“And just think how he’ll feel when he reads that we’ve crushed a criminal conspiracy that reaches into the highest levels of Santa Barbara society,” Shawn said triumphantly. “We may even take out some of his neighbors.”

Gus wasn’t sure that people in Steele’s economic bracket actually had neighbors, except in the way astronomers discuss neighboring galaxies. But that didn’t seem as important as the other question banging against his skull. “What conspiracy is that?”

“The phony impound man,” Shawn said. “We know he’s a criminal. We know he’s hiding something.”

“That doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of Santa Barbara society,” Gus said. “Maybe he’s a loner. Or maybe his partners are even lower down than he is.”

“You can’t have the ultimate bad guy being some poor schmuck,” Shawn said. “Your really good villains are the wealthy elite.”

“You were watching another Law and Order marathon when I was unconscious, weren’t you?”

“That has nothing to do with it,” Shawn said. “You want your hero to go up against the entrenched power structure, a lone knight in dented armor tilting at the windmills of wealth and influence in what’s supposed to be a class-free America.”

“Didn’t we just free the widow of a multimillionaire by scamming a confession out of a woman wearing Wal-Mart’s bargain line?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Gus was spared answering by the arrival of a nurse, who shooed Shawn and Tara out of the room. After a moment she was joined by a doctor, who gave Gus a quick once-over and approved his release. Gus spent the next fifteen minutes filling out insurance paperwork and the following forty-five coaxing his fingers into bending sufficiently to button his shirt. At least it was a fresh shirt. Sometime in the night Shawn must have stopped by Gus’ place and picked up a change of clothes for him.