“Hello.” Feather was out of breath, the sound of laughter echoing in her voice.

“Hey, baby.”

“Daddy!”

“You sound happy.”

“Uncle Milo and Dagmar came up to visit. I thought it was okay because you said I couldn’t go down there anymore but you didn’t say we had to stop seeing each other. We’ve been having swimming races and I beat them every time.”

“They aren’t smoking marijuana there, are they?”

“Um, uh, no . . . I mean, only up on the roof.”

I took about ten seconds of silence to show my disapproval and then we started talking again. She went on about her school friends and what they were doing and where they were going for their summer vacations. She said that she’d like to go see Boston and New York and London too. We’d gotten a letter from her adoptive brother, Jesus. He and his little family were doing fine down in La Jolla.

I closed my eyes for a while there listening to her chatter. I never really understood the word blessing before she and her brother came into my life.

“Are you coming home tonight, Daddy?”

“I’m gonna try my best. It’s kind of a complex job.”

“Uncle Milo and Dagmar are goin’ to a concert in Griffith Park tonight, so could you try to get here before I go to bed?”

“I’ll try.”

Myra gave me the address of the Pitman Construction Company on Lankershim Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley.

“Rinaldo Pitman is listed as the manager but a Leon Starr is the owner through his company Sherman Construction. Pitman has been arrested twice on assault charges but they were both dropped.”

“Thank you so much, Myra. That was a great help.”

“You’re very welcome. Say hello to Mr. Jones for me.”

One more call, to Jewelle Blue, and I was on my way. When it came to commercial construction she knew just about every player in the business. And they were aware of her connections and the amount of money that was there to be made.

On the drive through Laurel Canyon over to the Valley I was thinking that I was glad not to have seen Dennis Plennery. I’d talked to, dealt with, and encountered enough bad men to last me a month, maybe two. I was looking forward to a simple business where men worked hard and then went home to their families, TV programs, and pets.

Pitman Construction took up an area of about two and a half city blocks. It housed at least forty trucks, from van-size to sixty-foot tractor trailers that could move many tons of cargo. They also had cranes, bulldozers, cement-mixing trucks, and a dozen or more highly specialized vehicles that a city like LA needed to grow as fast as seaweed under the South Pacific sun.