"A man's got to eat, don't he? You want an oyster? I could order more."

I shook my head no. He lifted one of the sh.e.l.ls, elbow pointing high, and slurped. He chewed and swallowed and let out a soft sigh.

"There's nature's goodness, right there," he said. "It's like taking in a swallow of the sea."

"You almost killed me. You almost killed Beth, which is even worse."

"Is that where all this hostility comes from? You think it was me what ran you off the highway?" He seemed surprised, even hurt. "I had nothing to do with it. I was as shocked as anyone to see the carca.s.s of your car tilting there on the side of the road. In fact, I was thinking it was I who saved your life. And what thanks does I get? Nothing but this diatribe of accusation."

"If it wasn't you who tried to kill me, who was it?"

"That's a question, innit? Though that cute little copper thought it was just an accident. Said you was speeding, driving reckless."

"But neither of us believes that, do we? You threatened me if I didn't take the plea, said something awful would happen."

"Come now, Vic, that's right there in the private detection handbook, technique number nineteen: the idle threat. It gets the juices flowing, gets the pot stirred. Make the threat, stir the pot, follow the mark until he leads you to something worth your while."

"And that's why you're in Vegas, following me."

"I even gave you a hint of what I wanted you to look for."

"The key."

"I knew it was missing, and I suspected where it might be. By the way, you done terrific work in finding the box. My compliments. But all the time, the threat was idle. It's one thing to put a scare in a person, quite another to actually back it up with murder."

"And you're not capable of that?"

I stared at his eyes, beady, ugly things, stared at his eyes to see whether there might be murder there. He stared back for a moment as if he understood where lay my deepest suspicions and then shrugged.

"Didn't say that, only said it was quite a thing. You should gander the menu, Vic. They've got nine different types of potato. Unfortunately, with my cholesterol problem, I can't order a one of them. Nothing for me but the oysters and a single filet mignon, well done. A lean cut of beef that is, and after they burn it, not a sc.r.a.p of fat left. But you, you should help yourself there, since it's you who's treating."

"Why me? You have the money."

"True, true, but it's mostly earmarked already, expenses and such. How about some creamed spinach, Vic, some rack of lamb? A bargain, too, the whole thing costing less than a proper c.r.a.ps spread at a ten-dollar table. You play c.r.a.ps?"

"No."

"Well, then, maybe you should learn. I gots myself a system."

"You've got a system?"

"Oh, yes. Yes I do. Yes, yes. With a few quick lessons maybe you could earn it all back and more. You know what the good book says: Give a man thirty thou, he's rich for a day, but teach a man to play c.r.a.ps, well, then, he's got something for the rest of his life, don't he?"

Just then a waiter laid a plate in front of me. It held four large crustaceans, split and grilled, a wild a.s.sortment of antennae and legs sticking helter-skelter from the sh.e.l.ls, the whole thing looking like some bizarre Klingon meal served to interstellar diplomats on the USS Enterprise. Enterprise.

"How do I eat this?" I said.

"With the saffron mayonnaise, I would suppose," said Skink.

I reached my fork into one of the sh.e.l.ls, pulled out the meat, dipped it into the yellow sauce.

"Oh, my."

"I hear they're quiet good," said Skink. "Although on my diet, I'm afraid..."

I didn't wait to hear what he had to say, and I didn't offer him one either. I pulled out another, dipped it in the sauce, snapped it clean between my teeth-marvelous. All day I'd been running around like a crazy man, stealing into a safe-deposit box, interrogating Cutlip, getting sideswiped in the desert, being examined at the hospital, sitting by Beth's bedside, taking a cab back to the hotel, checking back in, performing a quick run-through of what had been left me in the briefcase. With all that running, I hadn't eaten since the morning and wasn't aware how hungry I was until I bit into that first prawn. Then the second, then the third. I was ravenous, starved. I stopped only long enough to scan the menu and choose what else I wanted to stuff inside my gullet. Skink was wrong about the potatoes, there weren't nine choices, there were ten: shoestring and gaufrettes, ginger sweet and mashed, roasted fingerlings, french fries, truffle mashed, grati dauphinion, St. Florentine, and the simple, cla.s.sic baked. With the waiter hovering, I ordered the lamb, the spinach, both the shoestrings and the ginger sweets. Then I attacked the final prawn.

