He have a scrip?

Street buy. The tab we found was a Mexican import. The M.E. figures he used because of the foot. That foot was a mess.

So he was in a lot of pain with the foot?

Yeah.

Bad enough to keep him from driving?

He would have to leave his house for street drugs or someone would have to deliver them.

I'm just telling you what the M.E. said. I didn't examine his foot.

I got lost in the pages. Most of them were just numbers and charts, so I stopped looking at them.

Did you find anything that directly connects Byrd to Repko?

No.

Any of the other victims?

Uh-uh, but I don't know what the blind samples were. I don't know if they got any hits on those or not.

The two of us stared at each other until Chen's pager buzzed. He frowned when he glanced at it.

Crap. I gotta get going. They're looking for me.

Chen opened the door but hesitated before he got out.

You know what I think? They closed the case, but the case isn't really closed.

You think?

What else, bro? You think this girl had Lionel Byrd over for dinner?

Chen hurried back to his car, and I watched him drive away.

Chapter 11

I WANTED to read Chen's reports more carefully, and opted to read them at Philippe, a cafeteria-style sandwich shop nearby in Chinatown. I could have read them under the bridge or anywhere else, but even world-class detectives get hungry. Philippe claims they invented the French dip sandwich in 1908, and maybe they did, but either way they have been serving the same killer sandwiches ever since. The double-dip turkey is my fare of choice.

I never got to the reports. I had just mounted a stool at one of the long family-style tables when Jack Eisley returned my call about Angel Tomaso. Eisley remembered me, though we had only met the one time I interviewed Tomaso at Eisley's apartment.

He said, I saw the thing on the news and thought, hey, that's Angel's dude. Talk about blast from the past. And then you call.

Philippe was so noisy with the lunch-hour crush, I took the phone and the sandwich outside. The double-dip jus ran down my arm.

I need to speak with him. It's pretty important.

About this?

Yeah.

Angel moved back to Texas. He got really down on the whole acting thing and went back to Austin. Had to crash with his aunt. I'm, like, dude, are you sure?

Eisley wanted to chat.

Great. You have a number in Austin?

I called last night after the news, but his aunt said he came back to L.A. a few months ago. It's the actor thing, man. If you're an actor, you're an actor, you know? It was only a matter of time.

Even better. So what's his number here in L.A.?