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  “Hey, boy, how you doin?” he asked as the dog, which appeared to be a mix of all breeds at once, happily lapped up his attention.

  A voice from inside the box hollered, “Hey! Who took my dog?”

  “He’s out here,” the Governor called back.

  A long-bearded man with a combat jacket and Brillo-pad hair slithered out and confronted him. “What’re you doin’ with my dog?”

  “Just petting him, is all.”

  “That’s my dog.”

  “He looks like a good one.”

  “He’s mine.”

  “Fine,” the Governor said, standing up, which caused the dog to run in a circle and beg for more attention. Pooch deserves better, he thought. “I’m looking for someone who knew Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy who?” Brillo-head asked.

  “Don’t know. That’s one of the things I’m trying to find out. He was a little guy with a bad eye.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “I know. He’s dead.”

  Brillo-head looked at the Governor for a long moment, then muttered, “Guess that’s why he left all his stuff.”

  “What stuff would that be?”

  “What’s it to you? It’s mine now. He won’t need it. He left it.”

  “Was there a Bible in the stuff he left?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “So mind if I see it?”

  “It’s mine now,” Brillo-head said.

  “Do you read it?”

  “No. I tear out pages and stuff them into the bottom of my shoes. Makes ’em more comfortable.”

  The Governor approached the man, and the dog stayed with him. “I’ll buy that book, or what’s left of it, from you.”

  “With what?”

  Glancing around to make sure he was not being watched, the Governor pulled his roll of ones out of his pocket, and Brillo-head dove for it. Expecting something like this, the Governor side-stepped him and watched the dog run out of the way as the man fell to all fours.

  “Ow, dammit!” Brillo-head cried.

  “Five of these are yours, my friend, no fighting, no argument, if you go get me that book,” the Governor said. “Tell you what else. I’ll give you another five for the pooch.”

  The dog wagged his tail as though he understood.

  “You’re a crazy!” Brillo-head said.

  “Probably. And you’re ten bucks richer if you go get me that Holy Bible and let me take this fleabag off your hands.”

  “Havin’ that dog by me got more money,” the man said.

  Whether that was actually true or not, the Governor knew that there was a widespread belief having an animal increased the proceeds from begging.

  “Let me ask this, then,” the Governor said. “How fast can you run?”

  “What the hell you talkin’ about,” Brillo-head said, slowly, painfully getting off his knees.

  “What I said. You think you can outrun me? Or this dog?”

  “My foot’s bad,” the guy said.

  “Well, if I take off, I’ll bet you another five this dog follows right behind me,” the Governor said. “We only just met, but it looks like we kinda like each other. So I can split right now with pooch here running right after me, and you’re left with nothing, or you can take the ten and give me the Good Book. Either way, the dog’s going with me.”

  “You said you’d bet another five to find out.”

  The Governor sighed and peeled another five bills, then when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, shoved the wad back into his pocket.

  He folded the fifteen singles into a square and palmed them.

  “Go get the Bible,” he said.

  Turning around, Brillo-head shuffled back to his box and returned with a small beat-up, leather-bound book about the size of a paperback novel. Once the Governor had it, he handed over the cash.

  “Pleasure doin’ business with you,” he told the guy.

  “Yeah, yeah, come again sometime. As for that dog, he don’t like beer.”

  Jesus, Charlie Grosvenor thought, the poor thing’s probably dehydrated. “There’s a free clinic on Central,” he called back to Brillo-head. “If your foot’s that bad, go down there and have it checked.” Then looking down at the dog, he said, “Come on, pooch.” It dutifully followed him.

  It was an exceedingly rare day that Charlie spent more time in his apartment than on the streets, but he had work to do, so he returned home. The first thing he did was set down a big bowl of water, which the dog lapped dry in no time. Then he took some hamburger from his fridge and quickly fried it up, and set it down on the floor. Charlie suspected Pooch – that was the dog’s official name now – was near starving, but he hoped it wouldn’t get too used to people food.

  When the dog was sated, Charlie led him into the bathroom and put him in the tub. Since he had washed his hair this morning the shampoo bottle was still on edge of the bathtub. After wetting the dog down, which it didn’t seem to mind, he slathered the shampoo all over it and lathered it up watching hundreds of dead fleas get washed off in the rinse. He soaped Pooch up once more and carefully rinsed him again, then dried him off as best he could with one of his bath towels.

  After a couple of wet shakes, Pooch looked like a new man. Though God only knew what kind of dog he was.

  Taking up the Bible, Charlie went into the small living room, sat down on the couch, and turned on the floor light next to it. Pooch leapt up beside him, uninvited, and stretched out with his chin on Charlie’s leg.

  “What the hell am I going to do with you?” Charlie asked, smiling as he stroked the dog’s head.

  Pooch thumped his tail on the sofa, sounding as if he were tapping out Morse code, but Charlie couldn’t translate it.

