The door opened and Mary came in with the coffee.

Jean Jeffers thanked her and told her to tell someone named Amy that she'd be ready to see her in a minute.

When the door closed, she began stirring her coffee.

"Well," she said, "it was nice talking to you. Sorry I couldn't do more."

"Thanks for your time," I said. "Is there anyone else I could talk to who might be able to help?"

"No one I can think of."

"What about the woman he took hostage?"

"Adeline? Now there's a really sad story. She'd transferred over here a month before from a center in South Central because she had high blood pressure and wanted a safer environment."

She threw up her hands again and gave a sour laugh.

"Any particular reason Hewitt grabbed her?" I said.

"You mean did she know him?"

"Yes."

She shook her head. The hair flap obscured her eye and she left it there. "Just pure bad luck. She happened to be sitting at a desk in the hall, working, just as he was running out, and he grabbed her."

She walked me to the door. People kept coming out of the psychiatrist's office. She looked at them.

"How can you ever know someone like that, anyway?" she said. "When you get down to it, how can you ever really know anyone?"

I decided to drive to Andrew Coburg's office and tender an appeal to his human interest. Getting onto Pico, I drove to Lincoln and headed south into Venice.

The Human Interest Law Center turned out, indeed, to be a storefront- one of three set into an old mustard-colored, one-story building. The brick facade was chipped. Next door was a liquor store advertising screwtop wine on special. The other side was vacant. On the window was painted DELI *** LUNCH & DINNER.

The law office window was papered with wrinkled aluminum foil. An American flag hung over the doorway. Printed on one of the white stripes was KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

The door was closed but unlocked. As I pushed it open a bell tinkled, but no one came out to greet me. In front of me was a particle-board partition. A black arrow pointed left and handpainted signs said WELCOME! and BIENVENIDOS! A mass of noise- voices, phone rings, clicking typewriter keys- came from the other side.

I followed the arrow around the partition to a single large room, long and narrow. The walls were gray-white and crowded with bulletin boards and posters, the ceiling a high, dark nest of ductwork, electrical wiring, and stammering fluorescent tubes.

No secretary or receptionist. Eight or nine mismatched desks were spread around the room, each equipped with a black dial phone, a typewriter, and a facing chair. Behind each chair was a U-shaped construction of PVC tubing. White muslin curtains hung from the frame- the kind used for mock privacy in hospitals. Some of the curtains were drawn, others were open. Shoes and cuffs were visible beneath the hems of the drawn drapes.

Young people sat behind the desks, talking into phones or to people in the chairs. The clients were mostly black or Hispanic. Some looked asleep. One of them- an old man of indeterminate race- held a terrier mutt on his lap. A few small children wandered around looking lost.

The desk nearest to me was occupied by a dark-haired man wearing a green plaid suit jacket, white shirt, and bolo tie. He needed a shave, his hair was greased, and his face was as sharp as an icepick. Though the phone receiver was cradled under his chin, he didn't appear to be talking or listening, and his eyes drifted over to me.

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for Andrew Coburg."

"Back there." Making a small, meaningless movement with his head. "But I think he's with someone."

"Which desk?" I said.

He put the phone down, swiveled, and pointed to a station in the center of the room. Drapes drawn. Dirty sneakers and an inch of hairy shin below the hem of the muslin.

"Okay if I wait?"

"Sure. You an attorney?"

"No."

"Sure, wait." He picked up the phone and began dialing laboriously. Someone must have answered, because he said, "Yeah, hi, it's Hank, over at H.I. Yeah, me too- yeah." Laughter. "Listen, what about that nolo we talked about? Go and check- yeah, I think so. Yeah."

I stood against the partition and read the posters. One featured a bald eagle on crutches and said HEAL OUR SYSTEM. Another was printed in Spanish- something to do with immigraciÓn and liberaciÓn.

The sharp-faced man started talking in lawyer's jargon, jabbing the air with a pen and laughing intermittently. He was still on the phone when the curtains at Andrew Coburg's station parted. An emaciated man wearing a filthy cableknit sweater and cutoff shorts got up. He was bearded and had matted hair, and my chest tightened when I saw him because he could have been Dorsey Hewitt's brother. Then I realized I was seeing the brotherhood of poverty and madness.

He and Coburg shook hands and he left, eyes half closed. As he passed me I backed away from the stench. He passed close to the man named Hank, too, but the lawyer didn't notice, kept talking and laughing.

Coburg was still standing. He wiped his hands on his pants, yawned and stretched. Early thirties, six one, two hundred. Pear shaped, fair haired, arms slightly too short for his long-waisted body. His hair was brass colored, worn full at the sides with no sideburns. He had a soft face, fine features, and rosy cheeks, had probably been a beautiful baby.

He wore a chambray work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, loosened paisley tie five years too narrow, rumpled khakis, saddle shoes. The laces on one shoe were untied.

Stretching again, he sat, picked up his phone, and began dialing. Most of the other lawyers were on the phone now. The room sounded like a giant switchboard.

I walked over to him. His eyebrows rose as I sat down, but he didn't show any signs of annoyance. Probably used to walk-ins.

He said, "Listen, gotta go," into the phone. "What's that? Fine- I accept that, just as long as we have a clear understanding, okay? What?… No, I've got someone here. Okay. Bye. Cheers."

He hung up and said, "Hi, how can I help you?" in a pleasant voice. His tie was clipped with an unusual bit of jewelry: red guitar pick glued to a silver bar.

I told him who I was and that I was trying to locate any friends of Dorsey Hewitt.

"Dorsey. One of my triumphs," he said, all the pleasantness gone. He sat back, crossed his legs. "So what paper do you work for?"

"I'm a psychologist. Just like I said."

He smiled. "Really?"

I smiled back. "Scout's honor."

"And a police consultant, too."

"That's right."

"You don't mind if I see some ID, do you?"

I showed him my psych license, my med school faculty card, and my old LAPD consultant's tag.

"The police," he said, as if he still couldn't believe it. "Is that a problem for you?"

"In what way?"

"Working with the police mentality? All that intolerance- the authoritarianism."

"Not really," I said. "Police officers vary, like anyone else."

"That hasn't been my experience," he said. There was a jar of licorice sticks near his typewriter. He took one and held out the container.

"No, thanks."

"High blood pressure?"

"No."

"Licorice raises it," he said, chewing. "Mine tends to be low. I'm not saying they're intrinsically bad- the police. I'm sure most of them start out as okay human beings. But the job corrupts- too much power, too little accountability."

"I guess the same could be said for doctors and lawyers."

He smiled again. "That's no comfort." The smile stayed on his face, but it began to look out of place. "So. Why does a police consultant need to know anything about Dorsey's friends?"