"Milo didn't persecute her, Maria."

"Who's talking reality, Don? It's a game and rich people have a better win-loss record." She turned to Milo. "You're lucky she's arrogant. Only reason she hasn't lawyered up is she thinks she's smarter than you. But now that she's faced with Rutger, don't count on that lasting. What's your next step?"

Milo sat down heavily. Watched Helga through the gla.s.s.

She'd remained in her chair.

Black-wigged statue.

Thomas said, "Milo, you with us?"

"I don't know."

Thomas's BlackBerry sent her a message. She checked the screen, poked with a stylus, scrolled. "Detective Obermann has your German translations all done, he'll e-mail them to you but is happy to talk to you over the phone. And ... looks like he identified some of those numbers you found on Gemein's papers. GPS coordinates, matching a private hangar at Van Nuys Airport. Registered to ... DSD, Inc. That ring any bells?"

Milo sat up. "Loud ones. The sultan's holding company."

"So our Swiss Miss had more arson in mind. I'll talk to the Sranilese consulate, ask for consent to enter the hangar."

"There is no consulate."

"The emba.s.sy in D.C., then."

"They'll say no and clean the place out."

"Of what?"

"Their royal family's involved in murder, they're gonna be in total a.s.s-covering mode."

Thomas thought. "Guess we have a problem." Helga Gemein closed her eyes.

Boxmeister said, "How about this: We apply for warrant under exigent danger. Likely presence of volatile chemicals, imminent risk of ignition."

"The hangar's ready to blow?" said Thomas. "What evidence do we have of that?"

"We've got prior bad acts by Helga and her looking for GPS coordinates. To me that's clear intent."

"She can look to her heart's content, Don. How's she going to gain access to the hangar?"

Milo said, "She's got money to charter a private jet. Maybe once she's in there she could find it."

"Exactly," said Boxmeister. "Like one of those private clubs. Getting past the rope's a b.i.t.c.h, but once you're in, anything goes."

Thomas said, "No judge is going to buy it and we're talking royalty, to boot."

Milo said, "But what if she's already gotten in there and set her Jell-O? All those aircraft nearby? All that jet fuel?"

Boxmeister said, "s.h.i.t, I don't want to even imagine. Sure hate to be the one who failed to take precautions."

Thomas said, "Subtle, guys. You want me to ask the boss."

Milo glanced toward the one-way mirror. Helga remained frozen. "Up to you but I used all my charm up with her."

Thomas drummed her BlackBerry. Began texting.

Helga Gemein stood up, walked to the mirror, turned her back on us.

One hand reached up. Fooled with the wig.

"That's her anxiety tell, messing with the rug," said Boxmeister. "She's gonna cave, I can feel it."

If that comforted Milo, he didn't show it.

Thomas kept texting.

Helga Gemein turned again, faced us.

Looking but not seeing.

Blank eyes; she'd arrived at a solitary place.

s.n.a.t.c.hing off her wig with one deft movement, she exposed a beautifully shaped head shaved white and glossy. Holding the hairpiece in front of her, bowl up, like a chalice, she smiled.

Sad smile. Second time I'd seen it. I liked her no better.

Reaching into the wig, she pulled something out. Small and white and capsule-shaped, pincer-grasped between thumb and forefinger.

Still smiling, she opened her mouth, popped the white thing. Swallowed.

Her smile spread. Her breathing quickened.

Boxmeister said, "Oh, s.h.i.t."

Milo was already up, rushing for the door.

Maria Thomas looked up from her BlackBerry. "What's going on?"

Milo ran past her, let the door slam shut.

Inches away, blocked by gla.s.s, Helga Gemein wobbled. Clutching her abdomen, she let out a gasp.

Retched.

Something green and slimy trickled out of her mouth.

Slack mouth, the smile was gone.

Thomas said, "OmiG.o.d," and ran out of the room. Boxmeister hustled after her.

I stayed in my chair. No reason to crowd the s.p.a.ce.

Helga began convulsing. Her breath grew labored. Staggering closer to the one-way, she panted raggedly. Filmed the gla.s.s. Flecked it with gla.s.sy spit, then pinpoints of pink.

The ma.s.sive convulsion began at her eyes, raced downward as her entire body was seized.

Rag doll, shaken by an unseen G.o.d.

Foam began pouring out of her mouth, a Niagara of bile. Chunks of slime coated the gla.s.s, clouded my view. But I managed to make out Milo rushing in, catching her as she fell.

Laying her down gently, he began chest compressions. Thomas and Boxmeister stood by, transfixed.

Milo's technique was perfect. Rick insists he recertify every couple of years. He gripes about the colossal waste of time, homicide is brain-work, when would he ever have the opportunity to get heroic.

Today, he did.

Today, it didn't matter.

CHAPTER.

34.

