Eddie had a narrow entry with mirrors on the walls and ceiling, and some kind of imitation black marble floor. There was a little guest bath on the left. To the right a short hall went to a bedroom that had been refitted as an exercise room, then on to what looked like another larger bedroom. The entry stepped down into a long living room which opened onto a balcony. The living room elled left for a dining area and the kitchen. The living room walls were crowded with trophies for excellence in the martial arts. Hundreds of them. Gleaming first-place cups and championship belts from exhibitions and tournaments all over the United States. Best All-Around. In Recognition of Excellence. Black Belt Master. Over-All Champion. "Don't worry about this stuff," I said. "The guy probably bought'm."

Pike said, "Uh-huh."

Joe went into the kitchen and I went into the bedroom. Eddie had a king-sized walnut platform bed with matching nightstands and a long low dresser and a mirror on the ceiling above his bed. I looked twice at the mirror. It had been years since I had seen a mirror above a bed. On the wall opposite the bed there were about a million framed photographs of Eddie Tang breaking bricks and flying through the air and accepting trophies and competing in martial arts tournaments and raising his hands, sometimes bloodied, in victory. In the earlier pictures he couldn't have been more than eight. Maybe he hadn't bought the trophies after all.

The master bath was as tastefully decorated as the rest of the apartment. Lots of mirrors and imitation black marble and flocked wallpaper. There were dirty underwear and socks in a plastic hamper and stains around the lavatory and in the tub. I looked in the medicine cabinet and the cabinet beneath the sink. There was no toothbrush and no toothpaste and no razor and no deodorant. Either Eddie was lax about personal hygiene, or those things were missing.

I went back into the bedroom. I looked through the chest and the dresser and the nightstand. A stack of well-thumbed Penthouse magazines sat on the night-stand along with a couple of old Sharper Image catalogs and one of those globe lamps that makes electrical patterns when you touch it. In the nightstand drawer there were five lavender-scented notes from someone named Jennifer professing her love for him and half a dozen snapshots of Eddie with different women in different places and two postcards from a United Airlines flight attendant named Kiki saying she wanted to see him when she got back to town. There was nothing of Mimi. No snapshots, no notes, no proof of her presence in his life, nothing to indicate a Westwood apartment house or babies or any sort of shared dreams. I'm with people who love me. Sure, kid.

There were also no clues to indicate where Eddie Tang might be or if Mimi Warren was with him or, if she wasn't, what had been done with her.

I put everything back the way I had found it and went out into the living room. Pike was waiting by the door. He said, "There used to be a suitcase in this closet. It's gone."

I told him what I hadn't found in the bathroom. "If Eddie went, he'll be back. We can wait."

Pike stared at the trophies. They were clean and bright and had been dusted regularly. He said, "Why not."

Outside, we parked the Jeep down the block in front of a condominium that was being built. We decided to split shifts, six on, six off. I said I'd take the first shift. Pike said that was fine. He walked away without another word.

I sat in the Jeep and waited. Two hours later the same unmarked cop sedan eased down the street and stopped by the fire hydrant. A cop in a brown suit got out, looked into the garage, then got back in his car and drove away. People went in and out of Eddie's building and cars moved up and down the street and a woman walked a little black dog and slowly the sky grew deeper until it was night. There was a nice summer chill in the air and a breeze coming in from the water, and the breeze made the palm fronds move and whisper and remind me of old songs I did not know. If I could just wait long enough, Eddie would come. When Eddie came, I could find Mimi. Waiting doesn't look like much, but it is something very important. Waiting is passive hunting.

At ten minutes after twelve that night, Joe Pike slipped into the Jeep with a brown paper bag. He said, "I've got it. Take a break."

I shook my head. "Think I'll just sit."

He nodded and took out two sandwiches. He handed one to me and kept one for himself. I didn't open it. I wasn't hungry.

Pike pulled a translation of the Hagakure from the bag. Imagine that. He sat, and read in the dark, and neither of us spoke.

Sometime very late that night I fell into a sort of half-sleep and dreamed I was having dinner with Mimi Warren. We were at a center table in the big back room at Musso amp; Frank's Grill, the only diners there. Pristine white tablecloths and shining cutlery and the two of us eating and drinking and talking. I could not hear what we said. I had the same dream every time I dozed over the next three days as Pike and I waited for Eddie Tang. The dream was always the same, and I could never hear what we said. Maybe the saying wasn't important. That we were together, maybe that was what mattered.

On the fourth day, Eddie Tang came home.

Chapter 33

It was twenty of ten in the morning. The metal garage gate lifted and Eddie's Alfa cruised past and swung down into his garage. The Alfa was spotted and dust-streaked and there were mud splashes behind the wheel wells. Eddie had driven a long way.

Pike said, "Now or later?"

"Let's see what unfolds."

We sat. We waited.

One hour and ten minutes later a long white stretch limo came slowly up from Olympic and stopped in front of Eddie's building. The driver was the midget with the stupid eyes who'd been with Torobuni at Mr. Moto's. "Better," I said.

The midget got out of the limo, strutted over to the glass door, and buzzed Eddie's apartment. He got up on his toes for the intercom, then swaggered back to the limo and leaned against the door. He didn't even make it up to the top of the car.

Eddie came out three minutes later in light blue slacks and a navy jacket and a yellow shirt with a white button-down collar and a pink tie. Sweet. Maybe Eddie had been away taking yuppie lessons. The midget climbed in behind the wheel and Eddie got in back, and a few minutes later we followed them down to Olympic, then west to the San Diego Freeway, then south. The limo stayed in the right lane and took it slow. Just before lunchtime, traffic was light, and it was easy to stay back and not worry about being seen. We went south past the Mormon Temple and the Santa Monica Freeway, then took the Century Boulevard exit toward LAX.

I said, "If he gets on a plane, we've got trouble."

"No," Pike said. "We just shoot it down."

I looked at him. You never know.

We stayed two cars back and followed the limo onto Century Boulevard and past the airport hotels and into the LAX complex. Los Angeles International Airport is designed in two levels, the lower level for arriving flights, the upper level for departing flights. Eddie's limo didn't mount the ramp for the departure level. Pike looked disappointed. There went the ground-to-air.

The limo followed the huge U-shaped design of the airport around to the Tom Bradley Terminal, where international flights are based, then pulled to the pickup curb and parked. Eddie got out and went inside. After a while, he reappeared with three Japanese men and a redcap with a load of baggage. Two of the men were in their late fifties and dignified, with dark hair shot through by gray, powerful faces, and stern mouths. The third man was in his early thirties and taller than the other two, almost as tall as Eddie, with a hard bony face and broad shoulders. His hair was short except for a lock growing directly out the back of his head. The lock was long and braided and fell down his back. Well, well, well. "How much you want to bet," I said, "that those gentlemen run the yakuza in Japan?"