“Did she hurt you?” I said.

Jeffers said, “Of course I didn't.”

Robin shook her head.

Jeffers' red nails were so fresh they still looked wet.

She said, “Can we please—”

Robin tied her up quickly. Then we returned to the living room. Coburg's head where I'd hit him was huge, soft, eggplant-purple. He was starting to move a bit but hadn't regained consciousness.

Robin trussed him expertly, those good, strong hands.

The dog was at my feet, panting. I got down and inspected him. He licked my hands. Licked the gun.

Superficial cuts, no sign he was suffering. Robin picked the glass out of his fur and lifted him, kissing him, cradling him like a baby.

I picked up the phone.

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER

33

Three days later, I waited for Milo at a place named Angela's, across the street from the West L.A. stationhouse. The front was a coffee shop. In back was a cocktail lounge where detectives, lawyers, bailbondsmen, and felons drank and worked on their lung tumors.

I took a booth at the rear of the lounge, drinking coffee and trying to concentrate on the morning paper. Nothing yet on the “bad love” murders, orders of the brass till it got sorted out. Coburg was in the hospital, and Milo had been virtually sequestered with Jean Jeffers at the county jail.

When he showed up, fifteen minutes late, a woman was with him, thirties, black. The two of them stood in the doorway of the lounge, outlined by hazy gray light.

Adeline Potthurst, the social worker I'd seen on film, Dorsey Hewitt's knife up against her throat.

She looked older and heavier. A big white purse was clutched in front of her, like a fig leaf.

Milo said something to her. She glanced over at me and replied. A bit more conversation, then they shook hands and she left.

He came over and slid into the booth. “Remember her? She's talking to me.”

“She have anything interesting to say?”

He smiled, lit up a cigar, and added to the pollution. “Oh, yeah.”

Before he could elaborate, a waitress arrived and took his Diet Coke order.

When she left, he said, “Lots happening. I've got New York records placing Coburg in Manhattan during all the East Side break-ins up till the day after Rosenblatt's death: busted for shoplifting, he was arrested in Times Square two days before the first burglary, went to court the day he shoved Rosenblatt out the window, but his attorney got a continuance. Records listed his address as some dive near Times Square.”

“So he celebrated with murder.”

He nodded grimly. “Jivin' Jean finally opened up—her attorney convinced her to sell out Coburg for a reduced plea to accessory. Names, dates, places, she's puttin' on a good show.”

“What's her connection to de Bosch?”