Mag was a cool and gutsy little chick with a quiet sense of humor that Budgie liked. And being of Japanese ethnicity, Mag would no doubt be down for code 7 at the sushi bar on Melrose that Budgie couldn’t persuade any of the male officers to set foot in. Of course, two women as short and tall as Mag and Budgie would be butts of stupid male remarks, along with the usual sexist ones that all women officers have to live with unless they want to get a rat jacket by complaining about it. The lamest: What do you call a black-and-white with two females in it? Answer: a tuna boat.

And while Budgie was thinking of ways to trade B.M. Driscoll for Mag Takara without pissing off the Oracle, Mag was thinking of ways to trade Flotsam for anybody at all. With Jetsam on days off, they were teamed for the first time, short and tall, quiet and mouthy. And oh god! He kept sliding his sight line over onto her every time she was looking out at the streets, and if this kept up, he’d be rear-ending a bus or something.

“Where shall we go for code seven?” he asked when they hadn’t been on patrol for twenty minutes. “And don’t say the sushi bar on Melrose, where I’ve seen your shop parked on numerous occasions.”

“I won’t, then,” she said, punching in a license plate on a low rider in the number two lane, figuring this surfer probably takes his dates to places with paper napkins and tap water.

Hoping for a smile, he said, “For me an order of sushi is a dish containing unretouched, recently dead mollusks. Stuff like that lays all over the beach in low tide. You like to surf?”

“No,” Mag said, unamused.

“I bet you’d look great shooting a barrel. All that gorgeous dark hair flowing in the wind.”

“A barrel?”

“Yeah, a tube? A pipe? Riding through as the wave breaks over you?”

“Yeah, a barrel.” This loghead’s had too many wipeouts, she thought. He’s gone surfboard-simple, that’s what.

“In one of those bikinis that’s just a piece of Lycra the size of a Toll House cookie.”

Just get me through the night and away from this hormone monster, Mag thought. Then she did some serious eye rolling when Flotsam said, “A surfer might predict that this could be the beginning of a choiceamundo friendship.”

Wesley Drubb got to drive, and he liked that. Hollywood Nate was sitting back doing what he did best, talking show business to his young partner, who didn’t give a shit about the movie theater that Nate pointed out there at Fairfax and Melrose, one that showed silent films.

“There was a famous murder there in the nineties,” Nate informed him, “involving former owners. One got set up by a business partner who hired a hit on him. The hit man is now doing life without. ‘The Silent Movie Murder,’ the press called it.”

“Really,” Wesley said, without enthusiasm.

“I can give you a show-business education,” Nate said. “Never know when it could come in handy working this division. I know you’re rich and all, but would you ever consider doing extra work in the movies? I could introduce you to an agent.”

Wesley Drubb hated it when other officers talked about his family wealth and said, “I’m not rich. My father’s rich.”

“I’d like to meet your dad sometime,” Nate said. “Does he have any interest in movies?”

Wesley shrugged and said, “He and my mom go to movies sometimes.”

“I mean in filmmaking.”

“His hobby is skeet shooting,” Wesley said. “And he’s done a little pistol shooting with me since I came on the Department.”

“Guns don’t have it going on, far as I’m concerned,” Nate said. “When I talk millimeters, it’s not about guns and ammo, it’s about celluloid. Thirty-five millimeters. Twenty-four frames per second. I have a thousand-dollar digital video camera. Panavision model. Sweet.”

“Uh-huh,” Wesley said.

“I know a guy, him and me, we’re into filmmaking. One of these days when we find the right kind of investor, we’re gonna make a little indie film and show it at the festivals. We have a script and we’re very close. All we need is the right investor. We can’t accept just anybody.”

They were stopped at a residential intersection in east Hollywood, a street that Wesley remembered hearing about. He looked at a two-story house, home of some Eighteenth Street crew members.

Hollywood Nate was just about to pop the question to Wesley about whether he thought that Franklin Drubb would ever consider including a start-up production company in his investment portfolio, when a head-shaven white guy in faux-leather pants, studded boots, and a leather vest over a swelling bare chest completely covered by body art walked up to the passenger side of the patrol car and tapped loudly on Nate’s window.

It startled both of them, and Nate rolled down the window and said, “What can I do for you?” keeping it polite but wary.

The man said in a voice soft and low, “Take me to Santa Monica and La Brea.”

Hollywood Nate glanced quickly at Wesley, then back to the guy, shining his flashlight up under the chin, seeing those dilated cavernous eyes, and said to him, “Step back away from the car.” Nate got out and Wesley quickly informed communications that 6-X-72 was code 6 at that location. Then he put the car in park, turned off the engine, tucked the keys in the buckle of his Sam Browne and got out on the driver’s side, walking quickly around the front of the car, flashlight in one hand, the other on the butt of his Beretta.

The man was a lot older than he looked at first when Nate walked him to the sidewalk and had a good look, but he was wide shouldered, with thick veins on his well-muscled arms, and full-sleeve tatts. It was very dark and the street lamp on the corner was out. An occasional car passed and nobody was walking on the residential street.

Then the guy said, “I’m a Vietnam vet. You’re a public servant. Take me to Santa Monica and La Brea.”

Hollywood Nate looked from the guy to his partner in disbelief and said, “Yeah, you’re a Vietnam vet and you got napalm eyes to prove it, but we’re not a taxi. What’re you fried on, man? X, maybe?”

The man smiled then, a sly and secretive smile locked in place just this side of madness. He opened his vest, showing his bare torso, and ran his hands over his own waist and buttocks and groin under the tight imitation-leather pants and said, “See, no weapons. No nothing. Just beautiful tattoos. Let’s go to Santa Monica and La Brea.”

Hollywood Nate glanced again at his partner, who looked spring-loaded, and Nate said, “Yeah, I see. You got more tatts than Angelina Jolie, but you ain’t her. So we’re not driving you anywhere.” Then he uttered the Hollywood Station mantra, “Stay real, dude.”

Those eyes. Nate looked again with his flashlight beam under the guy’s chin. Where did he find those eyes? They didn’t fit his face somehow. They looked like they belonged to somebody else. Or something else.

Nate looked at Wesley, who didn’t know what the hell to do. The man hadn’t broken any laws. Wesley didn’t know if he should ask the guy for ID or what. He waited for a cue from Nate. This was getting very spooky. An unhinged 5150 mental case for sure. Still, all he’d done was ask for a ride. Wesley remembered his academy instructor saying as long as they weren’t a danger to themselves or others, they couldn’t be taken to the USC Medical Center, formerly the old county hospital, for a seventy-two-hour hold.

Nate said to the man, “The only place this car goes is jail. Why don’t you walk home and sleep it off, whatever it is gave you those eyes.”

The man said, “War gave me these eyes. War.”

Cautiously, Nate said, “I think we’re gonna say good night to you, soldier. Go home. Right now.”

Nate nodded to his partner and backed toward the police car, but when he got in and closed the door and Wesley got in on the driver’s side and started the engine, the transmission still in park, the man ran to the car and kicked the right rear door with those studded boots, howling like a wolf.