“Cindy, how would he know where to find you? You weren’t even driving your car.”

I thought a moment. “El Paso could have seen Koby’s car when he drove away.”

“Koby?”

“Yaakov. My boyfriend.”

“You call him Koby?”

“He calls himself Koby. It’s an Israeli nickname for Yaakov.”

“He’s Israeli?”

Here we go again. “Yes. He’s black and he’s Jewish. Hollywood’s our area, Justice. We both work there, and since we’re both night owls, we play there as well. Maybe Fedek was hanging around the streets, just waiting for our paths to cross.”

“Could be you’re right. But we can’t do a damn thing with Sarah Sanders until Fedek’s in custody. Right now, that’s the big problem.”

His food came. He rubbed his hands together. “Looks good.” Slowly, his eyes rose from his plate to my face. We regarded each other for a few moments. “Sure I can’t tempt you?”

He was pointing with his knife to his food, but the implication was obvious. I sipped my second beer. “Justice, I’m really not hungry. But I thank you for the offer.” I stood up and left thirty bucks on the table. “My treat.”

Brill smiled. “You got class.”

“We’ll talk later.” I started to walk away.

“I hear you applied to Detectives,” Brill said.

I turned around. My face got warm. “Yeah, I know it’s a little early, but I did well on the exams. I figure, what do I have to lose?”

“Yeah, I was talking to Stone about you. For what it’s worth, I told him I think you’d season well.”

“That was very nice of you.” I smiled as the heat under my cheeks spread across my face. “Really. Thanks a lot.”

“Course you’d need the right rabbi.”

“Of course.” Was Justice setting me up to be his partner? I didn’t dare dream that high. Then he winked at me. “Thanks for dinner. Lunch’ll be on me.”

“Great.”

Sharing the tab … that was good.

39

As predicted, it took me a week to check out the names on Brill’s fingerprint hit list. At the time a bronze Nova was gunning me down, Bobby Cantrell was in Folsom Penitentiary, and Benny Rodriguez and Cristofer Anez were in Lompoc Federal Prison. Tomas Marin had moved to Texas, where he worked construction in Houston, and Mabibi Ralson was indeed dead.

Mike Robinson was thirty-eight years old and employed with an insurance firm. He was the original owner of the Nova and traded it in for a new GM Saturn in 1996. Ted Bass worked as a film editor and had no idea how his prints were found in the Nova or even why his prints were in the police system. He lived in West Hollywood and was with his lover at a dinner party the night in question.

Mohammed Nelson developed pictures in a MotoPhoto lab in South Central. He was six-four and hostile and claimed he didn’t remember where he had been the night that someone tried to take me out—very reasonable because several days had passed since the shooting. I could have prodded him with cop attitude, but since I was on my own, I chose to be a nuisance instead. Guys will do anything to get rid of a nagging woman. He finally figured out that during the time period in question, he had been at a party where black-market pharmaceuticals had been passed freely from person to person. I was able to confirm his presence at the party.