Mike was right. The younger Pode was a good-looking man. Five eleven, one seventy or eighty, and well built. An iron pumper, his chest swelled under his shirt, big shoulders. Coiffed dark hair with a full mustache. A deep sunlamp tan. His face was lean with a sloped nose and deep-set dark eyes under dark brows.

Tall, dark, and handsome with little resemblance to his father. As soon as Dustin stepped inside the elevator, Decker rushed down the stairwell to his car. He pulled out of the space a couple of seconds after the Mercedes.

Pode’s destination was Beverly Hills—lunch at La Ragazzina Boutique, a one-room Italian restaurant jammed with a mixture of businessmen, entertainment hangerson, and women shoppers with acute ennuitis just dying for a little attention. It was a good place in which to observe Pode because everyone was either self-absorbed or wanted to be noticed. Decker found a spot at the end of the tiny bar and ordered a club soda.

Pode sat in a dark-red booth in the corner opposite the bar. Five minutes later Cameron Smithson joined him with two other suits. The four of them talked animatedly for a while, until Cameron pulled out a briefcase. Within moments, the table was covered with papers.

Decker glanced at his watch. Half a day shot. Maybe Morrison was right. This was a waste of manpower. He got up and found a pay phone occupied by a lady with the hands of a fifty-year-old but the face of a woman twenty years younger. Good lift. Her hair was as orange as his, but her color came from a bottle. Rechecking his watch, he grew impatient with the woman’s blabbering and glanced over to Pode’s table.

The pile of papers had grown.

Finally, she hung up. Turning around, the woman smiled at him and reached for his hair. Instinctively, he backed away.

She let out a chuckle.

“It’s natural, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Lucky boy.” She turned around and caught the headwaiter’s eye.

“Tony!” she purred huskily, spreading out her arms widely and embracing the tuxedoed Hispanic.

The hug didn’t help her get a table any faster. Smiling all the way, ole Tony led her to the bar.

Decker dialed the station and Marge told him there had been no new developments—the warrants hadn’t been approved yet, the X rays from Oregon hadn’t arrived. She had decided to put the case in abeyance for the moment and work on another that had just come over the line.

Swell!

Yesterday, the case had been hot, but now a definite chill was settling in. Goddam it, Lindsey deserved more.