11:09 a.m.

She waved from the door. Her smile was off-kilter. He liked her new bumpy nose.

Parker took Crescent Heights south. He was late for the briefing. The briefing was three-pronged. The coastal sub attacks, escaped Japs, the Kwan’s slaughter.

He observed the callout alarm. He rerouted traffic by Kwan’s. It was a hellish 187.

It oozed inside job. Some Hop Sing busboy got miffed at Uncle Ace. Tong tiff. The busboy fingered the tile game to Four Families. Four Families clued in some Collaborationist fucks. The fucks had a line on The Japs.

The job oozed hybrid. It was Fifth Column meets loot-and-slay. The Japs bolt their hillside hideout and hit C-town. Drop cars, getaway cars. Do they head back north or head south? The posse’s all over the hills. The job oozed oddball and skewed.

Parker cut east on Beverly. He felt oddball-skewed. He had six days booze-free. He endorsed a sex shakedown. It revised his vow before God.

It did not abrogate it. It did not breach Dudley’s stipulations. It gave him a loophole to crawl through.

He was splitting moral hairs. He knew why.

It was the war and his beloved Pueblo Grande. The war made everyday life life in extremis. Expedient gestures and moral stands stood a hairsbreadth apart. L.A. blazed with common cause in stark contradiction. L.A. would build up and out after the war. It would become unrecognizable. The war gave him L.A. ablaze with crazy purpose. The war let him love L.A. one last time as it was.

Parker hit City Hall. Posse men lounged on the steps. Kudos to Lin Chung. The boys wore shrunken heads on chains.

He parked in the basement. A Navy ensign ran the mayor’s freight lift. They zoomed up to Fletch B.’s floor. The briefing spread out to the hallway.

Army brass schmoozed with reporters. Cops and politicos swarmed a doughnut tray. Parker stepped into the conference room. A Navy commander flanked a lectern and wall map.

Pins denoted coastal waters and recent sub attacks. The Navy man swept a pointer. Subs Jap U.S. freighters. Subs Jap U.S. tankers. Subs threaten the Mex coast. Our Mex Statie amigos are scaaaaared.

Remember the Goleta Inlet. These are rogue subs. L.A.’s shoreline waters could be next.

Ace Kwan and Lin Chung walked in. They wore shrunken heads. Call-Me-Jack and Sheriff Gene hugged them. The Navy man sat down. Mild applause trickled. Dudley Smith took the lectern.

The Merry Mick. Church pulpit–trained. He scanned the room. He let chitchat subside. He took the room, full brogue.

“Chaos attends our fair city. We rebuff invaders as havoc is cried and the dogs of war are let slip. ‘The bay trees in our country are all withered, and meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven. The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, and lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.’ ”

The room got it. Big cop, big words. He ain’t no American. It makes this shit okay.

“Would you have our city be less fair? Should we retract the nets of beauty that lure such a collage of splendid peoples and wolfen monsters here? December 7th is Genesis in the Unholy Bible. The normal phases of the moon have been canceled. Werewolves walk among us, sans lunar compass. They are lost. They know only that they must destroy the beauty that unites each one of us, the beauty that has brought each one of us here.”

Dudley paused. He scanned the room. He saw Parker. He looked straight at him.

“I spoke to a wolf, twenty years ago. I commune with him in prayer and have enjoyed earthly visitations of late. The wolf told me that wolves are visible only to a scant few. My duty is to detect them and follow them to points where only one of us may survive. We carry weapons and wear heads that were once men around our necks. We carry the wolfen deeply within us. They are invisible as we become visible to destroy them. We love beauty in a way that they cannot. It subsumes our basest urges and sends us their way. ‘I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.’ The wolf told me that there is no Fifth Column, because the Fifth Column is each one of us. We will track down the wolfen. We are mad with godly allegiance and now see the invisible plainly. We have drunk from the chalice of unholy blood and have become them that we might slay them.”

Parker walked out to the hallway. Dudley sermonized and segued to cop talk.

There’s laughter. He’s cracking jokes now. He’s issued his sermon. His sermon supplants his Satanic exchange of vows.

I am but mad north-north-west. I have exploited blood libel for profit. We are as one, William. You will let it all be.