Millard put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Bucky, Blanchard’s down in Tijuana. A border patrolman we talked to saw him, recognized him from all the fight publicity. He was hobnobbing with a bad-looking bunch of Rurales.”

I thought of De Witt TJ bound and wondered why Lee would be talking to the Mex state police. “When?”

Sears said, “Last night. Loew and Vogel and Koenig are down there too, at the Divisidero Hotel. They’ve been talking to the TJ cops. Russ thinks they’re measuring spies for a frame on the Dahlia.”

Lee chased smut demons through my mind; I saw him bloody at my feet and shivered. Millard said, “Which is crap, because Meg Caulfield got the straight dope on the smut man out of the Martilkova girl. He’s a white guy named Walter “Duke” Wellington. We checked his Ad Vice jacket, and he’s got a half dozen pandering and pornography beefs. All well and good, except Captain Jack got a letter from Wellington, postmarked three days ago. He’s hiding out, gun-shy from all the Dahlia publicity, and he copped to making the film with Betty Short and Lorna. He was afraid of getting tagged for the snuff, so he sent in a detailed alibi for Betty’s missing days. Jack checked it out personally, and it’s ironclad. Wellington sent a copy of the letter to the Herald, and they’re publishing it tomorrow.”

I said, “So Lorna was lying to protect him?”

Sears nodded. “That looks like the picture. Wellington’s still on the lam from old pimping warrants, though, and Lorna clammed up when she got wise to Meg. And here’s the kicker: we called Loew to tell him the Mex man was horseshit, but a Rurale buddy of ours says that Vogel and Koenig are still rousting spies.”

The circus was turning into a farce. I said, “If the newspaper letter kiboshes their Mex job, they’ll be looking for patsies up here. We should hold our info back from them. Lee’s on suspension, but he made carbons from the case file, and he’s got them stored in a hotel room in Hollywood. We should hold on to it, use it to store our stuff.”

Millard and Sears nodded slowly; the real kicker kicked me. “County Parole said Bobby De Witt bought a ticket for TJ. If Lee’s down there too, it could be trouble.”

Millard shivered. “I don’t like the feel of it. De Witt’s a bad piece of work, and maybe he found out that Lee was headed down there. I’ll call the Border Patrol and have them put out a detain order on him.”

Suddenly I knew it all came down to me. “I’m going.”

Chapter 15

I crossed the border at dawn. Tijuana was just coming awake as I turned onto Revolución, its main drag. Child beggars were digging for breakfast in trash cans, taco venders were stirring pots of dog-meat stew, sailors and marines were being escorted out of whorehouses at the end of their five-spot all-nighters. The smarter ones stumbled over to Calle Colon and the penicillin pushers; the stupidos hotfooted toward East TJ, the Blue Fox and Chicago Club—no doubt eager to catch the early morning donkey show. Tourist cars were already lined up outside the cut-rate upholstery joints; Rurales driving prewar Chevys cruised like vultures, wearing black uniforms that looked almost like Nazi issue.

I cruised myself, looking for Lee and his ‘40 Ford. I thought about stopping at the Border Patrol hut or Rurale substation to seek help, then remembered my partner was suspended from duty, illegally armed and probably stretched so thin that words from the wrong greaser would provoke him to God knows what. Recalling the Divisidero Hotel from my high school excursions south, I drove to the edge of town to seek American aid.

The pink Art Deco monstrosity stood on a bluff overlooking a tin roof shantytown. I intimidated the desk clerk; he told me the “Loew party” was in suite 462. I found it on the ground floor rear, angry voices booming on the other side of the door.

Fritzie Vogel was yelling, “I still say we get ourselves a spic! The letter to the Herald didn’t say stag movie, it just said Wellington saw the Dahlia and the other girlie in November! We can still—”

Ellis Loew shouted back: “We can’t do that! Wellington admitted making the movie to Tierney! He’s the supervising officer, and we can’t go over his head!”

I opened the door and saw Loew, Vogel and Koenig huddled in chairs, all of them holding eight-star Herald’s obviously hot off the presses. The framing session fell silent; Koenig gawked; Loew and Vogel muttered, “Bleichert,” simultaneously.

I said, “Fuck the fucking Dahlia. Lee’s down here, Bobby De Witt’s here and it’s got to go bad. You—”

Loew said, “Fuck Blanchard, he’s suspended”; I beelined for him. Koenig and Vogel formed a wedge between us; trying to move through them was like bucking a brick wall. The DA backed off to the other side of the room, Koenig grabbed my arms, Vogel put his hands on my chest and pushed me outside. Loew evil-eyed me from the doorway, then Fritzie chucked my chin. “I’ve got a soft spot for light heavyweights. If you promise not to hit Billy, I’ll help you find your partner.”

I nodded, and Koenig let me go. Fritzie said, “We’ll take my car. You don’t look fit to drive.”

Fritzie drove; I eyeballed. He kept up a stream of chatter on the Short case and the lieutenancy it was going to get him; I watched beggars swarm turistas, hookers dispense front seat blow jobs and zoot suit youths prowl for drunks to roll. After four fruitless hours the streets became too car-choked to manuever in, and we got out and walked.

On foot, the squalor was worse. The kiddie beggars got right up in your face, jabbering, shoving crucifixes at you. Fritzie swatted and kicked them away, but their hunger-ridden faces got to me, so I changed a flyer into pesos and tossed handfuls of coins into the gutter whenever they converged. It spawned scratching, biting and gouging free-for-alls, but it was better than looking into sunken eyes and seeing nada.

An hour of prowling two abreast got us no Lee, no Lee’s ‘40 Ford and no gringos resembling Bobby De Witt. Then a Rurale in black shirt and jackboots, lounging in a doorway, caught my eye. He said, “Policia?” and I stopped and flashed my badge in answer.

The cop dug in his pockets and pulled out a teletype photo strip. The picture was too blurred to identify, but the “Robert Richard De Witt” was plain as day. Fritzie patted the cop’s epaulets. “Where, Admiral?”

The Mex clicked his heels and barked, “Estación, vamanos!” He marched ahead of us, turning into an alley lined with VD clinics, pointing to a cinderblock hut fenced in with barbed wire. Fritzie handed him a dollar; the Mex saluted like Mussolini and about-faced away. I strode for the station, forcing myself not to run.

Rurales holding tommy guns flanked the doorway. I showed my badge; they heel clicked and let me in. Fritzie caught up with me inside; dollar bill in hand, he went straight for the front desk. The desk cop grabbed the buck and Fritzie said, “Fugitivo? Americano? De Witt?”

The deskman smiled and hit a switch beside his chair, barred doors in the side wall clicked open. Fritzie said, “Precisely what is it we want this scum to tell us?”

I said, “Lee’s down here, probably chasing smut leads on his own. De Witt came here directly from Quentin.”

“Without checking in with his PO?”

“Right.”

“And De Witt has a hard-on for Blanchard from the Boulevard-Citizens job?”

“Right.”

“Enough said.”

We walked down a corridor lined with cells. De Witt was alone in the last lock-up, sitting on the floor. The door buzzed open; Kay Lake’s defiler stood up. The years in stir had not been kind to him: the hatchet-faced tough of the ‘39 newspaper pictures was now a well-used piece of work, bloated in the body, grizzled in the face, his pachuco haircut as outdated as his Salvation Army suit.