HARRY

Looking up information about Ed Ragozy made me hungry. All that information about restaurants and meals and movie stars and what it boiled down to was that our new secretary was the daughter of Milo 'Made-it-big' Ragozy. Perry was right—she did have a great credit rating—and a degree in Humanities. She was also a Friend of the Public Library, a regular contributor to one of the downtown homeless shelters, and seemed just a little too good for my comfort.

See? That's what living on the coast has done to me. I'm automatically suspicious of things that seem to be better than they really are. Sure she might be the kind to put money in Salvation Army kettles at Christmas, but she probably had some parking tickets, or a risqué picture on Facebook or something, Everybody's got a little dirt to hide.

I should know, right?

Still, the digging did bring up a few questions. From what I'd found, this girl should be working for her daddy, not schlepping it with a temp agency. And her address—right in the middle of fancy-pants Beverly Hills. No way a temp can afford even a studio in the 90210s, trust me. Something hinky was going on, and I wanted to figure out what so I could rag Perry a little about it.

I called her references, Alex Chong and Delfina Ghazy.

This part was fun, because I got to dig a little. Call me nosy, but this is the part of the job I enjoy. It's kind of pervy, sure, but I get why Perry does it. It's like checking under rocks—most of the time nothing's there, but every now and then you see something nobody was supposed to find, and there's a smug feeling in that. I'm not saying it's good, but it's necessary sometimes.

What I got in Ed's case was stonewalled. Chong and Ghazy were full of praise, but trying to pin them on details was like using wet lasagna for a hammer. All I could figure out is that they were sure Ed would do a great job working for us and they were getting ready for the dinner crowd.

Restaurant people, so she'd worked for dear old Dad, or at least hung around work long enough to get to know the folks there.

So why wasn't she working there now? Even if cooking wasn't her thing, the same computer stuff she was going to be doing for Perry and me would fit in at a busy eatery. Was she on the down and out with her dad?

That could be ugly. Back where I came from, a lot of restaurants were family businesses, and by family I mean Family, which is not an aspect I wanted to get tangled up with. I was and am small change, I don't mess with anything associated with those of the Cosa Nostra persuasion. Sure, Ragozy wasn't precisely a Sicilian name, but that was minor. I wondered if Perry knew of any Mafia connections here in California.

I was also in the mood for lunch, so I decided to go see what Ed's dad had on the menu.

Hogan's Haufbrau was the closest, so I headed over, parked, and took a look at the menu posted outside the double doors. I must have gotten used to being in LA, because the idea of paying nearly ten bucks for a salad barely got to me anymore. Not that *I* eat the rabbit food, but I've had enough meals with Mr. Picky Van Shrike to know that he does.

Sandwiches, steaks, some noodly-dishes that would have been at home in any East Coast diner . . . not cheap, but not quite as over the fucking moon as some of Perry's date spots.

Don't ask, and no, I've never been inside any of those places. Stakeouts take an operative to some hangdog back alleys, not four star restaurants.

I slipped inside, managed to charm a ninety pound waitress into giving me a booth and had lunch—one of the drippy sandwiches and some potato salad that nearly had me in tears, bringing back memories of eleven PM in Hoboken. Sue me; I can get sentimental over food, all right? And this place had the goods. I paid and tipped the girl enough to get a smile, which was blinding.

I'm developing a serious fear of teeth that white.

Still, her dad seemed to be doing good business. I was on my way out when I noted a little discussion going on at the maître'd booth, so being my usual nosy self, listened in.

Tall older woman, past cougar age but trying to pretend she wasn't, with Botox and Boutins visible was trying to get a table that apparently was busy. White-tooth waitress was scared of her.

"I don't need to call; Milo is going to hear about this," she growls. I pretend to tie my shoe and shoot another glance at her. She's got a rock on her left hand that's only slightly smaller than Rhode fucking Island.

"Mrs. Ragozy, I'm sorry, but Mr. Bruckheimer and his staff specifically requested the table—"

Right then and there, I move into stakeout mode.

PERRY

The hardest thing to create in this town is a solid reputation. In LA, everything from the ground up is flexible, including morals, laws and mindsets. Nevertheless, I've worked hard to make sure that I deliver what I take payment for, and do so reliably, discreetly and quickly. It's the only way to keep in business, and having the added distinction of playing for the other team gives me just a hint of uniqueness.

Developing a good reputation also means handling only certain kinds of cases. I don't like divorce work; it's mind-numbingly boring and sometimes dangerous. If the wife hires me, she'll pay, but she won't be happy. If the husband hires me, half the time I have to fight to get my money. I'd much rather get the easy but gritty stuff: disappearances, deadbeat dads owing child support or alimony; con artists.

And as I mentioned, I don't do lost pets.

But again, in this case, I'm making an exception and hoping I can pull it off before Harry starts getting on my case about going to the dogs, because that's precisely the first wisecrack he's going to make. Never mind that Mrs. Henshaw is paying twice my usual rate and expenses, Harry will be making horrible jokes and I'll have to get bitchy with him, which . . . is our normal routine, come to think of it.

