He went into the bedroom, ready to call Bank of America and give them a piece of his mind. But he stopped before he picked up the phone. Some things needed to be done in person. He wouldn’t get the runaround that way. He wouldn’t get so much of it, anyhow.

Down to the car, bank statement in hand. The branch he used was on Gardena Boulevard, closer to the house where he’d grown up than to where he lived now. It was his folks’ bank, too. He’d had his own account there since before his mother died; his father hoped to get him used to saving money. That had worked out the way Dad wanted, sure enough.

Fifteen minutes later, he stood in line at the bank. Five minutes after that, he walked up to a teller. “Yes, sir? How can I help you today?” the Japanese-American woman asked. She was maybe five years older than he was, so he hadn’t gone to school with her, but he would have bet she came out of Gardena High, too.

He showed her the statement, pointing out the insane item. “This can’t be right,” he said. “What do I have to do to get it fixed?”

A vertical line appeared between her eyes as she frowned. “That is … a lot of money,” she said carefully. “Let me check it for you, okay?” She took the statement and disappeared with it. Jerry imagined alarm bells ringing and cops aiming pistols at him.

She came back a few minutes later. “This seems to be correct, Mr. Stieglitz. We received a certified check from the Summa Corporation for deposit to your account, the same way we did with the two smaller payments before. You are familiar with the Summa Corporation?”

“I am, yeah.” Jerry knew he sounded dazed. Summa meant Howard Hughes meant CIA front. But why the hell had the CIA suddenly dropped a not-so-small fortune into his lap?

The teller said, “If somebody paid me that much money, I bet I’d look happier than you do right now.”

“I’m still kind of getting used to the idea,” Jerry said. She slid the bank statement across the counter at him. He took it, looked at it one more time to make sure those numbers were still there, and walked out of the bank building.

A secondhand bookstore with a good sf section was only a few doors down from the B of A. Jerry usually went in when he found himself here. Today, he just got in the car and headed back to his apartment. His head buzzed like an out-of-control electric motor all the way there.

What had Dale said while he was canning him? Something to the effect that Jerry wouldn’t hurt for money because he’d got involved with Azorian and Midlothian. He didn’t remember the exact words, but that was what it amounted to.