Chronic Insecurity

PERFIDIA

L.A. BOILS! A NATION ON THE BRINK! THE WORLD ABOUT TO CHANGE!

James Euroy

LOS ANGELES, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1941, 9:08 A.M.

There—Whelan's Drugstore, Sixth and Spring streets. The site of four recent felonies. 211 PC—armed robbery.

The store was jinxed. Four heists in one month predicted a fifth heist. It was probably the same bandit. The man worked solo. He covered his face with a bandanna and carried a long-barreled gat. He always stole narcotics and till cash.

The Robbery Squad was shorthanded.

A geek wearing a Hitler mask hit three taverns in Silver Lake. It was 211 plus mayhem. The geek pistol-whipped the

bartenders and groped female customers. He was gun-happy. He shot up jukeboxes and shelves full of booze.

Robbery was swamped. Hideo Ashida built the trip-wire gizmo and chose this test spot. He’d created the prototype in high school. His first test spot was the Belmont High showers. He used it to photograph Bucky after basketball practice.

A car swerved northbound on Spring. The driver

saw Ashida. Of course—he yelled, “Goddamn Jap!” Ray Pinker responded. Of course—he yelled, “Screw you!”

Ashida stared at the ground. The feeder cord ran across the street and stopped at the curb in front of the drugstore. The geek bandit parked in the same spot all four times. The cord led to a trip-action camera encased in hard rubber. The wheel jolts of cars parking activated gears. A shutter and flash-

bulb clicked and snapped photos of rear license plates. Rolls of film were stashed in rubber-coated tubes. A single load would cover a full day’s worth of cars.

Pinker lit a cigarette. “It’s a wildgoose chase. We’re civilian criminologists, not cops. We know the damn

thing works, so why are we here? It’s not like we’ve been tipped to another job.”

Ashida smiled. “You know the answer to that.” “If the answer is ‘We’ve got nothing better to do’ or ‘We’re scientists with no personal lives worth a damn,’ then you’re right.”

A bus passed southbound. A Mexican guy blew smoke rings out his window. He saw Ashida. He yelled, “Puto Jap!”

Pinker flipped his cigarette. It fell short of the bus.

“Which one of you was born here? Which one of you did not swim the Rio Grande illegally?”

Ashida squared off his necktie. “Say it again. You were exasperated the first time you said it, so I know it was a candid response.”

Pinker grinned. “You’re my protégé, so you’re my Jap, which gives me a vested interest in you. You’re the only Jap employed by the Los Angeles Police Department, which makes you that much more unique and gives me that much more cachet.”

Ashida laughed. A 1938 DeSoto pulled up in front of the drugstore. The wheels hit the wire, the lens clicked, the flashbulb popped. A tall man got out. He had Bucky Bleichert’s dark hair and small brown eyes. Ashida watched him enter the drugstore.

Pinker ducked across the street and futzed with the bulb slot. Ashida window-peeped the drugstore and tracked the man. The glass distorted his features. Ashida made him Bucky. He shut his eyes, he blinked, he opened his eyes and transformed him. The man evinced Bucky’s grace now. He glided. He smiled and displayed big buck teeth.

The man walked out. Pinker ran back across the street and blocked Ashida’s view. The car drove off. Ashida blinked. The world lost its one-minute Bucky Bleichert glow.

They settled back in. Pinker leaned on a lamppost and chainsmoked. Ashida stood still and felt the downtown L.A. whir.

The war was coming. The whir was all about it. He was a native-born nisei and second son. His father was a gandy dancer. Pops guzzled terpin hydrate and worked himself to death laying railroad track. His mother had an apartment in Little Tokyo. She was pro-emperor and spoke Japanese just to torque him. The family owned a truck farm in the San Fernando Valley. His brother Akira ran it. It was mostly nisei acreage out there. Mexican illegals picked their crops. It was a common nisei practice. It was shameful, it was prudent, it was labor at low cost. The practice bordered on indentured servitude. The practice assured solvency for the nisei farmer class.

The practice entailed collusion. The family paid bribes to a Mexican State Police captain. The payments saved the wetbacks from deportation. Akira accepted the practice and implemented it sans moral probe. It permitted second son Hideo to ignore the family trade and pursue his criminological passion.

He had advanced degrees in chemis-

try and biology. He was a Stanford Ph.D. at 22. He knew serology, fingerprinting, ballistics. He went on the Los Angeles Police Department a year ago. He wanted to work with its legendary head chemist. He was a protégé looking for a mentor. Ray Pinker was a pedagogue looking for a pupil. The bond was formed in that manner. The assigned roles blurred very fast.

