“Exactly. The father . . . no, I won’t speak ill of the dead, but suffice it to say that charity didn’t appear to be his strong point. And then there were the people he employed. They’d always made the lives of our men difficult. And the son had kept them on.”

“What people?”

“Angry young men from East L.A.,” said Glenda.

“Which gang?” said Milo.

She shook her head. “You hear talk. Eighteenth Street, the Mexican Mafia, Nuestra Familia. I really don’t know. But whoever they were, when they showed up on the street, they intimidated our men. Swaggering by, driving by. Sometimes they’d get out and demand money, become threatening.”

“Physically?”

“Once in a while someone got punched or pushed. Mostly it was psychological intimidation—looks, threats, verbal bullying. I suppose they felt entitled—territorial. Mr. Coury—the father—had used them as rent collectors. When the son offered us the building, the first request we made on him was that he ask his crew to stay away from the men. Because we thought he was going to hold on to the other hotels, and we didn’t want to be geographically close to that kind of environment. His lawyer said there’d be no problem, Coury was going to tear the buildings down and pave them for parking lots. It ended up being a very smooth transition. Our lawyer talked to his lawyer, papers were signed, and that was it. Fred and I kept waiting for some ulterior motive but the way our lawyer explained it, the son was in an inheritance tax bind and the Grand Royale could be appraised in a manner that would serve his best interests.”

“Inflated appraisal?”

“No,” said Glenda. “Fred and I wouldn’t be party to that. In fact, we demanded to look at the most recent county assessments, and everything was in line. The Grand Royale was worth approximately twice what the other hotels were, so apparently it fit the son’s tax needs. It wasn’t the only thing he sold. Mr. Coury, the father, had owned many properties. But the three hotels had been acquired as a package through some sort of government housing deal, so by donating the Royale, everything worked out.”

“Coury aiding the Lord’s work,” said Milo.

“Funny, isn’t it? The father acquired filthy lucre by oppressing the poor and now at least some of those profits have served to elevate the poor.”

“Happy ending, Reverend. Doesn’t happen very often.”

“Oh, it does, Milo. You just have to know where to look.”

He talked to her a bit longer, stuffed more money in the alms box over her protests, and left.

Vance Coury had made good on his promise to keep the gang-bangers away from the Mission and now that the two other hotels had been torn down for parking lots, his need for rent collectors had disappeared.