KATE AND WILL finished their breakfast. “Do you mind if we hang out here for a while, Stone?” Will asked. “Our phones are jammed with calls from people who want something from Kate.”

“Please stay as long as you like, indoors or out,” Stone replied.

Manolo approached. “Mr. Stone,” he said, “there are people calling the house for you.” He handed Stone a sheet of paper with a dozen names of TV and print reporters. “They all want to interview you.”

Stone ran through the list. “Oh, God,” he said.

“Word is getting around about last night, Stone,” Will said.

“What is your advice, Will? Should I talk to these people?”

“My advice is to remain an enigma for as long as you can. You’re going to read and hear a great many reports in the various media concerning the events of last night, some of them less favorable than others. Let the dust settle for a while, then, at some later date of your own choosing, decide who, if anybody, you want to confide in.”

“That’s good advice, Will.”

“If you like,” Ann said, “you can refer all requests for interviews to me and I’ll tell them all, ‘No comment.’”

“Done,” Stone replied.

Chapter 34

Late in the afternoon, Billy Burnett could no longer contain his curiosity. He drove his cart over to the armory and walked in. Jake, who ran the place, was at his bench working on a disassembled AR-15. “Hey, Jake.”

“Hey, Billy.”

“How’s it going?” Billy was looking around but couldn’t see Harry Gregg anywhere.

“It’s going good. You did a good job breaking in Harry. I thank you for it. It’s taken a load off, you know?”

“Where is Harry?” Billy asked.

“He asked for a couple days off,” Jake said. “He bought a little house in Venice, and he’s doing some work on it.”

“Where in Venice?”

“On the beach—dunno where.”

“How the hell can Harry afford a place on Venice Beach?” Billy asked.

“Not my business,” Jake said. “Harry’ll be back the day after tomorrow. You want something with him?”

“No, I just wondered why he wasn’t here.”

“Anything else I can do for you?”

“Nope. See you around, Jake.” Billy got into his cart and drove slowly back to the office. He found this news troubling. Harry was less than a year out of the army, and he was making sixty grand a year at the armory. How could a recent veteran earn enough money to buy on Venice Beach? Something occurred to him: Harry’s skills were in the use and repair of firearms and in making explosive devices go boom. Who would pay a lot of money for those skills? Well, that was obvious: people who wanted other people shot or blown up. And Harry, only the day before, had made some sort of a withdrawal from a shed used to house explosives.