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Julia was whining in the elevator.

“I didn’t start it,” she said. “I was just having a good time. It was the guy with the toupee causing the problem.”

Mason said, “Only because you took his toupee and threw it into the chandelier. He was planning a quiet evening celebrating his retirement looking at boobies, and you accused him of being a CIA agent.”

“He was.” Julia was tugging her gloves off, one finger at a time.

Archie chimed in. “He was not. He was a school principal from Yucaipa.”

“So he said. But under that toupee he was a CIA agent.” Mason watched Julia pull her gloves back on, smoothing them over her wrists. Then the finger-by-finger tugging again. Mason wondered if she’d found being at a bar a challenge; she was still only seven days in.

Will said, from the corner of the elevator, “Yucaipa has the oldest house in San Bernadino County.”

They ignored him.

Julia said, “It was fine. Maggie cooled things down.”

Mason snorted. “Actually, Danny Agosti cooled things down. Maggie’s contribution was four new girls and a jeroboam of champagne.”

Will said, “A jeroboam contains three liters of champagne, and is quite a rarity.”

They ignored him again.

Julia said, “It distracted the agent, didn’t it?”

“You mean the principal? Yes, but only because then he decided to get up on the chandelier and retrieve his hair himself.”

“I rest my case. Would a school principal know how to vault from a bar to a chandelier?”

“No. And neither did he. Thus the need to call an ambulance and Danny’s quiet suggestion that we leave.” Mason thought again about Mr. Agosti and the powerful energy he exuded, and shivered.

The elevator reached the street and they stepped out. Mason realized there was a bigger crowd on the sidewalk than she’d anticipated.

“You wait here,” she said to Julia. “I’ll go get the keys from the valet.”

Julia shrugged. “If you insist.” She turned to Will and Archie. “She gets so cranky when she’s tired. She’s like me when I’m hungry. Mind you, she’s cranky when she’s hungry, too.”

Mason rolled her eyes and went to fetch the car.

She started pushing through the people, fishing in her pocket for the claim ticket. Mason hadn’t enjoyed crowds when she was drinking, and sober she found them almost unbearable. When the yelling behind her started, Mason was fifty feet away and wedged between two guys who were having a conversation over her head.

But still she heard it. Archie…yelling her name. Hard.

She turned. She could see his face above the crowd, furious and concerned and headed toward her. She turned and started pushing back through. When she was halfway, he started pointing and shouting at someone else, someone between them, someone heading toward the street.

“What?” She was pretty sure he couldn’t hear her, but surely he could read lips enough to get that.

“Catch him! Stop him!” She could read lips, too. She angled toward the street, struggling to get past three drunken girls who were screaming at something on a phone. They wouldn’t move, so she moved one of them. Forcibly. Gravity being the cruel taskmistress it was, the girl went down, and dragged a friend with her.

Mason stepped over them and kept pushing.

Archie got close enough for her to hear his shout. Damn, he was pissed. “A guy just attacked Julia. Shoved her over, yelled in her face and took off. Will is chasing him, but I lost them both in the crowd…” He looked around, and spotted an eddy in the people. “There!”

“What am I looking for?” Mason felt adrenaline flood her muscles.

“Gray hoodie, short guy.”

Mason nodded and tacked left, planning to flank the guy. Archie went straight ahead, and Will was presumably somewhere to their right.

Then the guy broke loose of the crowd and Mason spotted him running like a hare, east on Sunset. He stuck to the bike lane, dodging the drunks and tourists who stepped on and off the sidewalk like tightrope walkers just starting out. A couple went down, but the guy kept moving. The spilling neon from the clubs and bars painted him yellow and white, red and blue, as he ran through puddles of light. His speed made him an easy spot.

Mason hit the street running, yelling at everyone to clear a path. She had an extra gear she hadn’t used in a while, and nearly took Archie down as he stepped into the street just ahead of her.

“Heading east…” she yelled as she passed him, and seconds later saw the back of his shirt as he easily outpaced her. She frowned. It’s not a race… then remembered it was. Mason couldn’t see Will anywhere, and hoped he was somehow ahead of their quarry. She kept yelling as she went, trying to clear the way, but still took out a couple of Midwesterners who had the misfortune to pick that moment to step into the street to take a photo. Oh well, she thought to herself; it’ll give them something to talk about back in Des Moines.

