







 
                  Copyright 1995,1997 by Daniel Keys Moran.
                            All rights reserved.

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        so long as the story text is not altered IN ANY WAY.
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       PURPOSES ONLY. ALL OTHER RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.



DESCRIPTION: Prolog and first 4 chapters from the novel, "A Symphony in Black"




A
Symphony
in Black
Daniel Keys Moran



&nbsp;
Dedication:
to the memory of the Master



An honest man I know once said
that you can run out of cleverness,
but you can't run out of truth.
&nbsp;John D. MacDonald told the truth.



A
Symphony
In Black
&nbsp;


The wise man is always free;
he is always held in honor;
he is always master of the laws.
The law is not made for the just,
but for the unjust.
The just man is a man unto himself, and he
does not need to summon the law from afar,
for he carries it enclosed in his heart.
--Saint Ambrose



"--it is waking that understands sleep
and not sleep that understands waking.
There is an ignorance of evil that
comes from being young:
there is a darker ignorance that
comes from doing it, as men by sleeping
lose the knowledge of sleep."
--C.S. Lewis, Perelandra




New Year's Eve
This happened.
I remember most of it.
Northern California, the 101 South. I am returning from Oregon in the 
TransAm, doing a hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty miles an hour. I am 
on the road when the sun rises. It shines down through the mist, 
illuminating the empty highway.
My 9 mm., 14-shot AutoMag sits underneath the passenger seat; one in 
the chamber, thirteen in the magazine.
Inside the car it's almost perfectly silent. I soundproofed it when I 
rebuilt the frame. No music, no sound of the car's engine, of the wind.
It's cold, as cold inside the car as out, but I don't turn on the 
heater.
The car is a black 1973 TransAm. I built it out of parts. It has a five 
hundred and seventy horsepower engine, a five-speed Getrag manual 
transmission, and seventeen inch racing tires. I get thirteen miles per 
gallon of gasoline and I have to stop to refill every two hundred 
miles.
Northern California, green forest interrupted by small towns, falls 
away behind me with the passing of the morning. By midday I've hit San 
Francisco. The radar detector on the dash flickers once and I slow there 
for the first time, down to eighty. San Francisco passes, a blur: I 
remember I stopped there to get coffee.
I'm tired already, having trouble keeping my eyes open. I slide a 
cassette into the stereo and pump the volume.
The cassette is Nebraska, the best and most depressing album 
Springsteen ever did. Music to kill yourself by.
&nbsp;License, registration, I ain't got none,
but I got a clear conscience
'Bout the things that I done
Mister state trooper please don't stop me
I drive in early afternoon through the college towns around San 
Luis Obispo, past the pink monstrosity of the Madonna Inn. Around three 
o'clock rain sheets down on the car, leaves beaded drops of water on the 
machine's waxed surface. On the freeway south of San Luis Obispo, in the 
desolate area stretching between Obispo and Santa Barbara, a white 
Lamborghini comes down an on-ramp and paces the TransAm down the wet 
freeway. The TransAm pulls ahead slowly, pushing it up to a hundred and 
sixty, a hundred and seventy, until the Lamborghini is no longer visible 
in the rear-view mirror.
The cassette is looping. I keep meaning to change it.
Maybe you got a kid maybe you got a pretty wife,
the only thing that I got's
been botherin' me my whole life
Mister state trooper please don't stop me
Near evening the TransAm comes down through Ventura County, rolling 
south on the 101. The sky is scarlet in the last light of day, and I'm 
reminded of the last thing Ellen Montreson ever said to me: Look at 
that skyline, man. Looks like blood.
Onward through the gathering gloom, headlights on, coming up over 
the long rise and the San Fernando Valley is spread out like a carpet of 
lights ahead. The light has entirely faded from the sky by the time the 
TransAm glides up through the Hollywood Hills, to where the Los Angeles 
skyline appears lit up against the black night sky. Traffic is getting 
thick now, and the TransAm leaves the freeway, rolls east along Second 
Street at high speed, toward the distant white gleam of the Second Street 
Tunnel. I work just the other side of it, in the ARCO Plaza Towers. The 
TransAm rushes silently forward, the tunnel growing closer and closer, and 
at the other end of the tunnel a truck appears, an immense eighteen 
wheeler. The TransAm enters the two-lane tunnel, rolls onward into the 
tunnel's huge white glare. The TransAm is drifting left now, across the 
center line, and now the truck driver sees it too, and for the first time 
a sound from the outside world penetrates the TransAm, the monstrous blare 
of the truck's horn.
It woke me up in time for the crash to put me down again.
I was in a coma for four days.
When I came out of it they told me the truck driver had died.

Heaven and 
Earth

&nbsp;
- 1 -
ON THE FIRST Tuesday morning in August Todd came over with the divorce 
papers.
I was living that summer in a Venice Beach apartment that sat at the 
edge of the sand. It was incredibly small even by beachfront standards, a 
tiny kitchen and a room that doubled as living room and bedroom. I had a 
couch that folded out into a bed, a desk for my computer, and a single 
metal folding chair in front of the desk.
A huge bay window looked west across the beach and out onto the Pacific 
Ocean. In late afternoon the setting sun turned the inside of the 
apartment a gold orange color.
It cost fourteen hundred dollars a month.
The morning Todd came over I had a hangover. I'd learned how to handle 
them by then; when the alarm clock went off I slapped it silly, got up and 
went into the bathroom. When I finished urinating I opened the medicine 
cabinet and took out four aspirin, one amphetamine and two cherry 
Rolaids.
Cherry Rolaids are the best.
The interior of the apartment was gloomy; at six o'clock the sun was 
still hidden way over on the other side of the sky. The light from the 
refrigerator was so bright it made me wince. I'd stocked the refrigerator 
entirely with vegan health food, except for the top shelf, which held 
about forty Long-Necked bottles of Budweiser. I'd stored them 
individually, without the cases. They took up less space that way. I 
twisted the top off one and washed the aspirins and the amphetamine tablet 
down together, followed quickly by the Rolaids. The Rolaids went to work 
almost immediately; I drank about half of the Bud in one long pull, and 
that helped stop the very faint shaking in my hands.
I still had on the dress shirt I'd worn to last night's party. I pulled 
on a pair of jeans with holes in the knees, tucked my AutoMag inside my 
pants at the small of my back, opened the apartment's only door and went 
across the street to check my mail.
I was starting to feel pretty good. The world was a fine place, gray 
with the first light of morning; the air crisp, with a faint breeze that 
smelled of the sea. A two-lane road separated the mailboxes from the 
apartments and beach houses on the other side. The cool asphalt was the 
perfect temperature for walking barefoot.
The mailboxes sat up on posts driven into the sand. The mail actually 
came about two o'clock in the afternoon, but I was rarely home then; that 
gorgeous bay window turned the inside of the apartment into a furnace 
until six or seven pm. I didn't tend to come home until late, and by the time I got home 
I was usually too blitzed to remember to check the mail. That Tuesday 
morning the mailbox held nothing to speak of; the electric bill, a 
postcard from my sister Lisa postmarked Brazil, and a piece of junk mail 
with that laughing fat guy's face on the envelope, telling me I'd won a 
million dollars.
I went back across the street with my mail in one hand and my Budweiser 
in the other. I noticed with annoyance that the front door had swung open; 
unless you slammed the damn thing it usually didn't latch properly.
I was one step inside the doorway, my eyesight not yet readjusted to 
the dimness, when somebody said, "Hi, Jimmy."
I'd been edgy since last Friday. My oldest, one-time best friend, David 
Quan, had threatened to have me kneecapped during an argument Friday, and 
he was the sort of guy who would do it, too.
The mail went right and I went left, yanking the AutoMag free with my 
left hand. There was somebody sitting in front of my desk and I got the 
AutoMag centered on the area I dimly perceived as his chest and screamed, 
"Freeze!"
The standing lamp by the desk came on then and I damn near did shoot 
him. Todd blinked and said, "A bit jumpy today?"
I stood frozen in a marksman's pose Sol Kandel would have approved of, 
Budweiser steady in my right hand, sighting down the AutoMag's barrel. My 
hindbrain conspired with my adrenal gland and the amphetamine to overrule 
my eyes and pull the trigger eight or nine times, just to be safe. 
"Todd?"
He sat in front of my desk, a mild-mannered young lawyer wearing a 
three-piece black pinstripe suit and a red power tie. His briefcase sat 
open on his lap. "I brought the divorce settlement by. If you want to-"
I let the gun drop to my side. "Why the fuck don't you ever knock?"
"The door was open." Todd shrugged. "Besides, if you shot me you 
wouldn't have any friends left." He took a sheaf of papers from his 
briefcase and held them out in my direction. "Look, I'm in a hurry here. 
I've got an eight o'clock in Century City. You want to give this a read 
and sign it?"
I put the gun down on the desk next to the computer, pulled open the 
curtains to bring more light into the room, took the papers and sat down 
on the bed with the papers and my Bud. "Since when do you do 
deliveries?"
He shrugged again. "I had a couple things to talk to you about. This is 
one."
The paper informed me in bold print that it was an Interlocutory Judgment of Dissolution of 
Marriage. In the upper left hand corner it said 
Attorney(s) for Petitioner: 
Todd Wallace, Steinberg &amp; McCallister, 
followed by the company's address and telephone number.
In a box just below that it said Petitioner: Karen Glenn Camber, and 
Respondent: James T. 
Camber. It ran four pages long, full of the sort 
of language lawyers love because it bears so little relationship to 
English.
I spoke while reading. "What else did you want to talk to me about?"
Todd said, "I've got a job you might be interested in."
"No."
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED as 
follows:


1)&#9;That the custody and control of the parties' minor child, namely, 
Jasmine Denice Camber, age 2, is awarded to the Petitioner, subject to 
Respondent's right to reasonable visitation.


