ave had to make a decision fairly soon the freeway ends around fifteen miles from there, just short of La Verne.

North is Angeles Crest and I don't see her as the type to rough it.

South, she could have caught any number of other freeways the 57 going straight south. Or 10, in either directipn, which would take her anywhere from the beach to Vegas. Or she could have continued on surface streets up into the foothills, checked out the sights at Rancho Cucamonga what the hell is out there, anyway?"

"I don't know. But my guess is she'd probably stay near civilization.

He nodded. "Yeah. Her type of civilization. I'm thinking Newport Beach, Laguna, La Jolla, Pauma, Santa Fe Springs. Still doesn't narrow it much. Or maybe she turned around and headed for her own place in Malibu."

"Ramp called there twice and she didn't answer."

"What if she wasn't in the mood to pick up the phone?"

"Why would she go in one direction, then reverse herself?"

"Let's say the whole thing started out impulsively. She's just driving, for the hell of it. Gets on the freeway, gets swept along going east by chance. Maybe it's just a matter of it being the first onramp she sees. When the freeway ends she decides upon a specific destination. Closest thing to home: home number two. Or let's say she was heading east intentionally. That means Route 10 and a whole bunch of other possibilities: San Berdoo, Palm Springs, Vegas. And beyond.

The great beyond, Alex she could drive all the way to Maine, if the car held up. If it didn't, with her dough she could've ditched it, gotten another one fast. All you need to chew up the open road is time and money, and neither of those is her problem."

"An agoraphobic doing the scenic route?"

"You said yourself she was in the process of getting cured.

Maybe the freeway helped it along all that blacktop, no stoplights.

It can make you feel powerful. Make you wanna forget about the rules.

That's why people move out here in the first place, isn't it?"

I thought about that. Thought of my first time on the open road, heading west for college at sixteen. The first time I'd driven over the Rockies, seeing the desert at night, thrilled and terrified. My first view of the dirt-brown haze looming over the L.A. basin, heavy and threatening but incapable of dimming the gilded promise of the city at twilight.

"Guess so," I said.

He came around from behind the desk.

I said, "What now?"

"Deliver the news, then get the bulletin expanded it's better than even money she's out of the county by now."

"Or the car is.

He raised his eyebrows. "Meaning what?"

"It is possible that something happened to her, isn't it? That someone else is behind the wheel."

"Anything's possible, Alex. But if you were a bad guy, would I at be the car you'd rip off?"

"Who was it told me long ago it's only the stupid ones you catch?"

"You wanna think foul play, fine. At this point I'd have to see something ugly to consider it anything more than an adult runaway.

And not one that's likely to turn me into a hero."

"What do you mean?"

"Runaways are the hardest m.p."s to locate under any circumstances.

Rich ones are the worst of the worst. Because the rich get to make their own rules. Buying for cash, avoiding jobs, credit unions all the stuff that leaves a paper trail. What just happened with Ramp and the kid is a perfect example. Your average husband would be a hell of a lot more in touch with his wife's credit cards and social security number. Your average couple shares. These people live separately at least where money's concerned. The rich know the power of the buck they rope their funds off and protect them like buried treasure.

"Separate bank accounts and separate bedrooms," I said.

"Real intimate, huh? He doesn't seem to know her. Wonder why she married him in the first place the kid has a point."

"Maybe she liked his mustache."

He gave a short, sad smile and walked to the door. Looking back at the windowless room, he said, "Designed for concentration. I couldn't spend too much time here without going stir-crazy.

I thought of another windowless room, said, "Speaking of interior design, when I was over at the Gabney Clinic, I was struck by the similarity between Ursula Gabney's office decor and the way Gina furnished that sitting room upstairs. Exact same color scheme same style of furniture. And the only art in Ursula's office was a Cassatt lithograph. Mother and child."

"So what's it mean, Doctor?"

"I don't know exactly, but if the print was agift, it was a hell of a generous one. The last time I checked an auction catalogue, Cassatt prints in good shape were pricey."

"How pricey?"

"Twenty to sixty grand for black-and-white. A color one would go for more.

"The doctor's print is a color one, too?"

I nodded. "Very similar to Gina's."

"Sixty grand plus," he said. "What's the current wisdom on therapists accepting gifts?"

"It's not illegal but it's generally considered unethical."

"You think there's some kind of Svengali thing going on?"

"Maybe nothing that ominous " I said. "Just overinvolvement possessiveness. Ursula seems resentful of Melissa the way one sibling might resent another. Almost as if she wants Gina all to herself.

Melissa sensed it. On the other hand, maybe it's just professional pride. The treatment's been intensive. She's brought Gina a long way-changed her life."

"Changed her furniture, too."

I shrugged. "Maybe I'm overinterpreting. Or seeing it backwards.

Patients influence therapists, too. It's called countertransference.

Ursula could have bought her Cassatt because she saw Gina's and liked it. With the fees the clinic charges, she could sure afford it.

"Big bucks setup?"

"Megabucks. When both Gabneys work, they bill five hundred an hour per patient. Three for his time, two for hers."

"Didn't she ever hear of equal pay for equal work?"

"Her work's more than equal-my impression is she does most of the actual therapy while he sits back and plays mentor."

He clucked his tongue. "She's not doing too bad as a mentee, is she?

Five hundred." He shook his head. "Sweet deal. Get a handful of rich folk in serious psychic pain and you wouldn't need much else to fuel the gravy train.

He took a step, paused. "You think this Ursula's holding back?"

"Holding back what?"

"Knowledge of the whole thing. If they were as close as you're suggesting, Gina could have let her in on her plans for the great escape. Maybe old Ursula even thought getting away would be good for her therapeutic. Hell, maybe she even helped plan it Gina disappeared on the way to the clinic."

"Anything's possible," I said. "But I doubt it. She seemed genuinely upset by the disappearance."

"What about the other one the husband?"

"He mouthed the right words but didn't come across too stressed. He claims he doesn't worry. Trained himself not to."

"Doctor heal thyself, huh? Or could be he's just not as good an actor as his wife."

"The three of them in cahoots?" I said. "Thought you didn't like conspiracy theories.

"I like what fits not that any of it does at this point. We're just head-tripping."

"There are two other women in Gina's group," I said. "If she did plan to run away, she might have mentioned it to them. When I suggested to Ursula that they be interviewed, she got really defensive: told me Gina didn't socialize with them they couldn't be any help. If she is hiding something, that could have been stonewalling."

He gave a small smile. "Stonewalling? I thought you guys called it confidentiality?"

I felt myself go hot.

He patted my shoulder. "Now, now, what's a little reality between friends? Speaking of which, I'd better deliver the news to my clients."

We found Ramp sitting and drinking in the rear room with the painted beams. The drapes were drawn across the French doors and he was staring off into space, eyes half-closed. His face had taken on a ruddy glow and his shirt was wilting around the edges. When we came in he said, "Gentlemen?" in a hearty, greeter's voice.

Milo asked him to get Melissa and he called her room, using an intercom on the phone. When she didn't answer, he tried several other rooms without success, then looked up helplessly.

Milo said, "I'll catch her later," and told him about the car being sighted.

"The 210," said Ramp. "Where would she be going?"

"Can you think of anything?"

