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living off chump change and aging fruits. I saw him kiss a girl by the bread bin. I saw him kiss a boy in the soup aisle. He moved with a weirdo grace. He wasn’t froufrou or masculine. He was in on some exalted joke.
    I saw him boost a carton of Pall Malls. I cornered him, cuffed him, and hauled him upstairs. His name was James Dean. He was from Bumfuck, Indiana. He was an actor and a bohemian you-name-it. He explained that Pall Mall cigarettes were queer code. The In hoc signo vinces on the pack meant “In this sign you shall conquer.” Homos flashed Pall Malls and ID’d each other. It was all-new shit to me.
    I let Jimmy off with a warning. We started hanging out in the office. We tipped Old Crow, looked down on the floor, and gassed on the humanoids. Jimmy habituated the leather bars in East Hollywood. He ratted off pushers and celebrity quiffs and filled a whole side of my dirt bin. I told him about my smut-film and male-prosty gigs. I promised him a date with Donkey Don Eversall in exchange for hot dirt.
    We’d hit silent stretches. I’d scan the floor. Jimmy would read scandal rags.
    They were just popping up. Peep, Transom, Whisper, Tattle, Lowdown. Titillation texts. Lurid language marred by mitigation. Insipid innuendo.
    Politicos got slurred as Red—but never nailed past implication. Jimmy loved the rags but said they weren’t sufficiently sordid or precise in their prose. He called them “timid tipster texts.” He said, “You’ve got better skank than this, Freddy. I could give you three issues’ worth from one night at the Cockpit Lounge.”
    A bell bonged—faint and far-off. Memory is revised retrospection. Oh, yeah—fate fungooed me that night.
    A newsboy pulled a red wagon into the market. It was stacked with magazines. He began filling the racks.
    A cover caught my eye. Primary colors and big headlines screamed.
    The magazine was called Confidential.

6
    Beverly Hills Hotel
8/14/53

    Joi woke me up. I was nudging off a nightmare. Double dip: Ralph Mitchell Horvath shot in the mouth, Manolo Sanchez with skeleton claws.
    I looked across the bed. Shit—Liz was gone.
    Joi read my mind. “She had an early call. She said to remind you that Arthur Crowley wants that phone date.”
    I lit a cigarette. I chased three bennies with Old Crow. Aaaaaaah, breakfast of champions!
    “Remind me again. Who’s Arthur Crowley?”
    “That divorce lawyer who needs your help.”
    “I’ll call him when I go off-duty.”
    Joi stepped into a skirt and pulled her shoes on. She dressed as fast as most men.
    “No more girls for a while, okay, Freddy? Liz is great, but Barb is like Helga, She Wolf of the SS. Really, that stunt with the armband and the garters? That and she hogs the whole bed.”
    I laffed loud and lewd. My wake-up whipped through me and canceled cobwebs. Summer in L.A.— ring-a-ding-ding!!
    Joi kissed me and bopped out of the bungalow. I shit, shaved, showered, and put on my uniform.
    The bedroom phone rang. I snagged it. A man said, “Mr. Otash, this is Arthur Crowley.”
    I buffed my badge with my necktie. A mirror magnetized me. Man, oh Manischewitz, I looked good!
    “Mr. Crowley, it’s a pleasure.”
    Crowley said, “Sir, I’ll be blunt. I’m swamped with pissed-off husbands and wives looking to take each other to the cleaners. Legal statutes are in flux, and divorce-court judges are demanding proof of adultery. Liz Taylor told me you might have some ideas.”
    I lit a cigarette. Benzedrine arched through my arteries and piqued my pizzazz.
    “I do have ideas. If you have flexible scruples, I think we can do biz.”
    Crowley laffed. “I’m listening.”
    I said, “I know some Marines stationed down at Camp Pendleton. I was their DI in ’43 and ’44, and now they’re back from Korea and looking for kicks. It’s a parlay. Hot rods, good-looking shills, walkie-talkies, phone drops, and Speed Graphic cameras.”
    Crowley hooted. “Semper fi, sir. You’re a white man in my book.”
    “