I’d just gotten off the phone with Allison. We’d managed to sneak in some personal talk before her grandmother’s call for tea and comfort drew her away. The plan was for her to return in two or three days. Depending.

I said, “What’s up?”

“Let’s talk about it over food,” he said. “It’ll be a test of your appetite.”

* * *

Café Moghul is on Santa Monica Boulevard, a couple of blocks west of Butler, walking distance from the station. The storefront ambience is dressed up by carved, off-white moldings and arches designed to mimic ivory, polychrome tapestry murals of Indian country scenes, posters of Bollywood movies. The soundtrack alternates sitar drones with ultra-high soprano renditions of Punjab pop.

The woman who runs the place welcomed me with her usual smile. We always greet each other like old friends; I’ve never learned her name. Today’s sari was peacock blue silk embroidered with gold swirls. Her eyeglasses were off. She had huge, chocolate eyes that I’d never noticed before.

“Contacts,” she said. “I’m trying something new.”

“Good for you.”

“So far, so good— he’s over there.” Pointing to a rear table, as if I needed directions. The layout was four tables on each side divided by a center aisle. A group of twenty-somethings was gathered around two tables pushed together, dipping nan bread into bowls of chutney and chili paste and toasting some sort of success with Lal Toofan beer.

Other than them, just Milo. He was hunched over a gigantic salad bowl, sifting through lettuce and retrieving chunks of what looked to be fish. A cut-glass pitcher of iced clove tea sat at his elbow. When he saw me, he filled a glass and pushed it toward me.

“The special,” he said, plinking the rim of the salad bowl with his fork. “Salmon and paneer and these little dry rice noodles over green stuff with lemon-oil dressing. Pretty healthy, huh?”

“I’m getting worried about you.”

“Get real worried,” he said. “This is wild Pacific salmon. The intrepid types that leap upstream when they’re horny. Apparently, farmed fish are bland, lazy wimps and they’re also full of toxic crap.”

“The politicians of the fish world,” I said.

He speared a piece of fish. “I ordered you the same.”

I drank tea. “What’s going to test my digestive juices?”

“Lara Malley’s suicide. Got hold of the final report from Van Nuys. Turns out the D’s who worked it were the same ones who busted Turner and Rand.”

“Sue Kramer and a male partner,” I said. “Something with an ‘R.’ ”

“Fernie Reyes. I’m impressed.”

“I read their report on Kristal more times than I wanted to.”

“Fernie moved to Scottsdale, does security for a hotel chain. Sue retired and joined a P.I. agency over in San Bernardino. I’ve got a call in to her— here comes your grub.”