Next, Smith's summary: with Mickey C. gone, mob action was at a lull; the LAPD should stay alert for new faces looking to crash Cohen's old rackets; prostitution was sticking over the county line-with Sheriff's Department sanction. Jack signed the last page "Respectfully, Lieutenant D. L. Smith."

The phone rang. "Narcotics, Vincennes."

"It's me. You hungry?"

Jack kiboshed a temper fit-easy-what Hudgens just might have on him. "Sid, you're late. And the party's already on."

"I got better than booze, I got cash."

"Talk."

"Talk this: Tammy Reynolds, co-star of «Hope's Harvest», opens tomorrow citywide. A guy I know just sold her some reefer, a guaranteed felony pinch. She's tripping the light fantastic at 2245 Maravilla, Hollywood Hills. You pinch, I do you up feature in the next issue. Because it's Christmas, I leak my notes to Morty Bendish at the «Mirror», so you make the dailies, too. Plus fifty cash and your rum. Am I fucking Santa Claus?"

"Pictures?"

"In spades. Wear the blue blazer, it goes with your eyes."

"A hundred, Sid. I need two patrolmen at twenty apiece and a dime for the watch commander at Hollywood Station. And you set it up."

"Jack! It's Christmas!"

"No, it's felony possession of marijuana."

"Shit. Half an hour?"

"Twenty-five minutes."

"I'm there, you fucking extortionist."

Jack hung up, made an X mark on his calendar. Another day, no booze, no hop-four years, two months running.

His stage was waiting-Maravilla cordoned off, two bluesuits by Sid Hudgens' Packard, their black-and-white up on the sidewalk. The street was dark and still; Sid had an ardight set up. They had a view of the Boulevard-Grauman's Chinese included-great for an establishing shot. Jack parked, walked over.

Sid greeted him with cash. "She's sitting in the dark, goofing on the Christmas tree. The door looks flimsy."

Jack drew his.38. "Have the boys put the booze in my trunk. You want Grauman's in the background?"

"I like it! Jackie, you're the best in the West!"

Jack scoped him: scarecrow skinny, somewhere between thirty-five and fifty-keeper of inside dirt supreme. He either knew about 10/24/47 or he didn't; if he did, their arrangement was lifetime stuff. "Sid, when I bring her out the door, I do not want that goddamned baby spot in my eyes. Tell your camera guy that."

"Consider him told."

"Good, now count twenty on down."

Hudgens ticked numbers; Jack walked up and kicked the door in. The arclight snapped on, a living room caught flush: Christmas tree, two kids necking in their undies. Jack shouted "Police!"; the lovebirds froze; light on a fat bag of weed on the couch.

The girl started bawling; the boy reached for his trousers. Jack put a foot on his chest. "The hands, slow."

The boy pressed his wrists together; Jack cuffed him onehanded. The blues stormed in and gathered up evidence; Jack matched a name to the punk: Rock Rockwell, RKO ingenue. The girl ran; Jack grabbed her. Two suspects by the neck-out the door, down the steps.

Hudgens yelled, "Grauman's while we've still got the light!"

Jack framed them: half-naked pretties in their BVDs. Flashbulbs popped; Hudgens yelled, "Cut! Wrap it!"

The blues took over: Rockwell and the girl hauled bawling to their prowler. Window lights popped on; rubberneckers opened doors. Jack went back to the house.

A maryjane haze-four years later the shit still smelled good. Hudgens was opening drawers, pulling out dildoes, spiked dog collars. Jack found the phone, checked the address book for pushers-goose egg. A calling card fell out: "Fleur-de-Lis. Twenty-four Hours a Day-Whatever You Desire."

Sid started muttering. Jack put the card back. "Let's hear how it sounds."

