Clandestine

statement to the press. The D.A.'s office will be in touch with you. I want a full written report in two hours. Don't talk to any reporters. Now go home and rest.'

'Thank you, sir,' I said. 'Where will I be assigned?'

'I don't know yet. To a squad somewhere, probably.' He consulted his calendar. 'You report back to me one week from today, at eight o'clock. That will be Friday, September 12. We'll have found a suitable assignment for you then.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Thank you, Officer.'

I wrote my report down the hall in a vacant storage room and left it with the chief's secretary, then retrieved my car and drove home to Night Train, a shower, and a mercifully dreamless sleep.

12

A sparkling twilight found me waiting for the evening papers at a newsstand on Pico and Robertson. They came and the headlines screamed 'Korea' rather than 'Murder in L.A.' I was disappointed. I was curious to see how the department's press release would jibe with Dudley Smith's press handout.

After checking the second and third pages for a flash update, I started to feel relieved: I had Dudley by the balls, and the day's reprieve the press was giving us would help smooth out what might be a tense evening with Lorna.

As I parked on Charleville I could see Lorna in her living room, smoking abstractedly and staring out her window. I rang the bell, and all my anger and enervation dropped like a rock. I started to feel a delicious anticipation.

The buzzer that unlocked the door sounded, and I sprinted up the stairs to find Lorna standing in the middle of the living room, leaning on her cane. She wore pink lipstick and a trace of mascara, and her burnished light brown hair had been set in a new style—swept up and back on the sides. It gave her a breathless look. She was wearing a tartan skirt and a man's French-cuffed dress shirt that perfectly outlined her large breasts.

She smiled blankly when she saw me, and I walked to her slowly and embraced her, cradling the new hairdo gently.

'Hello,' was all I could think of to say.

Lorna dropped her cane and held me around the waist. 'It's not going to the grand jury, Freddy,' she said.

'I didn't think it would. He confessed.'

'To how many?' I started to release Lorna, but she held on. 'To how many?' she persisted.

'Just to Margaret Cadwallader. Let's not talk about it, Lor.'

'We have to.'

'Then let's sit down.'

We sat on the couch.

'I looked for you at the Hall of Justice. I figured you'd be there for the booking,' Lorna said.

'I got summoned to see the chief of detectives. I imagine Smith went back and booked Engels. I was dog- tired. I went home and slept. Why?' Lorna's face darkened angrily. 'Why?' I repeated. 'What the hell's going on?'

'I was there, I got a jail pass. The D.A. was there. He and Dudley Smith were talking. Smith told him that the Cadwallader killing was just the tip of the iceberg, that Engels was a mass murderer.'

'Oh, God.'

'Don't interrupt me. He was booked on just the one count. Cadwallader. But Smith kept repeating, 'This is a grand jury job, there's no telling how many dames this maniac's bagged!' The D.A. seemed to go along with it. Then the D.A. saw me and mentioned to Smith that I read potential grand jury cases. Smith notices that I'm a woman, and starts to lay on the blarney. Then he asks me what I'm doing here, and I tell him that you and I are friends. Then he goes livid and starts to shake. He looked insane.'

Shaken, I said: 'He is insane. He hates me, I crossed him.'

'Then you're insane. He could ruin your career!'

'Hush, sweetheart. No, I've been promoted. Smith reported first, I reported afterward. I'm going to the detective bureau. To a squad room somewhere. Thad Green told me himself. Whatever Smith told Green jibes with my report to you and my official arresting officer's report, which is the truth. What Smith told the D.A. is just hyperbole. All I—'

'Freddy, you told me there was no hard evidence to connect Engels to any other murders.'

'That's absolutely true. But . . .'

Lorna was getting more red-faced and agitated by the second: 'But nothing, Freddy. I saw Engels. He was beaten terribly. I asked Smith about that and he handed me some baloney about how he tried to resist arrest. I kept saying to myself, Good God, could my Freddy have had anything to do with that? Is that justice? What kind of man have I gotten involved with?'

I just stared at the Hieronymous Bosch print on the wall.

'Freddy, answer me!'

'I can't, counselor. Good night.'

I drove home, steadfastly quelling all speculation regarding Lorna, woman-killers, and lunatic cops. I tried out my new rank: Detective Frederick U. Underhill. Detective Fred Underhill. The dicks. At twenty-seven. I was probably the youngest detective in the Los Angeles Police Department. I would have to find out. In November, the sergeant's exam. Detective Sergeant Frederick Underhill. I would have to buy three new suits and a couple of sports jackets, some neckties and a half dozen pair of slacks. Detective Fred Underhil. But. It kept rearing its beautiful, burnished brown head. Lorna Weinberg, counselor at law. Lorna Weinberg.

Be still, I said to myself, trying to heed my own advice—just don't think.

At home, after a roughhouse session with Night Train, some kind of nameless future-fear hit me and to combat it I dug out some textbooks.

I tried to engross myself, but it was useless; the words flew by undigested, almost unseen. I couldn't stop thinking.

I was about to give it up when my doorbell rang. Not daring to guess, I flung the door open. It was Lorna.

'Hello, Officer,' she said. 'May I come in?'

'I'm a detective now, Lorna. Can you accept what I had to do to get there?'

'I . . . I know I convicted you of an unknown crime on insufficient evidence.'

'I would have filed a writ of habeas corpus, counselor, but you would have beat me in court.'

'I would have appealed, in your behalf. Did you know that you are the only Frederick U. Underhill in all the L.A. area phone books?'

'No doubt. What are you doing here, Lorna?'

'Stalking your heart.'

'Then don't stand in the doorway, come in and meet my dog.'

Many joyful hours later, sated and engulfed with each other, too tired to sleep or think and unable to relinquish each other's touch, I had an idea. I dug out my meager collection of corny ballads, formerly used to seduce lonely women. I put 'You Belong to Me' by Jo Stafford on the phonograph and turned the volume up so that Lorna could hear it in the bedroom.

She was laughing when I returned to her. 'Oh, Freddy, that's so . . .'

'Corny?'

'Yes!'

'My sentiments, too. But, needless to say, I feel romantic tonight.'

'It's morning, darling.'

'I stand corrected. Lorna?'

'Yes?'