When he left his room this time, he remembered to lock the deadbolt.

Perry nodded at him when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

“There you go. I heard you shoot the lock this time.”

“Perry, listen, I need to get over to the DMV and I’m running way late. You got a car I could borrow?”

Perry’s smile faded to a frown.

“You don’t even have a license.”

“I know, but I’m running late, man. You know what those lines are like. It’s almost noon.”

“Have you gone stupid already? What would you do if you got stopped? What you think Gail’s gonna say?”

“I won’t get stopped and I won’t say you loaned me a car.”

“I don’t loan shit to anyone.”

Holman watched Perry frowning, and knew he was considering it.

“I just need something for a few hours. Just to get over to the DMV. Once I start my job tomorrow it’ll be hard to get away. You know that.”

“That’s true.”

“Maybe I could work something out with one of the other tenants.”

“So you’re in a jam and you want a favor?”

“I just need the wheels.”

“I did you a favor like this, it couldn’t get back to Gail.”

“Come on, man, look at me.”

Holman spread his hands. Look at me.

Perry tipped forward in his chair, and opened the center drawer.

“Yeah, I got an old beater I’ll let you use, a Mercury. It ain’t pretty, but it’ll run. Cost is twenty, and you gotta bring it back full.”

“Jesus, that’s steep. Twenty bucks for a couple of hours?”

“Twenty. And if you get fancy and don’t bring it back, I’ll say you stole it.”

Holman passed over the twenty. He had been officially on supervised release for only four hours. It was his first violation.

4

PERRY’S MERCURY looked like a turd on wheels. It blew smoke from bad rings and had a nasty case of engine knock, so Holman spent most of the drive worried that some enterprising cop might tag him for a smog violation.

Donna’s address led to a pink stucco garden apartment in Jefferson Park, south of the Santa Monica Freeway and dead center in the flat plain of the city. It was an ugly two-story building with a parched skin bleached by an unrelenting sun. Holman felt depressed when he saw the blistered eaves and spotty shrubs. He had imagined Donna would live in a nicer place; not Brentwood or Santa Monica nice, but at least something hopeful and comforting. Donna had complained of being short of cash from time to time, but she had held steady employment as a private nurse for elderly clients. Holman wondered if Richie had helped his mother move to a better area when he got on with the cops. He figured the man that Richie had become would have done that even if it crimped his own lifestyle.

The apartment building was laid out like a long U with the open end facing the street and a shrub-lined sidewalk winding its way between twin rows of apartments. Donna had lived in apartment number 108.

The building had no security gate. Any passerby was free to walk up along the sidewalk, yet Holman couldn’t bring himself to enter the courtyard. He stood on the sidewalk with a nervous fire flickering in his stomach, telling himself he was just going to knock and ask the new tenants if they knew Donna’s current address. Entering the courtyard wasn’t illegal and knocking on a door wasn’t a violation of his release, but it was difficult to stop feeling like a criminal.

Holman finally worked up the nut and found his way to 108. He knocked on the doorjamb, immediately discouraged when no one answered. He was knocking again, a little more forcefully, when the door opened and a thin, balding man peered out. He held tight to the door, ready to push it closed, and spoke in an abrupt, clipped manner.

“You caught me working, man. What’s up?”

Holman slipped his hands into his pockets to make himself less threatening.

“I’m trying to find an old friend. Her name is Donna Banik. She used to live here.”

The man relaxed and opened the door wider. He stood like a stork with his right foot propped on his left knee, wearing baggy shorts and a faded wife-beater. He was barefoot.

“Sorry, dude. Can’t help you.”

“She lived here about two years ago, Donna Banik, dark hair, about this tall.”

“I’ve been here, what, four or five months? I don’t know who had it before me, let alone two years ago.”

Holman glanced at the surrounding apartments, thinking maybe one of the neighbors.

“You know if any of these other people were here back then?”

The pale man followed Holman’s glance, then frowned as if the notion of knowing his neighbors was disturbing.

“No, man, sorry, they come and go.”

“Okay. Sorry to bother you.”

“No problem.”

Holman turned away, then had a thought, but the man had already closed the door. Holman knocked again and the man opened right away.

Holman said, “Sorry, dude. Does the manager live here in the building?”

“Yeah, right there in number one hundred. The first apartment as you come in, on the north side.”

“What’s his name?”

“Her. She’s a woman. Mrs. Bartello.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Holman went back along the sidewalk to number one hundred, and this time he knocked without hesitation.

Mrs. Bartello was a sturdy woman who wore her grey hair pulled back tight and a shapeless house dress. She opened her door wide and stared out through the screen. Holman introduced himself and explained he was trying to find the former tenant of apartment 108, Donna Banik.

“Donna and I, we were married once, but that was a long time ago. I’ve been away and we lost track.”

Holman figured saying they were married would be easier than explaining he was the asshole who knocked Donna up, then left her to raise their son on her own.

Mrs. Bartello’s expression softened as if she recognized him, and she opened the screen.

“Oh my gosh, you must be Richard’s father, that Mr. Holman?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Holman wondered if maybe she had seen the news about Richie’s death, but then he understood that she hadn’t and didn’t know that Richie was dead.

“Richard is such a wonderful boy. He would visit her all the time. He looks so handsome in his uniform.”

“Yes, ma’am, thanks. Can you tell me where Donna is living now?”

Her eyes softened even more.

“You don’t know?”

“I haven’t seen Richie or Donna for a long time.”

Mrs. Bartello opened the screen wider, her eyes bunching with sorrow.

“I’m sorry. You don’t know. I’m sorry. Donna passed away.”

Holman felt himself slow as if he had been drugged; as if his heart and breath and the blood in his veins were winding down like a phonograph record when you pulled the plug. First Richie, now Donna. He didn’t say anything, and Mrs. Bartello’s sorrowful eyes grew knowing.

She wedged the screen open with her ample shoulders to cross her arms.

“You didn’t know. Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t know. I’m sorry, Mr. Holman.”

Holman felt the slowness coalesce into a kind of distant calm.

“What happened?”

“It was those cars. They drive so fast on the freeways, that’s why I hate to go anywhere.”

“She was in an auto accident?”

“She was on her way home one night. You know she worked as a nurse, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“She was on her way home. That was almost two years ago now. The way it was explained to me someone lost control of their car, and then more cars lost control, and one of them was Donna. I’m so sorry to tell you. I felt so badly for her and poor Richard.”

Holman wanted to leave. He wanted to get away from Donna’s old apartment, the place she had been driving back to when she was killed.

He said, “I need to find Richie. You know where I can find him?”

“It’s so sweet you call him Richie. When I met him he was Richard. Donna always called him Richard. He’s a policeman, you know.”