• • •

The 405 freeway deposited me in a scramble of northbound traffic just beginning to clot, facing hills so smogged they were no more than shrouded, gray lumps on the horizon. I did the L.A. stop-and-go boogie for a while, listening to music and trying to be patient, finally made it to the 118 east, then the 210, and cruised into the high desert northeast of the city, picking up speed as both the road and the air got clearer.

Exiting at Sunland, I hooked north again and got onto a commercial stretch of Foothill Boulevard that ran parallel to the mountains: auto parts barns, body shops, unfinished furniture outlets, and more roofers than I'd ever seen in one area.

I spotted McVine a few minutes later and turned left. The street was narrow, with grass growing down to the curb instead of sidewalks, and planted haphazardly with eucalyptus and willow. The curb grass was dry and yellow. The houses behind it were small and low, some of them no more than trailers on raised foundations.

The Rodriguez residence was on a northwest corner, a boxcar of mocha stucco with a gutterless, black composition roof and a flat, porchless face broken by three metal-sashed windows. One of the windows was blocked by a tilting sheet of lattice. The squares were broken in spots, warped in others, and a few dead branches wormed around them. A high, pink block wall enveloped the rear of the property.

I got out and walked up a hardpack lawn stippled with blemishlike patches of some sort of low-growing succulent and split by a foot-worn rut. Evelyn's plum-colored Chevy was parked to the left of the pathway, next to a red half-ton pickup with two stickers on the bumper. One sang the praises of the Raiders, the other dared me to keep kids off drugs. A stick-on sign on the door said R AND R MASONRY.

I pressed the bell and a wasp-buzz sounded. A woman opened the door and looked at me through the smoke vining upward from a freshly lit Virginia Slim.

In her late twenties, five seven and lanky, she had dirty blond hair gathered in a high, streaked ponytail and pale skin. Slanted, dark eyes and broad cheekbones gave her a Slavic look. The rest of her features were sharp, beginning to pinch. Her shape was perfect for the hardbody era: sinewy arms, high breasts, straightedge tummy, long legs leading up to flaring hips just a little wider than a boy's. She wore skintight, low-riding jeans and a baby-blue, sleeveless midriff top that showcased an apostrophe of a navel some obstetrician should have been mighty proud of. Her feet were bare. One of them tapped arrhythmically.

"You the doctor?" she said, in a husky voice, talking around the cigarette, just the way I'd seen Evelyn Rodriguez do.

"Dr. Delaware," I said, and extended my hand.

She took it and smiled- amusement rather than friendliness- gave a hard squeeze, then dropped it.

"I'm Bonnie. They're waiting for you. C'mon in."

The living room was half the width of the boxcar and smelled like a drowned cigar. Carpeted in olive shag and paneled with knotty pine, it was darkened by drawn drapes. A long, brown corduroy sofa ran along the back wall. Above it hung a born-again fish symbol. To the left was a console TV topped with some sort of cable decoder and a VCR, and a beige velveteen recliner. On a hexagonal table, an ashtray brimmed over with butts.

The other half of the front space was a kitchen-dining area combo. Between the two rooms was an ochre-colored door. Bonnie pushed it open, letting in a lot of bright, western light, and took me down a short, shagged hall. At the end was a den, walled in grayish mock birch and backed by sliding glass doors that looked out to the backyard. More recliners, another TV, porcelain figurines on the mantel, below three mounted rifles.

Bonnie slid open a glass door. The yard was a small, flat square of scorched grass surrounded by the high pink walls. An avocado tree grew at the rear, huge and twisted. Barely out of its shade was an inflatable swimming pool, oval and bluer than anyone's heaven. Chondra sat in it, splashing herself without enthusiasm. Tiffani was in a corner of the property, back to us, jumping rope.

Evelyn Rodriguez sat between them in a folding chair, working on her lanyard and smoking. She had on white shorts, a dark blue T-shirt, and rubber beach sandals. On the grass next to her was her purse.

Bonnie said, "Hey," and all three of them looked up.

I waved. The girls stared.

Evelyn said, "Go get him a chair."

Bonnie raised her eyebrows and went back into the house, putting some wiggle in her walk.

Evelyn shaded her face, looked at her watch, and smiled. "Forty-two minutes. Couldn't ya have stopped for coffee or something?"

I forced a chuckle.

"Course," she said, "don't really matter what you actually do, you can always say you done it, right? Just like a lawyer. You can say anything you please."

She stubbed her cigarette out on the grass.

I went over to the pool. Chondra returned my "Hi" with a small, silent smile. Some teeth this time: progress.

Tiffani said, "You write your book yet?"

"Not yet. I need more information from you."

She nodded gravely. "I got lots of truth- we don't want to ever see him."

She grabbed hold of a branch and started swinging. Humming something.

I said, "Have fun," but she didn't answer.

Bonnie came out with a folded chair. I went and took it from her. She winked and went back into the house, rear twitching violently. Evelyn wrinkled her nose and said, "Well, does it?"

I unfolded the chair. "Does it what?"

"Does it matter? What actually happens? You're just gonna do what you want to, write what you want to anyway, right?"

I sat down next to her, positioning myself so I could see the girls. Chondra was motionless in the pool, gazing at the trunk of the avocado.

Evelyn humphed. "You ready to come out?"

Chondra shook her head and began splashing herself again, doing it slowly, as if it were a chore. Her white pigtails were soaked the color of old brass. Above the pink walls the sky was static and blue, bottomed by a soot-colored cloud bank that hid the horizon. Someone in the neighborhood was barbecuing, and a mixture of scorching fat and lighter fluid spread its cheerful toxin through the autumn heat.

"You don't think I'll be honest, huh?" I said. "Been burned by other doctors, or is it something about me?"

She turned toward me slowly and put her lanyard in her lap.

"I think you do your job and go home," she said. "Just like everyone else. I think you do what's best for you, just like everyone else."

"Fair enough," I said. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm some saint who'd work for free or that I really know what you've been going through, 'cause I don't- thank God. But I think I understand your rage. If someone had done it to my child, I'd be ready to kill him, no question about it."

She took her Winstons out of her pocket and knocked a cigarette loose. Sliding it out and taking it between two fingers, she said, "Oh you would, would you? Well that would be revenge, and the Bible says revenge is a negational action."

She lit up with a pink disposable lighter, inhaled very deeply, and held it. When she let the smoke out, her nostrils twitched.

Tiffani began jumping very fast. I wondered if we were within her earshot.

Evelyn shook her head. "Gonna break her head one of these days."

"Lots of energy," I said.

"Apple don't fall far."

"Ruthanne was like that?"

She smoked, nodded, and started to cry, letting her tears drip down her face and wiping them with short, furious movements. Her torso pushed forward and for a moment I thought she was going to leave.

"Ruthanne was just like that when she was little. Always moving. I never felt I could… she had spirit, she was- she had… wonderful spirit."