“We could saw the door open,” he suggested.

“Where’s your spirit of detection?” she said.

“I’m tired.”

“Let’s be logical,” she said. “If that’s Pode’s hiding place, he’d have to be able to get into it quickly. It wouldn’t make sense to move the camera, run out to the waiting room, push a button and run back into this room. His enemies would get him by then. The button has to be close by. It also has to be wired through the floor and maybe through the wall and ceiling. So the button has to be on the floor, wall, or ceiling. We’ve scoured the walls and ceiling. That leaves us to crawl around on our hands and knees, big fellah.”

The button was under a loose corner tile. Marge pressed it and the trap door sprung open. The area underneath was pitch black.

“Got a flashlight?” he asked.

“Wait a sec. I’ll get one from the trunk.”

Decker stuck his hand inside the dark hole. He shouted hello, and from the sound of the echo, knew the space was deep. Marge came back a minute later, bent down next to him and shined the light into the darkness.

“How the hell do we get down there?” she wondered out loud. “I don’t see any sort of ladder.”

“How many feet to the bottom?” Decker asked, squinting over the edge, trying to make out the dimensions.

“It looks too deep to jump,” Marge said. “Wonder how he got down here.”

Decker stuck his head in the hole and felt under the edge. “There are hooks screwed in here. Bet he had a rope ladder and it latched onto the hardware. Get the rope out of the trunk of the car.”

“Now you’re Tarzan?”

“Got any better ideas?”

“I’ll fetch the rope,” she said, laughing.

She returned and handed him a hemp cord. Tying it securely onto the hooks, he slid down, hands burning against the coarse fiber.

The drop was about fifteen feet and the hole was cool and dank. He turned on the high beam and looked around.

The room was a six-by-eight cell of almost-empty metal shelving. Scattered film canisters and video cassettes had been dumped onto the ground. Several yards of loose celluloid streamed across the floor.

Bingo. Cecil’s warehouse.

Two empty nylon bags fell from above.

“I’m coming down,” Marge said. A moment later she dropped onto the floor.

“The good news is this was his gold mine,” Decker said. “The bad news is he’s already stripped it of any real evidence.”

“Here’s a filing cabinet,” Marge said, opening the top drawer.

“Empty?”

“Scraps,” Marge said, scanning them. “A few memos, his water and gas bills, a magazine subscription offer.” She began to stuff an empty tote. “I’ll take ’em, but I don’t suspect we’ll find much.”

“Get a load of this, Marge,” Decker said, pointing to a typewriter-sized machine in the corner. “A humidifier. The fucker had the place humidified to protect his films from burning and cracking when the weather got hot and dry. Like it was some archive.”

“The shelves are categorized, Pete. Look at the labels. This one is BD 1000-1789. This one’s SM 1000-1124. SN 1000-1006, GaySM 1000-1122, BE 1000-1148, Kiddie 1000-1219-”

“They’re inventory numbers of the films.”

“God, this is sickening, Pete. Amputee SM 1000-1021. Here’s another abbreviation. RET? And SCHIZO?”

“Porno with a nutcase?” Decker tried. “The night of the shootout, Pode’s confiscated bag contained ten films-six sado-masochisms, and four bondage-and-disciplines. We know he dealt in at least one snuff-”

“That’s what SN probably stands for-snuff,” Marge said.

“Yeah,” Decker nodded. “The numbers only go up to six, indicating he didn’t have too many of ’em floating around, and that would make sense…Goddam, if only we could find his books.”

“Maybe Dustin has ’em.”

“How the hell are we going to get to Dustin?” Decker said. “If the guy’s in on it, he’s going to be careful to the point of paranoia.”

“Then forget about Dustin. Concentrate on the other one. The broker’s son.”

Decker nodded. “Cameron Smithson.”

“After all,” Marge went on, “the father said they do their ventures together. Besides, he impressed you as a weirdo.”

“I’ve got an appointment with the two of them next week,” Decker said. “Jack Cohen is going to learn about film limited partnerships.”

“Ignore Dustin,” Marge said. “Zero in on Cameron. It’ll throw Pode off the track just in case he’s suspicious.”

“Okay.” Decker thought for a moment. “You want to poke around a little for me?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Armand Arlington.”

“Peter…”

“Don’t tell me you’re intimidated.”

“I like my job,” she said.

“One of my ears was beaten to death by an old rich guy she used to service,” Decker said. “She died today.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I am, too. And I’m very pissed. A hooker I talked to said there’s a bunch of them out there who trawl the area looking for young streetwalkers to pounce on. You want to hear something funny? Cecil Pode said the same thing. And so did Hollywood PD. I called up a Vice dick named Beauchamps. He said there’s a group of men who called themselves the Loving Grandpas-”

“That’s sick.”

“They have stooges in Jeeps who do the soliciting so they can’t get busted. Hollywood has tried using undercover women, but they never take the bait. Beauchamps thinks someone is tipping them off.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Talk to the ladies of the night. They’ll open up more to a woman than a man. I know one of the pervs goes by the name Maurice. I think Arlington ’s involved. I know it’s a long shot, but I’d love to stick him with the death of my ears, Kiki. A murder would be too big for protection. If he wasn’t the actual murderer, try to find out who it was. And try to get someone to implicate Arlington in this group.”

“You’re not hot for job security, are you?”

“My ex used to say I was self-destructive.”

“That’s a good adjective.”

“Will you do it?”

She sighed. “All right.”

“Thanks.”

They collected flotsam and jetsam, filling a bag and a half. Marge zipped up the sack and said:

“You go up first. I’ll tie the bags and you pull them up. Then drop the rope back and reel me in.”

Decker looked upward at the dangling cord and rubbed his hands together, grateful for the calluses, for the years of ranch work that had kept his body trim and muscular. But his arms, though strong and well defined, weren’t used to hoisting his own bulk. He felt his deltoids tighten, his pectorals strain, as he stretched toward the top. Man, he was hot. Goddam stupid to forget to take off his jacket before going down. He reached the top drenched in perspiration and knew his chest would be sore tomorrow.

“How we doing up there?” Marge shouted.

“Piece of cake,” he answered as he rolled his shoulders in their sockets. Again, he rubbed his hands together. Up came the bags, then Marge. The reeling in left him winded. The woman was no lightweight.

They picked up the canvas bags, locked the door, and left the studio. They had gone a block when the explosion occurred. Decker immediately hit the ground, but Marge turned around and stared in disbelief, mouth agape. The front window of Pode’s studio had blown away. Glass shards had turned the sidewalk into a deadly obstacle course, eddies of ripped photographs flying through the air like a snowstorm. The front door had burst into a pile of splinters. They heard screams. Someone could be hurt.

“You believe in God, Rabbi?” Marge asked.

Decker rose quickly and brushed off his clothes. “We’d better call an ambulance,” he replied, shaking.

He entered the study and took the chair opposite the Rosh Yeshiva. Schulman closed the tractate of Talmud he was studying and opened the Bible without uttering a word, then noticed Decker was empty handed.

“Where’s your chumash?” the old man asked.