“Okay, but I already got in touch with Jackson Blue. Him and his wife and child are up on your mountaintop. Your little girl is just fine.”

The Chateau Marmont was easier getting into the second time. The doorman was a dark-skinned brother on that particular day. When I told him where I was going he just waved me by.

Bo Tierce was making drinks at a furious pace and so just smiled and nodded at me. I went on through to the small lounge, where I spied Ms. Strael talking with a paunchy middle-aged white man. While they talked I walked up and waited patiently.

After a moment or two the man turned to me. He should have been wearing Brooks Brothers gray but instead he sported a lavender ensemble that would have made any man not performing on a Las Vegas stage look ridiculous.

“Can I help you?” he asked. You could tell by the timbre of his voice that he was used to being obeyed.

“It’s the lady,” I said.

“Don’t you see us talking here?”

“I know. But it’s a question I believe she wants to hear—about a man named Kirkland Larker.”

Mona stood up.

“Excuse me, Mr. Beam,” she said. “This will only take a minute.”

Out in the carpeted hallway Strael confronted me.

“What the fuck do you mean by walkin’ in on me like that?” she demanded.

“You’d rather me send Mr. Brock?”

“I know people too,” she averred. “I could put somebody on you just as easy.”

“If that’s the way you wanna play it.”

Mona actually sneered. She looked into my eyes, imagining me not existing at all.

“Mona,” a man said. It was Mr. Beam in his garish Carnaby Street suit.

“Go away, Peter,” she said. “Just go away.”

She didn’t even look at him.

After he was gone she said, “What have I done to you?”

“Brock was after money that your friend Donata stole,” I said. “Now, because I worked for Craig a minute and a half, Brock has transferred that debt to me.”

“But you didn’t take it.”

“That’s right. And I truly do wish he had your powers of perception and objectivity. But let’s face it—that man has only two gears—to kill or to maim.”

“And what do you need from me?”

“Where Larker is and where he might think we can find the cash.”

“I can’t tell you that,” she said.

“Your funeral.” I meant it too.

I had taken maybe three steps toward the stairs when a hand grabbed my left biceps. She pulled hard enough to turn me around.

“Please,” she said. “You don’t know what that ape does to women.”

“Then help me. This is the last guy who should get what he’s after.”

“I don’t know where the money is. Plennery and Alonzo took it.”

“Where does Kirkland fit in?”