I sat there staring at the screen for a long moment, wondering if I had just stumbled onto something more significant than a way to take a jab at the feds. I wondered if what I had just read could in some way be connected to my own investigation. Could the agents on the ninth floor in Westwood have connected the movie money to this terrorist?

My thoughts were broken by a loudspeaker announcement that the library was closing in fifteen minutes. I clicked on the PRINT button for the story and went back to the story list. I scrolled through the headlines, looking for follow-ups to the Aziz arrest. I found only one, which was published two days after the first story. I called it up and found it to be only a short. It said that an arraignment for Aziz was postponed indefinitely while he was continuing to be debriefed by federal agents. The tone of the article indicated that Aziz was cooperating with investigators, though it did not specifically or clearly say that. The story said that changes in federal laws enacted after the September 11 attacks gave federal authorities wide leeway in holding suspected terrorists as enemy combatants. The rest of the story was background information already contained in the first story.

I went back to the list and continued to scroll through the headlines. It took nearly ten minutes but I never found another story about Mousouwa Aziz.

The loudspeaker announced that the library was closing. I looked around and saw Mrs. Molloy back at the front desk. She was putting things away in the drawers, getting ready to go home. I decided that I now didn’t want Parenting Today to know what I had been looking up on the computer. At least not right away. So I stayed in the cubicle until after the next announcement that the library was closed. I stayed until Mrs. Molloy came to the cubicle and told me I had to leave. She had my printouts. I paid her then folded the printouts and put them in my coat pocket with my notebook. I thanked her and left the reference room.

On my way out I pretended that I was studying the mosaics and architecture of the building, turning several times in complete circles in the rotunda as I watched for the tail man. I never saw him and began to wonder if I was being overly paranoid.

It looked like I was the last to leave through the public exit. I thought about finding the employee exit and waiting for Mrs. Molloy to come out so I could ask her if she had been questioned about me and my research requests. But I thought maybe I would only end up scaring her and let it go.

Alone as I walked through the third level of the garage toward my car, I felt the faint chill of fear move down my spine. Whether I was being tailed or not, I had successfully spooked myself. I picked up my pace and was almost trotting by the time I got to the door of the Mercedes.

Paranoia is not always a bad thing. It can help you keep an edge and sometimes an edge is the difference. From the library I headed over to Broadway and then toward the Civic Center. It might seem normal enough, an ex-cop heading toward the police department. Nothing unusual about that. But as I got to the Los Angeles Times complex I yanked the wheel hard left without using the brakes or a turn signal and sliced through oncoming traffic into the Third Street tunnel. I pinned the accelerator and the Mercedes responded, the front end rising like a boat as it picked up speed and roared through the three-block tunnel.

As often as I could I checked the rearview mirror for a follower. The tiles on the rounded walls of the tunnel carried headlights like halos. Filmmakers rent it from the city all the time for that reason. Any car trying to keep pace with me would be advertising, unless the lights were turned off, and that would be just as obvious in the mirror.

I was smiling. I’m not sure why. Having a possible FBI tail isn’t necessarily something to be happy about. And the FBI is generally humorless about it as well. But I felt all at once that I had made the right move with the Mercedes. The car was flying. I was up high-higher than in any police car I had ever been in-so I had a good view in the mirror. It was as if I had planned for this and the plan was working. And that brought the smile.

As I came out of the tunnel I hit the brakes and took a hard right. The thick tires held the pavement, and when I was clear of the mouth of the tunnel I stopped completely. I waited, my eyes on the mirror. Of the cars that came out of the tunnel none turned right behind me and none even braked as they went through the intersection. If I had a tail I had either lost it or the follower was proficient enough at the game to be willing to lose the target in order to avoid obvious exposure. The latter didn’t fit with the way Parenting Today had been so obvious in the library.

The third possibility I had to now consider was electronic surveillance. The bureau could have easily tricked my car at almost any point during the day. In the garage at the library a tech could have slid under and wired it. The same tech could have been waiting for me to show up at the federal building as well. This of course would mean that they already knew of my ride about town with Roy Lindell. I was tempted to call the agent and warn him but decided that I shouldn’t use my cell phone to contact him.

I shook my head. Maybe paranoia was not such a good thing after all. It can help you keep an edge but it can also paralyze you. I pulled back into traffic and worked my way over to the Hollywood Freeway. I kept my eyes off the rear view as much as possible.

The freeway is elevated as it cuts through Hollywood and into the Cahuenga Pass. It offers a good view of the place where I spent the most significant part of my time as a cop. With just glancing looks I could pick out some of the buildings where I had worked cases. The Capitol Records building, designed to resemble a stack of records. The Usher Hotel, now being renovated as luxury apartments as part of the Hollywood core-area redesign and development. I could see the lighted homes rising up on the dark hillsides in Beechwood Canyon and Whitley Heights. I could see the ten-story image of a local basketball legend on the side of an otherwise nondescript office building. Smaller in stature but still covering the side of a building was a Marlboro Man with a drooping cigarette in his mouth, his steely coolness replaced by a symbol of impotence.

Hollywood was always best viewed at night. It could only hold its mystique in darkness. In sunlight the curtain comes up and the intrigue is gone, replaced by a sense of hidden danger. It was a place of takers and users, of broken sidewalks and dreams. You build a city in the desert, water it with false hopes and false idols, and eventually this is what happens. The desert reclaims it, turns it arid, leaves it barren. Human tumbleweeds drift across its streets, predators hide in the rocks.

I took the Mulholland exit and crossed over the freeway, then at the split took Woodrow Wilson on up the side of the mountain. My house was dark. The only light I saw when I came through the carport door was the red glow from the answering machine on the kitchen counter. I hit a light switch and then pushed the PLAYBACK button on the phone.

There were two messages. The first was from Kiz Rider and she had already told me about that. The second was from Lawton Cross. He had held back on me once again. He said he had something, his voice croaking into the phone like static. I pictured his wife holding the phone to his mouth.

The message had been left two hours before. It was getting late but I called back. The man lived in a chair. What was late to him? I had no idea.

Danny Cross answered. She must have had caller ID on the phone because her hello was clipped and carried an edge of malice in it. Or was I reading too much into it?