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“Just as long as you don’t mind Kasabian getting a copy. He can hack my phone.”

“I’m the only one with a laptop. He’ll have to make do with hotel spanktrovision.”

I take a bite of my tamale. It’s great. I used to mooch off Carlos’s kitchen all the time. I might have to start again.

I say, “Life is funny, isn’t it? Look at us. We’re private dicks.”

“It’s not where I thought I’d end up. But it’s not bad.”

“We’re going to have to do something about getting the store back.”

“I kind of like the place, but we can’t live here forever,” she says.

“We can’t afford it.”

“Yeah.”

We eat our tamales and Candy brings the rest out of the kitchen. We gnaw on a ­couple more while Candy turns on the news. Crew Cut was right. More ­people are dying all over the world. It’s still just a few at a time, but more than a hundred have checked out in the last twenty-­four hours. Vincent needs to get back in the saddle.

I look at Candy.

“That thing you said the other day, about missing women. I meant it when I said I’m not getting in the way of anyone you want to be with.”

“Not now. I’m busy eating.”

“Okay. I just wanted you to know.”

She sits for a minute.

“I miss the Jades sometimes. Rinko came by with a message that one of the Ommahs is coming to town. I should go see her. And the rest of the girls.”

“The Ommahs are kind of your den mothers, right? The matriarchs?”

“That’s right.”

“Going sounds like a good idea.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.”

Candy turns back to the other channel. Cowboy Bebop is on. She hums along with the closing theme music, sounding almost happy. Like maybe she hadn’t hooked up with a complete idiot after all.

IN THE MORNING, she leaves first. Julie loaned Candy her Prius and she wants to get to her Dead Head’s place before opening, but without rushing. No scratches on the boss’s wheels.

I’m supposed to keep an eye on a guy named Sabbath Wakefield. He runs his necromancer office out of a shop on Venice Beach. He doesn’t have a necromancer sign in the front window or anything. He’s set up as a fortune-­teller. Cards. Palm reading. Crap for the tourist trade. It says in the file Julie texted me that he makes sure the local authorities know it’s all in good fun, and he greases the palms of the local cops so they spend their time hassling boardwalk weed vendors and leave him alone.

He runs the actual necromancy trade out of a back room, like a speakeasy. Only the right customers with the right passwords get past the counter to the inner sanctum. In other words, he’s utterly boring. If he conjured Fatty Arbuckle and sent him down the beach on a mammoth’s back, he’d still be boring.

I get there a few minutes before he opens, when I can get a parking space with a decent view of the shop. The camera Julie gave us to work with is pretty idiot proof, so I get some shots of him opening up. Checking out a few lady joggers who run by. Feeding a piece of his morning donut to a local mutt who trots away to hustle other handouts. I write it all down in my notebook. Julie is going to get a record of every person who goes in, every tarot reading, every pigeon who shits on his awning. It will all end up in my report.

Ten ­people wander in and then quickly out of Wakefield’s shop in the first hour. I take photos of all of them. The mailman comes by. I get a shot of him. In another hour, six more ­people go in and out of the place. I get shots. Wakefield comes out for a smoke. Click. Click. Click.

Two hours in and I can’t stand it anymore. I dial Candy, but she doesn’t answer and the call goes to voice mail. Even with the windows down, it starts getting hot in the Crown Vic. I smoke a Malediction, then another. Wonder if I could sneak away to get a cup of coffee, and curse myself for not buying a cup on the way over.