“He worked at Pitman Construction. Alonzo introduced him to Donata and from there she pulled him into whatever crimes they planned.”

“How did you get mixed up in it?” I asked. I wasn’t expecting the truth but maybe just a lie transparent enough to give some kind of hint at what might have happened.

“I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Donata was at UCLA too. She was in the actuarial sciences department. We had English Lit together and it didn’t take long before we saw that we were a lot alike. You know what I mean. Not black but . . . you know. She’d been working at the Dragon’s Eye but that was too much for her schoolwork. So I brought her here. We worked the lounge together for a few months. She did three nights a week. In the daytime she worked for Eddie’s modeling agency. When things were slow we talked. One night, a few months ago, she invited me to go out with her and her boyfriend and his white friend Kirk. She said that she thought this friend would like me and if I liked him we could have some fun.

“Her boyfriend was Alonzo but you know that. He gave me some money and we had a good time. Kirkland worked construction. Alonzo got him to get him and his friend Plennery jobs on the yard. A little while after that they pulled him into some kind of robbery they planned. I didn’t know what. I thought maybe they’d steal and sell some heavy equipment.

“Kirk and Alonzo were kinda kinky, you know. Switching partners and takin’ pictures. They had some good cocaine and our semester was over so I really wanted to let go a little.”

Mona stopped talking for a while, her face expressing the bittersweet memories of sex and drugs somehow translating into relief.

“What was your part in the thefts?” I asked then.

“Nothing really. Roxanna wanted to bring Craig out on a double date with me and her and Kirk. We went to that big restaurant at the LA airport.”

“Why?”

“Roxie uses people. That’s how she got Kirk to get Craig to hire you.”

“But what would I have had to do with it?”

“Roxie knew that Craig would just get hurt and she really liked the kid. She moved to the house over on the Westside and told Kirk that she’d cut him in on the money if he made it so that Craig would go on a, you know, on a false trail.”

“So I’m the decoy?”

“You didn’t know anything. Kirk thought that you’d run Craig in circles long enough that he could get his hands on the money and run.”

“Larker knew where the money was?”

“They knew that it was on one of the lots of the Pitman Construction Company. At least that’s what he told Roxie.”