Back on Wilshire, he continued to study the building. Lot of lights were on, including several on the third floor. A couple of weeks ago, the state had warned of impending power shortages, urged everyone to conserve. Either the Cossacks didn’t care, or someone was working late.

He rounded the corner, returned to the Taurus, reversed direction, and parked with a clear view of the building’s subterranean parking lot. Fighting back that old feeling: wasted hours, stakeout futility. But stakeouts were like Vegas slots: Once in a great while something paid off, and what better basis for addiction?

Twenty-three minutes later, the lot’s metal grate slid open and a battered Subaru emerged. Young black woman at the wheel, talking on a cell phone. Six minutes after that: a newish BMW. Young white guy with spiked hair, also gabbing on cell, oblivious, he nearly missed colliding with a delivery truck. Both drivers traded insults and bird-flips. The streets were safe, tonight.

Milo waited another half hour, was just about to split, when the grate yawned once more and a soot gray Lincoln Town Car nosed out. Vanity plates: CCCCCCC. Windows tinted well past the legal limit—even the driver’s pane—but otherwise nice and conservative.

The Lincoln stopped at the red light at Wilshire, then turned west. Traffic was heavy enough for Milo to obtain cover two lengths behind, but sufficiently fluid to allow a nice, easy tail.

Perfect. For what it was worth.

He followed the gray Lincoln half a mile west to San Vicente Boulevard, then north to Melrose and west again to Robertson, where the Town Car pulled into the front lot of a restaurant on the southwest corner.

Brushed steel door. Matching steel nameplate above the door, engraved heavily:

Sangre de Leon.

New place. The last time Milo had taken the time to look, an Indonesian-Irish fusion joint had occupied the corner. Before that had been some kind of Vietnamese bistro run by a celebrity chef from Bavaria and bankrolled by movie stars. Milo figured the patrons had never served in the military.

Before that, he recalled at least six other start-up trendolas in as many years, new owners refurbishing, grand opening, garnering the usual breathless puff pieces in L.A. Magazine and Buzz, only to close a few months later.

Bad-luck corner. Same for the site across the street—the bamboo-faced one-story amorphoid that had once been a Pacific Rim seafood palace was now shuttered, a heavy chain drawn across its driveways.

Sangre de Leon. Lion’s Blood. Appetizing. He wouldn’t take bets on this one enduring longer than a bout of indigestion.