"Come on, guy." Todd grinned. "At least let me make 
the pitch before you say no."
Todd has been my best friend for a couple years now. I'm not sure when 
I realized that Todd was a sociopath. I don't mean this makes him a bad 
person, though perhaps it does. It's just that he has no sense of right or 
wrong. What he does have, honed as finely as I've ever seen in anyone, is 
a sense of what he can get away with.
I looked up from the papers. "I'm not in the market for a job." I 
nodded down at the paperwork. "You know, I'm really impressed by this. I 
actually don't think you're trying to screw me. Of course I'm only on page 
two."
I heard genuine regret in his voice. "Well, you agreed up front to give 
Karen everything. It didn't leave me much room to work. Jimmy, about the 
job-"
I took a long drink of the Bud, killing the bottle, set it down on the 
floor next to the bed, and interrupted him. "Todd. Listen to me." I made 
eye contact with him, held it. "Listen carefully. I am a fuckup. A drunk 
and a speedfreak and I'd be a cokehead if I could afford it. It's why 
Karen's divorcing me. It's why the firm fired me. It's-"
"Jimmy, you were the best legal researcher Steinberg &amp; McCallister 
ever had." He put on his favorite sincere expression, the one he uses on 
the jury when he's trying to get alcoholics off on manslaughter charges. 
"Your problem at the firm wasn't being a drunk, it was that you acted like 
an asshole and nobody liked you."
I laughed at that, I had to. Like all the best slanders, there was a 
solid core of truth to it. "Todd, buddy . . ." The smile died. "When I 
tell you I'm a fuckup it's not so you can protest and tell me I'm okay, 
it's not so you can explain to me all the shit I'm doing right with my 
life. It's because I'm really a fuckup and I know it."
"I didn't say you weren't a fuckup, Jimmy. Nobody said you 
weren't a fuckup. We want to hire you anyhow."
I lifted an eyebrow, said quickly, "We? We as in Steinberg &amp; 
McCallister?"
"Yes."
Whatever slight interest I might have had vanished. I turned back to 
the divorce settlement. "No way."
"Jimmy, you need the work."
"No."


&nbsp;Petitioner shall receive 
as her sole and separate property the following:
a)&#9;House and real property located at 4870 Jackson Court, Los Angeles, 
California, more particularly described as Lot No. 15, Tract No. 8358, Los 
Angeles, as per plate recorded in Book 411 of Maps, Pages 83 and 84, 
records of Los Angeles County;
b)&#9;Household furniture, furnishings and appliances located at the 
above-described residence;
c)&#9;Toyota Tercel automobile, California License No. 1TMS030
d)&#9;Personal possessions.


Todd tried another tack. "Guy, the firm needs 
you."
"It's the fifth largest law firm in the country, Todd. It doesn't need 
anybody and especially not me."


&nbsp;Respondent shall receive 
as his sole and separate property the following:
a)&#9;1973 Pontiac TransAm, California License No. 418 HPW, wrecked;
b)&#9;Personal possessions.


"We've got a bad problem, Jimmy. It needs to be 
looked into, and we'd like to keep it in the family, keep it quiet."
"Steinberg &amp; McCallister is a law firm, Todd. Not a family."
"Okay then, we'd like to keep it quiet. You're the best researcher 
S&amp;M ever had, guy. They recognize that."
I sighed. "Todd, stop wasting my time."
Todd sat quietly at the desk for a moment, and then said slowly, "Jimmy 
. . . on Sunday morning Kenny Hernandez smashed open a window on the 
forty-sixth floor and went out."
I put the papers down on my lap, slowly, and stared at Todd. "What?"
Todd said reluctantly, "He was coked up pretty heavy. At least that's 
what the coroner's preliminary report says."
"Oh, Jesus." Through the window I saw the two blond girls I'd named the 
Morning Twins, passing by on their daily 6:30 am jog. Usually I pay 
attention, particularly to the one who jogged in the French-cut bikini 
bottom; my eyes followed along automatically, but that morning the sight 
of all that smooth, flexing muscle didn't really register. I blinked and 
turned back to Todd. "Oh, my God. That's terrible." I got up and went into 
the kitchen for another beer, took a couple of swallows and went back to 
the living room, clutching the cold beer. I stood at the window for a long 
moment, watching the empty beach, vaguely aware of Todd's eyes on me. "Why 
do you always tell me shit like this when I'm hung over?"
"Because you're always hung over."
"That's not true. Sometimes I'm drunk." I picked up the settlement and 
tried to start over, but my concentration was shot. The words seemed to 
float randomly on the page, unconnected to one another.
"You used to be friends with Kenny, didn't you?"
I said irritably, "We had lunch a couple times back when I worked in 
the mailroom. When I got the researcher's job I didn't see so much of him 
any more."
Todd leaned forward in his chair and spoke without any of the trial 
lawyer mannerisms he's so fond of. "Jimmy, we think somebody in the 
mailroom is dealing in a pretty serious way. Three of the Partners are on 
the Mayor's Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force; it's an election year and 
the Mayor holds grudges against people who embarrass him. And this could 
be very embarrassing. If you could just talk to the guys in the 
mailroom-"
"No. I'm not doing it. No way." A single sentence leaped off the page 
at me:
Respondent shall pay to 
Petitioner as and for the support of the minor child the sum of $2,000.00 
per month, for a total of $2,000.00 per month child support, payable on 
the 1st of each month.
"Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ, Todd!" I looked 
up at him. "Two grand a month?"
He had the grace to look slightly defensive. "It's what my ex 
gets per kid. And we've got three kids, not just one girl."
I glared at him. "You make two hundred grand a year."
Todd merely shrugged, and I went back to the contract. The final page 
was pretty straightforward; there was a space at the bottom marked for 
signatures by me and Karen. Hers was already signed.
Two thousand a month.
The number surprised me. I didn't begrudge it to Jasmine, but it seemed 
out of character for Karen to come after me like that.
It seemed out of character for Kenny to go out a window, too.
Finally I looked up again. "Shit. Todd?"
"Yeah?"
"Seventy-five an hour."
I think I surprised him. If not, he faked it well. "Sure."
I sat watching him. I said slowly, "Too quick. Ninety an hour."
He got a hurt expression then and I started to get interested. "Jimmy, 
don't do this to your best friend. Ninety, okay, but don't jerk me around 
like this."
I couldn't keep the grin off my face. "I'll be damned. You really do 
want me back. A hundred and five. Plus expenses."
Todd faked outrage convincingly. "Jimmy! For Christ's sake, guy. I 
can't agree to that."
"I'm the best researcher S&amp;M ever had, remember?" I gestured at a 
pen sitting on the desk, and Todd handed it to me. "Hundred and five 
hourly. Take it or leave it."
Todd said carefully, "If I say yes, you're not going to say 
one-twenty?"
"Would I do that to you?"
"In a second."
"If you say yes, I won't say one-twenty."
Todd thought about it a moment, then said, "Yes," and waited to see 
what I would do.
I said, "Deal."
He actually sighed. "Great. Mind if I ask you a question?"
"Sure." I clicked the pen open.
"Why'd you change your mind?"
I signed my name underneath hers. "I have expenses."