"Me? No, of course not. None of this makes any sense toWhy would she be driving the freeway? She just started driving, period. This is just crazy.

Milo said, "It would be a good idea to have that bulletin expanded statewide."

"Of course. Go ahead, do it.

"It's got to come from a police agency. Your local cops have probably been informed of the sighting by now, may have requested it already.

If you want, I can call to confirm."

"Please," said Ramp. He got up and walked around the room. A shirttail had come loose in front. It was monogrammed with a red DNR.

"Driving the freeway," he said. "That's nuts. They're sure it was her?"

"No," said Milo. "The only thing they're sure of is that it was a car just like hers."

"So it had to be her. How many damned Silver Dawns could there be?"

He looked down, tucked in his shirt hastily.

Milo said, "The next step would be to call airline companies, then get to the bank tomorrow morning and take a look at her financial records."

Ramp stared at him, groped like a blind man along the edge of a nearby armchair, and lowered himself into it, still staring. "What you said at the beginning-about this being... about her running away. You think that for certain now, don't you?"

"I don't think anything yet," Milo said with a gentleness that surprised me and raised Ramp's head a couple of inches higher. "I'm taking it step by step-doing the things that need doing."

A door slammed somewhere in the house.

Ramp bounded up and left the room, returning a few moments later trailing Melissa.

She had on a khaki safari vest over her shirt, and boots encrusted with mud and grass.

"I had Sabino's boys check the grounds," she said. "Just in case."

A brief glance at Ramp. "What's going on?"

Milo repeated what he'd learned.

"The freeway," said Melissa. One of her hands found the other and kneaded.

Ramp said, "It doesn't make any sense, does it?"

She ignored him, put her hands on her hips, and faced Milo.

"Okay, at least she's all right. What next?"

Milo said, "Phone work till morning. Then I head over to the bank."

"Why wait till morning? I'll call Anger right now and tell him to get down here. It's the least he can do all the business this family's given him."

"Okay. Tell him I'll need to go over your mother's records."

"Wait here. I'll go call him right now."

She left the room.

Milo said, "Yes, ma'am."

"No offense."

"I'll call you if I need you," she said.

"No problem."

"Sayonara," said Milo, heading for the door.

I said, "I'll walk out with you."

She came back with a scrap of paper and handed it to Milo. "He'll meet you there here's the address. I had to tell him what it was about, let him know I expected him to keep it to himself. What should I do while you're gone?"

"Call airlines," said Milo. "See if anyone bought a ticket to anywhere using your mom's name. Say you're her daughter and it's an emergency.

If that doesn't work, embellish it-someone's sick, you really need to know for medical reasons. Check departures from LAX, Burbank, Ontario, John Wayne, and Lindbergh. If you want to be really thorough, check under your mom's maiden name, too. I'll only come back here if something profound happens at the bank. Here's my number at home."

Scrawling on the back of the paper she'd just handed him, he tore off half and gave it to her.

"Call me if you learn anything," she said. "Even if it seems unimportant."

"Will do," said Milo. Turning to Ramp, hesaid, "Hang in there."

Ramp remained in his chair and gave a dull nod.

I said to Melissa, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No," she said. "No, thanks. I don't really feel like talking. I want to do something no offense, okay?"

"If you insist," he said, coasting down the driveway. "But if I had a chance at some shuteye, I'd grab it."

He'd brought Rick's white Porsche 928. A portable scanner had been mounted on the dash since the last time I'd seen the car. He had the volume on low and the machine emitted a steady stream of mumbles.

"Hoo hah," I said, tapping the box.

"Christmas gift."

"From whom?"

"From me to me," he said, accelerating. The Porsche hummed in agreement. "I still think you should go to sleep. Ramp's already looking wilted and the kid's running on adrenaline. Sooner or later you're gonna be back here doing your thing."

"Not tired," I said.

"Too keyed up?"

"Uh-huh."

"It'll hit you tomorrow. Just in time for a panic call."

"No doubt."

He chuckled and gunned the engine.

The gates to the property were open. He turned left on Sussex Knoll, then left again. Giving the Porsche's wheel a rightward turn, he oversteered a bit and had to straighten before turning onto Cathcart Boulevard. The businesses along the commercial strip were all dark.

The streetlights cast an opaline light that expired before it reached the grassy median.

"Yeah, there it is, all lit up," he said, pointing across the street to a floodlit one-story Greek Revival building. White limestone.

Boxwood hedges, small lawn with a flagpole. FiRST FIDUCIARY TRUST BANK, EDIC in gold letters over the door.

I said, "Doesn't look big enough to store cookie-sale proceeds."

"Quality, not quantity, remember?"

He pulled up in front of the bank. To the right was a twentyspace parking lot fronted by twin iron posts and a chain that had been lowered to the ground. A black Mercedes sedan sat alone in the first spot on the left side. As we got out of the Porsche, the black car's door opened.

A man exited, closed the door, and stood there, one hand on the roof of the car.

Milo said, "I'm Sturgis."

The man came forward into the streetlight. He had on a gray gabardine sack suit, white shirt, yellow tie with blue dots. Matching handkerchief in his breast pocket, black wingtips on his feet. Quick midnight dresser.

He said, "Glenn Anger, Mr. Sturgis. I hope Mrs. Ramp's in no danger."

"That's what we're trying to find out."

"Come this way." Pointing toward the bank's front door. "The security system "s been disarmed but there are still these to contend with."

Pointing to a quartet of deadbolt locks arranged in a square around the doorknob. He pulled out a ring crammed with keys, fingered one, inserted it in the upper right-hand lock, turned, and waited until a click had sounded before pulling it out. Working quickly and efficiently. I thought of a professional safecracker.

I took a good look at him. Six feet, 160, gray crewcut, long face that would probably show tan in the daylight. Nub of nose, skimpy mouth, diminutive close-set ears. As if he'd purchased his features on sale and had settled for one size too small. Thick, dark eyebrows made his pale eyes look even tinier than they were. His age was somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five. If he'd been roused from sleep, he'd made a good recovery.

Before inserting the fourth key, he stopped and looked up and down the deserted street. Then at us.

Milo's return look communicated nothing.

Anger turned the key, pushed the door open an inch. "I'm very concerned about Mrs. Ramp. Melissa made it sound quite serious.

Milo gave a noncommittal nod.

Anger said, "What exactly is it you think I can do for you?"

Then he looked at me.

Milo said, "This is Alex Delaware." As if that settled it. "The first thing you can do is get me the numbers on her credit cards and her checking accounts. The second is you can educate me about her general financial situation."

"Educate you," said Anger, his hand still on the knob.

"Answer a few questions."

Anger moved his lower jaw back and forth. Curving his arm around the jamb, he reached in and turned on some lights.

Inside the bank was polished cherry wood, royal-blue carpeting, brass fixtures, and a ceiling with a relief of a bald eagle at the apex.

Three teller's stations and a door marked SAFE DEPOSiT took up one side; three desk-and-chair sets filled the other. In the center of the room was a service kiosk.

The place smelled of lemon wax and ammonia and money so old it had begun to grow mold. Seeing it empty made me feel like a burglar.

Anger pointed forward and took us to a door at the rear that said GLENN ANGER, CHAiRMAN AND PRESIDENT over a seal that looked awfully similar to the one Ronald Reagan had just stopped using.

