I stood under the hot water letting it beat down on me. It seemed like a long time since law school. I was thinking about Pete Manzo, feeling an ache in my side, which I had pulled while we were tussling out there on some street I didn’t even know the name of in East LA. I couldn’t believe no one had come out to see what was happening, that no one had called the cops. I was thinking I gotta get the bastards before they get me, when the shower door swung open. Lupe handed me a bottle of beer. Then she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I woke up. My shoulder felt like an elephant had stepped on it during the night. I spent a few moments feeling for all of my limbs before I opened my eyes. A bruise that looked like a map of Tennessee was spreading across my rib cage. I hadn’t been so beat up since I played soccer in college. Slowly I got out of bed. I was stiff all over. I glanced at the neglected weight bench and barbells in the corner; I had thought I was in good shape. A blue seersucker suit just back from the cleaner’s was in the closet, and I put it on with a white linen blouse. I am probably the last woman in Los Angeles who wears spectator pumps; I have them in navy and white, black and white and brown and white. Bally. Today I slipped into the brown and white pair. Out of habit I put on the opera length pearls.

I went into the bathroom. The right side of my jaw was pale purple where Pete Manzo had punched me. I got out my makeup and covered it with beige foundation. Then I powdered it with translucent raw silk loose powder, just like Town & Country says you should. I cranked open the louvered frosted-glass window above the toilet to look outside. It was hot and sunny already, and I wasn’t going to let another day get by without finding Monica Fullbright.

Lupe was still asleep on the couch. Her clothes were neatly folded in a pile on the floor next to her, a pair of black g-string panties on top. One brown calf had kicked free of the sheets. I tiptoed past her to get the phone and carried it into the kitchen. Leaning against the wall, I dialed the number I had dialed so many times before and waited for it to ring. Monica Fullbright’s phone rang twice, then a pleasant recorded female voice announced that it had been disconnected. I called back. It was disconnected.