Viv flicked some tobacco off her tongue. "That's a craven response, and it's what you should have said first."

Vindictive Viv.

I tamped my temper down. I made a neutral and nut-neutered statement. "I didn't have a choice. The LAPD was squeezing me."

Viv laughed. "You had a choice. Your options were suicide or direct action."

I laughed. Viv laughed. It was s.h.i.tty laughless laughter.

"You blew your most immediate options and your chance to father my child. I suspect that you'll blow whatever else comes your way."

I popped a few tears. Wicked words and garlic fumes sucked them out of me. A waiter walked up. Viv waved him away.

"You never returned my car, d.i.c.k."

I shrugged.

"I found another handsome Italian man to impregnate me. He's much more famous than you, and I'm sure that he has a larger p.e.n.i.s."

I said, "Who?"

Viv said, "Dean Martin."

I dropped my cross. It hit the floor. It made a wop! sound.

I said, "f.u.c.k Dino. He moves Mob money to the Vatican."

"Yes, and my husband was a h.o.m.os.e.xual. If you're trying to shock me or t.i.tillate me, you're employing the wrong tactics."

I wiped my eyes. I wiped my nose. Viv tossed me her napkin.

"Tell me what you want, d.i.c.k. I'm meeting Dean at Chasen's, and I don't want to be late."

I blew my beak on white linen. "I want direct action, and I need to talk to Sheriff Biscailuz."

Viv stood up. "I'll arrange it in the spirit of what we could have had."

I smelled her perfume. I recognized it. Joi said she wore it to funerals.

Matchabelli's Mourning Madness.

Viv said, "Wash my car before you return it."

9.

I walked in on the Sheriff's arm. Chief Parker almost s.h.i.t on his living-room floor.

I said, "What's shakin', Daddy-O?"

Daddy-O went raging red and pulmonary purple. His veins bulged blue and vibrated violet.

The Sheriff sat him down in front of his TV set. He drilled me with Draculean eyes and hexed me from the heart. I knew he couldn't talk. I knew a catatonic cat captured his tongue.

I shut the door. I said, "Nice pad, baby doll. Those plaid drapes and that wall flag are so you."

Parker sputtered and spit split syllables. His tortured tongue and paralyzed palate could not connect.

The Sheriff said, "This won't be fun, Bill. But I can promise you we won't prolong things."

I grabbed a spot by the TV set. The Sheriff stood beside me. Parker sat two feet behind us.

I checked my watch. I counted down. The TV blipped on, black-magic-style.

Jack Webb in close-up. Duh-duh-duh-duh/duh-duh-duh-duhduuuuh--the Dragnet theme on the sound track. Jack's toking a big stick of tea. He's giggling and goofing on his craaaaazy existence.

He says, "My name's Friday. I carry a badge. I use it to coerce hookers into b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs. My name used to be Webb, but I got lucky and met this tight-a.s.sed chump Bill Parker, who got laid once in 1924, decided he preferred power to p.u.s.s.y, and took over the Los Angeles Police Department. Duh-duh-duh-duh!"

I turned around. I looked at Parker. I couldn't count the colors he turned.

Jack says, "Bill hitched his badge to me, or maybe it's the other way around, but who gives a s.h.i.t when you're making all this money? And if you think Dragnet is all that I'm talking about, you're wrong, 'cause we've got some biiiiiiiiig plans with a Cuban guy names Batista--off-the-record, on the q.t., and very hushhush, and Bill's the number one cop in America, not that f.a.ggot Gay Edgar Hoover, and boy do we have some dirt to f.u.c.k him with if he ever gets uppity! Duh-duh-duh-duh. Duh-duh-duhduh-duuuh!"

I turned around. I looked at Parker. I couldn't peg all the pastel pallors he pa.s.sed through.

Jack Webb laughed. A man laughed offscreen. It sounded like Fred O. Jack Webb flipped out a fat middle finger.

"Hey, Bill, f.u.c.k you! This is for that time you humiliated me at the Jonathan Club, you frigid c.o.c.ksucker! Hey, Bill, your mother f.u.c.ks the mule down in Tj.! Hey, Bill, you better be nice to me or I'll tell Mayor Bowron your boys set him up with that Filipino wh.o.r.e! Hey, Bill--"

I heard a shot. The TV screen imploded. Gla.s.s blew out the back of the set and took out the window behind it.

Diodes decomposed. Wires whipped and wiggled. The console cracked and popped into pieces.

I turned around. I looked at Parker. I kicked the gun out of his hand.

The Sheriff said, "No slaves. No work farms and no debtors' prisons. No reprisals on Contino, Levant, or their families. No shakedowns on my men and no more attempts to steal money off my budget."

Parker couldn't talk. The catatonic cat had his tongue. The Sheriff said, "We're hooked into J. Edgar Hoover and Mayor Bowron's set, and 8,ooo random sets in Los Angeles. Nod to signal your compliance."

Parker nervously-nellingly nodded and turned six sheets of seraphim white.

The TV debris ignited. It sparked and sputtered and metamorphosed into a mushroom cloud.