Still—one crack about leg humping and I'm making him do any garbage duty we might have to tackle.

I like dogs, actually. When I was younger, my mother had a standard poodle named Rio who was perceptive enough to dislike my father for some of the same reasons I did. I remember him having to lock Rio out in the yard before 'disciplining' me, and Rio frantically scratching at the door.

Hey, he tried to intervene; I give the dog credit for that.

Anyway, I like dogs in general. Not enough to own one myself; let's face it, I'm not interested in getting tied down to routines of walkies and treats, but I watch the Westminster and yes, I send a few bucks in to the SPCA, so helping out Mrs. Henshaw isn't completely about the money.

And from the photo, Sheila is a beauty.

I head back to my place to start searching a few databases to see if I can start checking with vets and groomers, because even I can see that an Afghan is high-maintenance, fur-wise. I also take note of the two handlers that Mrs. Henshaw uses, and interviewing them will be my first priority.

Halfway there I get two phone messages on my Bluetooth. The first one is from the temp agency confirming that Miss Ragozy has accepted the job. This is good because I can get her started on some of the back billing tomorrow. The other is from Harry, who asks me if I know anything about Miss Ragozy's mother.

"She had or has one," I point out. "Biologically that's a certainty and all I know, Harry. I may regret asking, but why?"

"Milo—if he had restaurants for the last fifty years then he's got to be ancient. May have had more than one wife, right?" Harry theorizes. The logic is sound, so I make a little grunt of agreement.

"Well the woman I'm watching right now *could* be Ed's mother, but I don't think she is," Harry mutters. "Could you check, Please, on the wife count? I'm going to see if I can get a first name here before I get back."

"Fine," I tell the idiot and hang up. By the time I get in, I'm feeling a little guilty about cutting him off, so I check.

Milo Ragozy has had three wives: Lyra Nazy, who came with him from Hungary and divorced him in the mid-sixties, Suzette Grendon, who died in the mid-eighties, and his current wife, Rita, formerly Rita Bernardini.

Interesting. Rita Bernardini is a former starlet from jiggle shows in the Eighties, and something of a publicity hound, even from before her ever-elevating marriages—all four of them.

ED

I suppose you should know a little about me. I mean, it's only fair, since you already know about Mr. Van Shrike and Mr. Lockhart.

I'm Milo Ragozy's kid. One of them, anyway. Dad's been married a few times, so I've got an interesting bunch of relatives. I've got two older step-sisters, Nina and Kate, who live in Debrecen, Hungary. They're from Dad's first marriage, to Lyra. I get along with the two of them and have visited a couple of times with Dad. Nina is married with kids and grandkids; Kate is actually Sister Kate at this beautiful tiny seminary school there.

My dad married my mom and had me back in the Eighties, and I was the only one they had, even though Dad tells me they wanted more. It's okay; I'm good with it now even if back then I really wanted a brother or sister. Mom died during surgery when I was seven, and that hurt, but Dad and I managed pretty well until three years later, when Rita Bernardini started showing up regularly at the Blue Medallion and making a play for Dad. She got under his skin while he was still hurting from losing mom, and now I can forgive him, but for a long time before that, things were hard between us.

My dad is the kind of guy who needs a wife. He's old-school and although he can run businesses and handle media and food, he hates loneliness. He loved Lyra and he loved my mom, but I think he married Rita just because she was there at the right time. Rita did make him happy in the beginning, and now they stay together mostly out of habit.

I don't like Rita much, so I stay out of her way. She doesn't like me much either, but she's smart enough not to antagonize the situation, and that's a good thing too. I could get by just fine if it was just Rita that I had to avoid.

But it's not.

Rita has a son. Roger. Roger is three years older than I am, and by some scheme Rita managed to get Dad to adopt him when they got married, so by law he's my brother. My older, very weird . . . brother.

Roger . . . has the hots for me. This is very uncomfortable and wrong in a lot of ways, believe me. Whereas I don't like Rita much, I definitely get the willies around Roger. Back when we were first becoming a family he was always hugging me a little too tightly and too long; he would follow me around and come into my room without permission—all those little things that set off alarms in the back of my head.

He's always been strange, and I'm not just saying that because I don't like him. I know for a fact that he wet his bed until he was fifteen, and that he has a streak of pyromaniac in him too. He's been thrown out of a few private schools for setting fires, and once for exposing himself in public. That kind of weird.

Dad doesn't care much for him either—he tried to get to know Roger in the early days, but Roger made it clear that he preferred his mom over anyone else. Me, I got locks for my bedroom and made it a point to be as far from my 'brother' as possible. That worked until I hit puberty, and Roger decided he liked me a lot more. Nothing serious ever happened, but I've been a lot MORE cautious ever since then.

Like having an apartment that neither he nor Rita know about.