- 2 -&nbsp;
THE CARD FROM my sister Lisa said:
Don't trust anyone.
&nbsp;
I SPENT MOST of that morning transcribing everything Todd had said to 
me, as clearly as I remembered it.
&nbsp;
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, the part with the skyscrapers, dies around eight 
o'clock on any given weeknight. On weekends it never really comes alive in 
the first place. There's a few well hidden clubs, a few seedy places that 
smart white people avoid, and a half dozen hotels with restaurants that 
range from quite good to very bad. The rest of downtown is designed for 
business, nothing else.
In the evening, when the traffic on the 101's not too bad, you can get 
from downtown to Sunset Boulevard in about seven minutes. Beverly Hills 
and West Hollywood are about twenty minutes, and even Westwood is less 
than half an hour; with competition like that it's hardly surprising that 
downtown turns into a graveyard at night.
Just before ten o'clock I parked my 440cc black '69 Plymouth Sports 
Satellite in the lot at the intersection of Fifth and Figueroa. I locked 
the doors though it wasn't really necessary; the Sports Satellite had cost 
me all of $450. Still it was fully $50 more than I paid for the first car 
I ever owned, when I was a teenager-a 1969 440cc Plymouth Sports 
Satellite.
The first one had run better.
I pulled on my black duster coat and walked up the street to the 
fifty-five-story twin towers of the ARCO Plaza.
Cars passed occasionally. Aside from me the streets were empty of 
pedestrians.
The ARCO Towers Plaza consists of three levels underground, and the 
twin skyscrapers; the towers lock up at eight o'clock and go onto security 
access. The south tower is the Bank of America building, which is owned by 
Shuwa of Japan; the north tower is the ARCO building. It was quiet as I 
pushed through the one unlocked swinging door in the north tower and 
approached the guard station. The lobby echoed with emptiness; darkness 
all around except for the spots shining down on the guard station. Two 
blue-suited guards stood duty, Sandy Mitchelson and a younger guy I didn't 
recognize. The younger one looked like a bodybuilder, and he stiffened 
slightly when I walked in, looking me over warily.
Sandy was about sixty-an amiable old ex-cop working to supplement his 
pension-and for his sake I hoped he never had serious trouble, without 
backup, on one of his shifts. He wasn't in any kind of shape; his only 
options would've been to sweet talk the problem away or pull his gun.
Sandy and I knew each other pretty well; his shift ended at eleven 
o'clock, and I'd drunk coffee or beer with him more than once over the 
course of the years, waiting with him for his bus to come.
He seemed surprised to see me. "Mr. Camber!"
I grinned at him. "Hi, Sandy. How you been?"
He reached across the black marble countertop and shook my hand. "Fine, 
fine. I heard you got fired. Are you back?"
"We're talking about it. Can you let me go up if I sign the book?"
He shook his head. "Sorry, Mr. Camber. Afraid not, not this time of 
night. Entry is by card access and escort only."
I nodded. "Okay." I reached into the right pocket of my duster, and the 
bodybuilder tensed visibly, hand hovering over his gun; it must have been 
a slow night. Sandy shot him a disgusted look; I carefully took my SECOM 
card out and tossed it onto the surface of the black marble. "Try 
this."
Sandy just looked at the card, and then shook his head no, 
reluctantly. "Mr. Camber . . . you know you're not supposed to have that 
card no more."
"Come on, Sandy. Just run it." I'd never returned the card to 
Personnel, though you're supposed to when leaving the company's 
employment. There were over three thousand people on the Steinberg &amp; 
McCallister cardholders' list; I was gambling that, without the return of 
the card to remind them, Personnel hadn't gotten around to updating the 
list and taking me off.
After another moment's hesitation, Sandy picked the card up, handling 
it like it was radioactive, and slid it into the slot.
And . . . Joy. The green light came on. Sandy pulled the card back out, 
turning it over in his fingers. He still looked troubled for a moment, but 
then he relaxed and grinned at me. "All right." He handed the card back. 
"You're still on the list, it's not my problem. Where to?"
Jack McCallister's office was on forty-six; my old office and the word 
processing center were on forty-seven. "Forty-seven."
&nbsp;
THE LOBBY ON the forty-seventh floor was completely deserted. Two lines 
glowed on the PBX at the receptionist's desk. Extension 6102 was Word 
Processing, probably one of the girls talking to her boyfriend; extension 
6115 was a young lawyer who'd only been with the firm for a short while 
before I got fired. He'd work long hours for a year or two before he 
realized that none of the Senior Partners really gave a fuck. I got a Diet 
Coke out of the refrigerator in the kitchen behind the reception area, and 
walked down the corridor to my office.
The towelhead had locked it, of course, and they'd changed the locks on 
the door when they fired me. I unlocked the door with a copy of the master 
key and went inside.
Of course I'm not supposed to have one of the master keys. The keys are 
in fact marked "DO NOT DUPLICATE." But when I first worked for Steinberg 
&amp; McCallister I spent half a year as the assistant to the Office 
Services Manager, Margaret Parsons-after working in the mailroom, before I 
got promoted to the researcher's job. I made $7.15 an hour and learned how 
to order office supplies, to set up an office for an executive or a 
lawyer, and to run errands for pretty much everyone. One of the errands I 
ran was to get a batch of keys duplicated for Margaret. One of the keys I 
was supposed to duplicate was the master key, which opens every single 
door in Steinberg &amp; McCallister territory, from the supply closets to 
the offices of the Senior Partners. When I got to the locksmith's, the 
locksmith glanced at the work order that Margaret had given me and said, 
"How many copies?"
I looked at the work order. Margaret had signed it, or the locksmith 
wouldn't have touched the keys-but she hadn't filled in the number of 
copies she wanted. "One of everything," I said after a moment. "And two of 
this one."
"This one" was the master key marked L1. Margaret never noticed that 
she'd given me six keys to duplicate, and that she'd been charged for 
seven duplications.
I let myself into Ahmed Newberg's office with L1. It's a good office, 
though not large; on the western edge of the tower, looking out toward 
West Los Angeles. On a clear day you can make out a thin line of blue 
ocean. At night you can see the skyscrapers on Mid-Wilshire, and those in 
Century City, and the dim outline of the Hollywood Hills as well. I sat 
down at my old desk and drank my Diet Coke, enjoying the view.
I noticed after a bit that the office no longer felt like it was mine. 
Not surprising; Ahmed and I had very different tastes in office decor. 
He'd shuffled around most of the furniture except for the desk itself, and 
gotten rid of two of the four chairs I'd had for visitors. I'd taken all 
of my art when I left, and Ahmed had replaced it with Islamic holy art.
Ahmed wasn't a real towelhead, and Ahmed wasn't really his name. He was 
actually a Swede who'd converted to Islam while working in northern 
Africa. He'd taken the Muslim name when converting. He did wear a turban, 
and in most ways was more Muslim than many people who were raised in 
Islam; every Friday afternoon without fail he spent two hours face down on 
a rug in a mosque on Fourth Street.
I finished the Diet Coke, went to get another, and settled down to get 
some work done. I powered up Ahmed's computer and took a quick look-see 
through his files. In the five months since he'd taken over my office and 
my computer he'd managed to turn my hard drive into a disaster area. Files 
were scattered all over the place; dozens of his word processing files 
were in the root directory. Sloppy, but that was Ahmed.
Steinberg &amp; McCallister runs a distributed Novell network linking 
all of its offices across the country; I connected to the network and 
tried my password:
STEINBERG_1/CAMBER: Access to server denied.
I'd expected that. The Los Angeles network administrator was a 
middle-aged black woman named Sharon Washington, who also ran the word 
processing center. She was an efficient lady; she probably had my account 
deleted the afternoon I got fired. I tried her password next and got the 
same response, which meant she'd changed boyfriends at least once in the 
prior five months; her password was always, without exception, the first 
name of whoever her current boyfriend was.
Sharon's office was just down the hall. I turned off Ahmed's computer, 
locked his door and let myself into Sharon's office. The office was dark, 
which was a good sign; it meant she probably wasn't on duty that night. 
The word processing center, like the main PBX, is open twenty-four hours a 
day in the event that one of the lawyers will have need of them. This 
isn't bad business; PBX is a necessity, and the typists in word processing 
probably work harder at night than their counterparts during the day.
Sharon was a bright lady, but like most network administrators in most 
large corporations, she didn't know as much as she could have about the 
systems she administered. I'd dropped a daemon into her command processor 
the day before Jack McCallister fired me. Nothing dangerous, nothing that 
would harm her computer; I'd merely added a routine that recorded the 
first twenty keystrokes she entered into her system, and copied those 
keystrokes into a hidden file in her root.
The first thing Sharon's system did, on startup, was ask for her 
network password.
Her love life had been a mess recently, to judge from the evidence. 
