Traffic was thick over the hill because of freeway construction. Decker pulled off at Sunset and took it east, passing through Westwood, then the opulent residential area of Beverly Hills. The sinuous boulevard had been narrowed to two lanes because of roadwork, and was treacherous because of a sudden May downpour. The asphalt had a thin coating of slick mud, and that had brought the flow down to a crawl. Los Angeles was always unprepared for rain, and when it came, the locals drove like beginners, going either too fast or too slow.

Turning left onto Roxbury Drive, he kept going until the street turned one-way, and of course, it was the wrong way. He maneuvered the unmarked through the maze of crazed shoppers and tourists until he was finally going the correct way on the street—except that the curb parking was taken up. To make matters worse, the public lots were full to capacity. By the time he had successfully landed a place to leave his vehicle, he was ten minutes late.

It didn’t seem to matter, because the Baldwins kept him waiting. Decker didn’t expect that they’d do a kiss-up number, but he didn’t think they’d leave him cooling his heels. He was about to leave when the door opened, and a young African-American woman who introduced herself as Maryam Estes apologized for the delay. Lovely and curvy, she swayed as she ushered him into an “intake suite,” an interview room with very low ceilings. Decker didn’t have to duck to make it through, but he could touch the wood beams with a simple arm stretch. The space was large and done up à la Frank Lloyd Wright with lots of rich, wood built-ins, a conference table, and a gleaming ebony desk. The couches were constructed from slats of wood and covered with dozens of colored pillows. There were lush floral still lifes on the walls, and a stone fireplace was going full blast.

Even though the surroundings had improved, Decker wasn’t about to wait anymore. He was about to vocalize his displeasure to the next person he saw, but then a woman came in, took his one hand in her two-handed grip, and introduced herself as Dee Baldwin. She looked even younger than she had in the photographs, in her late thirties. But she did have the same coiffed honey-dipped hair that wouldn’t survive too long in the wild. She had a round face with round brass-colored eyes and white teeth, her visage reminiscent of a lioness. She was quite petite except for shoulders that were very broad, made even bigger by the shoulder pads of her black pant-suit jacket. Her earlobes dripped gold, her neck as well. Her perfume was light and airy.