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“Got the wrong place, pal.”

“The French guy who was here yesterday. He was killed.”

Her brow wrinkled and then unwrinkled. “And?”

“He was here that same morning. I’m wondering if he said anything to you about anything that might give an idea who shot him.”

“And?”

I thought that was kind of strange, so I says, “Look, I’m a business person, so I understand you have to look out after your business and your customers. There’s the bottom line and nothing else. But it’s possible other people may find out he came here. If that happens, or is about to happen, you may want to know, because the cops could come by. No business person likes the cops to come by. Always bad for business.”

Her eyes widened. “Well, now I know, so why should I talk to you?”

“Because I’m a nice guy, that’s why.”

“Nice guys finish last.”

“Maybe so, but they have good karma.”

That made her think a moment, and she stuck out her bottom lip. “You do yoga?”

“I have this pretty cool tantric thing to relieve anxiety, keep me from acting out. I can show you.”

Bridget set her jaw. “You’re a big guy. I only take referrals.”

“You know Blaise Jones?” She didn’t say anything, but I could tell from the way she blinked that she did. Almost anybody involved in shady business in that neighborhood knew Blaise. “My name is Tommy Davin. Call him. I’ll wait.”

The door slammed shut, and I heard a big latch chunk into place.

The warm wind from the southwest was picking up. Moist air from the south hitting the Canadian air sitting over Brooklyn would mean rain, maybe a lot of it. For October it had been dry and sunny almost every day. The days were getting a lot shorter, so the mornings were cold. Real nice fall weather. I was thinking that I should go to the Botanic Gardens sometime soon to check out the maples for fall foliage when there was a
ka-chunk
, a chain rattled, and the door opened.

Bridget stood to one side, a freshly lit cigarette in her fingers. “Come on in, Tommy.”

She locked the door and I followed her up the dark, steep stairs to the second floor. She did have a nice ass, I’ll give her that, but she must have had thirty moles on the backs of her legs and upper arms. The clomp of her clogs on the steps practically had me holding my ears.

The loft was like you would expect—large, open, and drafty. Dark blue drapes made slits of the eight-foot-high windows along the left, and more drapes from the ceiling made a wall fifty feet in. Large Oriental rugs, fakes, were on the rough wooden floor, with a leopard print couch and Mission coffee table. To the right of the door was an improvised kitchen. In the far right corner, in the darkest part of the room, was the king-sized bed in leopard print. There must have been fifty candles in the place, scented ones, vanilla or something, but only a few on the coffee table were lit.

“Coffee?” She slid into the kitchen. The coffeemaker looked like it had made a fresh pot. Her cigarette went into the sink with a sizzle.

“That would be nice, thanks.”

“Milk and sugar?”

“That works.”

I went over and made myself at home on the couch. The place was pretty much the way I imagined it might be, and so was the girl. I’m sure Bridget was a different person when a customer came over. Sexy, coy, and made-up. Now she was just a girl lounging around drinking coffee, smoking, and reading the
Economist
. A copy was next to me on the couch.

Bridget handed me a large black mug.

“Thanks. I do insurance investigation work. Should I call you Bridget?”

She nodded, but sort of rolled her eyes at the same time. I got the idea that wasn’t her real name, but it would do for now. Tossing the magazine on the floor, the girl curled up with her coffee in a corner of the couch.

“I appreciate you talking with me about Huey, unannounced and all.”

She just drank her coffee and looked at me, almost like I hadn’t said anything. Well, she was streetwise, I’ll say that. If you’re in an illegal trade, blabbing to strangers isn’t healthy.

“So I won’t take up more of your time than necessary. Huey swung by here yesterday, and he was shot and killed by a sniper soon after. He was up to something that got him tweaked, and I want to find out what that something was. I don’t know if he was much of a talker. I’d guess some of your clients do a lot of talking about their lives while others say nothing at all. If he said anything about what was going on in his life, it could be really useful to me.”

“Wives,” she said. “Clients all talk about their wives, if they have one, if they talk at all.”

“So what did Huey say about Ariel?”

“Same thing they all say. She’s a ball buster.” She smiled a little. “In a bad way.”

I smiled a little myself. “Lot of that going around.”

“She was pushing him about some sort of business deal, that he wasn’t making enough money, bloop bloop bloop.”

I put my coffee cup down among the candles. “Did he say anything about what kind of deal?”

She made a small shake of her head and sipped more coffee. “He didn’t seem happy about being pushed around, but he works for her at the bistro on Smith. What do you expect?”

“Nothing more about the deal?”

“No details. Just that she had pushed him to make more money, that he was weak and had been taken advantage of, that she knew better, bloop bloop bloop, but of course he was going to show her she was wrong.”

Remember what I said at the beginning? For love or money? Maybe Huey had done something really dumb for a woman, Ariel, to try to get his balls back in that relationship.

“So you didn’t get any idea Ariel knew about the deal, that he was going to use it to impress her, to show her he wasn’t a chump?”

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. It kind of figured that a man would lay that part of it out for a side squeeze like Bridget if he was going to mess up the sheets. He had to assert his male dominance to maintain his alpha sexuality.

I stood. “Thanks. How much I owe you for your time?”

Bridget waved a hand. “I don’t even have makeup on.”

“How about that tantric exercise?”

Her eyes widened for the first time. “Sure.”

So I showed her. She did it, but too fast, so I guided her hands and helped her breathe in slowly.

Bridget showed me a smile. “Thanks, Tommy. I feel more relaxed.”

“Good. Call me if anything comes up on Huey, OK? Like you remember anything he said.”

She squinted at me. “How did you know he came here? Did he tell you?”

“Professional secret.” I winked.

They say a woman has to have her secrets, but a man has to
make
his secrets.

I made that up. Not bad.

