“Twenty-six.”

“Get married and have children. It’ll distract you.”

Andy sighed and looked back again at the shattered windows, the layer of dust on the camping gear. “I want some pictures of this car for the Journal.”

“Worth a thousand words.”

“You ditch the surfboards and shoot out the windows and spill some chicken blood before you drove it back?”

“Hamburger. Just for you.”

ANDY MADE his desk by four and started writing. He was tired but his thoughts were clear and his fingers flew over the keys of the Selectric. He watched the whole chase and shoot-out unfold in his mind. Saw Bonnett swing the knife into Nick’s body. Watched Lobdell struggle Nick and Bonnett into the Country Squire. Heard the big station wagon burning through the streets of Chula Vista on the way to Bay Hospital. Saw the monitor in Nick’s hospital room start to blip. Saw the quiver of fresh life in his eyelid. Heard the catch of breath in the nurse’s throat. Saw the stupefaction in David’s face. He finished the story at 4:55. Triple-spaced, eighteen pages. Thrilling as a movie, he thought, and about as true.

Tried Teresa at home again but no answer. Noted that Chas Birdwell wasn’t in his cubicle. Called the hospital and got an upgrade to “serious condition” for Cory Bonnett.

Went into Jonas’s office and said he had a totally bitchin’ story. It had bullets, blood, and a hero who died and came back to life. A murder suspect in critical condition. It was even true. All he’d need was ten more minutes to double-check a few facts and corroborate an eyewitness account of the shoot-out in National City.

“It really went down like that?” asked Dessinger.

“Wait till you see my pictures of the car.”

Dessinger eyed him. Hard suspicion versus publishing a great story. Andy stared back with all the blankness he could muster.

“Sit down,” said Dessinger.

Andy sat but the associate publisher remained standing.

“Becker, the Laguna cops have a suspect in the Boom Boom Bungalow murder. They don’t have enough to arrest him yet. But they’re doing a lineup tomorrow for a witness who was there. Ten in the morning. Nobody knows this but the cops, the Sheriff’s, and us. What I figured was, you could shoot the suspect coming into the jail. Hit him with some questions. It’ll be our last chance if they arrest him after the lineup. I enjoy those pictures where the guy tries to squeeze through a doorway before the photog nails him. Or they hide behind a coat or briefcase.”

Andy felt a sudden childlike satisfaction in lying hugely to this man and getting away with it.

“You know where they bring them in and out for a lineup, don’t you?” asked Dessinger.

“If they haven’t arrested him, they’ll bring him in through the professional visits entrance. Where the lawyers come and go.”

“Be there.”

“We don’t usually do that, Jonas. We don’t go public with a simple questioning. Not unless an arrest is made.”

Dessinger smiled. “But I have a good feeling about this one.”

“Who’s the suspect?”

“You’ll love this. A Tustin High School football coach and history teacher. Howard Langton.”

Andy was always impressed that Jonas actually kept sources and got good information. Hard to believe anyone would trust him.

“I interviewed Langton a couple of weeks ago by phone,” Andy said. “Janelle Vonn lived with him and his family back when she was in high school. He was her civics teacher.”

“I know.”

“What if Langton wasn’t at the Boom Boom, Jonas?”

A trace of confusion crossed Dessinger’s face, then passed. “Hell, Becker, what if he was?”

As he walked back to his desk, a vague but unpleasant sensation spread inside Andy. A feeling that something horrible had just been brought closer to his understanding. Family man Howard Langton questioned in the murder of a man in a gay motel? On the same night a girl who used to live with him was decapitated? Going to put a nasty rash on Langton’s reputation, even if the witness is wrong and Janelle was a coincidence. Stink sticks. High School Football Coach Questioned in Boom Boom Bungalow Murder.

Chas Birdwell’s cubicle was still empty. One of the other reporters told him that Chas had called in sick that morning but had sounded pretty damned healthy.

ANDY FILED his story with Jonas and banged out a brief rewrite. Filed the rewrite, locked up his desk, and headed across the parking lot to his Corvair.

The evening was cool. Just a soft hiss from the palm trees along Newport Boulevard, almost lost in the louder hiss of car tires on the asphalt. Sleeplessness hit him like a drug.

But he mustered the energy to swing by the Seven Seas Motel in Newport. It was a sun-faded old place that advertised “Free TV and Refrigeration.” He’d seen it a thousand times in his life, maybe more, on his hitchhiking trips from Tustin to Newport Beach as a boy. With its silhouette of a blue sailboat against a full white moon, it had once seemed romantic. Maybe that was why it stuck in his head a couple of weeks ago when Teresa joked about it with Chas on the phone. Her good buddy Chas, who couldn’t do a rewrite correctly, let alone an original newspaper article.

Andy pulled into the Seven Seas parking lot and followed it around back. Stopped and looked up. The window to 207 upstairs was open. Thin blue curtain puffing in and out. Teresa’s new black Mustang directly below it and Chas Birdwell’s restored yellow Porsche Speedster taking up two spaces in the far corner of the lot. The ocean breeze had blown Chas’s car cover into a heap on the lee side of the Porsche.

Clever, thought Andy. Seven Seas time. Fooled me.

He drove home. Packed a few things. Loaded his manuscripts and typewriter into the Corvair trunk and locked it. Drained a large glass of scotch. Then another.

Called Lynette Vonn.

Andy’s heart beat fast with the velocity of counterdumping Teresa. This was Mutual Assured Destruction. He’d never done anything like it.

“I thought I could take you to dinner tonight,” he said.

“I’m working the Bear. Jesse Black’s playing. I can’t get you in free but I can get you a good seat.”

“I don’t want to get in free.”

Andy was surprised by his own tone of voice. By how damned mad he was.

“It’s your scene, man,” said Lynette.

Andy slammed the front door and walked to the Corvair. Looked back at his and Teresa’s place with the giant bird-of-paradise and plantain trees in front. Looked different now. Shabby, not cute. She’d probably fire him. Save her cousin the trouble. Good. He’d go to the Times or the Register. Goddamned Chas Birdwell. IQ of what, fifty?

Andy got in. Rolled down the windows and lowered the top. Buttoned the boot. Tore down Cress, then up Coast Highway past Mystic Arts World and Janelle’s yellow cottage and the old Laguna greeter with his wild gray hair waving at everyone like some demented St. Peter at the gates of heaven on earth. Flogged the noisy little Corvair for Huntington Beach with the police band radio turned up loud.

HE GOT a stool near the back. Lynette brought him a scotch and a beer, said she’d move him up for Jesse. She looked less stoned than when he’d last seen her. Hair up and shiny and a petite sleekness to her that he remembered. Miniskirt, nice legs.

A little man sat onstage with a guitar. Strummed away, not a bad voice. A folkie song about love and the end of the world. Made Andy’s skin crawl.

“Who’s this guy?”

“Charles something,” said Lynette. “He’s supposed to be cool.”

“I’ll bet. Cowboy boots that tiny, you have to be cool.”

She looked at him with an expression that assumed the worst. Andy figured it was her go-to look, honed over twenty-one years as a molested girl, a biker, a junkie.

“You know,” she said, “I really don’t want any trouble.”