Her second absence stretched several minutes. “Here, I’ve copied them all down. Now I have a date in San Dimas to visit my grandchildren, so if you’ll please excuse me.”

Milo said, “Thanks for your time, ma’am. One more thing: The last address we have for Stevie is in Los Feliz.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Is there a more recent one?”

“I didn’t even know about that one so I’m obviously not the one to ask. May I have that address—on second thought, forget that. If Stevie wants to reach me, he knows where to find me.”

At the door she said, “When you see him, give him regards from his old mom.”

Chapter 14

s I drove back to L.A., Milo called the Agajanian sisters. Rosalynn said, “We’re still talking to Brian about how best to help you.”

“It just got simpler,” he said, “search for a girl who called herself Mystery.”

“If you already know who she is, why do you need us?”

“What we know is that she called herself Mystery.”

“Hmm,” she said. “I’ll talk to my sister and brother.”

“How about just plugging ‘Mystery’ into your data bank.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“According to Brian?”

“Brian protects us,” she said. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Sooner would be better than later.”

“When I have something to tell you.”

He bared teeth. Ground them. Expelled the next sentence in soft little puffs. “Thank you, Rosalynn.”

“My pleasure, Lieutenant.”

Steven Jay Muhrmann’s last utility bill, still unpaid, had been mailed to a gray frame bungalow on Russell Avenue east of Los Feliz Boulevard. A small, warped, covered porch jutted like a wart on the façade. Dust served in lieu of a lawn. The block was shared by other small houses, most subdivided into flats. The exceptions were Vlatek’s Auto Paint and Body, a Volvo-Saab mechanic, and a peeling black stucco box advertising secondhand clothing. Toxic stink and the sound of metal pounding metal emanated from the body shop. Even under a blue sky the neighborhood would’ve been drab. A late-settling marine layer turned it funereal.

The gray house had no doorbell. Milo’s knock elicited footsteps from within but it took several more raps for the knob to turn.

Three people in their early twenties looked out at us, groggily. The air behind them smelled of body odor and popcorn.

Lanky, faux-hawked sandy-haired man.

Lanky faux-hawked black-haired man.

Pretty bespectacled Latina with massive curls twisted into twin barbells.

T-shirts, pajama bottoms, bare feet. The décor I could see was guitars, amps, a drum kit, heaps of fast-food refuse. A giant bag of U-Pop Movie Corn nudged a Stratocaster.

Milo introduced himself.

Black Hair yawned. Contagious.

“Could you guys step out for a second, please.”