Hot-Prowl Rape-O

Heaven’s forever. Time trips on and traps you. Time cordons you corporeal. Time circumscribes your surfeit of earthly events. Time immobilizes the immortal and makes them look back.

Donna. Me. A long jump: ’83 to ’04, time-trippingly.

It had to happen. The fitful laws of physics mandated more of us. Our vibes ran vampiric. They recklessly reconnected. They spun out and sparked in our spiritus mundi and nuclear-napalmed L.A.

Donna and me. Lashed to the language that pops on these pages. Allegorized in alliteration and bound back boldfaced like this:

Hush-Hush 2000, October 2004 issue. SCANDAL KINGPIN GETCHELL DEAD! FUNERAL BODES AS STONE GASSER! By Gary Getchell

Yeah, he died of AIDS—but he was no skin-flute hootin’ tutti-frutti! Daniel Arthur Getchell—the skank-scamming, scandal-skimming, scopophile king—was a heroin-hooking junkie with a 40-year monkey on his back. Danny the G. was a mensch. He neighborly noodled out his needles and got malignant microbes back. He landed in a secret AIDS ward at Cedars-Sinai. It was fat with faigelahs he outed in Hush-Hush. They homo-humped Danny. Dolorous dozens of gay Getchellphobics stormed the hospital. Danny the G. got the gate. He survived this turd-burglar tyranny and hid out at home. He was tenderly tended by magnificent mama-san Megan More, cable-flick floozy supreme. He died September 12. Ms. More said he went out with “dystopian DTs.” He “alliterated alluringly” to the end. He spritzed the linguinilike lassos of language that have invasively influenced bad-ass bop-talkers worldwide. Ms. More dug Danny G.’s death spiel. It was “wild shit by James Joyce and Iceberg Slim, Danny’s two favorite authors.”

Danny Getchell took over Hush-Hush magazine in 1955. He rode out lynch-mob-like libel suits. He was L.A.’s litigation-licking truth-trumpeter and mendacity-mauling musketeer. He fragged fruits. He nailed nymphomaniacs. He print-pronged corrupt cops and dollar-driven D.A.s. He punched out pork-barrel politicos. He banged behind-the-scenes in the ’58 California election. He immortalized his work in the Mephistophelian memoir The Trouble I Cause.

D. the G. ran Hush-Hush up to 1999. I wrapped the reins then. I dropped my nowheresville name of Irv Moskowitz and took the moniker “Gary Getchell.” I follow Danny’s metastasizing mandate. I traffic the truth triumphantly.

I’ve got Danny the G.’s secret dirt files. They’re furtively fail-safed and hidden Hush-Hush. They barbarously berate and insidiously indict. They pummel political correctness. They priapically prick predators and frappé the frail. They knock Danny’s no-good nemesis, the LAPD.

The LAPD hassled Danny from ’55 up. Danny grew a hard-on to hurt them back and sucked up to certain fractious factions within. I’ve got that hopping hard-on now. It’s pounding in my pants. I don’t like the new Chief, Joe Tierney. The mischievous mick from filthy Philly gores my goat. He’s a headline hurdler and media mauler from the get-go. I don’t dig his command staff. Take Captain Linus “the Laundryman” Lauter. The Feds are looking at Linus lingeringly. His son, Leotis Lauter, runs a Southside dope cartel. The Feds think Linus launders Leotis’s long green. Linus belongs to the 4-A Club: He’s African-American and Affirmative Action. J’accuse—Jolting Joe Tierney’s afraid to suspend him while the Feds coonduct their biz.

I’ve inherited Danny G.’s moral mandate. I’ll be there at Forest Lawn next week. A rent-a-rabbi will soliloquize. He’ll tip topical and irradiate the Iraqis. The crowd will be huge and Dannyesque diverse. Dig the details on my public-access TV show, and dig me at hush-hush.com. Don’t send flowers or waste your bread on mementoes. Send your money directly to me. I’m broke, and I need garlands of good Getchellite gelt.

Remember, dear reader, you heard it here first: off the record, on the Q.T., and very Hush-Hush.

Los Angeles Times, September 22, 2004. RESIDENTIAL BURGLARIES IN BEL-AIR AND HOLMBY HILLS By Miles Corwin

A house burglar has struck six times in upscale West Los Angeles neighborhoods over the past eight weeks, a LAPD spokesperson has told the Times. All the homes were occupied at the moments of entry, which detectives consider a crucial aspect of the burglar’s modus operandi.

Captain Bill Dumais, the commander of the detective unit at the West Los Angeles Station, said, “The burglar enters his target homes through half-open windows or doors with easily picked locks. He temporarily sedates pet dogs with mild prescription sleeping pills stuck in pieces of raw meat, which leads me to believe he’s an animal lover who doesn’t like to hurt pets. He’s not so gentle with humans, though. He finds them, usually asleep, or rousing at the sound of his entry, and shoots them with a tranquilizer gun. He uses a powerful tranquilizing substance that sedates the people from six to ten hours.”

Captain Dumais went on to discuss burglary precedents and the West L.A. burglar’s probable motives. “We call burglars who break into residences with people inside them ‘hotprowl men,’ ” he said. “They tend to get aroused by the prospect of interaction with the people, and they often graduate to physical assault, rape, and even murder.”

Does this burglar possess that potential? Captain Dumais thinks he does. “So far, the burglar has been stealing only small trinkets,” the captain said. “It appears that he’s not out for saleable items, so it’s our belief that he’s a fetishist looking for souvenirs to commemorate his break-ins.”

And the LAPD’s plans for apprehension?

“Plans are in the works,” Captain Dumais said. “We want to catch this guy before he hurts someone for keeps.”

1.

Donna Standard Time stung me. The squadroom was dead. I decided to desk-dally and dream.

I moved the unit TV over. We used it to magnify mug shots and match fingerprints. It was computer-compatible and sturdy state-of-the-art. Dave Slatkin wired a voom-voltage VCR in.

Hospital Hearts—Donna does doofus TV. She’s an on-call oncologist with a loser love life. The series flailed, flatlined, tipped, and tanked.

I settled in. I dug on my desk detritus and mused on my murder mandate.

There’s my PC. It features fine-tuned Fed software. There’s my rhino-horn paperweight. There’s my fetishistic photo spray, plied under Plexiglas. A dozen Donna-look-alike girlfriends—failed flings from ’83 up. There’s Stephanie Gorman, DOD 8-5-65/ unsolved—the case that I clamor to clear. Snuffed at home/West L.A./botched rape-sex job.

LAPD Homicide, Cold Case Squad. Dave Slatkin, D3 in charge. Six detectives. Mildew-musty murder files to read, review, reject, peruse, and pursue. Divinely deigned DNA—our most clever clue-clearance tool.

Three years as a unit. Serial killers caught. Rape-os wrapped up and courtroom castrated. The cutting-edge culling of old file data and karmic comeuppance.

I loved the work. I loved the Donna-dalliance downtime. I popped Hospital Hearts in the VCR and sailed the sound off.

There’s Donna. She’s wearing wicked white. She’s telling a sickly citizen he’s got the Big C. Fuck that—she’s saying she loves me!

The Donna scene denoumened. A comatose commercial commenced. I shut my eyes and dreamed.

I was 52. She was 48. It was 21 years since then. We never married. We serialized separate sex. We mired ourselves in molten and moping monogamy. I carried a flaring flame and a tumescent torch.

Donna was rich. Donna won two Emmys. Donna lived in Holmby Hills. I was middle-class. I’d shot two wetbacks and three jigaboos. I lived in Chino Hills.

Donna had dogs—generations of Reggie Ridgebacks. I had in-place informants. Dig: parking-lot punks, coffee-house confidants, maître d’s, molto bene. They saw Donna and buzzed me toward her. I showed up dippy and disingenuous. Donna dug on the game and saw through the shuck.

I opened my eyes. Dog-food dramaturgy drilled me. I scanned the walls. I saw old LAPD pix.

Black Dahlia shots. Onion Field shots. My favorite fiend—the doomonic Donald Keith Bashor.

It’s ’55. Don’s a hot-prowl hunk and one strapping studly. He whips through the Westlake Park District. He B&Es women’s pads. He steals cash only. It’s always late nite. The women sleep on.

Donald Keith Bashor was sentenced to die for the murders of two women victims of burglary forays. (Los Angeles Times Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)

Until 2/16/55—

Don caroms down Carondelet Street. Don pops a pad packed with nurses. Don pops out with three purses.

Don nets ninety scoots. Don dumps the purses. Don catwalks down Carondelet. Don taps 271 South. Karil Graham’s door’s ajar.

He enters. She wakes up. She screams. He beats her dead with a pipe. He loots her purse. He considers a postmortem rape. The blood turns him off.

He skates on the Graham snuff. He sidles out to South Pasadena. He hot-prowls there. He waits fourteen months. He whips back to Westlake Park.

He hot-prowls. He steals. He tools off his turf. He rapes an Echo Park woman. He wiggles back to Westlake. It’s 5/56. He hot-prowls a pad on West 5th Street.

Laura Lindsay screams. He beats her dead with a hammer.

Demon Don kept it up. Geography is destiny. Westlake wigged wicked magic on him. LAPD ran rolling stakeouts. Said stakeouts snagged Demon Don.

June ’56—it’s over. October ’57—Don fries at Big Q.

Demon Don dug under my skin. He stuck as the Stephanie Gorman paradigm. Your prowl pads. You think you come for cash. You really seek sexual succor. You’ve got an urge to unleash the unknown. Every pad gores your gonads. Your adrenaline’s addressed. Every woman’s a witch wired to take you where you have to go.

Donald Bashor, flanked by Senior Deputy George Coenen, left, and Sheriff’s Sergeant Howard Earle, starts on the trip to San Quentin Prison. (Los Angeles Times Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)

I checked the screen. Donna was back. Her hazel eyes hit me hard as hybrids of la Gorman’s. I fast-forwarded. Donna dunned a baleful boyfriend for lasting love. I tossed out the text. I licentiously lip-read. Donna expressed explicit love for me.

Two print techs walked in. I popped out the cassette. Donna Standard Time, adieu.

I beamed up at Bashor. Dave Slatkin beatified the beast and correlated him to the current hot-prowl man. Dave made the man as moon-mad. He was long-term lunar-looped. He slinked to sliver moons and sharp shadows. The man bopped Bashor-like. Dave figured he’d rape and kill soon.

The squadroom filled up. There’s my partner, Tim Marti. He’s a heavy-handed hard-charger and a thrill-seeking throwback. He priapically predates the Rodney King/so-PC/no-beavertail-sap-slapping days. There’s Dave. He’s dog-hair-dusted and dog-food-flecked. He’s still got that dog shelter. He’s breeding brindle pits now.

I was bored. I was restless. DST re-resurrected. Stephanie Gorman caught Donna dust and coopted the ride.

Identikit internment. Sizzling symbiology. Stephanie and Donna as one.

I punched up the program. My computer popped and pixilated two faces. There’s Stephanie at 16. There’s Donna at 48. Slow now—let’s mix-and-match faces.

Four bright hazel eyes. Stephanie’s summer tan. Donna’s soft paleness.

I free-form Frankensteined for an hour. The now and the then got jungled up and jangled. I thought of Russ Kuster. I thought of fall ’83 and the Jenson-Donahue dead. Stephanie—freeze-frame frissoned at youth forever.

It hit me:

Danny Getchell was dead. He snitched for me. He bid me to bop-talk. I owed him some flowers.

MY DEBT: One boss bouquet. Narco Division’s: floral flotillas. Danny handed them wholesale hopheads and mucho meth dealers. They heaped him heroin back.

I elevatored down. The Narco bullpen: doom-deep in depression.

Twenty-plus desks. “Laundryman” Linus Lauter’s cops lolling listlessly.

I looked at them. They looked at me. They tapped their toes and popped on their PCs. They booted up beaver-shot bashes. They socked in solitaire. They Internet-ignored me.

I whistled. “Flowers for Danny G. Who wants to contribute?”

Some guys flipped me off. Most guys depressive-deadpanned me. Bill Berchem tapped his toupee and twirled one finger. Bob Mosher picked his nose and snagged snot my way.

Division-deep depression. One Fed-fucked captain. The trickle-down trap. Cops headed for Subpoena City.

I scanned the squadroom. The freeze frappéed me. I checked the chalkboard. I saw Gary Getchell’s loathsome likeness. Gary’s gobbling a big dick. Gary’s got shivs shoved in him. A caustic caption read, “Die, motherfucker!!!!!”

I said, “Gary G. isn’t Danny G. Come on, Danny did us all solid.”

Cal Eggers walked up. Call it: Linus Lauter’s less-than-listless lieutenant. Sixtyish. Still a stud. Still a fast-track finagler.

He urged me outside. We walked. We caught some corridor schmooze space. I said, “Danny G. didn’t burn Lauter, the Feds did. Gary’s rattling cages in Hush-Hush, and so what?”

Eggers whipped out his wallet and fanned five fifties. I grabbed gratefully.

