I looked at the bondage pix. I saw yellow bands on the girls' wrists. Sybil Brand inmates wore yellow wristbands.

Cal d.i.n.kins to Playboy: "Recruit colored tail for the movie gig" / "Chauffeur the girls out of Sybil Brand" / "All he wants to do is take pictures."

"What did you go up for, Harvey? Statch rape? Flimflam? Some weenie-wagger beef? I think you--"

Harvey pinched a tuft of hair and ripped it off my chest. I yelped. Harvey said, "Be nice, d.i.c.k. You're an ex-convict yourself."

4.

My chest stubble itched. My tape wrap stung. My tuxedo smelled like mothb.a.l.l.s.

I parked outside the Wilshire-Ebell. I saw a sign by the door: SISTER KENNY FOUNDATION GALA. I saw the nut-ward orderly and a strapping goon parked in a tow-away zone.

I walked inside. They watched me. I flashed my invitation to a hostess and zoomed straight back to the bar.

I was early. The ballroom was almost empty. Two nuns and a priest were blasting scotch at a bar-side table. The nuns looked half-ga.s.sed. They saw me and giggled.

I ordered a quadruple martini. I told the barman to put it in a pail or a dog dish. He brought me a pitcher and a gla.s.s and cleared out fast.

I drank. I kept my back to the ballroom and heard it fill up behind me. I heard people at the bar whisper, "That's d.i.c.k Contino."

I kept my snout in my gla.s.s. The booze sparked political conversions and apostasies. I moved left and denounced Joe McCarthy. I moved right and shot Alger Hiss 2,000 volts. I freed the Scottsboro Boys and beat Helen Gahagan Douglas to death with my accordion.

The booze enlightened. The booze obfuscated. I figured I'd see Viv and respond to stimuli like Pavlov's f.u.c.king dog.

I heard a familiar voice. I recognized it. I glanced two stools down.

Gene Biscailuz plucked the fruit off an old-fashioned. L. Trent Woodard sucked a cherry out of his Manhattan.

I saw Woodard. He didn't see me. I eavesdropped.

Biscailuz made small talk. Polio and Sister Kenny--blah, blah, blah. Woodard said, "Sheriff, let's talk turkey. You can't let Bill Parker and the city cops bootjack all that money. You can't--"

Woodard saw me. He dropped the Sheriff in midspiel and slid two stools down. I slid to the far right and got right up in his face.

"Back off, baby doll. I'm a pistol-packing white man, and I don't like your leanings. And don't blast the LAPD and invoke me in the same breath. Those guys are the thin blue line between freedom and the fifth column."

Woodard dropped his gla.s.s. A priest spun off his stool and spilled scotch in my lap. I shouted my declaration. My chest mike must have caught every word.

I locked orbs with Woodard. An eyeball duel ensued. I broke it off and barged into the crowd. A little bit of my soul broke loose and bopped off unbidden.

People watched me pa.s.s. I heard a dozen "d.i.c.k Continos." Tuxedos and taffeta swirled around me. I caught a split-second blip of Chief William H. Parker in dress blues.

I walked out to a palm-lined portico. It was private and peaceful. I figured she'd find me and pounce.

I leaned on a railing and watched cars bomb down Wilshire. I counted up from zero. She pounced at twenty-two.

"I thought you'd at least send me an autographed picture."

I pulled a perfect pivot and spun around close enough to kiss her. I said, "I knew you'd be here."

She smiled. She smelled like Tweed or Jungle Gardenia. She was 49 or 50 and looked it. She wore a tight black gown. Her right breast was half again as large as her left. Her cleavage dipped proportionately. Her right nipple was half-exposed. It was dark and pebbled up from cold air or excitement.

I wanted to f.u.c.k her. My heart lurched to the left.

"How did you know I'd be here?"

Freddy O briefed me. He said to cite Harrison Carroll's column.

I stepped closer. Viv reached up and tossed her hair off her right shoulder. I saw a razor nick under her arm.

I said, "I read about the Sister Kenny thing, and I saw your name mentioned."

Viv stepped back. Her heels snagged on her floor-length hemline. She tottered and caught herself. My heart lurched. I wanted her to reach for me.

I looked over her shoulder. Her husband slid through the ballroom. He had one arm around a young man.

Viv said, "Can I tell you why I came on so strong?"

I nodded. I jammed my hands in my pockets. I didn't want to touch her too soon.

She said, "To begin with, I acknowledged our age difference and decided to risk the chance that you'd find me elderly, then I thought you might be lonely and vulnerable after all that time in prison and Korea, then I thought I owed you something for the injudicious way my husband has expressed his admiration for you, then I thought that anyone who's been as candid about their fear as you've been would appreciate my candor and not judge me as desperate, and then I figured I'd better act fast before I hit menopause and get indifferent to s.e.x."

My heartbeat escalated. My chest expanded. A strip of Harvey Glatman's tape popped loose.

Viv said, "Say something. I had that speech prepared, and you're just looking at me."

I said, "Your husband's in the next room."

She said, "He's a h.o.m.os.e.xual, and he wants me to be with you."

I said, "What?"

She said, "You're an artist, so don't pretend you don't understand."

I backed into the railing. L. Trent Woodard walked by the doorway and winked at me. His young man blew me a kiss.

I said, "Jesus f.u.c.king Christ."

Viv said, "Be less vulgar, and follow me home. I'll be in the Packard Caribbean."

