Exactly twenty-four days after the City of Los Angeles district attorney's Office registered my conviction with the state, I received a letter from the California State Licensing Board revoking my investigator's license. In the same mail, the California Sheriffs Commission revoked my license to carry a firearm. So much for the Elvis Cole Detective Agency. So much for being a detective. Maybe I could become a sod farmer.

Two days later the doctors cut off my cast, and I began physical therapy. It hurt worse than any physical pain I'd ever felt, even worse than being shot. But my arm worked, and I could drive again. Also, I no longer looked like a waiter.

I drove to my office for the first time since the desert, walked up the four flights, and sat at my desk. I had been in that office for over ten years. I knew the people who worked in the insurance office across the hall, and I used to date the woman who owned the beauty supply company next door. I bought sandwiches from the little deli in the lobby, and did my banking in the lobby bank. Joe had an office there, too, though it was empty. He had never used it, and now perhaps never would.

I watched Pinocchio's eyes move from side to side, and said, "I guess I could hang you in the loft."

When the phone rang, I said, "Elvis Cole Detective Agency. We're out of business."

Frank Garcia said, "What do you mean, out of business?"

"Just a joke, Frank. How you doing?" I didn't want to get into it.

"How come you haven't called? How come you and that pretty lady haven't come see me?"

"Been busy. You know."

"What's that pretty lady's name? The one works for Channel 8?"

"Lucy Chenier."

"I want you two to come have dinner. I'm lonely, and I want my friends around. Will you?"

"You mind if it's just me, Frank?"

"Is something wrong? You don't sound so good."

"I'm worried about Joe."

Frank didn't say anything for a while, but then he said, "Yeah, well, some things we can control, and some we can't. You sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine."

I spoke to Lucy every day, but over time our calls grew shorter and less frequent. I didn't enjoy them, and felt worse after we had spoken. It was probably the same for Lucy, too.

Stan Watts called, time to time, or I called him, but there was still no word about Joe. I phoned John Chen on eight separate occasions to see if he'd gotten anything from the tests he'd run, but he never returned my calls. I still don't know why. I stayed in touch with Joe's gun shop, and went through the motions of searching for the mysterious girl in the black van, but without real hope of finding anything. After a time, I felt like a stranger in my own life; all the things that had been real to me were changing.

On Wednesday of that week, I phoned my landlady and gave up my office. The Elvis Cole Detective Agency was out of business. My partner, my girlfriend, and now my business were gone, and I felt nothing. Maybe when I lost my license I had gone, too, and that was why I didn't feel anything. I wondered if they were hiring at Disneyland.

On Thursday, I parked in Frank Garcia's drive, and went to the door expecting dinner. Abbot Montoya answered, which surprised me.

He said, "Frank and I had a little business, and he invited me to stay. I hope you don't mind."

"You know better than that."

He led me into the living room, where Frank was sitting in his chair.

I said, "Hi, Frank."

He didn't answer; he just sat there for a moment, smiling with a warmth that reached all the way into my heart.

He said, "How come I gotta find out from other people?"

"What?"

"You weren't kidding about being out of business. You lost your license."

"There's nothing to be said for it, Frank. How'd you find out?"

"That pretty lady, Ms. Chenier. She called me about it."

"Lucy called you?" That surprised me.

"She explained what happened. She said you lost it helping Joe get away."

I shrugged, giving his own words back to him. "There's things we can control, things we can't." I wasn't comfortable talking about it, and didn't want to.

Frank Garcia handed me an envelope.

I held it back without opening it. "I told you. You don't owe me a nickel."

"It's not money. Open it."

I opened it.

Inside, there was a California state investigator's license made out in my name, along with a license to carry a concealed weapon. There was also a brief, terse letter from a director of the state board, apologizing for any inconvenience I might've suffered for the temporary loss of my licenses.

I looked at Frank, then at Abbot Montoya. I looked at the license again.

"But I'm a convicted felon. It's a state law."

A fierce pride flashed in Abbot Montoya's eyes then, and I could see the strength and the muscle and the power that had been used to get these things. And I thought that maybe he was right, maybe he and Frank weren't so far from the White Fence gang-bangers they'd been as younger men.

He said, "Temos tu corazón y tu el de nosotros. Para siempre."

Frank gripped my arm, the same fierce way he had gripped me before. "Do you know what that means, my friend?"

I couldn't answer. All I could do was shake my head.

"It means we love you."

I nodded.

"That pretty woman, she loves you, too."

I cried, then, and couldn't stop, not for what I had, but for what I didn't.

Two days later I was hanging a framed copy of the new license in my office when the phone rang. My first thought was that it was John Chen or Stan Watts, but it was neither.

One of the guys who worked in Joe's gun shop said, "You know who I am?"

My heart rate spiked. Just like that, and a cold sweat filmed my chest and back.

"Is this about Joe?"

"You ever been to the old missile control base above Encino? The one they turned into a park? You'll like the view."

"Is Joe okay? Did you hear from him?"

"No way. Joe's probably dead. I just thought we might get together up at the park, maybe raise one for an old friend."

"Sure. We could do that."

"I'll give ya a call sometime. Bring a six-pack."

"Anytime you want."

"Sooner the better."

He hung up.

I locked the office, and drove hard west through the city, and up to Mulholland.

It was a beautiful, clear Friday morning. The rush hour had passed, letting me make good time, but I would've made the time even if the streets had been crushed. It had to be Joe, or word of him, and I drove without thinking or feeling, maybe because I was scared the word would be bad. Sometimes, denial is all you have.

The government had built a missile control base high in the Santa Monica Mountains during the Cold War years. Then it was a top secret radar installation on the lookout for Soviet bombers coming to nuke Los Angeles. Now it was a beautiful little park that almost no one knew about except mountain bikers and hikers, and they only went on weekends.

When I reached the park, a Garcia tortilla company truck was parked off the road. I left my car behind it, hurried into the park, and made my way up the caged metal stairs to the top of the tower. The observation tower had once been a giant radar dome, and from it you could see south to the ocean and north across the San Fernando Valley.

Joe Pike was waiting on the platform.

He stiffened even though I didn't hug him hard. He was pale, and thinner than I'd ever seen him, though the white Garcia bakery shirt made him seem dark.

I said, "Took you long enough to call, goddamnit. Can you spell 'worry'?"

"I was down in Mexico, getting better."