I STEPPED BACK ONTO BOND
Street and saw I had two messages on my phone.

One was from Walter.

That could wait.

The other was from Carol Doonan.

That couldn’t. I listened to the message.

“Tommy, Carol Doonan. We have an appointment ten tomorrow morning at my offices with Detectives Doh and Crispi. You be here at nine to review. Call my sec to confirm. Had to move some things around for this. Not because I like you, you gorgeous hunk of man, but my other cases at the moment bore me. Yours tend to be interesting. Later, gator.”

It was afternoon, the Billy Bank guard from earlier would be off duty, so I figured I might as well check on Dunwoody Exports. I walked back to Third Avenue and caught a bus. I was at Billy Bank a half hour later, and upstairs ten minutes after that.

The double wooden doors that said dunwoody exports llcwere locked, and nobody answered the bell.

I peeked in the door crack, and it was dark inside.

I took the elevator to the basement and walked around until I found the super’s office. It didn’t say superintendent, but the guy in blue work clothes leaning in a soiled executive chair at a desk missing the legs looked the part. He was Hispanic, with a bushy mustache and an eye cocked in my direction. The desk was cluttered with light switches, wire, toilet floats, bus fuses, faucet handles, receipts, and pornography. The ceiling was all pipes, the walls all cheesecake calendars from the last ten years. An old cassette deck played a cha-cha.

I says, “Tito Rodríguez.”

So he smiles real big, jerks a thumb at the cassette player, and says, “You like?”

“He’s not my favorite, but he’s good.”

“Who you like?”

“I have to say that when it comes to mambo, Prado is hard to beat.”

He melted with pleasure at the thought of Prado. “Yes, Prado, of course. Can I help you?”

“I’m trying to find Dunwoody Exports.”

“Fourteenth floor.”

“I mean the people who work there. The place is locked up.”

“Nobody goes in there much since last year. Some kind of trouble. They still rent. You a process server?”

I leaned on the doorjamb and smiled. “I’m a Perez Prado fan who wants to get inside their office and have a look around. I won’t touch anything. I just want to look.”

His eyes darkened. “I would need permission.”

I flashed a fifty. “This cut any red tape?”

“I am sorry.” He smiled sadly. “I am a family man. My job is worth more than you could pay. If I can tell you anything … there’s nothing that says I cannot tell you what I know about them.”

Well, I couldn’t exactly expect everybody to be willing to bend, could I?

I put out my hand. “I’m Tommy Davin. Insurance investigator.”

“Enrique Conzo.” He shook my hand.

“You got any information worth paying for on Dunwoody?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I won’t take any money. You seem like a nice guy, anyways. Like I said, they don’t come around much anymore. Monday I was up on fourteen replacing fire extinguishers. Seen a man with white hair go into the office. Then I seen him come out with a bag.”

“Was he carrying anything when he went in?”

He stuck out a bottom lip and shook his head. I was hoping that maybe Blaise’s guys had it wrong, that he’d gone there with a portfolio, that maybe the paintings were in there. If so it would be worth risking having Gloria pick me a way in.

“Ever see a woman go in there?”

“Once. A while back. I remember because she asked me to come into her office and change a bulb. I was sort of hoping she would want me to fuck her. She seemed like the type.”

That caught me off guard. I guessed he spent a lot of time down in the basement with his hardware and porno.

“The type?”

His eyes turned sly. “You know.
The type
.”

“And?”

He stuck out a bottom lip and shook his head. “Just the lightbulb.”

“What was in the offices?”

“Desk, files, you know, nothing special. A lot of paintings, but they were stacked against the wall and not hanging. Hey, I did see one other man go that direction down the hall, same day as the one with white hair. He had two other men with him. Flashy suits. Hard to be sure, but they looked mobbed up.”

“Did the lead suit have a flat face, very smooth face?”

“Sounds like the one.”

I flipped him a card. “Thanks, Enrique. Can you do me a favor?”

He looked at the card and tossed it on the desk with all the junk. “Not if it will get me in trouble.”

“Would it get you in trouble if you called me if anybody goes inthat office?”

“I’ll call. Just don’t pay me anything.”

“If I happen to find some Perez Prado tapes, would you take them off my hands?”

He answered with a laugh and a wave of his hand.

I took the stairs back to the lobby, and from the lobby I went tothe street and grabbed a car home. The lack of a decent night’s sleep was beginning to drag me down. When I entered the foyer back at Degraw Street, I found a note on my monsterproof door:

There was the little skull and crossbones drawn at the bottom, like before. Also, of course, another love letter, which I added to my collection. I wondered again about having them translated—maybe Gustav would mention a meeting place and I could go over there and straighten him out—but I had a lot on my plate. First things first.

I rang Walter, only I got his machine. It wasn’t noon yet in Vegas, so he was probably still in bed.

That was about all the fun and games I could take for one day. I made an appointment with Delilah later, and for a nap before.

I SLEPT MOST OF THE
afternoon, then showered, shaved, and dressed nice, like my old self. The punk shooter knew me now without the beard and suit, so why dress like I shopped at Goodwill? Just the same I went without the tie. Now that the beard was gone, my neck bunched up unless I went open-collar.

Rain was coming down outside in buckets, so I called a car service. Then another. Then another. When it rains, the car services can’t keep up with demand.

So I took my umbrella and I walked the ten thousand blocks to Zookville clutching a soggy religious pamphlet. I kid you not, it’s about a mile and a half away from my place, and as any city dweller knows, umbrellas keep you dry for a limited number of blocks.

Delilah opened the door. She says, “You look low on positive energy.”

So I says … well, I think I just growled. I’m not sure if I really said anything.

My suit hanging up to dry and my shoes by the door, Delilah had to work me over pretty good to get me to loosen up a little. Finally she realized only wine and talk would complete the job.