Viv led the way. I followed. The nut-ward guy and the goon tailed me.

We caravanned to 3rd and Muirfield. The nut-ward guy and the goon goosed my tailpipes. Viv stopped in front of her house. She pointed me into the driveway and pulled up behind me.

She boxed my dad's car in. She didn't want me to rabbit.

The pad backed up to the Wilshire Country Club. Viv walked in ahead of me and turned on some lights. The nut-ward guy and the goon disappeared down the block.

The house was big and salmon pink Spanish. I walked up and peeped the peephole. Smoked gla.s.s smeared my view. My martini-mottled mind went wild.

I saw a Commie commissar corps. I saw my mom strapped to a rack. Trent Woodard brandished a branding tool. Dig that hot hammer and sickle.

I blinked. I saw a dozen old women. They were dowager demons and s.e.x-starved succubi. They craved my seed. They bared their geriatric genitalia.

Viv was their siren and shill. Trent couldn't get hard and hose women. They needed ME.

I blinked. A car pulled up to the curb. Somebody whispered, "Ring the bell, s.h.i.thead."

I yipped and cringed. I turned around. I saw the nut-ward guy and the goon in the goonmobile.

I rang the bell. Viv opened the door. My peephole panorama went poof!

I stepped inside. Viv handed me a martini. I sniffed it for Spanish fly or knockout drops.

Viv shut the door. My drink looked kosher. I chugalugged it and ate the olive.

The living room was king-sized and leftist primitive chic.

Labor posters. Furniture fabrics finished in gold filigree. Atavistic statues with fat phalluses and pointy pudenda.

Viv tracked my eyes. "I'm eclectic. And the fertility G.o.ds are special to me."

I said, "You married a f.a.g, so I guess you needed all the help you could get."

Viv walked to a sideboard and mixed herself a martini. My martini sent me mixed messages: f.u.c.k her/Don't f.u.c.k her/f.u.c.k her rich Red p.a.w.n of a husband. f.u.c.k the LAPD for the way they flicked you/Fack everyone and flick no one at all.

Viv said, "You shouldn't underestimate my husband. He has some powerful allies."

"I know. I saw him talking to Sheriff Biscailuz."

Viv dropped an olive in her drink. "Gene's a friend, yes. He kept Trent out of the papers when he--"

"Got picked up during a fruit roust at some joint in West Hollywood?"

Viv smiled. "You're correct. He saved Trent from a great deal of embarra.s.sment and turned him into quite a resource."

"What do you mean?"

"That's Trent's a good lawyer, and Gene Biscailuz isn't so blinded by a hatred of h.o.m.os.e.xuals that he can't utilize his talent."

I said, "Too bad the LAPD doesn't feel that way."

Viv sipped her drink. "Yes and no. For one, Trent hates them too much to work with them. Gene hates them, too, and Trent's been working with him on this budget contretemps that the Sheriff's and the LAPD are embroiled in."

"On the Q.T., you mean."

"That's correct. Gene doesn't want it known that Trent's working with him, and Trent doesn't ever want the LAPD to learn that he's quite fond of young men. He's quite sure that the LAPD is out to compromise him any way they can, so of course he's remained quite discreet."

I looked around the room. The labor posters were laid out in gold-lacquered frames.

"Is Trent an actual Communist?"

Viv laughed. "n.o.body with brains and a soul is a real Communist."

"What about Commie front groups?"

"For instance?"

I pulled names off Freddy 0's crib sheet. "The People's Committee for a Free Philippines, the Free-the-Rosenbergs Defense Fund, the National Alliance for Social Justice, the--"

Viv cut me off. "It sounds like you have those names memorized."

I shuddered. My chest mike shifted and settled off to the left.

Viv said, "Fixate on me. Don't fixate on my husband."

I got p.i.s.sed. I got wild-hair-up-the-a.s.s p.i.s.sed.

"I can't get work because of your husband. He's run a big, G.o.dd.a.m.n guilt-by-a.s.sociation number on me."

Viv shrugged. "Then work for social justice. Teach underprivileged Negro children to play the accordion, and I'll pay you what Las Vegas entertainers earn."

Don't blow your cool/Don't blast your cork/Don't-- "Really, d.i.c.k, you must overlook the few injudicious comments my husband has made about you. Look to the real historical source of your troubles and try to understand the big picture."

I tamped my temper down. "For instance?"

"For instance, my husband is involved in big issues."

"For instance?"

"For instance, a woman came to Trent recently. Trent wouldn't tell me her name, but he told me she broke up with her boyfriend, and she knew something about a horribly draconian LAPD plot to initiate some truly Fascistic measures, all of it tied in to TV propaganda. You see, d.i.c.k, those are the types of issues my husband deals with."

My skin p.r.i.c.kled. My hackles hopped. The pitch tweaked and tantalized me.

"What else did your husband say about the woman?"

Viv said, "That she was a big, busty blonde."

My synapses snapped and snagged a connection.

Joi Lansing was a big, busty blonde. Harvey Glatman said she just dumped Jack Webb. Webb: LAPD lapdog. TV propaganda. Dragnet: top-rated TV fare and the LAPD'S PR lightning rod.

Viv said, "d.i.c.k, what is it? You look abstracted all of a sudden."

I moved in on her. I mixed a martini and guzzled it for guts. Viv ran a sloooow hand down my cheek.

"I'm tired of talking about my husband, and I'm tired of talking in general. Let me duck into the loo for a moment."