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me know she wasn’t coming. I went with a group.” I must have looked at him with something like pity, because he added, “It was fine.” He scratched his head and looked down at his shoes.
    *   *   *
    As I walked out of the elevator, I felt a glimmer of guilt toward the teenage boy, but my headache took over by the time I was halfway to Luke’s apartment.
    I stomped to his door, saw the sign from the night before torn off and lying in the hallway, and knocked. I tried my best to be obnoxious about it, with loud, stiff-knuckled raps and nonsensical rhythms. I was at it a solid minute before Luke came to the door in an undershirt and yellow athletic shorts, his hair a nest wrought by blind birds.
    â€œSong?” He blinked squinted eyes. I could almost hear the dry wrinkle of his slept-in contact lenses. “You look a mess. What the hell happened?”
    He opened the door wide and I barged in, kicking off my shoes. A man I didn’t recognize slept like a heap of laundry on Luke’s couch. There were four pairs of shoes left in the entrance, including a tiny pair of jeweled flat sandals whose owner was either out a pair of shoes or behind closed doors. Bottles, cans, loose playing cards, and crushed tortilla chips littered Luke’s floor. The place looked like hours of work for whatever poor soul was cleaning up.
    I plopped down on a chair at his dining table, across the room from the couch.
    â€œWhat time is it?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know. Seven?”
    â€œGood grief.” He sat across from me, dragging wooden chair feet in a fibrous rustle through the carpet. “You must’ve had a fun night.”
    â€œSo I’ve heard. Do I really look like I just did a walk of shame?” My head throbbed.
    â€œWell, those are last night’s clothes, and you don’t look like you spent much time sleeping.” He propped his wrists on the table and held his hands together. “I got your text around midnight after you went and disappeared. What the hell happened?”
    â€œTo be honest, I can’t say for sure, but nothing good.” I drummed the table with my fingers. “Luke, is there anything I should know about this little mission you’ve sent me on?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI don’t know, any reason to think it’s dangerous?”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œLet’s say your dad was having an affair with this girl. Would he take drastic measures to keep it quiet?” I bit my lip and looked up to see his face tighten with apprehension.
    â€œJesus, what are you getting at?”
    I stood up, walked over to his side, and leaned on the table next to him, half seated. “Feel this.” I indicated the swollen bump on the back of my head with a few light taps.
    He reached up and ran his fingertips across my hair. “Holy shit. What happened?”
    I outlined the events of the night before, from the Chanel to the ride, to the BMW. “Anyway, I was trying to look in the window to see if I could make anything out, and that’s it. When I woke up, I was on Larchmont, so I came here.”
    He wore a look of puzzled horror and rubbed his knuckles against the tabletop. “What do you mean, that’s it? What happened?”
    â€œWell, I’m pretty sure I got sapped.”
    â€œYou mean like by a cop?”
    â€œMore likely a bad guy.” I sighed. “You know, Marlowe gets cold cocked in like every Chandler novel.”
    â€œI didn’t know that. Whatever I know about Chandler I’ve gotten from you.”
    â€œOkay, well, did you know The Big Lebowski is based on The Big Sleep ? I think that’s why Lebowski gets knocked out twice.”
    â€œOccupational hazard?”
    â€œYeah. Occupational. It’s always because someone doesn’t want him snooping around, or because someone wants to know what he knows—because he’s doing