Abbot Montoya phoned at twenty minutes after eight the next morning to tell me the meeting with Councilman Maldenado had been arranged. Maldenado would see me at ten and offer every assistance. Frank Garcia assured it. By eight forty-five, I was showered, dressed, and eating scrambled eggs with cilantro when the doorbell rang. It rang three fast times before I reached the door and found Alan Levy. Levy had never been to my home or my office. Outside of the six or eight times we met when I worked for him, I had never seen him anyplace other than his office or court.

Alan. This is a surprise.

A sleek Mercedes convertible was parked off the road behind him, but Alan didn't look sleek. He looked awkward and worried, and his bulging frog eyes flickered as if he was nervous.

I hope you don't mind, me dropping in like this. I thought we could speak more freely outside of the office.

This, from a man who made his living as a criminal defense attorney having the most private conversations in the world.

I stepped back to let him in. Levy noticed my loft, then stared out through the sliders into the canyon. The morning haze filled the house with a milky glare.

Hey, this is nice. You're very private up here.

What's up, Alan? I have to leave for an appointment.

He turned from the view and put his hands in his pockets like he didn't know what else to do with them.

Angel Tomaso was murdered.

I know.

I know you know. The police found you with the body.

Are you here as an attorney, Alan? Are they going to charge me?

No, nothing like that, but

He managed to look pathetic. I had never seen Alan Levy look pathetic before, but then he suddenly frowned.

Tomaso was murdered. Tell me a young man found himself in a relationship that resulted in murder, I would say that sort of thing happens all the time. But not this particular young man. Not at this particular time. Maybe you were right about there being more to this than the pictures recovered with Byrd.

The frog eyes blinked.

Tell me what's going on.

Marx is still working the homicides.

Levy's eyebrows arched in surprise.

But Marx closed the case. He shut down the task force.

Marx kept his top people on, what they call his inner circle. The task force might have been officially shut down, but Marx is still kicking rocks. The problem is, I'm not sure whether he's trying to find evidence or hide it.

I told him how Marx was connected to Leverage and how he had interfered with the Repko investigation even before Byrd's body was found. When I described the video disk of Debra Repko's murder, Levy grew irritated and stopped me.

What did they do with it?