He called West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station and asked about the nightly activity. A Detective Jack Cleveland reported no murders. There had been assaults but all the suspects involved had been apprehended. The rest of the roster was taken up by burglaries and robberies—none of the details seemed to match the information Noam Levine had given his aunt. It was useless to go down and start questioning the patrons of local gay bars. Nothing public was open at this hour. He’d come back to it if necessary.

Next he phoned Central Substation. Downtown L.A. At last, he received some promising information. An ADW had gone down about four hours ago in an alley near the Hall of Records. The detective just assigned to the case was named Felipe Benderhoff. He reported that the victim—a six-one, two-hundred-pound, middle-aged WM named Thomas Stoner—was in serious but stable condition at Good Sam. Rather than get the details over the phone, Decker asked Benderhoff if he’d mind waiting for him to come down. It’d be easier to talk to him directly. Benderhoff said if Decker had some solid leads, he’d be happy to wait.

Decker hung up and tiptoed into the bedroom. Rina had conked out, her body entwined with the bedcovers. He smiled and imagined her leg draped around him instead of the quilt. He kept that picture in his mind as he rode the freeway to downtown.

Central Substation, on the corner of Wall and Sixth, was a block-long brick, windowless building fronted by an ornate mosaic of LAPD’s finest at work. Catercorner to it was the Greyhound Bus Terminal, a haven for the homeless on a rainy night. The other two corners were occupied by parking lots. Upon first glance, they seemed empty. But Decker took a further look and before long all sorts of furtive, feral things started darting through the darkness. Central was deep inside the mean streets, the surrounding blocks taken up by mental cases cursing at the moon, by drunks and addicts huddled under doorposts, shivering in tatters. Then there were the dealers. There was a watch spot right on the roof of the stationhouse. Officers would watch the buy go down with a telescope and swoop in for the arrest. But it was like an eagle going after an anthill. Mess things up for a moment, but come back the next day, there’s another anthill.

He parked the unmarked in the back lot, entered the reception area and was escorted to the detectives’ squad room by a black plainclothes cop whose biceps were straining the sleeves of his shirt. The room was good-sized, much larger than Foothill, but it wasn’t furnished any better. The desks were either metal or raw wood and none of the chairs matched. Decker did notice that they had computers at most desks and push-button speaker phones.