“Lee planned the robbery and got three men to help him. He’d bought his way out of his contract with Ben Siegel, and it cost him every cent he’d made as a boxer. Two of the men were killed during the robbery, one escaped to Canada, and Lee was the fourth. Lee framed Bobby because he hated him for what he did to me. Bobby didn’t know we were seeing each other, and we made it look like we met at the trial. Bobby knew it was a frame, but he didn’t suspect Lee, just the LAPD in general.

“Lee wanted to give me a home, and he did. He was very cautious with his part of the robbery money, and he always talked up his boxing savings and his gambling so the brass wouldn’t think he was living above his means. He hurt his career by living with a woman, even though we weren’t together that way. It was like a happy fairy tale until last fall, right after you and Lee became partners.”

I moved toward Kay, awed by Lee as the most audacious rogue cop in history. “I knew he had it in him.”

Kay drew away from me. “Let me finish before you get sentimental. When Lee heard about Bobby getting an early parole date, he went to Ben Siegel to try to get him killed. He was afraid of Bobby talking about me, upsetting our fairy tale with all the ugly things he knew about yours truly. Siegel wouldn’t do it, and I told Lee it didn’t matter, that there were three of us now and the truth couldn’t hurt us. Then, right before New Year’s, the third man from the robbery showed up. He knew that Bobby De Witt was getting out on parole, and he made a blackmail demand: Lee was to pay him ten thousand dollars, or he would tell Bobby that Lee masterminded the robbery and framed him.

“The man said Lee’s deadline was Bobby’s release date. Lee put him off, then went to Ben Siegel to try to borrow the money. Siegel wouldn’t do it, and Lee begged him to have the man killed. He wouldn’t do that either. Lee learned that the man hung out with some Negroes who sold marijuana, and he—”

I saw it coming, huge and black like the headlines it got me, Kay’s words the new fine print: “That man’s name was Baxter Fitch. Siegel wouldn’t help Lee, so he got you. The men were armed, so I guess you were legally justified, and I guess you were damn lucky that no one looked into it. It’s the one thing I can’t forgive him for, the one thing I hate myself for tolerating. Still feeling sentimental, triggerman?”

I couldn’t answer; Kay did it for me. “I didn’t think so. I’ll finish up, and you tell me if you still want revenge.

“The Short thing happened then, and Lee latched on to it for his little sister and who knows what else. He was terrified that Fitch had already talked to Bobby, that Bobby knew about the frame. He wanted to kill him or have him killed, and I begged and pleaded with him to just let it be, no one would believe Bobby, so just don’t hurt anybody else. If it wasn’t for that fucking dead girl I might have convinced him. But the case went down to Mexico, and so did Bobby and Lee and you. I knew that the fairy tale was over. And it is.”

Limp all over, I started to stand up; Kay grabbed my belt with both hands and brought me back down. “No! You don’t pull the patented Bucky Bleichert retreat this time! Bobby took pictures of me with animals, and Lee stopped it. He pimped me to his friends and hit me with a razor strap, and Lee stopped it. He wanted to love me, not fuck me, and he wanted us to be together, and if you weren’t so intimidated by him you would have known it. We can’t drag his name down. We have to give it all up and forgive him and get on with just us and—”

I retreated then, before Kay destroyed the rest of the triad.

Triggerman.

Stooge.

Bumfuck detective too blind to clear the case he was a homicide accessory to.

The weak point in a fairy tale triangle.

Best friend to a cop—bank robber, now the keeper of his secrets.

“Give it all up.”

I stuck to my apartment for the next week, killing off the remainder of my “vacation.” I hit the heavy bag and skipped rope and listened to music; I sat on the back steps and took finger sights at blue jays perching on my landlady’s clothesline. I convicted Lee of four homicides connected to the Boulevard-Citizens bank job and granted him a pardon based on homicide number five—himself. I thought of Betty Short and Kay until they blurred together; I reconstructed the partnership as a mutual seduction and figured out that I lusted for the Dahlia because I had her number, that I loved Kay because she had mine.

And I examined the past six months. It was all there:

The money Lee had been spending in Mexico was probably a separate stash of robbery swag.

