He started to push by me into the house but I put my hand on his chest and pushed him backwards. I shook my head and he picked up the vibe. He pointed in the house and put a question mark in his eyes. I nodded and stepped out through the door, pulling it closed behind me.

“Let’s take my car,” he said in a low voice.

“Good. ’Cause mine’s in Woodland Hills.”

His bureau car was parked illegally at the front curb. We got in and headed up Woodrow Wilson to the curve that took it around toward Mulholland. I didn’t think he was taking me anywhere. We were just driving.

“What happened to you?” he asked. “I heard through the grapevine you got picked up last night.”

“That’s right. By your BAM squad. They put the bam on me, you could say.”

Lindell looked over at me and then back at the road.

“You don’t look the worse for wear. You even got some color in your cheeks.”

“Thanks for noticing, Roy. Now what do you want?”

“You think they’ve got your house bugged?”

“Prob’ly. I haven’t had time to check. What do you want? Where are we going?”

Though I guessed I knew. Mulholland wound around the hill to an overlook with views, depending on the smog ratio, from the Santa Monica Bay to the spires of downtown.

As expected, Lindell pulled into the small parking lot and stopped next to a Volkswagen van three decades out of place. The smog was heavy. For the most part the view dropped off just past the Capital Records building.

“Get to the point, huh?” Lindell said, turning in his seat toward me. “Okay, I’ll get to it. What’s going on with the investigation?”

I looked at him for a long moment, trying to gauge whether he had turned up because of Marty Gessler or as a follow-up from Special Agent Peoples. As a test to determine if I was out of it. Sure Lindell and Peoples were different animals from different floors of the federal building. But they both carried the same badge. And there was no telling what kind of pressure had been brought to bear on Lindell.

“What’s going on is that there is no investigation.”

“What? Are you fucking me?”

“No, I’m not fucking you. You could say I see the light. I was made to see it.”

“Then what are you going to do, just drop it?”

“That’s right. I’m going to get my car and go on vacation. Vegas, I think. I got a start on the sunburn this morning. I might as well go lose my money, too.”

Lindell smiled like he was clever.

“Fuck you,” he said. “I know what you’re doing. You think I’ve been sent out to test you, huh? Well, fuck you.”

“That’s nice, Roy. Can you take me back now? I need to pack a bag.”

“Not until you tell me what is really going on.”

I cracked the door.