Soon after, he appeared in the doorway, hatted and wrapped in a muffler, briefcase banging his knee. «I thought you had an appointment soon. Good morning, Mr. Qassan.»

“I do.” Lillian looked at Daoud. “We do. I think.”

He didn’t answer her unspoken question. He was looking at Jinadh, carefully, as if cataloguing details. Lillian tried to put herself behind his eyes, to see what he might. Purpose? Professionalism? Fatherhood? Marriage? Or maybe just a well-cut coat, ordered under better circumstances.

Jinadh took this scrutiny gracefully, with a hint of amusement, given he was on his way out the door. Finally, Daoud asked, «Are you happy that you left Porachis?»

Jinadh considered his answer for a moment, then said, «No.» Lillian swallowed hurt and waited for him to go on. This was not her conversation.

«Would you go back?» asked Daoud.

Tilting his head, Jinadh sent a sidelong glance at Lillian. She gave him nothing; she didn’t know what Daoud wanted him to say. Was he really asking about Porachis, or was this something else?

«If I knew I could do what I wanted,» said Jinadh. «Be who I wanted, and still have all the things I loved … I would be there between this heartbeat and the next. But some paths cannot be pursued without appalling compromise.»

«What if all paths lead to compromise?»

«Inevitable.» Jinadh looked past him to Lillian and smiled. «Life is a series of compromises. But a wise man will make his own, instead of accepting other people’s.»

«Semantics,» said Daoud.

Jinadh shrugged and straightened his hat. «If they get you through the day.»

The neon sign over Lyle’s wasn’t on. Lillian parked awkwardly at the curb and checked the street. An old woman sweeping the footpath. A shopkeep rolling up her grate. In the doorway on the other side of the street, a rag lady stirred beneath her blankets and her cardboard.

Daoud got out of the passenger’s side. «Glamorous.»

«We have not put her in the Cliff House yet. You cannot ask for a red carpet and a limousine.» Lillian scanned the street again, to make sure they had shed every reporter who chased after the car, and any other nasty thing they might have picked up on the way. «Down the stairs.»

Daoud trotted to the subterranean door and knocked. Lillian followed, stepping down just as the door came open on six feet of sinister-looking muscle.

“We’re here to see Opal,” she said, standing her ground. In heels she was nearly as tall.

The bruiser cased her, then Daoud, then shut the door on them.

«A lot of fuss for nothing,» said Daoud. But before he could get much else out, the door opened again on the same man, now nodding his head.

“Come on in,” he said.