“Tell us again what she called him,” Wesley said.

“I don’t remember,” Teddy said.

“You told me Freddy,” Wesley said.

“Did I?”

“Or Morley?”

“If you say so. But it don’t ring a bell now.”

“Have you seen them either before or after that?”

“Yeah, I saw them try to hustle a clerk in a store.”

“When?”

“A few days after he insulted me.”

“What store?”

“Coulda been like a Target store. Or maybe it was RadioShack. Or like a Best Buy store. I can’t remember. I get around.”

“At least,” Nate said, “you got another good look at them, right?”

“Yeah, but I still can’t remember what they look like. They’re white people. Maybe thirty years old. Or forty. But they could be fifty. I can’t tell ages no more. You can check with the guy at the store. He gave me a ten-buck reward for telling him they were crooks. They had a bogus credit card. Or bogus money. Something like that.”

“Jesus,” Nate said, looking at Wesley in frustration.

Wesley said, “If we can find the store and find the guy who saw them, at least you can say that they’re the same two people who stole from the mailbox, isn’t that right?”

“He stole from the mailbox,” Teddy said. “She didn’t. I got a feeling she’s okay. He’s a total asshole.”

Wesley said, “If the detectives need to talk to you, where can they find you?”

“There’s an old empty office building on that street on the east side of Hollywood Cemetery. I’m living there for now. But I come here a few nights a week for supper.”

“Can you remember anything else?” Hollywood Nate said, taking a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and putting it on the chopping block.

“Hell, half the time I can’t remember what day it is,” Teddy said. Then he looked at them and said, “What day is it, anyways?”

Viktor Chernenko was known for working late, especially with his obsession to solve the jewelry store robbery and the ATM robbery-murder, and most of the veteran cops from Hollywood Station were aware of it. Nate knew it and was busting stop signs and speeding to the station faster than he’d driven to the House of Chang.

They ran into the detective squad room and were overjoyed to see Viktor still there, typing on his computer keyboard.

“Viktor,” Nate said. “Here it is!”

Viktor looked at the business card, at the license number and the words “blue Pinto” written on it, and he said, “My mail thief?”

Since he had been on the initial callout, Brant worked all day in southeast L.A. with Andi on the Gulag homicide. Doobie D, whom they had identified through data received from his cell provider, was Latelle Granville, a twenty-four-year-old member of the Crips with an extensive record for drug sales and weapons violations. He had begun using his cell in the afternoon.

With a team of detectives from Southeast Division assisting, the cell towers eventually triangulated him to the vicinity of a residence on 103rd Street known to be the family home of a Crips cruiser named Delbert Minton. He had a far more extensive record than Latelle Granville and turned out to be the Crip who had been fighting with the slain student. Both were arrested at Minton’s without incident and taken back to Hollywood Station for interview and booking. Both Crips refused to speak and demanded to call their lawyers.

It had been a very long day, and the detectives were hungry and tired from working well into an overtime evening. Then Andi returned a phone call from a cocktail waitress, one of the people she’d interviewed at the Gulag on the night of the murder. At that time, the waitress, Angela Hawthorn, had told Andi she was at the service bar fetching drinks when the fight broke out and had seen nothing. So why was she calling now? Andi wondered.

“This is Detective McCrea,” Andi said when the woman answered her cell.

“Hello,” Angela Hawthorn said. “I’m at home. I don’t work at the Gulag anymore. Dmitri fired me because I wouldn’t put out for one of his rich Russian customers. I have some information that might help you.”

“I’m listening,” Andi said.

“Up in the corner of the building by the window to Dmitri’s office there’s a video camera that sees everything on the smoking patio. During the party I’m pretty sure it was there like it always is. But when you showed up it wasn’t there. Dmitri probably took it down so you wouldn’t see it.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He’s paranoid about bad publicity and cops and courtrooms. And he doesn’t want trouble with black hoodlums. In fact, he doesn’t want black customers. He just wouldn’t want to be involved in your murder case. Anyways, if you get that camera from him I’ll bet you’ll see that black guy sticking the knife in that kid. Just keep my name out of it, okay?”

When Andi hung up, she said to Brant, “Do you need money?”

“Why?”

“You’re going to be getting even more overtime. There might be video at the Gulag with our murder shown right there on it!”

Brant looked around, but all the other detectives had gone home. Only the night-watch detective Compassionate Charlie was there, with his feet up on the desk, sucking his teeth as usual, reading the L.A. Times sports page.

“I’m all you got?” he said.

“Don’t be a wuss. This is more fun than being an IA weasel, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m starting to miss the Burn Squad. At least I got fed every once in a while.”

“When we’re all through tonight, I’m making you a very late supper with a bottle of good Pinot I’ve been saving. How’s that sound?”

“Suddenly I’m renewed,” he said.

“One thing, though,” Andi said. “I think I should call Viktor. We might find a Russian translator very useful if this nightclub owner starts lyin’ and denyin’ like he probably will. Viktor is a master at handling those people, a kick-ass skill he learned in the bad old days with the Red Army.”

“He’s just getting home by now,” Brant said. “He won’t be pleased.”

“He owes me,” Andi said. “Didn’t I do a dumpster dive for him? Didn’t it cost me a busted bra strap?”

Eavesdropping as usual, Compassionate Charlie said, “Hey, you guys looking for Viktor? He left in a hell of a hurry with Hollywood Nate and that big kid Nate works with. I love to watch Viktor run. Like a bear on roller skates.”

EIGHTEEN

THE BLUE PINTO was registered to a Samuel R. Culhane who lived on Winona Boulevard. Viktor Chernenko was sitting in the backseat of the black-and-white, concerned about whiplash with Hollywood Nate still driving in his high-speed redemption mode.

Wesley said to Viktor, “You know, Detective, the only problem here is that the first time we talked to Trombone Teddy he said the guy’s name sounded like Freddy or Morley.”

“Maybe Samuel sold the car to a Freddy,” Nate said. “Stay positive.”

“Or lent the car to Morley,” Viktor added.

The house was almost a duplicate of Farley Ramsdale’s old Hollywood bungalow except it was in good repair and had a small lawn in front with geraniums along the side of the house and a bed of petunias by the front porch.

Wesley ran to the rear of the house to prevent escape. It was dusk, and he didn’t need a flashlight yet. He took cover behind the garage and waited.

Viktor took the lead and knocked, with Nate standing to his left.

Samuel R. Culhane wasn’t as thin as Farley but he was in a late stage of methamphetamine addiction. He had pustules on his face and a permanent twitch at the corner of his right eye. He was several years older than Farley and balding, with a bad comb-over. And though he couldn’t see Hollywood Nate standing beside the guy at the door, he knew instantly that Viktor was a cop.

“Yeah?” he said cautiously.

Viktor showed his badge and said, “We need to talk to you.”

“Come back with a warrant,” Samuel Culhane said and started to close the door, but Viktor stopped it with his foot and Nate pushed past and into the room, touching the badge pinned to his shirt, saying, “This is a brass pass, dude.”