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  “The police are certainly involved, are they not?”

  “Yeah.” I said nothing else, let the heaviness linger in the air.

  “Well I don’t see how that has anything to do with me or our talks.”

  “I thought you might be able to help.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe you know things I’d like to know.”

  “Mr. Buchanan.” DeCosse put his drink on the table then rubbed his hands together, as if he were rolling clay snakes. “I don’t know what implications there are in your attitude, but I find them to be counterproductive and rude. Doesn’t have any place in our talks.”

  “Mr. DeCosse, you run a huge company and you sit up here on a very nice piece of property with your wife, fenging your shui through life. Maybe you don’t know all that’s done on your behalf. Maybe you have ways of finding out.”

  “You can’t seriously be suggesting that someone associated with me would murder a flophouse tenant over some dispute about rent.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I just want you to know there’s more to this than economics. Yes, I’ll entertain a settlement offer on behalf of my client. You can have Al Bradshaw give me a call when you’re ready. But it better be a good number, one that can take care of the needs of a girl for a long, long time. And it’s not going to stop there. I’m going to find out who killed her mother.”

  “Fair enough,” DeCosse said. He whipped a cell phone off his belt and pressed a button, then put it back in the holster. “You talk straight up. I like that. Reminds me a little of myself when I was your age.”

  I didn’t quite know how to take that. “One thing,” I said. “Your developments are huge. Why the interest in a crummy little hotel downtown? Even turning it into lofts, that seems smaller than what you’re into.”

  “You’re perceptive, Mr. Buchanan. Another point in your favor. I’ll only say my reasons are my own, and leave it at that.”

  The door opened and Devlin the weight-lifting bodyguard—sounds like a kids’ show—came in.

  “See Mr. Buchanan to his car,” DeCosse said. We stood. DeCosse did not offer to shake hands.

  44

  DEVLIN WALKED ME out to the drive. He kept half a step behind me, to my right.

  I slowed down once. He slowed down.

  “You don’t act like an MBA,” I said.

  “Never played in the NBA,” he said.

  “I’m talking master of business administration. You don’t have a basketball look.”

  “What sort of look do I have?”

  I stopped. He stopped. I turned toward him. He didn’t move.

  “You look like a guy who enjoys hurting people,” I said.

  He smiled. His capped teeth glistened in the sun. In L.A. even the bodyguards get cosmetic surgery. “I enjoy a lot of things. Tennis. Women.”

  “And hurting people.”

  “Especially that.”

  A squeal of tires broke up the friendly chat. Coming up the drive was a red Ferrari, going way too fast. Just to be safe I jumped three feet to my left. Devlin didn’t move, but he cursed real fine.

  The Ferrari skidded to a dead stop, leaving about a foot of space between the grill and Devlin’s knees.

  Out of the Ferrari popped a guy with red hair. He wore dark aviator shades and a fawn-skin jacket open over a black knit shirt and blue jeans. A practiced casual look. I guessed him to be hovering around thirty.

  “Hey Dev, what up?” Red said.

  “Mr. DeCosse.” Dev nodded but did not look pleased about having to do so.

  Red looked at me and said, “How’s it goin’?”

  “Like a rapper with a new expletive.”

  Red blinked. “Who is this, Dev?”

  “A lawyer.”

  I looked at Devlin. “Who is this, Dev?”

  He said nothing. Red didn’t look amused. “I’m Sam DeCosse.”

  “Junior,” Devlin added.

  “Hi, Junior,” I said.

  This clearly teed off Junior. His cheeks got rosy and blotchy. His freckles stood out like little pancakes.

  “You’re just leaving, I hope,” he said.

  “He’s leaving,” Devlin said.

  “Good,” Junior said, and blew on past me to the house.

  Pregnant pause. “He seems like a fine lad,” I said. “Cultured.”

  Devlin took a step toward me. “We may have a real talk sometime soon.”

  “I’ll try to make it a two-way conversation.”

  “Look forward to it.”

  As I drove away, my body was buzzing. I’d been knocked around a few times in the past months, and a revenge lust was bubbling inside me like Charles Bronson’s ghost. My adrenal glands got working whenever I thought this way. My heart pumped and my hands got sweaty.

  This was not normal. Part of me didn’t want to be, because normal got you kicked in the teeth.

  But another part was fighting against Bronson’s ghost. Against revenge. It was the part Father Bob said was my better angel.

  I didn’t believe in angels.

  45

  I DROVE DOWNTOWN to the county law library and did a few hours of research on landlord-tenant law. When I got back to St. Monica’s, Sister Hildegarde was out in front of the office. She called to me.

  Sister Hildegarde was from Our Lady of the Perpetually Put Out. She wore her gray hair short and her expression long.

  “The little girl who’s here,” she said.

  “Kylie,” I said.

  “Yes. She’s been crying for you.”

  “For me?”

  Sister Hildegarde nodded. “It’s not uncommon in a situation like this. She has attached herself to you because she sees you as a savior.”

