2:16 p.m.

Lineup.

Five rape suspects, four rape victims, one-way glass between. A raised stage and height strips marked on the wall.

Chairs for eyeball witnesses. Standing ashtrays. A discomfiting wall poster.

It featured flags and dyspeptic eagles. It was a war-bond pitch. It supported intervention in this Jew-inspired war.

Dudley was America First. He loved Father Coughlin’s weekly broadcasts. He enjoyed Gerald L. K. Smith’s tirades. He shared a surname and no blood with Pastor Smith. The pastor was vilely antipapist.

Mike Breuning said, “The rape ladies are next door. They all say they could ID the guy, so we’re in luck there. The lineup guys are backstage. They’re all MPs from the Fort MacArthur battalion, and they all fit the suspect’s description.”

Dick Carlisle cracked his knuckles. Elmer Jackson flipped through his notebook. He’d worked the rape string from the start.

Dudley watched him read. Yes—the rapes felt consistent with the drugstore heist this a.m. That Jap lab whiz was right—the book-rack fibers do not assuredly place the rape-o at the drugstore. The possible two-crime parlay was irrelevant. Rape devastated women. The offense equaled murder. He told Call-Me-Jack that. Call-Me-Jack said, “You take care of it, Dud.”

Elmer chewed a cigar. Elmer ran whores with Brenda Allen. The Vice Squad phones were tapped. Everyone knew everyone’s shit. City Hall was one big listening post.

Carlisle lit a cigarette. Breuning stood poised. Elmer wagged his cigar.

“We’ve got four incidents. The victims all described the fucker as blond, medium-size and about twenty-five. Our guys fit that bill, and they were all on overnight leave when the incidents occurred. On top of that, they all had battery beefs involving women before they enlisted. For MO, we’ve got this. All four victims were out walking, alone, in West L.A. The rape-o abducted them, gagged them and drove them to four different vacant lots nearby. Here’s the crazy shit. The rape-o hits them twice, rolls on a rubber and cries out like he’s in pain when he’s giving it to them.”

Dudley smiled. Breuning leaned in close. Dudley put an arm around him.

“Call the infirmary at Fort MacArthur, lad. Get the names of all the soldiers treated for syph and the clap within the past six months, both in the MP battalion and the camp at large. Compile separate lists and report back within half an hour.”

Breuning vamoosed. Elmer said, “What gives, boss?”

“An instinct and a hypothesis, lad. Let’s say the MP’s armband was a ruse to foil identification, because wearing such an identifying item on a rape string is tantamount to suicidal. Let’s say he’s miffed at some long-ago woman for having given him a dose. Let’s say he’s a smart lad with scientific knowledge. He knows that we can determine blood type from pus or seminal discharge. Let’s say that for some fiendishly unfathomable reason, he wants the rapes to cause him pain.”

Elmer went Huh? Carlisle went Oh, yeah—I get it.

Dot Rothstein walked the women in. Dot was a Sheriff’s matron and a grand bull dyke. She ran six one, 240. Male cops stood tall around her.

The women had that schoolmarm look that rape-o’s found fetching. They wore church frocks to a lineup. Carlisle dispensed cigarettes and lights.

The room smoked up. The women eyeballed the stage and made faces. The Dotstress scrammed.

Dudley said, “You’re all grand and brave ladies for submitting to this ordeal, so we will do our best to ensure that it will be brief. Five men will walk in and stand on that stage, under the wall numbers one through five. You can see them, but they cannot see you. If you see the man who so heinously assaulted you, please tell me.”

The women gulped en masse. Elmer tripped a wall switch. Five soldiers walked onstage and faced the room. They wore olive drabs and red armbands. They ran to the rape man’s type.

Two women squinted. One woman leaked tears. One woman put on her glasses. They studied the stage. The moment built and fizzled. They all shook their heads no.

Elmer tapped the wall switch. The soldiers filed offstage. The women clustered around an ashtray and stubbed out their cigarettes.

One said, “They just weren’t him.”

One rubbed her eyes. “He was more mean-looking.”

One nodded.

One said, “He had mean eyes.”

Dudley smiled. Dudley touched their arms. It meant There, there.

Breuning returned. He was breathing hard. His shirt was wet. He waved a mug-shot strip.

Dudley walked over. Breuning leaned into the doorway.

“One case. The guy’s an MP corporal, and he fits the description. He was on overnight leave on the dates of all four incidents, and he got his dose treated after the last rape. The provost captain told me he was a suspect in a rape string in Seattle, but the Army took him anyway. He’s on leave now. He’s a racetrack fiend, and the Oak Tree Meet’s at Santa Anita today. I’ve got a plate number for him.”

