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Carol smiled. “You mean someone fitting the description of someone who looks like Tommy?”

“Was it him?” Doh’s thumb was in my direction.

Carol looked at me. “Tommy, did you shove or otherwise physically affect any employee of the Department of Transportation yesterday?”

“Not that I recall.”

Doh looked at me. “Did you chase that kid?”

I looked at Carol, and she said to me, “You can answer.”

I made a mental note to make my new fedora vanish as soon as I went home. Best hundred bucks I ever spent.

I looked at Doh. “Not that I can recall.”

The detective took his finger and tapped his chin. “Funny, because the DOT guy says it was a big guy with a cleft chin. So did Smychynsky, the guard at the telephone maintenance yard. Do you own one of those hats, Tommy?”

Carol cleared her throat. “Detective, is my client accused of a crime?”

Crispi couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Your client is a material witness, who for some reason is withholding eyewitness information from the NYPD. He knows something about this sniper, and by not telling us is protecting him. Which means that your client is going to be facing felony charges when this whole thing comes out.”

Carol looked at me. “Tommy, do you know who killed Johnny Culobrese and Huey LaMouche?”

I looked Doh in the eye so he’d understand I was leveling with him. “No.”

“My client denies the accusation that he knows who the killer is that you’re looking for. Any other questions, Detectives?”

Doh slid a photo out of the inside of his jacket and handed it to me. “Know her?”

My vision swam when I saw it, and I felt a little dizzy. Mechanically I tossed it on the desk in front of Carol. She cocked her head at the photo, looked at Doh, then looked at me. “Tommy, is this Yvette?”

“Yes.”

It was a mug shot. Yvette’s big blond hair was messed up, and her dark eyes focused above the camera somewhere, like she was remembering something. Those eyes. They were so dark you almost couldn’t see where the pupils were.

Those eyes. They could look innocent. They could look mysterious. What they were, were black windows of deceit that overlooked worlds of opportunity.

Her olive face looked a little shiny in the flash of the camera. I could see she was wearing a cocktail dress, the dark red one. Dangling from the silver chain around her neck was the pendant I’d given her. An onyx cat with little red ruby eyes.

Seeing the pendant I gave her, and that she was still wearing it, made me feel spiritually misaligned. Assuming it had been taken recently and that she hadn’t been arrested anytime while she was with me and I didn’t know it. The info on the bottom of the photo, about where and when it was taken, had been blacked out. I wanted to pick it up and study it some more, but Carol handed it back to the detectives.

“Any more questions for my client?”

Doh bit his lip. “I thought your client might have some questions for us?”

Carol’s eyes tightened as they locked onto mine. I know she wanted me to keep my cool. I did.

“I have no questions.”

That was about as true as anything I’d told them that day.

I didn’t want to know where the picture was taken, or how they knew I knew her, or anything. Yvette was trouble personified, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I was hurt that she would still wear that pendant.

Doh held the photo up to me.

“Did you ever think, Tommy, that maybe this bitch has something to do with what’s going on?”

“That’s enough, Detective.” Carol was on her feet, her arm outstretched toward the door. “The interview is over. If you have any other questions, we’d be happy to meet again with you at another time.”

The smug bastards stood and left.

I just sat there trying to breathe normally until they were out of the room. As soon as they were gone …

Breathe slowly in through the nose; close the eyes.

Breathe slowly out through the lips; stroke back my hair and face.

Breathe slowly in through the nose; open the eyes.

Breathe slowly out through the lips.

I managed to focus on Carol sitting in the chair where Doh had sat, her silver eyes sad.

“I’m sorry, Tommy. I wish there had been some way to protect you from that. Rat bastards are trying to rattle you. Do you have any idea how they know who she is? How they would make a connection between what’s going on now and this woman?”

“Her name is Yvette, Vegas show girl. I have no idea what kind of trouble she’s in now. I’m out of the business of dealing with her problems.”

“At least once you pay the fifteen to Scanlon next week.”

“Here’s something I didn’t mention because it’s got nothing to do with this. The cats were catnapped the other day. I came home, the apartment was broken into, and the cats were gone.”

“There was a note?”

“Yeah, telling me basically that Yvette better get in touch with Gustav or else the cats might be in a bad way. He left envelopes with what looked like love letters, too. They’re written in a foreign language, looks like Russian or something.”

Carol slumped back in her chair. “Cripes. Tommy, even for you this is out there. I mean, out there, you know what I mean?”

I was leaning forward, forearms on my knees, looking at the corner of the desk.

“Once I pay that fifteen, she is out of my life completely. Once I’ve paid the fifteen, I’ve done my bit. I’ve paid my full penalty for trusting and loving and trying to help her.” I stood up and felt like it took a second for my stomach to stand up with me. “I’m going to get that fifteen. I’m going to have her out of my life.”

