“I haven’t heard from Craig in two days,” she said. “I’ve called him a dozen times. He’s talked to me at least every other day since he got out of the army. Something’s wrong.”

“Did you go to his apartment?”

“I, I, I . . .”

If she could have found the words she would have told me that what I asked was a man’s job and, for lack of anyone else, I was that man.

“You could have just called me to tell me that, Lola,” I said, trying to slow the locomotive I felt bearing down on me.

She looked into my eyes, wondering at the statement like a cat might when you give it a name. It occurred to me that Lola had been performing for an audience for so long that her life had become that ritual.

“I need you,” she said.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to say no; no, you do not need me and furthermore I wash my hands of you and your son. That’s what any sensible modern man or woman would have done. But I’m anything but modern and she knew it.

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“Taxi. It cost nine seventy-five.”

I gave Lola a double shot of whiskey, called her a taxi from a nearby service, and sent her home promising that I’d call as soon as I found her son.

“Security,” Edmund Lewis said on the first ring.

I told Edmund to tell Christmas I’d be picking him up at the office, that we were going to check on my client.

“When?” the war hero/receptionist asked.

“As soon as I can get there,” I said and hung up.

I shouldn’t have been rude to Lewis. He was just doing his job the best way he knew how. But my problems were piling up while the solutions side of the scale stayed empty. Christmas Black was sounding a wee bit unstable, but I’d need him if Craig was going through another of his episodes.

By the time I got to P9 it was almost 5:00. I couldn’t have explained why I stopped by Asiette’s office on the way; now I think that I was looking for a moment of respite before heading off to war.

She was just disengaging from a gentle kiss delivered by a quite handsome and well-dressed olive-skinned gentleman who might have been European.

“Excuse me,” I said, making to back away from the door, which, in my defense, had been open.

“No, no, Easy,” Asiette said. She rushed toward me and touched my hand. “This is my friend Stefano Lombardi. Stefano, this is Easy Rawlins.”

Stefano had wavy black hair and an angular face that exuded extreme confidence.

He looked down his Roman nose at me and then smiled, reminding me a bit of Eddie Brock.

“You are the janitor?” he asked.