“And that’s still our intention.”

“I didn’t do anything to Dominic. I really didn’t.”

“Easy, Alicia. I didn’t say you did. I said we’d be trying to keep you out of jail. And just to try to prepare you for possible eventualities, maybe keeping you out of jail won’t be possible after all. That’s a major part of the job, but it’s not the only part.”

“No, that won’t work. It’s got to be the major part, Mickey. Don’t you understand? I didn’t do anything.” Again, she emphasized her point by reaching over and putting a hand on his leg. “I can’t go to jail.”

“That’s what Ian said too. He said he thought it would kill you.” He looked over at her as now she pulled her hand away from him, came forward, and hunched over, her hands clasped in her lap. “I was hoping to reassure you that even if it came to that, you could get through it.”

“How can you say that? How can you know? Have you ever been in jail?”

“No, but I know-”

She cut him off, her voice loud, and harsh. “I don’t care what you know! You can’t know until you’ve been there. It’s not what you think, okay? They’ve got complete control over you. I can’t go there again.”

Suddenly the bartender was back with them. “Everything okay here?”

Alicia threw a look at Mickey, then up. “Fine. We’re fine,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Just try to keep it down a little back here, then, huh?”

When he went back to the bar, they sat in silence for a long minute. Finally Mickey said, “Again?”

She was back to being hunched over, her breathing heavy.

“Alicia?”

At last, with a deep sigh, she straightened up. “The cops shouldn’t have it. It shouldn’t be on my record. I wasn’t even eighteen. It’s supposed to be erased. It was just a joyride and a stupid accident.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“No. Just me, a little. But the car belonged to the house I was staying in, the guy there’s a fucking pervert, and I stole his fucking car, which ended that particular shot at my domestic bliss with stepparents. But the jail part was…” She stopped, looked pleadingly at him. “Nobody knows this except Ian.”

“You don’t have to say,” Mickey said. “I’ve got a good imagination.”

“I thought because there were only women on that side of the jail…”

Mickey moved over next to her, put his arm around her, and brought her in next to him. “Nobody’s going to let you go to jail,” he said. “That’s not going to happen. I promise.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Mickey regretted them. You didn’t promise when you couldn’t absolutely deliver; it was one of the mantras he and Tamara had lived by-a promise is a promise, they used to say.

But this particular horse was already out of the barn, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

When Wyatt Hunt opened his office door in Chinatown the next morning at eight forty-three, Tamara was at her old desk. She’d told him on Saturday night that if he’d take her back, she would be there, but actually seeing her in the flesh gave him a hopeful jolt of adrenaline. Maybe the firm would get back on its feet again and this was the first sign that things were turning around.

She glanced at her wristwatch, then up to her boss, her face alight. “I didn’t realize that you’d changed your hours.”

At a glance, she looked good, lightly made up with lipstick, mascara, and eye shadow. A black silk blouse under a multicolored scarf around her neck camouflaged her protruding collarbones. The overall effect was nothing like anorexia. She’d obviously lost some weight, of course, but Hunt might not have noticed anything amiss if he hadn’t seen her and had his arms around her two nights before.

Still, reluctant to embarrass her on the one hand, or to scare her off with overeffusiveness on the other, he kept his greeting low-key. “So the cat actually did drag you in. For the record, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you sitting there again.”

“I can’t tell you how good it feels to be sitting here again.” She hesitated, then added, “I really want to thank you for letting this happen, Wyatt. I don’t know too many other people who would be okay with taking me back.”

“Anybody who’d had you working for them once would take you back in a New York minute, Tam. I’m the one who should be thanking you. And I do.”

“Okay.” She lowered her eyes, then raised them back up to him, a trace of her old impish smile playing around her mouth. “Do you think we can be through with all of this yucky stuff pretty soon?”

“Absolutely. No more yuck, starting now.”

“Good. Mickey’s already out on that Len Turner list you gave him. He’ll check in when he’s done or a little before lunch, whichever comes first. And Devin Juhle called. No message, just please call him back when you get in.”

“Got it. And, Tam”-he stopped on his way to the back office and stood by the side of her desk-“one last bit of yuck.”

She sighed with some theatricality-one of her mannerisms from the old days which he loved. “Okay, one. What?”

Striking fast, he leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Welcome back.”

On his way to the Sunset Youth Project administrative offices at Ortega Street and Sunset Boulevard, Mickey couldn’t get Como’s $650,000 salary out of his brain. Or Sunset’s $50 million- per-year operating budget. These dollar figures shifted his initial take on Como’s murder. This much money around, it was likely in play.

And as far as this went, it was good news for Alicia. If she was of any interest at all to the police, it was not because of money, but because of her relationship to Como.

As Alicia had told him, information on nonprofits was a matter of public record, and hence easily accessible. With Len Turner’s list to guide him, Mickey had done some computer research last night and verified that the three largest nonprofits where Como had a seat on the board-the Mission Street Coalition, Sanctuary House, and Halfway Home-each operated with a budget of over $30 million per year. Since none of these quite matched the size and scope of the Sunset Youth Project, Mickey’s first call was on Como’s home turf.

The two-story building wasn’t much of a scenic destination. The low, overcast skies didn’t help much either.

Standing across the street, Mickey was struck by how sad and nondescript the place looked. The grounds took up an entire city block. Off to his left side, behind a twelve-foot cyclone fence with razor wire threaded around the top, were a deserted asphalt playground, four basketball hoops with no nets, a metallic climbing structure, and parking for half a dozen cars, including a Lincoln Town Car limousine.

Over the front doorway, a flag hung at half-mast.

Inside now, Mickey walked through the wide, low lobby-again, echoes of public schools he’d attended. A dozen or more young people loitered by the stairway on his right. He was headed toward a directory mounted on the wall in front of him, but noticed that the large office next to it, venetian blinds behind the glass, was lit up and obviously occupied, its door wide open. Stenciled on the glass were the words: Sunset Youth Project, Office of the Executive Director. Inside the large room, more loiterers stood around between the desks behind the counter. Mickey slapped on a smile and knocked. “Excuse me,” he said, “I’m looking for Lorraine Hess.”

The associate director stood behind the desk in her office and reached out a hand to shake Mickey’s.

Dominic Como, Mickey was quickly learning, had an eye for lovely women. First the truly beautiful Alicia Thorpe, and now his assistant director. Solidly built, more than slightly overweight, and even in rimless eyeglasses, Lorraine Hess clearly at one time had been a babe and, except for the weight, wasn’t so far from still being one. She wore a rust-colored woolen suit over a plain white blouse, the ensemble a few years out of style. Her hair, shoulder-length and mostly gray, was a riot of mismanagement, but not unattractive, and of a piece with the sultry, sunken bedroom eyes. Once, not so long ago, she might have been distractingly prettier, and might even be now if she’d give more thought to her appearance. But this clearly wasn’t much of a concern to her. And especially not today, the first business day after the discovery of Como’s body.