Moments later, I turned the TV on and we trolled for news through a swamp of infomercials and reruns of crap that shouldn’t have aired in the first place. If something newsworthy was occurring on the Westside, none of the networks or the cable news outlets had picked it up.

The Internet had. L.A. current events blog operating in real time. Some insomniac plugged into the emergency bands.

Holmby Hills conflagration. Unfinished construction project.

Borodi Lane.

Robin’s breath caught. I held her tighter, reached for the phone, punched Milo’s cell number. He said, “I’m on my way there, call you when I need you.”

When, not if. I got dressed, made coffee, told Robin she should try to get some sleep.

“Oh, sure,” she said, hanging on to my arm.

Mugs in both our hands, we plodded through the house, stepped out onto the front terrace. Frosty, dark morning. Warmish for the hour, but we shivered. Above the tree line, the southern sky was dusted with gray. The sirens had waned to distant mouse-squeaks. The air smelled scorched.

Robin said, “Bad news travels fast.”

CHAPTER

24

Borodi Lane was blocked by cruisers and a huffing hook-and-ladder. A uniform scowled as I rolled to the curb, barely edging past Sunset.

A skeptical call to Milo produced a reluctant nod. “But you need to keep your car there, sir, and walk.”

I continued toward the scene, breathing heat, firewood, flame-suppressing chemicals, a hydrocarbon stench evoking the world’s biggest filling station. The asphalt was slick with wash-off. Static and buzz kept up a magpie routine, red engines and hard-hatted firefighters were everywhere. Several more explanations before I was allowed to reach the property.

What was left of Prince Teddy’s dream was black and stunted. Where the ground wasn’t ash, it was soup. A white coroner’s van was pulled up to the open gate. The chain Milo had supplied was on the ground, marked by a plastic evidence cone, and sliced through cleanly into two pieces.

As firefighters streamed in and out, a pair of morgue attendants hauled out a gurney bearing something small and lumpy and wrapped in plastic. I looked for Milo, spotted him near an LAFD ambulance, wearing a limp black raincoat, jeans, and muddy sneakers, staring at the ruins. To his right, on the ground, several objects sat on a black tarp, too dim to make out.

As I stepped next to him, he fished out a Maglite, aimed downward.

Partially melted glass bottle. From the shape and scorched wire around the neck, probably champagne. A single intact wine goblet. A butter knife with a handle melted to blob. A metal tin with an ornate label.

I bent to read. Foie Gras. Imported from France. Milo’s beam shifted to a long-barreled revolver, clearly antique, wooden grip scorched through, engraved metal blackened.