I left Mrs Reese at twenty minutes after two, bloated on tea cakes, itching from fleas, and smelling of Floyd C. Thomas's pod-person environment. I thought that if I was going to make any more calls maybe they should be to Jonathan. Maybe I should ask him if he really wanted to spend his money having me interview these people?

I stopped at a Ralph's market, bought Tide, Downy Fabric Softener, two Long Island ducklings, enough salad ingredients for a family of nine, and was home by ten minutes after three. The airline told me that Lucy's flight was expected to arrive on time. I put the ducks into a large pot, covered them with water to thaw, and put the pot in the refrigerator. I showered, shaved, put on fresh clothes, and made a last-minute check of the house. Spotless. Pristine. Free from embarrassing dust bunnies.

I took Pike's Jeep, pushed back down the hill and made my way to LAX, arriving at the gate twenty-eight minutes early. I took a seat across from an older woman with brittle white hair and pleasant eyes. I nodded hello and she nodded back. She said, 'I'll bet she's very pretty.'

'Who?'

'The one you're waiting for. You should see the smile on your face.' Know-it-all.

The gate grew crowded and, with the growing crowd, I began to feel anxious and goofy. Then the plane was down and my heart was hammering and it was hard to breath. I said, 'Snap out of it, dummy. Try to get a grip.'

The older woman laughed, and a man holding a two-year-old moved away.

I saw Lucy first, emerging from the jetway behind three elderly gentlemen, and I wanted to yell, 'Hey, Luce!' and jump up and down.

Lucy Chenier is five feet five, with amber green eyes and auburn hair rich with golden highlights from all the time she spends in the sun. She was wearing black shorts and a white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled and white Reebok tennis shoes, and she was carrying a gray canvas shoulder bag that probably weighed nine thousand pounds and her Gucci briefcase. When she saw me she tried to wave but her hands were full with the bags. Ben yelled, 'Hey, there's Elvis!' and then I shouldered past two Marines and Lucy was hugging me and I was hugging her back, and then she stepped away and said, 'Oh, your poor eye!'

'You look so good, Luce. You don't know.'

We gave each other a long kiss, and then I hugged Ben, too. Ben Chenier had grown maybe four inches in the three months since I'd last seen him. 'You're taller.'

He beamed. 'Four six and a quarter. I'm getting close to five feet.'

'Wow.'

I took the shoulder bag and we moved with the flow of arrivals down to baggage claim, Lucy and I holding hands and Ben ranging ahead of us, burning off eight-year-old-boy energy. Lucy's hand felt dry and warm and natural in mine, and as we moved along the white tiled corridors they told me about their flight (uneventful) and how Ben was spending his summer (a week at Camp Avondale with his Cub Scout pack) and about Lucy's business in Long Beach (amicably renegotiating a six-year-old divorce settlement involving complex corporate holdings). As we talked there was a growing feeling that these were not just two people with whom I would spend time, but two people I was allowing into my life. It was a thought that made me smile, and Lucy said, 'What?'

'Just thinking how glad I am that you guys are here.'

She squeezed my hand.

When their luggage arrived we loaded it into the Jeep and followed LaTijera out of the airport northeast up through the city. It was rush hour, and the going was slow, but going slow didn't seem to matter. Ben said, 'We're going to your house?'

'That's right. I live in the hills above West Hollywood.'

'Where are we gonna sleep?'

Lucy and I traded a smile. 'I've got a guest room. There's a bed for your mom, and a camper's cot for you.'

'What's your house like?'

Lucy said, 'You'll see when we get there, Ben.'

I smiled at him in the rearview. 'It's perched on the side of a mountain and it's surrounded by trees. A friend said that it reminds her of a tree house.'

Ben said, 'Cool.'

Lucy raised an eyebrow and looked at me. 'What friend?'

I said, 'That was years ago.'

'Mm-hmm.'

We made great time through the Slauson Pass, then climbed north through the Fairfax District past CBS and finally up Laurel Canyon and into the mountains, and then we were home. The summer sun was still high in the west as we turned into the carport and got out, and Lucy said, 'Oh, this is just wonderful!' You could smell the eucalyptus and the pine and, high above us, the two red-tailed hawks who lived in the canyon floated on rising thermals. I said, 'You guys hungry?'

Ben said, 'Yeah!'

Lucy said, 'Starving, but I want to take a bath first.'

I showed them in through the kitchen and led them past the entry and across the living room and, as we walked, I watched Lucy's eyes flick over the kitchen counters and the refrigerator with its Spider-Man magnets and the bar built into the dining room wall and the stone hearth in the living room and the bookcases and pictures, trying to take in as much of my life in those few seconds as she could. She caught me watching her and gave me a smile of approval. 'I like.'

I showed them their room and bath, then brought them out onto the deck. Ben said, 'Oh, wow,' and raced around the handrail, looking down. It's about a twenty-foot drop.

Lucy said, 'Elvis, it's beautiful.'

'This canyon merges with Nichols Canyon, which opens out into the basin. The little bit of city you see is part of Hollywood. Tomorrow morning we'll take the road below us down to the Budget Rent-a-Car.'

She turned back to the house and lowered her voice. 'And where does the master sleep?'

I grinned and pulled her close. 'The stairs off the living room lead to the master's quarters.'

She pushed away, then leaned against the rail and crossed her arms. It was a pretty good pose. 'Perhaps a bit later I'll get a chance to inspect the premises.'

I shrugged, but even pretending to be disinterested was somehow impossible. My voice came out hoarse and broken. 'If you're good, perhaps I'll let you.'

She let a smile curl out from under the world's longest eyelashes and lowered her voice still more and let the southern accent come thick. 'Oh, Studly, Ah intend to be very, very bad.'

The air seemed to spark with a kind of electric heat and then Ben raced back from the side of the house. 'Elvis, can I go down the hill?'

'Up to your mom, pal.'

Lucy looked over the rail. 'Is it safe?'

'Sure. It's a gentle slope. The people who live over there have a couple of boys, and they play all along the ridges.'

Lucy didn't look convinced, but you could tell she was going to give in. 'Well, okay, but stay close to the house.'

Ben ran around the side of the house again, and this time we could hear him crashing down through the dried grass and into the trees. Lucy looked at me and I looked back, but now she was giving me serious. 'So. Are you going to tell me about the eye, or do I have to keep wondering?'

'A police officer named Angela Rossi popped me with a sap.'

Lucy sighed and shook her head. 'Other women date doctors or businessmen. I have to fall for someone who gets into street fights.'

'It wasn't much of a fight. She suckered me.' I told her about what Green had hired me to do, and how I had done it, and how I had come to get the eye.

Lucy listened, interested more in the parts about Jonathan Green, and frowning when I told her how Rossi had eye-faked me. 'She caught you off guard. You underestimated her because she was a woman.'

'If I said that it would be taking something away from her. I didn't underestimate her, she was just good enough to sucker me with an eye-fake.'

Lucy gave me one of her gentle smiles, then touched the mouse. 'You're such a sweetie.'