After half an hour of chanting, Charles finally shot to his feet, waving uselessly at the incense smoke in the air.  “I’ve had enough,” he said.  “I’m leaving.”

He had indulged Katz for longer than he should have.  They had phoned in the murder anonymously, which rankled tremendously as the police were denied nearly all of the details about the killer that they knew.  Katz had refused to stick around to make a report, though, and suggested (rather strongly) that if Charles did so, further contact would not be forthcoming.

This made Charles uncomfortable, but he didn’t have a choice and didn’t think he could be faulted for choosing Nikki over a dead punk he didn’t know.  He and Katz had gone to a psychic next, and that was the last straw.  In spite of Katz’ reassurances that he knew what he was doing, Charles wondered exactly how the private eye thought incense, chanting and tea leaves could help.  He had enough patience for thirty minutes, at which time he wanted nothing more than to call his fiancee, tell her that he’d gotten a strong lead but it hadn’t panned out otherwise, and go home to decide what the next step was.

Katz was on his feet immediately.  He’d taken off his Columbo coat and shirt, revealing a white tank top and tattoo-covered arms.  He wore what appeared to be a chain of dried roses around one surprisingly toned bicep.  Underneath the coat, Katz clearly wasn’t the pasty desk-jockey he appeared to be.  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up,” he said.  “We’re getting somewhere, here.  We make a good team.”

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Even though it was a Monday night, Andrew got a few people to agree to dinner and hanging at Liz’ new apartment.  The place was so small that eight or nine people were going to pack it to the walls, anyway.  He made sure his Red Hot Chili Peppers CDs were in the truck that morning, so he wouldn’t forget them.  They were Liz’ favorite band, and from what he’d seen, she’d lost her music somewhere along the way.

Liz had been lukewarm about the idea, mostly because she didn’t think anyone was interested enough to come and see her.  Andrew had sensed the interest behind her nobody-loves-me attitude though, and made the calls.  If Liz really didn’t want to do it, she’d have said no.  When he talked to her at lunchtime she sounded tired and covered with fish–yes, it was possible to sound fish-covered, he had learned–but she was almost bubbly with excitement at cooking for friends she hadn’t seen in years.  She waxed ecstatic about rushing out before her break ended to score a basket full of fresh veggies to cut up, and she was planning to make both chicken and seafood.  Looking forward to stir-fry made the day go quickly.

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“You have to cut them smaller than that, Ondrew,” Liz chided, looking over his shoulder.  “No one’s going to cram a piece of chicken that big into his mouth.”

“I would,” he said defensively.

“Well, you’re one of those idiots who ends up choking to death on a three-inch chunk of sirloin.  The rest of us aren’t.”  Liz went back to chopping vegetables.  She was twice as fast as he was, mostly because he spent half his time watching her.  The woman was a holy terror with a French chef’s knife.  Carrots, mushrooms and celery exploded into delicate fragments under a ratatatting barrage of blade against chopping board.  Bowls of chopped cauliflower and broccoli stood as reminders that many other vegetables had suffered a similar fate this evening.  It looked like she was making more than they would all eat–but then you could never tell.  He himself was pretty hungry, although it was easy to forget that while he was lost in adjusting to Liz without hair.  She looked different.  Her hollow cheeks conspired to make her look older.  She looked like she was in chemotherapy, actually.

And now she was looking back at him.

“You’re staring,” she said with a faint smile.

“I’m glad you’re home,” he said, which was true.

“We’ll see how you feel about that in a few days,” she said.  “I don’t think I’m better yet.”

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The next day she drove to Arby’s on her lunch break.  It was close enough to walk, but the cold wind threatened to freeze her bald head and snap it off like a burned matchstick if she went outside.  She needed to get a hat.

She felt that she deserved the indulgence of a fast-food lunch, despite her tight budget.  Deep in a foul mood, Liz didn’t expect a roast beef sandwich to cheer her up, and it didn’t.  Soon it was gone, and there wasn’t anything to do but go back to the fish shop.  She put Dennis as far out of her mind as she could, and looked forward to schlepping icy crates through the icy weather, and hopefully not talking to anyone.

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The rest of the week passed in a haze of fiercely tossed boxes and cold.  Liz didn’t talk to Eric at work, and ignored the leer that seemed to have been pasted to his face.  She attacked her work wordlessly, slinging fish as hard as she could and daring him to open his mouth.  At one point she thought she’d torn a muscle in her shoulder doing an angry clean-and-jerk of a sixty-pound box full of ice, but the tearing pain subsided quickly to a dull burn and gave her something to think about instead of Eric.  Which wasn’t easy; every time she saw him, it seemed, he was looking at her intently, half grinning, enjoying his secret.

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It was a pleasant evening.  Andrew expected Liz to fall asleep halfway through, but she didn’t.  In fact, she watched the movie raptly, and didn’t want to talk when it was time to change tapes.  They watched the whole four-hour epic and Andrew left full of tasty lasagna and Fritos, and feeling good about Liz, who seemed to be doing much better.

