“She fell down and kilt herself.” Pointing to a bench in the distance.

“She fall a lot?”

He thought. “There’s a first time for everything.” His laughter was wet and constricted. Drowning in his own wit.

“Who’d she hang out with?”

“No one unless she wanted money, then she could get friendly.”

Yards away, pretty women watched and conversed as their children explored the edges of a pond. A young couple snapped selfies on their phones and laughed.

I said, “Did DeeDee get friendly with anyone in particular?”

“Naw, you don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Bother the citizens, they get scairt. You got another twenty?”

I handed him a ten. He said, “Hey, just keep it comin’.”

I didn’t answer.

“You rich for a cop.”

“Salary’s okay, pension’s better.”

“Haw?” He squinted as if faced with a tough math problem, made several more attempts to rise, succeeded the third time.

I stuck with him as he hobbled toward Wilshire. He smelled like the bottom of a clothes hamper seasoned with overcooked fish.

I gave him a five. “So DeeDee didn’t panhandle here—”

“Century City. Where the suits are.”

“She have any problems with the suits?”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“Did she have hassles with anyone?”

He stopped, swayed, looked up at the sky. “DeeDee was … she kept to herself. Real omnistical-socialistic, you know?”

“Omni—”

His look said I was mentally slow. “Means no friends, you just do your thing.” He squinted. “Someone said that.”

Returning to the park, I checked the bench he’d pointed to. Plenty of pigeonshit but time had erased any trace of blood.

Why was I bothering? What difference would finding an old stain make?

Because that’s what compulsives do to allay anxiety. Even with no destination, the motor keeps running.

Someone had probably said that, too.

CHAPTER

16

By eleven p.m., Robin and I were in our pajamas watching a movie on the couch, something forgettable and pretentious based on a book no one had read.

Ninety-four minutes of meaningful looks and pointless long shots accomplished what we’d hoped: readying us for sleep.

Each of us was wired and needed the help. Robin, because an aging rock star with über-money and unter-intelligence was pressuring her to take on a massive job—fashioning dead-on copies of iconic instruments, down to scars, dents, and scratches.

“I keep telling him every company does relics. As if Charlie Christian’s 150 and Bo Diddley’s Gretsch need improvement. Not to mention the other twenty-seven he wants.”

“How long you figure it would take?”

“To do it right? Years. That’s without factoring in Uno’s ADD.”

“It’ll raise your tax bracket.”

“And alienate me from all my other clients and turn me into his high-paid serf. I’ve told him no twice. He insists he needs me.”

“I can understand that.”

“There may be some of that, too,” she said.

“I can always break his fingers.”