"You know who she is?" the lawyer asked doubtfully. "She's a spoil of war, Frank," grinned the old Don. "A spoil of war."

Curtis opened his briefcase and began to speak directly. "The D.A.'s office is moving against Domenico this afternoon. They're going to charge him with the cop's death." Buck's face was a mask of vicious fury. "Hamilton has a deposition from the same doctors that Dom can be moved from the Grace Mission to the prison hospital without harming him.

""

"Stop it!" thundered the old man. His heavy fist smashed down on the covered table and cups rattled.

"I can't, Don Giovanni," Curtis' tone of voice was resigned. "There must be a witness we don't know about yet I hear that Sapora and Bennett haven't been in for two days at the D.A.'s and their cases have been reassigned. It looks like they're inter- rogating or guarding a very special source."

"Pezanski and Owens were taken off the duty roster," Buck's mood had changed again. Now he was all business.

Curtis nodded. "That confirms it. They have a witness. They'd be stupid to move on this one without an airtight case. Did you....." he coughed and mumbled, "er....did you investi- gate Hamilton's background?"

Buck grunted. "We can't get him through money and he has no kids. Brothers's divorced and that's being checked on. Don't look for help from that source."

There was silence for a little while between the two men. "This witness could put Dom away for a long time," said Franklin Curtis quietly.

"If he testifies," the dark, beady eyes glittered as the words came out of the slab-like mouth.

(Later)

Bud Hamilton was thoroughly depressed. He could remem- ber having said to some cop sometime that transvestites were people, too. They had feelings, and should be respected for what they were. Such noble thoughts, he mused bitterly, and so ob- viously not true when they applied to family and sexual abnor- mality came really close to himself.

"Well?"he barked at Al Seivers in the back of the monitor- ing truck. "What's happening now?"

Seivers raised an eyebrow to the other operator. "She's at a fashion show now with Buck's niece," he said.

Hamilton glowered. There hadn't been a thing yet on the tape to show Jack Buck or his family had anything more than a

-65-