He didn’t want to dwell on the fact that the prospective client lived in Colgate, but it didn’t bode well. Colgate was a lackluster sprawl of tract homes, built on land that had once supported citrus and avocado orchards. Colgate residents were workaday folk—plumbers and electricians, auto mechanics, store clerks, and trash collectors—not poor by any stretch, but getting by on wages that barely kept up with inflation. Actually, they all made more than he did, but that was neither here nor there.

He’d been a damn fine detective once upon a time and he was still good at what he did. If he cut corners on occasion, he figured it was strictly his business. He’d learned early on that in his line of work, it didn’t pay to be too fastidious. As long as he delivered the goods, his clients looked the other way. Most made a point of not inquiring too closely about his methods. For years he’d sidestepped the Business and Professions Codes that governed the practices of private investigators. By his reckoning, he’d violated most of them anyway, so why get all prissy at this point? His clients didn’t seem to care what he did as long as nothing blew back on them. So far he hadn’t been caught, which was, after all, the point. As long as he wasn’t apprehended in the course of an illegal act, he wasn’t subject to censure. He was immune from threats of having his license yanked since he hadn’t operated with a valid PI license for some years. Those who hired him understood that whatever their needs, fees would be paid in cash before he embarked on a job and little would be committed to paper. A contract was sealed by gentlemen’s agreement, confirmed by a handshake, and accompanied by a nod and a wink.

Once in Colgate proper, he turned off the main street onto Cherry Lane, leaning forward to catch house numbers. The address he was searching for turned out to be a twelve-unit apartment complex, built during the fifties by the look of it, not shabby but with the glum air of postwar construction. He found a parking spot, locked the car, and walked back to the entrance. An iron gate opened into a spacious courtyard partly shaded by young trees. Now he pictured a schoolteacher or the general manager of a fast-food restaurant, though why either would be home at this hour was anybody’s guess. Maybe the problem was a business dispute or a slip-and-fall claim, something involving an insurance company, which would allow him to pump up his bill into the four-figure range. Pad his hours, pad expenses, exaggerate the difficulty of the job, and then string it out.