“Thanks, Lieutenant.”

“Come on, Rhino, it’s ‘Cal’ to D2s and up. You know I’m clean and on the Captain’s List, and Linus Lauter’s a dumb jungle bunny who bought a six-million-dollar house, cash, on a captain 2’s salary. Tell me I’m not happy he’s going to burn, and since I’m a recent transfer in, tell me I don’t have a shot at the command.”

I smiled smug. “It’s a good summation.”

Eggers winked. “You glommed Danny G. dope when you worked Hollywood Homicide. You’re not afraid that your name’s in a file that hump Gary’s got?”

I shook my head. “It’s a he-said/he-said scenario. Danny’s dead, and I’ve won the Medal of Valor.”

Eggers shook his head. “You’re a fucking eccentric. You’re a fifty-plus bachelor who wears rhino-horn regalia. You capped three spooks and two wetbacks in a reasonably distinguished police career, but the balance of public opinion has tipped away from us. Look down the fucking hallway.”

I did it. I didn’t dig the drift.

Bulletin-board brouhaha. Diversity classes: malevolent and mandatory. Pernicious postings: the Federal Consent Decree/stiff strictures/Radically Reform Your Wicked White Man’s Ways. Civilian lawsuit updates: ultimatums from shyster lawyers/cleverly cloaked class-action shit. Call it cold: baton-bopping back-alley justice, adios. Viva malignant multiculturalism and coerced coonsensus.

I yawned. “Yeah, I know the precedents. O.J., Rodney King, the ’92 riots. Payback time for the great L.A. unwashed. You know how I see the Lauter thing playing in? He catches a bullet for being a cop, and dodges one for being a jig. His kid, Leotis, is a piece of shit, so that tips the balance against him.”

Eggers cracked his knuckles. “You saw the squadroom. Middle-aged white men up the ying-yang. They’ll all get tarred with the Linus brush, their careers will flatline, their retirement job prospects will tank, and every fucking man is thinking,‘Danny G. could keep his mouth shut, but the fuck wrote everything down. Will that sick little shit Gary use his files?’ ”

I shrugged. I wanted to short-shrift this shit. Hush-Hush was non-mainstream media. Both Getchells were scum scamsters. A noxious Narco probe—yes. Linchpins Linus and Leotis—yes. Fed subpoenas for Hush-Hush files—not likely.

My hackles hopped. Eggers felt hinky. I got instantly itchy. My bald head buzzed.

I said, “You’re tweaking me. You want an outsider’s damage assessment. Okay, here it is. Linus and Leotis go down, but nobody else does. Yeah, your guys bought snitches from Danny Getchell, and yeah, he wrote it down. So what? It ends there. Danny’s dead, and Gary G.’s a secondhand, compromised informant.”

Eggers bowed. My tweak take—touché!

“Yes, I wanted an outside opinion, and you confirmed what I thought myself. There’s that, and the fact that I always enjoy talking to the guy who had ten minutes with Donna Donahue.”

I laffed. “It went fast. Ten minutes twenty years ago, and I’m fucked forever.”

Eggers laffed. “I worked the Rampart DB then. I know the whole story.”

“No, you don’t. And Donna and I aren’t telling.”

“Cherchez la femme. I’ve always gone by that.”

“I’ve got two women. I cherchez more than most.”

2.

Cherchez this:

Beverlywood. A delightful demimonde near Beverly Hills. Peaceful and pastoral. A kalm Kosher Kanyon.

Hillsboro and Sawyer—Stephanie Gorman’s house still standing.

I parked across the street. The sky tipped toxic tan to bleached blue. The red-rimmed sun set. I dug on the dark.

She died in daylight. Ma chère Stephanie.

It’s 8/5/65. There’s a hellacious heat wave. Stephanie goes to summer school—Hamilton High sessions.

She carpools home. She’s alone. Her mom’s at their tennis club. Dad and sis work downtown.

There’s two doors in. It’s a horrific hot-prowl variation.

The back gate. The backyard. The sliding door in. The front door. The possible unlocked status.

He brought mason’s cord. He brought a small pistol. He hit Stephanie. He dragged her. They made the front bedroom. He tied her to a daybed. He stripped her.

She broke free. She screamed and ran. He shot and killed her.

The investigation clicks. The Watts Riot runs roughshod and reroutes it. Career confessors cop out and lie themselves loose. Cops ream rape-os. Cops whip on wienie waggers. Cops hurl hurt on hot-prowl hyenas.

Nothing. Zero, zilch, bupkes, bust, goose egg, gornish.

Thirty-plus years pass. Dave S. reads the file. Tim Marti reads the file. I read the file, cherchez-la-femmingly. We fall for Stephanie. She’s a lost daughter shared. She’s my daughter with Donna D.

We pry up print cards. We cough up comparison prints—family, fuzz, friends. We winch a wild-card print. We feed it to the Feds. We get a hit.

The guy’s a minor miscreant. He racked up a receiving charge, post-Stephanie. He’s kool, kalm, and kosher—before and since.

We blast a background check. We crawl up every known crack and crevice. We know he did not know the Gormans. Check this, Chuck—what’s your fucking print doing there?

Dave and Tim braced the guy. He guy gassed with them. Cops, huh? How can I help you?

Dave said, “Stephanie Gorman.” Tim said, “She was murdered.” The guy said, “Oh, yeah, the little dead twist.”

Oh, shit—he’s coming on callous, ink him innocent.

Dave dug in. Tim tore in. Tell us what you know.

I was across the street. I was boning my best buddy’s bitch. He got his schlong shot off in Korea. The twist’s sister ran over. She was shit-your-pants scared and screaming. My buddy was a quack herb doc. The sister yelped for help. I went over for groovy grins and giggles. Bummer—the little twist was Deadsville.

Call my buddy. Talk to his wife. I poured her the pork for twenty-six years. They’ll vouch and verify my story.

We did it. The No-Dick Doctor confirmed it—call him il cornuto. The wayward wife was one wicked wench. She waxed wild at eighty. Our suspect “gave it to me from 1:00 p.m. on. Man-o-Manischewitz, what a schvantz! He was hung like a nigger!”

One suspect suspended. One case closed—for now.

Open-file status. No semen from ’65. No way to DNA-match.

I couldn’t let it go. I read and reread the file. I combed for connections. I looked for leads and linkage. Nothing nudged me. No brain broils, no synaptic sizzles. I cultivated communion. Stephanie Standard Time stung me. I parked by her pad odd evenings.

A breeze brought leaves up. Clouds climbed past the moon. Window lights leaped inside the house. I shaped shadows as Stephanie.

My cell phone rang. I hit the Talk button.

“This is Jenson.”

“Hi. It’s Rob. You know, from the Starbucks on Beverly Drive.”

“Oh, shit. Is she . . .?”

“Yeah, you fucking horndog. She’s on a big-ass mocha, so I think you’ve got time.”

SHE WORE a serge skirt and a coral cashmere coat. Her hazel eyes hopped.

I sat down. She popped her paperback in her purse.

“I would have gotten this to go, but I saw that kid pick up the phone.”

I mainlined some mocha. Too thick and sweet—ugh.

“He’s a valued LAPD informant.”

Donna laffed. “Are you coercing him or paying him?”

“Both. He honked a vice cop at the Wiltern, and I bought him out of jail. That, plus ten bucks a sighting.”

Donna said, “I could go to the Coffee Bean. It’s just across the street.”

“No go. I’ve got all the shift managers bribed. That, plus the—”

“—the valet park guys, all—”

“—of whom are fucking coercible wetbacks.”

Donna laffed. I mooched more of her mocha. I held her hands for a heartbeat. I straightened one stocking seam.

“You can’t lose me. Not for more than six months at a time. We’re both L.A. lifers, and I know this place too well.”

Donna looked around. I looked around. Our eyes tapped table to table. Beverly Hillsites beamed back, blasé—so what if you’re Donna Donahue.

I said, “Who are you doing these days?”

Donna said, “A screenwriter. He’s handsome and much younger than me. I control things. It’s an indoor relationship, and the age gap embarrasses me. I don’t like to be seen with him.”

I slapped my knees. My suitcoat slid, my holster hitched, my badge beamed, my gun glistened. Jaded eyes jabbed me—who’s that cop with Donna Donahue.

“I was seeing a deputy D.A., who just happened to look like you. We had bad sex twice, and she states her agenda. She wants to get married, move to Portland, and adopt an Iraqi war-refugee baby. I got out then.”

Donna laffed. She held my hands for a heartbeat. She notched up my necktie knot.

“That burglar hit a block over from me. I thought, ‘Shit, let’s be prepared,’ so I called Tom Ludlow. He sold me some guns.”

Fuck—Phone Book Tom. Still at Hollywood Homicide, still a phone-book freak.

“Throw-down guns, right? Unregistered pieces?”

“Right.”

I shook my head. “You’re bored. You’re reliving ’83. ‘Brave new fucking world’ and all that.”

Donna drained her drink. “I get bored and think about it. Last week my agent sent me a script. I’m supposed to be a cop moonlighting as a serial killer. I’m killing my ex-boyfriends’ wives, and having a high old time mutilating the bodies. How do you tell someone you can’t take the job because you killed three people in 1983, and certain things scare you and certain things own you?”

My pulse pulled to 120. My blood-pressure pressed. Dangerous Donna—radical redux.

“What did you do with the guns?”

“I booby-trapped the house.”

“Will you show me?”

“Of course.”

Chez Donna: a sharp chateau off L.A. Country Club. Nestled by the north course—some Holmby Hills hutch.

Tall turrets, big bay windows. Fucking football-field footage. Heavy housage for one woman and a randy ridgeback.

We two-car-caravaned over. We parked in the porte cochere. Donna let us in. The horny hound hurtled high and humped me.

He locked my leg. He pawed my pubes. He bit at my belt. HIVTEST me—the fag dog drew blood.

Donna tossed him a treat. Reggie Ridgeback relented. We thrown-down-gun-toured the pad.

One mighty Magnum—couch-cushion concealed. One fat .45—thrown under a throw rug. One revolver—rigged by Ridgeback Reggie’s dog bed.

The downstairs: designered-out and Donnaesque. Fine fabrics offset by oil paintings. A rapturous Renoir. A magnificent Monet. A clever Klee. Furtive firepower amidst all.

Dangerous Donna, mon dieu!

We walked upstairs. Reggie Ridgeback crept and crotch-sniffed me. Dig the master-bedroom Browning. Dig the guest-room Ruger pump. Dig the Derringer hung in the shower stall, à la soap-on-a-rope.

French provincial trappings—tricked-out wood and wall beams. Pop art by pederastic modern masters. Hard-hitting hollow-point ammo and deer-stopping double-aught buck.

Devil-horned Donna—neo-noir succubus!

We bopped out to the balcony. Reggie crotch-crept between us. The night air made me snap, crackle, pop.

Golf-course view—one vibrant vista, one plumb line southeast. I felt Stephanie starting up.

We laid lounge chairs adjacent. We sat down. We laced hands loose. Reggie registered his cue and vamoosed.

Donna said, “You’re thinking about the girl.”

I stared Stephanie’s way. I heard cars whoop down Wilshire. I orbed into Stephanie’s orbit.

“She’s older than us, but she’ll always be younger. And I was thinking of both of you.”

Donna squeezed my hand. “Everything’s foreplay and yearning with you. You only want what you can’t have.”

A mist meandered in. The golf course metamorphosed into moors.

“I figured something out about us. It takes in ’83 and wraps things up.”

Donna said, “Tell me.”

I said, “We’ve downscaled our expectations on the things that most people live for, so we can live in a world of possibility.”

Donna stared southeast. Her gaze got moor-mired up.

“There’s times I want things to go bad, just so I can go there again.”

“For instance?”

“My Web site’s been getting too many hits. There’s been a lot of nasty questions on my old boyfriends, and intimations that I’m a dyke, because I never married.”

I smiled. “You could marry me.”

Donna smiled. “That would effectively quash all sense of possibility.”

The moor mist rose. The moon moved into it.

“There’s more. I’ve been getting e-mail requests for my panties, which is not unprecedented, but—”

I cut in. “Why not? And if you start selling them, let me know.”

Donna laffed. “I made a cop flick with an actress named Megan More. She’s primarily a soft-core porno star, and she made a pass at me. She’s sold her panties on the Internet, and she told me it’s quite profitable.”

Dig it! Pounce on that pounding possibility!

I invade the Internet. I shore up my shorts. I buttress the bulges and rack them retail. Rhino Rick Jenson—rhino-horn raider!

Donna poked me. “Here’s the semi-spooky part. The e-mails and the panty requests both come from public-library computers, so there’s no way I can tell the pathetic asshole or assholes to fuck off.”

Reggie walked up. I raked his ridge. I made him mew molto bene.

“One set of assholes in a twenty-year career isn’t so bad.”

“Two, actually. I’ve been getting love-hate notes in the mail, on and off, for years. He loves it when I show skin, he hates it when I show skin. He’s a skin sicko.”

