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the book project didn’t work out, Benjamin. At least you got some cash out of it. Quite a pile of cash, when you think about it.”
    “Yeah, that’s something.”
    Her dark, intelligent eyes searched out my elusive baby blues.
    “So how are you, anyway? Other than having to deal with a dead body.”
    “Getting by.”
    “You don’t look so well, frankly.”
    “I think you mentioned that already.”
    “You’ve lost some weight, most of your color.”
    “White guys always lose their color over the winter.”
    She didn’t smile.
    “Seriously, Benjamin.”
    “How about you? Seeing anyone lately?”
    “Trying to change the subject?”
    “I already did.”
    “I might be.”
    “Why so coy?”
    “No reason. Actually, we’re supposed to meet for lunch tomorrow, over in Leimert Park. Why don’t you join us?”
    “And be the third wheel? Thanks, I’ll pass.”
    “Good jazz in Leimert Park.”
    “If I want good jazz, I’ve got my old tapes.”
    “You need to get out. I’ll pick you up at eleven.”
    “Really, Templeton, no.”
    “You at least owe me lunch, Benjamin.”
    “How do you figure? I just gave you a good news tip.”
    “And I helped fatten your bank account by twenty-five large. The least I deserve is a nice lunch at the Elephant Walk.”
    “They’re serving lunch now?”
    “Experimenting with brunch on Sundays. You’re getting off cheap—I could demand dinner.”
    “You get smarter and tougher the longer I know you, Templeton. There was a time when I could push you around pretty easily.”
    “You never pushed me around.”
    “Did so.”
    She tapped me on the nose.
    “Eleven o’clock. Try to look nice.”
    She turned back to see what she could learn from the detectives, and I climbed into the Mustang and headed back down Nichols Canyon Road into Hollywood.
     
    *
     
    I slipped Kind of Blue into the tape deck and listened to Miles Davis as I cruised along Sunset Boulevard, which slowed with club traffic as I approached West Hollywood and the Strip. I didn’t need my watch to know it was close to 2 a.m.—bouncers were hollering at the paparazzi to keep their distance, druggies staggered from the clubs looking for their keys or for sex, young women tottered on high heels or threw up at the curb, drunks got into parking lot fistfights while distant sirens wailed. It was a far cry from the elegant days of Ciro’s, Mocambo, and Trocadero, when well-dressed gangsters had mingled over martinis with Hollywood’s elite, and the prostitutes had been as pretty as the starlets. Now, you couldn’t tell the tacky prostitutes from the club crawlers, and the term “gangster” had a whole new meaning. I wouldn’t have fit in on the Sunset Strip, then or now, but I didn’t fit into the gay scene a few blocks down the hill along Santa Monica Boulevard either. I didn’t know where I belonged anymore, and it occurred to me as I listened to Miles and followed the taillights in front of me that maybe I never did, except when Jacques had still been around, opening his world to me.
    I swung left at the Whisky a GoGo and a minute later was descending into the quieter haven of the Norma Triangle, then pulling into the gravel driveway on Norma Place. The house was dark, quiet; Maurice and Fred were surely asleep by now, snug under the covers, close beside each other the way they’d slept together for almost fifty years. I trudged up the wooden stairway alongside the garage and let myself into the apartment to a ringing telephone.
    It was Templeton on her cell phone, cruising home along the freeway.
    “When you called me just before midnight, you said something about a little dog.”
    “Oh, Christ, the damn dog.”
    I told Templeton I’d talk to her in the morning, hung up, and hurried back down to the car. When I unlocked the trunk, I saw the dog hunkered down on the old blanket, whimpering. I lifted it out and cradled it against my shoulder, stroking it while it licked my ear. It had been a while