CINDY’S SISTER ARRANGED THE memorial. She did not know Pike, Jon Stone, or Frank’s friends from that earlier time, so Pike was not invited. Cole saw a notice for the memorial when he read the Meyer family’s obituary. The obituary was published as a sidebar to a longer article in the Los Angeles Times about East European gang wars, the death of Milos Jakovich, and the conviction and sentencing of Michael Darko to three consecutive life sentences for the murders of Earvin Williams, Jamal Johnson, and Samuel Renfro, as well as the murders they committed on Darko’s behalf. Darko did not stand trial. He accepted a plea agreement that let him escape the death penalty. The obituary noted that a memorial for the Meyers would be held at the United Methodist church in Westwood on an upcoming Sunday.

Cole pointed out the memorial.

“You should go.”

“I don’t know.”

Pike told Jon Stone about it, and asked if he would go, but Stone refused, not because he didn’t care about Frank, but because he hated funerals. They made him depressed, and he always showed up drunk.

Pike decided to go. He wore a black suit over a black shirt and black silk tie. Frank, Cindy, Little Frank, and Joey were represented by poster-sized photographs set up on easels, along with an enormous blowup of a family portrait.

The people in attendance were mostly Cindy’s family, but a significant number were people who knew the Meyers from school, their business, and church. Two cousins from Frank’s side showed up, both listless men with scabbed hands and coarse skin who looked like they worked hard for a living. They attended only because they brought Frank’s mother—an overweight woman of meager means who had difficulty walking. She sat in a front pew with the two awkward cousins as if she was out of place, and knew it. Her clothes were cheap, and her hair was bad, and when the memorial was over she would go back to her trailer in San Bernardino.

Pike introduced himself, and shook her hand.

“Frank was my friend. We were in the service together.”

“This is so terrible. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I’m sorry about your son.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Pike shook other hands. When people asked, he told them he knew Frank from the service, but didn’t say where or when, and provided no details. These people knew the Frank they wanted to know, and the Frank that Frank and Cindy wanted them to know. Pike was fine with it.

Pike left in the middle of the service, and drove to Frank’s house. The yellow tape was down, and someone had replaced the broken front door. A For Sale sign had sprouted on the front lawn.