They became colleagues. Pinker was admirably blind per racial matters. He compared Ashida to Charlie Chan’s number one son. Ashida told Pinker that Charlie Chan was Chinese. Pinker said, “It’s all Greek to me.”

Spring Street was lined with mocksnow Christmas trees. They were coated with bird dung and soot. A kid hawked Heralds outside the drugstore. He shouted the headline: “FDR in last-ditch talks with Japs!”

Pinker said, “The damn gizmo works.” “I know.”

“You’re a goddamn genius.”

“I know.”

“That rape-o’s still operating. The Central Vice guys make him for an MP. He dicked another lady two nights ago.”

Ashida nodded. “The first victim resisted and tore off a strip of his armband. He wore his uniform shirt under his civilian coat. I’ve got fiber samples at my lab in my mother’s apartment.”

Pinker ogled a big blonde draped around a sailor. The sailor fish-eyed Ashida.

“Bucky Bleichert’s fighting at the Olympic tomorrow night. The skinny is he’ll fight a few more times and come on the Department.”

Ashida flushed. “I knew Bucky in high school.”

“I know. That’s why I said it.”

“Who’s he fighting?”

“A stumblebum named Junior Wilkins. Elmer Jackson collared him for flimflam. He was running a back-to-Africa con with some shine preacher.”

A 1937 Ford coupe parked upside the drugstore. There—the wheels hit the wire, the lens clicks, the flashbulb pops on cue.

Pinker coughed and turned away from Ashida. A man got out of the car. He wore a fedora and an overcoat with the collar up. Ashida prickled. It was noovercoat warm.

Pinker hacked and coughed. He was almost doubled up. The man pulled a handkerchief over his face.

Ashida tingled.

It was perfect. It was ideal. Pinker didn’t see the man. They had the plate number. He could let the crime occur. He could run his forensic study from inception.

The man entered the drugstore.

Ashida checked his watch. It was 9:24 A.M.

Pinker turned around and lit a cigarette. Ashida scanned the drugstore window. The man walked down the toothpaste aisle. Ashida checked his watch on the sly.

The man hunkered out of sight. 9:25, 9:26, 9:27.

Pinker said, “My wife thinks it’s dirt in the air, but I say it’s just excess phlegm.”

The man ran out of the drugstore. He gripped a paper bag and a half-visible pistol. He knocked over the newsboy. He shagged his car and peeled out.

Pinker said, “Holy shit.” The cigarette dropped from his mouth. The newsboy ran into the drugstore. Pinker ran toward a call box. Ashida ran up to the gizmo.

He unlocked it and knelt close. He studied the negative in the feeder. There, faint and blurred: Cal KFE-621.

A car idled by. The driver was a Shriner, replete with fez. He saw Ashida and got all contorted. Ashida stood up and made fists. The car pulled away.

“FDR in last-ditch talks with Japs!” The newsboy stared at Ashida and shrieked it.

There—a cop siren at 9:31.

Ashida stood poised. A K-car took the corner and skid-stopped just short of the gizmo. Ashida was eyeball close. He recognized the guys: Buzz Meeks and Lee Blanchard.

They got out. Meeks worked Headquarters Robbery. Blanchard worked Central Patrol. Meeks wore a freshpressed suit. Blanchard wore a sleptin uniform.

Meeks said, “What gives, kid? How come you beat us here?”

Blanchard said, “What gives, Hirohito?” (tcontinued on page 130)

THE BANDIT WANTED DOPE MORE THAN MONEY. THE WALLET THEFTS WERE SECONDARY. THEY WERE UNDERTAKEN TO OBSCURE THE PRIMARY MOTIVE.

Continued from page 112

Meeks jerked Blanchard’s necktie and snapped his head. Blanchard blushed.

Ashida pointed to the gizmo. “Mr. Pinker and I were testing this device. The store’s a patsy, so we chose it for our test site. Car wheels set off a camera under that tubing. We lucked into the robbery. The suspect’s plate number is KFE-621.”

Meeks winked and squatted by the gizmo. Blanchard got in the car and sent out the squawk. Meeks was a Dust Bowl vet and ex-cowboy film actor. He came on under James Edgar “Two-Gun” Davis. He was a bagman to Mayor Frank Shaw. The county grand jury sacked Shaw and Chief Davis. Meeks dodged 14 indictments.