"You want mint jelly with that lamb, Vic? My mamma, she always served mint jelly with her lamb."

I nodded.

"And how about some wine? Something red, good for the heart. A little merlot? How does that sound? This is a business meeting, it's all tax deductible. Let's have some wine."

I nodded again. Skink ordered. The waiter took away the menu and bowed.

"You surprise me, Vic. I had taken you for the tightest of a.r.s.es, but you're more fun than I expected. I'm beginning to see what it was she saw."

I had come into the restaurant homicidally angry at Phil Frigging Skink, angry at him for trying to kill us, angry at him for stealing my files, strongly suspecting that he had been the one to shoot Hailey Prouix. Hatred is a soft word for what I felt toward him, but while I was sitting at that table, eating prawns and then lamb, the spinach and potatoes, drinking the Merlot, which was excellent by the way, smooth and dark, while I was sitting at that table, my emotions softened. He was a creep, clearly, but a pleasant little creep, pleasanter still as we started into the second bottle of wine. And I had to admit, I admired his taste in jackets. It would be a shame if I were right about him.

"Tell me something, Phil." He was no longer Phil Frigging Skink, he now was just Phil. "Did you ever in your life sell cars for a living?"

"Never." He laughed, and I laughed with him. "That would be a honest day's work."

"And who the h.e.l.l needs that?"

"There you go."

"Well, you'd be good at it nonetheless. Most of sales is bulls.h.i.t and you're a master. But something confuses me. How many people are you representing, and how do you stop from getting all their differing agendas confused?"

He paused, took a sip of Merlot. "It's all a matter of lines and angles, of antic.i.p.ation."

"Like billiards."

"Now you're getting it, yes you are. You like stories?"

"Who doesn't?"

"Well, fill your gla.s.s, Vic, sit back, and listen up. I got me a story you might want to hear. Yes, you might at that."

28.

"A MAN sets up a meeting, wants me to spy on his wife. Oldest story in the world, but with a twist. He's a fancy-dressing man, you know what I mean, handkerchief sticking out his suit jacket, his fingernails manicured and glossy. I hate him at sight. And here's the thing, not a whit of nervousness or upset about him. Generally a Joe thinks some other Joe is doing his wife, he's all flippy, but this Joe he's an absolute cuke, an arrogant cuke, if you catch my drift. It doesn't feel right. But like Sam says, never believe the client, believe the money. So's I take the retainer, write the information in my little book, and sets about tailing the wife. sets up a meeting, wants me to spy on his wife. Oldest story in the world, but with a twist. He's a fancy-dressing man, you know what I mean, handkerchief sticking out his suit jacket, his fingernails manicured and glossy. I hate him at sight. And here's the thing, not a whit of nervousness or upset about him. Generally a Joe thinks some other Joe is doing his wife, he's all flippy, but this Joe he's an absolute cuke, an arrogant cuke, if you catch my drift. It doesn't feel right. But like Sam says, never believe the client, believe the money. So's I take the retainer, write the information in my little book, and sets about tailing the wife.

"She was once a pretty thing, I can tell, but she'd gotten no younger over the years and the things what happen to women as they get older, the thickening thing, happened to her just as you would expect. But, see, with her I can tell she knows it, with her you can see the vulnerability. She shops, plays tennis, lunches at the club with the other ladies, la-di-da. Don't know why that's the life all the birds want, it'd be enough to bore my pants right off, I was them, and I figure maybe that's the trouble. So Thursday is lawn day, the boys in their cutoffs, whipping the mowers over the client's three football fields, and there's one boy wearing no shirt, who I tell you is frigging gorgeous. Dark complexion, thick curled lips, straight narrow nose, a perfect nose, with a ballplayer's a.r.s.e and a swimmer's body, thin but with muscles chiseled and abs, oh, my, the abs.