She could still see the guy ahead, desperation giving him wings. On and off the sidewalk, in and out of the crowds, nimble as fuck. She had him, she lost him, she had him…

Archie slowed to let her catch up, and panted, “I’m cutting across. Get on the inside, OK?”

She nodded, not wanting to waste effort on speech. A motorbike grazed her elbow as it passed too close, horns blaring, people yelling, but Mason kept running. She still hadn’t spotted Will, but shouting and cursing to her right suggested Archie was making progress.

Then the guy was suddenly just ahead, and she nearly had him. She reached, grabbed his hoodie, and toppled as he wrenched free and sped up.

“Fuuuuck…” She hit the tarmac and sprawled, feeling her wrist twisting under her. Then she was up and going again, ignoring the heat and pain in her arm. Time for that later.

Hoodie Guy turned and dodged into the crowd, spotting a gap and cutting across the sidewalk.

She was right behind.

“Out of the way! Move!” She unleashed a yell she hadn’t used in a while, gratified at the speed with which people scattered. Then a siren, short and staccato, somewhere behind her.

Dammit.

She caught sight of Archie away to her right, slowed by the crowd.

The man ran through a doorway, bright lights, noise. The smell of beer. Spirits.

She screeched to a halt. We got you now, motherfucker .

Then Archie was there, looking up at the sign.

“He’s in here,” panted Mason. “I’ll go around the back. Where’s Will?”

Archie bent double, trying to catch his breath. “Lost him. He was right behind you.” He looked up at Mason. “You go in. I’ll go around the back.”

“No,” said Mason. “I try not to go into bars. You go in.”

“Mason”—Archie shook his head—“you’re not drinking, you’re apprehending.”

Mason shrugged. “I’ll stop him if he comes out.”

Archie was just opening his mouth to argue further when Will showed up. Sweaty, red-faced, but very much there.

“What’s going on?” he said. “What are we waiting for?”

“The guy went in the bar and Mason won’t go in.”

Will shrugged. “I get it. People, places and things.” The triad you’re supposed to avoid when you’re sober.

“Told you,” said Mason, “but I will go around the back.”

Will shrugged. “I’m a gambler. I’ll go in. Unlikely to get caught up in a random blackjack game…Gray hoodie, right?” And with that he plunged in.

Archie was still frowning at Mason, but he pointed. “The alley’s half a block that way. Run, Mason, Jesus.”

She took off.

The surface of the alley was loosely graveled, and Mason nearly fell as she rounded into the stretch that ran behind the bars. Some back doors were open, some closed, and she realized she should have paid attention. She wasn’t sure which door went with the bar…the name of which she hadn’t even looked at.

And then a door ahead swung open and in the trapezoid of red light she saw Hoodie Guy running full tilt, and three arm’s lengths behind him, Will.

Will was not an athlete, and had neither acceleration nor control, but what he had was commitment and momentum. The guy was fast, though, and turned up the other end of the alley with Will on his heels and Mason closing quickly.

Hoodie Guy was only a few feet ahead of Will when he reached Sunset again, bursting onto the sidewalk, scattering a group of Japanese tourists like pigeons, squawking and fluttering out of the way. Will reached the street a second later, his mass carrying him across the suddenly de-touristed space like a boulder down a hill. He grabbed for the hoodie, got hold of it, Mason was half a foot behind, it was suddenly all going very well…when Hoodie Guy reached the street and ran in front of a Starline Tours bus doing forty in a twenty-five zone.

“And over there,” the announcer on the bus was saying, “is where Leonardo DiCaprio was arrested for…Oh, shit…”

Brakes. Sirens. Screams.

Mason ran into Will as he bounced off the side of the bus himself, tossed and spun back against her, both of them hitting the sidewalk like sacks of potatoes.

Mason scrambled to her feet, expecting to see Hoodie Guy patéd on Sunset Boulevard.

But there was nothing to see at all. He’d gotten away clean.