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broad streets wedged between Santa Monica and Sunset will do when the connotation is primal California affluence. In the Flats, teardowns began at 2 million bucks and pumped-up piles of stucco can fetch more than triple that amount.
    Tourists from the East usually have the same impression of the area: so clean, so green, such miserly lots. Houses that would grace multiple acreage in Greenwich or Scarsdale or Shaker Heights are shoehorned onto half-acre rectangles. That doesn’t stop the residents from erecting thirteen-thousand-square-foot imitations of Newport mansions that elbow their neighbors.
    The Bartell house was one of those, a hulking, flat-faced wedding cake set behind a pitiful front yard that was mostly circular driveway. White fencing topped with gold finials shielded the property. A security sign promising ARMED RESPONSE hung near the electric gate. Through the fence, double doors with frosted-glass panes were backlit teal green. Above them, a giant porthole showcased a white-hot chandelier. No vehicles in front; a four-car garage provided ample shelter for automotive pets.
    Milo inhaled, and said, “Once more with feeling,” and we got out. Cars zipped by on Sunset, but North Camden Drive was still. Beverly Hills has a thing for trees, and the ones lining Camden were magnolias that would’ve loved South Carolina. Here they were stunted by drought and smog, but a few were flowering, and I could smell their fragrance.
    Milo punched a button on the squawk box. A man barked, “Yes?”
    “Mr. Bartell?”
    “Who is this?”
    “Police.”
    “About what?”
    “Could we come in please, sir?”
    “What’s this about?”
    Milo frowned. “Your daughter, sir.”
    “My—hold on.”
    Seconds later, lights flooded the front of the house. Now I saw that the glass doors were flanked by orange trees in pots. One was failing. The doors swung open, and a tall man walked across the driveway. He stopped fifteen feet from us, shaded his eyes with his hands, took three steps more, into the floodlights, like a performer.
    “What’s this all about?” said a deep, hoarse voice.
    Stan Bartell stepped up close. Late fifties, Palm Springs tan. A big man with powerful shoulders, a hawk nose, thin lips, a bulky chin. Waxy white hair was drawn back in a ponytail. He wore black-framed eyeglasses, a thin gold chain around his neck, and an iridescent burgundy velvet robe that brushed the ground.
    Milo produced his badge, but Bartell didn’t come any closer.
    “What about my daughter?”
    “Sir, it would really be better if we came in.”
    Bartell removed his glasses and studied us. His eyes were close-set, dark, analytic. “You’re Beverly Hills police?”
    “L.A.”
    “Then what are you doing here—I’m going to check you out, so if this is a scam, you’ve been warned.” He returned to the house, closed the doors behind him.
    We waited on the sidewalk. Headlights appeared at the south end of the block, followed by bass thumps as a Lincoln Navigator drove by slowly. Behind the wheel was a kid who looked no older than fifteen, baseball hat worn backwards, hip-hop music bellowing from the interior. The SUV continued to Sunset, cruising the Strip.
    Five minutes passed with no word or sign from Stan Bartell.
    I said, “How much detail will Beverly Hills PD give him?”
    “Who knows?”
    We waited another couple of minutes. Milo ran his hand along the white fence slats. Eyed the security sign. I knew what he was thinking: all the safety measures in the world.
    *
    The electric gate slid open. Stan Bartell stepped out of his house and stood on his front steps and waved us in. When we got to the door, he said, “The only thing they know about LAPD being here is something called a notification on a kid my daughter knows. Let me see your badge just to be safe.”
    Milo showed it to him.
    “You’re the one,” said Bartell. “So what’s with Gavin Quick?”
    “You know him?”
    “Like I said, my daughter knows him.”