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At one point, after Johnnie and Bobby headed for the can, Frank stretched her long legs under the table. She whipped the sunglasses off her head and Noah watched as she ran her fingers through her hair. It was dark blonde, streaked with rich colors that could never come from a bottle. She wore it slightly layered on the sides, longer in back, and between haircuts it was kept out of her face by the Ray Bans propped on her head. It was getting long and starting to curl up where it met her shoulders.
    “Hey,” Noah warned, leaning on one elbow and grinning tipsily, “you better get a haircut before kids start mistaking you for Butch Barbie.”
    Mellowed by the beers, Frank was caught off guard and chuckled out loud.
    During a game three weeks into his third Pop Warner season, the boy stood on the thirty-yard line, waiting for the ball. They were a touchdown behind with only a few minutes left to play. The quarterback tossed the ball toward him. It floated down perfectly into his hands and he heard his father scream, “You got it, son! You got it!” Then he felt the ball slip through his fingers and bounce off his knee. A boy from the other team landed on it. He heard groans on his side of the field, cheers on the other. The boy who’d recovered the ball ran happily to his coach.
    He was afraid to look at the sidelines. He couldn’t move. The coach trotted out and walked him off the field, saying, “Good try. You almost had it. You’ll get it next time.”
    The coach left the boy, and he could feel his father’s presence behind him, felt the hot stare burning into the back of his brain. His little heart was tripping all over itself; he had to go to the bathroom. He watched the last couple of plays but didn’t see them. When the game ended, his father put a light hand on his son’s shoulder and steered him toward the car.
    That evening there were no hits in the belly or fists to the arms. There was something new. His father threw the ball at him four times and four times the boy caught it. He smiled slightly, hopefully. His father smiled back and threw the ball. Hard. The boy couldn’t hang on to it. Sadly, the father shook his head and retrieved the ball. He put it in his son’s hands then moved toward the closed door.
    Standing in the center of his roomy bedroom, uncoiling from the blow he’d expected, the boy couldn’t believe they were done.
    His father said patiently, turning at the door, “You’ve got to learn how to hold on to the ball.” Then he launched himself across the room and tackled the boy. One hundred ninety pounds met sixty-six against the wooden floor. The boy’s vision grayed. When he could focus, he saw his father’s face only inches away. His lips were parted, and he was staring at his son in a new way. The boy closed his eyes and lay quietly under his father. In a life already filled with more than its share of fear, the new look on his father’s face was more terrifying than anything the boy had ever seen.

4
    Frank and her detectives were back at the rec area at nine o’clock the next morning. Her first interview was with a surly punk just out of high school. He worked the entrance gate part-time and saw a lot of the park’s users. Frank knew right off that this skinny, wannabe surf Kahuna had probably never surfed anything harder than his own dick. That he was too lazy and too cowardly to mastermind an abduction, no less carry out a premeditated murder. Still, she questioned him patiently and thoroughly. She showed him six-packs—six photos in a plastic holder of known offenders in the Baldwin Hills/Culver City area. The punk said he didn’t recognize anyone in particular, but his eyes lingered on a few. Frank noted which ones.
    “Besides,” he sniggered, “I don’t spend much time looking at men.” He eyed her contemptuously up and down, then challenged, “I’m a man. I’m supposed to like chicks.”
    Frank ignored the insult, producing a business card.
    “If you happen