Two locks on this one.

Anger opened them and said, "Come on in."

His office was small and cool and smelled like a new car. It was furnished with a squat desk bare except for a gold Cross pen and a black-shaded lamp and two brown tweed chairs with a low square table between them. Several leather-bound books sat on the table. To the right of the desk was a personal computer on a wheeled stand.

Family photos filled the rear wall, each featuring the same brood: blond wife resembling Doris Day after six months of overeating, four blond boys, two beautifully groomed golden retrievers, and a grumpy-looking Siamese cat.

The other walls were taken up by a pair of Stanford diplomas, a collection of Norman Rockwell plates, a framed replica of the Declaration of Independence, and a ceiling-high rack of athletic trophies.

Golf, squash, swimming, baseball, track. Awards dating back twenty years and inscribed to Warren Glenn Anger. More recent ones made out to Warren Glenn Anger, Jr and Eric James Anger. I wondered about the two boys who hadn't brought home any goldplate and tried to pick them in the photos but couldn't. All four were smiling.

Anger took a seat behind the desk, shot his cuffs, and looked at his watch. Dark curly hair with red tips sprouted along the tops of his hands.

Milo and I sat in the tweed chairs. I looked down at the table.

The leather-bound books were membership directories-rosters of three private clubs still battling the city over admission of women and minorities.

"You're a private detective?" said Anger.

"That's right."

"What kind of education are you after?"

Milo took out his pad. "Mrs. Ramp's net worth for starts. How her assets are divided. Any significant withdrawals recently."

Anger's eyebrow dipped at the center. "Why exactly do you need all this, Mr. Sturgis?"

"I've been hired to hunt for Mrs. Ramp. A good hunter gets to know his quarry.

Anger frowned.

Milo said, "Her banking patterns might tell me something about her intentions."

"Intentions in terms of what?"

"A pattern of unusually large withdrawals might suggest she was planning to take a trip."

Anger gave several very small nods. "I see. Well, that hasn't been the case. And her net worth? What would that tell you?"

"I need to know what's at stake."

"At stake in terms of what?"

"In terms of how long she can stay out of sight-if her disappearance is voluntary."

"Are you suggesting "In terms of who stands to inherit, if it isn't."

Anger's jaw moved back and forth. "That sounds ominous."

"Not really. I just need to define my parameters.

"I see. And what do you think's happened to her, Mr. Sturgis?"

"I don't have enough information to think anything. That's why I'm here."

Anger tilted back in his chair, rolled the bottom of his tie upward, then let it unfurl.

"I'm really concerned for her welfare, Mr. Sturgis. I'm sure you're aware of her problem the fears. The thought of her out there by herself..." Anger shook his head.

"We're all concerned," said Milo. work?"

"So why don't we get to Anger swiveled his chair to one side, lowered it, and faced center again. "The problem is that a bank needs to maintain certain levels of "I know what a bank needs to do, and I'm sure you do it really well. But there's a lady out there whose family wants her found a.s.a.p. So why don't we cut to the chase?"

Anger didn't move. But he looked as if he'd slammed his finger in a car door and was trying to tough it out.

"Who, exactly, is your client of record, Mr. Sturgis?"

"Both Mr. Ramp and Ms. Dickinson."

"I haven't heard from Don on this."

"He's a bit stressed right now, trying to get some rest, but feel free to call him."

"Stressed?" said Anger.

"Concerned for his wife's welfare. The longer she's gone, the greater the stress. With luck the whole thing will resolve itself, and the family will be extremely grateful to those who helped them in their time of need. People tend to remember that kind of thing."

"Yes, of course. But that's part of my dilemma. Having the matter resolve itself only to have made Mrs. Ramp's finances needlessly public without proper legal justification. Because only Mrs. Ramp has the legal justification to request release of that information."

"You've got a point," said Milo. "If you want we'll walk out of here and record the fact that you opted not to cooperate."

"No," said Anger. "That won't be necessary. Melissa has reached her majority if barely. In light of the... situation, I suppose it's appropriate for her to make these types of family decisions in her mother's absence."

"What situation's that?"

"She's her mother's sole heir."

"Ramp gets nothing?"

"Just a small sum.

"How small?"

"Fifty thousand dollars. Let me qualify that by saying those are the facts as I know them today. The family attorneys are Wresting, Douse, and Cosner downtown. They may have drafted new papers, though I doubt it. Generally I'm kept well informed of any changes-we do the family's accounting, receive copies of all documents.

"Give me those lawyers' names again," said Milo, pen poised.

"Wresting. Douse. And Cosner. They're a fine old firm-Jim Douse's great-uncle was J. Harmon Douse, the California Supreme Court justice."

"Who's Mrs. Ramp's personal lawyer?"

"Jim Junior-Jim Douse's son. James Madison Douse, Junior.

Milo copied it down. "Got his number handy?"

Anger recited seven numbers.

"Okay," said Milo. "The fifty thousand that goes to Ramp that the result of a prenuptial agreement?"

Anger nodded. "The agreement states-to the best of my recollection-that Don forfeits claim to any part of Gina's estate beyond a single cash payment of fifty thousand dollars. Very simple shortest one I've ever seen.

"Whose idea was it?"

"Arthur Dickinson's essentially-Gina's first husband."

"Voice from the grave?"

Anger shifted in his chair and gave a look of distaste. "Arthur wanted Gina well taken care of. He was acutely aware of the difference in their ages. And her fragility. He specified in his will that no subsequent husband be eligible to inherit."

"Is that legal?"

"You'd have to consult an attorney on that, Mr. Sturgis. Don certainly showed no desire to challenge it. Then, or since. I was present when the agreement was signed. Notarized it personally. Don was totally amenable. More than that enthusiastic. Stated his willingness to forgo even the fifty thousand. It was Gina who insisted on sticking to the letter of Arthur's will."

"Why's that?"

"The man is her husband."

"Then why didn't she try to give him more?"

"I don't know, Mr. Sturgis. You'd have to ask-" Self-conscious smile.

"Yes, well, I can only guess, but I suppose she was a bit embarrassed-this was a week before the wedding. Most people don't like dealing with financial matters at a time like that. Don reassured her it was irrelevant to him."

"Sounds like he didn't marry her for her money."

Anger gave a cold look. "Apparently not, Mr. Sturgis."

"Any idea why he did marry her?"

"I assume he loved her, Mr. Sturgis."

"They pretty happy together, far as you know?"

Anger sat back and folded his hands across his chest. "Investigating your own client, Mr. Sturgis?"

"Trying to fill in the picture."

"Art was never my strong suit, Mr. Sturgis."

Milo looked at the trophies and said, "Would it help if I phrased it in sports terms?"

"Not one bit, I'm afraid."

Milo smiled and scribbled. "Okay, back to basics. Melissa's the sole heir.

"That's correct.

"Who inherits the estate if Melissa dies?"

"I believe her mother does, but we're really getting out of my field of expertise."

"Okay, let's move back into it. What's inherited? How big of an estate are we talking about?"

Anger hesitated. A banker's prudishness. Then: "About forty Give or take. All of it in highly conservative invest million. ments.

"Such as?"

"State of California tax-free municipal bonds rated double-A or above, blue-chip stocks and corporate bonds, treasury bills, some holdings in the secondary and tertiary mortgage markets. Nothing speculative."

