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myself, Chancellor knew exactly how he felt about Olivia. He was madly in love with her, and when she died, he was wracked with guilt for not having been there to see it. Without consulting me first, he sought Rucker out to formally request that he honor the dead girl’s memory with the price of a decent burial. None of Olivia’s survivors would go in his place. My brother was careful to avoid any suggestion of culpability on Excel’s part; he simply stated the fact that it had been Excel’s cocaine that had caused her heart to seize up in her chest, and no one else had the means to spare her the indignity of having the county dispose of her remains.
    According to Chancellor, Excel laughed in his face upon hearing this argument and had him forcibly shown to the door.
    My brother took the rebuff badly, but I took it worse. A kinder and more sensitive man than I, Chancellor had humbled himself before God and man to solicit the dealer’s aid, to respectfully ask for something that should have been freely given, and Excel had answered him with a playful kick in the teeth. Up until then, I’d been willing to hold the dealer blameless for Olivia’s death, preferring to chalk the tragedy up to the precariousness of youth, but now I could see how unworthy he was of my absolution.
    If he didn’t want to spend a few thousand dollars to clean up one of the countless messes his business made, that was his prerogative. Liability coverage is never part of the deal anyone makes with a purveyor of illicit narcotics. But Excel was not within his rights to be cheerfully indifferent to the untimely death of someone as beautiful and vibrant as Olivia Gardner. If she didn’t warrant his sympathy, she at the very least deserved his respect, and one way or another, she was going to get it.
    I was going to see to it.

FIVE
    R .J.’s widow Frances owned a nice home up in Ladera Heights. It was a white, single-level number with a pseudo-Asian motif that seemed to scream its 1960s origins out loud, and the clean, quiet street to which it was anchored had nary a parked car upon it when I arrived, back in LA less than a full week after R.J.’s funeral.
    I was left to stand on the porch for a long time before somebody answered my persistent knocking. I had never been formally introduced to the young woman who eventually came to the door, but I recognized her as R.J.’s daughter nonetheless. She was the same bronze-haired beauty I’d seen glued to the side of Frances Burrow throughout the funeral, the product of a mixed race union that had blessed her with the smooth, oval face of her Latina mother and the brown-sugar flesh tones of her African-American father. There was no genetic explanation for the large brown eyes, however; those were all her own.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I apologize for just dropping in on you like this. But my name is Errol White. I was an old friend of your father’s.’
    ‘Of course. I remember seeing you at the funeral.’
    She waited for me to explain myself.
    ‘If I’ve caught you at a bad time . . .’
    ‘No, no. Please, come in.’
    She pulled the door open for me and I stepped inside. The house was all white walls and ancient furniture: antique lamps and mirrors, velvet upholstery and Indian throw rugs. It was a decor that created a sense of time travel back to the days of six-digit telephone numbers and Packard automobiles. Over five days had come and gone since the repast, but I would have sworn I could still smell all the plates piled high with sliced ham and potato salad those who had attended had no doubt carried from room to room. I was almost sorry now I hadn’t come.
    At the young woman’s insistence, I took a seat upon the embroidered rose petals of a heavily cushioned couch, then watched as she lowered herself into a matching armchair directly opposite. There was no sign of her mother.
    ‘You’re the one Daddy called “Handy”,’ R.J.’s daughter said, smiling.
    ‘Yes. And I believe your name is