Outside, the sun was an old warm friend. Sometimes I think California owns all the beautiful weather in the world – or is at least in charge of handing it out to the rest of the world after it's used there.

Wyatt bumped into a woman who'd worked on his show. When he stopped to say hello, Sasha said we'd get the car and bring it around.

She walked straight out into the traffic without looking. I snatched her back. "Take it easy, Sash. Slow down." We looked at each other, then I aimed us across the whizzing street, still holding her arm.

"Will you stay at my place, Weber? You're not going to take a hotel room, are you?"

"Not if you don't want. Sure I'll stay with you."

"Good." She wouldn't look at me. "Sometimes I sleep okay. Sometimes 1 go through the whole night and have no dreams. But you know what I do when I can't sleep? Watch Finky Linky tapes. – o'clock in the morning laughing at old videos of The Finky Linky Show. That's why I was so surprised to see him here. It was as if he'd just stepped out of his bread shoes into my living room. They were Phil's tapes. He watched them all the time."

There was nothing to say to that. We hustled across the street and into one of the parking lots. After a few minutes of looking here and there, she stopped in front of a vintage 1969 black Jaguar XKE. Phil's car. The only person I ever knew who bought a car because it looked like a German fountain pen.

"The Montblanc is still around, huh? He always said he was going to buy something else."

"It tickled him to look at it. He and Flea used to ride around town with the top down, Flea snorting and Phil listening to his Paolo Conte tapes.

"I think he probably left the car to you, Weber. Don't be surprised if you get most of his things. You and Jackie." She unlocked the door on my side and stood very close, looking at me.

"What about you?"

"Let's wait to talk about that. I'm too nervous and edgy now. I'd like to get used to having you here before we get into any of the big stuff. Okay?"

Before I could answer, she did something that took me completely by surprise. Putting her raw, wounded hands on either side of my head, she pulled me over for a big kiss on the mouth. Her lips stayed closed and the kiss was more like a hard, reassuring handshake, but it went on a long time and I was slightly out of breath when she let go.

She looked pleased with herself. "You don't mind, do you?" Not waiting for an answer, she walked away and unlocked the other door. "I'm so happy you're here. Let's go get Finky Linky."

I have been in the houses of two people who'd recently died. When Venasque had a stroke, I went to his house with Phil to get a suit in which to bury the old man. What was most disturbing there was the incompleteness of everything. A chair in the living room slightly askew, a half-full bottle of ketchup waiting in the refrigerator, a magazine in the bathroom open to an article on Don Johnson. I remember feeling compelled to close that magazine, straighten the chair so it was plumb with the rest of the room. Things left at hurried, sloppy angles, things that would have been straightened or used up or finished if the tenant had only had the chance to return and screw caps back on, sit on the can one last time, give five minutes to finishing the dumb article on his favorite TV star.

Strayhorn's house was worse. After dropping Wyatt and Sasha off at her apartment, I took the car and drove to Phil's. I had to because, until I did, I'd be haunted by my imaginings. I had to see for myself where he'd shot himself (all I could picture was a blood-spattered copy of Rilke's poetry), the empty dog basket, a cupped dip in the blue couch where he'd sat for the last time.

I also wanted to see what was in his medicine cabinet. Was there still laundry in the washing machine? What other things did he hold in his hand the last day of his life? What work had he done? Any record on the turntable? Final glimpses, details, a clue. Is that perverse? In an autopsy, the medical examiner tells you what the person had for a last meal. Disgusting or clinical, it meant something, if only: This is what was there at the end. Pathetic or impressive. X marks the spot. It stopped here. A sweater on a chair, birdseed on the kitchen counter, a new painting I'd never seen before. The end.

I've been lying. When confronted with wonder we usually lie or shut up. We must. Impossible things demand silence for some time at least. I've said nothing about the impossible things that had been happening almost from the moment I'd heard of his death in New York. The videotape from him that never ended. Sasha's illness and miraculous pregnancy (if it were true). What Wyatt had told me on the plane about Phil and Pinsleepe, the Angel of Death. Or the coming to life of my tattoo.

I've been lying because of what I found at Strayhorn's that afternoon. . . .

This still jars me. Like admitting to some dark secret I've hidden all my life. But it wasn't my secret. Perhaps it's because I loved Phil Strayhorn and still don't want to admit, either to myself or the world, that what he did goes beyond any borders of curiosity or quest. What he did was unimaginably wrong. What he wanted to do was . . . understandable.

I'm speaking in ellipses. Here is what happened.

Pulling into the driveway, I remembered the day Phil and Sasha stood there with Bloodstone masks on, waving goodbye, Flea snoofing around in the bushes. I turned off the motor and sat awhile listening to the quiet: cheerful birds, the busy hiss of insects, a distant car driving off. There were all the blooming cactus we'd planted together when he first moved into the house. From the car I could look through one of the front windows and see some of the objects in the living room.

Something moved in there.

I sat up straight in my seat.

Something showed for a moment in the window and then disappeared just as quickly. A head? A child hopping across the line of vision of the window? I couldn't tell. No child belonged in the house of a man – days dead.

There it was again. Jumping. It was a child: short hair, yellow shirt, waving hands in the air as it bounced past.

I got out of the car and found the keys to the house and burglar alarm on Sasha's key ring. Walking down the short path, I watched for the head but saw nothing.

"Hey, you!"

I turned and saw Mr. Piel approaching, Phil's next-door neighbor.

"How are you, Mr. Piel?"

"Gregston? Well, I'm glad it's you and not some more of them ghoul groupies. You should see what we've been getting up here since the news got out. Real fuck-brains. Bloodstone fan clubs. Some fat guy even stole the arm off the mailbox! Leave the dead alone, I say.

"It's bad, bad news, Weber. He was a good fella. I liked him. His movies were shit, but the guy was nice and didn't make noise. I don't know why he killed the goddamned dog, though. A real cute thing. He could've given it to my wife. She cried for a day when she heard that."

"Has anyone been inside since the police were here?"

"Nah, cops closed it off for their investigation, and I've been keeping a close eye on things since. Nobody would've gotten in there that I didn't know about. Naturally, Sasha's been in and out, but no one else, after the cops."

"There's no one in there now?"

"No one I know of. You going in?"

"Yes."

"You got a key? Where'd you get it?"

"Yes, Mr. Piel, I have a key. Am I keeping you from anything?"

"You telling me I should take a hike?" He crossed his arms over a thin chest. He'd worked as a key grip once, but his real calling in life was professional busybody. One minute you liked his feistiness; the next you wanted to punch him out.

"My best friend blew his brains out in there, Mr. Piel. I'm about to go in and look at his blood on the furniture. I'm not in the mood to be civil. Thanks for watching the house."