I raked Reggie. “If you’re scared, I could sleep on the couch.”

“For the next thirty years?”

“Why not?”

Donna said, “Speak, Reggie.” Reggie flashed his fangs and growled gravel gruff.

I got the point. Possibility meant abstinence. I had a wishful woody. She had a killer K-9, boocoo guns and guts.

The moor mist moved in. Reggie mewed at the moon.

3.

Dystopian Disneyland—Danny Getchell’s wigged-out wake!

Myriad mourners and morbid scene makers. Legions of L.A. losers festooning Forest Lawn.

Hopheads and hermaphrodites. Porno film stars and Gen-X actors genuflecting. Nihilistic college kids digging on dead Danny. An anarchic assembly of perverts, punks, and freewheeling freaks.

Anti-Danny pickets: quixotic queers high on homo hegemony. Narco cops poised on the periphery—bad Bill Berchem and beefy Bob Mosher.

Forest Lawn—capped to capacity. Green grass broiled brown—700 soiled souls smack in a baaad smog alert.

I stood with Tim Marti. We lugged our loopy floral flotilla. Tim pointed out pertinent personas bellied up to the bier.

“The guy with the earlocks is a rabbi with a kiddy-raper jacket. He made a little girl nosh his kosher salami at some Holocaust gig. The stacked blonde is Megan More. She’s on these late-night T&A flicks. My kid Brandon sneaks down to watch her and belt his hog all the fucking time. The skinny guy is Gary Getchell, aka ‘Scurvy’ Irv Moskowitz. He’s the so-called editor-in-chief of Hush-Hush, but his full-time gig is caddy at Bel-Air Country Club. He’s a wienie wagger. He likes to flash nuns. I popped him when I worked West L.A. Vice.”

I laffed lewd. I looked at the losers. The rabbi rang me wrong. He vibed skin-pop junkie. His neck was needle-notched. Call the faux Getchell caddy-clad and fully fucked up. He wore gatorskin golf shoes and seersucker shorts. His shirt showed off patterned penguins. Dig his yellow yarmulke—the full-fucked finishing touch.

I laffed loud. I leched on Megan More. She was a skyscraping skin-flick goddess. She soared six feet plus. She was wispy white and tantalizing tan—a bravura Brünnhilde de-luxe.

Tim tapped me. “I saw Berchem and Mosher taking pictures. You think—”

“I think they’re putting heat on Gary Getchell, for no good fucking cause. Maybe he’s got a Narco file, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Danny G. had shit on Linus Lauter, maybe he didn’t—”

“—but in any case, Hush-Hush 2000 is a fucking joke. The circulation’s low four figures, it’s a mimeograph job, the only people who read it are movie- and music-biz hipsters, and the only reason it survives is that the ACLU protects it from libel suits pro bono.”

The rabbi reached for a microphone. The craaaazy crowd pressed up. I saw bleary and bloodshot eyes. I smelled righteous reefer. A sea of sick souls surrounded us. I flung our floral flotilla. It banged Danny G.’s bier.

Berchem and Mosher moved in. They mingled and moseyed by Megan More. They missed Tim and me. They bopped by the bier. They carried cameras. Said cameras clicked.

They shot Megan More. They shot Megan More and the mourners she talked to. Click/click/click—Megan More and Minox minicam pix.

I shrugged. Tim shrugged. It vibed hinky shit.

The rabbi mauled the microphone and licked his lips. The rabbi davened and delivered.

Danny G. was a marvelous mensch and a sharpshooting shtarker. He wasn’t a schmendrick, a schlemiel, or a schlimazel. He was one magnificent motherfucker.

The rabbi ratcheted it up. Some klezmer clowns joined in. Jazz Judaism jumped. Tim and I splitsvilled.

THE FUNERAL GORED my gourd. Residual reefer smoke smacked me. It was a cool contact high. I drove home to Donnafy and contain it.

The buzz dipped and diminuendoed. I got restless and re-Donnafied. I got the urge to merge. Let’s real-life re-Donnafy before your sex drive cessates.

I called Donna. I came on breezy and brazen. Those panty printouts perturb me. Please let me look.

Donna bought it. I’m going out—I’ll put the printouts on my doorstep. Thanks, Rick—you rock.

I hit Holmby Hills. I picked up the printouts. I chugged back to Chino Hills. I put on some righteous Rachmaninoff—Rick and Donna, you Rach.

The Opus 32 Preludes—preternaturally precious and priapic. Sex seldom seen/lilting loss/heavy heartbreak—the Rick-loves-Donna précis.

I studied the printouts. Bim—silly shit. Bam—similar shit. Bip—sent from West L.A. libraries. Call it cold: silly and similar shit sent by the same sender.

Let’s seek a second opinion.

I called Dave Slatkin. Dave said, Sure—let’s see the shit. I’m busy right now. I’m going out to Bel-Air, to sit in on a hot-prowl stakeout.

The hot-prowl guy is lunar-phased—I know it. His last vic caught two trank darts. He almost died. The geek will kill sooner or later.

I stressed my printouts—Donna danger and pervo potential. A Freaky Freddy in the Panty Pantheon. A Sick Sidney and a morbid masturbator.

Dave laughed me off. Yeah, I’ll read the shit. Find me on the stakeout. And get real, Rhino—you’re just Donna-diddled right now.

Ouch—

I started to hang up. Dave said, Oh, and call Chief Tierney’s office—he’s got an errand for you.

I hung up. I relived the call and re-ouched. Dave Slatkin slams me. Dave instigates my inventory. Be real, Rhino Rick. You’re Donna-diddled. You’re a Donna doofus and a Donna dunce. You Donna-dallied in 1983. You’re a Donna determinist. You’re Donnafied and Donnafried behind the hellbound heat and monster meshugas of that moment.

Yeah, and it’s solemnly sad—but it’s so fucking goooooooooood.

I propped up the printouts. I underscored ugly outtakes. Dig the pandemic pantyphile:

“Dear Donna: I’m a handsome & well-hung collector of women’s undergarments, which I catalog & keep behind glass at my bachelor pad in Malibu. Would you e-mail me about the availability of such items & how much they would cost?”

“Dear Donna: I would like to purchase your panties to fill out my collection, but I can’t do it unless you answer my e-mails, which so far you haven’t done. Are you too busy to connect with your fans, or are you just terminally stuck up?”

“Dear Bitch: You’ve got a last chance to redeem yourself by selling me your panties at discount prices. Don’t hesitate! Do it today!”

I skimmed skanky cybernotes. Nasty nuggets stood out:

“I think it’s twisted that you’ve never married. Are you some kind of muff muncher or rug merchant?”

“I know you’ve been thru lots of men. Who was the biggest & the best?”

“I want to douse your panties with Chanel #5 & take them to school with me, because they remind me of my mom.”

Maybe one deadly Donnaphobe. Maybe a kook kavalcade. Maybe one passive putz.

I got out my notepad. I wrote:

“Panty man—frustration/violence of language escalating. Does he know of panty-selling-actress precedents? Megan More told Donna she sold her stuff.”

?????—let’s seek a second opinion. Brace Brandon Marti— Tim’s tumescent teen.

I buzzed Tim’s pad. Brandon picked up.

“Uh, yeah?”

“It’s me, kid.”

“Oh, hi, Uncle Rhino.”

I cleared my throat. “I need help with something. I know you’re a guy in the know.”

Brandon said, “Uh, sure. What do you . . .?”

“I’ll talk turkey, kid. You’re red-blooded, but you’ve got no real outlet, if you catch my drift. You’ve got to know where to find all the porno babes on the Internet. You know, their Web sites.”

The little lech laffed. “My dad said you had this martyr thing going. He said you couldn’t see past this actress chick who did you, like twenty years ago.”

Double-aught ouch.

“Brandon, come—”

“Well, there’s Jenna Jamison, and Seka, and Summer Storm, and Porsche Poon, and . . . shit, I don’t know . . . mostly they’re just . . . chicks.”

Sterile stuff. Deep-down depressive. Downscale Donnaphobia and teenage ennui.

“Thanks, Brandon. You were a big help.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, and my dad just handed me a note. It says, ‘Get a life.’ ”

I WALKED WEB SITES. I juked Jenna Jamison. I sought Summer Storm and Seka. I popped Porsche Poon’s page.

Skin pix and news notes. Pathetic fan postings. No panties for sale.

Let’s move mainstream. Let’s mine movie stars.

I Web-walked. I hopped home pages. I hit salty Sandy Bullock and nasty Nicole K. Dig: pathetic postings and news notes. No panties for sale.

I moved my mouse. I hit Megan More—the “official” Web site.

Panties proffered—$29.95 per. News notes. Pathetic postings— whoa, wait, what’s this?

The pathetic poster: Big Bob at bigbob.com. Paragraphs of pathos, then this:

I tapped into this guy Jack Jen-kin’s website. He offered this so-called ‘Master’s Thesis’ on Megan, for sale at $16.95. I read it, and it’s nothing but a bunch of blasphemous lies. I urge all Megan fans to boycott this clown.

I boycotted Big Bob’s boycott. I moved my mouse. I jumped Jack Jen-kin’s Web site. I got this:

The Transformation of Megan More, 168PP, $16.95. The Truth About the Soft-Core Sensation. Visa, MC, Amex, Discover: Punch in number & exp. date after cue. Prepaid money-order purchases to: Jack Jen-kin, 1284 S. Berendo #14, L.A. 90018.

Interesting. Insinuating. A kool Koreatown address.

I moved my mouse. I caught cues. I ordered the book overnite. I sat back. I pondered pantyphile pathos and me.

Odds on Donna danger: 10 to 1 against. The reality: Rhino Rick battles boredom and entrenched ennui.

There it is: that Stephanie stasis/that Donna disjuncture. Unfathomable crimes/unattainable women—and me.

I sat there. I salaamed into sadness. I set truth traps and snared me. You don’t prize the prosaic. Opportunity owns you. You foreswore family for possibility.

It was dinnertime. I had no warm woman, no kid cacophony. I marked my moment: Porno-site printouts. Filthy fetishism as opportunity.

I wanted more deep Donna moments. Danger would mandate them. My primordial prayer was for peril to paralyze her and free me. Donna for love. Stephanie to stamp me as figurehead father and father-obsessee.

It was 10:00 p.m. Donna was diverted with dog and lucky lover. Stephanie was still stamped DEAD.

Possibility. Cop conundrum as communion. Stephanie’s house called to me.

4.

Jolting Joe Tierney—all hail the Chief!

He sized me up silent. He eyeball engaged me. His gaze cut to the quick.

I called his office. I made the meet. I sat steady now. Junkyard Joe Tierney—you malevolent mick.

He said, “The rhino regalia works for the most part. I like the tie bar and the belt buckle, but the rhino-patterned tie has to go.”

The chair chafed my ass. The office offended. The pictures piqued me.

Joe T. and the Pope—a Polack pals pose. Joe T. and that boss babe Mother Teresa. Joe T. and Hillary Clinton—dyked-out like bull-dagger Biff.

I said, “Thanks, Chief. I’ll take you with me the next time I go shopping at Costco.”

Tierney yukked. “You know, this is not the righteous right-wing white man’s LAPD you grew up in.”

I yukked. “Yeah, call me lucky. I got to waste three spooks and two wetbacks pre-Rodney King.”

“You’ve got panáche, Rhino. I’ll give you that. And you’re smart enough to know that the Department can’t handle more bad publicity right now. We’ve got civilian litigation up the ying-yang, we’re hamstrung by the Consent Decree, and our officers are afraid to make arrests, because every street creep they jack up is thinking lawsuit.”

I yukked and yawned. I was tapped out and tired. I stayed up late at Stephanie’s.

“Did you call me in for a valid reason, or did you just want to critique my wardrobe?”

Tierney tapped his teeth. Booze breath blew my way. One malign mick/one power-lunch lush.

“All right, let’s get to it. You knew Danny Getchell. You gave him dope for information, which was a common practice in those days. Your mistake was giving dope to a guy who kept files and wrote everything down. Now, Danny’s dead, but Gary Getchell’s alive, and he doesn’t like our chum Captain Lauter. He’s mentioned him in one Hush-Hush piece, and he may be thinking he can milk Narco Division in upcoming pieces that will gravely embarrass the Department as a whole. Your job is to dissuade him.”

I seethed silent. Hold for the humping. Thrill to the threat.

I held hard. Junkyard Joe mowed out martini fumes and maimed me.

“I wouldn’t want to press departmental charges on you for indiscretions that came to light via Hush-Hush. So, you and Tom Ludlow lean on Gary Getchell and tell him to lay off Captain Lauter and the LAPD. Tell him we’re sacrosanct, tell him never to use his files against us, and make your point with some pain.”

MUSCLE JOB— MAN- O - MAN! Coercive copwork calls!

I humped to Hollywood Station. Phone Book Tom stood outside. We bopped to Bel-Air CC.

