"No."

"Now, without the cops involved, is better. There are people that work with kids and their parents who can be there to help. They've been known to help bring a family close together again."

Mimi Warren made the little smile, then looked directly at me. "My father is close enough."

I took slow deep breaths and felt myself grow cold. She pinched at her side and chewed at her lip, then stared down into the valley at things that were too far away to see. Her eyes took on the jumpy vacant look I'd seen on street kids down on Hollywood Boulevard, kids who'd had it so hard back home in Indianapolis or Kankakee or Bogalusa that they weren't right any more and never would be. When she said she would kill herself, she had meant it. "Mimi, does your father have sex with you?"

The red eyes leaked and she began to rock. She said, "I hope they changed their minds and didn't give him that fucking award." She didn't say it to me. She just sort of whispered it.

I said, "Does your father sexually molest you?"

The right fingers moved faster, digging into the soft flesh of her side and squeezing. She probably didn't even know she was doing it. I wanted to reach out and stop her.

"Does your mother know?"

Shrug. The tears dropped down her cheeks and into her mouth. She dug out another cigarette and lit it. Her fingers were wet from wiping away tears and left gray marks on the paper. She made the giggle and it was confused and crazy. She said, "Eddie and I are going to get married. He said we're going to live in a penthouse apartment on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood and I'm going to have babies and we'll go to the beach a lot." She said it in the to-herself voice.

"You want to stay at my place?"

She shook her head.

"There's a woman I know named Carol Hillegas. She works with kids who have problems like this. What if I take you there?"

She shook her head again. I'm with people who love me.

I took a deep breath, let it out. "Okay. I'm going to let you stay here. I'm not going to call the cops, and I'm not going to tell your parents. You won't have to go home and you won't have to see your father if you don't want to." I took out one of my cards and I put it in her hand and she looked at it but probably didn't see much. "That gets me at home or my office, and if I'm not there a machine picks up. I want you to stay here. I don't want you to go nightclubbing and I don't want you to go out with Eddie Tang."

The giggle.

"Eddie Tang is a bad man, babe."

The giggle again, and then she made a wet sound. Her slight body shook and heaved and she put her face in her hands and she cried. I put my arms around her and I held her and I glared at Frank. I said, "I can't tell you things are going to be wonderful. I can't tell you that things will ever be right. All I know is that things have happened to you that shouldn't have and you're going to need help straightening it all out and I will make sure you get that help. Okay?"

She nodded. She was still rocking. She said, "I'm so messed up. I don't know what to do. I don't know. I don't know."

I held her until she ran out of tears. I said, "I'll talk to Carol Hillegas and then I'll give you a call. We can fix this."

She nodded again.

When I left, Mimi Warren was standing at the edge of the tennis court, staring out at the valley, rocking. Bobby stood in the gate, blocking my way and acting tough. He said, "Have a good time?"

I went very close to him and said, "If anything happens to her, I will kill you."

Bobby stopped smiling. Frank took a step in, then pulled Bobby back. Bobby licked his lips and didn't move. Frank looked at me. "Forget him," he said.

I stared at Bobby hard enough to stop his heart, and then I left.

Chapter 27

I walked out the long drive toward Mulholland. The gate swung open when I got there, and I went through, and then the gate closed. I got into the Corvette and closed the door and took a deep breath and rubbed very hard at my eyes. I pressed my fingers into my cheeks and under the line of my jaw and behind my neck and over my temples. The muscles in my neck and at the base of my skull and the tops of my shoulders were as tight as spinnaker lines and I couldn't make them loosen.

I drove back along Mulholland to the Stop amp; Go, and called Carol Hillegas. In the past, when I've had to find runaways who'd taken to the streets, Carol has always proven a help. She knows kids, and counsels them at her halfway house in Hollywood. I gave her the short version and said I needed her help and asked if I could stop by. She told me she'd make some time around eleven. I hung up, then called Jillian Becker. I said, "I need you to meet me in Hollywood in half an hour."

She said, "I'm really very busy."

"It's about Mimi."

"Have you found her?" She said it slowly. Scared, maybe.

"Will you meet me?"

She didn't answer.

I said, "This isn't a time to worry about business. I know where she is and I've spoken with her and now there are some things that have to be discussed. Is Bradley back from Kyoto?"

"Yes."

"I don't want to involve Bradley or Sheila until after we've talked."

"Why not?"

I didn't say anything.

After a very long while, she said, "All right. Where should I go?"

When I got to the halfway house, Jillian Becker was out front, leaning against her BMW. She was wearing a cream-colored pants suit with a white silk blouse and black Sanford Hutton sunglasses with electric-blue mirrorshade lenses. The halfway house was in what used to be a two-story pre-war apartment building on a ratty street called Carlton Way, one block south of Hollywood Boulevard, off Gower. There was a liquor store on the corner where guys with no place to go sat on the curb, and old Taco Bell cups littered the street, and a stack of empty Texaco oil cans on a plot of dead grass, and a tiny bungalow house with a hand-painted sign hanging from the porch that said PALMISTRY. The halfway house had a neat lawn and a fresh coat of paint and was the best-kept property on the street. I think Jillian Becker was hiding behind the sunglasses.

I said, "One thing about me, I really know how to show a girl a good time."

She said, "Is Mimi in there?"

"No."

"Why do you want me here and not Bradley and Sheila? If this has to do with Mimi, Bradley and Sheila should be here."

"No," I said, "if Bradley were here I would shoot him."

Jillian Becker stared at me through her mirrorshades, then looked over at the unshaven men sitting on the curb, then looked back at me. She said, "You really mean that, don't you?"

"Let's go inside."

We went through the little gate and up the walk and into the house. There was a tiny entry with a hardwood floor and an old-fashioned coat rack and a sign that said LEAVE THE BULLSHIT AT THE DOOR. To our left there was a stair that went up to the second floor, and to our right there was a little reception area with a yellow Formica counter and a telephone and a blackboard for group announcements. A blond boy with long straight hair and a little blue cross tattooed on the back of his left hand was sitting behind the counter. He was reading a worn-out, spine-rolled copy of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. He looked up when we walked in. "Hi," I said. "We're here to see Carol."

The blond kid closed the Heinlein on a finger, said he'd tell Carol, and came around the counter to take the stairs up two at a time.

Jillian Becker took off the mirrorshades and stood stiffly by the Formica counter. "What kind of place is this?"

"Halfway house for kids. Most of the kids here are runaways from middle-class homes and middle-class mommas and daddies. Things got a little out of hand back in Ohio. Sometimes things got a lot out of hand. So they end up here in the Land of Dreams hooking or peddling dope or scamming and they get grabbed by the cops. If they are very lucky, the cops give them over to Carol."