Still hungry, he ordered a stack of hotcakes, drained everything down with black coffee, walked around the market, dodging tourists, figuring the distraction might get his brain in gear. But it didn’t, and after inspecting produce stands full of fruit he didn’t recognize and buying a bag of jumbo cashews, he left the market, drove south on Fairfax, turned left on Sixth, at the old May Company building, now an adjunct of the art museum, and kept going east.

Chief John G. Broussard’s official residence was beautifully tended, with grass as green as Ireland and more flower beds than Milo remembered from that diplomatic party. A flagpole had been erected smack in the middle of the lawn and the Stars and Stripes and the California Bear swooshed in the midday breeze.

No walls or fences or uniformed officer on patrol, but the driveway had been gated with wrought iron and through the stout bars, Milo saw a black-and-white cruiser, and behind that, a late-model, white Cadillac. The Caddy was probably Mrs. Broussard’s wheels. He recalled her as a trim, pretty woman with henna-tinted, cold-waved hair and the resigned look of a political spouse. What was her name . . . Bernadette . . . Bernadine? Did she and John G. have kids? Milo’d never heard of any, and he realized how little he knew about the chief’s personal life. How little the chief doled out.

Seven blocks west and a half mile south was Walt Obey’s address on Muirfield. The billionaire’s nest sat at the end of the road, where Muirfield terminated on the southern border of the Wilshire Country Club. No house in sight, just ten-foot stone walls broken by an opaque, black steel gate studded with enormous bolts. Closed circuit TV camera on one post. The implication was a grand place on multiple acres, and Milo flashed to Baron Loetz’s spread, neighbor to the Cossack party house. Did Obey spend time on his veranda, sipping gin and enjoying what God had given him?

Eighty years old and still taking meetings with hustlers like the Cossacks. Some big deal on the verge?

He found himself staring at Obey’s gate. The TV camera remained immobile. The place was close enough for an athletic guy like John G. to jog over. Obey and Broussard on the veranda? Making plans. Running things. All of a sudden Milo felt very small and vulnerable. He rolled down the window, heard birds peeping, a plink of running water behind Obey’s walls. Then the camera began to rotate. An automatic circuit, or maybe his presence had attracted attention. He backed up halfway down the block, whipped a U-turn, and got the hell out of there.

A few minutes later, he was parked on McCadden near Wilshire, cell phone hot against his ear. More DMV finagling gave him other addresses, and he had a look at all of them.