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went in. It was almost dark outside now but I didn’t turn on the light. I went behind my desk, opened the window behind it that looked down on an alley, and sat down, placing the Life magazine and the letter to Dali in front of me in an area of the desk relatively free of bills and old newspapers.
    I looked around the room in the orange twilight and saw what I always see, two chairs squeezed in on the other side of the desk, and a wall with my Private Investigator’s license and a photograph—a photograph of me, my brother Phil, my father, and our dog, Kaiser Wilhelm. I was ten in that picture. Phil was fifteen. My mother was dead. My father soon would be. No one knows what happened to Kaiser Wilhelm. He just had enough one day and wandered off, some say in the direction of Alaska.
    I wasn’t sure of the time. My old man’s watch didn’t help. It promised me it was two-thirty and that for sure was a lie, but I forgave it. I could have turned on the little white Arvin on my desk, a birthday gift a month ago from Gunther Wherthman. It was almost time for the Rex Stout show, but I didn’t want to wake Shelly beyond the door. I should have been thinking about Dali’s stolen paintings. I tried, but I found myself wondering what Gwen and Gunther looked like in mad embrace. I got no picture so I picked up the Life and squinted at it, holding it up so the last of the sun would hit the pages. I learned a lot about Admiral Leahy, a little about aerial navigation, and too much about why the Yankees won the American League championship. Then the sun was gone and I had to turn the light on.
    I got up, moved slowly to the switch near the door, and watched the overhead 100-watt Mazda in a round white-glass globe go into action. I’d lost about an hour. I scratched the fingers of my left hand with the fingers of my right and went back to the desk.
    Look for the second PLACE in Los Angeles to find the first painting. You have till midnight on New Year’s Day.
    I pulled out my spiral pocket notebook and opened it to the page where I’d written the names of Dali’s suspects. Maybe I should start with Picasso? I needed Dash. He could distract me. Maybe I should sail paper airplanes out the window?
    I was considering these options when the door to my office opened and Shelly walked in, a rolled-up dental journal in his hand. I could tell it was a dental journal by the smiling incisor on the curved cover.
    “I thought you were a burglar,” he said, lowering the weapon.
    “And you were going to beat the hell out of him with the Dental Times? ”
    “ Dental Hygiene, ” he corrected.
    He still wore the little hat but the rubber band was back under one of his chins where it belonged. The cigar was in his hand and his glasses were pushed back on his nose. He plopped heavily into one of the chairs in front of the desk.
    “Phones keep going out,” he said. “Tried to call Mildred a few minutes ago.”
    “That’s nice, Shel,” I said.
    “To be expected,” said Shel. “Got a patient—Leon, you know? Big guy with lots of ear hair.”
    “I’m working, Shel,” I said.
    “Leon says more than forty-three thousand Bell employees are in the armed services. He says there are copper shortages. Lucky to have phones at all, Leon says. You want to hear what happened to me?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Someone made a pass at Mildred again. You know who?”
    “Sydney Greenstreet.”
    “No, no. Murray Taibo’s brother, Simon, the accountant,” Shelly said, shaking his head in exasperation. “You know Mildred is irresistible.”
    I said nothing. Mildred is a rake with a prune attached where a head should be. Mildred had, about a year ago, kicked Shelly out and run off with a Peter Lorre imitator. When the guy had been killed, Mildred went back to Shelly.
    “I know,” I said.
    “We had words, you know?”
    “I can guess.”
    “I was a little drunk,” said Shelly, looking at the palm of his left hand as if it had the answer to a