"How much yearly income does she get from all that?"

"Three and a half to five million, depending on yields."

"All interest?"

Anger nodded. Talking figures had drawn him forward and relaxed his posture. "There's nothing else coming in. Arthur did some architecture and development early on, but most of what he accumulated was the result of royalties on the Dickinson strut-it's a process he invented, something to do with strengthening metal. He sold all rights to it just before he died, which is just as well there've been newer techniques that have superseded it."

"Why'd he sell?"

"He'd just retired, wanted to devote all his time to Gina-to her medical problems. You're aware of her history-the attack?"

Milo nodded. "Any idea why she was attacked?"

That startled Anger. "I was at college when it happened read about it in the papers.

"That doesn't exactly answer my question."

Anger said, "What exactly was your question?"

"The motive behind the attack."

"I have no idea."

"Any local theories you're aware of?"

"I don't engage in gossip."

"I'm sure you don't, Mr. Anger, but if you did, is there something you would have heard?"

"Mr. Sturgis," said Anger, "you need to understand that Gina's been out of circulation for a long time. She's not a topic of local gossip."

"What about at the time of the attack? Or shortly after, when she moved to San Labrador. Any gossip then?"

"From what I recall," said Anger, "the consensus was that he was out of his mind-the maniac who did it. Does a madman need a motive?"

"Guess not." Milo scanned his notes. "Those highly conservative investments you mentioned. They also Dickinson's idea?"

"Absolutely. The rules of investment are spelled out in the will.

Arthur was a very cautious man collecting art was his only extravagance. He would have bought his clothes off the rack if he could."

Milo said, "Think he was too conservative?"

"One doesn't judge," said Anger. "With what he'd put together from the strut royalties, he could have invested in real estate and parlayed it into a really sizable estate two or three hundred million.

But he insisted on security, no risks, and we did as told. Continue to do so."

"You've been his banker since the beginning?"

"Fiduciary has. My father founded the bank. He worked directly with Arthur."

Anger's face creased. Sharing credit with reluctance. No portraits of The Founder in here. None out in the main room of the bank, either.

None of Arthur Dickinson in the house he'd built. I wondered why.

Milo said, "You pay all her bills?"

"Everything except small cash purchases-minor household expenditures."

"How much do you pay out each month?"

"One moment," said Anger, swiveling to face the computer. He turned on the machine, waited until it had booted up and beeped a welcome, then hunted and pecked, waited, typed some more, and sat forward as the screen was filled with letters.

"Here we go last month's bills totaled thirty-two thousand two hundred fifty-eight and thirty-nine cents. The month before that, a little over thirty-that's about typical."

Milo got up, walked behind the desk, and looked at the screen.

Anger began to shield it with his hand, protecting his data like a Goody Two-Shoes kid guarding an exam. But Milo was looming over him, already copying, and the banker let his hand drop.

"As you can see," he said, "the family lives comparatively simply.

Most of the budget goes to cover staff salaries, basic maintenance on the house, insurance premiums."

"No mortgages?"

"None. Arthur bought the beach house for cash and lived there while he built the main house."

"What about taxes?"

"They're paid out of a separate account. If you insist I'll call up the file, but you'll learn nothing from it."

"Humor me," said Milo.

Anger rubbed his jaw and typed a line. The computer made digestive noises. He rubbed his jaw again and I noticed that the skin along his mandible was slightly irritated. He'd shaved before coming over.

"Here," he said as the screen flashed amber. "Last year's federal and state taxes amounted to just under a million dollars."

"That leaves about two-and-a-half to four million to play with."

"Approximately."

"Where does it go?"

"We reinvest it."

"Stocks and bonds?"

Anger nodded.

"Does Mrs. Ramp take any cash out for herself?"

"Her personal allowance is ten thousand dollars per month."

"Allowance?"

"Arthur set it up that way."

"Is she allowed to take more?"

"The money's hers, Mr. Sturgis. She can take whatever she wants.

"Does she?"

"Does she what?"

"Take more than ten.

"No."

"What about Melissa's expenses?"

"Those are covered by a separate trust fund."

"So we're talking a hundred twenty thousand a year for how many years?"

"Since Arthur died."

I said, "He died just before Melissa was born. That makes it a little over eighteen years.

"Eighteen times twelve is what," said Milo. "Around two hundred months.

"Two sixteen," said Anger reflexively.

"Times ten thou is over two million dollars. If Mrs. Ramp put it in another bank and earned interest, it could have doubled, right?"

"There'd be no reason for her to do that," said Anger.

"Where is it, then?"

"What makes you think it's anywhere, Mr. Sturgis? She probably spent it-on personal items."

"Two million plus worth of personal items?"

"I assure you, Mr. Sturgis, that ten thousand dollars a month for a woman of her standing is hardly worth considering."

Milo said, "Guess you're right."

Anger smiled. "It's easy to be staggered by the idea of all those zeroes. But believe me, that kind of money is inconsequential and it goes fast. I have clients who spend more on a single fur coat. Now is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Sturgis?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Ramp share any accounts?"

"No."

"Mr. Ramp do his banking here, too?"

"Yes, but I'd prefer you talk to him directly about his finances."

"Sure," said Milo. "Now how about those credit-card numbers?"

Anger's fingers danced across the keyboard. Machine-burp.

Flash. "There are three cards. American Express, Visa, and MasterCard." He pointed. "These are the numbers. Below each are the credit allowances and purchase totals for the current fiscal year."

"This all of it?" said Milo, writing.

"Yes, it is, Mr. Sturgis."

Milo copied. "Between all three, she's got around a fiftythousand monthly credit line."

"Forty-eight thousand five hundred and fifty-five."

"No purchases on the American Express-not much on any of them. Looks like she doesn't buy much."

"No need to," said Anger. "We take care of everything."

"Kind of like being a kid," said Milo.

"Beg pardon?"

"The way she lives. Like being a little kid. Getting an allowance, having all her needs taken care of, no fuss, no muss."

Anger's hand clawed above the keyboard. "I'm sure it's amusing to ridicule the rich, Mr. Sturgis, but I've noticed you're not immune to material amusements.

"That so?"

"Your Porsche. You chose it because of what it means to you."

"Oh, that," said Milo, rising. "That's borrowed. My regular transportation's much less meaningful."

"Really," said Anger.

Milo looked at me. "Tell him."

"He drives a moped," I said. "Better for stakeouts."

"Except when it rains," said Milo. "Then I take an umbrella."

Back in the Porsche, he said, "Looks like little Melissa may have been wrong about Stepdaddy's intentions."

"True love?" I said. "Yet they don't sleep together."

Shrug. "Maybe Ramp loves her for the purity of her soul."

"Or maybe he intends one day to contest the prenuptial."

"What a suspicious guy," he said. "In the meantime, there's all that allowance money to wonder about."

"Two million?" I said. "Chump change. Don't get staggered by a few zeroes, Mr. Sturgis."

"Heaven forfend."

He got back on Cathcart, drove slowly. "Thing is, he's got a point.

Her kind of income, a hundred twenty a year, could seem like petty cash. If she spent it. But after being up in her room, I don't see where it went. Books and magazines and a home gym don't add up to a hundred twenty gees a year-hell, she didn't even have a VCR.

