A bullet ricocheted off the side of my door.

I made a right turn and Elana leaned out, taking four fast shots at the rampaging bull of a car. I had turned onto Edison, a warehouse street with very few pedestrians. I remembered, too late, that most of the side streets off it were dead ends, so I couldn’t afford a turn. We were on a straightaway with only two bullets left.

“Did you hit anything?” I shouted.

“I don’t think so.”

The Chrysler was coming on strong for three blocks, four, five. I swerved and banked to pull around cars ahead of me. Leon matched me move for move. After Leonard Street the bull slowed. By the next block there was smoke from the car’s hood. They pulled to the curb soon after that.

I almost fainted when I realized we’d survived.

I turned onto Hooper and headed downtown.

“Where are you going?” she asked me, the steely calm of her voice in deep contrast with my racing heart.

“You’ll see when we get there.”

After half an hour or so we came to an underground parking lot on Flower. It was expensive, thirty-five cents an hour, but I wanted to be careful now that I had a killer on my trail. A killer with whom I had just been in a running gun battle in the streets of L.A.

I reached out to Elana Love and said, “Gun, please.”

She looked down at the pistol in her hand and considered a moment before handing it over.

We went to a small diner called Guardino’s on Hope. It was a nice place with an Italian flair. Larry, the owner, liked me and Fearless because we’d come there on double dates and buy big dinners with fancy wines for our girls. Fearless could eat antipasto all day if you’d let him.

“Paris,” Selena Karsky said in greeting. She was Larry’s girlfriend, bottled blond and fifty. She still looked good though. “Where’s Fearless?”