She'd changed her password three times since I'd left; the current 
password was "BRIAN."
Computer security is like any other kind of security: it keeps out 
honest people.
I logged on as supervisor using her password and took a box of high 
density floppies from the left pocket of my duster. Logged on as 
supervisor I could do absolutely anything I wanted to with the network's 
data, including copying every last bit of Jack McCallister's private 
directory onto floppies to take home with me.
And I did.
&nbsp;
I TOOK THE stairs down to the forty-sixth floor.
I heard faint voices in the stairwell when I opened the door on 
forty-seven. I waited and listened, and the voices grew fainter and then 
ceased. I took the stairs two steps at a time, and then stood in the 
brightly lit stairwell, listening at the door that let out onto forty-six. 
I didn't hear anything, so I let myself through and into the darkened 
forty-sixth floor lobby.
The window Kenny had gone out through, three days ago, had yet to be 
replaced; a sheet of plywood had been put up to cover the broken window. I 
ghosted through the dark, silent lobby and stood next to the broken 
window. You could hear the wind whistling through the plywood. I touched 
the wood; it was cold, and it bent outward slightly. I had a sudden image 
of the fall Kenny had taken, forty-six stories straight down into the 
plaza below; of the impact, illuminated by the bright Sunday morning 
sunshine.
I took a step back, away from the long drop.
Kenny Hernandez and I had not been very close. We worked together in 
Mail/Messenger briefly, shortly after S&amp;M hired me. About all we had 
in common was the fact that we weren't black. We were the only ones in 
Mail/Messenger who weren't.
Sometimes we had lunch together.
He was the person who told me that Margaret Parsons was looking for an 
assistant, who started me onto my slow climb into a position where I got a 
little less shit and had to wear a tie every day. Assistant to the Office 
Services Manager paid $7.15 an hour, a dollar and five cents an hour more 
than the boys in the mailroom were making. Both I and Frank Carbo, who was 
the Mail/Messenger dispatcher, applied for the position. Frank had 
seniority on me, but I got it because I was white.
That's what Frank thought. Kenny agreed with him, and they were 
probably right. When I started with Steinberg and McCallister, all those 
years ago, I was a bright high school dropout with immense ambition, not 
enough education, and a violent attitude problem, a combination that's 
usually good for prison time. I was not a good prospect for the position 
of assistant to the Office Services Manager of the largest, most 
conservative law firm on the West Coast-a job that required willingness to 
take abuse from secretaries and legal assistants and summer associates and 
pretty much everybody else. The lawyers didn't bother to abuse me-then-I 
was too low on the corporate ladder for it to be worthwhile. They abused 
their secretaries and summer associates and legal assistants, who passed 
it on to those of us in Mail/Messenger and Duplication and Filing and 
Library.
I didn't last long with Margaret. She was an old woman who'd taken a 
chance on me largely because I was white and the attitude problem didn't 
show up until she'd been working with me for a few weeks. She spent six 
increasingly unhappy months with me and then asked the Business Manager, 
Bill Martin, to transfer me somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
I didn't have even a high school diploma, but I was obviously bright 
and I could read, write clearly, and type 85 words per minute.
And Bill Martin liked me.
Martin's proposal ended up going all the way to Jack McCallister's 
predecessor as Senior Partner, Tom Steinberg. It was one of Steinberg's 
last official acts before he retired; he okayed the transfer and they 
moved me into Research, into an intern's position that normally requires 
at least a bachelor's degree, and gave me two months to make it work 
before they fired me.
It was the first job I ever had that I wanted to be good at.
&nbsp;
THE SON OF A BITCH had had locks installed in his desk.
I let myself into Jack McCallister's corner office on the forty-sixth 
floor, the office that traditionally belongs to the Senior Partner, and 
sat down in his chair, behind the huge power desk. Jack had filing 
cabinets covering thirty years of unsavory legal activity; the filing 
cabinets were lockable and usually, when I'd tried them before, locked. 
But his personal files, concerning current cases, were filed in 
Pendaflexes in the lower right-hand desk drawer.
Sometime in the months since firing me, Jack had been struck by an 
attack of careful. All seven of his drawers now sported locks, and all 
seven were locked; I tried each one.
With time to work I can usually get a lock open. But I didn't have my 
tools with me, and scratching the lock is just about inevitable. These had 
nice, decorative brass faces; Jack would notice the scratches.
I wiped the handles of the desk drawers, relocked the door to Jack's 
office, and let myself out.
The guards had changed over when I reached the lobby. It was just after 
eleven, temperature down to a cool sixty-five degrees. I walked outside, 
down to Sandy's bus stop on Fourth Street. Sandy sat at the bus stop, a 
zippered-shut gym bag on the ground at his feet. His gun would be in the 
gym bag, though legally he could have worn it outside the building. He was 
drinking what I knew to be Coors out of a paper bag. Sandy told me once me 
that twenty, thirty years ago, L.A. cops used to cite people for drinking 
publicly. Today they could give a shit, but I guess the habit of using a 
bag stayed with Sandy.
I could smell the beer when I sat down next to him. In the summer he 
drank beer; in the winter, coffee.
We sat at the bus stop together and talked until 11:25, when his bus 
came. He wanted to know if it was true, what he'd been hearing about the 
mailroom.
I shrugged. "I don't know. What've you been hearing?"
"Oh . . ." Sandy looked almost embarrassed, and hid it with a swig from 
the Coors. "You know. About the messengers."
I nodded. "Yeah?"
He said abruptly, "Never mind. How's Karen?"
"Pretty good." I was silent a moment. "We're divorcing. Signed the 
papers this morning."
Sandy didn't seem surprised. He rubbed at a liver spot on his hand. 
"That's a bitch, Mr. Camber. She was good for you."
"Yeah. I suppose. Sandy, who told you about the problem with the 
messengers?"
He was silent for a long time, sitting there in the pool of light 
beneath the street lamps. "You guys got a real problem up there, don't 
you?"
"I think they do, yes."
The phrasing did not escape him, and he relaxed slightly. "Juan," he 
said. "That punk you met, the new boy I got working the swing shift with 
me. He was saying yesterday, how the boy who jumped out the window was 
messin' around with some bad shit."
"Meaning what?"
"I don't know, Mr. Camber. That's just how he said it. I don't like 
talking to Juan much, so I didn't ask no more."
I nodded and changed the subject. "How have things been at home?"
"Oh, same as always." He paused a beat, said abruptly, "Good. The 
youngest one's graduating from UCLA at the end of summer session. Pure 
laziness; she could have graduated on time with her classmates, but she 
fucked around and had to work through the summer." Despite his tone I 
could tell he was proud of her. "The wife . . ." He shrugged, wrinkled 
features settling into a comfortable smile. "Pretty much the same. Be 
twenty-five years next May."
"Congratulations."
"Thanks." He finished his Coors and nudged the gym bag. "Want a 
beer?"
I put my hands in my duster pockets so he couldn't see them shaking. 
"Nope. Trying to cut back."
I didn't fool him. "Sensible. I guess I'll pass myself." He tossed the 
beer toward the overflowing can by the bus stop. He made it, but it didn't 
matter; the bag slid off the pile and the bottle inside smashed on the 
sidewalk. I caught sight of Sandy's bus, about five blocks away. So did 
Sandy; he stood, picking up his gym bag. "You don't have to answer this, 
Mr. Camber, but I'm curious. You think the boys in the S&amp;M mailroom 
are really in serious trouble?"
I shrugged. "Maybe."
He shook his head in genuine disgust. "I'll never understand that. Boys 
got a decent job, steady income working in an air-conditioned office. What 
do they want to fuck themselves up like this for?"
I watched his bus roll down the street toward us. "Ever seen the car 
Jack McCallister drives to work?"
"Nope."
"Mercedes 300 SL gullwing, perfect condition. It's worth more than a 
house, worth more than any of the boys in the mailroom could earn legally 
in fifteen years."
The bus pulled to a stop in a front of us, and the doors swung open.
Sandy said, "So?"
"Lot of rich bastards in the world no smarter, no harder-working, than 
the boys in the mailroom, blessed with things the boys in the mailroom are 
never going to have. Legally."
The old man shrugged. "Fuck 'em all anyway. Money ain't everything." He 
grinned at me, turned away to board the bus. "It's a good life."
&nbsp;
WHEN I GOT back to the Plymouth I opened the trunk and took out two 
reasonably cool Long-Necked Buds. I closed the trunk and sat behind the 
wheel, with the engine idling, while I drank them.
I understand the boys in the mailroom. I was one of them. In a very 
real sense I still am.
S&amp;M-"the pain house," as the very old joke goes. I never once heard 
one of the lawyers use the phrase; it is cheap and obvious humor, with 
just enough truth in it to hurt. It suits us.
We live on the fringes of your society; we are constrained by our 
pasts. I am a white man who has taken on the trappings of white America, 
because I can, because it is useful.
I am not of you.
But I can pass.
It is a freedom most of us do not have.