Tom trumpeted trouble. He waved a Westside book and wafted obscenities. He still stiffed dirty phone calls. He still “nabbed nymphos” and “bagged bitches” that way. He still got vivid Vietnam flashbacks. Said flashbacks floored him. He dug the noxious nostalgia and draconian dramaturgy. Aaah, youth! Tender times of torture and vivisected VC!

We hit Bel-Air. I saw unmarked cop cars undulate up Udine Way. Dig the full daytime rehearsal for the fiend who fends by night. Beautiful Bel-Air: prime turf for the hot-prowl bandido. Rolling stakeouts tapped for tonite.

There’s the country club. There’s the caddy parking lot. Dig that dinged-up Dodge Dart. Dig that calcified Cadiblack and that lake-piped Lincoon Coontinental.

There’s a vandalized van. It’s flame-painted and flat-tired. The windshield’s cracked and crushed. The back door’s bent free.

There’s Gary Getchell inside. There’s a mimeograph machine. He’s packaging items—perchance panties?

We parked and popped over. Getchell piled panties and plied them in plastic baggies. Dig the van’s wild wall pix—all vintage Hush-Hush.

Marilyn Monroe: Mandingo-esque miscegenist! Ava Gardner’s dusky delights! Johnnie Ray’s men’s room misadventure! Hunky homo Rock Hudson!

Getchell said, “Fuzz, huh? This feels like grief I don’t need.”

Tom tapped his phone book. The binding: busted loose from overuse. The page ends: bristly brown from blood.

I said, “Don’t use the files. That means no Lauter and no LAPD.”

Getchell guffawed. He picked up a panty package. He twirled it Tom’s way.

“Ten bucks a sniff. What do you say, caveman? Megan won’t mind, and it just might tighten up your wig.”

I signaled Tom. Tom torqued his phone book. One bonaroo backhand—Getchell’s snout snapped.

His nose dripped and bipped blood on plastic. Dig the panty-package stains.

I said, “Don’t use the files. No Lauter, no LAPD.”

Getchell popped a panty pack. Getchell hooked out a hanky-panty and blew his beak.

“Last call. Two sniffs for fifteen snoots. You cats are way out on the sex-violence nexus. Come on, two sniffs for ten. That’s my last offer.”

I signaled Tom. Tom torqued his phone book. One fine forehand—Getchell got thwapped.

I said, “Don’t use the files. No Lauter, no LAPD. Say yes and we’re gone.”

Getchell groaned and grimaced. Getchell tugged a tooth loose. Dig the devastated dentistry.

“Here’s my final offer. The Megan More Premier DVD Collection, plus two sniffs apiece, for ten scoots. Come on, I’m taking it up the shit chute on this.”

I signaled Tom. Tom torqued his phone book. One overboard overhand—Getchell flew and flattened out on the floor.

He coughed. More blood blossomed. More teeth tore free.

I said, “Don’t use the files. Come on, Gary. I’m not enjoying this.”

Getchell got up. He stood stern and stared at me.

“I know about you and that actress cooze. Fall ’83. Does that sound familiar? I hate that cooze, ’cause a friend of mine does, but there’s this avenging angel out there.”

A cold curtain caught and contained me. It held me and hurt me and bloomed like blood.

I grabbed the phone book. I backhanded bad and forehanded fierce and underhanded uggggly. Getchell banged the walls. The van rocked and rolled. Phone Book Tom pulled me free.

NIX THAT NEXUS. Say sí to sex. Violence—voice a nyet.

I moped through a muscle-job menopause. I felt fucked up and fit for shit. I was apocalyptic and apologetic. Post-panty depression hit me.

I dropped off Tom L. I drove by Stephanie’s pad. I salved my soiled soul and heard my cell phone sizzle.

Conflicting calls. Donna’s at the Hamburger Hamlet, Donna’s chilled out at Chia Brasserie.

I hooked by the Hamlet. A Donna look-alike lapped lager in a leatherette booth. I chugged by Chia. Charlie Chink said, “Miss Donahue get food to go.”

Dusk. Deign me Donna-deprived, down in the dumps and digging on diversion. I drove to the hot-prowl stakeout.

Bel-Air again. Regal Roscomere Road. Piles of palm trees and sparkling Spanish mansions. Two unmarked units parked at perimeter posts. West L.A. cops couched in one. Dave Slatkin and a piebald pit bull piled in another.

I parked behind the pitmobile. I joined Dave and the dog. Said dog: all lapping love for LAPD and all malicious muscle. Dave: dander-dusted and deep in dog-lover delight.

We settled in. We sipped corrosive coffee. We shot the shit.

We agreed: Fuck the Lauter/Narco/Getchell file fantasia. Linus laundered Leotis’s dope cash. Linus fathered Leotis—loin linkage went deep. Joe Tierney—our new Chief—fearful of the Feds. I said this deal hops hinky—weird shit shears this way and that. Dave said it meant fuck-all. Fuck it and forget it, and feast on this:

Tim found a file box. Dig—it’s detritus on Stephanie. The box: back at Parker Center. Tim found it in an old file bank. It was crammed into a crevicelike crawl space.

We resettled in. We racked our seats back recumbent. Pancho the pit bull surveilled the street. Dave hoped the hot-prowl man was a boogie. Pancho craved dark meat.

The night was dead dark. Dave dug it. Listen—this lout’s lunar-tuned.

Dave dug in. Dave profiled the prick.

He’s a full-fledged fiend. He’s Donald Keith Bashor made millennial. Bashor righteously rape-o’d one woman. Bashor almost rape-o’d Karil Graham in death. Our guy’s female-fucked. He’s out to instigate an image. His hot prowls: preludes to rape. He’s looking for the woman.

I agreed. I added: And he’s brazen. You can’t drive through Bel-Air or Holmby Hills and not bid big-time suspicion. Dave agreed. Dave added: He walks. It’s why he’s lunar-tuned. He’s down on darkness.

I agreed. I added: He parks south and sidles up silent. South of Wilshire equals Holmby Hills, south of Sunset equals Bel-Air. Dave agreed. Dave added: He could go to ground on golf courses. L.A. Country Club/Holmby Hills, Bel-Air CC/Bel-Air.

Our talk tapped out. We yawned. Pancho snored and snoozed in my lap. I slipped into sleep. Dreams drifted through.

Stephanie. Donna. Time suspended surreal. Gary Getchell, beat on and bold: “I hate that cooze, ’cause a friend of mind does, but there’s this avenging angel out there.” Angels rigged as ridgebacks—choice cherubs with coarse coats and dog faces. Megan More lez-leering at Donna.

I dream-droned. I slid in and out of sleep. Pancho panted beside me. I made him my mascot. I framed the front seat as my marriage bed with Donna. Dig the mastiff metamorphosis—pit bull Pancho as Reggie Ridgeback.

Our radio rumbled. Static stammered and stuck. I woke up woozy. Dave jerked and woke up—

“2-A-44, hit your brights!”

Dave caught the key. The engine engaged. I lit the low beams and brought on the brights. Right there—midnite made broad daylight.

A Spanish manse laid to our left. A large lady screaming. Light behind her—2-A-43’s brights.

The woman scree-scree-screamed. She stumbled down the steps. She dug at a dart in her neck. Man down in the doorway— her man in matching pj’s. He’s two-dart devastated: one dart in each eyeball. He looks dart-defiled dead.

Two cops coming up—2-A-43—on foot faaaast. That large lady on her lawn, screaming. It’s all front-lit-framed with back lights bouncing.

I pulled my piece. Dave pulled his piece. Pancho piled out the window. We lurched into the light. A car cut in front of us. It ran in reverse. I caught a brief blip: sixty-plus white man, grinning.

We fired. We hit the car. Ricochets resounded. The other cops fired. They hit the car. Ricochets racked up and reverbed.

Pancho ran. The car ran in reverse. Pancho dived in the driver’s side window. The hot-prowl hump raised his trank gun. Pam—Pancho picked up a dart.

We chased the car. We fired. Four fuckers on foot, one reverse rocket ship. The car careened backward. It banged backyard fences and tore through trellis posts. We ran. We reloaded. We ran and shot at the reverse rocket. We ran and ran out of ammo. The car barged through backyards and disappeared in the dark.

THE FUCK RELANDSCAPED eight backyards. The fuck fucking ex-caped.

A SWAT team swung through. They door-knocked and bopped through backyards. No Hot-Prowl Harvey extant. Choppers churned overhead. Their belly lights burned. No Hot-Prowl Harry hiding. No 60-plus sickos seen.

Pancho lived. One dart to the duodenum—no damage there. Dave kissed and caressed him and came on with dog treats. I posited Pancho for LAPD honors. The SWAT cops agreed.

The two-dart man died. Toxic shock tore through his system. His wife stood strong. She stuttered out a statement.

She heard hinky noises. She woke up. There’s Hot-Prowl Hal in her bedroom. He’s got his hot-prowl hamster out. He’s siphoning said python in her lingerie drawer.

She shrieks. Hot-Prowl Humphrey darts her. Her hubby wakes up. Hot-Prowl double-darts him.

A lab crew hit the house. They ladled up the lingerie and located some jizz. DNA testable—yeah! Dip it through the DNA database and hold your hot-prowl breath.

The crew crawled entry points. They found fresh dirt by a dinged door lock. The crew crept backyards. They walked down to the west Bel-Air gate. Similar dirt—in scuff patterns on the sidewalk.

Dave and I talked. The 2-A-43 guys talked. All hands agreed:

We couldn’t eyeball-ID the hot-prowl hellhound. No way to cut a composite. No way to initiate an Identikit pic.

We all popped to Parker Center. We mowed through mug books and looked for likenesses. One sixtyish sicknik—nothing popped out.

Dawn. The Chief of Detectives arrives and anoints us. Hey, Jenson and Slatkin. Grab Tim Marti and work this hot-prowl homicide.

Dave dug it. Dave was an emphatic empiricist and a dedicated Donald Keith Bashor-phile. His take: Our guy was older. He might be hot-prowl hip to his bad Bashor-like roots. He’d killed now. He masturbated moments before. He fucked the fuzz on his getaway. His essential escalation Bashor-boded: rape and rape-kill!!!!!

Tim showed. His take: Let’s track the tranquilizers. Tim dug the dichotomy: powerful potions for humans, benign benzodiazepines for dogs. Dave disagreed—it’s too tough to track. There’s street stuff and privately prescribed. Our Bashoresque best bet: more rolling stakes.

I yawned. All this hot-prowl hurly-burly bored me. I only prized its proximity to Donna.

I wanted back in her bed—flat-on or fleeting. Evil e-mails and panty precedents might tweak her toward me. The Hot-Prowl Hymie—clamoring close by—might help.

I wanted to hide in the heart of her hearth.

5.

I hooked home. I racked up some rest. I refitted my head and dipped out to my doorstep.

No Megan More master’s thesis. No fucking FedEx, no UPS, no Overnight Express.

The hot-prowl job boded—back-to-work big. Donna Standard Time torqued me more. The master’s man lived in Koreatown. I could cruise out and run back to Robbery-Homicide.

The day unrolled ugly. Smog smeared the L.A. basin and hid the Hollywood Hills. The air was lash-your-lungs carcinogenic. The sky was tamale tan. Koreatown was heat-hazed and Seoulful. Pico Boulevard bustled. It was a slant-eyed sluice and a last line of demarcation. The L.A. Congo came on south of there.

I poured down Pico and bipped up Berendo. The master’s man’s pad stood straight ahead. It’s a ten-story tenement walk-up. It’s stark stucco and smells of bracing broiled eel and kimchi.

I parked and lolled through the lobby. Listless layabouts eyeballed me. They tipped tallboys of Schlitz malt liquor. They oozed absentee attitude. They were slick slants and Cheerless Charlie Chinks.

I moseyed to the mail slots. Jack Jen-kin—up in unit #14.

The elevator churned and chugged. The vents vibrated. Sexy scents siphoned through. I made monkey meat and pulled pork cooked in kimchi.

The elevator stopped. I stepped out and hopped down the hallway. There’s #14.

Whoa, wait, what’s this—

Stink crawled out a door crack. Bugs batted the baseboard and dinged the doorway within. Buzz, buzz, bap, bap—insects inflamed, distressed, and disturbed.

I got out a credit card. I dug at the doorjamb. Tumblers tipped. The door popped.

Fumes flew up and fucked me full. I braced my breakfast back down. I shivered. I shut the door. I shook off bug battalions. Said bugs buzzed back to a hallway. I followed the fumes and stared at the stiff.

One maggot-mauled male Korean. Deep dead and decomped. Laid out on a lavender rug. One big-bore head wound.

There’s the gun. It’s by the body. It’s a fat .44 Mag. The wound was wide. Maggots mamboed out a cranial crack.

I knelt down. I noticed neck wounds. Bright bruises and tight torture cuts. The stink stung me. I pinched my nostrils. I hooked my ham-and-egg McMuffin back.

There’s the note. It’s tacked to the wall. It’s plied in plain view.

“I cannot go on. I love Megan More more than life itself, but she does not love me. Good-bye, Megan. I’ll see you where the angels sing.”

