“Which is stupid,” she said. “The way it is with guys, you want ’em to respect you, you got to hold something back.”

“What can you tell me about Gavin’s home life?”

“Like his parents?”

“Yes.”

“His mom’s nuts, and his father’s a horn-dog. Probably where Gav gets it.”

“The old man make a move on you?”

“Yuk,” she said. “No way. You just hear things.”

“About what?”

“About who’s sleeping around.”

“Jerome Quick was sleeping around?”

“That’s what Gavin said.”

“He told you?”

“He was like bragging,” she said. “Like, my dad’s a stud, and so am I.”

“This was after the accident?”

“No,” she said. “Before. When Gavin was still talking like a normal person.”

“You say his mother’s nuts.”

“Everyone knows that. She was never at school stuff, you’d never even see her out in her backyard, she’d be all up in her bedroom, drinking, sleeping. At least Gavin’s dad came to school stuff.”

“Gavin was closer to him.”

She stared at me, as if I’d posed the question in a foreign language.

I said, “Did Gavin ever tell you about his career plans?”

“Like what job he wanted?”

“Yes.”

“Before the accident he wanted to be a rich businessman. Afterward, he talked about writing.”

“Writing what?”

“He didn’t say on what.” She laughed. “As if.”

“Did he ever talk to you about being suspicious of anyone?”

“Huh?” she said. “Like some spy thing?”

“Like that,” I said.

“No. Can I get going. Pu-leeze? I’m supposed to meet Ellie over at Il Fornaio, and I don’t want to go over the parking limit. Paying for parking sucks.”

“So does paying for cosmetics,” I said.

“Hey,” she said, “I thought that was over with.”

“What else can you tell me about Gavin?”

“Nothing. He was out of my life, running with skanks- you think that’s why he was killed? Running with bad people?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“There you go,” she said. “It pays to be good.”

CHAPTER 31

I had her go into the pharmacy and get a shopping bag. Dumping the stolen goods in the bag, I said, “Leave it inside the door.”

Sudden, bone-white pallor flashed through her makeup. “Don’t make me go in there. Please.”

She placed a hand on my sleeve. No seductiveness; her knuckles were white.

“Okay,” I said. “But you have to promise to be good.”

“I do. Can I go? Ellie’s waiting.”

Gavin had bragged to Kayla about all the sex he was getting from the blonde. Maybe that was trying to one-up the old girlfriend. But it also fit the call girl theory.

Christa or Crystal. I tried Milo again. His cell remained switched off.

Listening to Kayla Bartell, learning about the sad stumble that had been Gavin Quick’s life, had sapped my energy. Allison and I were due to meet for dinner at seven, and I resolved to push all of it out of my head.

I pretty much stuck to that, but by evening’s end, I found myself talking to Allison about the Quick family’s meltdown, wrong turns and bad luck, the death of intimacy.

An unnamed girl in a stainless-steel drawer, body stitched back together and relegated to cold storage.

Like the therapist she was, Allison mostly listened, and that kept me going. I knew I was being morose but didn’t want to stop talking. As I pulled up to her house, my own voice hurt my ears.

“Sorry,” I said. “What a fun guy.”

She said, “Why don’t you sleep over?”

“You want more of this?”

“I’d like you to stay the night.”

“I’ve never known you to be a masochist.”

She shrugged and played with my index finger. “I like seeing you first thing in the morning. You always look really happy to see me, and there’s no one else I can say that about.”

We went straight to her bedroom, got undressed, shared a chaste, closed-mouth kiss, slipped easily into sleep. I woke up three times in the middle of the night, twice to think discouraging thoughts and once because I felt myself being jostled. I forced my eyes open, saw Allison hovering over me, breasts dangling, grasping a corner of the comforter and looking none too awake herself.

I said something that would’ve been “Huh?” had my tongue been working.

“You were… covered up,” she said, groggily. “I didn’t see you moving, wanted to… check.”

“M’fine.”

“Guh… night.”

Morning light seared my eyelids. I left Allison sleeping, went into her kitchen, took in the paper, searched for a picture of the dead girl, didn’t find it. Allison had morning patients and would be up soon, so I got to work on breakfast.

Moments later, she shuffled in sniffing the air, wearing an oversized khaki T-shirt and fluffy slippers, face creased by bed wrinkles, hair topknotted carelessly.

“Eggs,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Y’sleep okay?”

“Perfectly.”

“Me too.” She yawned. “Did I snore?”

“No,” I lied.

“Sank like a stone,” she said. “Boom.”

No memory of waking up to make sure I was okay. She’d cared about me in her dreams.

I was back home for fifteen minutes when Milo phoned from his car. His breathing was harsh, as if he’d run uphill. “I tried reaching you at nine.”

“Spent the night at Allison’s.”

“Good for you,” he said. “What’s your schedule like today?”

“Open. I might have a first name on the blond girl. Crystal or Christa.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“Kayla Bartell. It’s a bit of a story-”

“Tell me when I get there, I’m already at Sepulveda and Wilshire. The pooch still bunking with you?”

“No, he’s gone.”

“Okay, then, I’ll eat this beef jerky myself.”

He entered the house wearing a sad gray suit, mud brown shirt, gray poly tie, and chewing on the thickest rope of dehydrated meat I’d ever seen.

“What is that?” I said. “Python jerky?”

“Buffalo, low-fat, low-salt. Special deal at Trader Joe’s.” His hair was flat, and his eyes were red. We went into the kitchen.

“Tell me the story.”

I recounted my talk with Kayla.

He said, “Little klepto, huh? And you played bad cop. Nice work.”

“It was probably illegal.”

“It was a chat between two adults.” He twisted the knot of his tie. “Got any coffee left?”

“Didn’t make any.”

“No prob, I’m wired, anyway… Christa or Crystal. Why’d Kayla peg her for a stripper?”

“Because Gavin said she was a dancer,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “name a girl Crystal and what’s more likely? That she’ll get a Ph.D. in biomechanics, or end up shaking her tail for tips?” He removed his jacket and tossed it over a chair. Since he’d arrived, the air was turbulent.

“Kayla also said she looked like a doper.”

“The coroner found nothing in her system. What about the Times?”

“They run on their own schedule,” I said. “Why’d you ask about mine?”

He took a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. Typed list.

1. 1999 Ford Explorer. Bennett A. Hacker, 48, Franklin Avenue, Hollywood.

2. 1995 Lincoln sedan. Raymond R. Degussa, 41, post office box in Venice.

3. 2001 Mercedes Benz sedan, Albin Larsen, 56, Santa Monica.

4. 1995 Mercedes Benz sedan, Jerome A. Quick, 48, Beverly Hills.

“DMV data from Gavin’s list,” he said.

“Gavin copied down his father’s license number?”

“Weird, no? Could it be a brain damage thing? Do you guys have a name for it?”