As long as I was paying, I had Susan accompany me. She looked great in an elegant black dress. I had dressed up in slacks and a sport jacket that was large enough to accommodate the Smith and Wesson on my hip.

After we were seated, I watched the front door. Susan and I talked about Pearl staying with Lee Farrell, and about what Susan bought on her shopping trip, and about our favorite all time restaurants. About twenty minutes later, three men entered the restaurant. One was a tall, very thin and very elegantly dressed black man, the other two were a couple of white guys in fitted Armani suits who were just slightly smaller than water buffalos. The black man talked to the woman at the reservations counter, then came over to our table. The two really big white guys were escorted to a table next to ours. One of them had very close cropped, curly blond hair. The other was bald and had six golden earrings lining the auricle of his left ear.

"Nice suit," I said to the man who stood before our table.

"Brooks Brothers," the black man said. It was the voice of the man on the phone. "I am Mr. Franklin."

"You know who I am," I said, then gestured towards Susan. "This is Dr. Susan Silverman."

"You are a lovely woman," Franklin said, briefly taking Susan's hand. Then he shook my hand. "And you are very much as you were described to me."

"A middle aged thug?"

"You still consider yourself middle aged?"

"You're as young as you feel."

Franklin smiled and sat down. The server came over and we ordered. We each ordered the Blue Crab salad. I had a beer. Susan and Franklin had white wine.

"So, you want to talk to recruiters," Franklin said.

"I thought you called them chickenhawks," I said.

"Sometimes, but there's a lady present," Franklin smiled at Susan. It looked warm and it looked charming but it was neither. I thought about the incongruity of a man who was concerned about a woman's feelings but who made his living on the selling of girls. I've found such incongruities to be common in my line of work.

"I'm looking for a man with injuries. Someone with damage that you can't account for from your employee incentive programs." I jerked my head towards the guys sitting at the other table.

"On a very few occasions, the recruits have boyfriends with them who are protective. Most aren't protective enough. The girl you looking for have a protective boyfriend?"

"No. At least I don't think so." I thought about Willow's theory, and Angel accompanying Buffy. Talk about overkill.

"Are you going to tell me what you are talking about then?"

"I doubt you'd believe me if I told you. And I can guarantee that the guy I'm looking for won't be forthcoming about how he got his injuries."

"Because he'll be too embarrassed."

"Yes," I said. "Yes he will."

Franklin looked at me. Once he determined that I was serious, he nodded.

"I'll see what I can do," he said.

After that we ate our Blue Crab salads and talked of the Red Socks and the Angels and the Dodgers, and about whether the NFL would ever return a franchise to LA. Susan ate, or rather nibbled, silently. Just normal guy talk. Franklin was charming and intelligent and witty, but sometimes I saw a different creature peer out of his eyes. A creature that had the conscience of a monitor lizard. When Franklin got up and bid us farewell, the two big white guys stayed at their table and continued to eat, but two other men, one white and one black, not nearly so big but equally well dressed, and very graceful, got up from their table and joined Franklin at the front door. Then they left.

"Who were those two men?" Susan asked.

"They were Franklin's real backup."

"So the two big men at the next table are just for show."

"Yes," I said.

"Did you know those men were there?"

"Not at first. Luckily, though, I had my own unofficial backup." I turned my head and nodded at a booth. Chollo, Vincent del Rio's extremely quick shooter, nodded back. Then he resumed his conversation with the strikingly beautiful Hispanic woman sitting across from him.