He opened drawers and tapped panels. He got status quo. He scanned the bedroom walls. Marsh had a new Rothko print. He checked the stereo rack. New sides by Chet Baker and the Dresden Stattskapelle. He checked the kitchen trash. Marsh had a new yen for gourmet TV dinners. There’s an airline boarding ticket. Marsh recently traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Educated guess: he shits out of harms way. Afro fruit retreat.

Dwight walked back to the living room. More status quo. The steel-brushed frames, the neat work desk, the address book by the phone.

He skimmed the pages. Ah, at B: Scotty’s home and work numbers. He skimmed C to M. Ah, there’s a new one.

Sal Mineo. A West Hollywood-prefix listing.

Logical: Sal’s a fag, Sal’s a horndog, Sal’s got a well-traveled chute.

But:

He deployed Sal in a fruit squeeze, four-plus years ago. He saw Sal’s name on a Bureau snitch roster.

Status quo? Probably, but-

One agent dozed in the squadroom. The file keys were hooked to a corkboard. Dwight grabbed them and walked straight back.

The CBI files were five-digit-coded and ran ceiling high. Dwight skimmed the directory. There: “Mineo, Salvatore”/02108. There: third shelf up, two rows over.

Dwight unlocked the panel, stood on his tiptoes and snagged it. It was skimpy. Four pages total. Simple narrative gist.

August, ‘66. Sal’s got a co-star gig. He’s the sidekick in a crime turkey. It’s called Southside Crackdown. It plays low-rung drive-in circuits and disappears. It’s loosely based on the famous 1964 heist.

So far-snore.

Jack Leahy visits the set. Jack braces Sal and the rest of the actors and crew. Suspicious guys loitering? Suspicious queries on the real-life heist?

Sal knew buppkes. Ditto everyone else. Jack charmed Sal and popped his snitch cherry. Sal ratted out queer actors for occasional chump change.

Snore, yawn, status quo-but don’t dismiss it yet.

Dwight stood there. Dwight heard a whole box of pins drop.

The Bureau worked the heist for ten seconds. It was LAPD’s case and Scotty B.’s fixation. Scotty and Marsh, tight now. The heist: Clyde Duber’s soft-line fixation. Marsh worked for Clyde. Scotty grilled Jomo C. about the heist. It made no sense then. It might make sense now. Jomo killed Fred Hiltz, Jomo’s a heister. There’s Joan hovering. She false-snitched Jomo. She ratted Marsh’s fruitness. What do Marsh and Scotty want? Red file tab, red flag. The Marsh-Scotty bond must not impede the Operation.

Dwight put the file back. The pin drop went to pins and needles.

Sicko Sal never slept. He closed fruit bars and debriefed in coffee shops. His milieu was the pre-dawn hen party. The fry cook at the Klondike said try Arthur J.’s.

Dwight bombed over. Sodomy Sal was ensconsed with three trannies. He was tattling. I browned James Dean on Rebel Without a Cause. He was hung like a light switch. I packed him the pork till he squealed.

The trannies tittered. Salacious Sal ragged on Rock Hudson. He was hung like a microbe. I tickled his tonsils till he trilled.

Dwight loomed by the table. The trannies gulped and get-awayed. They left their coffee and pancakes. Dwight helped himself.

Sal fondled his spit curl. “Hello, Mr. Holly.”

“What’s shaking, Sal?”

“Not you again, I hope.”

Dwight poured coffee. “Nothing like that.”

“No entrapment? No victimizing some poor champion of social justice who just happens to dig boys?”

Dwight wiped lipstick off his coffee cup. “Summer ‘66. You were working on Southside Crackdown. Jack Leahy came around with some questions.”

Sal buttered his hash browns. “So? We’re dealing with ancient history. That flick was a loser. I had to sue to get my per diem.”

“You started informing for Jack.”

“Well…”

Dwight snagged a bread stick and scratched his neck. Redd Foxx and that shyster fuck Chick Weiss walked in. A Tiger Kab geek propped them up.

“So, I’m assuming there’s more to the story. ‘Jack Leahy came around.’ You take it from there.”

Sal shrugged. “So, another cop comes around, asking the same kind of questions.”

Dwight said, “Scotty Bennett?”

Sal rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. Scotty.”

Dwight snapped the bread stick. “Let me drop a name on you. I want to see how you react.”

“It’s a little early for name games, but I’ll play.”

Dwight said, “Marshall Bowen.” Servile Sal seized up and queased up. Oh, yeah-he’s green at the gills.

“Tell me about it.”

Sal fucked with his spit curl. “Why should I?”

“I’ll buy you breakfast if you do. I’ll hang stat rape on you if you don’t. There’s a perv honking boys at Berendo Junior High. You match the description.”

Sal popped a Valium and coffee-chased it. Sal took a get-it-over-with breath.

“Okay, sweetie. I’ve got another fruit shake going. Freddy O. recruited me. A cop’s bankrolling it, but I don’t know his name. Bowen’s the mark, but I cannot get him to loosen his wig and rock ‘n’ roll with me. Some guys are just like that. I’m dying to give up some prime slash, but the boy just will not bite.”

Scotty B. Marsh. Running ubiquitous now.

“Who else is in on it?”

“Fred T.’s the bug man. The charmless Peeper Crutchfield is watch-dogging me.”

“Bowen. What’s going on there?”

Sal rolled his eyes. Sal tossed his spit curl. Sal did fag exasperation shtick.

“He just won’t biiiiite. I’ve got plenty to bite onto, but he just wooooooon’t. It’s craaaaazy. Marsh is sure-as-shit gay, but he just won’t plaaay. He’s sooooo weird. He just sits there or runs all these weird riffs on Haiti, of all fucking places.”

Dwight rubbed his eyes. His feelers twitched. More pins dropped, more pins stuck and held.

Okay, Jack Leahy. He knows about Marsh and BAAAAAD BROTHER. Jack’s tweaked on Mr. Hoover. It’s untoward and impolitic. He just B amp;E’d Marsh Bowen’s pad. He saw plane tix to Haiti. Joan’s Haitian herbs. The recent shit in the D.R. and Haiti. Celia’s there. Peeper Crutchfield was there. The persistent Peeper rumor: he’s searching for some runaway woman. She bilks men. She may have Red ties. Peeper’s a loser, let him do his own thing.

Tie-in: Celia as the bilker. Toss the net, take the leap. Wider now, say it.

Joan’s 211 background. The things she won’t say. Wider, now: Jack redacted Joan’s file. They were in on the armored-car heist.

A rainstorm hit. The windows drummed. Raindrop-pins fell. Three drag queens walked in. They wore soaked-through prom dresses. Their chest hair showed. They saw Sal and waved. They saw Dwight and ran away.

Sal pouted. Sal scolded Dwight with his fork.

“Mr. Holly, you are fucking with my love life.”