Milo sat there, probing the rim of his piecrust with his fork. I wondered if he was thinking what I was: a lot of insight in one little speech.

"So," she said, "who do I talk to about that pension? And the will?"

Back in the car, Milo made a series of calls and got her the number of the army pension office.

"As far as the will is concerned," he told her, "we're still trying to contact Dr. Mate's lawyer. A man named Roy Haiselden. Has he ever called you?"

"That big fat guy always with Eldon on TV? Nope- you think he has the will?"

"If there is one, he might. Nothing's been filed with County Records. If I learn anything, I'll let you know."

"Thanks. I guess I'll be staying in town for a few days, see what I can find out. Know of any clean, cheap places?"

"Hollywood's a tough area, ma'am. And nothing de-cent's gonna be that cheap."

"Well," she said, "I'm not saying I don't have any money. I work, I brought two hundred dollars with me. I just don't want to spend more than I have to."

We drove her to a West Coast Inn on Fairfax near Bev-erly and checked her in. She paid with a hundred-dollar bill, and as we walked her to her first-floor room, Milo warned her about flashing cash on the street and she said, "I'm not stupid."

The room was small, clean, noisy, with a view across Fairfax: cars whizzing by, the sleek, modern lines of the CBS studios a black-and-white subpanel to the horizon.

"Maybe I'll see a game show," she said, parting the drapes. She removed another floral dress from the mac-rame bag and headed for the closet. "Okay, thanks for everything."

Milo handed her his card. "Call me if you think of anything, ma'am-by the way, where's your son?"

Her back was to us. She opened the closet door. Took a long time to hang the dress. On the top shelf was an extra pillow that she removed. Fluffing, compressing, fluffing.

"Ma'am?"

"Don't know where Donny is," she said.

Punching the pillow. All at once, she looked tiny and bowed. "Donny's real smart, just like Eldon. Did a year at San Francisco State. I used to think he'd be a doctor, too. He got good grades, he liked science."

She stood there, hugging the pillow.

"What happened?" I said.

Her shoulders heaved.

I went over and stood next to her. She edged away, placed the pillow atop a dresser. "They said it was drugs- my friends at church said it had to be that. But I never saw him take any drugs."

"He changed," I said.

She bent, cupped a hand over her eyes. I risked taking her by the elbow. Her skin was soft, gelatinous. I guided her onto a chair, handed her a tissue that she grabbed, crushed, finally used to wipe her face.

"Donny changed totally," she said. "Stopped taking care of himself. Grew long hair, a beard, got filthy. Like one of those homeless people. Only he's got a home, if he'd ever come back there."

"How long has it been since you've seen him?"

"Two years."

She sprang up, marched into the bathroom, closed the door. Water ran for a while, then she emerged announcing she was tired. "When I'm ready to eat, where can I get some dinner around here?"

"Do you like Chinese, ma'am?" said Milo.

"Sure, anything."

He phoned up a takeout place and asked them to deliver in two hours. When we left, she was consulting the cable TV channel guide.

Out in the car, Milo sat back in his seat and frowned. "One happy family. And Junior's a homeless guy with mental problems, maybe a druggie. Someone with a reason to kill Mate-who might still want to be Mate. Maybe I was wrong to dismiss the street bum so quickly."

"If Donny was intelligent to begin with, even with some sort of mental breakdown, he might've held on to enough smarts to be able to plan. Mate abandoned and rejected him in the worst kind of way. Exactly the kind of primal anger that leads to violence. Mate's getting famous wouldn't have helped things. Maybe Donny smoldered, seethed, decided to come back, take over the family business… Oedipus wrecks. Maybe Mate finally agreed to see him, arranged a talk up in Mulholland because he didn't want Donny in his apartment. He could've even had concerns about his safety, that's why he backed the van in. But he went through with it-guilt, or he enjoyed the danger."

He made no comment, got on the phone, hooked up with NCIC, asked for a felony search on Eldon S. Mate. Nothing. But plugging in Eldon Salcido pulled up three convictions. All in California, and the vital statistics fit.

Driving under the influence six years ago, larceny two years after that, assault eighteen months ago. Jail time in Marin County. Release six months ago.

"A year and a half in jail and he doesn't call his mother," I said. "Socially isolated. And he progressed from DUI to assault. Getting more aggressive."

"Family values," he said. "Be interesting to see what the grieving widow does when she finds out Mate left over three hundred grand in the bank. Wonder if Alice or anyone else will press a claim-that's really why old Willy came down here. It always boils down to anger and money-okay, I'll look into Donny, but in the meantime let's try to ferret out that goddamn lawyer."

ROY HAISELDEN WAS living better than his prime client, but he was no sultan.

His house was a peach-colored, one-story plain-wrap on Camden Avenue, west of Westwood, south of Wilshire. Mown lawn but no shrubs, empty driveway. Alarm-company sign staked in the grass. Milo rang the bell, knocked on the door-dead-bolted with a sturdy Quikset-pushed open the mail slot and sighted down.

"Just some throwaway flyers," he said. "No mail. So he left recently."

He rang and knocked again. Tried to peer through the white drapes that sheathed the front windows, muttered that it just looked like a goddamn house. A check in back of the house revealed more grass and a small oval swimming pool set in a brick deck, the water starting to green, the gunite spotted with algae.

"If he had a pool man," I said, "looks like he canceled a while back. Maybe he's been gone for a while and put on a mail stop."

"Korn and Demetri checked for that. And the gardener's been here."

The garage was a double, locked. Milo managed to pry the door upward several inches and he peered in. "No car, old bicycle, hoses, the usual junk."

He inspected every side of the house. Most of the windows were barred and bolted and the back door was secured by an identical dead bolt. The kitchen window was undraped but narrow and high, and he boosted me up for a look.

"Dishes in the sink, but they look clean… no food… another alarm sticker high on the window, but I don't see any alarm leads."

"Probably a fake-out job," he said. "One of those clever boys who thinks appearance is everything."

"Overconfident," I said. "Just like Mate."

He let me down. "Okay, let's see what the neighbors have to offer."

Both of the adjacent houses were empty. Milo scrawled requests to call on the back of his business cards and left them in the mailboxes. In the second house to the south, a young black man answered. Clean-shaven, full-faced, barefoot, wearing a gray athletic shirt with the U. logo and red cotton shorts. Under his arm was a book. A yellow underlining pen was clenched between his teeth. He removed it, shifted the book so I could see the title: Organizational Structure: An Advanced Text. The room behind him was set up with two bright-blue beanbag chairs and not much else. Soda cans, potato chip bags, an extra-large pizza box mottled with grease on the thin khaki rug.

He greeted Milo pleasantly, but the sight of the badge caused his face to tighten.

"Yes?" The unspoken overtone: What now? I wondered how many times he'd been stopped for driving in Westwood.