Dudley grabbed the strip. Aaaaaah—Jerome Joseph Pavlik. Young, blond, mean.

Two women hovered. Dudley flashed the strip. The women studied it.

One woman cried. One woman screamed.

Dudley pulled out two shamrock charms. They were fourteen-karat gold. He bought them bulk off a Yid jeweler.

He drew the women to him. He placed the charms in their hands.

He said, “I’ll take care of it.”

2:46 p.m.

The last race ran at 3:30. Santa Anita was off the Arroyo Seco Parkway. It was très tight.

They ran through the City Hall garage. Breuning owned a souped-up Ford. They piled in and peeled out.

Breuning drove. Dudley sat up front. Carlisle sat in back, with three sawed-off shotguns.

They were 10-gauge and twin-barreled. They were fitted for bear slugs and triple-aught buck.

They pulled onto Main Street and cut through Chinatown. They made the parkway, fast.

Breuning gunned it. The juice needle jumped to eighty. Dudley smoked and looked out his window. He caught a wreck on the southbound side.

Skid marks, road flares, collision. Impact—a Navy flatbed and shine Cadillac. Traffic grief. It brought to mind Whiskey Bill Parker. He had grand dirt on him.

You should not have indulged that youthful marriage. Did you think your misconduct would escape my scrutiny?

Whiskey Bill had remarried. His second union was plainly humdrum. Dudley had his own Irish-born wife and four daughters. He had a rogue fifth daughter in Boston. She was seventeen now. They exchanged frequent letters and phone calls.

Elizabeth Short. His child with a married woman named Phoebe. A scold with her own daughter brood.

The Short girls all looked like Phoebe. It cloaked Beth’s paternal blood. Phoebe was older than him. He was a mere nineteen when they coupled. He was a raw Irish conscript.

Joe Kennedy lived in Boston. Joe was filthy rich and donated money to Irish causes. Joe financed his citizenship. The price was strongarm work.

Beth knew that he was her father. She loved him and cleaved to the notion of her rough policeman dad. He just sent her a plane ticket. She wanted to see Los Angeles at Christmas. Her last letter disturbed him. She hinted at a “horrible thing” last year. Beth had a blind chum named Tommy Gilfoyle. He should call Tommy and inquire about that “horrible thing.”

Family.

Bold men required it. The constraints were minimal. The vows were laughable. The joys were rich. Family was a necessary tether. The hellhound within him would go berserk without it. Whiskey Bill was childless. He ran unchecked in his prim lunacy.

The parkway was near dead. Breuning took hairpin turns fast. The juice needle jumped in the straightaways.

Dudley checked his watch. It was 2:54. The next-to-last race ran at 3:00. Most track fiends left before the closer.

Lincoln Heights whizzed by. A cowboy movie was filming up in the hills. A gunfight blurred by. Dudley recognized a man in a loincloth. Some Apache—a skid row bookie and three-time loser out of Big Q.

Dudley smoked. His thoughts drifted.

He moonlighted for Columbia Pictures. He was Harry Cohn’s morals watchdog. Film stars ran unruly. The studio führers controlled them with rigid conduct codes. Violations construed breach of contract. He’s nailed queer movie stars. He’s nailed dipsos and hopheads galore. He’s got legions of bellboys and whores bribed to report indiscretions. He’s building quite the grand scrapbook of Hollywood at play.

Bette Davis will love his candid photos. She’ll be at the Shrine Friday night. The Examiner is throwing its newsboys’ Christmas bash. He’ll be there to provoke a chance meet.

Wetbacks tilled crops above the film site. Carlos Madrano probably supplied them. Carlos. El Capitán, Mexican State Police. Close pal of Call-Me-Jack and Two-Gun Davis. Carlos shared his antipathy for the Reds and the Jews. Carlos viewed the Japs as der Führer’s pesky kin.

Dudley checked the mug strip. The rape-o looked like a small Lee Blanchard.

Aaaaah, Leland. Are you still troubled by Coney Island, on November 12? You would love to join my cadre, but have you the gumption for the work?

Ben Siegel wanted Abe Reles dead. Lee Blanchard owed Ben, per the Boulevard-Citizens job. Jew syndicate lads bribed two NYPD guards. Hotel-room doors were left open.

They Mickey Finn’d Reles’ food. It was a quick two-man job. Blanchard fashioned the escape rope—a euphemism for noose. He did the hoisting himself.