There's the therapy, but that's only for the last year. Unless she's got some secret charity, eighteen years' worth of unspent allowance would have accumulated to something pretty tidy. By anyone's standards.

Maybe I should have checked her mattress.

"Could be that's where the money for the Cassatt came fromboth Cassatts."

"Possible," he said. "But that still leaves plenty. If she did deposit it in another bank, we'd be hard-pressed to find it any time soon.

"How could she deal with another bank without leaving the house?"

"That kind of money at stake, plenty of banks would come to her."

"Neither Ramp nor Melissa mentioned any visits from bankers."

"True," he said. "So maybe she just stashed it. For a rainy day.

And maybe the rainy day came and she's got it clutched in her hot little hand right now.

I thought about that.

He said, "What?"

"Rich lady hauling megabucks in a Rolls. It spells victim."

He nodded. "In a hundred goddam languages."

We drove back to Sussex Knoll to get my car. The gates were closed but two floodlights above them had been switched on. Welcome Home lights.

A stretch at optimism that seemed pitiful in the stillness of the early morning hours.

I said, "Forget the car. I'll pick it up tomorrow."

Without a word, Milo turned around and headed back toward Cathcart, putting on speed and handling the Porsche better than I'd ever seen.

We sped west onto California, made the transition to Arroyo Seco in what seemed like seconds. Then the freeway, barren and dark and wind-lashed.

But Milo kept searching anyway, turning his head from side to side, checking the rearview. Waiting until we'd hit the downtown interchange before cranking the volume up on the scanner and listening to the hurts people were choosing to inflict on one another as a new day began.

When I got home I was still wound up. I went down to the pond and found clusters of spawn clinging bravely to some of the plants at the edge of the water. Heartened, I climbed back up to the house and wrote. Made myself drowsy in fifteen minutes and barely got my clothes off before tumbling into bed.

I awoke at six-forty A. M. Friday and called Melissa an hour later.

"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed it was me. "I already talked to Mr. Sturgis. Nothing new.

"Sorry."

"I did exactly as he said, Dr. Delaware. Called every airline at every airport-even San Francisco and San Jose, which he didn't mention.

Because she could have headed north, right? Then I phoned every hotel and motel I could find in the Yellow Pages, but no one had any record of her checking in. I think he's starting to realize it might be serious."

"Why's that?"

"Because he agreed to talk to McCloskey."

"I see.

"Is he really good, Dr. Delaware? As a detective?"

"Best I know."

"I think he is, too. I actually like him better than when I first met him. But I've really got to be sure. Because no one else seems to care. The police aren't doing anything-Chickering acts as if I'm wasting his time by calling. And Don's gone back to work-can you believe that?"

"What are you doing?"

"Staying right here and waiting. And praying-I haven't prayed since I was a little kid. Before you helped me." Pause. "I keep going back and forth between expecting her to walk in at any moment and feeling really sick to my stomach when I realize she could be-I've got to stay here. I don't want her coming home to an empty house."

"Makes sense.

"In the meantime, I think I'm going to try some hotels up north. Maybe Nevada, too, because that really isn't very far by car, is it? Can you think of anywhere else that would be logical?"

"I guess any of the bordering states," I said.

"Good idea."

"Is there anything you need, Melissa? Anything I can do for you?"

Bye."

"No," she said quickly. "No, thanks."

"I'll be coming out there today anyway. To get my car."

"Oh. Sure. Whatever."

"If you want to talk, just let me know."

"Sure."

"Take care, Melissa."

"I will, Dr. Delaware. Better keep this line open, just in case.

The phone barked: "Sturgis."

"Well," I said, "it's a lot better than "Yeah?"

"Hey, I'm a working man now. What's up?"

"I just got off the phone with Melissa. She told me the two of you conferred."

"She talked; I listened. If that's conferred, I guess we did."

"Sounds as if she's been keeping herself busy."

"She worked all night. Kid's got energy."

"Adrenaline overdrive," I said.

"Want me to tell her to cool it?"

"No, it's okay for the time being. She's dealing with her anxiety by making herself feel useful. I am concerned about what'll happen if her mother doesn't show up soon and her defenses start to crack."

"Yeah. Well, she's got you for that. Any time you want her to ease off I just let me know."

"As if she'd listen."

"True," he said.

"So," I said, "nothing new?"

"Not a damn thing. The bulletin has been expanded statewide and into Nevada and Arizona, and the credit checks are all in place.

So far no big-ticket purchases have been phoned in. Small stuff is tabulated when the merchants mail in the receipts, so we'll have to wait on that. I double-checked some of the places Melissa called mostly airlines and luxury hotels. No one fitting Mommy's description checked in during the night. I'm waiting for the passport office to open at eight, just in case she opted for long-distance travel. Told Melissa to keep working the local lines. Actually, she's a damn good assistant."

"She said you agreed to see McCloskey."

"I told her I'd do it some time today. Can't hurt-nothing else is panning out.

"What time were you planning on visiting him?"

"Fairly soon. I've got a call in to Douse the lawyer. He's supposed to get back to me by nine. I want to verify some of the things Anger told me. If Douse is willing to answer my questions over the phone, I'll take on McCloskey soon as I'm finished. If not, it'll mean a couple of hours' delay hassling Downtown. But McCloskey doesn't live that far from the law office, so either way I should be there before noon. Whether or not I find him's another story.

"Pick me up."

"Got plenty of free time?"

"Free enough."

"Fine," he said.

"You buy lunch."

He came by at nine-forty, honking the horn of his Fiat. By the time I got outside, he'd parked in the carport.

"Lunch and transportation," he said, pointing to the Seville I'd picked up from Melissa's house. Milo had on a gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie.

"Where to?"

"Downtown. I'll direct you."

I drove down the Glen to Sunset, got on the 405 south, then switched to the Santa Monica Freeway east. Milo pushed his seat back as far as it went.

"How'd it go with the lawyer?" I said.

"More of the same doublespeak we got at First Fidoosh-I had to engage in the requisite pissing contest before he cooperated. But once he gave in, the guy's inherent laziness took over-more than happy to talk on the phone. Probably bill the estate for every second of it.

Basically he confirmed everything Anger had said: Ramp gets fifty thou; Melissa takes the rest. Mom inherits if anything happens to Melissa.

If both of them go before Melissa's had kids, all of it goes to charity."

"Any specific charities?"

"Medical research. I asked him to send me copies of all the documents-he said he'd need Melissa's written permission for that.

Which I don't see as any big problem. I also asked him if he had any idea how Gina spent her allowance. Like Anger, he didn't seem to think a hundred and twenty grand was anything worth messing with."

Traffic was light until a mile before the interchange, where it started to curdle.

"Get off at Ninth and take it to L.A" said Milo.

I followed his directions north on Los Angeles Street, drove through run-down blocks filled with fashion outlets shrieking bankruptcy bargains, discount appliance stores, import-export concerns, and pay parking lots. To the west a range of mirror-glass high-rises rose like synthetic mountains built on soft soil, Federal redevelopment funds, and Pacific Rim optimism. To the east was the industrial belt that divided Downtown from Boyle Heights.

Downtown was doing its usual split-personality routine: Fasttalking, fast-walking Power Dressers, Wannabee Tycoons, and stifflipped secretaries sharing turf with bleary-eyed, filth-encrusted human shells transporting their life stories in purloined shopping carts and verminous bedrolls.