I drove back to Harvey's repair shop. I found the whole block leveled and torched to a trash-heap h.e.l.l.

Fire trucks. Rubberneckers. Cop cars.

Soot. Smoke. Ash-afflicted air. A wiped-out wasteland with a single scorched skeleton standing.

The gas-chamber chair.

I saw Oscar and Joi. I ditched my car and ran up to them. They wore black executioner's robes. They lit cigarettes off a piece of red timber and looked at me.

I said, "What the f.u.c.k happened?"

Joi said, "Harvey tricked us. He crossed three or four wires and blew himself out a fake wall panel. One of the arson cops said he probably created a sonic boom and controlled the downdraft. The fire started about a minute later."

I yelled, "He's gone?"

Joi nodded. "We underestimated a genius."

Oscar said, "And we overestimated you."

I kicked a rubble pile. My tennis shoe ignited. I hopped on one foot and swatted out the flames.

"What about the files? I've got plans. Those files can make me!"

Joi said, "They burned up. Tough luck, d.i.c.k. I was hoping they could help you mount a comeback."

I threw a tantrum. I stamped my feet and kicked at hot rubble. My shoes caught fire. I let them burn.

Oscar said, "d.i.c.k, you're f.u.c.ked."

43 years, 6 months, 26 days. A twisting twirl of time to now.

Covert connections. Contaminations cataloged in conflagrated carbon paper. Secrets lost in smoke.

The contamination that I witnessed. The collusion that I tried to contain. The rampaging ramifications that still ram L.A.

History hidden and soooooooo hush-hushed.

The Sheriff sheltered me for three years. I lived in exile on the Sunset Strip. Joi dumped me. I married an actress named Leigh Snowden.

Parker kept his promise. He did not visit violence upon me or mine. He did not sell slaves to Bad-Boy Batista. He did not imprison the impecunious. He did not juke Jack Webb in any public manner and did not drag Dragnet into the dirt. He dramatically drove Fred Otash out of the LAPD. Dragnet dragged onforfive more seasons.

Fred O became a private eye. He s.h.a.gged s.h.i.t and skimmed skinny from a thousand insider informants. He brokered abortions. He set up dry outs and dope cures. He sold pictures of Rock Hudson with a d.i.c.k in his mouth. He doped a racehorse in '59 and almost did time. He died old and rich in 1992.

Heart attack.

Johnny Stompanato ran s.e.x shakedowns and took up with Lana Turner. Lana's daughter shanked him in April '58. Fred 0 made a mint on morgue memorabilia. Slab shots sold for a C-note. Marilyn Monroe bought Johnny's hair. A pederast purchased his p.e.n.i.s.

The Schvantz died in '6g.

On his yacht. Alone with five women.

Heart attack.

He lived fast, loved hard, died hung.

Ida Lupino died in '95.

Cigarettes and booze and attrition.

Sheriff Biscailuz died in '69.

Old age.

I went to his wake. I got drunk with some robbery cops and joined them on a liquor-store stakeout. I told them the REAL Harvey Glatman story. They didn't believe me.

Harvey disappeared for three years. He resurfaced in L.A. in '57. He snuffed three women and dumped them in the desert. A pinup model dumped Harvey. She disarmed him and dropped him with a flesh wound. The cops grabbed him. He copped out to his three recent killings and no more. He was tried and convicted. He sucked cyanide in September '59.

The three women weigh on me. The unidentified dead undermine my sleep and own me at odd moments. Harvey escaped on my watch. He killed his last three victims and other women under my imprimatur I exploited his genius. It saved my life. I sold him a death-house reprieve. He exploited the time and bought himseiffive years and untold victims.

Time.

Oscar and Joi died in '72. They put in a million s...o...b..z miles and burned out every part of their bodies.

I miss them.

Viv Woodard died in '61.

Suicide.

She never hatched her half-guinea love child.

Jack Webb died in '82. Heart attack. He promulgated police propaganda with other tuna TVshows and tapped out to the tune of authority. His malevolent mentor William H. Parker died in '66.

A heart attack hastened by his bri ef blast of me.

He pa.s.sed on as one p.i.s.sed-off patriarch. I derailed his most demonic designs and forced him to settle for second-cla.s.s methods of suppression. He stepped up his stern measures in indirect defiance of me. I destroyed his dystopia and devastated his most darkly held dreams. Ifragged his frazzled and fragile ego. He suppressed the suppressible undercla.s.s and d.i.c.ked the disenfranchised as d.i.c.kable d.i.c.k Contino surrogates.

His boys kicked black a.s.s and brown a.s.s and poor-white a.s.s. Parker paternalistically popped his rocks along with them. He left a lethal legacy. He left his suppression-minded successors the unlearned lesson that suppression has a price.

Rodney King. The '92 riots. The repellent and radically race-ratified O.J. Simpson verdict.

The twisting twirl of time.

Back to 1954.

And me.

I never resurrected my career. I banged my box and made maintenance money and raised three kids. My draft-dodger drama dogged me and diverted my audience. My wife died in '82.

Cancer.