The New York Daily News captured the moment. CANARY FALLS TO DEATH! HE CAN SING, BUT HE CAN’T FLY!

The train ride home was vexing. Blanchard waxed weepy and stayed drunk. The lad went back with Ben S. Benny bought out his fight contract and advised Lee to take some prudent dives. Lee refused, Lee owed Benny, Lee behaved rashly with the Boulevard-Citizens job. Benny banked at Boulevard-Citizens and played golf with the prexy. Benny was quite insane and obsessed with respectability. That caper was one large snafu.

Breuning pulled off the parkway. It was 3:01. Carlisle loaded the shotguns. They cut through South Pasadena. They made Arcadia and Santa Anita in two minutes flat.

The San Gabriels loomed behind the racetrack proper. The crest line framed the grandstands and clubhouse. The parking lot was two-thirds empty. Loudspeakers blared. A race ran down the home stretch.

Breuning cruised the parking rows. Dudley and Carlisle scanned plates. Cheers squelched up the speakers. Track fools walked out of the clubhouse and made for their cars.

Carlisle said, “Right there.”

Yes—a ’36 Olds sedan. Forest green/​whip antenna/​California ADL-642.

Breuning swung into an empty space and idled. Dudley chained cigarettes. The crowd fanned through the car rows. A man and two women peeled off their way. Yes—Jerome Joseph Pavlik and a Chinatown whore duet.

Carlisle said, “Tong chippies.”

Breuning said, “Four Families, and protected. The boss Chink plays mah-jongg with Call-Me-Jack.”

They looked blotto. The rape-o wore wilted khakis. The chippies wore moth-eaten fur coats.

They piled into the Olds. Dudley said, “Tail them.”

They brodied out of the lot. Breuning stuck close. They were stinko. They wouldn’t notice. Breuning rode their bumper—hard.

Two-car caravan. Residential streets, Fair Oaks Boulevard. The Parkway, due south.

The Olds fishtailed and weaved. Breuning eased off the gas. A Packard got between them. The whip antenna stayed in sight.

Carlisle blanket-wrapped the shotguns. Breuning said, “Bon voyage, sweetheart.”

The Olds pulled off at Alameda, southbound. Chinatown was straight ahead. Kwan’s Chinese Pagoda was quite close.

The Olds bumped the curb and stopped. The whores stumbled out. They got their sea legs. They tucked cash rolls into their garter belts and blew the rape-o kisses. They weaved down an alley behind a chop suey pit.

Carlisle passed out the shotguns. Jerome Joseph Pavlik stepped from his car and eyed the world, shit-faced. He gawked a vacant lot, catty-corner. It was full of palm trees and high grass.

He staggered into the lot. He walked up to a palm tree and pulled out his dick. He launched a world’s record piss.

Dudley said, “Now, lads.”

The street was no-one-out quiet. They beelined to the lot. Soft dirt covered their footsteps. The rape-o swayed and sprayed grass.

They came up behind him. He didn’t hear shit.

Dudley said, “Those grand girls won’t be the same now. This prevents recurring grief.”

He started to turn around. He started to say “Say what?”

Six triggers snapped. The rape-o blew up. Bone shards took down palm fronds. Carlisle’s glasses got residual-spritzed.

Big booms overlapped. Note those buckshot-on-wood echoes. 3:30 church bells pealed through all of it.

3:31 p.m.

Bug-eyed dragons flanked the Pagoda. Their tongues lit up and waggled at night. Uncle Ace Kwan ran the Hop Sing tong. His joint catered to white stiffs and Chinks with white taste buds. L.A. cops dined gratis.

Dudley walked through the restaurant. Mayor Bowron and DA McPherson were snout-deep in chow mein. Fletch B. was a peppy civic booster and all-around stupe. McPherson was a narcoleptic rumdum and mud shark. He frequented Minnie Roberts’ Casbah and engaged two Congo cuties at a pop.

A recessed door led to the basement. Dudley took the stairs down. He leaned on a wall panel. It slid open. Fumes hit him straight off.

An opium den. Dim lights and twenty-odd pallets. Water bowls, cups and ladles. Scrawny Chinamen in their skivvies, sucking on pipes.

Dudley counted heads. Aaaaah, sixteen fiends adrift.

Dudley shut the panel. The basement conjured labyrinths beneath the Wolfsschanze. Cement walls, mildew, scrolled-iron doors. Ace Kwan’s office—an SS bunker.

