City Councilman Eduardo “Ed the Germ” Bacilla, the official representative of a district that encompassed a chunk of downtown. He of the serious bad habits and poor work habits—Bacilla attended maybe one out of every five council meetings and a couple of years ago he’d been nabbed in Boyle Heights trying to buy powdered coke from an undercover narc. Quick and frantic negotiations with the D.A.’s Office had led to the draconian sentence of public apology and public service: two months on graffiti-removal detail, Bacilla working alongside some of the very gang-bangers he’d favored with city-funded scam rehab programs. Lack of a felony conviction meant the councilman could keep his job, and a recall effort by a leftist homeboy reformer sputtered.

And now here was ol’ Germ, kissing up to Tan Suit.

So was Crown Victoria Rider Two, and guess what: another civil stalwart.

This guy had looped his arm around Tan Suit’s shoulder and was laughing about something. No expression on Suit’s CEO face.

Mr. Jocular was older, around Tan Suit’s age, with white temples and a bushy, white mustache that concealed his upper lip. Tall and narrow-shouldered, with an onion-bulb body that a well-cut suit couldn’t enhance, and the ice-eyed cunning of a cornered peccary.

City Councilman James “Diamond Jim” Horne. He of the suspected kickbacks and briberies and ex-wives hush-moneyed to silence back in the good old days when domestic violence was still known as wife-beating.

Milo knew through the LAPD gravevine that Horne was a longtime, serious spouse-basher with a penchant for pulverizing without leaving marks. Like Germ Bacilla, Diamond Jim had always managed to squeak through without arrest or conviction. For over thirty years, he’d served a district that bordered Bacilla’s, a north-central strip filled with ticky-tack houses and below-code apartments. Once solidly working-class white, Horne’s constituency had turned 70 percent poor Hispanic, and the councilman had watched his vote pluralities tumble. From 90 percent to 70. A series of opponents with surnames ending in “ez” had failed to topple Horne. The corrupt old bastard got the potholes fixed, and plenty else.

Germ and Diamond Jim, walking arm in arm with Tan Suit, heading for the steel door of Sangre de Leon.

Milo returned to the Taurus and, using the ID of a Pacific Division Vice detective he despised, pulled up the Mercedes coupe’s plates.

He half expected another corporate shield, but the numbers came back matching a four-year-old Mercedes owned by a real-life person.

W.E. Obey

The three hundred block of Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.

Walter Obey. He of the billion-dollar fortune.