cousin. You used to appear in Variety International movies. Duane Lindenaur was blackmailing Charles Hartshorn. Why don’t you put all that together for me.”

Loftis was sweating; Mal caught a twitch at blackmail. “Three times in ‘44 and once last week you withdrew ten grand from your bank account. Who’s blackmailing you?”

The man was oozing sweat. Buzz flashed a fist on the QT; Mal shook his head and gave him the switch sign. Buzz said, “Tell us about the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. Some strange stuff happened, right?”

Loftis wiped sweat off his brow; he said, “What strange stuff?”, his voice cracking.

“Like the letters the Committee got that said a big white man snuffed José Diaz. A deputy pal of ours seemed to think these here killings went back to Sleepy Lagoon—zoot stick time. All the victims were cut with zoot sticks.”

Loftis wrung his hands, popping more sweat; his eyes were glazed. Mal could tell Meeks went for a soft shot—innocuous stuff from his interrogation notes—but came up with a bludgeon. Buzz looked bewildered; Mal tamped down his black hat. “Loftis, who’s blackmailing you?”

Loftis squeaked, “No”; Mal saw that he’d sweated his clothes through. “What happened with the SLDC?”

“No!”

“Is Gordean blackmailing you?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answ—”

“You’re a slimy piece of Commie shit. What kind of treason are you planning at your meetings? Cop on that!”

“Claire said I didn’t have to!”

“Who’s that piece of tail you and Chaz Minear were fighting over during the war? Who’s that piece of fluff?”

Loftis sobbed and keened and managed a squeaky singsong. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answers might tend to incriminate me, but I never hurt anybody and neither did my friends so please don’t hurt us.”

Mal made a fist, Stanford ring stone out to do maximum damage. Buzz put a hand on his own fist and squeezed it, a new semaphore: don’t hit him or I’ll hit you. Mal got scared and went for big verbal ammo: Loftis didn’t know Chaz Minear ratted him to HUAC. “Are you protecting Minear? You shouldn’t, because he was the one who snitched you to the Feds. He was the one who got you blacklisted.”

Loftis curled into a ball; he murmured his Fifth Amendment spiel, like their interrogation was legal and defense counsel would swoop to the rescue. Buzz said, “You dumb shit, we coulda had him.” Mal turned and saw Claire De Haven standing there. She was saying, “Chaz,” over and over.

The picket line action was simmering.

Buzz watched from the Variety International walkway, three stories up. Jack Shortell and Mal were supposed to call; Ellis Loew had called him at home, yanking him out of another Danny nightmare. The DA’s command: convince Herman Gerstein to kick an additonal five thou into the grand jury war chest. Herman was out—probably muff-diving Betty Grable—and there was nothing for him to do but stew on Considine’s foul-up and scope the prelim to slaughter down on the Street.

You could see it plain:

A Teamster goon with a baseball bat was lounging near the UAES camera van; when the shit hit the fan and the film rolled, he’d be Johnny on the spot to neutralize the cinematographer and bust up his equipment. Teamster pickets were carrying double and triple banner sticks, taped grips, good shillelaghs. Four muscle boys were skulking by the Pinkos’ lunch truck—just the right number to tip it over and coffee-scald the guy inside. A minute ago he saw a Cohen triggerman make an on-the-sly delivery: riot guns with rubber-bullet attachments, wrapped in swaddling cloth like Baby Jesus. Over on De Longpre, the Teamsters had their moviemaking crew at the ready: actor/picketers who’d wade in, provoke just the right way and make sure a few UAES pickets whomped them; three camera guys in the back of a tarp-covered pickup. When the dust cleared, Mickey’s boys would survive on celluloid as the good guys.

Buzz kept posing Mal against the action. The Cap had almost shot Doc Lesnick’s confidentiality on the psych files—blowing the whistle on Minear squealing Loftis—just when they were getting close on the blackmail angle and Felix Gordean. He’d hustled him out of the house quicksville, so he wouldn’t keep trashing the team’s cover—if they were lucky, De Haven and Loftis figured a HUAC source gave them the dope on Minear. For a smart cop, Captain Malcolm Considine kept making stupid moves: it was twenty to one he’d cut a deal with Red Claire for the custody case continuance; ten to one his attack on Loftis came close to deep sixing it. The old nance was no killer, but the ‘42 to ‘44 gap in his psych file—a time he was terrified remembering—talked volumes, and he and De Haven were looking like prime suspects on the snatch of the kid’s paperwork. And Doc Lesnick being noplace was starting to look as wrong as Mal fucking up his own wet dream.

The Teamster men were passing around bottles; UAES was marching and shouting its sad old refrain: “Fair Wages Now,” “End the Studio Tyranny.” Buzz thought of a cat about to pounce on a mouse nibbling cheese on the edge of a cliff; he gave the matinee a pass and walked into Herman Gerstein’s office.

Still no mogul; the switchboard girl at the plant knew to forward his calls to Herman’s private line. Buzz sat behind Gerstein’s desk, sniffed his humidor, admired his starlet pics on the wall. He was speculating on his grand jury bonus when the phone rang.