He knocked and walked in. Uncle Ace squatted over the floor safe. He was sixty-six and consumptive thin. He wore a Santa Claus hat. He conjured atrocity and Yule cheer.

“How’s tricks, Dudster?”

“Tricky, my yellow brother.”

“How so?”

“There’s a dead white man in the lot across the street. Your lads should spread some quicklime and post a guard while the earth absorbs him.”

Ace sat cross-legged. He was famously nimble. It was a common heathen trait.

“The lad was last seen with two tong whores.”

“Hop Sing?”

“Four Families. You might want to remove the green sedan, as well. I don’t want such trivial white business to disturb your clientele.”

Ace bowed. “Four Families has been rude to my favorite niece. They are unsavory like that.”

“Shall I rebuke those involved? I would hate to see another feud.”

Ace stood up. “No, but my Irish brother honors me with the offer.”

Dudley bowed. Ace pointed to a side doorway and went Be my guest. Dudley opened the door. Ace vanished somewhere. Chinks were stealthy and decorous.

It was his secret room. The pallet, the bowl, the ladle. Compressed tar spread on a bread plate. As always—The Pipe.

He hung his suit coat and holster on a wall peg. The pallet was built for a tall man. Dudley packed and lit the pipe.

The tar smoldered, the burn hit, the smoke funneled in. His shoulders dropped. His limbs disappeared.

The wisps now. You never know what you’ll see.

Yes—there.

Dublin. Grafton Street, ’21. Black and Tans with rubber-bullet guns. They aim for the kidneys. It still hurts when he stoops.

A rally. Patrick Pearse in full cry.

“Irishmen and Irishwomen—in the name of God and the dead generations from which she receives her nationhood—Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.”

A church rectory. A gun cache in a priest’s bedroom. A rifle stock hits his hands. He’s on the street now. He’s sighting down the barrel. A British soldier’s face explodes.

He’s on Sackville Street. The recoil subsides. He’s looting a Protty-owned shop. Patrick Pearse ruffles his hair.

“She now seizes the moment, supported by her exiled children in America.”

Joe Kennedy smiles. He’s got satchels full of cash. Irish Citizen’s Army men greet him. The Black and Tans murder Patrick Pearse. There’s a firing squad. He’s got a bull’s-eye pinned to his chest.

Joe Kennedy says, “You’re a bright boy. You should come to America. Prohibition is a license to steal. You could ferry hooch for me.”

He’s in Canada, that’s Lake Erie, he’s on a moored barge. He’s holding a tommy gun. Whiskey crates cover the deck.

Boston. A grand house. A Yankee maid scowls at him. He’s toddling six-year-old Jack.

Joe Kennedy says, “Dud, this Jew banker fucked me on a deal. Take care of it, will you?”

His limbs are gone. The tar still burns. He knows when to stir the flame. Time is a nickelodeon. It screens through eyes in the back of his head.

He hit the Jew too hard. He shouldn’t have killed him. Joe Kennedy is peeved.

“Your future is in Los Angeles, son. I can get you on the police force. You can fuck movie stars and create mischief.”

He’s standing proud in knife-sharp blues. He’s hitting a purse snatcher with a phone book. Jack Horrall toasts him at Archbishop Cantwell’s table. He’s in Harry Cohn’s office. Harry pats a bust of Benito Mussolini. He’s outside a Bel-Air manse with a camera. He’s got a window view. Cary Grant is engaged in all-male soixante-neuf.

Photoplay, Screen World—magazine pages aswirl. Bette Davis—aglow with something he said.

Switcheroo. Instant travelogue. He’s on Coney Island at the Half Moon Hotel. He’s hoisting the canary. Don’t cry, Lee Blanchard—it’s unmanly.

Travelogue. Back to Boston. Young Jack Kennedy’s a Navy ensign now. He’s due here for Christmas. He wants to fuck movie stars.

Jack starts singing, in Spanish. His voice doesn’t go with the tune. Cut to the Trocadero. It’s festooned with a banner: WELCOME 1938!

He’s at a table with Ben Siegel and Sheriff Biscailuz. Glenn Miller’s band plays “Perfidia.” Bette Davis dances with a fey young man.

Light streaked in. The nickelodeon jerked. A shutter dropped and killed his travelogue.

He felt his limbs. He saw his coat and gun on a peg.

A Chinese woman appeared. She brought an aperitif. Three Benzedrine tablets and green tea.

Dudley stood up. The room retained a glow.

“What time is it, please?”

“It is 6:42.”

“Perfidia” ended off-key. Bette Davis blew him a kiss.