Hinky handwriting. Heaps of hesitation marks. Vibrating vowels. Crawling consonants coerced. Torture to instigate information. Murder made suicide.

I pored through the pad. I pinched my nose and pulled up peremptory details. I stared at staged shit and staved off the stink.

The kitchen. A mainline maggot migration. Full sink. Dirty dishes. Maggot-maimed chunks of chuck steak. Call it cool: The killer caught Jen-kin here and juked him.

The bedroom. Megan More on white walls. Cheap cheese-cake/snappy snapshots/no dust underneath. Call it cold: put-up pix. Prime props to suicide-sync.

I dumped desk drawers. I reached under rugs. I bombed through bookshelves. No Megan More master’s thesis.

I jacked on Jen-kin’s computer. I mouse-moved and tapped in “Megan More.” I mapped in Megan More–ish cue words. No Megan More master’s thesis or minutiae scrolled up.

I walked back to the hallway. Maggots julienned Jack Jen-kin and marched down his mouth. The door dipped open. A slant-eye slithered and slid and crept through the crack. The door closed and clicked. I rhino-ran up.

I ran out. I heaved down the hall. I saw Chuck the Chink reach a fire door and stop short. I jumped him. I heaped on the hurt. I smashed his face. He dented the door. I booted him in the balls. He wiggled and whimpered. I grabbed his greasy hair and hauled him back to the pad.

I shut the door. He saw the gore-dead gook and the maggot majorettes. He screamed. I rang up the reaction. Unfaked fear/ unlikely killer/don’t make him for Murder One yet.

The smell smacked him. His yellow skin grew green. He projectile-puked. I dodged food flecks. He brought up broiled eel cooked in kimchi.

I dragged him to the kitchen. I stood him by the sink. I coursed on some cold water. I dunked him and doused him and saw his skin grow back from gray-green.

He sputtered. He shook and shaked. I patted his pockets. I pulled out pills. He possessed Percodan sans prescription. I knew he knew something. I knew he’d snitch.

I pulled my beavertail sap. I patted my palms. I let him hear the weight whip.

“You know something. You know something happened here, so you thought you’d check it out. Come clean, and you walk. Fuck with me and I pop you for the perks.”

He shuddered. I patted my palms. I sap-slapped the side of my legs.

He shook. He moved away from a maggot mound. His voice vibratoed. He sounded off soprano. He came on like a queer and a quiff.

“Four days ago, maybe. I see narcs who bust me. They follow Jack. They get him in lobby and bring him up here. Then I hear screams.”

I poked him hard. I bounced my beavertail on my knees. He shivered. Shakedown Rick scared him.

“Who were the narcs? You know their names, because they popped you.”

The gook gulped. “Berchem and Mosher. They bad. They plant dope on me.”

Flashbacks floored me. Lauter. His hinky hard-on for Hush-Hush. Megan More with Gary Getchell. The funeral. Berchem and Mosher. Surreptitious surveillance. Two goons taking Megan More pix.

I walked to a wall phone. I called the Cold Case Unit. Dave picked up.

“Slatkin.”

I said, “It’s me. I need you to do something, no questions asked.”

“Well . . . O.K.”

Maggots tripped up my trouser legs. I beavertail-beat them and drove them down.

“There’s a homicide. It’s Narco and Lauter-connected. Cal Eggers is probably the only up-and-up guy in the division. I need you to call Tierney and get his O.K. to pull Eggers and hold him.”

Dave said, “O.K., but this sounds—”

I hung up. I passed the punk his pills. He ran out. I cultivated connections.

Narco goons. Linus and Leotis Lauter. Gary G. Megan More. Jack Jen-kin—the maggot-munched Meganphile.

Nyet—nothing clicked conclusive.

I walked to the door. I saw a panty pile atop a TV. I was sailing on the sex-violence nexus. I stopped and took three good sniffs.

COOL CAL EGGERS— couched in a cat box—an 8 by 12 interview room.

We watched through a 2-way. The mirror made Cal wiggle and weave. He was drip-dry and freon frosty. He vibed no guilt.

I thought so. Ditto Dave and Tim. We watched. We waited. We killed the air-conditioning and hitched up the heat. Cool Cal kept his coat on—you can’t sweat me.

Dave talked to Tierney. The mad mick sent a SID team out. They reconnoitered and ran through room 14. The pad—professionally print-wiped. The suicide note—a felonious fake. The maggot multitude made the man a full four days dead. The queer called it correct. Bill Berchem and Bob Mosher—not there at Narco—“out in the field.”

Cal wiggled and weaved. Cal winked at the mirror. We shared a look and walked in.

We chose chairs. We tilted them tableside. Cal slid his seat closer in.

I said, “It’s about Narco, and maybe Captain Lauter.”

Cal said, “You’re putting me to sleep.”

Tim said, “Nobody thinks you’re dirty.”

Cal said, “Wake me when it’s over.”

Dave said, “You weren’t in the unit when Lauter pulled those stunts with his son.”

Cal said, “Hit me with some new stuff I haven’t read in Hush-Hush.”

Tim tapped the table. “Bill Berchem and Bob Mosher. An actress named Megan More, and a dead slant named Jack Jen-kin.”

Cal craned his neck. Cal cracked his knuckles. Cal said, “Oh, shit.”

Dave drummed the table. “You’ve got interdepartmental immunity. That’s straight from Tierney. Beyond that, it’s chilled. We’re giving Jen-kin to the media as a suicide. We’ll make it stick.”

Cal called up some chutzpah. “Tell Tierney to jump me to captain and I’ll give up Berchem and Mosher. Tell him I want a done deal.”

I slid out my cell phone. Tim tapped Tierney’s number. Tierney took the call two rings in. Dave coughed up Cal’s chutzpah sotto voce. Tierney yelled, “Fuck it, O.K.!”

I filched my phone back. Cal shot me a shit-eater grin.

“So, Linus Lauter craves white lady and white snatch. He gets jacked on coke every night, sees Megan More on TV, and gets a jones. He contacts her through her Web site and gets a sick thing going with her. He thought he was seducing her, but she was seducing him. She knew the late Danny Getchell, she knew Linus was a cop who did snitch deals with him, she pumped him for information and got the word on his money-laundering deals before the Feds and the fucking L.A. Times did. Linus learned she was tight with Gary Getchell, and that she was going to leak shit on his deals and their affair to Gary, and he’d publish it in Hush-Hush.”

Megan More—miscegenist mama. Multicultural malfeasance coonfidential.

Now cut to Koreatown, now jump to Jack Jen-kin.

I said, “The homicide, Cal. The pad at 12th and Berendo.”

Cal coughed. “I got this from Linus. He’s wacked on coke and spilling all this paranoia. It seems that Megan More did Berchem, Mosher, and him, so now you’ve got three motivated fuckers out to get her. They heard about the gook’s ‘Master’s Thesis,’ learned that he’d sold practically zilch copies, but that it was full of so-called embarrassing shit. So, Linus tells me that Berchem and Mosher were going out to lean on the gook, and I guess things got out of hand.”

A flashback flamed me. Gary Getchell, per Donna D.:

“I hate that cooze, ’cause a friend of mine does, but there’s this avenging angel out there.”

“Avenging angel” Megan More—maybe. Lez-leched on Donna—her motive, maybe.

Captain Cal stood up. Tim said, “We’ve got to grab Berchem and Mosher.”

Dave said, “I’ll tell Tierney what we’ve got, but we’re on the hot-prowl case.”

Connections clicked and stopped stillborn. The Donna Diaspora, the Hot-Prowl Holocaust—shit shoved itself at me.

Cal said, “Rhino looks distracted. Want to bet he’s thinking about a certain actress?”

Dave said, “Yeah, I know that look.”

Tim said, “My kid’s a Megan More fan. This shit will fucking destroy him.”

I PLAYED HOT- PROWL hooky. Those connections clicked too close to Donna. I hopped by Holmby Hills. She was home. I rhino-riffed on contained coincidence. Donna dug my morbid Megan More tale. I said, let’s find her. She said, I’ll go.

I called R&I. They ran Megan More for rap sheets. Bam— Megan More, minor misdemeanant. Four Beverly Hills beefs. Heavy hooking at high-line hotels.

I called the DMV. I dunned them for Megan More’s address. They delivered: 8542 Charleville, Beverly Hills.

We rolled. Lack of sleep slapped me. An anxious undercurrent uncoiled underneath. My Donna deprivation diminished. That sex-violence nexus tipped to sex straight.

We found the pad: a prime provincial four-flat. We parked and dipped up to the door. Four rings, two knocks—no answer. Donna diddled the doorknob. The door popped in.

The living room: bleak, blank-walled, and bereft of furnishings. The kitchen: cleaned out completely. The bathroom and bedroom: bug-sprayed, Lysol-lapped, and furniture-free.

Donna dumped a clothes hamper. Soiled panties sailed out. Premium price tags were clipped to the crotch.

Donna said, “Ugh.”

I still stood on that nexus. I stopped and took three good sniffs.

THE BHPD BODED. I felt rhino-revived and ready to rock. Those sniffs snared me. Sex scents as mainline meth.

We hit the cop shop. Cops recognized Donna. They winged out wolf whistles and lighthearted leers. A clerk clued us: The Vice guy’s Vic Vartanian. Find him by the files. He’s hard to miss.

We walked back. Cops caught sight of Donna. They called out TV titles. Donna called back, curtsied, and came on cute. There’s Vice cop Vic. He’s fucking with a file stack. He’s swarthy and sweaty and acne-addled. Blackheads bloomed on his big beak.

He saw us. He scoped my belt badge. Donna dinged him. He salaamed, sucked in his gut, and slapped himself dandruff-free.

He said, “So?”

I said, “Megan More. Ring a bell? I thought you might have a sheet on her.”

“I do. Crime reports, dispo reports, known haunts, the whole shmear. That said, I got to say I got something better.”

I whipped to his wavelength. Call him coy. Praise him and say pretty please.

Donna tapped me telepathic. “Could we see your paperwork, Detective? It would be a big help.”

Vic V. veered to a file bank. He draped over the drawers and pulled paper. He came back with some cardboard-bound sheets.

“Some clown wrote a half-assed book about Megan. I bought a copy to squeeze her with, if she ever tried hooking in my jurisdiction again.”

Chills churned through me. It was one wild nexus nudge. Donna held a hand out. Vic tossed her the text.

“You can sit at my desk and read it. You might enjoy it especially, Ms. Donahue.”

TORRID TEXT. The Mephistophelian Megan More Movie. Megan, crazed on crack-cocaine and fulsome full disclosure. Megan’s mea culpa and Mein Kampf. Jack Jen-kin—her barroom bard and bothersome Boswell. Her un-Christian Korean konfessor.

We read together. We sat chair to chair, cheek to cheek. Donna’s scents soared and socked me. Honeysuckle hair and sandalwood soap and full-bore pheromones. All our lopsided love Meganized and poured back onto the page.

Dig:

MEGAN MORE WAS A MAN!!!!! He was born a big-dick bohunk in Billings, Montana. Mikhail Metrovich was his name. He looped to L.A., age eighteen. His shvantz topped the tape at sixteen sizzling inches. Mikhail male-prostied. He called himself Mighty Man, Mikey Man, Magnum Man. He serviced surly studio studs and tamed them with his tapeworm-long appendage. They took his tapeworm in to their tonsils. They bounced as bottoms to his top. He mulched men at MGM, he popped poofs at Paramount, he cornholed cats at Columbia. Fruits freed themselves and climbed from the closet to cloister with him. He outed outrageous numbers. His clients cliqued up and shared notes. Paranoia ran pandemic. These Hollywood hellions hated themselves. Mikhail turned studio studs into quivering queers and simpering sissies. Their self-hatred sizzled. They vowed revenge.

The studio studettes got some gelt and hired an A-rab assassin. The cat was a cold camel-fucker. He had terrorist ties. He was movie-mad and one mean Muslim. He said, “You give me role as action hero, and I cut off his dick. Better to maim than to kill.”

The unctuous studio un-studs underwrote his plan. Khalid Khareem cornered Mikhail and cut off his dick. The studio stupes commissioned a script. Catch this: Khalid Khareem as Israeli agent Israel Bonds. Soon to star in Jerusalem Jihad and Tel Aviv Terror.

THEN—SEPTEMBER 11!!!!!

A dragnet dragged in Khalid Khareem. The Feds found him and filleted him and fucked him fundamental. He got the big bone to hop heavenward and hail Allah. He sat in his cell. He mauled his wrists with a mattress spring. He hurtled to heaven or hell.

Mikhail viciously vowed revenge. He set sail on the sex-violence nexus. He decided to disguise himself as a woman. He stormed to Stockholm. He hooked down hormone shots. Surgeons altered his Adam’s apple and shaved his big bones bare. He caught cutting-edge technology. Doctors plowed him the best plumbing. He became a woman—intractably indistinguishable.

