"Hell, no. I just told you."

"Can I get in to read the reports?"

He showed me his palms and backed away. "No way, man. And I don't care how much Rusty threatens. Anybody finds out I've said this much, it's my ass. I'm out of it."

I watched him walking away, and called to stop him.

"Jerry."

"What?"

Something with hundreds of sticky feet crawled along my spine.

"Are the five vics connected?"

Jerry Swetaggen smiled, and now his smile was scared. The smirk was gone, replaced by something fearful. "No, man. The cops say they're random. Totally unconnected."

I nodded.

Jerry Swetaggen disappeared into the murky light that precedes dawn. I put the sheet in my pocket, then took it out and looked at the names again.

"The cops were keeping secrets, all right."

I guess I just needed to hear a human voice, and even my own would do.

I put away the sheet, then tried to figure out what to do. The sheer size of it was as impossible to grasp as it is to put your arms around the Goodyear blimp. This explained why the FBI were involved, and why the police didn't want me around. If the cops were keeping their Task Force secret, they probably had good reasons, but Frank Garcia would still ask what the police were doing about his daughter's murder, and I would still have to answer. I didn't want to tell him that everything was fine if it wasn't. If I told him what Jerry Swetaggen had just told me, nothing would be secret anymore, and that might hurt the police efforts to nail the shooter. On the other hand, Krantz had kept the truth from me, so I didn't know what they had, or where they were in the investigation. I could take their efforts on faith, but Frank Garcia wasn't looking for faith.

And it was his daughter who had been killed.

I went back into the diner, found a pay phone at the rear by the bathrooms, and called Samantha Dolan's office number. Sometimes the day-shift people come on early, but you never know.

On the fourth ring a guy with a smoker's voice said, "Robbery-Homicide. Taylor."

"Is Samantha Dolan in yet?"

"Nah. You wanna leave a message?"

"I'll call back. Thanks."

I bought a cup of coffee to go, then drove over to Parker Center, where I parked across from the entrance in the coral light of the approaching dawn.

I tried again to figure out what I could do and how I would do it, but my thoughts were jumbled and uneasy, and left little room for solutions.

Someone had been stalking people in the streets of Los Angeles for almost two years. If the vics are connected, you call the shooter a hit man. If they're random, there's another name.

Serial killer.

Little by little, the night shift drifted away, and the day shift arrived. Samantha Dolan turned in driving a dark blue Beemer. Her license plate frame read I WANNA BE BARBIE, THAT BITCH HAS EVERYTHING. Most of the other cops were driving American sedans or pickup trucks, and almost all of their vehicles had a trailer hitch because cops like boats. It's genetic. Dolan didn't have a trailer hitch, but none of the other cops had Beemers. Maybe that made them even.

I followed her down, and parked next to her. She saw me as I parked, and raised her eyebrows, watching me as I got out of my car, then climbed into hers. The Black Forest leather went nicely with her Piaget watch. "Guess the TV series wasn't so bad, Dolan. Nice car."

"What are you doing here this early, for chrissake? I thought you private guys slept in."

"I wanted to talk to you without Krantz around."

She smiled, and suddenly looked very pretty. Like the bad girl next door.

"You're not going to talk dirty to me, are you? I might blush."

"Not this time. I read through those reports you gave me and saw that some facts are missing, like the little bit of plastic the criminalist found and the white particulates that the ME IDed in Karen Garcia's wound. I was hoping maybe you could help get me the real reports."

Dolan stopped smiling. A maroon leather daybook was in her lap, along with a briefcase and a Sig Sauer 9-millimeter. The Sig was in a clip holster, and had probably been under her front seat. Most cops carry Berettas, but the Sig is an easy gun to shoot, and very accurate. Hers had glow-in-the-dark sights.

I said, "Do us both a favor and don't say you don't know what I'm talking about. It would make you look ordinary."

Dolan abruptly took a cell phone from the center console and put it in her purse. "I gave you the reports Krantz gave me. If you've got a problem with that, you should talk to him. You may not remember this, but I work for him."

"And who does Krantz work for, the FBI?"

She continued gathering things.

"I followed the guy with the white crew cut, Dolan. I know he's FBI. I know why they're on the case, and I know what you're covering up."

"You've been watching too much of The X-Files. Get out. I've got to get in to work."

I took out the sheet of paper with the five names and gave it to her.

"If I'm Mulder, are you Scully?"

Dolan stared at the five names, then searched my face. "Where did you get this?"

"I'm the world's greatest detective, Dolan. This isn't early for me. I never sleep."

Dolan handed back the sheet as if she didn't believe this was happening, and by handing it back could pretend she hadn't seen it.

"Why did you come to me with this? Krantz is the lead."

"I figure you and I can do this off the record."

"Do what?"

"You guys have been feeding me bullshit. I want to know what's really going on with this investigation."

Dolan was shaking her head before I finished, raising her hands. "Absolutely not. I won't have anything to do with this."

"I already know who the victims are, how they were murdered, and when. By the end of the day I'll have their life histories. I know you're sitting on Dersh, though I don't know why. I know Robbery-Homicide has been running a Task Force, that the FBI is involved, and that you've got the lid clamped."

Dolan watched me as I said it, and something like a smile played on her lips. Not the bad-girl smile; more like she appreciated what I was saying.

When I finished she said, "Jesus."

"No. But almost."

"I guess you're a pretty good investigator, Cole. I guess you're pretty good."

I spread my hands and tried to look modest. No easy task. "The world's-"

"-greatest. Yeah, I know." She took a breath, and suddenly I liked her smile a great deal. "Maybe you are. You've been a busy boy."

"So talk to me, Dolan. Tell me what's going on."

"You know what kind of spot you're putting me in?"

"I know. I don't want to come on like an adversary, Dolan, but Frank Garcia is going to ask me what's happening, and I have to decide whether or not to lie to him. You don't know me, and you probably think nothing of me, but let me tell you, I don't view that lightly. I don't like lying, I like lying to a client even less, and I will not do so unless there's a compelling reason. Understand this, Dolan, my obligation here isn't to you or Krantz or the sanctity of your investigation. It's to Frank Garcia, and later today he's going to ask. I'm sitting here right now so you can tell me why I shouldn't give this to him."

"What if you don't like what I tell you?"

"We'll take it a step at a time."

A sharp vertical line appeared between her eyebrows in a kind of scowl as she thought about what to tell me. I hadn't seen many women who looked good scowling, but she did.

"Remember David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam?"

"Sure. Shot people in parked cars back in New York."

"Berkowitz just walked up to cars, shot whoever was inside – male, female, it didn't matter – then walked away. He got off on shooting people, and it didn't matter who. The Feebs call guys like that 'random assassin killers,' and they're the hardest type of killer to catch. You see why?"