I heard myself open up, talk about things I hadn’t thought of in years.

Whatever problems she might have, she’d clean up as a therapist.

From the beginning I wanted her physically with an intensity that shook me. But something about her- a fragility that I sensed or imagined- held me back.

For half a dozen dates it remained chaste: hand-holds and goodnight pecks, a noseful of that light, fresh perfume. I’d drive home swollen but oddly content, subsisting on recollections.

As we headed toward the dorm after our seventh evening together, she said, “Don’t drop me off yet, Alex. Drive around the corner.”

She directed me to a dark, shaded side street, adjacent to one of the athletic fields. I parked. She leaned over, turned off the ignition, removed her shoes, and climbed over the seat and into the back of the Rambler.

“Come,” she said.

I followed her over, glad I’d washed the car. Sat beside her, took her in my arms, kissed her lips, her eyes, the sweet spot under her neck. She shivered, squirmed. I touched her breast. Felt her heart pounding. We kissed some more, deeper, longer. I put my hand on her knee. She shivered, gave me a look that I thought was fear. I lifted my hand. She put it back, between her knees, wedged me in a soft, hot vise. Then she spread her legs. I went exploring, up columns of white marble. She was splayed, had thrown her head back, had her eyes closed, was breathing through her mouth. No underwear. I rolled her skirt up, saw a generous delta soft and black as sable fur.

“Oh, God,” I said and started to pleasure her.

She held me back with one hand, reached for my zipper with the other. In a second I was free, pointing skyward.

“Come to me,” she said.

I obeyed.

7

With Milo out of town, my only other police contact was Delano Hardy, a dapper black detective who sometimes worked as Milo’s partner. A few years ago he’d saved my life. I’d bought him a guitar, a classic Fender Stratocaster that Robin had restored. It was clear who owed whom, but I called him anyway.

The desk man at West L.A. told me Detective Hardy wouldn’t be in until the following morning. I debated trying him at home but knew he was a family man, always trying to scrounge more time for his kids, and left a message for him to call me.

I thought of someone who wouldn’t mind being called at home. Ned Biondi was one of those journalists who lived for the story. He’d been a metro writer-reporter when I met him, had since progressed to associate editor but managed to squeeze in a story now and then.

Ned owed me. I’d helped reverse his daughter’s descent to near-death from anorexia. He’d taken a year and a half to pay me, then added to his personal debt by profiting from a couple of big stories that I’d steered his way.

Just after 9:00 P.M. I reached him at his home in Woodland Hills.

“Doc. I was going to call you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, just got back from Boston. Anne-Marie sends her love.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Still skinnier than we’d like, but otherwise great. She started social-work school this fall, got a part-time job, and found a new boyfriend to replace the bastard who dumped her.”

“Give her my best.”

“Will do. What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask you about a story in today’s final. Suicide of a psychologist, page-”

“Twenty. What about it?”

“I knew the woman, Ned.”

“Oh, jeez. That’s lousy.”

“Is there anything more to it than what you printed?”

“No reason for there to be. It wasn’t exactly a hot scoop. In fact I believe we got it over the phone from police communications- no one actually went out to the scene. Is there anything you know that I should?”

“Nothing at all. Who’s Maura Bannon?”

“Just a kid- student intern. Friend of Anne-Marie’s, in fact. She’s doing a semester of work study, little here, little there. She was the one who pushed for the piece- kind of a naïve kid, thought the shri… psychologist suicide angle was newsworthy. Those of us familiar with the real world were less impressed, but we let her stick it in the computer just to make her happy. Turns out Section One ends up using it as filler- the kid’s thrilled. Want me to have her call you?”

“If she has anything to tell me.”

“I doubt that she does.” Pause. “Doc, the lady in question- did you know her well?”

My lie was reflexive. “Not really. It just came as a shock, seeing the name of someone I knew.”

“Must have,” said Ned, but his tone had turned wary. “You called Sturgis first, I assume.”

“He’s out of town.”

“Aha. Listen, Doc, I don’t want to be insensitive, but if there’s something about the lady that would flesh out the story, I’d be open to hearing about it.”

“There’s nothing, Ned.”

“Okay. Sorry for snooping- force of habit.”

“That’s all right. Talk to you soon, Ned.”

At eleven-thirty I took a walk in the dark, trudging up the glen toward Mulholland, listening to crickets and night birds. When I got home an hour later, the phone was ringing.

“Hello.”

“Dr. Delaware, this is Yvette at your service. I’m glad I caught you. A call came in for you twenty minutes ago from your wife up in San Luis Obispo. She left a message, wanted to make sure you got it.”

Your wife. Slap-on-a-sunburn. They’d been making the same mistake for years. Once upon a time it had been amusing.

“What’s the message?”

“She’s on the move, will be hard to reach. She’ll get in touch with you when she can.”

“Did she leave a number?”

“No, she didn’t, Dr. Delaware. You sound tired. Been working too hard?”

“Something like that.”

“Stay well, Dr. Delaware.”

“Same to you.”

On the move. Hard to reach. It should have hurt. But I felt relieved, unburdened.

Since Saturday I’d barely thought about Robin. Had filled my mind with Sharon.

I felt like an adulterer, ashamed but thrilled.

I crawled into bed and hugged myself to sleep. At two forty-five in the morning I woke up, wired and itchy. After throwing on some clothes I staggered down to the carport and started up the Seville. I drove south to Sunset, headed east through Beverly Hills and Boystown, toward the western tip of Hollywood and Nichols Canyon.

At that hour, even the Strip was dead. I kept the windows open, let the sharp chill gnaw at my face. At Fairfax, I turned left, traveled north, and swung onto Hollywood Boulevard.

Mention the boulevard to most people, and, inevitably, one of two images comes to mind: the good old days of Grauman’s Chinese, the Walk of the Stars, black-tie premieres, a neon-flooded night scene. Or the street as it is today- slimy and vicious, promising random violence.

But west of that scene, just past La Brea, Hollywood Boulevard shows another face: a single mile of tree-lined residential neighborhood- decently maintained apartment buildings, old, stately churches, and only slightly tarnished two-story homes perched atop well-tended sloping lawns. Looking down on this smudge of suburbia is a section of the Santa Monica mountain range that meanders through L.A. like a crooked spine. In this part of Hollywood the mountains seem to surge forward threateningly, pushing against the fragile dermis of civilization.

Nichols Canyon begins a couple of blocks east of Fair-fax, a lane and a half of winding blacktop feeding off the north side of the boulevard and running parallel to a summer-dry wash. Small, rustic houses sit behind the wash, concealed by tangles of brush, accessible only over homemade footbridges. I passed a Department of Water and Power terminal station lit by high arc lamps that gave off a harsh glare. Just beyond the terminal was flood-control district marshland fenced with chain link, then larger houses on flatter ground, sparsely distributed.