  I said nothing.

  “Have you thought about how you might attend to her needs?”

  “Needs?”

  “She’s a little girl. And she’s now an orphan. As far as we know, she has no family, is that correct?”

  “Right.”

  “There’s her schooling, her medical needs, her long term. We’ll have to get Family Services involved.”

  I shook my head.

  “What’s the alternative? Are you going to become her permanent legal guardian?”

  “To be honest, I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Mr. Buchanan, one of the things I have to do, as the abbess here, is think ahead. We all must. I will offer you any help I can placing the girl in the proper—”

  “What if she stays here? For the time being.”

  “How long would that be?”

  “Until we can think this through a little more.”

  “She needs care. She needs someone dedicated to her well-being.”

  “We can all pitch in.”

  Sister Hildegarde frowned. Owlish. Like I was a field mouse. “Think about what you’re doing. You’ll simply be putting off the inevitable. Meanwhile, if she grows more attached to you—or anyone here—it will make the change, when it comes, all the more difficult.”

  She was right, of course. I just wasn’t ready to admit it.

  “I don’t want the county involved,” I said. “Everything they touch turns to—doesn’t work out. Let’s see if we can find a family on our own.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “Hey, why don’t you pray about it? And I’ll look into the alternative? What a team, huh?”

  Her stolid expression was a Rushmore of nonresponse.

  “Thanks for your patience,” I said softly. “Saint Benedict must be looking down now with a big smile on his face.”

  “Oh, you are smooth,” she said. “No wonder you were such a good lawyer.”

  “Were?”

  She didn’t respond.

  46

  KYLIE WAS WITH Sister Mary in the conference room. When Kylie saw me she ran to me and threw her arms around my left leg.

  “How you doing there, kid?”

  “Okay,” Kylie said.

  �
�Sister Mary been taking good care of you?”

  Kylie nodded. “We’ve been drawing pictures. I drew a horse.”

  “Yeah? I can’t draw horses. Fact, I can’t draw much of anything.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You show me how to draw a horse.”

  I sat at the desk and watched Kylie work with the pencil. It was not a bad horse. A horse from a six-year-old, but you could tell what it was.

  Mine was not so good. Kylie handed me the pencil and a blank piece of paper and I tried to make it look like what she had drawn. It looked like a giant pig.

  “That’s okay,” Kylie said. “I wasn’t very good at first.”

  I looked at Sister Mary. “She gives me hope.”

  “Hope is good,” Sister Mary said.

  “Let’s try again,” Kylie said.

  We drew another round of horses. Kylie instructed me on how to do the ears and the tail. It worked. I was getting closer. At least I moved out of the pork zone.

  The bells in the chapel started up and Sister Mary excused herself to pray. I took Kylie to the one comfortable piece of furniture in the office, a green sofa, and sat her down.

  “You doing okay?” I asked.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Kylie asked.

  I sat next to her. “We’re going to figure that out,” I said.

  “Can I stay with you?”

  “For a while.”

  “I mean always.”

  “Me? Well, you wouldn’t want to stick around with me. I’m too . . . flaky. Messy, too. And I’m a lawyer. You want to steer clear of lawyers if you can.”

  “I want to stay with you,” she said.

  “We’ll do what’s best, I promise.” I hoped I could follow through on that. “Kylie, where did you and your mommy live before the hotel?”

  She furrowed her brow. “In Avisha’s house.”

  “Avisha?”

  She nodded.

  “Who’s Avisha?”

  “Mommy’s friend.”

  “Do you remember where the house is?”

  “By the ocean.”

  “Avisha lives by the ocean?”

  Kylie nodded.

  “Does Avisha have a last name?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can you remember what it is?”

  She shook her head, looking worried and disappointed. Like she had wanted to please me.

  I patted her hand. “Don’t worry. Just tell me what you can remember and it’ll be okay. Tell me everything you can about Avisha.”

  “Avisha’s nice.”

  “What does Avisha look like?”

  “She has bright hair.”

  “Bright?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What color?”

  “Um, white.”

  “Is Avisha old?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “But she has white hair?”

  Kylie nodded.

  “How long did you live with Avisha?”

  Kylie shrugged.

  “If you needed to talk to Avisha, could you find her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Did Avisha ever come visit you at the hotel?”

  She shook her head.

  “What kind of a house did Avisha live in? A big house?”

  Kylie shrugged.

  “Did anyone else live with Avisha?”

  “James.”

  “Who’s James?”

  Kylie whispered, “Her boyfriend.”

  “What did James look like?”

  “He just looked regular.”

  “He didn’t color his hair?”

  Kylie shook her head. “Except at the party.”

  “There was a party?”

  “Uh-huh. We walked over to the beach.”

  “And James colored his hair at this party on the beach?”

  “All of us.”

  “All of you colored your hair at the party?”

  “We colored all of ourselves.”

  “You colored . . . with what, paint?”

  She shook her head. “Just colored stuff. We threw it. It was fun. Everybody was laughing and hugging.”

