The list of suspects would’ve easily stretched around the block. War criminals. Cocaine kingpins. Serial killers. Traitors. Terrorists. The ones who got away. Survivors of the ones who didn’t. All would’ve had good reason to kill Echevarria, or any other former go-to guy. The problem was, they would’ve had to know his real name to find him. We always used aliases in the field for that very reason. My gut told me that Echevarria’s death had nothing to do with his having once worked for the government. But I wasn’t being paid to play Sam Spade. I was being paid to make my ex-wife and her father happy. For $25,000, considering the delicate state of my personal finances, I’d make sure both were ecstatic.

The headwinds I fought flying north to see Carlisle shifted south and turned to quartering headwinds by the time I flew home. Typical. I climbed to 7,500 feet, then 9,500, then 11,500. There was little difference in the quality of the ride, nor in my ground speed. The air was churned up like white water on a river. I struggled to keep the Duck level and on course. By the time I landed back in Rancho Bonita, my arms felt heavy. The fingers of my left hand ached where I had gripped the yoke. I decided that whoever it was at Cessna who ruled out wing-leveling autopilots as standard equipment on 172’s should come back in the next life as a fruit fly. Not a very Zen-like thought, I realized, but if the Buddha held a pilot’s certificate, I knew he’d feel the same way.

I tied down the airplane, got in my truck and hit the freeway, driving south toward Rancho Bonita. Twelve minutes later, I was sitting in the Bank of America parking lot downtown, staring at a $25,000 cashier’s check and wrestling anew with my conscience, wondering what I was doing even thinking about depositing Carlisle’s bribe money. My phone rang. It was Savannah.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday,” she said. “Showing up unannounced. Some of the things I said. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Heat of the moment.”

“Still no excuse.”

I was quiet.

“Well, anyway,” Savannah said, “I just wanted to say how sorry I was, barging into your life like that. I won’t ever bother you again.”

“Is that a promise or a threat?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be.”

I pondered the check in my hand, tapping it against the steering wheel.

“I always thought we had something, Logan,” Savannah said, “but after awhile, you were never around to appreciate it. You were always gone. You don’t water a flower, it dies. You stopped being there for me. Arlo was.”

“I stopped being there because Arlo sent me off on business assignments while he took care of business at home. You ever stop to think about that?”

She was quiet.

“Did you love him?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

“Like you loved me?”

There was silence for what seemed like a long time. Then she said, “No. Not like I loved you.”

A sea green Buick Skylark pulled in beside me. An ancient old man wearing one of those white Navy “skipper” caps with gold scrambled eggs on the bill, the kind of hats sailboat owners put on when they want to look especially goofy, got out and hobbled around to open the door for his passenger, an old lady wearing an identical hat. She kissed his hand while he tenderly helped her out of the Buick. Who says there’s no such thing as eternal domestic bliss? I couldn’t help it; I sighed like a schoolgirl.

“You’ll be watching movies on Lifetime before long,” I mumbled to myself.

“Did you say something?”

“Yeah. I said I need my head examined.”

Any man with an ounce of self-respect would’ve ripped the check in half, hung up, and moved on with his life. But no man with an ounce of brains would’ve ever surrendered Savannah Carlisle as easily as I did. Maybe this was a way back to her. Even if it wasn’t, it was still twenty-five large.

“I need the number for the detectives handling the case,” I said.

“You’ll call them? Really?”

“You said you wanted me to talk to them. I’ll talk to them.”

“Oh, Logan, that’s fantastic!” The delight in Savannah’s voice was genuine. “What made you change your mind?”

I watched Methuselah and his bride hobble arm-in-arm into the bank. She was leaning her head on his shoulder.

“Just give me the number,” I said, “before I start heaving.”

The lead investigator in Echevarria’s homicide answered his phone at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire station on the first ring.

“Detective Czarnek.”

Gravelly baritone. Smoker. He sounded world-weary and badass. Somebody in the background was singing “Girl Watcher” by the O’Kaysions. I could hear others laughing. I identified myself and explained why I was calling. It took him a second to connect the dots.

“Which case was it again?”

“Arlo Echevarria.”

“Echevarria, Echevarria.” I heard a drawer slide open and the sound of files being gone through. “Echevarria, Echevarria. Oh, yeah, right. Echevarria, Arlo. And you say you’re who again?”

I repeated my name. I told him that I was calling from Rancho Bonita, but that I’d be happy to drive to Los Angeles to meet with him at his convenience, to provide whatever information I could.

“You say you’re up in Rancho Bonita?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Nice town if you can afford it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, I tell you what, Mr. — what’d you say your name was again?”

“Logan.”

“Mr. Logan, I wouldn’t mind taking a little drive up the coast and come see you. Give my partner and me an excuse to breathe some air we can’t actually see for a change.”

“OK by me.”

“There’s a little Mexican place up your way I’ve eaten at— El Grande’s,” Czarnek said. “Best tortas this side of Ensenada. I believe the city of Los Angeles can afford to spring for lunch. What’s tomorrow looking like for you?”

El Grande Taqueria is an anonymous, green and white taco shack on the working class, lower east side of Rancho Bonita, an eatery with undersized, overpriced servings and no atmosphere— unless you count the beer trucks and lowriders rumbling past outside. You order your food at one window and pick it up at another. Hardly haute cuisine, but more than a few aficionados swear by the place. Half a dozen Mexican joints on Verde Street offered tastier chow in larger portions and at lower prices. But if the good taxpayers of Los Angeles were willing to spring for lunch, who was I to play enchilada snob? Two free meals in two days. An underemployed flight instructor could get used to that kind of treatment.

“Tomorrow’s good,” I said.

“Eleven o’clock?”

“A little early for Mexican food, isn’t it?”

“We like to start early around here,” Czarnek said. “Beat the traffic that way.”

Whoever it was who was singing in the background was now joined by what sounded like at least two other male voices. The tune had changed. It was now Paul Anka’s “(You’re) Having My Baby.” A man singing about the wonderment of pregnancy. Listening to it felt like the lyrical equivalent of being water-boarded. I told Czarnek I’d see him at eleven and signed off.

After that, I went inside the bank and deposited Gil Carlisle’s check.

LAPD homicide Detective Keith Czarnek was not what I imagined over the phone. He was about fifty and built like a pear. Pink cheeks. Pudgy hands. Receding blonde hair and a high forehead that was beaded with sweat and precancerous skin lesions. Except for the faded Marine Corps eagle, globe and anchor tattooed on his left forearm, and the requisite push-broom cop moustache insulating his top lip, there was nothing badass about the man.

“I’d mainline this stuff if I could,” Czarnek said as he spooned salsa onto his torta.

“Face it,” said Czarnek’s partner, Detective John Windhauser, working on his fourth fish taco, “you’re a beaner food addict.”