Mac put his fork down and ran his index finger along the border of the postmortem photo. “Assuming Marcella was hit by Lyle or another Player, you think Sandra knew about it?”

“When I interviewed her she wasn’t shocked. She was edgy, that’s why I noticed her. Maybe she’s learned to keep things to herself.”

“The Players,” said Mac. “Never heard of them.”

“They mostly work the north end of the state and Nevada.”

“Isaac got you all this?”

Petra nodded.

“The Genius,” said Mac. He pushed his plate away, the pie a half-eaten polygon. “It’s progress, but I’m not sure it’s good enough to keep the downtown boys at bay.”

“We hand them the I.D. and the probable cause and they chase it down?”

“You know how it works, Petra. Maybe it’s best that way. D’Ambrosio’s their captain. He wants five guys, he gets five. He asks for ten, he gets ten. That kind of coverage could be what the case needs.”

“Fine,” said Petra.

“It isn’t, but…” Mac folded his napkin into a rectangle. “I’ll do my best to see you get credit for developing the lead.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

“Fair is fair.”

“On what planet?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Wish there was a choice.”

“I understand,” she said. But she was thinking: Maybe there is a choice.

The gun didn’t weigh that much, but Isaac felt the difference in his briefcase.

He’d swaddled the twenty-two in a cheap blue bandanna purchased at a ninety-nine-cent outlet a few blocks from Cantina Nueva, stuffed the package in the bottom of the case, under his laptop.

Tools of the trade.

USC was a short bus ride from the bar and he made it on time for his appointment with Dr. Leibowitz.

Avuncular Dr. Leibowitz. At their first meeting, Isaac had thought, “Too good to be true.” Later, he’d seen that Leibowitz was supportive of all his students. A year from retirement, a man at peace.

The meeting went well, as always, Leibowitz smiling and fooling with an empty briar pipe. He’d been off tobacco for years but kept the pipes and a collection of smoking accoutrements as props. “How’re those multivariates coming along?”

“Some of my initial hypotheses seem to be panning out. Though the process seems to be infinite. Each new finding engenders another hypothesis.”

In truth, he hadn’t looked at his calculations for over a week. Caught up with June 28. The rhythm of the detectives’ room, all that noise and anger and frustration.

Petra.

Leibowitz nodded sagely. “Such is science.”

Fortified by Leibowitz’s strong tea, Isaac headed straight for a seldom-used men’s room at the end of the hall. Pressing his back against the door, he placed the briefcase on the floor, removed the gun, unwrapped it. Hefted it.

Pointed it at the mirror and scowled.

Tough guy.

Ludicrous.

Footsteps in the hallway caused him to panic. He dropped the gun and the bandanna back in the case. The weapon landed with a thud.

The footsteps continued on and he stooped and rewrapped the twenty-two. Added another layer of concealment- the brown paper bag from the lunch Mama had fixed him today.

If anyone looked inside, they’d see a grease-specked care package redolent of chili and cornmeal.

Mother love.

Getting the gun into the station was no problem. Since nine-eleven, front security at the Wilcox Station had been tighter but inconsistent. On most days, eyeball scrutiny of incoming traffic sufficed. When the terror alert rose to a warm color, a portable metal detector was wheeled in and all the cops entered through the rear door on the south side of the building.

Isaac’s political connection had gotten him an official-looking clip-on LAPD badge and a 999 key that unlocked the rear door. He rarely needed to use the key. The station was old, with an inefficient cooling system, and the door was generally left open for circulation.

He climbed the stairs filled with pleasant expectations of his meeting with Petra.

Four male detectives were there but she wasn’t.

An hour later, he finally accepted the fact she wasn’t going to show. Packing up, he descended to the ground floor, made his way to the rear door. Closed, now. He opened it on the overly lit expanse of asphalt. All those black-and-whites and unmarked sedans.

Warm night. He wondered why she’d stood him up. She’d seemed to be taking June 28 seriously.

It’s not a stand-up, stupid. She’s a working detective, something came up.

He’d go home, arrive in time for dinner, make Mama happy. Tomorrow morning, he’d head straight to campus. Hide away at his corner table in the far reaches of Doheny Library’s third subbasement. Cosseted by yellow walls, red floors, dusty stacks of old botany books.

He’d sit. Think.

Needing to produce.

Needing something to show Petra.

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2:02 P.M., CAPTAIN SCHOELKOPF’S OFFICE

When the bastard called Petra in, she was ready. Knowing full well what she’d done and ready to take the heat.

The approved way to get what she wanted would’ve been to notify the shift lieutenant, receive his permission to talk to the captain, obtain his permission to contact the department’s public affairs office, make a phone request to the P.A. desk jockeys, follow up with a tedious written application that gave away too many facts of the case, and then wait for approval.

Her way had been to call up five reporters she knew- newshounds with whom she’d accumulated brownie points by trading “anonymous” info for discretion.

Patricia Glass at the Times and four TV field correspondents. No radio folk because they were of no use to her on this.

All five were interested and she faxed the cleanest photo she had of Marcella Douquette along with Lyle Leon’s mug shot. Spicing up the package with intimations of mysterious “crime cabals” and pleas not to “say too much.”

“A cabal, huh? Kind of like Manson?” said Leticia Gomez from Channel Five.

Burt Knutsen from On The Spot News made an almost identical comment.

The recent college grad who worked for ABC said, “Kabbalah like Madonna’s into?”

Petra hedged, didn’t deny. At this point, whatever got the photos on the air was good.

All four local news broadcasts aired them at eleven P.M., repeated it on today’s morning broadcast. Nothing in the Times, but that was a massive bureaucracy so maybe tomorrow.

At two P.M., Schoelkopf ordered her into his office.

She expected hell, got only lackluster purgatory. Schoelkopf leaning back in his Naugahyde desk chair, tossing out all the appropriately hostile utterances. But not with his usual vitriol, more of a formal recitation. Distracted, as if none of this really mattered.

She kind of missed the old way. Was he feeling all right?

When he paused to take a breath, she actually said, “Are you okay, sir?”

He sprang forward, glared, smoothed his gelled black hair. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You look a little… fatigued.”

“I’m in training for the marathon, never felt better. Cut the bullshit, Connor. Stop trying to change the subject. The facts are you fucked up by not going through channels and wasted everyone’s time and quite probably fucked up a case.”

“I admit I was a little hasty, sir, but in terms of wasted- ”

“Wasted,” he reiterated. “HOMSPEC’s taking it off your hands.”

“First I’ve heard about that,” she lied. “Is- ”

He cut her off with a wave. His nails, usually manicured and buffed, were too long. His beige designer imitation suit was wrinkled and his shirt collar looked too large. Weight loss due to marathon training?

He definitely looked tired.