"Now, I ain't that way, I want you to know, don't be getting no ideas, me in this jacket and all, but I can still appreciate the male figure and I can tell you he's a frigging rock star. And next thing you know, he's talking to the missus. She brings him a lemonade. Sweat's dripping from his t.i.ts as he takes the gla.s.s. He lifts his chin to drain the drink, his Adam's apple bobs, one of his pecs twitches. She reaches out and almost touches his shoulder but pulls back. Obvious, innit? The attraction between 'em is so thick you could lubricate your d.i.c.k with it. So they all leave, all the lawn boys, but at three he comes back in a ratty old car and starts searching around like he lost something. She comes out to help him, they search around together, side by side. And when he happens to find it, the shirt he planted there that morning, he doesn't put it on as you would expect, but tosses it over his shoulder and waits there, like waiting for an invitation in, and she gives it, how could she not? Next thing you know I got myself a roll of film, job done, fee earned.

"But something's not right, and I don't like it. So I gives off following the lady and start to following the lawn boy. I meet up with him in a bar on Twelfth Street, a funny bar, you know, where we with our jackets would fit right in. I buy him a beer, buy him another, he thinks I'm an old poof interested in that swimmer's bod, and I can tell that he's willing to be interested, too, as long as I'm paying. So I go out back with him, into the alley behind the bar. It's dark, damp, rubber johnnies littering the asphalt, a place where if it could talk, you'd cover your ears and run out screaming. Lawn boy puts his hand on my hip and smiles his charming smile. I lift my elbow and break his nose. Sounded like someone snacking on a taco. So much for perfect. Now he's on the ground, hands covering his face, blood leaking through his fingers. I leans down and I tell him what I want to know, and he spills. Everything. It was the husband what put him up to it, the husband what paid off this trick to do his wife while I was there whole time with my camera.

"I figure the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he wants a divorce on his terms, wants the pictures either as bargaining leverage, hoping to unsettle her so she'll agree to poverty, or to show the judge in a custody fight when he grabs for the kids. Either way a nasty piece of business. So of course I goes back to the missus and shows her the pictures, and she breaks down, begging me not to give them to her husband. I tell her how I got no choice, I was paid for them in advance, I got my ethics to consider, but then I tell her about lawn boy and about how her husband paid him off and how she ought to get herself checked, because there's no telling what kind of vile organisms lawn boy pa.s.sed on to her. She's collapsed into a heap, sniveling, crying, moaning out, 'What am I going to do? What am I going to do?' Beautiful, right? So's I go and tell her what it is she is going to do, and she spots me another retainer.

"I'm back on the road, following husband this time. Is this a great job or what? It turns out husband, he's a lawyer, surprise, surprise, driving a Jaguar, lunching at the Palm with political heavies, and spending stray afternoons in the Bellevue with some little chippy from his law firm. It's harder getting pictures from a hotel like that as compared to a private home, but with the right equipment, including a pinch of cash for the staff, you can get yourself anything, and it ain't long before I can a roll of that son of a b.i.t.c.h with his a.r.s.e hanging out and his socks on giving that chippy his prima facie best.

"Now the two parties, husband and wife, they're back on level turf, and I'm feeling pretty good about things, but why stop there, why stop with two? It's a triangle, innit? So I decide on following the bird from the husband's law firm, a good-looking thing, I must say. I was just curious, mind you, not knowing what I'd find, but just trying to figure out what pitch to make and where to make it. I read her as a typical spoiled brat, never wanting for nothing, fancy college, ambition driving her into the law, setting up her yuppie lifestyle, not minding grabbing another woman's husband if it helps her climb a peg or two. A little pressure and she'd be willing to pay anything to make it go away. It all seems so obvious, except this girl, she ain't obvious.

"One night I follow her to a dive of a bar in South Philly, where she meets up with some shady sailor type. Next night I follow her into some church, where she stays an hour before rushing off to meet the husband. Night after she has dinner in some ragged seafood joint alongside some sc.u.mbucket from Kensington with but three teeth to his name, and after that she ends up again in the church. I go in behind her this time. She slips a buck or two into the box, buys herself a candle, then it's off to a pew by herself. She doesn't hit her knees, she's no papist, I can tell, but I look around, seeing who she's meeting, and there's no one. Might as well have been praying, for all I know. And then I trail her until she disappears into some les...o...b..r in Old City. That's a switch, huh? But I can't go in there without getting marked, so I wait outside in my car. An hour later she's on the street with some bull d.y.k.e in a black leather vest, and while they're clinching and kissing, and not like cousins neither, while they're chewing each other's tongues, she opens her eyes and gives me the stare from across the street. Then she's off, alone, heading away from me. I gets out of my car and follow.

