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Eddie’s was busy, but no prettier in the early evening than it had been in the morning. Mason saw a few familiar faces, but no one who looked like they wanted to talk. Julia marched in and went over to the bar, hailing the bartender as if she were a regular. Which in some ways she was; a bar is a bar is a bar, to an alcoholic.

“Hi there,” she said to the man working the counter. “Can I get two Cokes with a load of limes in one of them, please?”

“One lime slice is free; more than that will cost you.”

“You’re kidding,” said Mason, raising her eyebrows. “This is Southern California. Limes are literally growing everywhere…”

The guy shrugged. “So go pick one.”

“That’s fine, Mason,” said Julia, apparently not willing to fight over citrus slices. “The man has a business to run.”

“He’s not leaning into customer service,” Mason said angrily, but Julia shook her head.

“It’s not a big deal. Happy to pay for extra limes.” She waved her hand conciliatorily, and after a moment the man put down two small Cokes, one of them with three whole slices of lime.

“Thank you,” said Julia, taking a sip. “Delicious.”

Mason turned her back on the bar, leaning there while she surveyed the room. This was her kind of place: dark, smoky, the music loud, the patrons already drunk and possibly spoiling for a fight. She saw one of Jack Simon’s “girlfriends” sitting on her own and nudged Julia.

“Should we go talk to her?”

Julia shook her head. “No. I’m not sure Jack’s girlfriends all knew about one another; someone more neutral would be better.” She smiled and caught the bartender’s eye. “Hey there, can I ask you some questions?”

The man finished serving a customer and came over reluctantly. “Is it about limes?”

Julia laughed. “No, I think we took care of that already. I wanted to ask you about Jack Simon.”

The man looked at her distrustfully, then suddenly his face changed.

“You’re Julia Mann.” He paused. “The actress.”

“Well, I’m retired now, but yes, I used to be an actress.”

“You were a friend of Jack’s. He talked about you sometimes.” He cracked a smile, looking Julia up and down.

“We knew each other, yes. I hadn’t seen him for a very long time, though, and I was sad to hear about his death.”

“Yeah,” said the guy, “I lost quite a customer.”

“I bet he got all the limes he wanted,” muttered Mason.

“He did,” said the bartender, ignoring her sarcasm. “He was a serious regular, came in several nights a week for decades.”

“Were you surprised by his death?”

“No,” replied the man shortly. “Jack liked to play the field, didn’t care if he trod on a few toes. He was a great guy, don’t get me wrong, give you the shirt off his back, but there were more than a few husbands who might have shot him if he hadn’t done it himself.” He made a face. “Although I don’t think he did that, either. He was going back to Los Angeles to be in a movie. He was looking forward to it.”

“Do you know B? A regular girlfriend?”

The man’s face closed down. “I don’t know anything about that.”

Julia tried again. “She was someone he must have talked about. They were together for years. Not exclusively, apparently, but very much together.”

The man noticed a customer farther up the bar and turned to go. Then he turned back and leaned in. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, lady.”

“You don’t think B had anything to do with his death?”

He laughed, rudely. “No, I don’t know about that. But your mistake is in thinking B was a woman. I think B was a guy. Like I said, Jack liked to play the field. Both sides.”

After that, the bartender refused to say any more, and Julia got a look on her face Mason was starting to be familiar with. Winnie the Pooh would probably call it a thinking face , but Mason saw it more as a plotting expression.

They sat down at the table next to the ex-girlfriend, and in a few moments she leaned over.

“Hey…are you that actress?”

Julia smiled at her. “I’m AN actress, but there are lots of us.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who knew Jack, right? Julia Mann. You went to prison. And won an Oscar.”

“Not in that order, but yes to both. We were here hoping to find out some more information about Jack, actually. Can we ask you some questions?” Mason was impressed at how easily Julia befriended people, when she was normally so prickly. She was realizing more and more that Julia could be many people in the course of a day.

The woman shrugged. She was maybe in her mid to late fifties, and cute in a well-preserved, still-takes-care-of-her-skin kind of way. Healthy, despite her current location and clearly regular state of inebriation. “Sure. I was just sitting here thinking about him, actually. He was a lot of fun. I miss him.”

Mason sat back a little to let Julia take the lead.

“This might be a delicate question, but were you aware that Jack had, um, many friends? Romantically speaking, I mean.”

“Sure,” replied the woman, good-naturedly. “Jack was many things, but dishonest wasn’t one of them. He didn’t believe in monogamy, said it stifled the natural energy of the universe.” She laughed. “I think it just stifled him, to be blunt. We hung out here a lot, hooked up occasionally if the mood struck us, but it was never much more than that. He had a serious relationship he always went home to, you know what I mean?”

“Yes, so we’ve gathered. What do you know about it?”

“It was with a guy, I know that. Someone he’d known up in Los Angeles, many years ago.”

“Whose name began with B?”

The woman made a face. “That rings a bell, but I don’t know for sure. He didn’t talk that much about it. He maybe only mentioned it once or twice to me.”

“And it didn’t bother you?” Mason asked.

“Not at all.” The woman was philosophical. “At my age, you realize living the life other people expect you to is a waste of time. Jack lived what he believed in; it was pretty freeing. I’ve been married three times. Commitment can be a bit of a buzzkill, if you know what I mean. The idea that you can meet someone in your twenties, get married, have kids and forty years later still feel the same way about them is pretty far-fetched. Jack loved this guy, though, truly. I’m sure he’s brokenhearted.”

“And you think this guy was in Los Angeles?” Julia sounded a little disappointed. Another dead end.

Surprisingly, the woman shook her head. “Oh no, he’s here. He belongs to the same club Jack does. They saw each other all the time. I don’t think it’s acknowledged there, though. One time Jack made a joke about it being an open secret that was more secret than open, although I wasn’t really sure what he meant. You could ask around. Maybe someone there knew more than he thought.”

She looked into her empty glass and then up at Julia, hopefully. “One for the road?”

Julia motioned to Mason. “Not for us, but we’ll happily get one for you. What are you drinking?”

“Vodka tonic,” replied Jack’s sad ex-girlfriend. “Jack’s favorite.”

Mason got to her feet. “I’ll see if they can spare some extra lime.”

Once they were back outside the bar, Julia was all business.

“I have a sneaking suspicion Robert might have known more than he was letting on,” she said. “Let’s go back and see if we can talk to him again. He was pretty familiar with the house for someone who ‘barely exchanged more than twenty words’ with Jack.”

But when they got to the club, they were told Robert was out and had been out all day. Julia sat down at the bar and ordered a soda water, and waited until the attendant was out of earshot.

“Alright, go commandeer a golf cart. We’re going back to the house.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Steal a golf cart. How hard can it be? I’m sure loads of them are just sitting there with the keys still in them. Who expects grand theft auto at a country club?”

Mason shook her head. “I hate to burst your bubble, but I’ve never driven a golf cart in my life, and I’m not starting under pressure.”

Julia gave her a withering look. “You give off this ball-busting attitude, but actually you can’t fight and you’re too chicken to steal what is essentially a motorized shopping cart. Fine. I’ll do it.”

And she got up and walked out of the bar.