The one with the radio relaxed and the other two looked over. The one without the radio was wearing little round sunglasses and the one on her belly smiled. The two on their backs were brunette, the one on her belly a blonde.

The one with the radio said, "He's at work."

I glanced at my watch and made a big deal out of looking disappointed. "He said he'd meet me here. I guess he got hung up."

The one on her belly said, "Are you a cop, too?"

I said, "Do I look like a cop?"

The three of them nodded.

I spread my hands. "I'd do great undercover, hunh?"

The one on her belly said, "I don't know. You might."

The other two laughed.

The one with the little round glasses covered her mouth and said, "Ohmygod, do you know who he looks like? He looks like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. Don't you think so?"

I was liking the one with the glasses just fine. Maybe thirty-nine wasn't so old after all.

The one with the radio said, "If Mark told you he'd be here, he's probably on his way. He's pretty good about that kind of stuff."

I said, "I've just got to drop something off. You think he'd mind?"

Radio said, "You could leave it with us."

"Couldn't do that. It's business-related. And it's sort of a surprise."

The one on her belly looked interested. "Evidence."

The one with the little round sunglasses said, "Allie likes cops. She wants to see your gun."

Allie slugged Sunglasses in the leg, and all three of them laughed.

The one with the radio said, "Go ahead. Mark's cool. He keeps a spare key in a little Sucrets box to the left of the landing behind a plant pot."

"Thanks."

The German shepherd was waiting for me when I went around the side of the guest house, and followed me to the door. The Sucrets box and the key were exactly where Radio said they'd be. Some neighbors, hunh? I took out the key and let myself in. The German shepherd sat on his haunches and stared after me and whined. Helluva police dog, too.

Mark Thurman's garage had been converted into a pretty nice apartment. The side door opened into a living room, and from the door you could see the kitchen and another door that led to a bedroom and a bath. A brown cloth couch rested against the west wall and a shelving unit stood against the north. The east wall was the glass doors. A CD player and a Sony TV and a VCR and about a zillion CDs were in the wall unit, but the CD player and the VCR were low-end Pioneer and neither was a bank breaker, even on a police officer's take-home. There was an overstuffed chair at either end of the couch, and a coffee table of bright white pine that matched the wall unit. He would've bought the set from one of those discount places. Imported, they would have told hum. Danish. There wasn't a sea of gold coins that you could dive into, or mounds of money bags scattered around, but I hadn't yet seen the bedroom. One shouldn't jump to conclusions.