“They knocked it down to a misdemeanor.”

“Shut your mouth up, Daniel! I ain’t gonna tell you again!”

Li’l Sinister exhaled and crossed his arms.

Bunny went on. “I’m thinking the cops, they ain’t gonna buy me saying I had nothin’ to do with it. They gonna put two and two together, come up with five thousand—”

“Like they always do,” Li’l Sinister chimed in.

“Like they always do,” Bunny said, “and one-eighty-seven both our asses. So we split, ditch my ride and jump in his. Trying to buy ourselves time, come up with a game plan.”

“And that plan is, what, ‘Let’s kidnap a pilot and make him fly us out of the country?’ That’s not a plan, Bunny. That’s a ticket to life without the possibility of parole.”

“You gonna fly us down there, yes or no?”

“No.”

His nostrils flared. “Yes or no, asshole?”

“No. Final answer.”

“That,” he said, pressing the barrel of his pistol to my forehead, “is the wrong fucking answer. Nobody grabs my balls and gets away with it.”

“If I could make a suggestion before you decide to do anything felony stupid?” I gazed deliberately over his shoulder and nodded. “You might want to discuss things first with those nice police officers over there.”

He whipped his head around reflexively in the direction of my sightline, as I knew Li’l Sinister would do behind me. I bent Bunny’s gun hand back at an angle it was never designed for, snapped his wrist with my right hand and smashed him in the face with his own pistol. I pivoted in the same motion, reaching between the front seats while driving the clawed fingers of my left hand into Li’l Sinister’s throat with just enough force to make him wish he was dead. The kid got off a short burst from his submachine pistol that went high and wide through the roof of the Escalade before his lights went out.

Bunny was out cold, leaned against the passenger door, blood trickling from the bridge of his nose.

“My bad. There were no cops. Must’ve been wishful thinking on my part.”

Tires screeched. I glanced over as the red Civic parked in the south lot raced away, date night ruined.

Sorry, kids.

I scooped up Bunny’s pistol and his cousin’s Mac-10, and counted five bullet holes stitched in the Escalade’s roof. I had no clue how I was going to explain them to Enterprise. Then I called Detective Rosario.

Li’l Sinister hunkered silently in the backseat of a San Diego Police Department black and white. I stood with Rosario and Lawless watching paramedics load Bunny the Human Doberman into an ambulance. He was screaming how it’s against the rules of human decency to handcuff a man with a fractured wrist and broken nose.

“Stop whining like a little girl,” Rosario said to him, “and be a man.”

“Eat me, bitch!”

Rosario shrugged him off. “I’m a cop,” she said to me, smiling. “You get used to it.”

Lawless was convinced that with the arrests of Bunny and Li’l Sinister, the investigation of Janet Bollinger’s homicide was all but complete. There was little left to do, he said, beyond tying up a few loose threads before presenting the case, heavy with circumstantial evidence, to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.

I wasn’t so sure.

“What was their motive?”

Rosario and Lawless both looked at me.

“What reason would these two clowns have had to kill Janet Bollinger?”

“You’re a pilot, Logan, and obviously not a very good one, considering you nearly got us killed,” Lawless said. “How about leaving professional law enforcement work to the professionals?”

“Janet Bollinger’s purse was missing from her apartment, along with a few other valuables,” Rosario said. “I’m sure we’ll find things when we execute search warrants.”

“Bunny said he had nothing to do with it.”

“Wow,” Lawless smirked. “An innocent suspect. That’s gotta be a first.”

I told the detectives what Bunny told me, how Janet Bollinger had telephoned attorney Dowd to say she had to get something off her chest about her testimony during the Munz trial, and how Dowd had dispatched Bunny to go meet with her.

Lawless checked his watch like I was keeping him from more important duties. “What’s your point, Mr. Logan?”

“My point is that maybe you should go talk to Dowd, the attorney.”

“Maybe we just will.”

He walked back to his unmarked cruiser while a tow truck pulled into the parking lot and backed up to Li’l Sinister’s Chevy. The truck driver hopped out in grimy coveralls and began hooking up the car.

“How’s your plane?” Rosario said.

I pantomimed crocodile tears. She smiled sympathetically.

“You know, one thing I’m wondering,” Rosario said, “is how these two jokers were able to track you down.”

“Bunny knew I was doing some work for Hub Walker. He digs up Walker’s address, establishes eyes-on, then waits until he thinks he has an advantage before engaging the target. I made it too easy for him, spaced out on my counter-surveillance measures.”

“How do you know counter-surveillance measures?”

“I watch too much TV.”

Her sideways look said she didn’t know whether to believe me or not.

“Well, anyway,” Rosario said, “I’m just glad you got ’em. Makes my job easier. Flying out to Arizona would’ve been a giant time suck.”

“One’s allotted life span is not disallowed the time one spends in the sky.”

“Heavy. You just make that up?”

“Me? Nah, I read it in a men’s room at the San Francisco airport.”

Rosario smiled and stroked the side of her neck. “You married, Logan?”

“Was.”

“Me, too. Twice.” There was a pause, then she said, “Been forever since I got laid.”

Two offers to get busy with two different women in the same night. The last time that happened to me was… well, I couldn’t remember the last time. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t harbor fleeting fantasies of spending the evening with a woman stripped naked down to her badge and shoulder holster. But I had a lot on my mind. Too much, in fact. I shoved my hands in my back pockets and watched as a twin-engine King Air flew by, pretending that Rosario’s invitation, like the airplane, had gone right over my head.

“Well, that was awkward,” she said with an embarrassed smile.

I wanted to tell her about Savannah. But that would’ve required me to think about Savannah, which I’d already spent way too much time doing.

Her partner flashed the cruiser’s headlights impatiently.

“You’ll have to come back down for the prelim,” Rosario said.

“We’ll grab lunch.”

“I’d like that.”

Lawless tapped his horn. “Time to go.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Rosario said and began walking.

I didn’t doubt she would.

Bunny Myers was still screaming injustice as the ambulance transporting him drove out of the park.

Midnight was long gone by the time the giant cross atop Mt. Soledad faded from view in the Escalade’s rearview mirror. The odds of finding a decent Mexican restaurant serving at that hour anywhere in the San Diego area were minimal. Rolling down Mission Boulevard through Pacific Beach, I spotted a Taco Bell that was still open for business. It would have to do.

I maneuvered the Escalade into the empty drive-through lane and stopped at the sign where you decide what you want to eat. It didn’t matter what I wanted because there’s really no difference from one menu item to the next at Taco Bell. There’s a big machine in the back that cranks out what looks like gorditas and chalupas, but it’s all really essentially the same stuff.

“Welcome to Taco Bell. May I take your order?” She sounded Hispanic and young.

“I’d like two Burrito Supremes and a small iced tea, please.”

“Would you like some cheesy nachos with that?”

“Only if they come with an all-expense-paid trip to the cardiac care unit.”