Madeleine obeyed, going between my legs like a reverse of Martha’s drawing. Captured that way, I felt myself getting ready to burst. I pushed Madeleine away so as not to explode, whispering, “Me, not them,” stroking her hair, trying to concentrate on an inane radio jingle. Madeleine held me harder than any fight giveaway girl ever did; when I was cooled down and ready, I eased her onto her back and pushed myself inside her.

Now it was no common policeman and rich girl slut. It was us together, arching, shifting and moving, hard, but with all the time in the world. We moved together until the dance music and jingles ended and the radio dial tone came and went, the cinderblock rutting room silent except for us. Then we ended it—perfectly, together.

We held each other afterward, pockets of sweat binding us head to toe. I thought of going on duty in less than four hours and groaned; Madeleine broke our embrace and aped my trademark, flashing her perfect teeth. Laughing, I said, “Well, you kept your name out of the papers.”

“Until we announce the Bleichert-Sprague nuptials?”

I laughed harder. “Your mother would love that.”

“Mother’s a hypocrite. She takes pills that the doctor gives her, so she’s not a hophead. I fool around, so I’m a whore. She’s sanctioned, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re my—” I couldn’t quite say, “whore.”

Madeleine tickled my ribs. “Say it. Don’t be a cop from squaresville. Say it.”

I grabbed her hand before the tickling made me helpless. “You’re my paramour, you’re my inamorata, you’re my sweetheart, you’re the woman I suppressed evidence for—”

Madeleine bit my shoulder and said, “I’m your whore.”

I laughed. “Okay, you’re my violator of 234-A PC.”

“What’s that?”

“The California penal code designation for prostitution.”

Madeleine waggled her eyebrows. “Penal code?”

I put up my hands. “You got me there.”

The brass girl nuzzled me. “I like you, Bucky.”

“I like you, too.”

“You didn’t start out liking me. Tell true—at first you just wanted to screw me.”

“That’s true.”

“Then when did you start liking me?”

“The moment you took off your clothes.”

“Bastard! You want to know when I started liking you?”

“Tell true.”

“When I told Daddy I met this nice policeman Bucky Bleichert. Daddy’s jaw dropped. He was impressed, and Emmett McConville Sprague is a very hard man to impress.”

I thought of the man’s cruelty to his wife and made a neutral comment: “He’s an impressive man.”

Madeleine said, “Diplomat. He’s a hardcase, tightwad Scotchman son of a bitch, but he’s a man. You know how he really made his money?”

“How?”

“Gangster kickbacks and worse. Daddy bought rotten lumber and abandoned movie facades from Mack Sennett and built houses out of them. He’s got firetraps and dives all over LA, registered to phony corporations. He’s friends with Mickey Cohen. His people collect the rents.”

I shrugged. “The Mick’s thick with Bowron and half the Board of Supervisors. You see my gun and handcuffs?”

“Yes.”

“Cohen paid for them. He put up the dough for a fund to help junior officers pay for their equipment. It’s good public relations. The city tax assessor never checks his books, because the Mick pays for the gas and oil on all his field agent’s cars. So you’re not exactly shocking me.”

Madeleine said, “Do you want to hear a secret?”

“Sure.”

“Half a block of Daddy’s Long Beach houses collapsed during the ‘33 earthquake. Twelve people were killed. Daddy paid money to have his name expunged from the contractor’s records.”

I held Madeleine out at arm’s length. “Why are you telling me these things?”

Caressing my hands, she said, “Because Daddy’s impressed with you. Because you’re the only boy I’ve ever brought home that he thought was worth spit. Because Daddy worships toughness and he thinks you’re tough, and if we get serious he’d probably tell you himself. Those people weigh on him, and he takes it out on Mother because it was her money he built that block with. I don’t want you to judge Daddy by tonight. First impressions last, and I like you and I don’t want—”

I pulled Madeleine to me. “Be still, babe. You’re with me now, not your family.”

Madeleine held me tightly. I wanted to let her know things were copacetic, so I tilted her chin up. Tears were in her eyes; she said, “Bucky, I didn’t tell you all of it about Betty Short.”

I gripped her shoulders. “What?”

“Don’t be mad at me. It’s nothing, I just don’t want to keep it a secret. I didn’t like you at first, so I didn’t—”

“Tell me now.”

Madeleine looked at me, a stretch of sweat-stained bedsheet separating us. “Last summer I was bar hopping a lot. Straight bars in Hollywood. I heard about a girl who was supposed to look a lot like me. I got curious about her and left notes at a couple of places—’Your lookalike would like to meet you’ and my private number at the house. Betty called me, and we got together. We talked, and that was it. I ran into her again with Linda Martin at La Verne’s last November. It was just a coincidence.”

“And that’s all of it?”

“Yes.”

“Then babe, you’d better prepare yourself. There’s fifty-odd cops canvassing bars, and if even one of them gets hold of your little lookalike number, you’re headed for a trip across page one. There’s not a goddamned thing I could do about it, and if it happens, don’t ask me—because I’ve done all I’m going to.”

Drawing away from me, Madeleine said, “I’ll take care of it.”

“You mean your Daddy will?”

“Bucky lad, are ye telling me you’re jealous of a man twice your age and half your size?”

I thought of the Black Dahlia then, her death eclipsing my shoot-out headlines. “Why did you want to meet Betty Short?”

Madeleine shivered; the red neon arrow that gave the flop its name blinked through the window and across her face. “I’ve worked hard at being loose and free,” she said. “But the way people described Betty it sounded like she was a natural. A real wild girl from the gate.”

I kissed my wild girl. We made love again, and I pictured her coupled with Betty Short the whole time—both of them naturals.

Chapter 12

Russ Millard took in my rumpled clothes and said, “A ten-ton truck or a woman?”

I looked around at University squadroom starting to fill up with daywatch dicks. “Betty Short. No phone work today, okay, boss?”

“In the mood for some fresh air?”

“Keep talking.”

“Linda Martin was spotted last night out in Encino, trying to get served at a couple of bars. You and Blanchard go out to the Valley and look for her. Start at the twenty-thousand block of Victory Boulevard and work west. I’ll be sending some other men as soon as they report in.”

“When?”

Millard checked his watch. “Immediately, if not sooner.”

I eyeballed for Lee and didn’t see him, nodded assent and reached for the phone on my desk. I called the house, the City Hall Warrants office and Information for the number of the El Nido Hotel. I got a no answer for the first call and two no Blanchards for the others. Then Millard came back, with Fritz Vogel and—amazingly—Johnny Vogel in plainclothes.

I stood up. “I can’t find Lee, Skipper.”

Millard said, “Go with Fritzie and John. Take an unmarked radio car so you can keep in touch with the other men out there.”

The fat Vogel boys stared at me, then at each other. The look they exchanged said my unkempt state was a Class B Felony. “Thanks, Russ,” I said.

We drove to the Valley, the Vogels in the front seat, me in the back. I tried to doze, but Fritzie’s monologue on hooers and woman killers made it impossible. Johnny nodded along; every time his father paused for breath, he said, “Right, Dad.” Going over the Cahuenga Pass, Fritzie ran out of verbal steam; Johnny’s yes-man act fell silent. I closed my eyes and leaned against the window. Madeleine was doing a slow striptease in concert with motor hum when I heard the Vogels whispering.