Mark Thurman lived in a converted garage apartment in the northwestern part of the San Fernando Valley, about a mile west of Cal State, Northridge, in an older area with stucco bungalows and clapboard duplexes and mature landscaping. Though the structures are old, the residents are not, and most of the apartments are rented to college students or junior faculty from the university or kids out on their own for the first time. Lots of bikes around. Lots of small foreign cars. Lots of music.

I parked across the street from a flat-topped duplex and looked down the drive. The sheet of Watkins, Okum stationery said that Thurman drove a 1983 blue Ford Mustang as his personal car, but the Mustang wasn't around, and neither was the dark brown cop-mobile. Still out fighting crime, no doubt. Or tailing Jennifer Sheridan. A chain-link fence ran parallel to the drive along a row of eight-foot hedges. About halfway back, a little wrought-iron gate ran from the fence to the duplex, cutting the drive in half. Thurman's converted garage was in the rear yard behind the gate, snuggled against the hedges A set of sliding glass doors had been installed where the garage door used to hang and someone had built a little sidewalk out of stepping-stones that ran around the side of the place by the hedges. A curtain of vertical blinds was drawn across the glass doors and pulled closed. It was a nice, neat, well-kept place, but it didn't look like the kind of place a cop taking down heavy graft would keep. Of course, maybe Mark Thurman was smart, and the outward appearance of his home was just a dodge to throw off unsuspecting PI's. Maybe the inside of the place looked like Uncle Scrooge's money bin and the walls were lined with cash and bricks of gold. Only one way to find out.

I got out of the Corvette, strolled up the drive, and let myself through the little wrought-iron gate. A young German shepherd was lying by the gate beneath the hedges next door. He watched me come and when I let myself through the gate he lifted his head. I said, "Woof." He got up and walked with me. Police dog. If Thurman came home I'd have to go over the fence. Hope he didn't bite.

There were three young women lying on towels in the little yard that separated the duplex from the guest house. One was on her belly, the other two were on their backs, and the one nearest to me was up on an elbow, adjusting a radio. U-2. Nobody was wearing very much in the way of clothes, and you could smell the suntan oil. The one with the radio saw me first and made a little gasping noise. I said, "Hi, ladies. Is Mark around?" Elvis Cole, the Smooth Detective.