“I don’t know,” Neri said on an impatient sigh. “Nature. Buildings. The mission. Kids on ponies. Who cares?”

Mendez ground his back teeth. A child predator was taking pictures of kids on ponies, and this asshole didn’t think anything of it.

“When was that?” he asked.

“In April,” Neri said. “We had a freaking riot that lasted for three days, in case you don’t watch the news. We had over a hundred arrests, a hundred injuries—fifteen of our own people.”

“You had a riot at an art fair?” Mendez said, just to be a jerk. Everyone in the state had been riveted to the news during the three days of riots in a town that normally lived at the speed of its nickname: SLO. Slotopia. “What the hell kind of town do you run?”

“It wasn’t at the art fair. That was just part of the Cal Poly open house weekend.”

“You had a riot at an open house?” Hicks said, also happily playing dumb.

Neri threw his hands up in frustration. “It’s the Poly Royal. It’s a fucking festival. Take a few thousand drunken college kids and throw in a pack of out-of-town troublemakers and a few hundred drunken migrant workers—”

“Oh, right,” Mendez said. “It’s the ’spics. We’re always drunk and disorderly.”

“I didn’t say that!” Neri looked at Hicks. “What the hell’s wrong with him?” he asked, hooking a thumb in the direction of Mendez.

Hicks shrugged, unconcerned.

“So you saw Ballencoa in April,” Mendez said. “Right before your hundred-arrest riot. That’s three months ago. What do you people do up here? Write one report a day? You can’t take the time to drive around the block to see if your resident child abductor is here or not?”

“I told you,” Neri said. “We don’t have the manpower or the cause to sit on a law-abiding citizen who wants to sue us. And that’s all Ballencoa has been since he moved here: law-abiding.”

“Whatever,” Mendez said, getting up from his chair.

“Do you have a current address on him?” Hicks asked.

“I’ll have to look it up.”

“That’d be great. Then we can get out of your hair.”

“What are you going to do?” Neri asked, suspicious. “I can’t have you guys running around half-cocked—”

“Why not? We should fit right in,” Mendez muttered.

Neri got up from his chair, clearly pissed off.

“We need to ask Mr. Ballencoa a few questions,” Hicks said easily.

“We’ll be sure to give him our cards,” Mendez said. “So he can sue the proper agency.”

“Good,” Neri said. “You do that, Mendez. Then go fuck yourself.”

Chapter 11

11

“You had to be an asshole?” Hicks said as they got back in the car.