The next morning I made pecan waffles and codfish cakes. Feather and I sat together at the ledge around the stove eating and enjoying each other’s company.

“I talked to Erculi last night after calling you,” I said.

“How is Uncle Hercules?”

“He told me to tell you that if you had any problem just to hit the alarm button and him and his sons will be here in under three minutes.”

The elder Longo had little red buttons installed in every house just in case there was some kind of emergency. We had one on each floor.

“Uh-huh,” my daughter said. She wasn’t worried and I suppose that was a good thing.

“You been talking to your uncle Milo?”

“He told me that my mother used to play violin when she was a girl. He said that she was one of the best in her age-group in LA.”

“So what do you think about him?”

“He’s my blood,” she said with unexpected conviction. “When I talk to him about our family it feels like he knows things about me that I don’t, but, but it’s like I feel like I always did. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it’s important to have real family.”

“No, Daddy.” Feather put her hand on mine. “You’re my real family. Uncle Milo and his people are where I came from. But you’re my father forever.”

I got to work at about 9:00. I wasn’t bothered to be alone because I figured Oldstein, or whatever his name was, would honor the forty-eight hours he gave. I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have found Donata on his own and that money was the primary issue on his mind.

I went to the window of my office and looked down on the hippie yard. The youngsters were going back and forth from the greenhouse bringing various chemicals and tools to bear.

I noticed, not for the first time, a dark sedan parked across the street and down a few houses from the hippie house. The sun was beating down hard and there was no respite of a breeze.

I trundled back to Niska’s desk, making myself comfortable there. I find that at times if I change small patterns, like sitting at Niska’s desk, for instance, I gain a different perspective and maybe even a slightly altered way of thinking.

Sitting at the innocent student’s desk, I considered Mouse’s suggestion of killing Eddie Brock. He was a bad man even Melvin Suggs couldn’t protect me from. But killing was such a final thing.

I tabled the notion, and then there was a knock on the front door.

It could have been the grim reaper tapping on my chamber door. Maybe I should have run, but this was my office. You only die once, but giving in to fear was endless defeat.