After a while the heavy breathing passed and Bradley nodded. "All right, Cole. I'll go along with Jillian on this and hire you."

"No," I said. "You won't."

Jillian Becker stiffened. Bradley Warren looked at Jillian Becker, then looked back at me. "What do you mean, I won't?"

"I don't want to work for you."

"Why not?"

"I don't like you."

Bradley Warren started to say something, then stopped. His mouth opened, then closed. Jillian Becker looked confused. Maybe no one had ever before said no to Bradley Warren. Maybe it was against the law. Maybe Bradley Warren's personal police were about to crash through the door and arrest me for defying the One True Way. Jillian shook her head. "They said you could be difficult."

I shrugged. "They should've said that when I'm pushed, I push back. They also should've said that when I do things, I do them my way." I looked at Bradley. "The check rents. It does not buy."

Bradley Warren stared at me as if I had just beamed down from the Enterprise. He stood very still. So did Jillian Becker. They stood like that until a tic started beneath his left eye and he said, "Jillian."

Jillian Becker said, "Mr. Cole, we need the Hagakure found, and we want you to find it. If we in some way offended you, we apologize."

We.

"Will you help us?"

Her makeup was understated and appropriate, and there was a tasteful gold chain around her right wrist. She was bright and attractive and I wondered how many times she'd had to apologize for him and how it made her feel.

I gave her the Jack Nicholson smile and made a big deal out of sitting down again. "For you, babe, anything." Can you stand it?

Bradley Warren's face was red and purple and splotched, and the tic was a mad flicker. He made the hand gesture as quick as a cracking whip, and said, "Write him a check and leave it blank. I'll be down in the limo."

He left without looking at me and without offering his hand and without waiting for Jillian. When he was gone I said, "My, my. Man of the Month."

Jillian Becker took a deep breath, let it out, then sat in one of the director's chairs and opened the Gucci briefcase in her lap. She took out a corporate checkbook and spoke while she wrote. "Mr. Cole, please understand that Bradley's under enormous pressure. We're on our way to Kyoto to tell the Tashiros what has happened. That will be neither pleasant nor easy."

"Sorry," I said. "I should be more sensitive."

She glanced up from the check with cool eyes. "Maybe you should."

So much for humor.

After a while, she put the check and a 3 x 5 index card on my desk. I didn't look at the check. She said, "The card has Bradley's home and office addresses and phone numbers. It also has mine. You may call me at any time, day or night, for anything that pertains to this case."

"Okay."

"Will you need anything else?"

"Access to the house. I want to see where the book was and talk to anyone who knew that the book was there. Also, if there's a photograph or description of the manuscript, I'll need it."

"Bradley's wife can supply that. At the house."

"What's her name?"

"Sheila. Their daughter Mimi lives at the house, also, along with two housekeepers. I'll call Sheila and tell her to expect you."

"Fine."

"Fine."

We were getting along just great.

Jillian Becker closed the Gucci briefcase, snapped its latch, stood, and went to the door. Maybe she hadn't always been this serious. Maybe working for Bradley brought it out in her.

"You do that well," I said.

She looked back. "What?"

"Walk."

She gave me the cool eyes again. "This is a business relationship, Mr. Cole. Let's leave it at that."

"Sure."

She opened the door.

"One more thing."

She turned back to me.

"You always look this good, or is today a special occasion?"

She stood like that for a while, not moving, and then she shook her head. "You really are something, aren't you?"

I made a gun out of my hand, pointed it at her, and gave her another dose of the Nicholson. "I hope he pays you well."

She went out and slammed the door.

Chapter 2

When the door closed I looked at the check. Blank. She hadn't dated it 1889 or April 1. It had been signed by Bradley Warren and, as far as I could tell, in ink that wouldn't vanish. Maybe a better detective would have known for sure about the ink, but I'd have to risk it. Son of a gun. My big chance. I could nick him for a hundred thousand dollars, but that was probably playing it small. Maybe I should put a one and write zeros until my arm fell off and endorse it. Elvis Cole, Yachtsman.

I folded the check in half, put it in my wallet, and took a Dan Wesson.38 in a shoulder rig out of my top right-hand drawer. I pulled a white cotton jacket on to cover the Dan Wesson, then went down to my car. The car is a Jamaica-yellow 1966 Corvette convertible that looks pretty snazzy. Maybe with the white jacket and the convertible and the blank check in my pocket, someone would think I was Donald Trump.

I put the Corvette out onto Santa Monica and cruised west through Beverly Hills and the upper rim of Century City, then north up Beverly Glen past rows of palm trees and stuccoed apartment houses and Persian-owned construction projects. L.A. in late June is bright. With the smog pressed down by an inversion layer, the sky turns white and the sun glares brilliantly from signs and awnings and reflective building glass and deep-waxed fenders and miles and miles of molten chrome bumpers. There were shirtless kids with skateboards on their way into Westwood and older women with big hats coming back from markets and construction workers tearing up the streets and Hispanic women waiting for buses and everybody wore sunglasses. It looked like a Ray Ban commercial.

I stayed with Beverly Glen up past the Los Angeles Country Club golf course until I got to Sunset Boulevard, then hung a right and a quick left into upper Holmby Hills. Holmby is a smaller, more expensive version of the very best part of Beverly Hills to the east. It is old and elegant, and the streets are wide and neat with proper curbs and large homes hidden behind hedgerows and mortar walls and black wrought iron gates. Many of the houses are near the street, but a few are set back and quite a few you can't see at all.

The Warrens' home was the one with the guard. He was sitting in a light blue Thunderbird with a sticker on its side that said TITAN SECURITIES. He got out when he saw me slow down and stood with his hands on his hips. Late forties, big across the back, in a brown off-the-rack Sears suit. Wrinkled. He'd taken a couple of hard ones on the bridge of his nose, but that had been a long time ago. I turned into the drive, and showed him the license. "Cole. They're expecting me."

He nodded at the license and leaned against the door. "She sent the kid down to tell me you were on the way. I'm Hatcher." He didn't offer to shake my hand.

I said, "Anyone try storming the house?"

He looked back at the house, then shook his head. "Shit. I been out here since they got hit and I ain't seen dick." He shot me a wink. "Leastways, not what you're talking about."

I said, "Are you tipping me off or is something in your eye?"

He smirked. "You been out before?"

"Uh-uh."

He gave me some more of the smirk, then ambled back to the Thunderbird. "You'll see."

Bradley Warren lived in a French Normandy mansion just about the size of Kansas. A large Spanish oak in the center of the motor court put filigreed shadows on the Normandy's steep roof, and three or four thousand snapdragons spilled out of the beds that bordered the drive and the perimeter of the house. There was a porchlike overhang at the front of the house with the front door recessed in a wide alcove. It was a single door, but it was a good nine feet high and four feet wide. Maybe Bradley Warren had bought the place from the Munsters.