The two girls were now loping down the sidewalk after their bus, and Kipper Lusk sat watching Keegan from inside the booth, behind the tiers of Lifesavers and Good & Plenty. The man had a way of hunching over in his folding chair like an old man, though he was probably in his mid-forties. His hair, still black, was thinning on top now. Sweat beaded his forehead and his ample upper lip. A barely audible radio, somewhere out of sight in his lair, was tuned to a baseball game.

“How’s business?” Keegan asked.

“Lousy,” Lusk told him. “Nobody comes out in this heat, and I’m sweating like a sumo in here.”

In his younger days, Lusk had been a B-list hood. He’d moved cigarettes, run a few numbers, never scored a lot of money, but never really pulled any serious time in lockup. Now he eked out a living selling news and sundries to passing Angelinos. As far as Keegan could tell, Lusk was on the up-and-up these days—but he still had a good sense of what was going on on the streets, and he was always willing to shoot the breeze with a paying customer.

“Say, you know everybody in this town,” Keegan said.

Lusk shrugged; maybe he did.

“You ever come across a guy called Catling?” Keegan plucked a pack of Juicy Fruit from the rack and set it on Lusk’s counter. He jingled in his pocket, brought out a nickel and set it beside the gum. “Might not be his real name. Little guy. Real fastidious. Got a scar right here.” Keegan ran his finger in a vertical line down his own left cheekbone.

Lusk made a face like he had smelled something foul. “Fastidious?”

“You know,” Keegan said. “Real neat. Snappy dresser.”

Lusk shook his head and picked up Keegan’s nickel. “I’m familiar with the word,” he said. “But a guy who throws out fancy words like ‘fastidious’ should maybe buy a nice five-buck cigar, not some five-cent pack of Wrigley’s.” He tossed the coin into his strongbox.

“The guy I’m asking about is foreign,” Keegan pressed on. “Got some kind of accent—could be from anywhere. Rides around in a limo.”

“Not anybody I know,” Lusk said. “Not around here.”

A bus shuddered to a stop at the corner, and Keegan felt the gritty heat of the exhaust on the side of his face. “Keep an ear out for me?” he said. “Ask around. Let me know if you hear anything about him?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lusk said sulkily. “Whatever you want. Maybe you’ll toss me another nickel.”

Keegan grinned. “You’re a prince, Kipper,” he said. “A true gent. A throwback to a nobler era.”

“And you’re a cheap son of a bitch,” Lusk said. “Still, we somehow manage to get along.”

Keegan turned to leave, but Lusk called after him.

“You forgot your gum, big shot.”