His phone played Grieg. “Sturgis … oh, hi … thanks … sure … yeah … be there right now.”

I said, “Change of plans?”

“That was Darius Kleffer, the maniac chef. Sounded kind of quiet, actually. Happy to meet, anything to help.”

“Where and when?”

“His place of employment. Hungry?”

“You mentioned a snack.”

“That was then, this is now. It’s gone way beyond snack. Agree?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, right,” he said. “Iron-clad self-control. Don’t worry about it, we all have our failings.”

CHAPTER

13

The latest big thing restaurants in L.A. cluster like spores on Third Street, Beverly Boulevard, and Melrose. Beppo Bippo was converted from a former Chinese laundry on Beverly just west of La Brea. I knew the history because back when I’d worked at Western Pediatric Medical Center, I’d drop off or pick up fluff and fold.

Milo said, “Beppo, the comic book monkey.”

“Don’t know that one.”

“Oh, yeah, real cute. Mr. Fellinger could’ve picked up beauty tips from him.” A beat. “It’s also a poem by Byron.”

I whistled. “No kidding.”

He said, “Hey, the master’s degree’s pretty much useless except for crosswords and I hate crosswords.”

“American lit leads you to Byron?”

“Okay, you found me out, once upon a time I read all kinds of books—pull over there in the yellow, I’ll put my card on the window. You get ticketed, I’ll tell them we both have advanced degrees.”

Back in laundry days, Mr. and Mrs. Chang had dressed up the dismal space with travel posters and photos of celebrities. Whoever had occupied it since hadn’t done much to remedy crumbling brick walls, cracked cement floors, clumsily taped AC ducting snaking across raw wood ceilings.

Why bother in the age of lowered expectations?

A trio of black-garbed chefs worked frantically in an open kitchen to the rear. Tables and chairs looked to be castoffs from an inner-city school. It was midafternoon, an off period between lunch and dinner, but every seat was occupied by people working at edgy with varying degrees of success.

Drinking, feasting, and chattering competed with the passionate kissing of air and occasionally flesh. All those hard surfaces created a sea of noise as Milo and I made our way through narrow aisles created by sardine-pack ambience. Plates were small, portions Haute Scrooge. What looked like a mix of Italian and Japanese. Maybe some French thrown in.

Milo muttered something.

I said, “What?” and he cupped his hand over my ear and raised his voice. “Crudo meets sushi.”

“Meets Godzilla,” I said.

He laughed. Then we got closer to the kitchen and he turned serious.

A black-clad female server stood opposite each of the three chefs. None of the women was tall and it was easy to peer over them.