“Yes,” said Trace, “I became aware of that.”

“Was your son a doctor, Mr. Trace?”

“No,” said the attorney. His voice seemed to hold no tension or defensive tone. “My son was a perpetual student…He was in his thirties and still attending graduate classes, never finishing any. He spent one year in medical school.”

“How did you become aware of your son’s alias and involvement with the Sure-Med clinic, Mr. Trace?” said Syd. “Through Detectives Ventura or Fairchild?”

Trace shook his head slowly. “Nope. I hired my own private investigator.”

“And you’re aware that the California Sure-Med clinic was an injury mill—a source for fraudulent insurance claims—and that your son had violated state and federal laws by posing as a doctor and sending in false injury reports,” Syd said.

“I am aware of that now, Investigator Olson,” Trace said, voice flat. “Do you intend to indict my son?”

Syd did not break away from the lawyer’s eagle gaze.

Trace sighed and dropped his feet to the floor. He ran his hands over his combed-back gray hair and adjusted the leather thong holding his ponytail in place. “Investigator, I’m afraid I’m ahead of you here. What the police didn’t turn up, my private investigator did. I discovered and acknowledge now, on the record, that my son was part of—what did you call it?—an injury mill. A fraudulent-claims network run by what the fraud business calls a ‘capper’?”

“Yes.”

“A capper named Jorgé Murphy Esposito.” Dallas Trace said the last three words as if they tasted of pure bile.

“Who died this weekend,” said Syd.

“Yes,” said Dallas Trace. He smiled. “Would you like to hear my alibi for the time of the accident, Investigator?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Trace,” said Syd. “I know that you were at a charity auction in Beverly Hills on Sunday afternoon. You bought a Picasso drawing for sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty dollars.”

Trace’s smile eroded. “Jesus Christ, woman,” he said, “you actually do suspect me in all this petty shit?”

Syd shook her head. “I really am trying to gather information about one of the most profitable injury mills in Southern California,” she said. “Your son, who was involved in it, died under mysterious circumstances—”

“I disagree,” Trace said sharply. “My son died in an accident while skipping out on his rent with his friends, two petty thieves, one of whom could not drive a van worth shit. A senseless ending to a largely useless life.”

“Dr. Minor’s video reconstruction of the event—” began Syd.

The lawyer turned his gaze back to Dar, without a hint of a smile. “Dr. Minor, a few years ago I went to see this popular movie about a great big ship that sank almost ninety years ago…”

“Titanic,” Dar said.

“Yes, sir,” continued the lawyer, his West Texas accent becoming more pronounced. “And in that movie, I saw with my own two eyes that big ship sinking—standin’ on end, breakin’ in two—people fallin’ like frogs out of a bucket. But you know somethin’, Dr. Minor?”

Dar waited.

“None of it was true. It was special effects. It was digital.” Dallas Trace spat the words out.

Dar said nothing.

“If I had you on the witness stand, Doctor Minor, you on the stand and your precious video in the machine playin’ right in front of the jury, it would take me thirty seconds…shit, no, twenty seconds…to show them how in this digital-computer-special-effects age we live in, we can trust nothing on tape anymore.”

“Esposito is dead,” interrupted Syd. “Donald Borden and Gennie Smiley—actually the former Gennie Esposito, as I’m sure your PI informed you—are missing. And you still don’t find that suspicious?”

He swiveled his raptor gaze toward her. “I find everything suspicious about it, Ms. Olson. I was suspicious of everything Richard did…every friend he had…every mess he wanted me to bail him out of. Well, finally he got into a mess that no one could bail him out of. I’m convinced it was an accident, Ms. Olson…but I’m also convinced it just doesn’t matter a good goddamn. If he hadn’t died that night on Marlboro Avenue, he’d probably be in jail now. My son was a poor, confused, weak, and manipulative little shit bird, Ms. Olson, and it doesn’t surprise me one steer turd of an iota that he ended up with bottom-dweller losers like Jorgé Esposito and Donald Borden and Gennie former-Mrs. Esposito Smiley.”

“And their disappearance?” said Syd.

Dallas Trace laughed, and for the first time it sounded sincere. “These people perfect turning their whole lives into a disappearing act, Ms. Olson. You know that. It’s what they do. It’s what my son did. And now he’s gone for good and nothing I can do, or you can find out, will bring him back.”

Dallas Trace jumped to his feet—he moved very fast for a man in his sixties, Dar noticed again—pulled the tape from the machine, gave it to Syd, and opened the office door.

“And now, if there’s nothing else I can help you both with today….”

Dar and Syd got to their feet and moved to the door.

“There is one other thing I was curious about,” said Syd. “Your contribution to the Helpers of the Helpless.”

The dark eyebrows became almost vertical exclamation points. “What? If you don’t mind my bluntness, Ms. Olson, what in the sacred halls of fuckdom does that have to do with anything?”

“You contributed a large amount to that charity last year,” said Syd. “How much was it?”

“I have no idea,” said Trace. “You’d have to ask my accountant.”

“A quarter of a million dollars, I believe,” said Syd.

“Then I’m sure you’re correct,” said Trace, opening the door wider. “You’re a good investigator, Ms. Olson. But if you have that figure, you must also know that Mrs. Trace and I are active in—and contribute to—more than two dozen charities. The…what do they call themselves again?”

“The Helpers of the Helpless,” said Syd.

“The Helpers of the Helpless serve the Hispanic community,” said Trace. “It may also surprise you to know that I do quite a bit of pro bono work for the Hispanic community in this state…especially the poor immigrants who are constantly being persecuted…and not infrequently persecuted by the state’s attorney’s office.”

“I am aware of the wide range of charities which you and Mrs. Trace support,” said Syd. “You’re a generous man, Counselor Trace. And you have been more than generous with your time. Thank you.” She held out her hand.

Trace hesitated in surprise, and then shook both Dar’s hand and hers.

Once in the basement parking garage, Dar said, “Interesting. Now where?”

“One more stop,” said Syd.

It had been a long while since Dar had been to L.A.’s County Medical Center. It was the largest hospital in Los Angeles County and still growing—at least two new additions were being noisily built as Syd found them a parking space on the sixth upper level.

The hospital smelled like all hospitals smell, had the same miserable lighting—that fluorescent glow, like decaying vegetation, that seems to illuminate all the blood under the skin—and the same background noises of coughs, weak voices, laughing nurses, phones ringing, doctors being paged, and rubber soles on linoleum. Dar hated hospitals.

Syd led them through the halls as if giving him a tour, using her chief investigator ID to gain access to the emergency room, the intensive care center, the birthing ward, the patient rooms, and even the scrub room outside of surgery.

Dar figured it out quickly enough. In addition to the doctors, nurses, interns, orderlies, candy stripers, custodians, administrators, patients, and visitors, there was one other conspicuous presence—men and women wearing white jackets adorned with colorful patches. The patches included a red cross, the medical caduceus in gold on a royal blue background, a round shoulder patch showing an eagle with an olive branch—the patch looking like something one of the NASA Apollo astronauts might have worn—and an American flag. But most prominent—on the left breast of each jacket—was a blue square with a large, red capital H centered in it. Inside the upper bars of the H was a smaller gold cross. To Dar, it looked as if someone had kicked a crucifix for a perfect field goal.