SHE shot back to Hollywood. She sought soft-core porn gigs and got them. She met Danny Getchell. She met Gary G. They dug the amazing Amazon. She urged them to dig dirt on the studio stupettes. They sucked up to the soaring sorceress and agreed. She continued as their consort. She hid her boldly big-dicked and positively pestilent past. She became a lascivious lipstick lezzie. She laid siege to lezbo nitespots. She munched muff in Malibu and boffed bush in Bel-Air. She took on TV roles. She met Donna Donahue on Murder Most Gently. She shot her crazy crush Donna’s way. Donna said, “Back off, Butch—it’s not my scene.” Megan More moped off miffed and bid Donna bye-bye, bereft.

BUT:

The rejection rankled and reawakened her. She refined and reinvented her revenge. The studio gonifs gelded her. She made them whimper womanlike. They begged for her beef torpedo. They suffered postcoital remorse and regret en masse. They made her a for-real woman. She’d woman-whip them and coldly castrate them and wrap up her revenge.

The manuscript ended. The climactic cliffhanger: no more demon details on revenge.

I tingled. I looked at Donna. Her hurricane-hurled hazel eyes hit me.

She said, “Brave new fucking world.”

I said, “Yes. It’s that time again.”

WE NABBED THE known-haunt list. We knew Megan More lit out on the lam. We mapped out our meshugina mission. We crazy crisscrossed L.A.

We ducked by dyke dens. We hit Linda’s Little Log Cabin, Biff’s Boiler Room, Mary’s Munchbox, and Florence’s Flame. Fuck— no murderous man-woman Megan More, ratched up on revenge.

We hit Helen’s Hideout, Claire’s Clam Club, Brenda’s Brig, and Sapphic Sal’s. No six-foot succubus, no mogul-mauled monster within.

We hit June’s Jungle Room. Wacs and Waves and Marine Corps mamas moved in on fawnlike femmes. We hit Shondrika’s Shangri-La. Mau-Mau music metastasized. Soul sisters slow-danced and slipped tongues. No white wench Megan More here.

We popped to Pacific Palisades. We nailed a non sequitur. Megan made time at Guru Guraji’s Ashanti Ashram.

Wow—a whitewashed old adobe. Two floors flared around a calm courtyard. Fountains and floating flamingos. Parrots perched in palm trees. A trumped-up tropical scene.

A paved parking lot. Non sequitur number 2: Mucho movie vans. What’s this—Sam’s Sound, Lee’s Lighting, Ken’s Camera.

I parked by a purple Pontiac. The plates read “PRN STR.” Donna said, “I’m getting this feeling.”

We beat feet to the building. We perused the perimeter. We wrapped our reconnaissance to the back. We watched window light leap. We heard salacious sex noise. It was nihilistic and nasty and amplified apocalyptically.

We barged in a back door. We heaved down a hallway. We slid side doors ajar and perv-peeped the cracks. We saw lurid lighting and big boom mikes and cameras catching close-ups. We saw full-bore fucking and filthy fellating and groovy group gropes. We saw ashramites in turquoise turbans. They laid lights and moved mikes and hauled Handycams.

We dipped doors. We saw double-digit dicks and bravura breasts augmented out to here. We saw daisy chains and dalmatian dogs doing women. We lunged to the last left-hand door. Donna dipped it deep. There’s Megan More lez-locked and loving it lewd.

It’s a four-on-one fever. It’s torrid tongue-kissing and beavers bushwhacked. It’s major muff miscegenation. There’s Nettie Negress, Lola Latina, Charlotte the Chinkess. It’s a mountainous Megan More cluster fuck.

I barged in. The scene got me sex-sizzling and hopping homo-phobic. I was apoplectically ambivalent and turgidly turned on.

I lashed down light poles. I brought down boom mikes. I tripped tripods and crashed cameras—kerrack! Turquoise turban-heads tore out, tearful. The climactic cluster fuck climbed off the mattress. The multicultural mound made for the hallway. Only Megan More held back.

The room was rhino-wrecked. Capsized cameras, mangled mikes, laid-out lighting. There’s a pulverizing postsex silence. There’s Megan, there’s Donna, there’s me.

Donna shut the door. I heard a post-roust rampage outside. The porno parasites poured down the hallway. Vans vamoosed outside.

Megan moved off the mattress. Megan got into a mauve muumuu. Megan said, “Hi, Donna dear.”

Donna deadpanned her. I said, “LAPD.”

The horrible he-she harrumphed. “Your Rodney King number did not go unnoticed. I’ve been dealing with you fascists for years.”

I said, “Like Captain Lauter?” Donna said, “Why did you run?”

Megan mewed at me. “Making erotic films is not illegal. The ashram people can sue LAPD.”

I rhino-raked her. “They won’t. They’ll blow their ‘alternate lifestyle’ clout if they do.”

Megan moped to the mattress. She fluttered, flounced, and flung herself down. She sulked sissified. She boded borderline bored.

“Tell me why I should talk to you. Give me one good reason.”

Donna dinged her. “I’ve got a good shot at a series next season. I’ll make sure you get work.”

Megan milked the moment. “Oooh, dearest, that’s wonderful. Can I do love scenes with you?”

Donna flipped her-him the finger. Get bent and butt out, Butch!

I said, “We read Jack Jen-kin’s manuscript. Jack’s dead, by the way. Your old Narco pals chilled him.”

Megan mewed. Megan muttered. Megan made the sign of the cross.

Donna said, “Lay it all out. I’ll be needing a female sidekick.”

The “female” flattered and floored the hip he-she. Megan lolled back and laid her legs out. Goooooood gams—some certified surgeon’s art.

“O.K., so I ran. I saw these Narco cops I fucked at Danny Getchell’s funeral. Believe me, this girl knows when it’s time to cut her losses.”

He-she boned Bill Berchem and Bob Mosher. She gender-bent them bad. It french-fried and freaked them out.

I said, “Keep going.”

Megan tossed her tresses. Her blondness bloomed—some cool colorist’s art.

“So I fucked those guys and Linus Lauter. They used to tap all my Web sites, and somehow they got ahold of Jack Jen-kin’s thesis. Weeeeel, you can just guess how it made them feel. They dallied with a former man, they couldn’t live with it, so I guess they had to pressure Jack to get his copies back. Something happened, and Jack wound up dead.”

I said, “How did Jack get his background shit on you? You know, the stuff he put in his thesis.”

Megan simpered. Silk tones—some thorough throat surgeon’s art.

“He was friends with one of the doctors in Stockholm. The doctor spilled everything he knew on me. All the stuff I told my shrink pre-op, everything.”

Donna drilled the he-she. Ouch—those hazel eyes hurt.

“You hit on me. I shut you down, and I’ve got a hunch this ties in to your ‘revenge.’ ”

“It does, dearie. I made up my mind to screw those silly studio savages by beating them down at the box office. I was going to fuck every name actress in the business. You know, performers are deeply decentered, and they’ll all fuck men, women, and beasts. You see, I’m really straight. I looooove women, which is why I hit on you. That sixteen-inch shlong of mine was a terrible burden. It was why I turned lez. I wanted to love women woman to woman.” I whooped. Woman to woman—whoa! Donna did a double-take and slid slack-jawed.

The succubus went sulky. She pouted, poofter-style.

“So I decided to fuck all these actresses, and Gary Getchell was going to film it, and I was going to threaten to show the films publicly, and blackmail the studio boys. ‘Here’s your biggest stars jungled up with a soft-core porno queen. How do you think that will affect your box office in Topeka and Des Moines?’ ”

Donna said, “Let me guess. You’ve got a film of you fucking Linus Lauter. It’s your wedge against those cops.”

Megan patted a purple purse. “I’ve got the cassette right here. You’re no dummy, Donna dear.”

I brought out my beavertail. I sap-slapped my legs. The business end flopped phallic-like. Donna doe-eyed dug on it.

I said, “Where does Gary G. keep his dirt files?”

Megan said, “I don’t know.”

Donna said, “You must hate me.”

Megan coughed into a hankie. Purloined pubic hairs spun in her spit.

“No, darling. I looooove you.”

“Are you this ‘avenging angel’ that Gary Getchell told Rick about?”

“No, no, no. I loooooove you. But Gary was talking up this ‘bounty’ on you. He said he knew a psycho who had ‘this big Donna Donahue plan.’ Really, that’s all he said, and I’d never hurt you.”

Annihilating angels. Film fucks and lip-locked lezzies. Bounty-bait Donna. Details dug at me.

Looks lanced the room. Megan to Donna to—

The door cracked and crashed. The door hooked off its hinges. Bill Berchem and Bob Mosher barged in.

Looks lashed the room. Eyeballs socked in their sockets. Bad Bill and Big Bob to Donna, Megan, me.

Megan pulled her purse. The suddenness startled and stunned. Three guns hopped off holsters: Berchem, Mosher, me.

Donna ducked. Shades of ’83—Donna dove and dug out my ankle piece.

Berchem blasted Megan. Bam—a cartridge caught her carotid. Short-range shootout/the room 12 by 12/four guns out and arcing, fuck me—

Mosher fired. Mosher missed me. I fired back, I rang a ricochet—one bip off his bulletproof vest. Megan blew blood on her muumuu. Berchem capped her hairline-high. Her bleached blond wig sailed off by the seams.

I fired at Berchem—four feet between us—the punk panicked and pantywaist-screamed.

My gun jammed. A jacked round jumped from the breach. Donna rolled right. Donna got behind Berchem. Donna braced her arm on an arc light and arced a shot upwards. Berchem’s brains zinged.

Mosher fired down. Donna ducked. I jumped in and body-blocked him. I smacked him, gouged his gun hand, and smothered his aim. He hooked his head back. His mouth went wide. He showed his teeth and bored in to bite me.

Donna got between us. Donna tapped his teeth with a 2-inch barrel and popped him point-blank.

His teeth shattered and shrapnelized. Bloody bridgework bristled Donna. Dental detritus dinged me.

Check the charnel house. Three dead. Megan’s morte in her muumuu. The Narco cops are wrapped to the River Styx—finito at Donna’s feet.

I grabbed a wall phone. I mauled my memory. I lined up Linus Lauter’s home number. I dialed it delirious. I heard a pickup click.

I heard “Hello.” It was Linus L. I greased my greeting.

It’s all over. Your boys bought it. They killed the Korean. You fag-fucked a he-she. It’s caught on cassette—vivid VCR shit— don’t wait for the DVD.

I knew he’d do it. He race-mixed radical. He gender-bent for bootie. He couldn’t ignore the ignominy.

I heard the hammer hitch.

I heard the cylinder slip.

I heard the muzzle roar that meant Meet Your Maker.

I dropped the phone. Donna grabbed me. We held each other a whole half-minute. Her heart never missed a beat.

6.

We hid by her hearth. We fooled with the fireplace. We cranked a big blaze and upped the AC.

Then to now. Twenty-one years. Four fucked hours at Parker Center. Joe Tierney’s tantrum. Two cops shot dead. Linus Lauter’s suicide—horrific hara-kiri.

The sex-violence nexus. Official obfuscation. The Berchem– Mosher–Megan More “suicide pact.” Witnesses bought and bullied at Ashanti Ashram. Leotis Lauter’s precise press release:

The LAPD did my dad in. Ditto Bill Berchem and Bob Mosher. They racked up their relatives—don’t rag the suicide scenario, don’t risk your pension pack.

The media—quelled by quid pro quo. Try to trust Tierney— he’ll pay you back.

The sex-violence nexus. Say sí to sex, violence vividly yes.

The nexus nabbed us new. The charnel house challenged us. It was our final fait accompli.

We laid logs in the fireplace. Reggie Ridgeback reclined nearby. His amber eyes orbited our way.

Cashmere cushions and comforter. A tantalizing temperature. Lit logs and a glorious glow.

My brave bride again. Another cross-fire christening. Our moment to memorize and test time with.

We climbed from our clothes. Embers eddied and shot shadows across us. My memory guided me. I called up every curve and surface and kissed her there.

Then to now naked. Curves and constellations. The memory map of her spark points, now spin with her sighs.

We traded curve caresses and kisses. Flame shadows shifted and showed us where to kiss this and that. It felt timeless merged with urgent, imperative and aimless, make me arch and sigh, breathe my breaths and do that.

The hearth heat made us glisten. We tasted sweet swirls of sweat. Our kisses went right there. Her taste was her taste all fresh and twenty years back. I wanted to stay there and breathe it and live it. She made me stop. She kissed me there and made me move inside.

It was timeless merged with urgent, all imperative-momentous, this nexus NOW harnessed hot. The hearth heat held us. The flames died and darkened. I kissed sweat from her hazel eyes as new memory mapped.

DAWN. The fire fizzled out and fanned to enduring embers. Reggie wrapped between us.

Donna slept on. Her head rested on Reggie’s ridge. I watched her veins vibrate. I counted the cadence of her heartbeat. I saw her breasts bracing brown fur.

I watched. I wondered how much time she’d give me. Hearth heat and homicide held us. Hold for more horror. Hope for more heat to hold us—or pray for prosaic times to teach us to live sans intrigue.