At Sixth Street, the shells took over, hordes of them congregating on street corners, slumping in the doorways of boarded-up businesses, sleeping in the shadows of overflowing dumpsters. I caught a red light at Fifth. The taxi in the next lane shot the light and nearly ran over a long-haired, smudge-eyed blond man dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and torn jeans. The man began cursing at the top of his lungs and, with scabbed tattooed hands, slapped the trunk of the cab as it sped on. Two uniformed cops issuing a jaywalking citation to a young Mexican girl across the street paused to observe the tantrum, then returned to their paperwork.

Half a block later I saw two skinny black men in baseball caps and topcoats veer off the sidewalk and come face-to-face under the sagging portico of a half-demolished SRO hotel. They lowered their heads and did a palm-slapping routine so well-coordinated it could have been choreographed by Balanchine. Then one man flashed a small wad of bills and the other bent quickly and retrieved something from his sock. A quick exchange and the two of them were on their way, heading in opposite directions. The entire transaction had taken ten seconds.

Milo saw me watching. "Ah, free enterprise. There's the place park wherever you can.

He was pointing to a wide, flat-roofed three-story building on the east side of the street. The ground floor was faced with off-white tiles that brought to mind a bus station lavatory. The upper facade was pale-aqua stucco. A single row of barred windows ran along the top of the first story, too high to be reached from the street. The rest of the structure was a blank slab. Four or five men, mostly black, all ragged, congregated drowsily near the front door, which was topped by a dead neon deco-style sign that read ETERNAL HOPE MISSION.

All the parking spots in front of the building were taken, so I drove up ten yards and nosed into a space behind a Winnebago with MOBILE MEDICAL painted on the back. A larger and more energetic group of derelicts hovered nearby at least two dozen men and three or four women, yapping and shuffling and rubbing their arms. As I turned off the ignition I noticed it wasn't health care they were after.

A loose line had formed in front of an accordion-grated storefront.

Another neon sign, these tubes flashing: $$ FOR PLASMA.

Milo removed a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and placed it in the Seville's front window. A 10 by 12 card reading LAPD VEHICLE: IN SERVICE.

"Be sure to lock," he said, slamming his door.

"Next time we take yours," I said, watching a bald, eye-patched man engage in an angry conversation with a dead elm tree. "You did it!" the man kept repeating, slapping the trunk of the tree every third or fourth utterance. The palms of his hands were bloody but there was a smile on his face.

"No way they'd eat mine," said Milo. "C'mon."

The men hanging out in front of the mission noticed us long before we got to the front door, and stepped aside. Their shadows and their stench lingered. Several of them looked hungrily at my shoes brown loafers, purchased a month ago, that still looked new. I thought how far $ 120,000 would go in this neighborhood.

Inside, the building was overheated and brightly lit. The front room was large, aqua, crowded with men sitting and lying across randomly placed green plastic chairs. The floors were black-and-gray linoleum, the plaster bare except for a single wooden crucifix tacked high to the welcoming wall.

More body odor, mixed with disinfectant, the bilious reek of stale vomit, and the suety smell of something simmering in broth. A young black man in a white polo shirt and tan slacks circulated among the men, carrying a clipboard and chained pen and a handful of brochures.

A name tag above the tiger embroidered on his chest said GILBERT JOHNSON, STUDENT VOLUNTEER. He made his way among the men, consulting the board from time to time. Stopping and bending to talk to someone.

Handing out a leaflet. Once in a while he got a response.

None of the men moved much. No conversation that I could see.

But there was still noise from afar. Metallic rattles and machine pulses and a rhythmic baritone drone that had to be prayer.

I thought of a depot filled with travelers who'd lost their way.

Milo caught the young black man's eye. The man frowned and came over.

"Can I help you?" On the clipboard was a list of names, some of them followed by check marks.

"I'm looking for Joel McCloskey."

Johnson sighed. He was in his early twenties, had broad features, Asian eyes, a cleft chin, and skin not that much darker than Glenn Anger's tan.

"Again?"

"Is he here?"

"You'll have to speak to Father Tim first. One second."

He disappeared down a hallway to the right of the crucifix and came back almost immediately with a thin white man in his early thirties wearing a black shirt, clerical collar, and white jeans over high-top black-and-white basketball shoes. The priest had jug ears, short light-brown hair, a wispy drooping mustache, and skinny hairless arms.

"Tim Andrus," he said in a soft voice. "I thought it was all cleared up with Joel."

"Just a few more questions," said Milo.

Andrus turned to Johnson. "Why don't you get back to bedcount, Gilbert? It's going to be tight tonight-we'll need to be really accurate.

"Sure thing, Father." Johnson shot a quick look at Milo and me, then returned to the men. Several of them had turned around and were staring at us.

The priest gave them a smile that wasn't reciprocated. Turning to us, he said, "The police were here quite a while last night and I was assured everything had been taken care of."

"Like I said, Father, just a few more questions."

"This kind of thing is very disruptive. Not so much for Joel.

He's patient. But the rest of the men-most of them have had experiences with the police. Lots of them are mentally disturbed. The upset in routine.

"Patient," said Milo. "Good of him."

Andrus gave a short, hard laugh. His ears had turned scarlet. "I know what you're thinking, Officer. Another bleeding-heart liberal do-gooder and maybe I am. But that doesn't mean I'm unaware of Joel's history. When he came here six months ago he was totally forthright-he hasn't forgiven himself for what he did all those years ago. And it was a terrible thing, so of course I had my reservations about allowing him to serve. But if I stand for anything it's the power of forgiveness. The right to be forgiven. So I knew I couldn't turn him away. And over the past six months he's proved me right. No one's served more selflessly. He's not the same man he was twenty years ago."

"Good for him," said Milo. "But we'd still like to talk to him."

"She still hasn't shown up? The woman he "Burned? Not yet.

"I'm so sorry. I'm sure Joel is, too."

"Why? He express his regrets, Father?"

"He still bears the burden of what he did never stops blaming himself.

Talking to the police brought it all back. He didn't sleep at all last night-was in the chapel, on his knees. I found him and we knelt there together. But he couldn't have had anything to do with her disappearance. He's been here all week, never left the building.

Working double shifts. I can attest to that."

"What kind of work does he do?"

"Anything we need. For the past week it's been kitchen and latrine duty. He requests latrine duty would do it full time."

"He have any friends?"

Andrus hesitated before answering. "Friends he'd hire to do wrong?"

"That's not what I asked, Father, but now that you mention it, yeah."

Andrus shook his head. "Joel knew that's exactly the way the police would think. He hired someone to sin once before; therefore it was inevitable that he'd do it again."

"Best predictor of the future's the past," said Milo.

Andrus touched his clerical collar and nodded. "It's an incredibly difficult job you do, Officer. A vital job God bless all honest policemen. But one of the side effects can be fatalism. A belief that nothing ever changes for the better."

Milo looked around at the men on the plastic chairs. The few who were still staring turned away.

"You get to see much change around here, Father?"

Andrus twisted one end of his mustache. "Enough," he said, "to maintain my faith."

"McCloskey one of those who's maintained your faith?"

