"First my show-and-tell, Moses, because it's brief: Martin's mommy showed up just after eight p.m., lugging a single bag of groceries."

I said, "Not cooking for a family?"

"For all I know it was a bag full of chocolate chip cookies for Marty. At ten twenty, Mr. M. arrives, still in his waiter's uniform, carrying what looks like doggie bags from the country club. No further action until seven a.m., when he leaves in a fresh uniform. I wager on him going to work and stick around to watch Missus. Seven forty-two, she drives to a day care center where a bunch of little kids greet her like the bestest grandma in the whole wide world. I phone the club, Mister's on the job."

"Hardworking folks going about their business," said Reed. "You could subpoena their phone records."

"I could if John Nguyen changed his mind about my having no grounds. How was your day at the beach, lad? I'm not seeing any tan."

"I'm one of those pink ones, Loo. Only place I could park was the land side of PCH ten yards up. What you see from there is a wall of hedges and big gates. I picked up from Sean after he trailed Kenten from the office to Mountain Crest, then home. By then it was close to six. Sean got photos of Kenten entering, guy wasn't exactly incognito, he tools around in a powder-blue Bentley Continental convertible, he's even got powder-blue caps on the wheels. It was me, I'd go black, charcoal at the lightest."

"Keep it assertive, huh?"

"We're talking five hundred sixty horses, Loo. Anyway, the top was down, no passengers, that model doesn't have much of a trunk."

"Muscle under the hood," said Milo, "and yet he paints it like a carousel pony. What does that say about him, Moses?"

Reed shifted his torso. His eyes darted to the left. "He likes to be noticed?"

"That must be it."

After Reed left, I said, "Carousel pony? You didn't really expect Reed to tag Kenten as gay."

"But you saw his eyes, that's what he was thinking, no? Interesting fellow, Ol' Eddie. Either he's in serious denial or he really does have a thing for pastels. I made a few calls last night and the so-called gay community has nothing to say about him except they appreciate the AIDS money."

"So-called community?"

"Like we're a powder-blue monolith?"

His next call was thirty hours later, as I finished some court reports at home.