  CHAPTER 11

  As Ramona Rios hung up the phone, she made a mental note to never do anything for Bree Whitcombe again. The Channel 9 field reporter, who called Ramona for advice her first week on the job, after her news director had made unwanted advances, had contacts all through the police department, but refused to share any of them. “You know I can’t break my confidences,” Bree told her over the phone. “Sorry, Ramona. But we should get together for lunch sometime.”

  Yeah, sure, Ramona thought.

  Ramona wondered if the Governor was having any better luck.

  Ramona was on the verge of calling Robert Bauman, her former news director, and playing the you-owe-me-this! card when her phone rang. She answered it immediately.

  “Is this Ramona Rios?” a man’s voice said.

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “FTD delivery. I have some flowers for you.”

  “Flowers? From who?”

  “The name on the card is Lonnie DeMarco.”

  Lonnie! So her ex was attempting to apologize to her?

  More likely, this was the opening salvo in his attempt to wheedle his way back into her life.

  “Ma’am?” the voice said.

  “Is it an expensive bouquet?” Ramona asked.

  “Yes.

  Part of her wanted to refuse them as a way of telling Lonnie to stay in hell.

  But why waste good flowers?

  “Can I come in?” the voice said.

  “Yes, come on. Bring them to apartment two-nineteen.” She then hit the buzzer to open the front door of the building.

  Two minutes later, there was a knock on the door of her apartment, and Ramona pulled it open.

  Her ex, Lonnie, was standing there in person, with no flowers.

  “You bas—” she managed to get out before he forced his way inside. “Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to,” Lonnie sneered. “They’re my new friends. I’ve spent all morning with them attempting to convince them I’m not somebody named Danny Speakman who’s stalking homeless people.”

  In spite of herself, Ramona started to giggle.

  “You think this is funny, do you?”

  “Well, yeah. I take it you were able to exon
erate yourself.”

  “Yes, and the cops were able to verify that I’ve been out of town for the past two weeks. I just got back yesterday, and today, this.”

  “You have to admit, it was a really great sketch.”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s brilliant!” Lonnie shouted. “It was so good, when I went to pick up my mail at the post office this morning I was recognized. The cops thought I knew something about some murder, and then they told me that a witness had given my description to the artist, and then one of them happened to let slip that the witness was a television reporter. Well, gee … who could that have possibly been?”

  Ramona Rios laughed again.

  “You’re insane, you know that?” Lonnie said. “You’ve finally gone over the edge. And the cops aren’t very happy with you, either, because of your little joke. You’re probably going to be hearing from them.”

  “Actually, I’d kind of like to talk with them again. I have some questions for the detective.”

  “Everything’s just a game with you, isn’t it? Everything always has been.”

  “Oh, and phony flower delivery isn’t a game?”

  “Would you have opened the door if I said it was me?”

  “No, which is why you had to lie your way in. Standard operational procedure for you.”

  “Oh, gimme a break!” Lonnie shouted. “You want to know why I went elsewhere? I was tired of being an assistant!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Everything’s about you, Ramona, only you. Our entire relationship was about you.”

  “As I recall, you did pretty well for yourself.”

  “I’m not talking about the sex. I can get sex anywhere.”

  Ramona rolled her eyes so violently it hurt.

  “I’m talking about us,” Lonnie went on. “You never had time for me. Anything I wanted or needed had to wait because you were too busy being the queen of TV news reporters. But you’re not on the air anymore. You get dumped by your station, too?”

  “As I recall it, I was the one who threw you out.”

  “I was going to leave anyway.”

  You can’t fire me, I quit! she thought grimly. The new recurring motif of her life.

  “Lonnie, I just don’t have the energy for this,” Ramona sighed. “You want to pretend that breaking up was your idea, fine. I just don’t care anymore. Can you understand that?”

  “I understand you put me through the day from hell today.”

  “You want me to apologize? Okay, I apologize. What I did was pretty dumb. Happy?”

  “If I thought you meant it, I would be,” Lonnie grumbled.

  “Then go somewhere else to find your happiness,” Ramona said. “Go, Lonnie. Get out.”

  He started to walk toward her door, then stopped and turned.

  “For whatever it’s worth, Mona, I do appreciate your apology,” he said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Great. Send me some real damn flowers some time and we’ll call it even.”

  Lonnie DeMarco left without another word, and she closed the door behind him, genuinely not knowing whether she ever hoped to see him again. This at least had been a little bit of a closure. Bumpy closure, but closure. And while she savored the idea that he’d been sweated by the cops for a while, with no harm, no foul, she was increasingly aware that her little stunt with the sketch artist had been pretty foolish. Maybe dangerously so.

  The best course of action seemed to be to go see Detective Knight, come clean and admit her deception, and then give an accurate description of Danny Speakman to the police artist, and hope she was believed this time.

  Since she wanted to talk to the police anyway, this was a good excuse to do so.

  After putting herself together, Ramona headed out, taking the elevator down to the parking garage underneath her building. She walked toward her car, stopping only at the sound of a projectile ricocheting off of a concrete support pylon an inch from her head, spraying dust and chips past her.

