Deputy DA Weid smiled. It was a good smile, a reassuring smile. A once and future politician’s smile. “The task force is temporarily moving its headquarters to San Diego because of this incident,” he said happily. “The media’s screaming for the identity of the driver of the black NSX. So far we’ve actually kept a lid on the story, but tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow,” said Sydney Olson, looking at Dar again, “we’re going to release the official story. Some of it will be accurate, such as the fact that the two dead men were Russian mafia hit men. We’ll say that their attempted target is a private detective—Dar’s real identity and occupation will be kept secret from the press for obvious reasons—and we’ll announce that we believe the killers were after him because he’s close to uncovering their conspiracy. And after that announcement, I’ll be spending quite a bit of time with Dr. Minor and Stewart Investigations.”

Dar returned her challenging gaze. Suddenly she did not look as cute as Stockard Channing to him anymore. “You’re staking me out like that goat in the dinosaur movie…Jurassic Park.”

“Exactly,” said Sydney Olson, smiling openly at Dar now.

Lawrence raised his hand like a schoolboy.

“I just don’t want to find my friend Dar’s bloody leg on my moon roof someday, okay?”

“Okay,” said Sydney Olson. “I’ll insure that doesn’t happen.” She stood up. “As Sheriff Fields said, everyone has important duties to get back to. Ladies, gentlemen, we shall keep you all informed. Thank you for coming this morning.”

The meeting was over, and Dick Weid looked nonplussed at not having wrapped it up himself. Sydney Olson turned to Dar. “Are you going home to Mission Hills now?”

He was not surprised that she knew where he lived. On the contrary, he was sure that Chief Investigator Olson had read every page of every dossier ever opened on him. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m going to change clothes and then watch my soap operas. Larry and Trudy gave me the day off and I haven’t had any other calls.”

“Can I come with you?” asked Chief Investigator Olson. “Will you bring me along to your loft?”

Dar considered ten thousand obvious sexist responses and rejected them all. “This is for my own protection, right?”

“Right,” said Sydney. She moved her blazer aside slightly, just enough to show the ninemillimeter semi-automatic tucked in the quick-release holster at her hip. “And if we hurry,” she said, “we can grab some lunch on the way and still not miss any of All My Children.”

Dar sighed.

“We’ve only known each other a couple of hours,” said Syd, “and already you’ve lied to me.”

Dar looked up from where he was grinding coffee beans at his kitchen counter. They had grabbed a bite to eat at the Kansas City BBQ—Syd’s suggestion, she said she’d been staring at it from the Hyatt for two days and just the sign made her hungry—and then he’d driven her up to his old warehouse building in Mission Hills. He’d parked his Land Cruiser at his spot on the open ground floor, just a huge, dark room with a maze of pillars, and they had taken the large freight elevator—the only elevator in the building—up to his sixth-floor apartment.

Now he just looked at her as she wandered through the living area between the tall bookcases that delineated areas in the loft.

“So far I’ve counted…what?…about seven thousand books,” continued Syd, “no fewer than five computers, a serious sound system with eight speakers, and eleven chessboards, but no TV. How do you watch your soaps?”

Dar smiled and spooned ground beans into the filter. “Actually, the soaps usually come to me. It’s called ‘taking statements from witnesses or victims.’”

Chief Investigator Sydney Olson nodded. “But you do have a TV somewhere? In the bedroom, maybe? Please say you do, Dar. Otherwise I’ll know I’m in the presence of the only real intellectual I’ve ever met outside of captivity.”

Dar poured water into the coffeemaker and turned it on. “There’s a TV. In one of the storage closets over there near the door.”

Syd cocked an eyebrow. “Ah…let me guess…the Super Bowl?”

“No, baseball. The occasional night game when I’m home. All of the play-offs and the Series.” He set mats on the small, round kitchen table. Bright light came in through the eight-foot windows.

“Eames chair,” said Syd, patting the bent wood and black leather chair in the corner of the living-room area where two walls of bookcases came together. She sat in it and put her feet up on the wood and leather ottoman. “It feels comfortable enough to be a real one…an original.”

“It is,” said Dar. He set two white, diner-type mugs on the tablemats and then poured coffee for both of them. “You take cream and sugar?”

Syd shook her head. “I like James Brown coffee. Black. Rich. Strong.”

“Hope this suffices,” said Dar as she reluctantly got out of the Eames chair, stretched, and came over to join him at the kitchen table.

She took a sip and made a face. “Yeah. That’s it. Mr. Brown would approve.”

“I can make a new batch. Weaker. Saner.”

“No, this is good.” She turned around to look back across the room and into the other areas of the loft that were visible. “Can I play chief investigator for a minute?”

Dar nodded.

“A real Persian carpet delineating your living area there. A real Eames chair. The Stickley dining room table and chairs look original, as do the mission-style lamps. Real artwork in every room. Is that large painting in the open area there opposite the windows a Russell Chatham?”

“Yeah,” said Dar.

“And an oil rather than a print. Chatham’s originals are selling for a pretty penny these days.”

“I bought it in Montana some years ago,” said Dar, setting his coffee down. “Before the big Chatham stampede.”

“Still,” said Syd and finished her mental inventory. “A chief investigator would have to conclude that the man who lives here has money. Wrecks an Acura NSX one day but has a spare Land Cruiser waiting for him at home.”

“Different vehicles for different purposes,” said Dar, beginning to feel irritated.

Syd seemed to sense this and turned back to her coffee. She smiled. “That’s all right,” she said. “I’m guessing you’re about as interested in making money as I am.”

“Anyone who discounts the importance of money is a fool or a saint,” said Dar. “But I find the pursuit of it or the discussion of it boring as hell.”

“Okay,” said Syd. “I’m curious about the eleven chess boards. Games being played on all of them. I’m only a duffer at chess—I know the horsie from the castle thingee—but those games look like they’re master level. You have so many chess master friends drop in that you need multiple boards?”

“E-mail,” said Dar.

Syd nodded and looked around. “All right, that wall of fiction. How are those books shelved? Not alphabetically, that’s for damned sure. Not by publication date, you’ve got old volumes mixed in with new trade paperbacks.”

Dar smiled. Readers always gravitated to other readers’ bookshelves and tried to figure out the system of shelving. “It could be random,” he said. “Buy a book, read it, stick it on the shelf.”

“It could be,” agreed Syd. “But you’re not a random kind of guy.”

Dar sat silently, thinking of the chaos mathematics that had made up the bulk of his Ph.D. dissertation. Syd sat silently studying the wall of novels. Finally she muttered to herself, “Stephen King way up on the upper right. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood a couple of shelves below, still on the right. To Kill a Mockingbird on the second shelf from the bottom. East of Eden way the hell to the left over by the window. All of Hemingway’s crap—”

“Hey, watch it,” said Dar. “I love Hemingway.”

“All of Hemingway’s crap on the bottom right shelf,” finished Syd. “I’ve got it!”