Donna slept. I watched my witch woman and wondered. My righteous right brain broiled. I got crisp and creative. I recultivated connections.

Megan More—no “avenging angel.” Megan More’s ripe-panty racket. Donna’s panty pursuer. Library love-hate e-mails, all anonymous. Megan More: Gary Getchell’s panty pal. Megan, vile-verbatim: “Gary was talking up this ‘bounty’ on you. He said he knew a psycho who had ‘this big Donna Donahue plan.’ ”

Connections cultivated. Cut to:

The Hot-Prowl Hoagy. His niggardly nominal thefts. His hot-prowl hits. Their prime proximity—to Bel-Air and L.A. Country Clubs.

Dave Slatkin said he’s ripe for rape. Donna’s Holmby Hills house—hard by L.A. CC. Gary Getchell: Bel-Air caddy. The hot-prowl homicide—hard by Bel-Air CC. Dirt on the hot-prowl hump’s shoes.

I called Dave. I watched Donna and whispered. The dirt, Dave—did the lab latch on to a make?

Yeah. Dig—the dirt came from Bel-Air Country Club. Hot-Prowl Herb ex-caped on foot.

Cold-call it: the hot-prowl harridan’s a caddy. It’s a tantalizing target obfuscation. He’s only out to get Donna D.

He’s Donna-diddled and Donna-driven and Donna-determined. He’s a Donna doofus and a Donna dunce, just like me. He’s me made malignant. He’s my Donna doppelgänger.

I woke Donna up. I cued her into my connections. She mentioned her “on-and-off” fan notes. They ladled love-hate. “He loved it when I showed skin, he hated it when I showed skin. He’s a skin sicko.”

The old notes, the new e-mail notes. The pathetic panty requests. One sender or two?

Some note nexus—maybe.

Donna dug out the old notes. Donna explained the dates.

They ran to the run of Biloxi Beach—her boffo ’80s show. They ran out and restarted per her feature film work. The notes flew and flurried. A gulf-wide gap stretched. Then the panty-putz e-mails began.

Donna offered up the old notes. She pack-rat-possessed them still. I read racy and repetitive text. Hot-prowl references repeated.

“I want to get inside the house of your love.”

“I want to steal inside your secret places.”

“I can get inside anyplace. I’ve done it. I killed a girl once, long ago.”

Sixteen sick notes. Bland block printing. Scary and skin-obsessed. One note nexus nabbed me bad. The return address— charted as Chino Prison. The addressee pseudonymed as Sal Skinman. Sad sentiments—Donna dunned for love—scary skin ruminations. Say he’s censor-scared. Bet your booty he’s in for burglary.

Scary skin-talk overall. “I killed a girl once”—good grief.

Donna watched me nail notes. Donna was nexus-nonplussed. Donna danced on my dime now. Homicide and hearth-hunger. Donna could handle herself.

I cruised to my car. I brought back my evidence kit. I compared the evil e-mails to the skin-scary notes. I tapped textual styles. I saw simple similarities. The same sender—maybe, maybe not.

I forged on forensic. I fingerprinted Donna. I tipped her tips on print paper. I noodled out some ninhydrin. I sprayed the sixteen sick notes. I latched up two latent prints.

I culled comparison points. I caught ten per print. I compared points to Donna’s. Bingo—no repeated ridges, no similar swirls.

His prints—the skin man’s and probable hot-prowl hyena’s. Call it collusive. Call it combined-case combustion. Rick loves Donna. Donna loves Rick. It’s our brave new world brought on back.

WE POPPED to Parker Center. We briefed Dave and Tim. We broiled to bring Hot-Prowl Hymie down. We clamored for climactic closure.

Dave took the prints. He promised to feed them to the Fed system fast. We caught a commotion down the corridor.

There’s Leotis Lauter. He’s one jacked-up jungle bunny. He’s jumping all over Joe Tierney. The mad mick’s mollifying Mrs. Linus Lauter. She’s Aunt Jemima-ish. She’s jumping too.

There’s Cal Eggers. He’s a newly coined captain. He’s laying the law to Leotis. You’re a dope dealer. You’re indictment-indebted. We’re dead deep in suicides—get your blasphemous black ass the fuck out of here.

I ducked into an empty office. Donna ducked with me. I called Deputy D.A. Daisy Delgado and cataloged our combined case. I asked for grand jury subpoenas. Let’s detain degenerate caddies. Let’s call in all caddies from Bel-Air and L.A. CCs.

Daisy agreed. Daisy promised prompt paper—two hours tops. Tim tapped me. I’ve got that box of Gorman paperwork—you can kill time with that.

Tim brought a big box up. Donna delved in. She saw poignant portraits—Stephanie vivid and vibrant, alight and alive at fifteen. Tears took her over—sa chère Stephanie.

I pulled old paper. I found field reports. I went through wienie waggers whipped and reluctantly released. I saw pud pounders and parolees pounced on. I saw rape-os rounded up. I saw child molesters charged with tangential crimes. I saw bisexual brunsers bruised and ripped from rubber-hose techniques. I saw—whoa, whoa, whoa—wait.

The date: 9/12/65. One innocuous and innocent piece of paper.

Field report. Reinterview. Stephanie’s dad states:

It’s late 7/65. One week before my daughter’s death. I had some yard work done. I hired Hillcrest caddies.

Hillcrest—hard by Hillsboro and Sawyer. Hillcrest—one hop to L.A. and Bel-Air CCs. One follow-up field report. Four caddy names caught. Four rap sheets run. Four Mickey Mouse misdemeanants made.

Alan Aadland, DOB 3/4/46. One reefer roust. One joyride job.

Richard Donatich, DOB 8/19/44. Popped for Peeping Tom. Caught cunnilingizing his sister.

Harvey “Huck” Horan, DOB 12/16/40. Boocoo booze busts.

Sol “Wino” Weinberger, DOB 6/2/37. Obscene phone-call fuck, ladies’ room loiterer, boss barbiturate bandido.

I got goose bumps. My hackles hacked. I showed the shit to Donna. She got the shakes, too.

The scurvy skin man’s note. “I killed a girl once, long ago.” The current hot-prowl hoo-ha. The country-club cacophony. A time machine torqued back to this.

I ripped through reports. Nothing juked me. No fucking follow-ups. No exonerations expressed.

The cops might have polled the punks and aligned alibis. The cops might have polygraphed or pounded them punklike. It dangled like a dead end. Still, it stung me.

Daisy Delgado called. The subpoenas—serviced and servable now. Nice—but that sting still stung me. I called Hillcrest CC. I got the caddy shack. The caddy master said he went waaaay back. I named my names. He right-on responded.

Aadland—AIDS-dead—he freelanced as a fruit hustler. Donatich—dead from Dilaudid-coke combos. Horan—hit by a bus on Beverly Boulevard. “Wino”—winding up his caddy career at beautiful Bel-Air CC.

Caddies.

Culminations/coincidence/connections—

Dave walked in. “The Feds kicked back on your prints. The guy’s a 67-year-old white male. His name’s Solomon Weinberger.”

Heaven hurled itself on me. Donna hugged me hard. Hail the hot-prowl man with Hush-Hush hosannahs!

Wino for Stephanie—thirty-nine years later.

7.

Bel-Air bid us. We winged to the Wino Weinberger Walpurgisnacht.

Tim toted a shotgun. I brought my Browning .9 and a big Beretta. Donna brought brains and a wild will to whip Wino with.

Dave did backup. He ripped R&I and glommed a Wino mug shot. He made up a four-man mug card—the sixty-plus Wino and four similar sixtyish cops. The plan: Work the West L.A. libraries. Engage an e-mail alert. Track the panty postulant. Confirm Wino as the panty punk and hot-prowl hump.

We ran up Roscomere. We bombed up Bellagio. We pulled into the club parking lot. We tripped into a traffic jam—a cop-car kaleidoscope.

Black-and-whites, unmarkeds, coroner’s canoes—all snared up snout to snout.

We ran. We cut through the caddy shack. We caught the cart cottage. We gonifed a golf cart and coursed out on the course. We followed fleet-foot figures. We traipsed after truck tracks. We hit a big barnlike maintenance shack.

Bluesuits blocked the entrance. I badged them and bullied us through. I saw Bill Dumais, West L.A. dicks. I saw a starched stiff and junkyard Jesus.

It’s Gary Getchell. He’s crucifix-crisp. He’s stiff on a stack of manure sacks.

He’s nicked with neck notches—tough torture cuts. He’s blood-blistered and mutilated maroon. He’s wearing golf togs. He’s pincushion-pricked with two dozen trank darts.

Dumais saw Tim and me. Golfers and gofers and coroner’s cats saw Donna. They dug her more than the dead man. They dunned her for autographs.

Dumais dipped over. The big barn vibrated with voice overlap. I orbed outside. I saw fractious factions fixated on the action inside.

Eyes right—there’s two Narco cops. Eyes left—there’s Captain Cal Eggers. Loop left again—there’s Leotis Lauter. He’s looking cooncerned and coontemptuous. He’s boogie bodyguarded. He’s couched with four cool coon commandos.

Dumais said, “It looks like we’ve got two scenarios. The torture shit looks a couple of days old, but the coroner says he caught the trank shots within the past few hours. The maintenance boss says Getchell hung out and wrote his scandal shit here. I figure the killer found him alone, darted him, and walked off the course unseen.”

Tim walked over. “You think he was tortured for file information?”

Dumais looked around. Eyes right—Narco cops. Eyes left— Leotis and his coonvocation.

“I figure it’s Leotis or some rogue Narco guys, and they’re both pissed off at that shit at the ashram and Linus’s suicide.”

Tim said, “They tortured Getchell for file skinny, before they learned that Linus offed himself.”

I agreed. Dumais agreed. I tiptoed tall. I eyeball-orbed. Caddies/connections/convergence. Where’s the Wino man?

The crowd crammed up to the barn. Bluesuits barricaded them out. Donna signed autographs. I saw a cat with a “Caddy Master” name tag. I cornered him.

He said, “Some scene, huh?”

I said, “Where’s Wino Weinberger? We’re old friends.”

The caddy master cackled. “Try Skid Row. I heard Wino’s on a toot down there.”

Autograph hounds hurtled by—six blissful bluesuits. Their autographed field forms read, “Brave new fucking world again— Love, Donna D.”

WINO:

Let’s find him. Let’s fuck him. Let’s stomp him for Stephanie.

Let’s scour Skid Row.

The caddy master kicked loose his address: The Viceroy Hotel, East 5th Street. It was skanky and scummy and scurvy down there. We slipped east and slid into slumland.

Sidewalk cities. Hophead Hoovervilles. Crackheads camped out in cardboard-box billets. Loonies looped on Listerine. Wiggling wineheads and jake-legged juicers made mad by Muscatel.

We hit the hotel. The lobby was lice-laced linoleum. Wine stains and bloodstains blistered the cracks. Palsied pensioners toked Tokay shored in short-dog bottles. We shook them down. They jitter-jumped and Tokay-toked and palsy-punked-out. They gave up Wino—room 218.

We walked up. Horror hallways hooked ahead. We crunched crack pipes and shattered short dogs. We sidled through Syringe City and Hypodermic Hell. Floor debris flew. Our shoes caught needles coated with virus-vapped blood.

There’s 218. The lock looks loose. Let’s let ourselves in.

Donna ditzed the doorknob. I jiggled the jamb. The door swung in.

No Wino. Nobody. Sicko City socked in 12 by 12.

A sink. A made-up Murphy bed. A lice-lined linoleum floor. Crabs hopping head-high and Wino-Walpurgisnachted walls.

Craaaazy crime fotos. Filched archival shots. Major-case madness, all glossy-glared.

Mesmerized Mansonites. Bleary Black Dahlia pix. Stark Stephen Nash shots.

Photo-fucked fiends. Demonic Donald Keith Bashor. Sirhan Sirhan surrounded by Sheriff’s deputies. Freaky Fred Stroble, ax-assassin of a little girl, gassed circa ’53. Our Stephanie, strapped to a gurney, all shorn up in a sheet.

Crime—Weegeeish and Wino-warped. Infernally interspersed with quixotically quantified SKIN.

Actresses—all alive in 8-by-10 fotos. Bikini babes and halter-hot honeys. Red-headed Rita Hayworth. Red-tinted and divinely deigned Donna Donahue. Freckle-fraught Nicole Kidman. Titian-topped Julianne Moore.

Random redheads right below—costars culled and cultivated off TV. Riotous red hair—august auburn straight to strawberry. Strict strumpet-type women. Fortyish foxes. Choice chignontressed aristocrats.

Donna said, “Holy shit.” That nexus nudged me. Pile on the panties—I need some sniffs.

Footfalls fell behind us. I whipped and wheeled around. Wino walked in.

He saw us. He stood startled. He started to run.

I chased him. I tackled him. I laid him out on linoleum. He sheared his shins on shattered glass. He gave up then.

