7:23 a.m.

I brought my sketch pad and pencils to the restaurant. Captain Parker called at dawn and requested a meeting. I hadn’t slept, couldn’t sleep, and assumed the same for him. I was going from public place to public place, to meet police chemists and policemen I hadn’t known the week before.

My table overlooked La Cienega, just south of Wilshire. Dick Webster’s smelled of lemon pies and war-alert tension. I went home after Claire’s party, then left for my truncated klatch with Hideo Ashida. Hideo left abruptly; I went back home to ponder the vicissitudes of entrapment. Captain Parker was now twenty-three minutes late; I filled up sketch-pad paper.

My pencils moved near randomly. I drew the woman behind the counter and segued to passing cars on La Cienega. I moved to Scotty Bennett in police blues, to Hideo Ashida, naked, with Bucky Bleichert’s body. Then I was back in Claire’s bedroom with Renée Falconetti.

I saw the Joan of Arc film as a high school frosh; a fey teacher took a group of students to the only foreign-movie theater in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Silver Shirts got the theater closed down the next week. Sioux Falls was a nativist hotbed; the theater served up moral turpitude imported from Catholic countries. Religious ecstasy akin to coitus and a short-haired woman burned alive. Falconetti’s depiction of a woman consumed by cause and a supplicant’s desire for transcendence.

I drew Falconetti as Joan and Claire as Joan; I incorporated their features in a seamless Claire-Joan. A truck drove by and made the window glass rumble. A man and a tall red-haired woman got out of a car and began walking toward Wilshire. Bill Parker pulled his black-and-white up behind them. He stepped out and started following the couple. The woman swiveled to adjust her skirt and looked straight at him. Captain Parker appeared to be stricken. I read the look on his face.

She wasn’t Her, whoever She was. She wasn’t among those Navy women I saw him staring at yesterday.

He entered the restaurant. I slipped out of my trench coat. He purchased my dress and should see me in it.

A waitress swooped by and refilled my coffee; I pointed to the other cup on the table and had her fill it. Captain Parker sat down; I noticed the pilled lint on his uniform. I knew that lint-on-cop-blue stamp very well. Captain Parker had slept in the Bureau cot room.

He warmed his hands on the coffee cup. He said, “Good morning, Miss Lake.”

I closed my sketch pad and placed it under the table. I said, “Sunday afternoon. Outside the Federal Building. You saw me with a very large young man.”

“Yes, and I saw him leave your house Monday morning. His name is Robert Bennett, the Department just signed him on, and he has all the earmarks of Dudley Smith’s latest pet thug. I’m sure you find him alluring, which speaks more to your susceptibility than your judgment.”

Touché.

I said, “I was being disingenuous. I thought you might know things about Officer Bennett that I don’t.”

“I witnessed his oath of service last night. I would venture that you know him somewhat more intimately.”

Touché. Et pour la robe en cachemire noir?

“I had a splendid time at Claire De Haven’s party. She invited me to a second party next Monday night.”

“Please continue.”

“I sneaked into her bedroom, rifled the drawers and saw a hypodermic syringe and several vials of what I assumed was morphine. I stole a political tract, but I haven’t read it yet.”

“I’ll get you a concealable camera. I want photographic evidence of illegal narcotics and paraphernalia.”

“Terry Lux was at the party. He was watching Claire very closely. I’m assuming that she dries out periodically at his ranch, when the PD isn’t using it for softball games and picnics.”

“So, it’s ‘Claire’ now? Have you established a bar of friendship?”

“All betrayals start with friendship, don’t they? Isn’t there always a filial basis for entrapment?”

“I’m going to fit you with an undetectable microphone. You’re going to get Miss De Haven to advocate the violent overthrow of the United States Government, and we’re going to have an audial record.”

“Will you get me another snazzy frock while you’re at it? This one turned some heads.”

“I want photographs of every pill vial in her medicine cabinet. I want photographs of all her recent phone bills and photographs of every page in her personal address book.”

“We’re going to make a documentary movie exposing the Japanese roundups. I proposed the idea, and Claire went for it. I’ll make sure it’s less outlandish than Storm Over Leningrad, so the jury won’t bust a gut and laugh it out of court.”

“Juries do not appreciate subtlety, Miss Lake. If you create a filmed document, it must be bluntly and vilely seditious and unequivocally state Miss De Haven’s ideological designs.”

“Is ideology unequivocally anything? Doesn’t she have to blow up an aircraft plant first? Should I encourage her to do it, and should I bring along a noted cinematographer?”

“Treason is ideology and free speech perverted. Seditious thought and its reckless public expression is a grave criminal offense that fully sanctions me in this action that you allege to be precipitous, presumptuous and subversive in and of itself, so help me fucking God, I know it to be true.”

I was dizzy. He looked dizzy. My cigarettes were on the table. He helped himself and tossed me the pack. We lit each other up.

I said, “Who is she, Captain Parker?”

He said, “Who is who, Miss Lake?”

I said, “The tall red-haired woman you keep looking for.”

He stood up and banged the table. The silverware jumped a foot. William H. Parker looked schoolboy hurt and old-man haggard. He’d lost ten pounds in the five days I’d known him. His gun belt pulled his trousers halfway down his hips.

He ran away from me. I looked out the window and watched. He got into his car and swerved into traffic. Motorists honked their horns. Captain William H. Parker stuck his arm out the window and held his middle finger up.

In uniform. In his police black-and-white.

I laughed. The prowl car peeled out; I saw middle fingers salute him back and heard horn honks peak and fade. It made me laugh and left me exhausted. Just sitting at the table hurt.

Restaurant sounds subsided to a hum. I shut my eyes for one second and opened them just as quick. A wall clock told me I’d been asleep a full hour.

I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window. The tall red-haired woman stood out at the curb.

I reached for my sketch pad to draw her. I put the pad down just as abruptly and did something I’d never done before.

I prayed for the woman’s safe passage through this war.