He closed his eyes, kept them shut as I got on the 405. By the time I was over the hills and dipping down into the Valley and the 101 East, he was snoring with glee.

Burbank is lots of things: a working- to middle-class suburb, host to film lots and TV studios, no-nonsense neighbor to the mansions and estates of Toluca Lake where Bob Hope, William Holden, the Three Stooges, and other luminaries established a celebrity outpost that avoided the Westside riffraff.

The city also also butts up against Griffith Park and has its own equestrian center and horse trails. John Jacob Del Rios lived just northeast of the park, on a street of ranch houses set on half-acre lots. Paddocks were visible at the ends of driveways. The aroma of well-seasoned equine dung seasoned the air. A shortage of trees helped the sun along and as noon approached, the asphalt simmered and a scorch, like that of an iron left too long on wool, melded with the horse odors.

Del Rios’s residence was redwood-sided, shingle-roofed, fronted by a marine-buzz lawn. An old wagon wheel was propped to the left of the door. A white Suburban with utility tires was parked at the onset of the driveway, inches behind a horse trailer. No paddock in view but a corral fashioned from metal piping housed a beautiful black mare with a white diamond on her chest. She watched us approach, gave two short blinks, flicked her tail.

I took the time to get a closer look. She cocked her head flirtatiously.

Glossy coat, soft eyes. Years ago, I’d take breaks from the cancer wards and ride up at Sunset Ranch, near the Hollywood sign. I loved horses. It had been too long.

I smiled at the mare. She winked.

Milo said, “C’mon, Hopalong, time to meet John Wayne.”

The man who answered the door was more Gregory Peck than Duke: six five, and patrician, with a shelf of deeply cleft chin, a well-aligned arrogantly tilted nose, and thick hair as snowy as well-beaten egg whites. His eyes were clear blue, his skin clear bronze veneered by a fine mesh of wrinkles, his build still athletically proportioned save for some hunching of the shoulders and widening of the hips. Nearing ninety, John J. Del Rio looked fifteen years younger.

He wore a blue-and-white mini-check long-sleeved shirt, navy slacks, black calfskin loafers. The blue-faced steel Rolex on his left wrist was chunky and authoritative. Rimless, hexagonal eyeglasses gave him the look of a popular professor. Emeritus for years, but invited back to campus often.

Or one of those actors hired by health insurance companies to play Elderly-but-Fit on their scam commercials.

He proffered a hand larger than Milo’s. “Lieutenant? J. J. Del Rios, good to meet you. And this is …”

“Dr. Alex Delaware, our consulting psychologist.”

“I was a psychology major, myself, at Stanford.” To me: “Studied with Professor Ernest Hilgard, I assume you’ve heard of him.”