Sanger stayed on the boulevard, leaving Beverly Hills, and cruising the Strip, the Sunset Plaza boutique district, continuing into Hollywood, where marble and granite and sultans' fortunes were the last things on anyone's mind.

Daniel could see him well enough to know the lawyer was smoking steadily, progressing from one cigarette to another, flicking still-lit butts out the window, where they sparked on the asphalt.

The scenery was ancillary film businesses- photo-processing places, color labs, sound studios- plus convenience and liquor stores, cheap motels with the requisite prostitutes out front.

Cruising for something the wife back in Manhattan would never know about? A little fun before the party?

Wouldn't that be interesting?

But, no. Sanger kept looking but never stopped.

Smoking his third cigarette since leaving the hotel.

And that briefcase said business…

They stopped at a red light at the Fountain intersection and Daniel prepared himself for a right turn toward Apollo, but when the light changed, Sanger stayed on Sunset.

Speeding up.

Continuing east, toward a sparkle of lights in the distance.

Downtown.

Daniel stayed with him under the Pasadena Freeway overpass to Figueroa. Figueroa south to Seventh Street, Seventh to the corner of Flower, where Sanger parked in a pay-lot, got out, looked around for several seconds, and began walking down the street.

Financial buildings, now dark and deserted.

Sanger looked a bit nervous, checking over his shoulder, glancing from side to side.

Holding the green briefcase close to his body.

That much cash in a tough neighborhood?

Daniel parked across the street, in another lot, watched Sanger stop at a six-story limestone building. The lobby was lit, faintly, but enough for Daniel to see charcoal granite with discreet gold trim.

The shock of recognition.

This time, a uniformed security guard sat behind the small desk.

Sanger stood at the locked double doors, tapped a foot, until the security guard saw him, opened the doors, and escorted him in.

Surprise, surprise.

Daniel sat in his car, trying to make sense of it.

50

Friday night. Party time.

I left the house at seven, spending some time at the Genesee apartment, wanting to get used to the place in case Zena had the impulse to come here. To Semite-town.

Robin had asked me what Zena was like and I'd said only, “Weird, just what you'd expect.”

Robin and I had made love at six. Because she wanted to and I wanted to. And I had another reason: Anything that weakened the reflexive response to Zena was welcome.

It made me feel dishonest.

Four murders- maybe five- helped me live with it.

I sat on Andrew's dusty couch, listening to Andrew's music, thumbing through Andrew's books. Then Twisted Science, the first few pages of the late Professor Eustace's essay on the Loomis Foundation.

Eustace's tone went well beyond academic criticism, as he accused the group of racist underpinnings, exploiting slave labor in Asia. Funding diploma mills in order to churn out “eugenic foot soldiers.” Apex University, Keystone Graduate Center, New Dominion University- I'd set my watch for 9:30 P.M. and it chimed. Placing the book under the mattress, I went out to the garage and pulled out the Karmann Ghia. Children's voices filled the block and the smells of supper drifted from nearby buildings. Edging into the alley, I drove up Fairfax to Sunset and traveled east, very slowly. Twenty-five minutes later I was at Apollo and Lyric.

Well past the cocktail hour. Late enough, I hoped, for me to be lost in the activity and able to observe.

Enough activity to occupy the hostess.

The souped-up Karmann Ghia chewed its way up the nearly black road. Treacherous if someone came barreling down from the summit. The parked cars began well before the corner of Rondo Vista and I had to pull over and continue on foot.

I tried on the tinted glasses. The night rendered them hazardous and I returned them to my pocket and continued on, inspecting the cars. Average cars. No vans. A few lights shone from neighbors' windows but most were dark. Night wind had blown away some of the smog, and blades of view between the properties sparkled. As I got closer to Zena's house, I heard music.

Calypso, just like in the bookstore.

Bongos and happy vocals. Just another hillside party.

Who were these people? How many of them, if any, were killers?

Murdering out of some warped notion of genetic cleansing? Or just for fun?

Or both.

There was precedent for that kind of thing. Seventy years ago, two young men with stratospheric IQ scores had stabbed to death an innocent fourteen-year-old boy in Chicago. Motivated, they claimed, by the challenge of pulling off the perfect “motiveless” crime.

Leopold and Loeb had been sexually twisted psychopaths and I was willing to bet the DVLL crimes had roots in something beyond intellectual exercise.

I'd reached the white-and-blue house. Lights poked through drawn drapes, but barely. Turning, I sighted down the road, at the line of parked cars.

Had Milo already arrived? Copied down license numbers, sent them along to Daniel for a quick screen?

Calypso shifted to Stravinsky.

The exact same tape from the bookstore.

Frugal? Probably cheap booze, too.

No matter; I wouldn't be drinking.

The door was locked and I had to ring several times before it opened. The man in the doorway was in his middle thirties with a bushy, wheat-colored beard and a crew cut. He wore a gray sweatshirt and brown pants, was holding a glass of something yellow and filmy.

Small, alert eyes. Small, unsmiling mouth.

He held the door open just wide enough to accommodate his wiry frame. Rough hands, dirty nails. Behind him, the room was dotted with a few colored lights but otherwise dark. I caught a glimpse of faces, moving mouths, but the music pounded, blotting out conversation.

“Yes?” I saw the word, couldn't hear it.

“Andrew Desmond. Zena invited me.”

He held up a finger and closed the door. I stood there for several minutes before Zena came out. She wore a full-length dress, royal blue silk crepe, printed with tangerine-colored orchids. Long-sleeved, low neckline, no waistline, generously cut. I supposed it was a muumuu, probably vintage. On a large woman it might have looked tentlike. But the filmy fabric flowed over her tiny body, heightening a sharp pelvis and somehow lengthening her, making her appear taller.

Loose and flowing… easier access to the precious parts?

“I was starting to wonder about you,” she said. “Fashionably late?”

I shrugged, looked down at her feet, again in high-heeled sandals. Pink toenails. Three-inch heels. She was able to kiss me without straining.

Just a peck. Her lips were supple. Then she took my chin as she had in the restaurant and her tongue impelled itself between my lips. I offered some tooth resistance, then let her in. Her hand dropped, cupped my butt and squeezed. She moved back, taking my hand, twisting the doorknob. “All those who enter, abandon all hope.”

“Of what?”

“Boredom.”

She took my hand. The house was packed, the music well past loud and into painful. As she led me through the crowd, I tried to look the place over without being obvious. Just past the entry were two doors- a bathroom designated LE PISSOIR by a computer-printed sign, and an unmarked one that was probably a closet. An unrailed staircase led downstairs. Like many hillside homes, bedrooms on the lower floor.