- 3 -&nbsp;
MY ALARM CLOCK went off Wednesday morning at 5:45 
am.
The black depression was starting to seem normal. Oh, yeah. This is 
my life. I barely even noticed how bad waking up felt.
I'd only been in bed since about two A.M.
I made it into the bathroom, shaved and brushed my teeth and ate two 
cherry Rolaids, and then stood under the shower for about fifteen minutes 
without moving, just letting the hot water stream down into my face. I got 
out of the shower when the water started to get cool, put on swimming 
trunks, wrapped up my AutoMag in a towel, took two Buds from the 
refrigerator and went down to the beach.
The sand was still cool, would be for another two or three hours. I 
opened one of the bottles, drank half of it on my way down to the water. I 
wanted some whites so bad it hurt, but I'd learned the hard way that I 
couldn't do the form while wired.
The form is a discipline called Tai Chi Chuan. You see the old Chinese 
men in Griffith Park, every Sunday morning, going through the movements: a 
thousand old men turning, stretching, moving as though they were one 
person, one body. It's an oddly beautiful sight, a thing which never fails 
to remind me of a comment by my Tai Chi instructor, a black American named 
Steve Harrison. "Tai Chi," he said, "is an individual thing. It is an 
expression of your thoughts and feelings, of your place in the universe. I 
feel odd every time I see those old Chinese men performing the form in 
such perfect synchronization. It's scary." And he grinned and said, "And I 
bet the Chinese government loves it."
I spent about five minutes stretching, stopping every now and again for 
a sip from the Bud. Stretching by rotation: fingers, wrists, elbows, 
shoulders, neck. Waist, hips, knees, ankles. Bend over at the waist, knees 
locked, and bring your palms flat against the soft, damp sand. Hold the 
position, breathing deeply.
Relax.
You begin the form facing north, eyes closed, with the sound of the 
Pacific Ocean off to your left. Feet one fist's distance apart. Knees 
slightly bent, hands hanging limply at your sides. Breathing slowly; 
inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth. This is where the 
amphetamines interfere; your heart pounds and the essential slow 
breathing, the concentration, becomes impossible. Rising hands. Step 
forward with left foot, shoulder strike with left shoulder. Turn right, 
right foot forward, into seven star. Hands returning to waist, striking 
forward with shoulder. . . .
When I begin I am actually thinking these things, mental 
instructions about the procedures, watching the body to make sure it 
behaves. Choreographing: . . . into single whip, lean to left, pushing 
down with right hand. Step forward with right foot, right shoulder strike; 
left foot forward, white crane spreads the wings. . . .
The body is smarter than you are. It remembers when you let it. 
About two minutes into the twenty minute routine the thoughts, the 
observer, drain away into nothingness. All that remains is the movement of 
the form.
"Jimmy, if you weren't such a fuckup-"
The body is smarter than you are, or at least mine is. I had my eyes 
open and was moving the instant I heard David's voice. I was about halfway 
through the form, which meant I'd been moving with my eyes closed for 
about ten minutes. My body made the correct choice even before it had its 
eyes open, launching toward the spot where it remembered leaving the 
towel. It came up rolling across the damp sand, towel in hands, wrapped 
towel coming apart and the AutoMag finding my hands and its target all at 
once.
"-you'd be dangerous."
Uppers, coke, smack, name your poison and I have one better: adrenaline 
is the best. The world was unnaturally clear and bright, I felt 
great and David Quan was squatting on the dry sand about fifteen feet 
away, barefoot, wearing an expensive gray silk suit with the trouser legs 
rolled halfway up his shins to keep them out of contact with the sand. 
David doesn't get up for 6:30 meetings, not even to kill people; the suit 
meant he hadn't been to bed yet. He was carrying the little .38 caliber 
snub nosed revolver he favors, holding it loosely in one hand with the 
barrel pointing down at the sand. He didn't move for perhaps two seconds, 
blue-mirrored RayBan-covered eyes still fixed on the spot where I'd 
been.
Without turning my head, without looking away from David, I could see 
at least two of his boys, waiting for him out on the boardwalk.
David glanced at the revolver in his hand, smiled the patented arc-lamp 
smile at me and put it away carefully in his inside breast pocket. He 
stood slowly and waved a hand at his boys on the boardwalk. David's hands 
were empty and I'm faster than he is even when he hasn't been up all 
night; I risked a quick glance to the side. Three of them, all of them 
armed, standing staring at us. But not moving, not yet. David's BMW was 
parked just the other side of the boardwalk.
"Have them get back in the car."
David raised his voice enough to carry. "Wait in the car!" He didn't 
even look away from me to see if they were obeying. Conversationally, he 
said, "I'm never ever going to get used to the way you do that."
"What do you want, David?"
"Talk." He sat down abruptly, lay down and put his hands behind his 
head, unmindful of what the sand would do to his thousand dollar suit. It 
had the effect he was looking for; I let some of the pressure off the 
trigger and relaxed slightly. David lay watching the grayish-blue morning 
sky for a while, and then said without looking at me, "Last night Oscar 
Ventura told me to kill you."
"Oh? That's why the visit this morning?"
"No, of course not. We're friends, after all. I was just going to shoot 
you in the knees."
"How about I kneecap you instead?"
He was silent for another long moment. "Assuming my guys don't take you 
out right after, I imagine Ventura would have your balls sewn in your 
mouth before putting a bullet in the back of your head. You're out of your 
depth, little brother, and you're pissing off a lot of people who have no 
reason to love you."
I hate it when he does this to me. Once a long time ago David Quan was 
the very best friend I had in the world, the best friend I had ever had. 
That changed, for a lot of reasons that seemed important at the time-but 
the fact remains that anyone in David Quan's position but David would have 
at least tried to kill me by now. "It's just whites, David. Volume 
is two, three grand a month."
"So you say. I even believe you. But Ventura doesn't, and that's 
only a part of the problem, man. Even if he did believe you you're working 
in his territory without his permission. Nobody's even argued with 
Ventura over this stretch of beach in almost three years, Jimmy."
I picked up my now-warm, half-full beer and sat down a few feet away 
from David, AutoMag held in my lap with my index finger still on the 
trigger. "I took a job. Research."
David sat up and took his sunglasses off. He searched my features as 
though there he expected to find something significant there, something he 
could read. "You're kidding."
"Steinberg &amp; McCallister again . . . but it's a job."
He took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled. "Thank God. I really 
didn't want to do this."
"And now you don't have to?" I took a long drink of the Bud, managed to 
finish the bottle.
David shrugged. "It'll give us a while. I'll tell Ventura you're 
working; he'll figure it means you're not making much dealing and he'll 
probably let me hold off for a week or two. But Jimmy, you gotta get out. 
And soon. If you'll refer your customers to me I'll take them over. If I 
tell Ventura you're bowing out-he's just a businessman, Jimmy. He doesn't 
give a shit for you one way or another, and he won't kill you for no 
reason." He sighed and climbed to his feet. "Be smart, little brother. It 
makes me proud of you when you do smart things."
"I'm not afraid of Oscar Ventura."
"Like I said." He stood there brushing sand off the silk trousers, 
looked at me and smiled at me with a degree of unmistakable, very real 
affection. "If you weren't such a fuckup, you'd be dangerous."
&nbsp;
AFTER HE WAS gone I picked up the Tai Chi where I'd been interrupted. I 
finished a little before seven o'clock. On the way back inside I checked 
the mailbox for yesterday's mail. Empty.
Inside my answering machine's red message light was cycling, 
blinking twice, waiting, and then blinking twice again. I pressed the Play 
button.
Beep. "Mr. Camber? This is Mike. Uhm . . . I need some more. 
Soon." His voice shook slightly. "I got a project I'm starting and I need 
the boost. Please call me back. 946-3392."
Pause.
Beep. "Camber." I recognized the voice instantly. "This is Jack 
McCallister. I'll see you at two o'clock today. Be prompt."
I showered again, brewed a pot of S&amp;W Colombian, and sat down at 
the computer in my robe, with the disks holding Jack McCallister's data 
directory. I ate one white and drank coffee with cream while the computer 
looked itself over and decided whether its parts were in good working 
order.
I'm always surprised by how little overlap there seems to be among the 
gun, car, and computer people. In significant ways they are very similar 
fields; a matter of understanding the equipment and the tools, and then 
using that understanding to wring improvements in performance from 
elegantly designed hardware.
Karen says that what I call a piece of "elegantly designed hardware" is 
really a "macho power toy."
After about twenty seconds the computer finished looking itself over 
and popped a window up in the middle of the screen with the message 
Good morning, Boss. What can I do for you?
The program that manages my computer is a heavily customized expert 
system named Ralf. As expert systems go Ralf's not very bright, but he's 
smart enough for my needs. I put Ralf on hold for a moment and restored 
Jack McCallister's data to my hard drive. I realized soon enough I wasn't 
getting anything done with the Jack's files that morning; there were over 
a thousand of them, letters, memos, nearly a hundred longer documents.
I popped up a command window for Ralf, wrote: Ralf, print all files 
in \TEMP. Files belong to application WordPerfect. Print in reverse 
order by the file's date, most recent files first. Some files will fail 
load due to password encryption. Generate a list of all failures to load. 
Do not abort process due to failures to load; instead proceed to next file 
in order. Cease printing when the printer notifies you it is out of paper 
or a paper jam occurs. Be cool until I get back.
As I say, Ralf is less than bright, and when you talk to him you 
have to make sure you use words he knows; most of his problems are 
vocabulary problems. "Be cool" he knew because I'd taught it to him. He 
thought over what I'd typed for about twenty seconds, then said: 
"instead proceed to next file in order" is taken to mean "continue 
printing of sorted files." Is this correct?
Yes.
I'm in control, Boss. Ciao.
I checked the laser to make sure it had a full load of paper, 
checked toner to make sure it wasn't low, and got dressed for the day.
Personal effects, it said in the divorce papers. Translation: 
one gun, one computer, one printer, and a bunch of suits. I hate suits. I 
hate ties. But when you're wandering around in a corporate setting, the 
