“Not a note?”

“Not even a bad one. After he paid me, he wanted to have dinner. Discuss the historical roots of luthiery.”

“Good line.”

“Not good enough. I stayed in my room and watched movies.” Crooked smile. “Not much plot, but some interesting positions.”

“So I’ve seen.”

“Honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

An hour later:

“It is good to be home.”

“Alex,” she said, “I’m the one who was gone.”

“Whatever.”

Milo called back Monday, just after four.

“All the Culver City cases were gang hits. CC detectives have a pretty good idea who the shooters were on Cruz, Beltran, and Stover but no one talked. Moving down the list, Wilfred Hong. The consensus is that Mrs. Hong was in on it. She was tied up but not tightly. A month after the funeral, she sold the house, moved with the kids to Hong Kong.”

“Maybe she was scared.”

“Not scared enough to avoid a new boyfriend. Guess what he does for a living.”

“Sells gems.”

“Ding. Onward to Hollywood. Gerardo Escobedo and Rigoberto Martinez are both in Petra’s fridge pile. Escobedo called himself Marilyn, wore hair and makeup to match. By nineteen he’d been hustling for three years, was known to get into anyone’s car. He was stabbed somewhere else, probably a park from the leaves and twigs, and dumped in an alley near Selma. Mucho overkill, everyone sees it as a trick gone bad. Martinez worked as a gardener with a crew out in Lawndale and had two priors for solicitation. Big guy, nearly three hundred pounds. Once he’d get in a room with a girl, he’d try to bully her out of full payment. Probably annoyed the wrong pimp. Christopher Stimple also had a hustler history-four busts. He was found in a rented room with a shotgun lying nearby, possible suicide, but since no one had ever seen him with any firearm and the position of the weapon wasn’t clear-cut, the coroner listed the COD as undetermined.”

“I found his obit online,” I said. “High school football hero, the family listed the COD as accidental.”

“Easier for them. In any event, I don’t see Patty blowing away some confused kid. Which brings me to Leland William Armbruster. White male, heroin addict, convicted felon, and generally annoying habitué of the Boulevard. His street name was Lowball. Forty-three years old when someone propelled three.22 slugs into his chest. Why am I not shocked to learn that one of his known associates was Lester Marion Jordan?”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Could turn out to be fascinating. Armbruster’s body was found on Las Palmas, a block west of Patty’s apartment and three blocks north.”

“Was Jordan a suspect in the shooting?”

“Nope, just a name that popped up in the file. The D on the case died a few years ago but he was thorough. Interviewed Jordan and several others in Lowball’s social circle. The clear picture is that when Lowball wasn’t high he had an abrasive personality. One informant described his voice as ‘cat claws on glass.’ Another opined that for Lowball heroin shoulda been court-ordered as a mood modifier. Another interesting tidbit is when the guy couldn’t score smack, he took anything. Including fortified wine, which turned him ugly.”

“Drunks used to knock on Patty’s door,” I said. “Tanya said shouting made most of them go away.”

“And maybe the ones who didn’t required more forceful handling?”

“According to Tanya, there was never a need to follow through.”

“According to Tanya,” he said. “A little kid sleeping in back. Alex, even if she tried to find out what was going on, Patty woulda shushed her and sent her to bed. Maybe Lowball and Patty got into a verbal altercation that heated up ugly. Here I was thinking no way would we find a damn thing and Armbruster pops up. His being a buddy of Jordan would explain Jordan getting antsy when we brought up Patty. It could also place him in the building. Maybe one of those times, Armbruster spots Patty, gets ideas. Comes back late at night, pounds the door. Patty yells for him to split, he does but he stews on it, decides his urges will not be denied. Next time she goes out, he’s lying in wait and, as they say, a confrontation ensues.”

“Be good to know if Patty had any registered guns.”

“Or unregistered. If she wanted serious protection on the streets she’d have to break the law. You know the deal with carry permits.”

“Movies stars, millionaires, and friends of the sheriff.”

“For sure not a working nurse with no juice. This was a woman who grew up on a ranch, Alex. Got abused by her father, struck out by herself, and made a point of having her shit together. Rick says she reminded him of a pioneer woman. I can see her packing. A.22 wouldn’t be too bulky for a woman’s handbag. Armbruster attacks her, she’s prepared. She mighta even felt good about it, at first.”

He turned silent. No sense elaborating.

He’d killed several men in Vietnam, a few more in the line of duty. I’d ended one life. Self-defense, no question about the necessity. But at odd times it could chew at you. Thinking about the children my psychopath would never sire.

“She carries it around all these years,” he went on. “Then she gets sick, her inhibitions drop, and she blurts it to Tanya. Anything that doesn’t fit?”

“Not so far.”

“Leland William Armbruster,” he said, savoring the name. “Let me do a little more background and if nothing contradictory comes up, I say we settle on ol’ Lowball as our dead guy and tell Tanya that Mommy operated with clear justification.”

“Maybe it was more than self-protection,” I said. “With Armbruster hanging around Patty’s building, he could’ve spotted Tanya. Given Patty’s personal history and her devotion as a mother, she’d have been vigilant about any threat to her child.”

“Lowball’s a kiddy-groping sleaze? Sure, I like that even better. Hell, even if it’s not true, we spin it that way for Tanya, she’s got yet another reason to feel good about Mommy…yeah, I like it enough to marry it. Big juicy happy ending and we all go out for pizza.”

I called Tanya at six. She phoned back at eight. “Sorry it took so long, Dr. Delaware.”

“Studying?”

“What else?”

“How’ve you been doing?”

“Reasonably well. Is there anything new?”

“I have a question for you. Do you know if your mother ever owned a gun?”

“She did and I still have it. Why, did you find out something about a shooting near where we lived?”

“All kinds of things have come up but nothing dramatic, so far. Detective Sturgis thought if she did have a weapon it would be useful to rule it out. What kind is it?”

“Smith and Wesson semi-automatic,.22 caliber, that dark metal finish-bluing-with a wooden grip.”

“Sounds like you’ve handled it.”

“Mommy took me to the range to teach me how to shoot when I was around fourteen. She learned as a girl, thought it was a skill I should have. I was pretty good but I didn’t like it. Someplace out in the Valley, all these guys in camouflage. I said I didn’t want to continue and she said fine but if I wasn’t going to get proficient, she was going to separate the gun from the bullets for safety purposes. Are you saying Detective Sturgis actually wants to analyze it?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” she said. “I know she never really hurt anyone. Anyway…”

“I was re-reading your chart and the second time you came to see me you talked about her being nervous.”

“I did?” she said. “Did I give a reason?”

“No, but you described her straightening late at night, when she thought you were sleeping. You’d just moved from Fourth Street, so I wondered about some kind of stress related to the change. But both you and she said the move was a good one.”