Charles smirked. 'If we knew that, he wouldn't be missing, would he?'

I looked at him, but this time I didn't say anything. 'Tell me, Ms. Haines. How did you happen to choose me?'

'You worked on the Teddy Martin murder.' Theodore Martin was a rich man who had murdered his wife. I was hired by his defense attorneys to work on his behalf, but it hadn't gone quite the way Teddy had hoped. I'd been on local television and in the Times because of it. 'I looked up the newspapers in the library and read about you, and then I found your ad in the Yellow Pages.'

'Resourceful.' My friend Patty Bell was a licensed social worker with the county. I was thinking that I could call her.

Teri Haines took a plain legal envelope from her back pocket and showed it to me. 'I wrote down his birth date and a description and some things like that.' She put it on the coffee table between us. 'Will you find him for us?'

I looked at the envelope, but did not touch it. It was two-fifteen on a weekday afternoon, but these kids weren't in school. Maybe I would call a lieutenant I know with the LAPD Juvenile Division. Maybe he would know what to do.

Teresa Haines leaned toward me and suddenly looked thirty years old. 'I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that we're just kids, but we have the money to pay you.' She pulled a cheap red wallet from her front pocket, then fanned a deck of twenties and fifties and hundreds that was thick enough to stop a 9mm Parabellum. There had to be two thousand dollars. Maybe three. 'You see? All you have to do is name your price.'

Charles said, 'Jeezis Christ, Teri, don't tell'm that! He'll clean us out!' Charles had moved from the Mickey phone and now he was fingering the Jiminys again. Maybe I could handcuff him to the couch.

Teri was looking at me. 'Well?'

'Where'd you get the money?'

Her right eye flickered, but she did not look away. 'Daddy leaves it for us. It's what we live on.'

Teresa Haines's hair hung loosely below her shoulders and appeared clean and well kept. Her face was heart-shaped, and a couple of pimples had sprouted on her chin, but she didn't seem self-conscious about them. She appeared well nourished and in good health, as did her brother and sister. Maybe she was making all of this up. Maybe the whole thing was their idea of a joke. I said, 'Have you called the police?'

'Oh no.' She said it quickly.

'If my father was missing, I would.'

She shook her head.

'It's what they do, and they won't charge you. I usually get around two grand.'

Charles yelled, 'Ripoff!' A small framed picture fell when he said it, and knocked over three Jiminy figurines. He scuttled toward the door. 'I didn't do anything. Jeezis.'

Teresa straightened herself. 'We don't want to involve the police, Mr. Cole.' You could tell she was struggling to be calm. You could see that it was an effort.

'If your father has been gone for eleven days and you haven't heard from him, you should call the police. They'll help you. You don't have to be afraid of them.'

She shook her head. 'The police will call Children's Services, and they'll take us away.'

I tried to look reassuring. 'They'll just make sure that you guys are safe, that's all. I may have to call them myself.' I spread my hands and smiled, Mr. Nothing-to-Be-Afraid-of-Here, only Teri Haines didn't buy it. Her eyes cooled, growing flinty and hard and shallow with fear.

Teresa Haines slowly stood. Winona stood with her. 'Your ad said confidential.' Like an accusation.

Charles said, 'He's not gonna do frig.' Like they'd had this discussion before they came, and now Charles had been proven right.

'Look, you guys are children. You shouldn't be by yourselves.' Saying it made me sound like an adult, but sounding that way made me feel small.

Teresa Haines put the money back in the wallet and the wallet back in her pocket. She put the envelope in her pocket, too. 'I'm sorry we bothered you.'

I said, 'C'mon, Teresa. It's the right way to play it.'

Charles coughed, 'Eat me.'

There was a flurry of fast steps, and then Teresa and Charles and Winona were gone. They didn't bother to close the door.

I looked at my desk. One of the little Jiminys was gone, too.

I listened to Cindy's radio, drifting in from the balcony. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were singing 'Music Is My Aeroplane.' I pressed my lips together and let my breath sigh from the comers of my mouth.

'Well, moron, are you just going to let them walk out of here?' Maybe I said it, or maybe it was Pinocchio.

I pulled on a jacket to cover the Dan Wesson, ran down four flights to the lobby, then out to the street in time to see them pull away from the curb in a metallic green Saturn. The legal driving age in the state of California is sixteen, but Teresa was driving. It didn't surprise me.

I ran back through the lobby and down to the parking level and drove hard up out of the building, trying to spot their car. A guy in a six-wheel truck that said LEON'S FISH almost broadsided me as I swung out onto Santa Monica Boulevard, and sat on his horn.

I was so focused on trying to spot the Saturn that I didn't yet see the man who was following me, but I would before long.

Teresa Raines's Saturn turned south past the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station, then east onto Melrose. I didn't careen through oncoming traffic to cut her off, and I didn't shoot out her tires. Teri Haines was driving just fine, and I wasn't sure what to do if I stopped them. Hold them at gunpoint for the police?

Fairfax High School was just letting out, and the sidewalks were dotted with boys toting book bags and skateboards, and girls flashing navel rings. Most of the kids were about Teri's age, some younger, some older, only these kids were in school and she wasn't. Charles leaned out of the passenger-side window and flipped off a knot of kids standing at the bus stop. Three of the kids gave back the finger, and somebody threw what appeared to be a Coke can which hit the Saturn's rear wheel.

Teri cruised along Melrose past hypermodern clothing outlets and comic-book shops and tour groups from Asia until she turned south onto a narrow residential street. Modest stucco houses lined the street, and the curbs were jammed with parked cars. Some of the cars probably went with the houses, but most belonged to people who'd come to shop on Melrose. I stopped at the corner and watched. The Saturn crept halfway down the next block, then turned into the drive of a yellow bungalow with an orange tile roof and a single royal palm in the yard. The three Haines children climbed out of the car and disappeared into the bungalow. Retreating to familiar territory after an unsuccessful meeting with the detective.

I cruised past their house, found a parking space on the next block, and walked back. Screams weren't coming from within, no music was blaring, and no smoke was rising from either windows or roof. Charles had probably passed out.

I stood on the sidewalk in front of the house next door and thought about things. When I was following them I had known exactly what I would do: I would locate their residence, then call one of my friends at Children's Services or the LAPD, and that would be that. Only the house and the yard, like the car and the children, appeared well maintained, and now I wasn't so sure. Maybe these kids were fine, and all calling the cops would get me was a house full of frightened children. Still, all I could see was the outside of the house. Inside, there might be rats. Inside, there might be squalor and vermin. Only one way to find out. When in doubt, snoop.

I slipped past the Saturn and walked up the drive and climbed atop their gas meter to peek into the kitchen. I couldn't see the kids, but the kitchen was neat and orderly and clean. No rats, no flies, no towers of unwashed dishes. I moved to the next set of windows, chinned myself on the sill, and peered through a little dining room to the living room. It occurred to me that Charles might see me peeking in the window and bean me with a brick, but these are the chances you take when you're a world-class private eye. Life is risk. The TV was on, and Charles and Winona were watching Aeon Flux. No one was pushing, no one was shoving. Like the kitchen, the living room was neat and orderly and in good repair. Eleven days without an adult, and everything looked fine.