The fat guy was leaning past his truck like Carl Lewis set to come out of the starter’s blocks, glaring at me. I showed him another quarter and fed it into the phone. His face went white, he slapped the fender of the truck, and then stormed the long way around the truck and into the 7-Eleven. His friend sipped a little more Miller and shook his head. “He’s asking for a thrombo.”

I said, “Get him into yoga. That’ll help him relax.”

The friend shook his head, looking sort of sleepy and tired, and made a little shrug like they’d been through it a thousand times. “You can’t talk to him.”

I dialed the North Hollywood P.D. and got a gruff male voice that said, “Detectives.”

“Elvis Cole for Lou Poitras.”

“Wait one.”

The phone got put down on something hard. There were voices in the background and the heavy laughter of men, and then the voice came back. “I’m putting you on hold. He’s gonna take it in his office.”

I got put on hold, then Lou Poitras came on. The laughter and the male sounds were still there, but now they were muted and farther away. Poitras said, “I got my ass chewed good for trying to fix your last ticket. Don’t ask me again.”

“Lou. One might think that our entire relationship is me asking favors of you.”

“So what do you want?”

“A small favor.”

“Shit.”

The fat guy in the hurry came out of the 7-Eleven with a Miller High Life of his own. He leaned against the truck next to his fat friend and looked tired. They drank. If you can’t beat’m, join’m.

I said, “I need to know if you have anything on a woman named Karen Shipley or Karen Nelsen. And I need you to go back ten years on the search.”

Lou Poitras said, “Anything else?”

I said that should do it.

“You at the office?”

I told him where I was.

You could see him shake his head. “Some big-time private op, working in a parking lot.”

“Beats sucking off the taxpayers.”

He said he’d get back to me tomorrow and hung up.

Everybody was going to get back to me tomorrow. Maybe there was something going on today that I didn’t know about. Maybe that’s why the fat guy was in such a hurry. Maybe he knew who to call to find out where the action was, and upon making the call, he and his buddy were going to whatever it was that I didn’t know about. Maybe I could go with them.

I hung up the phone, looked at the fat guy in the hurry, and said, “It’s all yours.”

He sipped more Miller and didn’t move, giving me who cares? His friend looked at him, then me, and shrugged. Go figure. Some guys are never happy.

Chapter Five