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  "Oh, you are amazing." Shaw approached Damon, looking down at the White Wash leader with disgust. "You sit there, glib as hell, talking about potential killers as if you're the pope. You butchered three human beings."

  "I wouldn't call them that," Damon smirked.

  Shaw whipped Damon across the face with the back of his hand, the slap of flesh cracking like lightning in the tiny room. Gregson bolted out of his seat but was halted by Damon's upraised hand.

  Damon, still smirking, a red mark on his cheek where Shaw had struck him, stared into the detective's furious eyes. A uniformed police officer yanked open the interrogation room door. Shaw stepped back, combing one hand through his hair and waving the officer away with the other.

  "Like I said, Shaw, I've yet to meet a black man who wasn't a criminal," Damon huffed. "I believe he just broke the law, Steve."

  Gregson grinned. "Damn right he did, and I'm going to file a formal complaint."

  Shaw's back was to them. He couldn't believe he had let Damon get to him. The racist bastard had won this round. Shaw could barely contain the urge to wring Damon's neck until it crunched between his fingers.

  "Sergeant Shaw," Gregson chided, "I demand you either charge Mr. Damon or release him immediately."

  Shaw turned around slowly, his anger waning into weary frustration. Sometimes, the law made him feel as if he was hog-tied. "Damon isn't going anywhere. We're keeping him in custody until we can investigate his parole violations."

  "What violations?" Gregson yelled.

  "Associating with known felons, for starters." Shaw pulled a sheaf of papers folded lengthwise from his inside jacket pocket and dropped them on the table. "All these people are sharing quarters with him at the Threllkiss retreat."

  Gregson stacked the scattered papers neatly and placed them into his thin leather briefcase and snapped it shut. "You'll be out of here in twenty-four hours, Mr. Damon, I promise you that."

  Damon made a steeple with his fingers and smiled at Shaw. "No problem, Steve. Take your time—I'm in no hurry."

  # # # # # #

  12:45 p.m.

  Mayor Jed Stocker rarely left the movie star's house in a good mood. Now in his three-piece suit and carrying his tennis clothes in a duffel bag and his racquet under his shoulder, Stocker strode around the ornate marble fountain in front of the manor and walked to his car. The experience of playing tennis with the big-name actor, who had a string of R-rated box-office successes that were critical disasters, always brought some troubling truths home for the mayor.

  For one, the movie star always kicked the shit out of him on the court, so Stocker, who thought he was a pretty hot tennis player, left feeling like the beginner he actually was. And while Stocker ran all over the court trying to sustain volleys, the movie star casually bragged about the naked, buxom starlets he got to fuck for the cameras.

  What bothered Stocker was that the movie star was actually paid to hump beautiful women. So while the movie star talked about lying on top of Catherine, Raquel, Jacqueline, Lynda, Bo, and the rest, Stocker was left to ponder his less-than-scintillating erotic encounters with his wife, Norma, and his occasional, furtive meetings with the shoe repair lady with the compact buns. Whenever Norma uttered her "I'm too bored to fuck" line, it was off to get those suede shoes fixed and his gonads fired up.

  And then there was the final, sobering blow that visiting the movie star always dealt him. Stocker got into his Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham, started the engine, and drove slowly around the fountain and past the movie star's sleek Maserati sports car. As much as Stocker would like a finer car, and as much as he could afford one, he knew the public would have a shit fit if he drove something classy. They'd think he was dishonest.

  I'm a fucking leader—why don't they let me live like one? Where are the royal perks? Why can't I drive a nice car? Stocker drove through the gate and thought, like he did every Tuesday, how much he hated playing tennis with the movie star. He let the car coast down the narrow winding roads that hugged the tall stone walls and tall, densely packed trees that hid the Bel-Air mansions from the street.

  Stocker was gliding around another curve when suddenly a black car burst into his path from a driveway on the left. He twisted the wheel and slammed the brake pedal to the floor. The Olds fishtailed to the left, the tires screeching as they gripped for a hold on the asphalt.

  The Olds stopped across the road and rocked from side to side. Before Stocker could get his bearings, the driver's side door was yanked open and he felt rough hands grab him by the shirtfront and pull him out.

