We made it to the address she wanted in Mid-Wilshire in about twenty minutes. From what she told me her late husband’s law firm was anything but corporate or big money or flashy. I wasn’t surprised when the GPS led me to a classic 1950s LA bungalow with a simple wooden sign out front: Flouton, Greenbaum, McIntyre and Milkavic. There was a banner over the door saying: Black Lives Matter. There was that multicolored LGBT flag which I was seeing everywhere and which baffled me (I thought it was a minor league sports team) until Klara set me straight about it, telling me I should ‘get with the moment’ … whatever the hell that meant. As we pulled up Elise informed me:

‘That nameplate out front – a WASP, a Jew, an Irish Catholic, a Pole – it was a point of pride to Wilbur when he and those three other iconoclastic guys founded the firm in 1978. Stan Greenbaum is the only living member of the quarter of original partners. He retired up the coast in Carmel, but still can be called in to rabble-rouse when the cause is right.’

I parked the car.

‘You said ninety minutes?’

‘Could be shorter,’ she said. ‘I’ll text.’

As she walked up the drive I noticed that the windows on the bungalow had steel bars across them; that there was a CCTV camera by the front door – which was made of heavy reinforced steel. Damn. This firm had clearly been dealing with some threatening folk. Which given the sort of left-wing law they practiced – ‘rattling the establishment, big money cage’ as Elise had put it – wasn’t surprising. I waited until she was buzzed inside. Then I drove off.

A minute later there was a bing on my phone. I pulled over. I braked. I glanced at my screen, hoping the text was from Klara. It wasn’t. Instead I found myself reading:

I apologize for being so extreme. The heat of the moment. There is a solution to all this; a way back. I ask for the opportunity to meet you and offer my apology face-to-face and discuss solutions and a way for all of us to put this behind us. Please call me now. Todor.

I was suspicious. Very suspicious. Todor had always been my friend. And one of the few people I thought I could trust. Until he turned threatening on me. Maybe he now knew that he’d seriously overstepped. Maybe he could now be a reasonable intermediary when I announced to my wife that I no longer wanted our marriage; that I would give her half of everything and then get the hell out of Dodge.