proper suit with the proper tie is the next best thing to a Romulan 
Cloaking Device. I went with a C&amp;R special-blue suit with a baby blue 
silk tie and a white French dress shirt, matching silver cufflinks and tie 
clasp. Black cowboy boots, recently shined.
I'm sure the entire outfit cost less than what David paid for the shirt 
he was wearing that morning. I put the pocket recorder in the inside 
breast pocket of my coat, tucked the AutoMag in at the small of my back 
and then tightened my belt until everything felt snug. The gun made a 
noticeable, not entirely uncomfortable pressure against my spine. It is 
the AutoMag's one real drawback; it's too large to make a good hideaway. I 
kept meaning to buy something like David's .38 for a hideaway, and I kept 
not getting around to it.
I checked myself in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, to 
make sure that nothing bulged.
Perfect.
It was 8:35 am.
&nbsp;
MIKE THOMPSON'S apartment is two miles south, about ten blocks inland; 
a section of Venice Beach where even the gang kids don't go out alone at 
night. If I hadn't already dressed for a day at the pain house I'd have 
walked it rather than driving in early morning rush hour traffic.
It was getting warm already and the Sports Satellite had no air 
conditioning. I drove with my windows rolled down.
The two miles took me most of ten minutes. Making a left turn at the 
corner of Ocean and Pico took six and a half minutes. There are almost no 
left turn lights in Venice Beach. Instead you wait, staring at the 
oncoming traffic until the light turns red, and then two cars, sometimes 
three, make their turn. On occasion, during busy periods with fifteen cars 
lined up ahead of me, it has taken me upwards of ten minutes to make a 
left turn onto one of the major streets.
Sometimes while driving I'll cruise through an intersection where 
nobody's waiting to make a left turn, and every time I'm seized by the 
wild desire to whip into the left turn lane and zoom through, even if 
that's not the direction I need to go.
It wasn't always like this. But there are too few of us who remember it 
the way it was. Most of Los Angeles came here from somewhere else, looked 
around on a warm day in January and decided it wasn't going back to 
wherever it came from. So there is no sense of history or continuity, no 
awareness that in 1980 it was possible to travel at midday from downtown 
to Santa Monica in under half an hour; that in 1970 rush hour only lasted 
an hour; and that five years before I was born, according to my father, a 
"traffic jam" was something that happened when a semi overturned and 
blocked four of the five lanes on the freeway.
At two in the morning you can still drive on the freeways the way they 
were meant to be driven.
Ten years from now even that may be gone.
&nbsp;
I SPENT NEARLY five minutes trying to find a place to park on the 
street before I gave up and parked in a red zone. When I called up to 
Mike's condo he hesitated briefly and then buzzed me in.
I took the stairs up to his third-story condominium. The elevators 
servicing his condo are mirrored on all four walls, so that you see 
infinite reflections of yourself when you step inside. They are vaguely 
disquieting to me.
It was a quick transaction. Mike Thompson was about my age, a 
programmer who did custom database work for small companies. He was a 
small pale man who didn't exercise enough. In the three years I'd known 
him he had never, despite his closeness to the beach, had a tan.
Mike chattered nervously after letting me in. He didn't comment on how 
I was dressed, if he noticed; he had certainly never seen me in a suit 
before. "Thanks for coming over so soon, Mr. Camber. I didn't realize 
until I got up this morning to go back to work that I was out. I usually 
keep a couple in my desk drawer so I can take one when I need it, but 
there's also the bottle in the bathroom. I didn't realize until I got up 
this morning to go back to work that I was out in both places."
He hadn't invited me to sit, and was standing within a few feet of the 
door. I smiled at him. "No problem. Sixty dollars."
It was an exorbitant price, sixty cents a tablet on whites I was 
getting for about eight cents apiece. But I am a nice white boy with blue 
eyes, and I had brought them to his door, and there was a reasonable 
guarantee that he was not buying caffeine tablets or worse instead of what 
he wanted.
Mike paid cash, without arguing.
I smiled at him, slipped the three twenties into my pants pocket, and 
left without saying good-bye. I was in and out in under five minutes.
A woman from parking enforcement was ticketing my car when I got back 
downstairs. I smiled at her, thanked her and took the ticket from her hand 
when she was done. They are quite deservedly the most hated government 
employees in all of Los Angeles, and usually get treated as such. This one 
almost smiled back at me before she caught herself.
I put the ticket into the glove compartment with the other twenty 
parking tickets I'd gotten since buying the Sports Satellite. It wasn't 
necessary that I pay any of them, since the car wasn't registered in my 
name.
&nbsp;
THERE IS A MINI-MALL underneath the ARCO Towers, three levels of shops. 
It was nearly ten o'clock when I pulled into the underground parking 
structure, gave the boy my car and took the stub from him.
On the stub it informed me that one day's parking cost $20.00. Five 
months earlier it had been $18.50.
The shopping structure underneath the ARCO Towers is one of the nicer 
features of downtown. It's three stories designed to do nothing but meet 
the various needs of business people. It's never crowded because there is 
no very convenient way for casual customers to reach the shops-no business 
in the world will validate a twenty dollar parking stub for the sake of a 
fifteen or twenty dollar lunch.
I bought a copy of the Wednesday L.A. Times and a copy of the 
mid-August issue of PC Magazine at the bookstore on level three, took them 
over to the breakfast counter at Phanny's Pharmacy and ordered orange 
juice, wheat toast with butter, and a large glass of milk. I read the 
Times-Metro, Sports, Calendar, and the comics in the View section-while 
eating the toast and drinking the milk and orange juice. Calvin and 
Hobbes made me laugh out loud.
After finishing the drinks I went back to the counter and ordered a cup 
of coffee with cream, downed an amphetamine with the coffee and then drank 
the coffee while skimming through PC Magazine to see if there was anything 
of interest.
At 11:15 I rode the elevators up to the forty-third floor to take Frank 
Carbo to lunch.
&nbsp;
WE HAD LUNCH at Hamburger Hamlet, an upscale burger joint on Flower and 
Fifth. We beat the lunch rush by a good half hour and got seated 
immediately. Frank ordered a burger and I ordered the steamed 
vegetables.
Karen said once that Frank Carbo reminded her of a young, black Alan 
Alda. It was an eerily apt description; Carbo was one of the gentlest, 
sweetest, nicest people I'd ever met. It always amazed me that he 
could wear ties with sweaters and manage to make it look cool.
There was a time, a little over four years ago, when Frank and I were 
on the verge of becoming very good friends. We went to lunch about three 
times a week; Karen and I went out with him and his wife Terry a couple 
times a month. Dancing, movies, a couple different jazz clubs. Frank had 
invited me to sit in with his band during practice sessions, which was a 
hell of a compliment; my guitar was rusty by then, and even as a teenager 
I'd never been good enough to keep up with Carbo's band. The band was 
tight; not commercial, and he was having trouble getting airplay 
for any of the tracks on the two albums he'd cut-but for people with the 
sense to realize what they were hearing his work was a joy.
Karen and I enjoyed being with Frank and Terry. People envied us; Karen 
and I were in love, and so were Frank and Terry. And it showed. Our 
friendship with them, and mine with Frank, faltered when I got promoted 
into the job Frank figured he deserved, and it never really recovered.
I don't know which of us was more dismayed to find out that the other 
was divorced.
Frank sat stirring the crushed ice in his margarita. "I don't know, 
man. I went on tour in January, took two months of leave time and booked 
six weeks of dates. One of the dates we opened for Winston Marsalis." He 
knocked back half the drink, grinned at me with a degree of cynicism I 
hadn't seen in him before. "Terry stayed home. She had no leave coming and 
we couldn't afford for her to quit her job and come with me. I come home 
and she tells me it's over, married six years and it's just doesn't feel 
right to her any more. Can you get that?" he demanded. "Doesn't 
feel right. No specifics, doesn't think I was cheating on her, says 
she's not in love with somebody else. Says it's not the money. I offered 
to quit the band, and I get, You're a nice guy, Frank. I love you. I just 
don't want to see you again." He killed the rest of the drink. "Seven 
weeks and two days after I moved out she was dating Mitch." Mitch was the 
band's bass player. "The band's going to come apart over this." The 
waitress wandered by, asked if we wanted more. We both said yes and she 
went away again. "I keep thinking, thank God there weren't any children. 
You know?"
"I know exactly."
"Oh. That's right." Embarrassment flickered across his features, was 
gone. "How old is Jasmine now?"
"Two and a half."
"How'd it happen?"
I had wondered how to answer that; I'd been hoping he wouldn't ask. I 
said slowly, "I'm still not sure. It just started going bad and then 
didn't get better. The crash ate up money we were saving for a trip to the 
Virgin Islands. The car was totaled, and it was never insured for what it 
was really worth. Too much of the car's value was in labor." Frank nodded; 
I think he was one of maybe three people at Steinberg &amp; McCallister 
who had appreciated what that car meant to me, and something of the work I 
had put into it. "The hospital bills were bad, but we were only liable for 
fifteen percent of them; the insurance got the other eighty-five. I didn't 
get out of the hospital for three weeks, and by then the case I'd gone up 
to Oregon to research was in the toilet and S&amp;M settled on it."
The waitress came by again, left a margarita in front of Frank, a rum 
and coke in front of me.
Frank flashed that cynical, oddly disconcerting grin at me again. "Jack 
McCallister was attorney of record."
"Yeah. That put me on McCallister's shit list in a big way; I think 
after that he was just looking for an excuse to put me away. And I gave it 
to him."
"You were drinking too much," he said. I looked into the bottom of my 
first rum and coke, saw some still hiding among the cubes, and knocked it 
back. I picked up the replacement the waitress had brought, and started on 
it. "Still are."
"Probably. What happened to Kenny, Larry?"
I had been avoiding the subject throughout lunch, waiting to see 
whether Carbo would bring it up himself. He froze a second, then shrugged. 
"Couldn't handle the pain house any more, went out a window. You know."
I smiled at him. "You know why we're having lunch."
Frank looked unhappy. "Yeah, Jack still has his secretary type up the 
