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and left, and pretty soon the horns stopped blowing and traffic began to move. Well, well, well.
    I drove back to my office and called the cops. A voice said, “North Hollywood detectives.”
    “Lou Poitras, please.”
    I got put on hold and had to wait and then somebody said, “Poitras.”
    “There’s an importer down on Ki Street in Little Tokyo named Nobu Ishida.” I spelled it for him. “I was on him today when two Asian cops come out of my trunk and take me off the board.”
    Lou Poitras said, “You got that four bucks you owe me?” These cops.
    “Don’t be small, Lou. I call up with a matter of great import and you bring up a paltry four dollars.”
    “Great import. Shit.”
    “They took me out just long enough to lose Ishida. They don’t say three words. They flash their guns all over Pershing Square and they don’t even rub my nose in it the way you cops like to do. Maybe they’re cops. Maybe they’re just two guys pretending to be cops.”
    He thought about that. I could hear him breathe over the phone. “You see a badge?”
    “Not long enough to get a number.”
    “How about a tag?”
    “Maroon Ford Taurus. Three-W-W-L-seven-eight-eight.”
    Poitras said, “Stick around. I’ll get back to you,” and hung up.
    I got up, opened the glass doors that lead out tothe little balcony, went back to my desk, and put my feet up. Stick around.
    Half an hour later I got up again and went out onto the balcony. Sometimes, when the smog is gone and the weather is clear, you can stand on the balcony and see all the way down Santa Monica Boulevard to the ocean. Now, the heat was up and the smog was in and I felt lucky to see across the street.
    I went back in the office, dug around in the little refrigerator I have there, and found a bottle of Negra Modelo beer. Negra Modelo is a dark Mexican beer and may be the best dark beer brewed anywhere in the world. I sipped some and watched the Pinocchio clock. After a while I turned on the radio and tuned to KLSX. Bananarama singing it was a cruel summer. They’re not George Thoroughgood, but they’re not bad. I went back onto the balcony and looked out over Los Angeles and thought about what it would be like to marry and have children. I would have two or three daughters and we would watch
Sesame Street
and
Mr. Rogers
together and then roll around on the floor like puppies. When they grew up they would like Kenneth Tobey movies. Would they look like me, or their mother? I went back into the office, closed the glass doors, and sat in one of the director’s chairs. You think the damnedest things when you’re waiting for a call.
    Maybe Lou Poitras had lost my phone number and was desperately searching the police computers in his attempts to contact me. Maybe he had obtained forbidden information concerning the two cops who’d fronted me and was now lying dead in a pool of blood behind the wheel of his Oldsmobile. Maybe I was bored stiff.
    At five minutes after seven I was flat on my back on the floor, staring at the ceiling and wondering ifaliens from space had ever visited the earth. At ten minutes after seven, the phone rang. I got up off the floor as if I had not been waiting most of the day, sauntered over, and casually picked up the receiver. “Laid-back Detectives, where your problems are no problem.”
    It wasn’t Lou Poitras. It was Sheila Warren. She was crying. She said, “Mr. Cole? Are you there? Who is this?” The words spilled out around coughing sobs. It was tough to understand her. She still sounded drunk.
    I said, “Is anyone hurt?”
    “They said they would kill me. They said they would kill Bradley and me and that they would burn the house down.”
    “Who?”
    “The people who stole the book. You’ve got to come over. Please. I’m terrified.” She said something else but she was sobbing again and I couldn’t make it out.
    I hung up. One thing about this business, it doesn’t stay boring for long.

6

    When I got to the Warren home it