  Brett Macklin spun Stocker around, slammed him forward against the hood, and yanked the mayor's right arm up behind his back.

  "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Macklin?" Stocker yelled, his cheek flat against the car's hood. He could hear the engine humming underneath it.

  Macklin pulled up on the arm until Stocker cried out. "We're finished, Stocker. I don't ever want to hear from you again."

  "Fuck you, Macklin—you need me."

  "You're mistaken," Macklin said softly.

  "You're pushing it, Macklin," Stocker blustered, his anger tinged with desperation. "If you value your daughter's future and your health, you'll let go of me right now. Otherwise, I'll expose you and let my men deal with you."

  "Deese and Laird are dead." Macklin twisted Stocker's arm up towards his neck until he heard the mayor's sharp scream of pain and felt the arm tear free of its socket.

  "You're on the wrong side now, Stocker. You better stay away from me and watch yourself," Macklin said, leaning close to Stocker's ear, "or Mr. Jury might just come gunning for you."

  Macklin walked back to his Cadillac and left Stocker whimpering on the car, the mayor's arm hanging limply at a grotesque angle behind his back.

  # # # # # #

  11:00 p.m.

  "Attorneys for onetime White Wash leader and convicted murderer Anton Damon allege that his detention for parole violations is police harassment . . ."

  Macklin sat in the darkness of his living room, his face lit by the glow from the television screen. The silver-haired anchorman, dressed in a red jacket with the station logo on the breast pocket, related Gregson's complaints in a dull, detached monotone and then switched to a taped interview with Gregson on the deck of his Malibu beach house.

  "Sergeant Shaw, I should mention, is a black. My client believes that Sergeant Shaw is simply trying to sanction him for his using his right to free speech provided by the constitution," Gregson said. High afternoon waves crashed against the sand and crawled up the beach behind him. "He didn't bring Mr. Damon in for alleged parole violations or his alleged connection with the Mr. Jury killings. No, he is hassling Mr. Damon because of what Mr. Damon believes."

  Macklin sighed and pressed the remote control in his lap to change the channel. Shaw's face, with a microphone thrust in front of it, filled the screen.

  "Mr. Jury is dead. This man's MO is entirely different. He is just using the Mr. Jury name as a justification for his actions. He is killing only blacks, and we have reason to believe that he is a member of the White Wash cult, which we all know was founded by Anton Damon."

  The camera focused on an Asian woman, the station logo dangling from her necklace into her cleavage. "How do you respond to Damon's claim that this is just thinly disguised police harassment?"

  "I don't," Shaw said.

  Macklin's phone rang, distracting him from the television. He clicked the set off and lumbered into the kitchen, where the phone rang insistently. Snapping the receiver off the wall with one hand, Macklin opened the refrigerator with the other and looked for something good to eat. "Hello?"

  "It's me," Shaw said, his voice dripping with fatigue.

  "I just saw you on TV." The refrigerator was full of balls of aluminum foil. He didn't feel like finding out what aged food they contained. Macklin closed the refrigerator and sat down at the kitchen table.

  "Yeah, I come off looking like shit," Shaw replied. "Damon will
be out tomorrow. Have you talked to Stocker?"

  "Yes. I convinced him to stay out of our way."

  "How did you manage that?"

  "I charmed him with my disarming personality," Macklin said. "So did you get anything out of Damon?"

  "A formal complaint that will probably get me booted from this case," Shaw said.

  "What happened?"

  "I hit the son of a bitch."

  "Hooray, hooray. I don't supposed that loosened him up?"

  "I could have shoved bamboo under his fingernails and he still wouldn't have lost that self-satisfied smirk. But I know he's behind it—I can feel it in my gut. It's sitting there rotting like food that won't digest," Shaw said. "This killer could be anyone in his organization. We've asked for a list of White Wash members, but Damon's lawyers, naturally, will have to hear it from the Supreme Court before they will give it to us."

  "What evidence do we have?"

  "We've got a lot of nothing. We've got four wildly different descriptions out of those kids. We're trying to meld them, along with your description, into one composite, but who knows if it will even vaguely resemble him. We've also got two strands of hair, which may or may not be from his head, some pubic hair, some of his skin from under the prostitute's finger nails, and a teaspoon of semen. A couple of detectives are running down the plastique, but I don't think it will take us anywhere."