super-secret confidential memos. We knew you were coming, talk to us 
darkies."
"Frank, why me?"
"You're the best," he said, which was true.
"Is that a good enough reason? For McCallister?"
"It-" He stopped, closed his mouth and looked interested for the first 
time. "You know, that's a real good question. You're probably the only 
suit-and-tie the folks in the mail room would talk to. I doubt anybody 
would talk to the cops."
Depending on how the cops went about asking, there was some truth to 
that, too. But it was the sort of reasoning that was completely foreign to 
Jack McCallister. I filed it and changed the subject slightly. "How bad 
was Kenny toward the end?"
"He kept quitting, asking to be taken back. Finally he quit once too 
often, Bill Martin didn't want him back in Mail/Messenger again. They 
thought it over a bit, put him into Duplication."
"He was using pretty heavily."
Frank nodded. "More or less all the time toward the end. Coke. Good 
stuff, I think, not crack or anything. Pure."
"On Tuesday Todd told me they thought somebody in Mail/Messenger was 
dealing. 'In a pretty serious way,' was the phrase he used."
"So?"
"Frank, are you selling?"
He said simply, "Yes."
"How long and how much and did you sell to Kenny?"
Frank took his time replying. He looked around the crowded restaurant 
as if wondering whether somebody had a shotgun mike trained on the table. 
He looked back at me as if wondering whether I was wearing a wire, and 
said, "About three months now. Not much yet, but it's growing fast. I 
cleared fifteen hundred dollars last month. This month's just started and 
I'm over a thousand already." He paused. "I've sold to a lot of people at 
the firm but I wasn't selling to Kenny. I don't know who he was buying 
from."
"Why?"
Again he took a very long time answering. "I think Terry left me over 
the money, Jimmy. All the time, year after year, chasing the bills and 
never being caught up. I think it just got to her. Mitch's father owns an 
auto body shop on Sepulveda, does good business. They're probably not rich 
by white standards, but they're not hurting." He took a long pull on the 
margarita. "I think it's why she started seeing Mitch. I just thought . . 
." His voice trailed off and he looked like he was about to cry.
"You thought maybe if the money wasn't tight all the time, if you could 
buy a house and have new cars that were paid off and not always be behind 
on the credit cards, you thought maybe she'd come back."
Frank's voice broke on the word. "Yeah." He couldn't look at me.
"I'm sorry, man."
"Me too. Excuse me." He got up from the table and went to the bathroom. 
I sat with my drink and waited for him to come back, watching a group of 
on-the-rise young executives at lunch, two tables over. They are a curious 
breed, full of immense good cheer and energy. Their tans come from the 
tanning parlors next door to their gyms. They know too little about diet; 
even the ones who attempt to eat correctly rarely succeed. They do too 
much weight work and not enough aerobics. Most of them are vaguely aware 
that stretching is good idea, but they don't do it and if you ask one of 
them why it's a good idea he can't tell you. Despite their radiant, 
sculpted good health, they are aging far faster than they know. Many of 
them will die of heart attacks while still in their forties.
I know the type intimately. Lots of them bought from me that summer.
When Frank came back he was in control again. "Sorry about that."
"It's okay. One last question and then we'll have some more drinks on 
Steinberg &amp; McCallister."
"Sure."
"None of you guys are talking to Todd Wallace."
"Not likely. The guy's a complete asshole, Jimmy. I don't know why you 
hang out with him."
"Make a guess for me. How would Todd-or McCallister, or anybody 
else-find out someone in the mailroom was selling?"
"I don't know, Jimmy. I'm not selling to the lawyers, and none of them 
have asked any of us anything. I think I'd know."
&nbsp;
WE GOT BACK upstairs at 2:15.
I picked up my expense vouchers at the business office on 46, smiling 
at the girl who handed them to me. She was new since I'd worked there, and 
pretty, and she smiled back very nicely. The business office is located at 
one end of a long east-west corridor that runs the length of the 
forty-sixth floor; about halfway down the length of the corridor I saw the 
Senior Partner, Jack McCallister, stride down the hallway like Caesar 
entering Rome, and go into the bathroom.
I smiled at the girl again. "Excuse me."
She smiled back again. "Any time."
McCallister was standing at the urinal when I came in. He was a 
handsome man in his late fifties, with rugged movie star features, black 
hair and beard brushed with silver. His contact lenses were bluer than my 
eyes. Hell, they were bluer than Paul Newman's. He wore Brooks Brothers 
suits. Nothing else, ever.
He was the youngest Senior Partner in the company's eighty-three year 
history.
I took the urinal two over from him and unzipped. "Message on my 
machine said you wanted to talk to me. That works out real good, 'cause I 
wanted to talk to you too."
Jack glanced over at me. His expression got about five degrees colder. 
"You're late, Camber."
"Sorry. How've things been since you fired me, anyhow?"
"I've been enjoying it."
"I bet. Still defending child molesters?" The muscles in McCallister's 
jaw clenched. He didn't answer, which I guess meant he was. "I hear you 
have problems, Jack."
"Well, you're back." He zipped up and went over to the sink to wash his 
hands.
I smiled. "Yeah, I could see where that would ruin your day. You'll be 
pleased to know I'm right on top of the situation. In control." I 
stepped back and zipped up as he was drying his hands. He headed for the 
door and I followed him.
Jack's a germ freak; at the door he paused for a moment, looking at my 
hands-shook his head and pushed his way out through the door. He walked 
quickly back toward his office, as though trying to lose me. "I just got 
back from lunch with Frank Carbo."
"Who's he?"
I think I actually stopped walking for a moment. "He's-" I was talking 
to McCallister's receding back. I strolled after him, caught up to him at 
the door to his corner office. It was a bright day, and the sun beat in 
through both the south and the west windows at once, sunlight so bright it 
made it oddly difficult to see. McCallister seated himself and stared at 
me while I turned one of his visitor's chairs around and sat down in it 
with my arms on the backrest. "You don't know who Frank Carbo is?"
"Should I?"
"He's worked in your mailroom for eight fucking years."
He sat up straighter, managing to look more than a little like Charlton 
Heston as Moses. "Watch your language."
"Excuse me. Eight damn years."
"I don't pay much attention to the mailroom."
"People have noticed."
"What did you find out at lunch?"
I dug one of the expense vouchers out of my pocket and plucked the 
decorative pen off his blotter set. I filled it out while talking. "Not 
much. Carbo got divorced recently. And they've raised prices again at 
Hamburger Hamlet."
"Is that significant?"
"Could mean inflation's getting out of hand, I suppose." I used his 
decorative stapler to staple the receipt to the expense voucher, and tried 
to hand it to McCallister. He simply sat back in his chair, looking at the 
voucher in my unwashed hands, so I dropped the voucher on his blotter, put 
his decorative pen back in its holder, and waited.
"Is it significant," he said with strained patience, "that Carbo 
recently got divorced?"
"Probably not."
McCallister sighed, gingerly picked up the voucher and reached for his 
decorative pen-hesitated a moment, then opened his desk drawer and took 
out a BIC. He started to sign the voucher and stopped abruptly. 
"Eighty-two fucking dollars for lunch at Hamburger Hamlet?"
I laughed at him. "Language, Jack. . . . We had drinks. Lots of 
drinks. And then the waitress was cute so I tipped good." I grinned at 
him, a fuck-you grin he'd probably have recognized, in the mirror. 
"With your money."
He sat there glaring at me, germ-free BIC in hand. "You," he said 
finally, enunciating the words so carefully you'd have though he was the 
drunk one, "are an amazingly obnoxious fellow."
I shrugged and returned the stare, smiling. "Oh, we both are, Jack. 
Difference is I'm having to work at it, and for you it comes natural."
He bit back a reply and scrawled his name on the slip in a single 
vicious scrawl and threw it across the desk at me. "You didn't learn 
anything. Why did you waste your time and our money on the guy?"
"Two reasons. First, I like him and I haven't seen him in too long. 
Second-" I paused. "Has it ever occurred to you that Mail/Messenger makes 
deliveries all over this city? And that your dispatcher is the person who 
sends them on their deliveries?"
"So?"
I sat there looking at him. He wasn't this stupid, not even close, not 
even on a bad day. Not even if he had been drinking. Finally I 
said, "Recently I heard an interesting rumor. I heard that there were 
problems with the messenger service at S&amp;M. Mind you, I didn't hear 
that from Todd. Somebody who doesn't even work for S&amp;M told me there 
were problems with the messengers. What do you think that problem might 
be, Jack?"
"That's what you're here to find out, Camber."
"Ah. Well. This is an interesting thought, Jack. If you have a problem 
with the messengers, you probably have a problem with your dispatcher. 
Would you say that's a good guess?"
Jack nodded as though thinking it through. "And this Carbo fellow-"
"Is your dispatcher. Eight years now." A flicker of real curiosity 
touched me. "You really didn't know Carbo's name?"
I think he realized he'd overplayed it at that point; he shrugged, 
relaxing back into his chair, rubbing a hand through his distinguished, 
gray-streaked beard. "I'm sure I've heard it before."
I nodded and stood. "Well. I'll keep you posted if I learn 
anything."
"You do that." McCallister stood also, watching me. "Camber?"
I stopped at the door. "Yeah?"
"I'm the one who recommended we have Todd ask you to come back."
I believed him instantly and it was easily the scariest thing I'd heard 
in a month. "No shit?"
McCallister stood there with the anger glittering in his eyes. When he 
spoke he was obviously controlling the desire to raise his voice. "Camber, 
you get drunk on my time again, I'm going to change my mind. I'll put up 
with your normal arrogance and vile manners because, at the moment, I find 
you useful. But I do not find you useful enough to put up with you 
drunk."
I stood there looking at him for a moment, standing there in the 
sunlight on his forty-sixth floor corner office. It's a part of the game 
they play, that they're taught to play with the help. Keep your distance; 
drop down into their world every now and again with the occasional touch 
of paternal kindness, and the occasional touch of the whip. Remind them 
where they stand.
McCallister was very good at the game.
I said softly, "You know, Jack, you're right. I'm drunk and you're a 
prick-"
"But by evening you'll be sober," he said dryly. 
"Nah. By evening I'll be really drunk. And then I won't 
care what a prick you are."
I left his door open behind me.
&nbsp;
I WASHED MY hands on my way out.
Handling things owned by lawyers always has this effect on me.

