Mancusi began easing himself down toward the bed. Sweat rolled down his cheeks.

Milo reached out to help him.

“No, no, I’m fine.”

We watched as he lowered himself in stages. He ended up curled on the bed, knees drawn to his chest, still breathing hard. “I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know anything.”

Milo asked him about other family members.

Mancusi’s rapid head shake rocked the flimsy mattress. “Mom had a miscarriage after me and that was it.”

“What about aunts, uncles—”

“No one she’s close to.”

Milo waited.

Mancusi said, “Nobody.”

“No one to help you?”

“With what?”

“Getting through this.”

“G and T used to be a big help. Maybe I’ll get back into that. Think that’s okay?” Harsh laughter.

Milo didn’t answer.

Mancusi said, “Maybe fuck everything, I should eat and drink what I want. Maybe I should stop trying to impress anyone.” Tears flowed down his cheeks. “Who’s to impress?”

He turned onto his back. “Could you get me some Aleve — it’s in the cabinet by the stove.”

I found the bottle, shook out a pill, filled a water glass from the tap.

Mancusi said, “I need two.” When I returned, he snatched both tablets from my hand, waved away the water. “I swallow dry.” He demonstrated. “My big talent… I need to rest.”

He rolled away from us.

Milo said, “So sorry for your loss. If you think of anything, call.”

No answer.

As we made it to the door, Mancusi said, “Mom always hated those caps.”

Outside the building, Milo said, “Think that was a performance?”

“Moskow described him as theatrical, but who knows?”

“Theatrical how?”

I recounted the hand-on-hip hair toss.

He frowned. “Did a bit of that just now. But he did barf righteously.”

“People get sick for all sorts of reasons,” I said. “Including guilt.”

“Symbolic catharsis? Or whatever you guys call it.”

“I call it throwing up. He’s an only child with no close relatives. I’d really like to know if there was a will.”

“Agreed,” he said. “The question is how to find it.”

“Maybe those relatives she wasn’t close to can tell you.”

“Tony minimizing the relationships because he didn’t want me talking to them?”

“Family values,” I said. “It’s where it all starts.”

He drove three blocks, popped the unmarked’s trunk, gloved up, and rifled through the box of personal effects he’d taken from Ella Mancusi’s bedroom.

No mention of any relatives other than Tony, but an attorney’s card in a rubber-bound stack elicited a hand-pump.

Jean Barone, Esq. Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica.

The other cards were for plumbers, electricians, A.C. and heating repair, a grocery delivery service.

Men coming in and out of the house, maybe getting to know Ella Mancusi’s routine. If no other leads surfaced soon, they’d all need to be checked out.