Blanchard was an ex-heavyweight contender. He bought a house above the Sunset Strip with his fight stash. He cracked a big bank job in 1939 and cinched his cop reputation. He was shacked up with a woman—Kay something. Shack jobs were verboten under Chief C.B. Horrall. The chief was soft on Lee and turned a blind eye. Meeks and Blanchard were rumor magnets. The most prevalent: Lee was tight with Ben Siegel and the Jewish syndicate.

The drugstore was all hubbub. Voices bounced off the windows. Ashida looked inside. Pinker had the witnesses huddled.

Meeks picked his teeth and admired the gizmo. Blanchard stepped out of the K-car.

“The car was snatched in front of a pool hall on East Slauson. The 77th Street desk logged it at 8:16. It’s got to be a spook. White don’t survive from Jefferson south.”

Meeks checked his watch. “Call Traffic, tell them to issue a bulletin, and tell them to spice it up. One-man crime wave, armed and dangerous. Make it sound like a meatand-potatoes job.”

Blanchard made the Churchill V sign. Meeks primped in the window reflection. Ashida walked into the drugstore.

He imprinted the floor plan. He memorized the witnesses’ faces. He gauged distances geometrically. He moved his eyes, details accrued, he smelled body odors imbued with adrenaline.

Two white-coat pharmacists. A suit-andtie manager. Two old-lady customers. The fat pharmacist had a boil on his neck. The thin pharmacist had the shakes. One old lady was obese. Her vein pattern indicated arterial sclerosis.

The witnesses were pressed in tight.

Meeks walked behind the front counter and stood facing them.

“I’m Sergeant Turner Meeks, and I’m listening.”

The manager said, “He walked in and went straight to the pharmacy. He wore a mask and had a gun, but I don’t think it was the man who robbed us those other times. This man was taller and thinner.”

The pharmacists bobbed their heads— yeah, boss, we agree.

Meeks said, “What happened then?”

The fat pharmacist said, “He lined us up and stole our wallets. He walked us down the first pill aisle, stole a bottle of phénobarbital and fired his gun into the ceiling.”

Ashida prickled. There—the uncommon detail.

“Mr. Pinker and I were across the street. We would have heard the shot.”

The fat pharmacist went nix. “The gun had a silencer. It stuck off the end of the barrel.”

Ashida walked back to the pharmacy. Note the cash register, Hershey bars and Christmas-card display. He rang up a $1 sale. The money drawer popped open. The slots were stuffed with ones through 20s.

Instinct.

The bandit wanted dope more than money. The wallet thefts were secondary. They were undertaken to obscure the primary motive.

Anomaly.

Why steal only one bottle of phénobarbital? The action rebutted the dope-fiend robber archetype.

Ashida vaulted the counter and walked down the first aisle. There—no ejected shell casing. There—two options.

The robber picked it up or the gun was a revolver.

There—the bullet hole in the ceiling. Metal shards on the floor below— decomposed silencer threads.

He knelt down and studied them. The edges were burned from muzzle heat. The threads dropped off in little swirls.

Ashida walked back to the front counter. Pinker had his evidence kit. Meeks uncorked a bottle of drugstore hooch and passed it around. Blanchard raided the chewing-gum rack. Meeks stuffed his pockets full of rubbers.

The jug made the rounds. Ashida declined it. The pharmacists took healthy pulls. The old ladies giggled and sipped.

Blanchard said, “We got a kickback from Traffic. The car was dumped three blocks from here. We got glove prints on the dashboard so far.”

Meeks lit a cigar. “Did he touch anything inside the store? Can you folks help me with that?”

The fat pharmacist coughed. “He brushed the comic-book rack on his way out. I think he might have snagged his coat.”

Pinker went Now. Ashida caught it and ducked past the witnesses. The rack was stuffed with Mickey Mouse and Tarzan. Ashida swiveled it twice. Nothing and nothing. Yes—right there.

Bright red threads, attached to one prong.

Wool felt, densely woven, familiar.

Ashida pulled out a pen and evidence

envelope. He plucked the threads and sealed them. He wrote “211 PC/Whelan’s Drugstore/10:09 A.M., 12/6/41” on the envelope flap.

More laughs up front—Blanchard and Meeks made like the Ritz Brothers. Ashida sniffed the envelope. He smelled the fabric through the paper. He made the synaptic catch.

The suspected MP rapist. The fibers off his armband. Pinker said he just raped another lady. The fool wore the armband on his rape prowls.

