L. A. Confidential

"I'm a cop and I'm Hollywood. I know lots of people, and I know Max Peltz likes young trim. So what? He's sixty years old and he's no killer."

"We'll decide that this afternoon. You're block searching on the Nite Owl, right? Looking for Coates' car?"

"Yeah."

"Then go back to that now and report to the Bureau at 2:00. I'm going to ask some key people from «Badge of Honor» to come in for some friendly questioning. You can help grease things."

Billy Dieterling, Timmy Valburn-"People He Knew" closing in. "Sure, I'll be there."

Morty Bendish ran up. "Jackie, does this mean I'll get «all» your exclusives now?"

Garage door break-ins, niggers hurling fruit-»real» work back at the motel. He was heading into Darktown when it hit him.

He cut east, parked by the Royal Flush. Claude Dineen's Buick up on blocks-he was probably dealing shit in the men's room.

Jack walked in. Everything froze: the Big V meant grief. The barman poured a double Old Forester; Jack downed it-cutting off five years kosher. The juice warmed him. He kicked the men's room door in.

Claude Dineen geezing up.

Jack kicked him prone, yanked the spike from his arm. A frisk, no resistance-Claude was up on cloud ten. Bingo: tinfoil Benzedrine. He swallowed a roll dry, flushed the hypo down the toilet. He said, "I'm back."

He hit the motel juiced, primed to figure angles. File go-round number two.

Nothing new jumped out; one instinct buzzed him: Hudgens didn't keep his "secret" files at home. If the killer snuffed him for a particular file, he tried to torture the location out of him first. The killer didn't glom a lot of files-the cabinets wouldn't hold much more than what he stole. Sid's Big V file was still at large-if the killer found it he might keep it, might throw it away.

Jump: Hudgens/Patchett co

Bobby Inge, Christine and Daryl Bergeron-gone. Lamar Hinton, the probable shooter at the Fleur-de-Lis drop- undoubtedly gone. Timmy Valburn, a Fleur-de-Lis customer, rousted by him-a co

Brainstorming, chain-smoking.

Mutilations on Hudgens' body matched the inked-in poses in the fuck books he found outside Bobby Inge's pad. «No other caps had seen those specific books»-Millard viewed the stiff, tagged the chopped limbs as straight amputations.

Hudgens warned him away from Fleur-de-Lis. Ly

Wild card: Dudley Smith told him to tail Bud White. His reason: White ru

Sky high: Benzedrine, cop logic. 11:20-time to kill before the Bureau. Two real leads-Pierce Patchett, Ly

Bracken was closer.

Jack drove to her apartment, settled in behind her car. Give her an hour, play it by ear if she left.

Time Benzedrine-flew; Bracken's door stdyed shut. 12:33-a kid chucked a newspaper at it. If Morty Bendish speedballed his story and that kid pitched the «Mirror»-

The door opened; Ly

Bang!-Bracken slammed the door, ran to her car. She gu

Southwest: Los Feliz to Western to Sunset, Sunset straight out-ten miles over the speed limit. Odds on: a fear run to Patchett's place, she didn't want to use the phone.

Jack looped south, shortcutted, made 1184 Gretna Green burning rubber. A huge Spanish manse, a huge front lawn- Ly

A skidding heart: he forgot what you paid to eat be

All closed. A gardener working around back-no way to circuit without being seen. A car door slammed; Jack ran to a front window: closed, a part in the curtains he could squint through.

The doorbell rang; Jack squinted in. Patchett walked to the door, opened it. Ly

They walked into the next room-full curtains, no way to look or listen. Jack ran to his car.

He made the Bureau ten minutes late. The Homicide pen was jam-packed «Badge of Honor»: Brett Chase, Miller Stanton, David Mertens the set man, Jerry Marsalas his nurse-one long bench crammed tight. Standing: Billy Dieterling, the camera crew, a half dozen briefcase men: attorneys for sure. The gang looked nervous; Duane Fisk and Don Kleckner paced with clipboards. No Mar Peltz, no Russ Millard.

Billy D. shot him the fisheye; the rest of the gang waved. Jack waved back; Kieckner buttonholed him. "Ellis Loew wants to see you. Booth number six."

Jack walked down. Loew was staring out a back wall mirror-a lie detector stall across the glass. Polygraph time: Millard questioning Peltz, Ray Pinker working the machine.

Loew noticed him. "I'd rather Mar didn't have to go through that. Can you fix it?"

Protecting a slush-fund contributor. "Ellis, I've got no truck with Millard. If Mar's lawyer advised him to do it, he'll have to do it."

"Can Dudley fix it?"

"Dud's got no truck with him either, Millard's the pious type. And before you ask me, I don't know who killed Sid, and I don't care. Has Max got an alibi?"

"Yes, but one that he would rather not use."

"How old is she?"

"Quite young. Would-"

"Yeah, Russ would file on him for it."

"My God, all this for scum like Hudgens."

Jack laughed. "Counselor, one of his little mudslings got you elected."

"Yes, politics makes for strange bedfellows, but I doubt if he'll be grieved. You know, we've got nothing. I talked to those attorneys outside, and they all assured me their clients have valid alibis. They'll give statements and be eliminated, the rest of the «Badge of Honor» people will be alibied and then we'll only have the rest of Hollywood to deal with."

An opening. "Ellis, you want some advice?"

"Yes, give me your appropriately cynical view."

"Let it play out. Push on the Nite Owl, that's the one the public wants cleared. Hudgens was shit, the investigation'll be a shit show and we'll never get the killer. Let it play out."

The door opened; Duane Fisk put two thumbs down. "No luck, Mr. Loew. Alibis straight across, and they sound like good ones. The coroner estimated Hudgens' death at midnight to 1:00 A.M., and these people were all in plain view somewhere else. We'll go for corroboration, but I think it's a wipe."