I liked Melvin, couldn’t help it. If they fired him from the force I’d bring him into the agency. I liked him but I didn’t trust anyone except maybe my children.

“Kilian obviously lied about something,” I said. “I don’t know about any heist, but the fact that that money made it into his apartment says that there was more involved.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, expecting more.

It was one of those crossroads Sorry and Robert Johnson had warned me about. Me putting the cops on Brock, a man I was sure had his fingers in a lot of pies, would be like shaving my head and then drawing a big white bull’s-eye on the back of my skull.

“I found a picture at Alonzo’s that might have been the girl Kilian was looking for.”

“You held back evidence?”

“Look, man, either we talkin’ or I’m walkin’, all right?”

Melvin looked around to make sure no one was watching and then nodded.

I took the picture I got from Alonzo Griggs’s wallet and handed it over.

“So this is the girl the dead vet was lookin’ for?”

“I suspect so but I don’t know for sure. I showed it to the kid and he acted like he didn’t recognize her. But I had the feeling he was hiding something.”

“What else?”

“I should be askin’ you that.”

“What does that mean?”

“Come on, Mel. We talkin’ here, right?”

Policemen hate giving civilians information. It’s like a river flowing upstream, birds migrating north for the winter.

“The SBPD have a couple’a their guys here in LA lookin’ for the black crew that took down the armored car. One name they floated was Alonzo Griggs.”

“Why didn’t they come question me?” I asked. “Is that why you’re here now?”

“They haven’t heard your name.”

“Wouldn’t Anatole tell them?”

“I told him to keep it to himself. The three SBPD detectives got a room at city hall. Some deal they got with the mayor. Chief Brown doesn’t like that they’re given special treatment and has asked me, personally, to find the perpetrators and make the arrests before they do.”

“So now you got me in the crosshairs.”

“I’m just sayin’ that you got a problem that dovetails with mine.”

We were both pretty quiet there for a moment. Now I had two police departments, two dead bodies, maybe three more dead bodies, a gang of desperate heist men, a gangster, and a grieving mother pressing up against me.

All that might have gotten me nervous if it weren’t for my participation at the Battle of the Bulge.

My expression must have communicated that thought because Suggs smiled and handed me a card. It was his regular business card but on the back he had scrawled, If Ezekiel Rawlins presents this card to you call the number below . . .