There was no red in the robber’s overcoat. The rack prongs were situated at the man’s waist level. The overcoat featured open-topped pockets. The fabric threads might have come from something sticking out. He had comparison fibers at his mother’s place. He could confirm or exclude the match.

There’s the whistle—Pinker’s I need

you now.

Ashida tracked the sound. Pinker was back in the pharmacy. He had his evidence camera out. He shot three exposures of the bullet hole, three exposures of the silencer shards.

“This job intrigues me. He didn’t terrorize the witnesses with the gun, he didn’t steal till cash, he squeezed a gunshot off for kicks.”

Ashida nodded. “It’s as if he was testing the silencer. And why did he only steal one bottle of the phénobarbital?”

Pinker nodded. “I like the test-fire theory. It’s obviously a homemade suppressor, because you’ve got thread burns from a single firing. Eight or 10 shots would render the thing useless.”

“You’re right, and the manager said it’s not the same man who robbed the store on the prior occasions. Whatever his primary and secondary motives, he picked out a patsy.”

Pinker scooped shards into an envelope.

“There’s probably a crawl space between the ceiling and the roof.”

The ceiling was made from loose gypsum-board panels. Ashida jumped and popped the one beside the bullet hole. Pinker made hand stirrups. Ashida caught the boost and got up.

The crawl space was all mildewed planks and cobwebs. Ashida hoisted himself in. He smelled stale gunpowder. He stood up and snagged himself on a cobweb. He brushed it off and got out his pocket flashlight. The beam caught insect swarms and a scurrying rat. There—six decomposed bullet chunks.

Be careful. You’ve been in this from inception. There’s your official duty—and there’s you.

Stanford, 1936. Introductory Forensics: “All true clinicians succumb and hoard evidence. The practice creates a symbiosis of it and you.”

He checked his watch. He held the flashlight in his teeth and got out another envelope. He wrote “211 PC/Whelan’s Drugstore/10:16 A.M., 12/6/41” on the front. He scooped four bullet chunks into it. He put the other two in his pocket.

The rat squirmed by him. He brushed himself off and dropped out of the hole. He landed deftly. He saw Buzz Meeks eyeballing the narcotics shelves.

“Look at this, kid.”

Ashida looked. Bingo—four bottle rows neatly arrayed. The fifth row—disarrayed. Vials of morphine paregoric—rifled, for sure.

“The pharmacist said he only stole phénobarbital.”

Meeks said, “Yeah, and I believe him. But the skinny pharmacy guy’s got the heebie-jeebies, and his shirt collar’s soaked through. My guess is he’s got a habit.”

“Yes. He took advantage of the robbery to steal a vial of the paregoric. He only took what the robber could have carried on his person, and what he could hide himself.”

Meeks winked. “You are so right, Char-

lie Chan.”

“I’m Japanese, Sergeant. I know you can’t tell the difference, but I’m not a goddamn Chinaman.”

Meeks grinned. “You look like an American to me.”

Ashida went swoony. Praise always made

him flutter like a-

He glanced up front. Pinker dusted the door. Blanchard scrounged razor blades off the manager. The hophead pharmacist was green at the gills. His hands twitched, his Adam’s apple bob-bobbed.

Meeks walked up to him and grabbed his necktie. The tie was a leash. Meeks pulled him back to the pharmacy and shoved him into Ashida. The hophead pissed his pants. Ashida shoved him into the counter and checked himself for stains.

The hophead quaked. The piss stain spread. Meeks pulled the sap off his belt.

“You swipe a jug of the paregoric? That a regular practice of yours?”

“One a week, boss. I’m cutting down. If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”

“You got 30 seconds to convince me that you didn’t finger this here robbery. You got 29 seconds as of right now.”

The hophead made prayer hands. “Not me, boss. I went to pharmacy school at Saint John Bosco J.C. I was raised by the Dominican brothers.”

Meeks grabbed a bottle of morph off the shelf. The hophead licked his lips.

“Who are you going to call to snitch off pushers in exchange for confiscated hop? Who’s your Oklahoma-born-andbred papa?”

“S-S-S-Sergeant T-T-Turner M-M-Meeks. He’s my daddy—if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”

Meeks tossed the jug at him. The hophead caught it and vamoosed down the

aisle. Meeks said, “You’re fastidious, Ashida. I don’t know why you got such a fascination for this line of work.”

The party up front was adjourning. Blanchard hugged the old ladies. The manager whipped out a camera and took snapshots. He got Pinker with his print brush and Big Lee in a boxer’s crouch. Meeks walked over and traded mock blows with him. The old ladies squealed.