This was his week for doing stuff for other people, it seemed.  Peach was moving on Saturday, to a loft downtown, and since he barely had a car (his rustbucket Karmann-Ghia had shingles for floorboards), let alone a vehicle that could carry what little furniture he owned, Andrew had volunteered his pickup truck.  He’d been hoping to put the truck–a high-performance Ford Lightning–away for the winter, but hadn’t found time to shop for a winter beater yet.  The weather was supposed to be cold but clear, so he could probably put it off for another week or two.  Andrew went to bed at midnight, feeling useful and content.

He was feeling so good that he woke up with an urge to burn a sick day, in fact.

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Liz insisted on helping Peach move on Saturday.  “What time should I meet you guys?” she had asked upon hearing that Crotch had begged off, citing a family obligation.  Andrew opened his mouth to tell her it wasn’t necessary, and never got the words out.  “Shut up, I can help.  Don’t treat me like a goddamn invalid any more.”

That had more or less settled it, and she met them at noon to shift Peach’s furniture.  He didn’t have much; a large percentage of it consisted of cinderblocks and boards.  It wasn’t that he was too cheap to get actual furniture; upon closer observation the wood was redwood, not pine, and had been lovingly, carefully stained and varnished.  He had even wet-sanded and sealed the cinderblocks so their surfaces were smooth, and he’d probably done the sanding by hand.  Peach preferred to live like a monk.  “I can’t believe you stayed here as long as you did,” Andrew said of the tiny apartment, which only had one window.  He picked up the last box of books and headed out to the truck.

Peach shrugged, looking around the empty apartment.  “The energy here was good.”

“What changed it?” Liz asked.

His eyes went to the ceiling.  “Neighbor with a treadmill,” he said.

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Katz was surprised to discover that the address book belonged to Liz Bahti, but did his best to conceal this surprise from Charles.  Getting it translated was as easy as a quick visit to an acquaintance, and they had a list of names, some in Los Angeles and some in Michigan.  Nikki’s name was also in the book, but Charles said the address was the one she’d run away from two years ago, so that contact was no good.

A quick canvassing of the Los Angeles contacts proved to be worthless.  Katz changed clothes, combing his hair back and doffing the coat for some pegged jeans and a black Legendary Pink Dots t-shirt that easily quadrupled his street cred.  He left Charles in the car so he could do the talking without the big intimidating lawyer hanging over him, and discovered that none of Liz’ friends had seen her for a month or more.  Two had heard that she’d died, a bit of gossip which panicked Katz until he called Liz’ mother.  Midori Bahti was curt and didn’t give him any idea of her daughter’s whereabouts, but made it clear that they had at least spoken recently.  A call to Liz’ father, in Michigan, confirmed it–she was in Michigan.  They’d missed her by three weeks.  Ted Bahti wanted to know if Liz owed Katz money, and made it clear that if she did, he ought to consider the marker defaulted and swallow his loss.  The guy sounded like he was capable of doing something about it, too.

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Liz was surprised at how nervous she felt, kneeling at the edge of the mat.  The knees-squared, feet-flat seiza position was familiar, although it made her knees hurt because she was so out of shape.  She hadn’t sat seiza–hell, hadn’t been in an aikido dojo–in years, but here she was.  She kept telling herself it was because Andrew had pushed her to go, but she wanted to be here.  Concentrating on the class was taking her mind off of the cold sweats she kept breaking out in, and taking her mind off of the desire to stop for a double whiskey on the way home.

The experienced students were already on the mat, practicing before the beginner’s class started at six.  Five more minutes.  Liz closed her eyes, trying to clear her head and relax.  Some part of her was convinced they were going to find some reason to kick her out.  “We don’t take recovering alcoholics,” they’d say.  It was silly, of course.  She tried to put the past few days out of her head, both good and bad.

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“What’s in the box?” Ted asked when Liz arrived after ten to pick it up.  He was watching the news, as he usually did when he was at home.

She had decided on the drive over not to tell him about the briefcase.  “My helmet, and that butterfly pillow I got from Midori’s aunt when I was little.  I didn’t want to carry them on the bus.”

“Seemed heavier than that,” he said, looking at her closely.

“The pillow had puke on it.  It was wet.  Probably got the packing material wet.”  Papa was too damned hard to lie to.  “Look, do you want to open it?  It’s not like I shipped myself a case of tequila.”  She prepared herself to explain the briefcase, if she could.

Ted stood up, to show that he didn’t approve of her irritated tone.  “No, thank you,” he said.  He crossed the living room in four calm, measured steps.  “And you don’t drink tequila, anyway,” he said as he went past her into the kitchen.  He sounded a little bit disgusted.

Liz was rattled.  She hadn’t realized that her father ever paid enough attention to know the details of her habit.  She felt her face flush, and was still somewhat dumbstruck when he returned with a breathalyzer.

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