WE RACKED HIM to his room radiator. My handcuffs hitched him up firm. He beady-eye-bored into Donna. Her presence pronged him.

He panted. He salivated. He drooled Draculean. His trouser trout jumped in his jeans.

I found a phone book. Donna dug out my beavertail. We stood stern over him.

Donna said, “You sent me notes, didn’t you? On and off for years.”

Wino wiggled. The cuffs cut his wrists.

“You got it, baby. I’m a note man and a breather. I tried to get your phone number, but no fucking soap. You’d have got a real taste of me then.”

I said, “What about e-mails? Some sicko was e-mailing Ms. Donahue. He was asking her to send him her panties.”

Wino went outraged. “I don’t feature that panty shit! I’m a note man and a breather! I don’t fuck with no computers. Give me a pay phone any day.”

Donna bent the beavertail. The lead weight whipped within.

“What about ladies’ rooms? You dig that action, don’t you?”

Wino snorted and snickered. “I like to sniff toilet seats once in a blue moon, I’ll give you that. But basically I’m a specialist. I’m a note man and a breather. I’m a fucking virtuoso, and I’m fucking proud of it.”

I said, “What’s with the redheads? All Donna’s got is a little tint.”

Wino winked. “Dig this. My mom was a redhead, and I never got over it. I got a thing for red gash, and that is no fucking shit. Donna looks like my mom. You don’t got to be fucking Sigmund Freud to figure out this shit.”

I fingered my phone book. The pages rolled and riffed.

“Have you been hot-prowling lately? There’s been some jobs in West L.A.”

Wino rolled his wrists. He got ratchet-ripped.

“I ain’t pull no 459s since the ’70s. I found my calling then. I’m a note man and a breather, and I’m fucking proud of it.”

I said, “You admit those notes to Ms. Donahue?”

“Yeah, you know I do. I’m a note man of long standing, and I’m fucking proud of—”

“You did some time at Chino, right? You sent Ms. Donahue a note from there.”

“That’s right. I’m a note man, the best in the west.”

“Were you in for burglary?”

“Fuck, no. I was pushing yellow jackets to high-school kids, out of the Mar Vista Bowl. I quit that burglary shit in the ’70s.”

Donna said, “And you deny sending me e-mails?”

Wino snickered, sneered, and stuck out his tongue. Wino licked his lips loathsome and leered.

“I’m a note man and a breather. That’s my twenty-year MO. Don’t try to hang no other shit on me, because I ain’t buying it.”

I said, “You quit sending Ms. Donahue notes. Why?”

“She’s stale bread, that’s why! She never shows no more skin! I’m a skin man! I go squirrel shit if I don’t get no skin!”

Donna looked at me. I saw her nip toward the nexus. Her hazel eyes hit me and hurt.

She sapped Wino. She beavertail-bashed him. The weight whipped and leather lashed skin. She hooked him a new hairline. The cut dug deep. Blood blew down to his chin.

Wino went wild. “Baby, I dig it! You’re turning me on, ’cause I’ve got this guilt thing! Ask all the old cops! I confessed to the best in the west!”

I caught a cue. “You said you killed a girl once. You put it in one of the notes you sent Ms. Donahue.”

Wino hooked his head. The hairline cut coursed backward. He tongue-torqued lizardlike and licked the blood off his lips.

“I never killed no girl. I said it to get back at the bitch. I wanted to scare her. She wasn’t giving me no skin. I’m a skin man. I need my skin!”

I fingered my phone book. I fought the urge to fuck him up faaaast.

“What’s with the confessing? Tell us about that.”

Wino wrist-rolled. The radiator rocked.

“I go back to the Dahlia. I was 9 then. I copped to all the big snuffs. You name it, I copped to it. Bashor, the Stephen Nash jobs, the Manson shit, all of that. It was my thing back in the old days, before I got this boner for skin.”

I looked at him. His boner bounced. He grimaced and jizzed up his jeans.

Donna said, “Ugh.” Wino exhaled ecstatic. It cued me in for the kill.

“Did you murder Stephanie Gorman?”

Wino laffed. Wino leered. Wino said, “What if I did?”

I said it slow. “Did you kill Stephanie Gorman?”

Wino wiggled. Wino winked. Wino said, “What if I did?”

I hit him. I beat him binding-side-outward. I hit him heavy. I rammed him repeated. I pounded and popped him and pulled back abrupt. He pissed his pants and poured out postnasal drip.

“Did you kill—”

“No! I did some yard work for her old man! I copped to the snuff, but I couldn’t milk it for three hots and a cot, and the fuzz cut me loose!”

I looked at Donna. She said, “Rick, no more, please.”

Wino rolled his wrists. The radiator ripped free. Pipes popped loose. Steam stung me.

I checked the closet. Clothes—but no trank gun, no tranquilizers, no benzodiazepines. I slid out my cell phone. I dialed Dave Slatkin.

He picked up. “Slatkin.”

I said, “The mug runs. What did you get?”

Dave coughed. Dogs barked in the background. I heard Pancho panting. I heard bull mastiffs bay.

“No hits on Wino, and that’s at all six libraries. I had some mugs in with Wino, and a couple of librarians said Cal Eggers looked most like the guy. Is that a fucking hoot?”

I laffed. I looked at Donna. Wino whipped his head. Blood blipped onto her blouse and skirt. Blood skimmed her skin.

Wino said, “I’m a skin man. I’m a note man and a breather. I dig red gash, and so fucking what?”

I pulled up a chair. It was straight-backed and slatted. I sat down. I flexed my forearms. I snapped the slats off.

Wino rolled his wrists and resoiled himself. I said it sotto voce: “Did you kill Stephanie?”

Wino went calm. Wino said, “I caddied at Hillcrest that day. It was a big tournament. They’ll have records. I was on the course when the Gorman kid got it.”

Donna dug out her cell phone. I heard her hit Information. I heard her ask for Hillcrest. I heard her hit the listing and get the first tee.

She whispered. “Weinberger” and “August 5th, ’65” wound back to me. Wino watched me. I laid out a lapsed Lutheran prayer: LET IT BE HIM.

Time ticked by. Donna said, “He’s checking records.” I shut my eyes and saw Stephanie. Tick, tick, tick—two minutes topped.

Donna said, “Thanks.” The phone fizzed off. I opened my eyes. I still saw Stephanie.

“It’s not him, Rick. He was on the golf course from 1:10 to 6:20.”

Auf Wiedersehen, adieu, adios—shalom, Stephanie.

I uncuffed Wino. Donna perused her purse and took out two twenties. Cut-rate reparation—she tossed them on the bed.

We walked out. We crunched crack-pipe glass and short-dog shards. Wino screamed, “I’m a skin man, and I need my skin!”

8.

The stink, the stain, the malevolent malodor—wash Wino off of us.

Donna’s house had a huge hot tub. We boiled out his badness and talked our terror tactics through. Donna copped to faux-feminist rectitude and rage. Whipping-boy Wino—the genus of genderized crime. I copped to venal violence vetted by Stephanie. I skirted the skin-madness issue. It hit home hard. Panties paralyzed me. I memorialized my mom. She was a righteous redhead, too.

Dave called. I told him Wino went south. The old note man/the e-mail hot-prowler—served up as two separate freaks. Dave said he’d reinstate the rolling stakeouts. He said he made Leotis Lauter for the Gary Getchell snuff. The dart death—deep diversion—let’s hurl heat on hot-prowl now.

Plus:

The West L.A. dicks dug up some eyeball wits. Leotis Lauter loitered outside Gary Getchell’s pad three days ago. Two rasty-assed Rastafarians reconnoitered with him. The pad: pored through and randomly ransacked. Odds on no files found. Found today: torched paper files in Leotis L.’s fireplace.

I debated Dave. Leotis Lauter—dope dealer—not a deep diverter. The hot-prowl hump—good for Gary.

We argued. We agreed—I had two days off—call it downtime to dally with Donna.

We dallied. We hearth-hid. We made love and feasted on fireplace food. We cooked kabobs and flame-fried burgers. Reggie Ridgeback scrounged scraps.

We dallied. We did ourselves up as a dog pack. We slipped into slumber. We dozzzzed.

Wino witch-hunted me. I Oedipaled awful. Titian-tressed trespassers trudged and traipsed through. My mom materialized. She mumbled rebukes. I’m lost in her lingerie drawer.

I heard something. It rang wrong. My reverie—wrecked.

I opened my eyes. There’s Cal Eggers. Cal’s got a trank gun. The hearth flames flare—Cal’s caught in the light.

My synapses snapped. The libraries. The mug runs. Cal’s coincidental pics. He’s the hump they ID’d.

He fired. I rolled onto Reggie. I disturbed Donna. My weight whipped her awake.

The dart popped onto a pillow. Reggie reared up. I rolled right and picked up a poker. It ran red with heat.

Donna rolled. Donna ran. Donna dug through couch cushions. Reggie rammed Cal’s crotch and tore in with his teeth.

Cal screamed. I poker-popped and brand-broiled him. I nailed his neck. I scalded skin. He dropped his trank gun and pulled a real piece.

Big bore. A nasty nickel-plated piece.

He screamed at me. He fired. I lurched left and made him miss. Reggie bit through his balls and castrated him. I saw his sac sawed through and his scrotum scrunched up in dog teeth.

Cal screamed. Cal ran toward Donna. She tossed couch cushions. She threw up a throw rug. She made the Magnum. She found the fat .45.

Cal fired. He missed Donna. Bullets ripped the Renoir and mowed down the Monet. Both paintings dropped off the wall. Reggie mewed through a mouthful of mangled balls. Donna two-handed aimed.

She caught Cal low. She laid down leg shots. Four hit hard. Cal caromed off a couch edge and careened.

He fell flat. He dropped his gun. I rolled right and ran up to him.

His leg wounds coursed copious. His pelvic wound pulsated and poured blood. He was close to the clouds. He was staring at the River Styx. I said, “ Dying declaration. Give it up, please.”

He coughed. Bloody phlegm flew. He found a firm voice. He spoke to Donna, not me.

“You . . . were the one. I had this thing for you since ’83. I was working Rampart then. I was working up to get you . . . but I didn’t know if I could do it . . . I always had a hot-prowl jones . . . I tried to buy out of the obsession . . . e-mails, panties . . . I took my cue from Megan More . . . Oh, Donna, at least I didn’t rape you . . . oh, Donna . . . oh, shit.”

The fuck was fading fast. I said, “There’s more, Cal. Come on, all of it.”

Donna knelt beside me. She sent scents of sandalwood soap and gunshot residue. Reggie regurgitated. Male genitalia flew.

Cal coughed. “I was in with Gary G., independent of Megan. I . . . fed him Narco dope, more than Danny G. did . . . I wanted to take over the division when Linus Lauter got moved out . . . Gary knew I had this thing for you, Donna. I was the ‘avenging angel’ . . . Leotis and his niggers tortured Gary . . . I was afraid he’d rat me if they fucked him up again . . . so I snuffed him.”

Reggie bayed. Cal coughed. His eyes said, “Oh, you kid.” He coughed blood, blanched, and died.

Donna kicked the corpse. “You fucking loser. I’m not that big a deal.”

Happy holidays. Christmas for crucifixion-heads, Hanukkah for hebes, Kwanzaa for spooks simmering for secession. Ho, ho, ho—holiday cheer at Hillsboro and Sawyer.

Donna and me. Let’s dig on our dead. Let’s honor ourselves. Let’s celebrate our cessation.

We had two months together. It was goooood. We got singed by circumstance. We got rigorously reawakened.

The media made good. The “Suicide Season” survived and moved into myth. Cool Cal caught the outside edge. Joe Tierney toted him up to terminal cancer. The pain pounded him. Cal couldn’t take it. He opted for self-immolation.

A viable verdict. No castration by canine, no death by Donna D.

Call it cosmetic. Cal killed himself. His Hot-Prowl Hell died with him. Leotis Lauter got memorably murdered. It was rap-music related.

Monster Mack-Mack was making time with Leotis’s lady. It was one trippy triangle. It was baaaad jig juju. Leotis caught Mack-Mack at Mohammad’s Mosque #6. Mack-Mack pulled a machine gun. Mack-Mack mowed him down. Leotis leeched up 26 rounds and rang off to Allah. He’s currently couched with Khalid Khareem.

Daisy Delgado made him for the Gary Getchell snuff. She filed Murder One postmortem.

It’s all tied up. There’s a dozen declared dead in Hot-Prowl Heaven or Hell.

I had two months with Donna. Prosaics pried us apart. I caught some Cold Case murders. She caught a mid-season series. She played a Homicide cop.

We sat in my Saturn sedan. We traded gifts. We stared at Stephanie’s house. She gave me a cashmere coat. I gave her Monster Mack-Mack’s machine gun, moved from an evidence vault.

The house held us. Time tripped us up. Then to now and patterns past. Stephanie unavenged. A dead daughter older than us. Our finite future.

We talked. We tossed some tears. We said I-love-yous. I got lonely and Donnafied with Donna right there. Unbreachable crimes, unreachable women—and me.