They all waved bye-bye on the sidewalk. Ashida smoothed out his suit coat and let the crowd disperse. Pinker, Blanchard and Meeks stood over the gizmo. Blanchard and Meeks had that holy-shit look.

Ashida walked outside and over. A prowl car swung north and grazed the curb. Pinker, Blanchard and Meeks snapped to. Pinker said, “Look sharp now.”

Meeks said, “Whiskey Bill.”

Blanchard said, “Pious cocksucker.”

A uniformed captain got out and inspected the gizmo. He wore glasses. He was dark-haired, midsize and trim. Odds on Captain William H. Parker.

Ashida snapped to. Parker examined the feeder cords. Pinker, Blanchard and Meeks stood at parade rest.

Parker toed the cord. “It’s innovative, but the wider practical applications are eluding me. Address this point and describe the creative genesis and full mechanical workings in significant detail, and have your report on my desk by nine A.M. tomorrow.”

Ashida and Pinker nodded.

Parker looked at Meeks. “You’re offensively overweight. Lose 30 pounds within the next 30 days, or I’ll have Chief Horrall put you on the Fat Husband’s Diet recently extolled in the Ladies’ Home Journal.” Meeks nodded.

Parker looked at Blanchard. “Roll

down your sleeves. Your mermaid tattoo is repugnant.”

Blanchard rolled down his sleeves.

Parker tapped his watch. “It’s now 10:31. I want a stolen-car report, with a synopsis of the robbery, on my desk in 59 minutes.”

Pinker nodded. Ashida nodded. Ditto Blanchard and Meeks. Parker got in his car and took off.

Meeks said, “Whiskey Bill.”

Blanchard said, “He lost money on my fight with Jimmy Bivins. He can’t let it go.”

Pinker said, “The fight was fixed. You should have told him.”

10:32 A.M.

Army half-tracks rolled down Spring. Trucks hauling howitzers tailed them. The convoy ran for blocks. It was all over the radio. Fortifications for defense plants and Fort MacArthur.

Soldier drivers waved to the locals. Pedestrians stopped to applaud. Men doffed their hats, kids cheered, women blew kisses.

The traffic rumble was bad. Ashida cut east on Fourth Street and north on Broadway. Passersby kept eyeing him.

He felt disembodied. He broke the law to observe lawlessness from a criminal act’s inception. He succumbed to criminal pathology. He initiated an experiment. Would early access and distanced empathy allow him to understand criminals more clearly?

Introductory Forensics. He knew he’d succumb in time. He’d know the case as it grabbed him. That symbiosis—it and you.

He seized a textbook opportunity. He had to determine the pathology of a prosaic heist and report his findings first. His findings might serve the greater cause of forensic criminology. His findings might serve no cause at all. He was compelled to act. He was quintessentially Japanese. Japanese men were born to embody the concept of Act.

Ashida turned east and hit Little Tokyo. His pulse decelerated, his breath relaxed. A black-and-white cruised by. The driver recognized him and waved.

His mother had a walk-up at Second and San Pedro. The halls always reeked of broiled eel. He had his own apartment, across from Belmont High.

It was brimful of lab gear. The overflow filled his old bedroom at his mother’s place. Mariko welcomed his intrusions. They allowed her to torque him at whim.

Ashida entered the building and unlocked the door. The place was quiet. Mariko was off somewhere, probably boozing and fomenting. He walked to his old bedroom and locked himself in.

Shelves packed with textbooks. Chemical vials and vats. Beakers, Bunsen burners, a hot plate. A spectrograph and three microscopes bolted to a table.

Ashida placed the bullet chunks on the table and grabbed his ammo-ID text. He held a magnifying glass over the chunks and studied the creases and dents.

The bullet pierced gypsum. The book

was cross-referenced—ammo types to material fired upon. The photos were clear. Page 68—gypsum board. Two pages on—a bullet fragment with near-identical creases and dents.

The classic German firearm. The ninemillimeter Luger.

The Luger had a floating-toggle ejector. The rounds always arced slowly. A deft shooter could catch an ejected shell in the air.

He ID’d the bullet independently. He withheld two fragments. He gave Ray Pinker the remaining four. Pinker would or would not ID them.

Pinker was not as skilled at bullet identification. He was cultivating this evidential lead all by himself.

The fibers next.

Pinker knew he kept the book-rack fibers. Pinker knew he had the armband fibers here. They were sharing this lead. It was hypothetical, thus far.