- 4 -&nbsp;
MARGARET PARSONS was not in, and her current 
assistant was nobody I knew, a young and immensely polite black fellow who 
refused to set me up in one of the spare offices without instructions from 
Margaret. I thanked him and left, stopping at the elevators to have the 
receptionist validate my parking stub. I stopped again down at the parking 
station and had the attendant point out where he'd parked my car. I had to 
wait before the attendant was free; at 3:30 many of the senior executive 
types are already leaving for the day, attempting to beat rush hour.
I got my notebook out of the car and went on over to 
O'Shaugnessy's.
O'Shaugnessy's is a huge, dimly lit bar down on 3, the plaza's 
bottom level. They serve munchies but no real food. The bartender on duty 
at 3:30 was a Mexican who I didn't know. I bought a Bud at the counter and 
took a seat off in the back, underneath one of the tiny spot lamps where 
there was enough light to read.
The cocktail waitress was a tall young woman with impressively long and 
straight blond hair. She wore little white high-heeled cowgirl boots with 
a black miniskirt, white silk shirt and black cowgirl vest. She stopped by 
as I was setting my papers out on the table top and glanced at my Bud 
without expression. "You going to be ordering more?"
"Yes."
She smiled at me then; I had graduated from waste of space to source of 
income. "Great. My name's Cindy. Call me when you need something."
"I'll do that."
After she left I got down to work. There is a data collection form I 
designed about half a year after I started working in Research. I filled 
one out whenever I started a new investigation. It was six pages long when 
blank and often ran into the hundreds of pages before an investigation was 
done.
To be fair, there was a similar form my superiors in Research had given 
me when I started. But the emphasis on that form was all wrong. The first 
question on my form read:
Who's paying to have the research done?
I wrote down in pencil, Steinberg &amp; McCallister. I looked at 
what I'd written for a second and then erased it and wrote, Jack 
McCallister.
What result does the employer expect/desire from the 
investigation?
According to Todd Wallace, to discover whether or not drug dealing 
is going on in mailroom, and if so, to prevent S&amp;M and the Mayor from 
suffering embarrassment. According to Jack McCallister-
I realized then that I couldn't remember Jack saying a word about what 
he wanted out of me. I took the microcassette recorder out of my coat 
pocket and rewound side B to the beginning. Side B had Jack on it; Side A 
had Frank.
I plugged in the earphone and listened to my conversation with Jack 
again.
Not a word. Implication that he didn't know Frank Carbo's name, without 
coming out and saying so. Direct statement that he didn't pay much 
attention to the mailroom. Nothing else.
I found myself grinning when the conversation ended. Jack is very good 
at word games. I made a mental note to myself to be completely sober the 
next time I talked to him and went on to the next question.
In what way is the employer damaged by the situation as it 
exists?
In what ways does he benefit from it?
In what ways might the investigation benefit or damage the employer?
The first page is like that. All about the employer. Not until the 
second page do you get to questions about the subject of the 
investigation.
Subject of investigation?
Company, person, or event?
If company or person, in what ways is the company/person damaged by the 
situation as it exists?
In what ways does he benefit from it? In what ways might the 
investigation benefit or damage the company/person?
I lost myself in the work. And the Budweiser. Not enough to get 
seriously drunk, just enough to keep the outside world outside. I was 
vaguely aware of the level of noise inside the bar rising, of people being 
seated around me. I was on my fourth Bud and my eighth page of notes when 
a voice said, "I thought I'd find you here." It took a moment for the 
voice to penetrate; I looked up and saw Todd standing on the other side of 
the table. I glanced at the clock on the wall; 6:45 already. "They 
wouldn't give you an office to work from?"
I blinked at him. "No. Not until tomorrow."
"Okay. We still on for tonight?"
"Huh? Oh, right." Wednesday. The monthly Malibu Chamber of Commerce 
meeting was tonight. Todd went to them to network and I went to them to 
sell whites. "Sure. Thanks for reminding me."
"No problem. Pick you up at 8:30?"
The meeting started at nine. "Yeah. Sure. I'll be ready."
Todd nodded and left. I tried to get back into the worksheet, but the 
reverie had been shattered and I couldn't get back the train of thought 
I'd been following. I finished my beer, put my worksheets in order and put 
them in my notebook. I paid my bill and left.
It was empty outside. The shops close at five or six o'clock; after six 
only O'Shaugnessy's is still open. A few people were entering as I 
left; the plaza itself was so silent the sound of my boots echoed with 
each step.
There are escalators at both the north and south sides of the plaza, 
and stairs in the center. I rode up the north escalator. At the top of the 
escalator to level two I stepped off and turned to my left to get on the 
escalator to level one.
A heavily muscled arm came around me from behind and clamped down on my 
throat, nice and snug, keeping the air trapped in my lungs; no shouting 
allowed. Knee in my back, pulling me off balance. A distant part of me was 
noting with admiration the clean competence of it all when his right arm 
came around, clutching a big bright Bowie knife. That same distant part 
felt a sharp flash of disgust at the brutal stupidity of the mistake; 
you're supposed to put the knife in the target's back, where he can't get 
his hands, both of which are free, in the way. The knife descended lazily 
and killed my notebook completely dead, went through two layers of red 
leather and reinforced cardboard and stopped when the hilt of the knife 
touched leather. I held the edges of the notebook with both hands and 
watched the point of the knife hovering an inch over my chest. The man 
holding me grunted with effort and the tip of the knife came closer.
I hit him in the face with the back of my head. It was the only part of 
him I could reach. The knife point wavered and I hit him again as hard as 
I could, three times, four. I felt his nose break and suddenly the knee in 
my back vanished, which was the last mistake he got that night. I planted 
my feet and bent at the waist, picked him up and brought him forward over 
my right hip. One smooth, circular motion; the human body doesn't like to 
move in straight lines. His arm came off my neck and I threw him no more 
than five feet. Nobody had ever taught him to fall correctly; he landed 
like a sack of cement and while he was getting back to his feet I pulled 
my AutoMag free.
He lunged at me, a big blue mountain with a knife.
If I'd had time to think about it I might not have done it. The knife 
came my way again, very slowly. Drifting, disconnected. I took two steps 
backward and centered the AutoMag and fired twice directly into the middle 
of his chest. He stopped in mid-lunge when the first shot struck him, the 
force of the shot straightening him up out of his crouch. The second shot 
flipped him off his feet and he didn't fall any more gracefully this time 
than the last.
He died pretty quietly. I stowed the AutoMag, picked my notebook up off 
the floor and watched him die while I worked the Bowie free. The face was 
familiar and I placed it while he was wheezing his last breaths: Juan, the 
security guard I'd seen working with Sandy just last night. After he 
hadn't breathed for a while I realized I was still holding the Bowie he'd 
tried to kill me with.
I looked around slowly.
No voices. Nobody in sight.
So, Mr. Camber, you say you shot this man with this concealed weapon 
for which you do not have a carry permit? Just out of curiosity, why 
were you carrying it? Why did he try to kill you? Do you have any 
witnesses it really was self-defense? Do you mind if we read the 
worksheets in the notebook he killed? How about if we arrest you and 
search your car? Your apartment?
I had enough whites behind the mirror to send me away for a good many 
years. The next time I saw Jasmine she'd be in high school-
I wiped the knife clean and left it on Juan's body.
Still nothing. Silence and emptiness.
I tucked the AutoMag back in place and walked away without hurrying. 
Rode the escalator up to level one. Walked to the entrance to the garage, 
made sure my tie and coat were straight and went inside. Presented my 
ticket to the boy, holding my notebook clutched against my side so that 
nobody could see it had been stabbed.
Smiled at the boy when he brought me the car. Got in the car and drove 
away. Without hurrying. Drove home down the 10 Freeway, through the tag 
end of rush hour. Made a good twenty miles an hour most of the way.
&nbsp;
TODD KNOCKED ON my front door as I was getting out of the shower and I 
called for him to come in. I'd eaten three whites when I got home; I felt 
jittery but completely sober.
I had scrubbed myself all over until I felt raw, especially my hands. 
I'd taken my shirt and coat off and thrown them away in a dumpster behind 
the taco stand down the street; there's a test that can tell if you've 
fired a weapon recently, and they can run it on your clothes.
My neck was incredibly sore, but if it was going to bruise it hadn't 
yet. The back of my head had had blood on it when I got home but it was 
Juan's, not mine; there was a raised knot where I'd hit him but the skin 
was not broken.
The notes could be reconstructed. Despite the damage to it I paused 
over the leather notebook; it was a gift from Karen. But the hole in its 
center would fit the Bowie found on Juan's body too neatly. It had to 
go.
The gun had to go.
And the whites. Most of them were in a big plastic baggie in the empty 
space on the other side of the medicine cabinet; if you unscrewed the 
medicine cabinet from the wall it left a hole in the wall that the cabinet 
itself did not quite fill. I took the cabinet down, took the bag. I almost 
forgot my personal vial of whites in the cabinet itself. About fifteen 
white crosstop tablets; I took the vial out and dropped it into the 
baggie.
I had the gun, the whites, and the notebook sitting together on the 
floor of the living room when Todd came in. He looked at me, toweling 
myself dry, and then at the stuff on the floor. "You're not ready," he 
observed.
"I want to retain you."
Todd looked at the mess on the floor again. "Shut up. I need to call 
Karen." He used my phone without asking for permission, stood looking out 
the bay window at the boardwalk while the phone rang. "Karen? Hi, this is 
Todd. How are you doing? Good, good. Look, the reason I called is I wanted 
to know if you were going to need my services again." He paused. "Yes, he 
signed them yesterday morning. Sorry I haven't gotten back to you on 
that." Pause. "Yes, dear, I know it was a lot, but he needed some reason 
to get off his ass. This worked." Pause. "Okay, great. Look, the reason I 
ask is, Jimmy wants me to do some work for him, and I wanted to clear up 
any possible conflict of interest with your divorce. Could that be a 
problem?" Pause. "Great. Last thing, Karen, this call is going to show up 
on Jimmy's phone bill. If it comes up, I called to tell you that he signed 
the papers. That's all. Nothing about wanting to represent him. Clear? 
Great. I'll talk to you soon." He hung up and turned to me. "Get your 
check book. Three hundred dollars for the first two hours. Beyond that 
maybe the rate goes down. Maybe not." After I'd given him the check he 
said, "You're my client. Talk."
"About an hour and a half ago a securit y guard at the ARCO building, a 
fellow named Juan, tried to kill me. Knife. I shot him twice and left 
without telling anybody I'd done it. I need to get rid of the evidence 
now." I told him what I'd done so far. "I haven't figured out yet what to 
do with this stuff. It all has to go for the reasons I told you. I think 
I'm going to bury the whites on the beach and try and dig them up later. 
They don't link me to anything but themselves. I haven't thought yet what 
to do with the gun and notebook."
"Is the gun registered?"
"Yes."
"Did anybody see you when you shot this guy?"
"No. I'm sure about that."
Todd sat down on the couch and was silent for several moments. I 
dressed while I waited for him to decide what to do. Finally he looked up 
at me and said, "Can I give you your check back?"
"No."
"All right. Let's walk down to the pier together."
&nbsp;
WE STOOD AT the edge of the pier and waited until nobody was near us. I 
faced outward, toward the dark nighttime ocean; Todd was turned toward the 
shore, watching people. On Wednesday nights in Venice there aren't that 
many people around. I was wearing a blazer with my AutoMag tucked in back; 
I'd found a new bruise when tightening my belt to keep the gun in place. I 
carried the notebook at my side, so that the knife wound was not 
visible.
After several minutes had passed Todd said, "Toss the gun."
I did. I put effort into it. It landed maybe eighty yards out in the 
ocean.
"Wait . . . okay. Now the notebook."
I'd taped a pair of butter knives inside the notebook, to weight it 
down, and taped the notebook itself shut. It didn't go nearly as far; 
perhaps thirty-five yards.
"Okay. Let's stroll back."
We strolled back through the cool night air, along the tideline, 
keeping up high enough to stay out of the water. Nice and quiet, not 
talking to each other. It is about a five minute walk from my apartment to 
the pier. Todd walked along looking at his feet, hands in his pants 
pockets, lost in thought.
They didn't have the bubble machines going or I'd have seen them a lot 
sooner. We were actually crossing the sand toward my apartment when Todd 
said quietly, "Nobody saw you, huh?"
There were five black and whites and a couple of unmarked police cars 
parked in front of my apartment. Right about then the cops saw us walking 
toward them across the sand; they hit us with the spotlights and one of 
them yelled out over a squad car loudspeaker, "FREEZE!"
We did.
"PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS AND MOVE FORWARD SLOWLY!" the voice 
boomed.
We did.
Todd said out of the corner of his mouth, "You're such a 
fuckup."

