Bradley backed up until he hit glass shelves lined with liquor bottles and then he couldn't back up anymore. He said, "Hey."

I pulled back the hammer until it locked and I pointed the muzzle at the center of his forehead. "Bradley, your child needs you and you are going to do right by her." My voice was even and calm. "Do you understand?"

He did not move. "Yes."

"She needs you to be honest about this. She needs you to admit that this should never have happened and that this is not something she precipitated and that she is not at fault. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

"The Department of Social Services is going to be notified, and one of their people is going to work with you and a counselor and Sheila and Mimi. It is very, very important for Mimi that you accept the therapeutic process and participate in it. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

I stared at Bradley Warren past the Dan Wesson, and then I moved a half step closer. I said, "I'm told that what has happened here is complex and that you are not what we less sophisticated types call a bad man. That may be. I don't give a rat's ass if you are helped in this process or not. I don't care if you have to fake every moment of therapy for the next ten years. You will see to it that everything that can be done to help your daughter will be done. If you do not, I will kill you, Bradley. Do you understand that?"

He nodded.

"Say it."

"Yes."

"Say it all the way."

"You will kill me."

"Do you believe that?"

"Yes."

"Stay here. Don't go back to your office. Carol Hillegas will call you. If you don't come through with this, Bradley, I will be back."

We stood like that for another few seconds, then I lowered the gun and left.

Jillian Becker was sitting inside her BMW. Even with the mirrorshades you could see that she'd been crying. I went around to her side of the car and squatted down by the window. "You learned a very hard thing today," I said. "Time passes, you'll steady down. You'll see if you can live with it or if you'll have to make some changes."

She took a deep breath, then sighed it out. "Do you have to do that much? Make changes?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes you can change what's there, sometimes what's there changes you."

She nodded and looked toward the house. Big changes coming. She said, "I was thinking of what Carol said about people who hurt themselves, about how what they're really doing is looking for someone who loves them enough to make the pain stop."

I didn't say anything.

Jillian Becker started the BMW and put it in gear and looked at me.

After a while she drove away.

Chapter 29

When I got home I called Carol Hillegas and told her that I had spoken with Bradley and Sheila and that they were expecting her call. After Carol hung up, I called Kira Asano's place and asked for Mimi. Bobby came on and said, "Who's this?"

"The Shell Answer Man."

"Eat shit."

Frank came on and said, "Are the cops on the way here?"

"No."

"She's in the back. Wait."

In a little while Mimi said, "Uh-huh?" She sounded like she maybe expected that her parents were really on the other end of the line and about to start yelling at her.

I said, "It's Elvis."

"Uh-huh."

"I spoke with your parents. They're not going to make you go home. You're going to have to leave Asano's, but you can stay at a halfway house Carol Hillegas owns. If that doesn't work out, you can go home and your father will move out, whichever you prefer."

She didn't say anything.

"Mimi?"

"I don't want to go home." Dull. I wondered if she was loaded on something.

"I'll come get you tomorrow morning. If you want we can have breakfast and then I'll take you to Carol's place, and I'll stay with you there for as long as you need me to, okay?"

"Okay."

"Put Frank on."

There were noises and voices and then Frank came on. "What's up?"

"I'm going to come get her tomorrow. I'm going to get the book, too."

"Are you going to be able to keep Mr. Asano out of it?"

"I don't know. I'm not going to bring him into it, but I don't know what Mimi is going to tell the cops when they talk with her. You live up to your end and help me with the kid and I'll see that the parents don't try to press you if the cops come in. I'll tell them that you guys cooperated with me and wanted the best for the girl."

"That oughta cut a lot of ice."

"It's what I can do."

"Yeah." Frank hung up.

I put down the phone and went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of apple juice and drank it. I went back into the living room and turned on the evening news. I put my hands in my pockets and shook my head and thought, sonofagun, this thing is coming together. I went back to the phone and called Joe Pike but he wasn't home. I dug through my wallet and found Jillian Becker's home number and gave her a call. Nope. She was out, too. The cat door clacked in the kitchen and hard food crunched. I went back into the kitchen and looked at him eating and said, "Well, I guess it's just you and me."

He didn't bother to look up.

I got us a couple of Falstaffs out of the refrigerator and put on some music and after a while I went to bed.

At five minutes after eight the next morning my phone rang. I picked it up and said, "Elvis Cole Detective Agency. Let us get on your case!"

Jillian Becker said, "What's going on?"

I said, "What do you mean, what's going on?" This sort of thing is covered in Advanced Interrogation at the Private Eye Academy.

"Mimi called Bradley fifteen minutes ago. She told him she wanted to give the Hagakure back and asked him to meet her. I thought you were supposed to pick up Mimi and bring her to Carol Hillegas."

"Did Bradley go?"

"Two minutes ago. I told him he shouldn't. I told him he should wait."

"Are you in your office?"

"Yes."

I told her I'd call her back, then I hung up and dialed Kira Asano's. I dialed the four numbers I had and each of the four rang but no one answered. I didn't like that. I called Jillian. "I couldn't get anyone at Asano's. Did Bradley say where he was going to meet Mimi?"

"She wanted to see him at a construction site on Mulholland just east of Coldwater. He said he told her that was silly, that she should come to the office or that he would go to where she was staying but she said she would feel safe there and that's where she wanted to do it. Why would Mimi want to give back the book like this? Why would she want to be alone with him?"

There were a couple of reasons but I didn't like them much. I said, "I'm on my way now. Call the North Hollywood PD and ask for Poitras or Griggs or Baishe. Tell them you're calling because I told you to and have them send a car. Tell them to hurry."

Mulholland was five minutes away down Woodrow Wilson, then a single broken-backed sprint west toward Coldwater. Just past Laurel, Mulholland is woodsy and the houses have been there forever, but farther west more and more ridges were being cut and scraped and developed for homesites. A mile short of Coldwater, Mulholland flattened out and signs said HEAVY EQUIPMENT AHEAD. I slowed down. A large ridge grew away to the north, rising off the road toward the San Fernando Valley. The ridge was big and white and had been graded clean. A fresh tarmac road had been cut up to the ridge top and clean white sidewalks paralleling the road had been poured and cement drains set. When all this was finished there would probably be guards and ornate street lamps and no trees and no coyotes and no deer. Just what the locals had in mind when they bought up here ten years ago.

There was a chain link fence running the perimeter of the site. A sign on the wire and pipe gate that should have blocked the road said S amp;S CONSTRUCTION – KEEP OUT. The gate was open. I turned through the gate, and followed the road up.