Ashida got out both fiber sets. They looked naked-eye similar. He placed them under the slides of his comparison microscope.

He swiveled in close. He scanned for texture and color consistency. Almost, almost, go in closer still. Yes—the book-rack fibers were cut from the same type of armband cloth.

He could boil out the fabric dye and blotter-dry it. He could run chemical tests. The tests carried their own systematic flaws. The results would prove inconclusive.

A key-in-lock noise jarred him. He

walked into the living room. Mariko had 11 A.M. booze breath.

He said, “Hello, Mother.” She spoke slurred Japanese back. He bowed and tried to take her hand. She pulled away and flashed a magazine.

A “picture bride” rag. Choose a photograph and send for a young woman. She’ll be shipped from Japan. Include the $500 steamship fare. All brides guaranteed to be fertile and subservient.

“I’ve told you, Mother. I’m not going to marry a 15-year-old girl out of a brothel.” “You too old to be bachelor. Neighbors get suspicious.”

“The neighbors don’t concern me. Akira’s a bachelor, why don’t you pester him?” Mariko segued to pidgin talk. She learned it in railroad camps, circa 1905. She spoke it to demean his education.

“Speak straight English, Mother. You’ve been here for 36 years.”

Mariko plopped on the couch. “Franklin Double-Cross Rosenfeld back down to Minister Togo. ‘U.S. surrender to China imminent,’ Chiang Kai-shek say.”

Ashida laughed. “You’ve got your geopolitics confused, Mother. I’d ask you where you heard it, but I’m afraid you’ll tell me.”

Mariko giggled. “Father Coughlin. Christian Front. ‘No war for Jew bankers,’ Gerald F.K. Smith say. Lucky Lindy ichiban. He fly Atlantic solo, land at Hirohito’s feet.” Enough.

Ashida walked to the kitchen. The Hiram Walker’s Ten High stood by the dish rack.

Ashida poured a double shot and walked it in to Mariko. She knocked it back and teeheed. She patted the couch.

He sat down. “Tell me something that isn’t crazy. Pretend that I’m Akira and we have business to discuss.”

“Farm profits up 16 percent last quarter. Jew accountant find way to deduct bribes to Captain Madrano. He say, ‘Care and feeding of wetbacks good deduction.’ ” Ashida tapped her arm. “Parts of speech, Mother. Don’t drop your articles. You always do it when you’ve been drinking.” Mariko jabbed his arm. “This better? I read about Bucky Bleichen in the Herald. It say he got fight coming up, but it don’t say my son’s friend a cream puff who only fight bums he can beat. It don’t say my son think his mama’s fifth column, but Bucky’s papa fifth column, because he in German American Bund.”

Sucker punch. She got drunk, she played dumb, she hit low.

“Don’t talk that way about Bucky, Mama. You know it isn’t true.”

“Bucky scaredy-cat. Afraid to fight Mexican boy. Papa in Bund, Bucky cream puff.” Ashida stood up and knocked over a lamp stand. Mariko put two fingers over her lips and went Sieg Heil! Ashida swerved to his room and slammed the door.

The room was too hot now. Heat pressurized his chemicals and caused vapor leak. He turned on the fan and called the Robbery squad room direct.

He got three rings. He heard, “It’s Meeks, and I’m listening.”

“Hideo Ashida, Sergeant.”

“Yeah, and you’re Johnny-on-the-spot, given what time it is. Did you call to tell me something I don’t know?”

“I did, yes.”

Meeks coughed. “Then tell me, because I’m listening.”

“The book-rack fiber matched the armband fiber. It is the same cloth, so it’s quite likely that the fiber came from an Armyissue armband. It may or may not be the exact armband worn by the same man, but it is the same cloth, and the chronological order of the crimes makes the rapist a suspect for the robbery.”

Meeks whistled. “Well, I think I should tell Dudley Smith about this. He’ll see what Jack Horrall wants to do.”

Ashida said, “What do you mean?” “Well, you got the rape-to-armedrobbery parlay, and the likelihood of some U.S. armed services fiend on the loose. It sounds like this guy’s good for some mother dog shit, and it might notch us some cachet with the Army if we stop this short of a court-martial.”

Ashida gulped. “Or a civilian trial?” “You’re getting the picture, son. Mrs. Ashida didn’t raise any dumb kids.”

Ashida dropped the receiver. Squadroom noise bounced up off the floor.

He chose this male world. He’s learning its customs and codes. It’s unbearably thrilling.

Excerpted from the novel Perfidia, to be published this month by Alfred A. Knopf.