  Macklin tapped the table with his fingers. He felt helpless.

  "All I can do is put more patrol cars on the street and wait," Shaw said, filling the momentary silence. "Damon and his killer have to make a mistake soon."

  "Yeah," Macklin sighed, "but how many people will die first?"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Wednesday, May 23, 10:15 a.m.

  Sergeant Ronald Shaw sat with his feet up on his desk and looked across the empty squad room at Wes Craven standing beside the door. He wondered if anyone ever suggested to Wes Craven that he should rent the space on his forehead for billboards. Craven was already as stoic as a signpost, and Shaw figured the guy must have about two inches of extra skull between his eyes and the errant, dry strands of blazing red hair that lay on his head like dune grass.

  Shaw would even be the first to scrawl a message across Craven's face. It would read: "SANDBLAST MY MOUTH OUT WITH AJAX." The mint Craven was sucking made the squad room smell like the cube of ice blue disinfectant found in urinals. Shaw had heard that Craven, who leaned against the wall in his three-piece, Bond St. tailored suit, was obsessed with fresh breath. Craven probably picked up that habit, Shaw assumed, from spending so many hours leaning close to Justin Threllkiss and getting his orders.

  The old coot and his decaying dentures must smell like steaming dog shit, Shaw thought, sitting with his crossed legs propped on the edge of his steel, battleship gray desk.

  Craven, of course, was waiting for Anton Damon.

  The squad room door beside Craven opened and the man immediately straightened to attention, like a soldier expecting General MacArthur to come bounding in.

  Lieutenant Bohan Lieu grinned at Craven as he entered the room. "At ease, Craven."

  Craven fell back against the wall and looked straight ahead through the slats of the blinds at the Sumitomo Bank building that bordered Little Tokyo outside.

  Lieu was beginning to look like a Hershey's kiss wrapped in a seersucker suit and bow tie, Shaw thought, smiling back at his superior, who had sparkling, playful eyes framed with fleshy eyelids above and tiny bags below. Lieu always had a bag of Sugar Babies on him or stashed in his desk and liked to walk with his hands in his pockets. Shaw respected him and, more important, he liked him. There were too many assholes Shaw could respect but not many he could call a friend.

  "I hear Mr. Personality has been around here all night," Lieu said, pausing beside Shaw's desk.

  "Yep, Threllkiss sent him down here about midnight just in case we decided, as we often do, to release prisoners at two a.m." Shaw swung his feet off his desk and stood up. "Can I steal a cup of coffee from your office?"

  "Sure," Lieu said, leading the way to office, which was a glass-partitioned corner of the squad room. "I wanted to chat with you anyway."

  Shaw groaned inside. "Chat" was Lieu's buzzword for trouble. He made a beeline for Lieu's Mr. Coffee, found a Dodgers mug lying facedown on a napkin, took a chance that it was clean, and filled it up. When he turned around, Lieu was sitting behind his immaculately clean desk, unbending a paper clip. Now Shaw was certain he was in trouble.

  "Why is it, Ronny, that every time I take a day off to have a cavity filled there's trouble?" Lieu asked rhetorically. Shaw took a seat in front of the desk. "I just found out you took a swing at Damon."

  Shaw nodded.

  "That's going to cause us both a lot of aggravation."

  "I know." Shaw sipped his coffee. "It was a stupid, reflexive thing to do. I can't say I'm sorry I did it, though. The guy is scum."

  "Saying the guy is scum isn't going to clear you with the board," Lieu said. "It was bad timing, too, Ronny. It hasn't been that long since the Tomas Cruz thing."

  "Are you pulling me off the vigilante killings case?" Shaw asked.

  "Nope, but you won't ever question Damon again, and there might be some strict, official repercussions later. There's also the possibility of a lawsuit."

  The squad room door opened and Anton Damon, smiling, was escorted in by Steve Gregson and two uniformed officers. Craven popped a fresh mint into his mouth and moved to Damon's side.