The flush spread from the priest's ears to his neck. "I've been here five years, Officer. Believe me, I'm not naive. I don't take convicted felons off the street and expect them to turn into someone like Gilbert. But Gilbert's had a good home, nurturance, education.

He's starting from a different baseline. Someone like Joel has to earn my trust-earn a higher trust. It did help that he brought references.

"From where, Father?"

"Other missions."

"Here in town?"

"No. Arizona and New Mexico. He worked with the Indians, put six years of his life into helping others. Paying his legal debt and enlarging himself as a human being. Those he worked with had only good things to say about him."

Milo said nothing.

The priest smiled. "And yes, that did help him obtain parole.

But he came here as a free man, Officer. In a legal sense. He works here because he chooses to, not because he has to. And in answer to your question about friends, he has none-sticks to himself, denies himself worldly pleasures. A very tough cycle of work and prayer constitutes his entire life."

"Sounds pretty darn saintly," said Milo.

Anger tightened the priest's face. He struggled to fight it and managed to put on a calm expression. But when he spoke, his voice was constricted. "He had nothing to do with that poor woman's disappearance. I really don't see why there's a need to "That poor woman has a name," said Milo. "Gina Marie Ramp."

"I'm aware of that "She's been sticking to herself, too, Father. Cut off from worldly pleasures. But in her case, it's not out of choice.

For twenty years, since the day McCloskey's hired creep destroyed her face, she's been living up in a room, too scared to go out into the world. No parole for her, Father. So I'm sure you can understand why lots of people are upset at the fact that she's disappeared. And I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me if I try to get to the bottom of it. Even if it means inconveniencing Mr. McCloskey."

Andrus bowed his head and clasped his hands in front of him.

For a moment I thought he was praying. But he looked up and his lips were still. All the color was gone from his face.

"Forgive me, Officer. It's been a hard week-two men died in their beds; two more were sent over to County General with suspected tuberculosis." He cocked his head toward the men in the chairs.

"We've got a hundred more heads than beds, no letup in sight, and the archdiocese wants me to raise a larger share of my own funds."

His shoulders dropped. "One searches for small victories. I've been trying to think of Joel as one."

"Maybe he is," said Milo. "But we'd still like to talk to him."

The priest shrugged. "Come, I'll take you to him."

He'd never asked to see ID. Didn't even know our names.

The first door in the hall led to an enormous dining hall where food smells finally overtook the stink of unwashed bodies. Wooden picnic tables covered by peacock-blue oilcloth were arranged in tandem, creating five long rows. Men sat hunched over their food, cradling their plates protectively. Prison dining. Spooning and chewing nonstop with all the joy of wind-up toys.

Along the back wall was a steam table fronted by a glass partition and aluminum counter. Men were lined up holding their plates out, Oliver Twist-style. Three figures dressed in white shirts and aprons and hairnets ladled out food.

Father Andrus said, "Wait here, please," and we stood by the door as he walked behind the steam table and said something to the middle server.

Still working, the man nodded, handed his ladle to the priest, and stepped backward. Father Andrus began distributing food. The man in white wiped his hands on his apron, stepped around the table, through the line, and came toward us.

He was about five five, with a stoop that robbed him of an inch he couldn't spare. The apron reached below his knees and was stained with food. He shuffled, barely raising his feet from the linoleum, and his arms remained at his sides as if glued there. Strands of white hair straggled from under the hairnet and adhered to a pasty, moist forehead. The face below was long and sallow, thin yet flabby. An aquiline nose had conceded defeat to gravity. White eyebrows. No fat under his chin, but a flap of loose flesh shook as he came closer. His eyes were hooded, dark, deep-set, very tired.

He walked up to us, expressionless, and said, "Hello," in a flat, phlegmy voice.

"Mr. McCloskey?"

Nod. "I'm Joel." Listless. Open pores on nose and cheeks. Deep crevices flanking a down-turned, dry-lipped mouth. Eyes nearly shut under the heavy lids, yellowish scleras surrounding nearly black irises. I wondered when he'd last had a liver-function test.

"We're here to talk about Gina Ramp, Joel."

"She hasn't been found." A statement.

"No, she hasn't. Any theories you'd like to share about what might have happened to her?"

McCloskey's eyes shifted to one of the tables. Some of the men had stopped eating. Others cast covetous glances at the untouched food.

"Could we talk in my room?"

"Sure, Joel."

He shuffled out the door and turned right into the corridor. We passed dormitories crammed with folding cots, some of them occupied, and a closed door marked INFIRMARY. Moans of pain filtered through plywood and echoed along the hall. McCloskey turned toward the sound, briefly, but didn't break step. Redirecting his gaze forward, he shuffled toward a brown-painted staircase at the back of the hall. The treads were covered with hard rubber, and the banister felt greasy.

We followed his steady, slow climb up three flights. Now the disinfectant smell triumphed.

Just off the landing on floor three was another closed door taped with a piece of shirt cardboard. JOEL was written on it in black marker.

The knob had a keyhole, but he turned it and the door opened.

He held it and waited for us to enter.

The room was half the size of Gina Ramp's closet-no more than eight by eight, with a cot covered by a gray wool blanket, a wooden nightstand painted white, and a narrow three-drawer, woodgrain chest. A Bible sat atop the drawer, along with a hot plate, a can opener, a cellophane-wrapped cracker-and-peanut-butter combo, a half-empty jar of pickled beets, and a tin of Vienna sausage. A calendar painting of a haloed Jesus looked down approvingly on the cot. A yellowed, fly-specked shade was half drawn on a single barred window. Beyond the bars was a wall of gray brick. Light came from a bare bulb in the center of a ceiling spotted with mildew.

Barely enough room to stand. I felt like holding on to something but didn't want to touch anything.

McCloskey said, "Sit. If you want."

Milo looked at the cot and said, "That's okay."

The three of us remained standing. Close together, but miles apart.

Like subway straphangers resolute upon isolation.

Milo said, "Any theories, Joel?"

McCloskey shook his head. "I've thought about it. A lot. Since the other police were here. I hope what happened is she got well enough to go out by herself and "And what?"

"And liked it."

"You want the best for her, do you?"

Nod.

"Now that you're a free man and the state can't tell you what to do."

A faint smile formed on McCloskey's pale lips. The corners of his mouth were crusted with something white and flaky.

"Something funny, Joel?"

"Freedom. That's long gone."

"For Gina, too.

McCloskey closed his eyes, opened them, sat heavily on the cot, removed his hairnet, and rested his brow in one hand. The crown of his head was bald, the hair around it white and gray, cut short and spiky. It might have looked fashionable on an eighteen-year-old Melrose marauder.

On an old man it resembled exactly what it was: a do-it-yourself job.

Old man.

Fifty-three.

He looked seventy.

"What I want doesn't matter," he said.

"Not unless you're still after her, Joel."

The jaundiced eyes squeezed shut again. The neck-flap trembled. "I wasn't No. I'm not."

"Not what?"

McCloskey held the hairnet with both hands, fingers poking through the mesh. Stretching it. "After her." A sub-whisper.

"Were you starting to say you never were after her, Joel?"

"No. I..." McCloskey scratched his head, then shook it. "It was a long time ago."

"Sure was," said Milo. itself."

"But history has a way of repeating "No," said McCloskey, very quietly but with force. "No, never.