"It's an old section of the town, narrow streets, lots of turns and twists. It's raining lightly, there's a mist, I see her go down one alleyway, I catch a glimpse of her turning down another. I have no idea where she's going, but I'm curious, right? Who the h.e.l.l is she, right? This ain't no yuppie like I ever saw before. Another turn, across a bigger street and into another alley. All the time I'm seeing just bits of her, never the full thing. I catch just the flash of her heel as she turns down a narrow cobbled street. I make the turn, and next thing I know I'm on the ground, a knee in my crotch, a knife at my throat, and the bull d.y.k.e staring down at me with a look that lets me know she'd do it, she'd do it, and d.a.m.n if slicing my throat wouldn't be the most fun she could ever have with a man. And behind her, calmly leaning against a wall, smoking, stands the girl.

"'What do you want?' she says.

"'A word, is all,' I says.

"'Go ahead,' she says.

"'Let me up first,' I says.

"'No,' she says, and the d.y.k.e presses the knife a little harder at my throat.

"'Fine,' I says. 'At my age I can use a little time off my feets.'

"And then I tell her, I tell her about the husband coming into my office, about the missus and the lawn boy, about the pictures of the two of them in the Bellevue. When you're in a situation like that, it don't pay to hold nothing back. You give it all, the whole of it, and hope they get so lost in the details they don't know what to do. But this bird, she knows what to do. She starts to laughing.

"'Is that all?' she says. 'I hope you caught my good side.'

"'From what I could tell,' I says, 'that's all you got.'

"And the bull d.y.k.e, she stares down at me and says, 'Don't make me puke.'

"'All right, Tiffany,' says the girl. 'Let him up.'

"The bull d.y.k.e lets me up. I look at her in her leather vest, shoulders bulging, Doc Martens, and all I can say is, 'Tiffany? You gots to be kidding.'

"The d.y.k.e snarls, the girl laughs, and the next thing I know the girl and I, we're in that les...o...b..r, downing vodka martinis, trading cigs, laughing like we was the oldest of old pals. I ask her if she wants to get married to the lawyer. All she says is 'Please.' I ask her why and she shows me her pinkie. Then she turns her face away and says in the saddest voice I ever heard, 'Besides, it would end up b.l.o.o.d.y.' I asks her to explain. She shakes her head. Then she writes a name on a napkin and tells me before I meet with either husband or wife I oughts to find out what I can about it. For her. The only requirement is that no one knows it was she what set me on the name. And right there she writes me a check for my retainer. My third retainer.

"You would think it would be a trick with just a name to go on, figuring what there was to learn. You'd think. But I look up the name and then knocks on a door and some old lady, she just invites me in, pours me a cup of herbal, puts out a plate of biscuits, and starts chatting off my ear. Nice old lady she was, old for sure, what with her skin like tissue paper and me being able to see the blue veins pulsing in her neck. Never had no children, she tells me, but she was married for forty years to Morty. I hear a lot about Morty. He fought in the war, occupied j.a.pan, through no fault of his own came down with some tropical disease transmitted by the mosquito that left him sterile. A senseless tragedy, she says, though I'm thinking that if Morty can convince her that the clap is transmitted by the mosquito, then what couldn't she be convinced of? So I asks about her estate and she tells me it's all taken care of, handled by a very sweet young man who calls her every day. She's going to give it all to the nunnery, that's what she plans, and every day the sweet young lawyer calls and tells her how the market moved that day. It's going to be a tidy sum, yes, it's going to raise some eyebrows, oh, yes. There'll be a building at the nunnery named after Morty, oh, yes, oh, yes. Won't that be something?

"No, it won't. Because there's nothing left in the trust account, is there? Nothing left, the sweet young lawyer has taken it all. Except he's not so sweet, not so young. All he is is a frigging lawyer. And, of course, he's the husband.

