"Herman, it's not your fault," she repeated, sniffling. But Herman shook his head, vigorously denying that, even though she couldn't see him.

"He was killed trying to get information that I asked him to get. How can it not be my fault?"

"The police said I couldn't have his body yet… that they… they…"

"I know," he said, interrupting, trying not to put her through that sentence. "Madge, I'll get his body back for you. It'll be the first thing I do, okay?"

"Would you?" she said softly. "Please-it would mean a lot. I feel… it's like… it's not finished until he's home with me."

"I promise. They can't hold it for long. Once the medical examiner is through I'll make them release it. I'll go up there myself if I have to."

"Thank you, Herm."

They were both silent, listening to each other's sad breathing on the phone. Madge finally spoke: "You know, he loved you, Herman. It was strange, the effect you had on him. He told me once that you were the most special person he had ever known. I guess that even included me."

"No, Madge, not you. You were his mother. I was… I was just somebody he could try stuff out on. I was like his intellectual godfather, or something."

"I've got to go now," she said. He could tell by her voice that she didn't want to talk about this anymore.

"I'll be in touch," he promised and, after the good-byes, hung up the phone.

It was almost 10:00 a.m. and he was still waiting for his release form to be signed, when Susan came through the door with Dr. Shiller.

"I'd like to just move you upstairs right now and get you prepped for tomorrow," Dr. Shiller said.

"I know. I… it's just. It's just that I have to meet with a federal court judge this morning. Her office left a message that I should be in her chambers in an hour, at eleven.

"Don't be late,' she told me. If you ever got a chance to examine this judge, you'd discover a cardiopulmonary first: no heart and an extra lung. So I'd better do what she says and not be late."

"We'll see you back here no later than two or three, then?" Dr. Shiller said sternly.

"He promises to be here," Susan said.

Dr. Shiller signed Herman's release and handed it to him. "I'll get the floor nurse to bring a wheelchair and we'll get you on your way."

After the doctor left and Susan was alone with her father, she put an angry scowl on her beautiful face.

"What?" he asked.

"If you try and get out of this operation… I'll… I'll kill you myself. You promised, Dad."

"I know, I know… right, I promised, and we both know what a lawyer's promise is worth."

"Dad." It was a threat, the way she said it.

"Okay," he grinned. "But I gotta go see Melissa first, and, while I do that, I have a job for you."

"What?" she said, still suspicious.

"I want you to find us a new private detective-not a computer guy like Roland, but a real gumshoe, somebody with good resources in San Francisco. Resources means friends on the San Francisco Police Department. We need a look at the ME's report, the crime scene evidence. An ex-cop who's now a P.I. might be a good place to start."

"An ex-San Francisco cop?" she said.

"Maybe, but I think it's better if the guy lives down here and has worked cases up there, 'cause we're gonna be in L.A., and I don't wanna have to be flying him around, paying per diem, and stuff like that. So, call around. Start with the L.A. Police Department and get a list of ex-L.A. cops who are now in the P.I. business and who worked cases up north. If that doesn't work, try finding one in San Francisco."

"Dad, we can't investigate Roland's death, the police will do that. And you're going to be out of action until your condition is fixed."

"We can't not investigate it."

She looked at him for a long, painful moment.

"What?" he said, putting a little push on it. But it was just acting, because he couldn't help noticing how concerned she was standing at the foot of the bed, her fists on her hips, trying to figure a way to steer him, to get him to do what she wanted.

"Dad, if you don't do this, I'm gonna brain you."

"Can't hurt me if you hit me on the head… nothing much up there."

A nurse came in and unhooked Herman from the monitors. A few minutes later he was being rolled down the corridor on chrome and plastic wheels and pushed into the elevator like a two-hundred-pound holiday turkey. Susan followed. He was slumped, yet full of stubborn pride, heroic but clumsy, brave but ill-prepared. He was a million dollars in debt, yet headed downstairs to drive away in a movie star's expensive sports car.

Whatta dump, Jack Wirta thought, staring at his newly rented office with open hostility. The three story building was on Santa Monica Boulevard, near Fairfax. He was getting a rate on the rental because the building was owned by the estate of his ex-police-partner's son. His old partner, Shane Scully, had found out two years ago that he had fathered a child with a wealthy woman who had died and left their son the building. Shane agreed to give Jack Wirta, L.A. 's newest private eye and cosmic joke, a deal on the one-room office: twelve hundred a month, no furniture, and utilities included.

The place was poorly situated, especially for an ex-cop. Everywhere he looked, up and down the dingy third-floor corridor, he saw crime… vice, mostly. A gay male "dating service" that called itself Reflections occupied several adjoining offices down the hall. Why it was called Reflections, Jack Wirta didn't even want to guess. He'd already had a run-in with its proprietor, a willowy Hispanic ex-chorus boy named Casimiro Roca.

"I hope you aren't intending to put chairs out in the hall," Roca said, arching a plucked eyebrow at Jack.

"Why the fuck would I put furniture out in the hall?" Jack snapped.

"One doesn't need to use foul language to make one's point."

"Sorry." Jack didn't really want to start up with this guy.

"The last people, the ones who had that office before you, they always had ten folding chairs out here with people sitting in them all day, smoking, talking, laughing. One could barely get one's work done."

"Well, I think that was a casting agency, but I'm not going to be having any casting calls, so I think we can forget about that problem. I'm Jack Wirta," he said, putting out his hand, trying to be nice.

"Casimiro Roca," the man shook it hesitantly. "But I go by Miro. You look like a cop," he added suspiciously.

"Used t'be. Not anymore."

"Well, just try and be quiet. Miro could use a little peace."

"You're not speaking euphemistically, I hope." Jack said, smiling.

"Don't be a child," Miro replied, then turned and actually sashayed down the hall-more hip action than the cast of Cats.

Jack Wirta watched Miro until he pirouetted at his door and paused theatrically. "Something else Miro can do for you?" he said. Not exactly an invitation, but not exactly a statement either.

"I was just thinking… that's some walk you got there."

"I used to dance professionally," he said.

That was Reflections.

At the other end of the hall was some kind of phone-bank boiler room called Herbal World Health Products. They had fifteen or twenty employees, and to Jack's cop eye all of them looked pretty badly tweaked. They scurried like junkies, heads down, carefully watching the ground. Strung-out little cowboys and cowgirls with twitchy movements and criminal eyes who spent the day on phones selling unlicensed health products. If he called Hollywood Vice they would come up here and take down the whole floor. But Jack was into "live and let live" these days. It was his new motto.

So much for his third-floor neighbors.