My life is "What?"

"Over. Everything's out."

"What's out, Joel?"

McCloskey put one hand on his gut. "The fire. The feelings."

The hand dropped. "All I do is wait."

"Wait for what, Joel?"

"Peace. Blank space." A fearful glance at Milo, then over at the picture of Jesus.

"Pretty religious guy, are you, Joel?"

"It.. helps."

"Helps what?"

"Waiting."

Milo bent his knees, cupped his hands on them, and lowered his face until it was nearly level with McCloskey's.

"Why'd you burn her, Joel?"

McCloskey's hands began to shake. He said, "No," then crossed himselo "Why, Joel? What'd she do to make you hate her so much?"

"No."

"C'mon, Joel. What would it hurt to tell after all these years?"

Headshakes. "I it's not "Not what?"

"No. I... sinned."

"Confess your sin, Joel."

"No please." Tears. More trembling.

"Isn't confession part of salvation, Joel? Full confession?"

McCloskey licked his lips, put his hands together, and mumbled something.

Milo bent lower. "What's that, Joel?"

"Done my confession."

"Have you?"

Nod.

McCloskey swung his legs onto the bed and lay down on his back. Arms folded over his chest. Staring up at the ceiling, mouth agape.

Beneath the apron his trousers were ancient tweed, tailored for a man thirty pounds heavier and two inches taller. The cuffs were frayed and rimmed stiff with black grime. The soles of his shoes were perforated in several places and clotted with dried food. Gray yarn peeked through some of the holes, bare flesh through others.

I said, "For you it may be all in the past. But understanding it would help her. And her daughter. After all these years the whole family's still trying to comprehend."

McCloskey stared at me. His eyes moved back and forth, as if following traffic. His lips moved soundlessly.

Deliberation. For a moment I thought he was going to open up.

Then he gave his head a violent shake, sat up, untied his apron, and slipped it over his head. His shirt bagged on him. Undoing the top three buttons, he pulled the fabric apart and exposed a hairless chest.

Hairless, but not unmarked.

Most of his skin was the color of spoiled milk. But a splotch of pink, puckered flesh, twice as wide as a hand, gnarled as briar, covered most of his left breast. The nipple was gone; in its place was a glossy, clabbered depression. Scar streaks flowed from the primary splash, like rosy paint, ending midway down his rib cage.

He stretched the shirt farther, thrust the ruined tissue forward.

A heartbeat pulsed the lumpy mound. Very fast. His face was white, drawn, anointed with sweat.

"Someone do that to you at Quentin?" said Milo.

McCloskey smiled and looked back at Jesus again.

A smile of pride.

"I would take her pain away and eat it," he said. "Swallow it and let it be me. All of it. Everything."

He placed one hand on his chest, crossed the other arm over it.

"Sweet Lord," he said. "The sacrament of pain."

Then he began to mumble in something that sounded like Latin.

Milo looked down at him.

McCloskey kept praying.

"Have a nice day, Joel," said Milo. When McCloskey didn't respond, he said, "Have a nice wait."

No break in the white-haired man's benedictions.

"All this self-flagellation notwithstanding, Joel, if there's something you could be doing to help us find her, your salvation's not worth a goddam."

McCloskey looked up-just for a second the yellow eyes filled with terror: the panic of someone who'd wagered everything on a deal gone very sour.

Then he dropped to his knees, so hard it had to hurt, and resumed his supplication.

As we drove away, Milo said, "So, what's the diagnosis?"

"Pathetic. If what we just saw was real."

"That's what I'm asking-was it?"

"I can't be sure," I said. "My instinct is to assume someone who'd hire a hit man wouldn't balk at a bit of theatrics. But something about him was believable."

"Yeah," he said. "I thought so, too. Would you call him schizophrenic?"

"I didn't see any overtly disturbed thinking, but he didn't say much, so maybe." I drove half a block. "Pathetic fits better than anything technical."

"What do you think drove him that far down?"

"Drugs, booze, prison, guilt. Singly or in combination. Or all of the above."

"Boy," he said, smiling, "you sound like a hard guy."

I looked out the car window at the derelicts and junkies and bag ladies. Urban zombies squandering their allotment of breath on a wet-brained haze. A very old man was sleeping on the curb, dirtcaked belly up, snoring through rotted gums. Or maybe he wasn't old at all.

"Must be the environment."

"Miss the green hills of San Labrador?"

"No," I said, realizing it as the words left my mouth. "How about something in the middle?"

"How about." He let out a tension-sloughing laugh. It wasn't enough, and he ran his hand over his face. Drummed the dashboard.

Opened the window and closed it and stretched his legs without attaining comfort.

"His chest," I said. "Think it was self-inflicted?"

"Cross his heart and hope to die? That's obviously what he wanted us to think. The sacrament of pain. Shit."

Growling with contempt, but he looked ill at ease.

I made a stab at mind reading. "If he's still into pain he might still be into inflicting it on others?"

He nodded. "All the guilty talk and praying, the guy told us exactly nothing. So maybe he isn't all that fucked up, mentally. My instinct doesn't yell Prime Suspect, but I'd hate to be caught in an aw-shucks situation if our combined hunch quotient turns out to be low."

"So what's next?"

"First find me a phone booth. I wanna call in, see if anything's turned up on the lady. If it hasn't, let's go talk to Bayliss-the probation officer."

"He's retired."

"I know. I got his home address before I came by. Middle-class neighborhood. You should feel comfortable."

I found a phone booth near the Children's Museum and waited in a no-parking zone as Milo used it. He was on the line long enough for two meter maids to drive by, prepare to cite me, only to be held at bay by the LAPD cardboard. Most fun I'd had in a long time. I savored it while watching parents herd their young toward the entrance to the museum.

Milo came back jingling change and shaking his head.

"Nothing."

"Who'd you speak to?"

"Highway Patrol, again. Then one of Chickering's lackeys and Melissa."

"How's she doing?" I said, pulling into traffic.

"Still hyper. Making calls. She said one of the Gabneys phoned just a while ago-the husband. Expressing concern."

"The goose with the golden egg," I said. "Planning on telling Melissa about the Cassatt ?"

"Any reason to?"

I thought about that. "Not that I can see no use getting her riled up about something else."

"I told her about McCloskey. That from what I could see we were talking brain death, but that I'd keep my eye on him. It seemed to calm her down."

"Placebo?"

"Got anything stronger?"

I picked up the Harbor Freeway at Third, switched to the 10 west, and exited at Fairfax, heading north. Milo directed me to Crescent Heights, then farther north, just past Olympic, where I turned left on Commodore Sloat, passed a block of office buildings, then entered the Carthay Circle district, a tree-shaded enclave of small, exceedingly well-kept Spanish and mock-Tudor houses.

Milo recited an address and I matched the numerals to a shakeroofed, brick and madder-stucco cottage set on a corner lot two blocks up. The garage was a miniature clone of the house behind a hedge-bordered cobbled drive. A twenty-year-old Mustang, white and shining, sat in the drive. Moisture pools beneath the chassis and a neatly coiled garden hose rested near the rear tire.

The front yard was rich green lawn worthy of Dublin, edged with beds of flowers-taller plantings of camellias, azaleas, hydrangeas, agapanthus, backing impatiens, begonia, and a white fri