"So's I go back to the chippy, though by now I know she's no chippy, and tell her what I found, and she's not the least bit shocked. And here's the tripper, she tells me to give it to the wife, the name and the story, to let the wife do with it whatever she wants. I toss her a look like she's crazy, like she can do a lot better for herself with the information, but she just tells me to shut up and do what I'm told. Well, that's what she's paying me for, and so that's what I do. I give the pictures of the wife and the lawn boy to the husband. I give the pictures of the husband and the chippy to the wife. And with those pictures I give the name, address, and story of the old lady.

"Now, I can't say for sure what happened in the meeting with the lawyers once the husband told the missus he wanted the divorce. I wish I was there, it must have been something. But in the end the husband and wife, they stayed married after all. In fact, they went on a European holiday for three months after. The north of Italy, the South of France. They would have gone to the coast of Luxembourg, excepting Luxembourg's got no coast. It must have been lovely, and it was quite the shopping spree if my sources were right. And funny thing, I ran into the missus a little while after she got back, and she was happy as an oyster, had even lost some pounds and was looking rather svelte. Rather svelte. I'd of done her myself, I would, but now she was happily married.

"And the chippy that wasn't no chippy? Listen to this. The wife, she insists, insists that the chippy leave the husband's firm. And the chippy, she balks. No way in h.e.l.l she's leaving without a little something to remember him by. The husband, now desperate to keep the wife happy, gives the chippy a slew of cases, some profitable ones, too, I might add, and some money if she'd just leave. And so she does. Starts her own place, turns those cases into cash, begins to make a name for herself. She did quite well, didn't she? Lost a a.r.s.ehole and gained a practice all in one swell foop.

"It was my kind of case, it was. Three clients, three retainers, and the outcome, in a rough sense, was just. But the best thing was meeting the chippy. We became partners of a sort. I did her investigations, working on the sly mostly, helped those fees of hers roll in. And she, she was something, she was, special, and far too smart for the likes of me. Wheels within wheels within wheels."

"Hailey," I said.

"She was a h.e.l.l of a girl, and I miss her."

"So do I."

"I believe you do."

"I thought you might have killed her," I said.

"I knows you did. I could see it in them peepers of yours. And me, I was wondering what kind of man represents the killer of the girl what he's doing the old Friar Tuck to every chance he gets? I thought you was going to use some insider knowledge to get him off the hook and get your face all over the papers. I didn't like that idea, wasn't so happy with that. I figured I owed the girl enough to not let that happen. That's why I came on so hard over my oatmeal. But after watching you for the last couple days, I gots a different idea."

"Go ahead."

"This is what I thinks." He leaned forward, lowered his voice. "I thinks at first you weren't taking the deal because you thought it too sweet. You thought the b.a.s.t.a.r.d did it, and you was standing by your Guy just to be sure he paid the ultimate price. That was what your meeting with Peale was all about, wasn't it? Setting him up to tell the coppers all about our Mr. Gonzalez. You're taking our little murder all personal like, playing at being being the Lone Ranger."

"And you're not?"

I stared at him, he stared back.

"You're a piece of work, ain't you, Vic?" he said. "But you don't think he did it no more, do you?"

"Nope."

"Something switched in your head."

"Like a light turning on."

"What changed your mind?"

I picked up my wine, stared into the deep crimson before taking a drink. "Hailey changed my mind. I finally learned the whole sad story of her and Guy. She was in control. From the very first, when she met him in that hospital room, to the very last, on the night of her death, when she told him it was over, she was in control. Total control. Guy never had a chance."

"Not much a one, no."

"And you helped set him up, didn't you? Hailey needed to know all about the man defending the Gonzalez case to lay her trap, and you gave her what she needed. And when Guy thought you were threatening her, you were really just giving her little tidbits to help her scheme."

Skink didn't answer.

"Well, if she was so much in control, how could she have ever let it happen? How could she have miscalculated so? Unless she didn't and he didn't. Tell you what I think, I think he was in thrall to her to the very end. I think he was too whipped to kill her."

"Or maybe he fooled her like he fooled you. He's a harder piece of work than he lets on. You should a seen how viciously he cut down the claims of the poor injured wretches what fell in his path. Not an ounce of mercy. He left his wife and kids at the drop of a skirt and stole a million in the process. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d is capable of anything. You was right from the first. It was Guy what done it."

"Nope, it was someone else. And I have a pretty good idea where I need to go to find who."

"Where's that?"