“Feels like daybreak… Jesus, you’re right. Did a whole lot more nothing watching Tony, got home at six and crashed till an emergency call jolted me up at seven. Bradley Maisonette’s parole officer. ‘You sounded frantic, Lieutenant, so I thought I’d catch you early.’ I’m on two cylinders, bastard’s gloating. And what’s the big news: Bradley’s been persona non show-uppa for seven weeks. But not to worry, he’s got a history of dropping out for stretches, always comes back.”

“Addict’s excursions,” I said.

“Doesn’t sound like a guy who digs art museums and theeayter. P.O. considers him low priority because he’s got a long list of more violent guys who don’t show up. Says Maisonette doesn’t ‘act out’ unless he’s exhausted legal avenues of income.”

“He works?”

“Panhandles, sells his blood. P.O. diagnoses the basic problem as ‘low self-esteem.’”

“Everyone’s a therapist,” I said.

“I finally got the idiot to agree to pretend to search for him. Thanks for Cardenas’s e-mail. You get a chance to talk to the animal lady?”

I summarized the conversation with Shantee Moloney.

“Small dogs,” he said. “As in Leonora’s missing pooches?”

“If Dale was behind the Ojo Negro murders,” I said, “it would be nice to think he took them as pets.”

“Loves dogs, hates Sis.”

“Wears hemp shoes and eats meat on the sly.”

He sang the chorus of Lou Christie’s “Two Faces Have I.”

I said, “He’s also the right size for Ella’s killer, the cowboy, and Kat’s cross-dresser.”

“And size matters… loves the great cities, huh? Gets hold of major inheritance, travels the world, settles into L.A.?”

“Maybe it’s the weather.” I gave him my woman-with-a-scarf theory. “Society lady in two hundred grand worth of car — why not? Now all we need is Dale to come waltzing through the door confessing.”

“Short of that, how about this: One of the cities Bright mentioned to Moloney was New York. The chief’s old turf. Why not start there and see if any black-car murders show up? Or if Bright left some kind of paper trail from San Francisco.”

He didn’t answer.

“There’s a problem?”

“No,” he said. “On the contrary. A chance for His Beneficence to demonstrate his commitment.”

“You doubt him?”

“So far he’s been as righteous as a politician can be, but I’m like that bumper sticker, Question Authority. New Yawk New Yawk… I was thinking Rome but my French is rusty. Okay, scan Bright’s picture and send it over and I’ll put a call in to Himself.”

Three hours later, he was at my front door, freshly shaved, wearing a bright blue shirt under a coarse gray herringbone jacket, a green tie patterned with brown ukuleles, khakis, bubble-toe gray oxfords with red crepe soles.