That’s when I remembered Lisa. I did not let myself think of this ordinarily. I’d met her in a disco right after I got admitted to the bar. A lesbian disco. I don’t know why I went there. I’d never been there before and I never went back. She bought me a few drinks, I bought her a few drinks. Then she asked me to dance. I freaked out and went home. Alone. She called my office a few times after that. I did a DUI for her when I was just getting started. She worked for the phone company. Reluctantly I got out of the car and started to call Lisa but decided it was better to go in person to ask a favor. I got back in the car hoping she wouldn’t try to hit on me again or that she wasn’t too angry to tell me what I needed to know.

Her office is on Wilshire near MacArthur Park, where the city starts to look like the tropics. There are a few views in downtown LA where you get the sense the whole thing has been hacked out of the jungle and concrete thrown on top of it. She was on a break when I arrived. After I used the house phone to talk to her, they cleared me through security and sent me up to an employee lounge where she was drinking a coke and eating orange-colored crackers with peanut-butter filling. Lisa’s a supervisor and a union shop steward. She’d been worried about the drunk-driving incident coming up at her job; I’d gotten it thrown out on a Trombetta motion. I figured I was in pretty good with her.

“It’s a little late to be coming around to collect that dance,” she said before I had the chance to explain myself.

“I need a favor.”

“Sorry, girl, I’m taken. Got a new sweetheart.”

“Congratulations. Look, I’m serious. I’m here on business. I need you to look up an address for me.”

“I’m on break for another seven minutes. Sure you don’t want a coke?” She took her feet off the chair opposite her.

I sat down.

She looked away from me and lowered her voice. “Jesus. You really are indiscreet. Where did you learn this shit? The movies? You know what could happen to me for doing this?” she growled in a whisper like an angry bulldog.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to come....”

“I didn’t say I’d do it.”

“I’m desperate. I got to find this woman.”

“It’s an affair of the heart then?” She looked disappointed. Lisa is heavy. Masculine. I can tell she had bad skin when she was younger.

“No.” I told her about Monica Fullbright.