Hudgens cleared his throat. "It's Christmas morning in the City of the Angels, and while decent citizens sleep the sleep of the righteous, hopheads prowl for marijuana, the weed with roots in Hell. Tammy Reynolds and Rock Rockwell, movie stars with one foot in Hades, toke sweet tea in Tammy's swank Hollywood digs, not knowing they are playing with fire without asbestos gloves, not knowing that a man is coming to put out that fire: the free-wheeling, big-time Big V, celebrity crimestopper Jack Vincennes, the scourge of grasshoppers and junk fiends everywhere. Acting on the tip of an unnamed informant, Sergeant Vincennes, blah, blah, blah. You like it, Jackie?"

"Yeah, it's subtle."

"No, it's circulation nine hundred thousand and climbing. I think I'll work in you're divorced twice 'cause your wives couldn't stand your crusade and you got your name from an orphanage in Vincennes, Indiana. The Biggg Veeeee."

His Narco tag: Trashcan Jack-a nod to the time he popped Charlie "Yardbird" Parker and tossed him into a garbage bin outside the flub Zamboanga. "You should beat the drum on «Badge of Honor». Miller Stanton's my buddy, how I taught Brett Chase to play a cop. Technical advisor kingpin, that kind of thing."

Hudgens laughed. "Brett still like them prepubescent?"

"Can niggers dance?"

"South of Jefferson Boulevard only. Thanks for the story, Jack."

"Sure."

"I mean it. It's always nice seeing you."

You fucking cockroach, you're going to wink because you know you can nail me to that moralistic shitbird William H. Parker anytime you want-cash rousts going back to '48, you've probably got documentation worked around to let you off clean and crucify me-

Hudgens winked.

Jack wondered if he had it «all» down on paper.

CHAPTER FOUR

The party in full swing, the muster room SRO.

An open bar: scotch, bourbon, a case of rum Trashcan Jack Vincennes brought in. Dick Stensland's brew in the water cooler: Old Crow, eggnog mix. A phonograph spewed dirty Christmas carols: Santa and his reindeer fucking and sucking. The floor was packed: nightwatch blues, the Central squad-thirsty from chasing vagrants.

Bud watched the crowd. Fred Turentine tossed darts at Wanted posters; Mike Krugman and Walt Dukeshearer played "Name That Nigger," trying to ID Negro mugshots at a quarter a bet. Jack Vincennes was drinking club soda; Lieutenant Frieling was passed out at his desk. Ed Exley tried to quiet the men down, gave up, stuck to the lock-up: logging in prisoners, filing arrest reports.

Almost every man was drunk or working on it.

Almost every man was talking up Helenowski and Brownell, the cop beaters in custody, the two still at large.

Bud stood by the window. Garbled rumors tweaked him: Brownie Brownell had his lip split up through his nose, one of the taco benders chewed off Helenowski's left ear. Dick Stens grabbed a shotgun, went spic hunting. He credited that one: he'd seen Dick carrying an Ithaca pump out to the parking lot. The noise was getting brutal-Bud walked out to the lot, lounged against a prowler.

A drizzle started up. A ruckus by the jail door-Dick Stens shoving two men inside. A scream; Bud cut odds on Stens finishing out his twenty: with him watchdogging, even money; without him, two to one against. From the muster room: Frank Doherty's tenor, a weepy "Silver Bells."

Bud moved away from the music-it made him think of his mother. He lit a cigarette, thought of her anyway.

He'd seen the killing: sixteen years old, helpless to stop it. The old man came home; he must have believed his son's warning: you touch Mother again and I will kill you. Asleep-cuffs on his wrists and ankles, awake-he saw the fuck beat Mother dead with a tire iron. He screamed his throat raw; he stayed cuffed in the room with the body: a week, no water, delirious-he watched his mother rot. A truant officer found him; the L.A. Sheriff's found the old man. The trial, a diminished capacity defense, a plea bargain down to Manslaughter Two. Life imprisonment, the old man paroled in twelve years. His son-Officer Wendell White, LAPD-decided to kill him.