"Yeah." He stared at the floor and looked even more ashamed. He was a guy with a lot to be ashamed of.

Jennifer said, "Why do you have to keep asking him about these things? He feels bad enough."

I said, "I have to ask him because I don't know the answers. I have to know what he's done so that I'll know how to help him or even if I can help him. Do you see?"

She saw, but she didn't like it. "I thought you said that you'd help."

"I'm deciding. Maybe I'll help him, but maybe I won't. Maybe I can't."

She liked that even less. I looked back at Thurman, and then I stood up. "Where does Dees keep the tape?"

"He's got it hidden in his garage."

"You know where?"

"Yeah. If he hasn't moved it."

"Let's go see."

We took Thurman's Mustang, and Thurman drove. Joe Pike stayed with Jennifer Sheridan.

Forty-two minutes later we left the freeway in Glendale and turned onto a pleasant residential street lined with mature trees and sidewalks and the sort of modest middle-class houses that more suggested Indiana or Iowa than Southern California. Mark Thurman said, "Are you sure about this?"

"I'm sure. Which one?"

Thurman pointed out a white frame Cape Cod with a tiny front yard and a couple of nice magnolia trees and lots of surrounding shrubbery. The drive ran along the left side of the house to the garage. Like the rest of the houses on Dees's street, it was prewar, and the garage was detached. Someone had bolted a basketball goal above the garage door, and the net was yellowed and frayed. It had been there a long time. Thurman said, "We can't just ask him, you know."

"We're not going to ask him. We're going to steal it."

Thurman nodded and frowned, like he knew I was going to say that. "What if it's not there?"

"If it's not there, we'll find out where it is, and then we'll figure a way to get it from there." A 1984 Nissan 4x4 sport truck sat in the drive beneath the basketball goal. One of those heavy roll bars with a row of lights across the top was mounted in the bed behind the cab, and the suspension was jacked up about eight inches too high so the little truck could sport oversized knobby tires. "Who belongs to the truck?"

"Eric Junior. I guess he's home from school."

"How about Mrs. Dees? Would she be home?"

Thurman cruised past the house without my having to tell him. "She works at Glendale General. She's a nurse, but I don't know if she works today, or when she gets home, or any of that."

"Okay."

"Would the kid recognize you?"

"Yeah, I think so. I've been here a few times, but not many."

"How about the neighbors?"

He shook his head. "No."

We K-turned in someone's drive, went back, and parked one house away on the driveway side. I said, "I'm going to see what the boy's up to. You're going to wait for my signal, then go into the garage and get the tape."

Thurman looked nervous. "Jesus Christ, it's broad daylight."

"During the day, we look like we belong. At night, we look like crooks. You're a cop."

"Well. Sure."

"Give me the keys."

He looked at me, then he took out the keys and gave them over. I put them in my pocket, then got out of the car and went up the Deeses' sidewalk to the front door. I pretended to ring the bell, though I didn't, and then I pretended to knock, though I didn't do that, either. If the neighbors were watching, it would look good for them.

I stood at the door and listened, and heard voices deep in the house, but they were the kind of voices that come from a television, and not from real people. The front door was under an overhang, and there was a long brick veranda that ran along the front of the house under the overhang, and a couple of large frame windows. The windows were open to let in the light. I went to the near window and looked in and tried to see the boy and the television, but I couldn't. The way the hall and the entry were laid out from the living room, it was a good bet that the boy and the TV were on the side of the house opposite from the garage. I went back to the edge of the porch and motioned to Thurman. He got out and went down the drive to the garage, and he didn't look happy about it. I stood by the front windows and watched. If the boy came through the house, I could always knock on the door for real and pretend like I was selling aluminum siding. If Mrs. Dees drove up, I could pretend I was a real estate agent, and make a big deal out of listing her house, and maybe keep her away from the garage until Thurman made his getaway. If Eric Dees drove up, maybe I could run like hell before he shot me to death. There are always options.

It didn't take Mark Thurman long.

Less than three minutes later he came back along the driveway, and made a short quiet whistle to get my attention. When I looked, he held up an ordinary TDK half-inch VHS cassette. I walked away from the front door and got back into the Mustang maybe ten seconds after Mark Thurman.

He sat behind the wheel in the keyless Mustang with both hands on the cassette. He held it tightly. "Now what?"

We went to the motel.

The sky had turned a deep violet by the time we got into Santa Monica, and the air was cooling nicely. The room had a VCR hooked to the TV, and that's where we'd screen the tape.

Thurman said, "Is this where you've been holed up?"

"Yeah." Like we were outlaws.

When we got into the room, Thurman looked around and saw the three left over Thai beers. They were warm. "Say, could I have one of those?"

"Sure."

"You?" He held out a bottle.

"No."

I turned on the TV. Nightly News with Peter Jennings came on, and I loaded the cassette. Peter Jennings vanished in a flash of static, and a grainy high-angle shot of the interior of the Premier Pawn Shop filled the screen. Black and white. A muscular black guy maybe in his late twenties sat in a swivel chair behind the counter, watching a tiny TV. He wore a white Arrow shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his hair was cut close with a couple of racing stripes carved above each ear. Charles Lewis Washington. There was no one else in the shop.

As I watched, Mark Thurman came up behind me and drank deep on the beer. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, not fast like he had to pee, but enough to show he wasn't comfortable. He said, 'There's a lot of this kind of stuff at first."

"Okay."

"We could maybe fast forward it."

"Let's just watch."

He went to the machine and turned it off. "Look, this isn't easy."

"I know."

"You don't have to treat me like a piece of shit."

I stared at him for maybe ten seconds. "It doesn't matter if I like you or not, and it doesn't matter how I treat you or not. Whatever it is that I'm doing, I'm doing for Jennifer. Not for you."

Mark Thurman stared at me for another couple of seconds, then he said, "Can I have another of those beers?"

I turned on the VCR and watched the rest of the tape. Mark Thurman went into the bathroom and drank.