“I don’t think that would be a good idea now.”

“Then when can we come out?”

“Before baseball season’s over.”

“Baseball season! That could take three more months.”

“One thing at a time, Sammy,” Decker said. “Let me talk to your eema first.”

“You sure you’re not hiding some bad news from me?”

“Sammy, I promise you, I’ll see you before the summer’s over,” Decker said.

“Okay,” Sammy answered sullenly. “Here’s Eema again.”

Decker felt tense. The kid always wore him out. Sammy was a typical firstborn—precocious, sharp as a tack. He’d been the light of his father’s eye, Rina had told him. His father’s death had hit him very hard, made him very suspicious of losing people he loved.

Rina came back on the line.

“They’re angry I’m not bringing them home with me,” she said. “Especially Shmuli.”

“I heard,” Decker said.

“They miss Los Angeles. They miss you. I miss you, too.”

“Then come home!”

The line went quiet.

“You still with me?” Decker asked.

“I’m still here,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. How are your studies with Rav Schulman?”

“Fine.”

“What are you learning—oh darn! The doorbell’s ringing. It’s probably my sister-in-law. I’m not wearing a shaytel, and Esther’s going to yell at me for answering the door with my hair uncovered.”

“Tell her to shove it up—”

“Peter.”

“She doesn’t approve of me, I don’t have to approve of her.”

“Esther’s not the problem, although she has problems. Dear God, I never realized the extent of her problems. Unfortunately, now they’ve become my problems and—now, she’s banging at the door. Any moment one of my neighbors is going to stick a head out and ask what’s wrong. Tiny apartments they have here. I feel like a laboratory rat. Things are really a mess. I’ve got to go.”

“Wait. Don’t send me off like that.”

“Love you,” she said.

“Love you, too.”

Head pounding, Decker stretched, then filled the dog bowl with food. He opened the kitchen drawer and took out a vial of aspirin. He washed down two pills with a cold Dos Equis and looked at his watch. Six-fifteen—still plenty of daylight left to work out the horses. The temperature had dropped to a comfortable 82 degrees. An hour with the animals, another hour of study, a couple of hours of sleep, then a date with gumshoes from six over the mountains.

Hooray for Hollywood.

6

The Hollywood substation was a brick building—square and windowless—landscaped with three Monterey pines sprouting from a rectangular patch of dirt. Across the street were the requisite cheap motel—a place to spend the night when your man was in jail—and two bailbonds’ store-fronts whose doors never closed.