3:39 p.m.

I drew Scotty as he slept. I kept the bedroom dark and used the nightstand lamp as a framing device. It’s midafternoon now; Scotty arrived in a state of up-all-night exhaustion. We live in an around-the-clock city. The sleeping Officer Robert S. Bennett exemplifies it.

Scotty’s muscles are bunched and plainly reveal his recent exertions. He worked a Chinatown rope line last night, got fitful sleep in the Bureau cot room and went back to duty with his fellow Dudster goons Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle. It was hours of file work on the “chump change” Watanabe murder case, which has planted a “wild hair up the ass” of Chief Jack Horrall. A trip to the Fort MacArthur stockade followed. It all inexplicably pertained to shrimp oil, fish oil, glass shards and the Watanabe house. Goons Breuning and Carlisle checked an arrestees’ log, secured the address of a fish-canning setup operating out of a Japanese truck farm, and hustled Goon Scotty out to the far-east end of the San Fernando Valley. Goon Scotty found the journey south and precipitously north perplexing; it all pertained to “these white guys” trying to buy “Jap” property—sheer gobbledygook to him. Goon Breuning and Goon Scotty strongarmed the Japs as Goon Carlisle cleared out canning equipment to avoid a “public safety hazard.” Goon Breuning spoke pidgin English to the Japs, who revealed “goose egg.” Goon Scotty was ordered to slap the Japs around, while Goon Carlisle exhorted them to silence. Goon Scotty still didn’t know what the Dudster and his lads were after. My sweet boy didn’t like slapping around passive Japs, although he’d killed a “Chinaman” Thursday night.

Early-wartime Los Angeles and around-the-clock adventures. My rough boy, clenched in his sleep.

I shifted the lamp and threw light on the bed space beside Scotty. I drew Claire De Haven as herself and Claire as Joan of Arc. I placed the two hers beside my naked lover. I studied the drawings and saw how Claire achieved such seamless transformation.

It was all belief. She did not exist beyond her imagination. Thinking things so made them so. She feigned irony and possessed only zealotry. She seized on William H. Parker and me because we were both of her ilk. We were both her enemies and her only blood kin.

It was dusk now. I turned off the lamp and got back into bed beside Scotty. My rough boy was deeply asleep. I put my head to his chest and felt the cadence of his heartbeat.

Lee came home. I heard him enter his separate bedroom and shut the door behind him. Dance music drifted from clubs down on the Strip; a bright moon skittered through storm clouds and lit Scotty up at odd moments. I thought of Claire’s party coming up next Monday night and wondered why Dr. Lesnick’s office hadn’t returned my call requesting a second appointment. The probable answer? Claire had spoken to the traitorous doctor. She said, “Let it go, Saul. She’s mine.”

Such sleep. Robert Sinclair Bennett, such a spell you’re in. You’re off in the shadow play of Dudley Smith. You’re in as deep as I am with William H. Parker.

I lay there for hours. The music began to soften as 2:00 a.m. neared. “Moonlight Serenade” always announced last call at Dave’s Blue Room. How many times had I dreamt that Bucky and I would dance to that tune? Where did Hideo Ashida’s dreams of Bucky take him?

“Moonlight Serenade” ebbed away from me. I opened my eyes in a daylight-bright bedroom. Scotty was gone.

The door was half-open. Scotty was out in the hall. He was dressed in yesterday’s clothes. He was talking with Lee.

Scotty, in his shoulder holster and tartan bow tie. Lee, in his uniform.

They stood too close to each other. Lee said, “I could take you.” Scotty hooked a thumb back to me. He said, “You know where I’ll be if you’d like to try.”

Rough boys—neither one blinked.