She glanced up at me. “You’re nice. Good-looking, too.”

Milo strode into the living room. “Ma’am, I recall a computer in Gavin’s room.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Where is it?”

“Jerry took it, said he was donating it to Beverly Vista School.”

“What about Gavin’s papers?”

“He boxed everything up and took it out to the garbage.”

“Garbage was picked up when?”

“Tomorrow.”

He left.

Sheila Quick said, “He’s in a hurry.”

I said, “Jerry was really eager to clean Gavin’s room.”

“Eager beaver. Eager, eager beaver.”

I nodded.

“He said we needed to face reality,” said Sheila Quick. “It must’ve been me. Crying too much, getting on his nerves crying all the time. I don’t do anything for him.”

I thought she meant the attraction was gone, but she went on: “I don’t want to do anything for him. He comes home from work, wants his dinner, maybe I open a can. He says, ‘Let’s go out.’ I say no. Why should I want to go out? Why should I want that?”

I said, “There’s nothing for you outside of this house.”

“That’s right. You understand.” To no one: “He understands.”

Milo returned, looking grim.

She patted my shoulder, and said, “He understands.”

“He’s a very understanding guy,” said Milo.

Sheila Quick said, “Jerry cleaned up so I would face reality. My fucking ducking husband doesn’t get it. He shouldn’t have done it without asking me! There were things I wanted to keep.” She brightened. “Is it all out there- in the alley? In the garbage Dumpster?”

Milo said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Your Dumpster’s empty.”

“Bastard,” she said. “For what he did, he should be… it was wrong. Who cares where he is? Who the hell cares?”

“Has he called?”

“He left a message last night. I was sleeping. I sleep a lot. I erased it. What’s he going to tell me? That he misses me? I know he’s with some whore. When he travels he’s always with whores. Know how I know?”

“How, ma’am?”

“Condoms,” she said. “I find condoms in his luggage. He has me unpack, leaves them there, wants me to know.” Sick smile. “Doesn’t bother me- makes me… happy.”

“His going to prostitutes?”

“Sure,” she said. “Better them than me.”

We got a little more coffee in her, but her voice remained thick. I wondered how long it had taken her to work the gin bottle down.

She yawned. “I need to take a nap.”

“Sure, ma’am,” said Milo. “Just a few more questions, please.”

“Please?” She unraveled the towel turban and tossed it on the floor. “Okay, since you said please.”

“Who referred you to Dr. Koppel?”

“Dr. Silver.”

“Your obstetrician?”

Her eyes closed, and her head lurched forward, then froze in place.

“I’m tired.”

“Dr. Barry Silver?” said Milo. “Your gynecologist?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did Dr. Silver give you the referral personally?”

“He gave it to Jerry, Jerry called him. Jerry said he was smart- can I sleep, please?”

“One more thing, ma’am. Gavin’s room was cleaned out, but I noticed his clothes were still in the closet.”

“Jerry was probably gonna take those, too, and give ’ em away. Those really pretty Ralph Lauren shirts I bought Gav for Christmas. Gav loved to go shopping with me because Jerry’s so cheap. We went to all the stores. Gap, Banana Republic, Saks… Barneys. Sometimes we went on Rodeo Drive when they had the end-of-season sales. I got Gav a Valentino sports jacket on Rodeo, better than anything Jerry has. Jerry prolly woulda given Gav’s clothes away, but he didn’t have time.”

Her hands balled into fists. “Jerry can fuck himself if he thinks I’ll give up Gav’s clothes.”

We helped her up the stairs and into a master bedroom turned to night by blackout drapes. Rumpled tissues and night shades and two small airline liquor bottles on the nightstand. Bourbon and Scotch. A quarter inch of water floated in a crystal highball glass.

Milo tucked her in and she smiled up at him and licked chapped lips. “Nighty-night.”

“One more question, ma’am. Who’s your husband’s accountant?”

“Gene Marr. With an H.”

“Maher?” said Milo.

She started to answer, gave up, closed her eyes.

By the time we were out of the room, she was snoring.

Before we exited the house, Milo brought me to Gavin’s room. The same pale blue walls, stripped. The queen bed made up with a deep blue comforter. Gavin’s bookcase held a few softcovers and magazines, and two model airplanes. The carpeting was dingy.

The closet was filled with jackets, slacks, shirts, coats.

“Nice wardrobe,” I said. “Jerry didn’t take the papers out to the garbage. He made sure no one would see them.”

Milo nodded and pointed to the stairs.

As we drove away, he said, “Bastard knows why his son was killed, and he’s trying to hide it.”

He found Quick’s business number in his notes, phoned, waited, snapped the phone shut. “Not even a machine.”

“He travels and gives blue-nailed Angie the secretary time off.”

“Angie of the petty but very definite criminal record. Quick’s starting to smell like something more than a grieving dad.”

“His landlord hires troubled souls, and so does he,” I said. “Maybe compassion’s contagious. Or Sonny sent him Angela Paul, as well.”

“Sonny the fixer? Get you a medical referral, invest your money.”

“Maybe Quick was into him for more than back rent.”

“His own kid, and he doesn’t say a word.”

“Maybe it’s more than knowing,” I said. “What if he’s implicated?”

“Wouldn’t that be pretty.”

“What’d you find in Gavin’s pockets?”

“Who says I found anything?”

“Those questions about Gavin’s clothing. You didn’t need ten minutes to flip through a few books and pockets.”

He slapped a slow three-four beat on the dashboard with one big palm. “Bastard took the computer- should I even bother calling Beverly Vista school to see if he donated it?”

Without waiting for an answer, he made the call, hung up grinning with rage. “First they’ve heard about it. You wanna know what I think? Gavin found out about something dirty going on in that building- something to do with Koppel and Charitable Planning and Daddy. The kid fancied himself an investigative reporter and figured he’d got himself a nice little scandal. Brain-damaged, but he kept some sort of records. And his old man destroyed them. My damn fault, I shoulda gone through that room first thing.”

“What’d you find in the closet?” I said.

He opened to the center of his pad and showed me something sandwiched there, encased in a plastic evidence bag.

Wrinkled sheet of paper the size of an index card. Miniature lined paper, from a pad not unlike Milo’s. Numbers written in blue ink. Cramped, smudged. A wavering column of seven-digit number-letter combinations.

“License plate numbers?”

“That would be my guess,” said Milo. “Stupid kid was surveilling.”