The deputy D.A. was dressed for court in a navy pinstripe, white shirt, blue tie, American flag lapel pin. Four evidence boxes were stacked on a wheeled luggage rack. Nguyen’s posture was as straight as ever, but his eyes drooped.

“John, what’s up?”

Nguyen unclasped the top case, pulled out a sheaf of printouts, and dropped it on Milo’s desk. “Mr. and Mrs. Holman’s financials. You owe me.”

Milo scanned the face page. “How’d you pull it off?”

“Been doing a robbery-gangbang trial for three days running, brand-new judge, absurdly biased toward our side so I figured she might go for your spurious logic.”

Licking a finger, Nguyen slashed air vertically. “Score one, J. N. I got one of my eager new interns to push everything through with the banks. Which, I’d like to point out, is normally your responsibility, not mine, not to mention significantly below my pay grade. But you put in the time on the marsh murder trial, so consider it an advance Christmas gift.”

Milo flipped pages. “Your stocking stuffer’s on the way, John … don’t see anything interesting.”

“That’s ’cause there isn’t any,” said Nguyen. “He’s a retired professor, she’s an unfamous architect, their income, expenditures, retirement fund, et cetera, are all commensurate with a cautious, mature lifestyle. Meaning they can probably keep their house and continue to have health insurance if they don’t get really sick or go out to eat too often.”

“This is definitely all of it, John?”

“What, some secret bank account for paying hit men? They budget tighter than my ex-wife’s—never mind.” Nguyen moved toward the door. “I can lead a judge to warrant, dude, but I can’t stop the stink.”

We walked a couple of blocks to Café Moghul, the Indian place that serves as Milo’s supplementary office. He tips huge, is dramatically omnivorous, and the owners are convinced his grumpy-mastiff demeanor wards off danger. The bespectacled woman who works the front always beams when he lumbers through the door, begins piling on the food before his chair warms.

Tonight was lamb, beef, turkey, lobster, three kinds of naan, a garden plot of vegetables.

He bore down, as if tackling a massive culinary puzzle.

I said, “Hail to the sultan of West L.A.”

He wiped sauce from his face. “Keep your geography straight, Rajah. For one brief Cinderella moment.”

“Then the pumpkin appears?”

“Then it’s back to Untouchable.”

Midway through his fourth bowl of sweet kir rice pudding, Sean Binchy strode in, bright-eyed and cheerful as ever.

“Give me some good news, kid, then you can eat.”

“No, thanks, Loot, Becky’s cooking tonight and that’s always a treat. More like good news and bad news. I got lots of names of construction workers but no Montes or anything close.”

“What’s the good news?”

“I’m going to analyze it super-carefully.”

Uttered with absolute sincerity.