  A picture of this wasn’t really coming together for me. And it wasn’t getting any closer to someone who could tell me more about Kylie’s mother.

  “I’m tired,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. “We won’t talk anymore.”

  She leaned her head on my chest then and started to cry.

  47

  I PICKED HER up and held her and went outside.

  I carried her to the parking lot, up to the edge, where we could look down at the Valley. The freeway stretched in front of us, headlights coming and going, red taillights the same. Beyond that the lights of the city were starting to appear. We could see all the way across to the Santa Monica range.

  I said, “You know, I lost someone very close to me, too.” I waited a moment and she started to calm. When she went to sniffling only, I went on. “Her name was Jacqueline and I loved her very much. We were going to get married. But then she died. And I cried, too.”

  Kylie wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “What did you do?”

  “I found some people to help me. I found Sister Mary and Father Bob. And they’ve been real good to me. That’s what’s going to happen with you. You have some friends now, and we’ll stick together and figure out what to do, okay?”

  She paused, then nodded tentatively.

  “Now look out there,” I said. “Isn’t that a great view? If you could fly straight out there you’d go over those mountains right to the Pacific Ocean.”

  “I like the ocean,” she said.

  “Maybe we’ll drive over there soon. We’ll play in the sand.”

  She put her head on my chest again and sighed. We were silent for a while. Then I put her down and we sat on the ground.

  “What was your mommy like? I mean, what do you think about when you think about her?”

  “Sad.”

  “What was she sad about?”

  Kylie shrugged.

  “Was she ever happy?” I asked.

  Kylie nodded.

  “What made her happy?”

  “When I color. She likes to look at my pictures.”

  “They’re good pictures.”

  She smiled.

  “What else do you remember about your mom?”

  Her smile faded and she shrugged.

  “If I told you it might help us catch the man,” I said. “Do you think you could tell me some more about her?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Do you know anything about your daddy?”

  Kylie shook her head.

  “Do you know what his name is?”

  “Uh-uh. Mommy never said. Only Avisha.”

  “Avisha?”

  “Avisha said my daddy was odd.”

  There were a lot of daddies out there who were odd.

  Kylie said, “Do you have a daddy?”

  “I did.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He died,” I said. “When I was a boy.”

  “Were you sad?”

  “Very sad. He was a policeman.”

  “I don’t like policemen.”

  “Some of them are very nice,” I said. “Some of them are trying to help us.”

  “I hope you’re not sad anymore. It’s not good to be sad.”

  “No,” I agreed. “No good at all.”

  48

  LATER, WHEN KYLIE was about to go to bed in the room Sister Mary had prepared, I went to check on her. She asked if I would stay and tell her a story. Sister Mary kissed her good night and went to the office, leaving me holding the story bag.

  The bag was empty for a moment. Then I thought of one. It came from way back when my mom told me stories when I was about Kylie’s age. She used to tell me about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Always liked those.

  “There was this boy in E
ngland, the son of the king, but he was taken care of by a magician named Merlin.”

  “Merlin?”

  “Yeah. He had a long white beard. Anyway, the king died, and there had to be a new king. And there was this sword stuck into a stone. And whoever could pull that sword out of the stone was the king.”

  “Who pulled it out?”

  “The boy. He was the only one who could do it. His name was Arthur, so he got to be the king. King Arthur.”

  “Wow.”

  “He was a good king. Do you know what a king does?”

  “Sort of.”

  “In the old days, he ran things in his own country. He was the boss. Whatever he said, you had to do. So you could have bad kings who’d tell you to do bad stuff, and good kings who would tell you to do good stuff. And the good kings would also go around and fight bad guys.”

  “Bad guys?”

  “Oh yeah. There’s always bad guys. Even now. So King Arthur needed a special sword to fight with, so Merlin took him to this magic lake, and there was a lady of the lake.”

  “A lady?”

  “Of the lake.”

  “Was she swimming?”

  “No, she lived there.”

  “She lived in the water?”

  “No, I think she had a condo. Anyway, she got a boat for King Arthur and he went out on the lake where there was this arm sticking up with a sword.”

  “An arm?”

  “Remember, this was a magic lake. So the arm gave King Arthur this magic sword, and the sword had a name.”

  “A name?”

  “Excalibur.”

  “Wow.”

  “Now,” I said, “King Arthur gathered some very special knights. Do you know what a knight is?”

  “I think.”

  “Like a soldier. A fighter. They had swords and horses and fought bad guys. So King Arthur built this big round table for all his knights to sit at. Knights got to be called Sir. So he had knights like Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad, and Sir Loin of Beef.”

  I added that last one courtesy of Bugs Bunny.

  “And they had this code,” I said.

  “Cold?” Kylie said.

  “No, code. It’s like rules. They did things that were right and didn’t do things that were wrong.”

  “Like lying?”

  “Yes. Like lying. And not being cruel. If somebody asked for mercy, they’d give them mercy.”

  “Mercy?”