The police chief's face is pocked more severely than Milo's. A lush white mustache does a pretty good job of camouflaging a harelip.

He's a lean man with no discernible body fat. The lack of spare flesh stretches the skin that sheaths his skull, highlighting pit and crater, glossing lump and scar. The skull is an oddly shaped triangle, broad and unnaturally flat on top, coated with silky, blond-white hair, and tapering to a knife-point chin. His eyes are small and dark and they alternate between manic bounces and long stretches of unblinking immobility. When he turns his head a certain way, patches of taut, tortured dermis give him the look of a burn victim.

He turns that way a lot and I wonder if it's intentional.

Take me on my terms.

Everything in his history supports a Screw-you approach to life: the up-from-nothing ascent, the graduate degree at an Ivy League university he disparages as "an asylum for rich brats." War heroism followed by clawing up the ranks of a notoriously corrupt East Coast police force, the combative years spent kicking bureaucratic a.s.s and clearing out departmental deadweight. Defying the bra.s.s and the police union with equal-opportunity contempt, he arm-twisted his way to dramatically lowered felony rates in a city considered "ungovernable" by pundits he dismissed as "fat-a.s.sed brats with mental constipation and verbal diarrhea." Stunning success was exploited to demand and receive the highest law enforcement salary in U.S. history.

A month later, he quit unceremoniously, when L.A. upped the ante.

Everyone said L.A. would be his fatal challenge.

Within a year of arriving, he'd divorced his third wife ten years his junior, married a fourth twenty years his junior, attended a lot of Hollywood parties and premieres, and lowered felony rates by twenty-eight percent.

When he'd taken the job, departmental wienies had bad-mouthed Milo as "a notorious troublemaker and a deviant," and urged demotion or worse.

The chief checked the solve-stats, most of the wienies ended up taking early retirement, Milo got the freedom to do his job with relative flexibility. As long as he produced.

I'd met the chief once before, when he'd invited me to his office, showed off his collection of psych texts, expounded on the finer points of cognitive behavior therapy, then made me an offer: full-time job heading the department's department of behavioral sciences. Even with his promise to raise the pay scale by forty percent, the salary didn't come close to what I earned working privately. Even if he'd tripled the money, it would never be an option. I know how to play well with others, but prefer my own rulebook.

During that meeting, he was dressed exactly as he was today: slim-cut black silk suit, aqua-blue spread-collar shirt, five-hundred-dollar red Stefano Ricci tie embedded with tiny crystals. On a lesser man it would've screamed Trying too hard. On him, all that polish emphasized the roughness of his complexion.

My terms.

He faced Milo and me across a booth at a steak house downtown on Seventh Street. A pair of ma.s.sive plainclothes cops watched the front door; three more had staked out positions inside the restaurant. A velvet rope blocked other diners in this remote, dim section. The waiter a.s.signed to us was attentive, vaguely frightened.

The chief's lunch was a chicken breast sandwich, seven-grain bread, side salad, no dressing. He'd ordered a thirty-ounce T-bone, medium-rare, all the fixings, for Milo; a more moderate rib eye for me. The food arrived just as we did.

Milo said, "Good guess, sir."

The chief's smile was crooked. "In the gulag, we keep files on dissidents."

His sandwich was divided into two triangles. He picked up a knife and bisected each half. Got five bites out of each quarter, chewing daintily and slowly. Sharp white teeth, somewhere between fox and wolf.

He wiped his lips with a starched linen napkin. "I bought you an insurance policy on Gemein, Sturgis. Know what I mean?"

"Captain Thomas."

A gun-finger aimed across the table. "Lucky for you Maria was there when that crazy b.i.t.c.h cyanided, because, like all hot air, blame floats to the top. Extra-lucky for you, Maria was the one who didn't want to strip-search. She's smart and industrious but she does tend to overthink."

Milo said, "Even without her directive, I wouldn't have strip-searched, sir."

"What's that, Sturgis? Penance?"

"Telling it like it is, sir."

"Why no strip?"

"At that point, my emphasis was on getting rapport with Gemein."

"Plus," said the chief, "even a super-sleuth like you couldn't conceive the b.i.t.c.h would hide anything under her wig. Talk about an overblown sense of drama. Lucky for all of you, I managed to block the press-sc.u.m when they started up the trash-vacuum. They live to tear us down, Sturgis, because they're useless pieces of c.r.a.p. They've also got the attention spans of decorticate garden slugs. I recently devised what I think is a tasteful and adroit method of handling press cretins."

Out of a jacket pocket came a sterling-silver card case, conspicuously monogrammed with his initials. A single, deft b.u.t.ton-push sprang the lid. Inside were pale blue business cards. He removed one, pa.s.sed it across the table.

Heavy-stock paper, elegant engraving. Three lines of type.

Your Opinion Has Been Duly Received

With Great Enthusiasm.