  "Maybe not," Shaw said, setting his coffee cup down on Lieu's desk. "He's not wearing a neck brace."

  Shaw and Lieu walked into the squad room.

  "Mr. Damon is leaving now, gentlemen," Gregson said, handing Lieu a slip of paper. "I'll bring you all into court for this outrage."

  "If you will come with me, Mr. Damon, I have a limousine waiting at the loading dock," Craven said curtly.

  "Thank you," Damon said smugly, shooting a taunting grin at Shaw. "Good-bye, Sergeant. Good luck with your investigation. I'm sure you will reap what you sow."

  With that, Damon, Craven, and Gregson left the room. Lieu nodded. "I can see why you socked him."

  # # # # # #

  Anton Damon opened the limousine's refrigerator and made himself a screwdriver while Wes Craven adjusted the color TV and inserted a videotape of last night's newscasts into the portable VCR.

  Damon watched the newscasts silently for two or three minutes, sipping his drink, as the limousine hummed east towards the San Bernardino Freeway. Craven sat beside the TV across from Damon, watching the White Wash leader's face for reactions. Craven saw nothing.

  "You can turn it off, Wes." Damon said.

  Craven pushed off the color TV switch with his thumb.

  "What does Mr. Threllkiss think?" Damon asked.

  Craven shrugged. "It's publicity, he said. He'd like it if I stayed on with you for a while."

  Damon nodded. "I think Sergeant Shaw knows who the real Mr. Jury is."

  "Why?"

  "A hunch, a look in his eye, the way he talks about him. It also makes good sense. I think the real Mr. Jury is an LAPD puppet."

  "What do you have in mind?"

  Damon swallowed the remainder of his screwdriver and shook his glass, jingling the ice. "If we get Shaw, we'll get Mr. Jury."

  "What if you're wrong? What if Shaw and Mr. Jury aren't connected?"

  Damon shrugged, leaning forward to make himself another drink. "So? One less nigger cop."

  # # # # # #

  Thursday, May 24, noon

  The Los Angeles Times Building looked like the unfortunate victim of an architectural Dr. Frankenstein. The clock-topped cement tower of the once-proud art deco building had been grafted onto a block-long cube of brown-tinted glass. The windowy addition was kept nice, shiny, and impenetrable, while the chalky remains of its violated host were left to collect grime.

  Macklin weaved the car through the First Street traffic, giving the Los Angeles Times Building a pa
ssing glance as it disappeared to his right and the civic center blurred to his left. He moved into the left lane. At the stoplight, he looked out the passenger window at Joseph's Men's Wear, "The Store for Mr. Short," and noticed that the store proudly displayed multicolored Sam the Eagle and Olympic stars-in-motion neckties in the window.

  The tie for the elegant gentleman, Macklin thought. The detectives in Parker Center across the street probably bought them by the dozen.

  He turned left on San Pedro, where First Street melted into Little Tokyo, and made an immediate right into a blue-painted steel parking structure. A thin Chicano with a Bela Lugosi hairdo held an MJB can out to Macklin for the 25-cent entrance fee. Macklin dropped the quarter in and then drove the Cadillac up the winding ramp to the top of the structure.

  He parked his car on the piding line between two empty spaces and got out, slinging his friend Mort's camera gear around his shoulder. Mort was in Hawaii and wouldn't miss it. Macklin hurried down the urine-stained stairwell to the street and walked briskly past a gaunt Asian man selling sushi on paper plates wrapped in crinkled Saran wrap.

  Macklin sprinted across the street, the cameras bouncing against his side, and was striding up First Street when he saw Jessica Mordente standing on the next corner at the edge of the old Times building. Hey, Lois, it's me, Clark Kent!

  There was a wry smile on her face Macklin couldn't decipher but found attractive anyway. Her hands were thrust deep into the pockets of her pleated silk slacks. Her arms were slightly crooked at the elbows, bunching back the flaps of her matching jacket, revealing a loose-fitting blouse that caught the slight breeze and fluttered. Lois Lane never looked this good.

  Macklin dashed across the street on a green light, cutting across oncoming traffic. Horns blared angrily in his wake.

  "Do I look like a hotshot news photographer?" Macklin asked.