“My booty’s been called many things, but never mechanical.”

“That wasn’t intended for you, Savannah.”

“As I understand it, Buddhists don’t typically exhibit unbridled anger, Logan. They modulate their aggressive impulses.”

“I’m more of a Buddhist work in progress. And, for your information, my ‘aggressive impulses’ just now happened to be directed at an inanimate object.”

“It does matter. There’s a fine line between putting your fist through a wall, Logan, and putting your fist through somebody’s face.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“I located your landlady,” Savannah said somberly. “A neighbor told me he saw Mrs. Schmulowitz being taken away in an ambulance. She’s in the intensive care unit at Rancho Bonita Mercy. She had some complications after her surgery.”

My heart sank. I had called the hospital and was told they had no record of Mrs. Schmulowitz having been admitted. Apparently no one had bothered checking the ICU.

“Any idea what kind of complications?”

“They wouldn’t tell me. And they won’t let me in to see her because I’m not a blood relative. I gave the nursing desk your number and asked that somebody call you. That’s all I can do for now. I have to get back to LA. I have an appointment tonight with a new client, a TV executive who’s stressing out about his job. I’m sorry, Logan.”

“Don’t be. I appreciate the help. At least I know she’s in good hands.”

I told Savannah I’d call her that night and we could talk further.

“I’d like that,” she said.

The phone went silent.

Dear, kind-hearted Mrs. Schmulowitz. I never knew my biological parents. I have no one to compare them to, but I couldn’t imagine a better or kinder parental role model than my wizened landlady. She had one child, Arnie, a history professor who lived back East somewhere. They talked sporadically. Whether he was aware of her condition, I couldn’t say. Somebody, though, needed to be with her, to hold her hand and help her get past whatever medical issues she’d run up against. The world could ill afford to lose someone as special as Mrs. Schmulowitz. I couldn’t afford to lose her. Maybe we weren’t kin in the DNA sense, but we were definitely family.

My airplane wasn’t going anywhere for awhile. Neither, hopefully, was C.W. Lazarus. I decided to head back to Rancho Bonita and help take care of Mrs. Schmulowitz until she was back on her feet, then I’d return to San Diego to wreak revenge on Lazarus. That was my plan, anyway.

I fired up the engine and started to make a U-turn that would take me back in the direction of the northbound 805 freeway, when an ebony Hummer with tinted windows came flying out of nowhere and blocked the Escalade’s path. A middle-aged man with a billiard ball head and a top-heavy, weightlifter’s build climbed down from the driver’s side and strode toward me authoritatively. He was garbed in ballistic, military-style sunglasses and a well-tailored Italian suit, black.

“What’re you doing out here, partner?”

“What’s it to you?”

He flashed me some cop-like badge and wallet ID. “Frank Jervis, corporate security chief for Castle Robotics. We’ve had you under observation for over an hour. Answer the question. What’re you doing out here?”

“Minding my own business on a public street.”

“That’s not what it looks like to me.”

“What does it look like to you?”

“Like you’re conducting corporate espionage.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Actually, Frank, I’m looking for somebody named C.W. Lazarus. I think he works for Castle Robotics.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” Jervis stared at me hard behind his sunglasses. “I’m gonna have to ask you to step out of the vehicle.”

“What for?”

“To make sure you’re not packing any surveillance equipment.”

“You’re not the police, Frank. You’re a corporate goon in an expensive suit.”

“You wanna do it the hard way? OK, smart guy, c’mon, let’s go.”

He opened my door and went to grab my shoulder. Nobody likes a bully. I slapped his hand away.

“I said let’s go, asshole.” He pushed his suit coat back and unlimbered a 9-millimeter Sig Sauer.

I pivoted in my seat, shoving the door all the way open. The edge of the door knocked the pistol out of his hand. Stunned but for only a moment, Jervis staggered back as I emerged from the Escalade, then charged. He was a brawler more than a boxer, head down, off-balance. He threw a ragged left, then a right, both of which missed, before I stepped in and wobbled him with a roundhouse to his left cheekbone that scraped skin from two of my knuckles. I was about to drop him when I caught movement at my seven o’clock position — and turned too late. A blow crashed down from behind me with such force that I could’ve sworn I heard my own skull crack.

Constellations appeared before my eyes.

Then I saw nothing.

I awoke on a concrete floor, in blackness, to the mother of all migraines. Weird as it may sound, I was happy for the excruciating pain that threatened to explode my head. Pain meant my nerve endings still worked. It meant I was still alive.

Wherever I was, it was uncomfortably warm. The air was stagnant and stunk like wet cardboard. I was aware that my ankles had been bound together with duct tape, as were the wrists behind my back. My mouth was taped over. Gone was the dive knife I’d stashed under my jeans. I was glad I hadn’t bought a more expensive knife considering what little use I’d gotten from the one I had purchased.

How long had I been lying there? An hour? A day? An entire week could’ve come and gone and I would not have known it. Trying to assess the passage of time, however, wasn’t my priority. Neither was formulating an immediate escape plan. I didn’t yet know enough about the forces arrayed against me to shift effectively into MacGyver mode. What mattered most at that moment was convincing myself that I would survive no matter what my captors had in store for me, so that I could dish it back to them in spades.

There are two types of individuals when it comes to enduring life-threatening hardship: those who rationalize death as an easy escape from their agony, and those who spit in the reaper’s face, too ornery to quit. The latter will themselves to live. “Fighting spirit” is what our instructors at Alpha called it. A refusal to roll over and die.

I closed my eyes and vowed that I would prevail no matter what lay ahead.

Hours passed, or maybe it was minutes. I nodded in and out of consciousness until I was startled awake by the sound of an approaching motor vehicle. The engine died. Two doors opened and slammed shut. I heard a key sliding into a padlock and the lock clicking open, followed by a harsh, metallic clanking. Cool sea air rushed in on a tide of moonlight as a steel door rolled up, revealing my surroundings: cardboard packing boxes, a bank safe, a stack of automobile tires, and what looked to be a vintage Plymouth sedan.

I was being held captive in a self-storage unit.

In walked Castle Robotics’ security chief Frank Jervis, followed by Ray Sheen, the company’s self-assured second-in-command. Sheen was toting a baseball bat.

Jervis muscled the rolling door back down as Sheen yanked on a pull chain. A naked light bulb flickered on overhead, bathing the storage unit in a harsh, white glare. Then Sheen nodded to Jervis who knelt down and ripped the tape off my mouth. The security chief’s eye was as purple as an eggplant where it had met my fist. He was dripping sweat.

Sheen squatted beside me.

“How’re we doing, Mr. Logan?”

“Can’t complain.” I nodded toward the bat in his hand. “That’s not Tony Gwynn’s autograph, by any chance, is it?”

“It is. You know why Gwynn was such a great hitter?”

“Tell me.”