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“Of what? Your senses?”

“Of Surfside Realty.”

“Taking leave. You’re going to have a baby?”

Trying not to chug the Corona, too embarrassed to make eye contact, Benny stared out at the harbor as he explained.

Majestic white yachts and smaller pleasure craft plied the sparkling waters under a clear sky in which seagulls performed aerial ballets and squadrons of pelicans floated effortlessly on thermal currents. The window seemed to offer a glimpse of a better world than the dark and confusing one in which Benny now found himself.

“So I haven’t been fired exactly,” he concluded, “but I’ve been somethinged, and I don’t know why.”

As Harper arrived with the detective’s waffles and Benny’s platter, Fat Bob said to her, “What would you do with his hair?”

Her face puckered in puzzlement. “His hair? Why would I want to do anything with his hair?”

“I’m not offering it to you, dear,” said Fat Bob. “I meant, if you were a stylist.”

“I like his hair,” she said. “He looks so ... natural.”

“Exactly,” Benny said as he unfolded his napkin on his lap.

Cocking her head to consider his hair, she said to Benny, “You might comb it, that’s all.”

“I did comb it. I comb it ten, twenty times a day.”

“Oh.” She picked up the empty bottle of Corona. “You want another one?”

“If I’m to hold on to my sanity, yes.”

“I’ll bring you a fresh frosted glass, too.”

“You’re an angel,” Benny said. Then in a spirit of political correctness, he quickly added, “Unless you’re offended to be called an angel.”

Even as good as it was, her face was transformed for the better by a smile. “I’ve been called worse.”

Harper went away to get the beer, and Fat Bob said, “I’ll look into this situation for you.”

“Handy Duroc? There’s nothing to look into. Whatever’s behind this, he’s not talking.”

Taking a knife and fork to his chicken and waffles, with an expression that suggested he was, with animosity, carving something more terrible, Fat Bob said, “He’s not talking to you, but he’ll talk to me.”

For twenty-seven years, Robert Jericho, a former Los Angeles homicide cop, had been a private investigator with a staff of eight. He refused to accept assignments to gather evidence for divorce proceedings—which he referred to as “mutually assured destruction derbies”—or skip-tracer jobs, or requests to assist anyone trying to obtain a conservatorship over a family member. He worked for class-action attorneys and insurance companies and banks. However, he specialized in serving well-heeled individuals innocent of any illegality, who faced threats of all kinds and who distrusted the authorities, preferring to gather evidence against aggressors privately rather than risk inviting politicized police agencies or corrupt justice-system officials into their lives and, by so doing, be jackknifed from genuine victim into falsely accused criminal by some ideological zealot with a badge. Fat Bob prospered.

“It’s no big deal,” Benny said. “I’ll sign on with another brokerage. Anyway, I can’t afford you.”

“Hey, hey, I wouldn’t charge a friend in need.” Fat Bob chose to be offended, thrusting an accusing fork at Benny, a gesture that would have been more impressive if a chunk of chicken and waffle had not been speared on the tines. “Besides, I also do pro bono work for people with disabilities.”

“Another crack about my hair.”

“Entirely not. Your hair is a burden, not a disability. I’m referring to your niceness.”

“Since when is niceness a disability?”

“Since there’s been less of it week by week, which is most of my lifetime. Your problem is that you’re nice to everyone, even to those who spit on you, like Handy Duroc.”

“Handy didn’t spit on me.”

Still emphasizing his words with the loaded fork, Fat Bob said, “He spit on you, and then he pissed on you.”