On New Year’s Eve I heard him weeping; Baxter Fitch had made his blackmail demand a few days before.

That fall, Lee had sought out Benny Siegel—in private—every time we went to the fights at the Olympic; he was trying to talk him into killing Bobby De Witt.

Right before the shoot-out, Lee had spoken on the phone to a snitch—allegedly about Junior Nash. The “snitch” had fingered Fitch and the Negros, and Lee came back to the car looking spooked. Ten minutes later four men were dead.

On the night I met Madeleine Sprague, Kay shouted at Lee: “After all that might happen”—a portentous line, probably her predicting disaster with Bobby De Witt. During our time working the Dahlia case, she had been jittery, morose, concerned for Lee’s well-being, yet weirdly accepting of his lunatic behavior. I thought she was upset over Lee’s obsession with Betty Short’s murder; she was really running toward and from the fairy tale’s finale.

It was all there.

“Give it all up.”

When my refrigerator was empty, I took the patented Bucky Bleichert retreat down to the market to stock up. Walking in, I saw a box boy reading the local section of the morning Herald. Johnny Vogel’s picture was at the bottom of the page; I looked over the kid’s shoulder and saw that he’d been dismissed from the LAPD on a graft whitewash. A column over, Ellis Loew’s name caught my eye—Bevo Means was quoting him that “The Elizabeth Short investigation is no longer my raison d’etre—I have more pertinent fish to fry.” I forgot all about food, and drove to West Hollywood.

It was recess. Kay was in the middle of the schoolyard, supervising kids flopping around in a sandbox. I watched her awhile from the car, then walked over.

The kids noticed me first. I flashed my teeth at them until they started laughing. Kay turned around then. I said, “It’s the patented Bucky Bleichert advance.”

Kay said, “Dwight”; the kids looked at us like they knew it was a big moment. Kay caught on a second later. “Did you come here to tell me something?”

I laughed; the kids chortled at another shot of my choppers. “Yeah. I decided to give it all up. Will you marry me?”

Kay, expressionless, said, “And we’ll bury the rest of it? The f-ing dead girl too?”

“Yes. Her too.”

Kay stepped into my arms. “Then yes.”

We embraced. The children called out, “Miss Lake’s got a boyfriend, Miss Lake’s got a boyfriend!”

We were married three days later, May 2, 1947. It was a rush job, the vows given by the LAPD Protestant chaplain, the service held in the backyard of Lee Blanchard’s house. Kay wore a pink dress to satirize her lack of virginity; I wore my blue dress uniform. Russ Millard was best man, and Harry Sears came along as a guest. He started out with a stutter, and for the first time I saw that it was precisely his fourth drink that quashed it. I got the old man out of the rest home on a pass, and he didn’t know who the hell I was, but seemed to have a good time anyway—swigging from Harry’s flask, goosing Kay, hopping around to the music from the radio. There was a table laid out with sandwiches and punch, hard and soft. The six of us ate and drank, and total strangers walking down to the Strip heard the music and laughter and crashed the party. By dusk the yard was filled with people I didn’t know, and Harry made a run to the Hollywood Ranch Market for more food and booze. I unloaded my service revolver and let the unknown civilians play with it, and Kay danced polkas with the chaplain. When darkness hit, I didn’t want it to end, so I borrowed strings of Christmas lights from the neighbors and strung them over the backdoor and the clothesline and Lee’s favorite Yucca tree. We danced and drank and ate under a fake constellation, the stars red and blue and yellow. Around 2:00 A.M., the clubs on the Strip let out, revelers from the Trocadero and Mocambo made the scene, and Errol Flynn hung around for a while, his tux coat doffed for my jacket, replete with badge and pistol medals. If it weren’t for the thunderstorm that struck, it might have gone on forever—and I wanted it to. But the crowd broke up amidst frantic kisses and hugs, and Russ drove the old man back to the rest bin. Kay Lake Bleichert and I retired to the bedroom to make love, and I left the radio on to help distract me from Betty Short. It wasn’t necessary—she never crossed my mind.