  She heard a muffled pop and instantly the window of a car, not hers, exploded beside her. Instinctively, Ramona dropped to the concrete floor between two cars. “Who are you?” she screamed, her voice echoing throughout the concrete garage.

  She didn’t really expect him to answer.

  No more shots came.

  Ramona remained on the filthy, greasy floor for ten minutes. No other shots had been fired. The shooter had fled. Whoever it was must have concluded they were taking too much of a chance to keep firing at her, even with a silencer. And they had to be using a silencer, otherwise the sound of the shot itself would have been deafening in the garage.

  But why the hell was the person firing at her in the first place?

  When Ramona felt it was safe enough to rise to her feet, she did so, and ran to her own, blipping it unlocked. It took several tries to get the key in the ignition, she was shaking so badly.

  Over the years people had pointed out to Ramona that she was lethal behind the wheel, but this time it was justified. She roared out of her parking spot, narrowly missing the front fender of a car parked across the way, and sped to the electric eye beam that opened the garage from the inside, waiting impatiently for it to lift. Her tires squealed as though in terror as she shot out of the garage and onto the street.

  Outside, Gunnar Fesche sat behind the wheel of his Miata and watched the Rios woman drive past like a bat out of hell. He had blown the opportunity and put the woman on her guard, and he was not looking forward to reporting back to Cantone about his failure.

  But then, why would he have to?

  Cantone had told him to call and confirm that the job was done, not keep him updated on failed attempts. There was no doubt the job would be done, and soon. The lucky Latina’s good fortune wouldn’t hold out forever. The next time, he’d make sure he found a spot with better lighting.

  Fesche got out the car and went back to the garage’s heavy security door, which he had easily picked open, and strode back in to look for the bullets; there was no sense leaving souvenirs for the cops. The one that had struck the car window was easy to find; it was laying on the driver’s seat, waiting for him, practically calling his name. The one that had ricocheted took longer to locate; by using mental geometry, he charted its probable path and found that it had rolled under one of the cars.

  Let Rios go ahead and file a police report. It would be her word against the lack of evidence.

  Fesche crept back out of the garage and went to his car, already thinking about Plan

  B. There was always the flower delivery pretense, Fesche thought, if she wasn’t too savvy to fall for that one.

  Then again, women were women, and flowers were flowers …

  CHAPTER 12

  “You don’t believe me?” Ramona Rios shouted at Detective Darrell Knight. “You think I’m making up someone taking a couple shots at me?”

  “You haven’t exactly been the most forthcoming of witnesses, you know,” the detective replied. “In fact, you’re lucky I’m not holding you on an obstruction charge for that cute little stunt of yours regarding the suspect description.”

  “I was on my way down here to make good on that when I was fired upon.”

  “Did you see anyone with a gun?”

  “No, but—”

  “Did you hear a gunshot?”

  “A gunshot?”

  “You know, a loud bang?”

  “I know what a gunshot sounds like, and no, there was no loud bang. I think the guy was using a silencer.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t see anyone.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Then how do you know it was a guy?”

  “I … I just assumed it was. But one bullet pinged off of a concrete pylon and the other hit a car window and shattered it. And then I heard footsteps running away.”

  “All right, Ms. Rios,” Knight said. “Why do you think anyone would want to take a shot at you?”

  “I don’t know. I did a story
on school shootings not long ago. Maybe the NRA is after me.”

  “Or maybe it’s good publicity to make people believe they are.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you’re not offering me any real evidence to go on. You didn’t see a shooter, you didn’t see a gun. Maybe it was a kid with a pellet gun, or even a slingshot.”

  “So you’re going to do nothing?” she said.

  Detective Knight exhaled loudly. “All right. Give me your address.”

  Ramona did so and Knight picked up the phone on his desk and punched a button. “Betty, would you connect me to the desk sergeant at Wilshire division?” he asked. After a few moments of rubbing his forehead, he said, “Hi, who is this? Sergeant Welbeck, this is Detective Darrell Knight, Central division, and I have a report of possible gunshots fired this evening in the parking garage of an apartment building at twenty-nine seventeen South Victoria Avenue. Could you ask a team to check it out, please? Tell them they should see the apartment manager.”

  “No, I don’t know his name,” Knight said, and looked to Ramona.

  “Ralph Scranton, and he’s a drunk,” she said.

  “Ralph Scranton is the manager’s name, and for what it’s worth, he may be inebriated. Have them look for any evidence that a shooting of any kind occurred. Right, of any kind. Thanks.”

  “Should I be there?” Ramona asked after Knight had hung up.

  Knight shook his head. “If they find any traces of bullets, you can talk to them and fill out a report. But since you’ve admitted to falsifying your earlier testimony, you’re going to see our sketch artist one more time, and this time you’re going to describe the real Speakman.”

  “After which you’ll arrest me for obstruction?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Knight sighed, knowing he wouldn’t. As a deputy chief once told him, throwing a reporter in jail was like eating Dodger Dogs at the ballpark: it’s satisfying at the time, but it will come back to haunt you later.