Usually by this time on Saturday I’ve been to the gym already and am at Sunset Beach, laid out and tanning after swimming a mile. The only thought on my mind most Saturday afternoons is which park to go to to find a game of tennis. This morning, however, nauseous and hung over, I was trying to sort out the complex reasons why I felt the need to find out who the dead woman was. I pulled on my black tights, a sky-blue T-shirt and the red high-tops, and got in the car to go to Venice. No matter what’s going on in my life, I lift weights.

True, I’d taken money to do a job I seemed incapable of doing, but hadn’t I worked to the best of my ability and billed fairly? True, my crazy family made me feel like I had to be a hero to get any kind of acceptance, but hadn’t I left them on the other side of the United States? My head ached more as I thought about Lupe’s anger, then, without wanting to think about it, the violence that had been committed against the woman in the loft.

There wasn’t a cloud in sight. Birds of paradise, orange trees and stubby pines lined the street. Sprinklers pumped water onto the emerald lawns. Mexican gardeners trimmed ivy. In the distance was heard the persistent drone of a leaf blower. Such are the charms of Sherman Oaks.

True, I continued my conversation with myself, I had felt myself to be a victim of sexual discrimination when I was looking for a job. But hadn’t I managed to create work for myself? Wasn’t I lucky I’d been able to go to law school? Wasn’t the law all that could protect us from violence? Then I understood it did not need to be as complicated as I was trying to make it. Not psychologically intricate. It was simple, I realized as I pulled onto the freeway.

I did not trust Monica Fullbright. Whatever she knew, I wanted to know.

It was an upper-body day. I don’t think a woman can ever be as cut as a man, so my goal today is to delay the effect of gravity on my tits for as long as possible. This means decline flyes, incline dumbbell presses, decline dumbbell presses. Life is down to the basic elements here: I just want to have incredible pecs.