It surprised him that this person whom he’d never expected to actually encounter in the real world was not a child but a young adult. Although in fairness, he was working off obsolete information by now, wasn’t he? The memory of Cora that Nils had relayed to him had been of an ingrate teenager brainwashed by her sheeple, establishment-slave mother. Let’s see, he thought, Nils left in 2003, and she was sixteen then, so she’s twenty-one now? Twenty-two?

“Can I ask you something?” she asked.

“Shoot.”

“Do you and Sol know each other?”

“No, why?”

She shrugged. “The way he talked about you, seemed . . . personal.”

He forced a smile, putting his fork down. “And what did our friend tell you?”

“When I asked him who slipped those documents to Nils, he told me this guy named Kaveh Ma . . .”

“Mazandarani.”

“Mazan . . . drani.”

“Mazan as in ‘was on,’ da as in ‘fa, a note to follow so,’ rani as in Donnie, the lesser Wahlberg.”

“Mazan-da-rani,” she repeated, smiling shyly, looking up at him with hooded eyes. He suspected that the mispronunciation bit might have been more a calculated pivot to innocence rather than genuine confusion. “Sol said you were like this . . . well, the term he used was shitbag burnout.”

Kaveh snorted, nearly choking on a bite of fingerling potatoes. “I’m a fucking Rhodes Scholar!” he said, mouth still full. “And a bestselling author! I’ve won like two dozen awards, and I’ve been nominated for a Pulitzer!” He swallowed. “Twice! Fuck that guy.”

“Why would he say that, then?”

“Because he’s a fucking liar! And he hates me because I got him fired from his job torturing people.” Was she actually surprised by any of this? Did she actually like that guy? “He’s probably referring to the fact that I used to drink a lot. Like, a lot. He has no moral standing over me, so he has to go for the low-hanging fruit, because he sucks.”

“Not anymore?”

“Nope, two years sober.” He took another bite of lobster tail. “Now it’s way worse, to be honest. Now it’s carbs. I spend like half my expendable income at the Cheesecake Factory.” That wasn’t true, but lines like that made him more relatable. Saying “I have spent quite a lot of time in rehab” had a way of turning people off.

“I’ve never been to a Cheesecake Factory,” she said awkwardly.

“Wow, you’re really missing out.” Either she didn’t catch the sarcasm or didn’t care to acknowledge it. “So why are they here?”

“They’re refugees.”

“Huh.” Kaveh took another bite of overpriced cow. “Well, that’s one thing we have in common.”

She looked up, skeptical. “You’re a refugee?”

“Well, I was when I was six. Now I’m a citizen.”

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from LA.”

Her expression hardened. It was cute.

“Well, not LA-LA. Really I’m from Palos Verdes.”