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“You on a job?”

“Roger’s got Brenda in a hospital out here in Los Angeles. I was just supposed to come see her, but the first thing she did was put me on a missing persons case.”

“Chief Odin always said that your gram won’t give up on nuthin’ till the last cow comes in.”

Chief Odin Oliver was my father. He’d spent some time in prison, and when he got out, he started a thing with Leaf’s guardian, Luwanda Bell.

“Ain’t that the truth,” I said, admitting to Chief Odin’s pronouncement. “You back in New York?”

“Philly. Luwanda’s sick.”

“Oh,” I said, unable to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “What’s wrong with her?”

“It’s sumpin’ with her gut. They plannin’ to do a laser operation an’ after that she got to rest up a few days. She only need me that long.”

“Then you headed back up north?”

“I said in the text that I was comin’ home to you, fool.”

I smiled, didn’t say anything.

“You want me?” she posed, with emphasis.

“That’s exactly what it is. I mean, it feels so right that it’s just gotta be wrong.”

After a long silence she sighed and then asked, “When you gonna come back to Brooklyn?”

“Two, three days. The woman I’m looking for is probably in New York, but there might be a couple’a people out here to look into.”

“You got a new woman?”

“I got nobody.”

“You got people,” she argued. “What about your parents and Aja? What about Grandma B?”

“I’ll call you from the plane on the way out.”

“You’re not supposed to make calls from airplanes.”

“You can when they’re private. Roger’s flyin’ me back.”

“Okay then,” she said, and then she hung up.

Neither one of us was very good at properly expressing powerful feelings.

Star Shield was only a few miles from my upscale hotel. It was a house made from wood, surrounded by glass and steel office buildings, standing there in brazen defiance of modernity.

I passed through the front door and was immediately faced by a long-lashed and zaftig receptionist who, it seemed, woke up every morning with white skin and then proceeded to powder that into something akin to snow. She was young and painfully attractive. She looked me up and down and took her time before asking, “May I help you?”

I considered the question. I had to. That was the impact of Leaf Alyssandra Morton’s call. All the systems of my body wanted Leaf, and just about every other woman I met.

She smiled.

“Um,” I uttered. “I would like to see Paulie Antonucci.”

Her eyes seemed to ask, Really?

“It’s about Arman Babylon.”