Carol eased out of her chair and reached up to hold my face. “Tommy, if she’s somehow connected to the art theft or murders, she may have one last kick in the gut for you, you know that, right?”

I tried a smile, but I think it came out as a grimace. “The guts have all been kicked out of me, sweetheart.”

“Be smart about this, Tommy. Keep your head, stay smart. Call me if there’s anything I can do. Anything.”

My feet brought me to her office door. I opened it and walked through. The elevator arrived about an hour later, and I counted exactly eight million footsteps back to my apartment and the brandy.

Only when I picked up the bottle of negativity I put it back down.

Just like grieving is not about the dead but for those afraid of dying, heartbreak is not for love lost but for the fear of loneliness.

I didn’t have time to die or be afraid.

SO A LITTLE AFTER ELEVEN
I was walking toward the flying saucer that crashed into the Greek temple. I had an appointment to see Sheila McCracken.

Unsteady Freddy wasn’t on duty that day, so I just nodded at the guard and made my way toward reception. With a building pass, I waded through the art lovers and headed upstairs to the museum offices.

On my way to Sheila’s office, I ran into Atkins. He turned a corner and ran right into my chest.

He bounced a couple feet in the air. Not from the impact, but the surprise. “Shit!”

“Steady, Atkins.”

“Damn, Tommy, what are you always doing hiding around the corners here?” There was some pink in his face to match his lips. The mustache wiggled nervously.

“Not hiding. Walking.”

He says, “Well, you take up the entire width of the hallway.”

So I says, “I can’t help that. I’m on my way to see Sheila.”

“Sheila? Going to see Sheila? About the other night?”

“As a matter of fact.”

“What about?”

“Steady, Atkins. Nothing about you.”

“I have a right to know if it concerns museum security. I should be in on this meeting.”

“I guess if Sheila wanted you there, you would have been invited.”

“You don’t have to put it like that. I know she doesn’t like me.”

“Atkins, you’re getting anxious. Try some deep breathing, like this.”

So I started my tantric breathing exercise, but he threw up his hands. “I have no time for huffing and puffing. Just remember, don’t fuck me over with her. You and I are friends.”

Off he went down the hall, his feet making fast clicking steps like a terrier.

Odd duck, Atkins. I couldn’t help thinking he’d get a lot out of yoga.

I waited in the reception area to be called into Sheila’s office and tried not to think about that picture Doh showed me. Could Yvette be tied into this? She left me a month back, before I hatched the scheme to raise cash by shopping and settling. She couldn’t have known any of the participants, except maybe have seen Huey at the bistro. Could that have been it? Huey obviously had a wandering eye, but how would they have slipped into a conversation about art theft and come up with an idea to rip me off? And Yvette and Ms. French as a dynamic evil duo? That was a stretch like a ham on a rubber band.

Of course, what Doh was talking about wasn’t the art gig but the killings. I didn’t think they knew about that connection. Otherwise he would have mentioned it. Why wouldn’t he? It was a motive, the one he was probably looking to hang me on.

I was glad I pushed through my panic attack and didn’t grab the bottle earlier. For a number of reasons. Mainly because it would have kept me from moving forward. When screwy stuff like this mess happens, you won’t get to the end of it unless you keep pushing. I didn’t have many answers. Yet. I sure as hell wouldn’t find them at the bottom of a bottle of transformative emotions. I had to stay out here talking to people. The truth is like a cat. If you want it to sit in your lap, you just have to stay long enough in the same room. I was encouraged just knowing that I would know all the answers in a couple days, if not before. I previsualized myself a couple days from then, looking back at me sitting in Sheila’s reception area wondering what was what, thinking about all the things I could have done, might have done, to figure this out sooner. In a couple days I would know, so all I had to do was stay in the room with the cat for another couple days and it would sit in my lap.

Then again, maybe the cat would blow my brains out, too. Which would suck.

I got the tap from the secretary and went into Sheila’s office. She wasn’t there yet. Nice office. Big window facing the park, a bouquet of flowers on a side table, a plate glass desk an inch thick on top of Corinthian pedestals, a pair of stylish sling-back chairs for the visitor. The whole place was off-white. Even the flowers. Mums.

This was pretty much the way I remembered her office; it hadn’t changed that much. Except the walls. There were four Postimpressionist paintings in the room that provided the only real color. I took a tour of them, but my attention was drawn to an appointment book open on her desk. A date with the Whitbread board for their fall meeting Friday, reception and dinner, at the museum.

The door opened. I didn’t try to hide what I was doing.

“Checking my schedule?” Sheila’s frame was packed into a pantsuit that was off-white like the room.

“Is your schedule secret? If so, better to keep it in a safe place. Somewhere outside of this museum.”

She strode past me and settled in her chair. “What is it now?”

“Mind if I sit?”

She waved a hand at the sling-back chairs, and I slung into one of them. The tubular metal frame creaked from my size. Would have been kind of funny if it had collapsed. These designer chairs aren’t made for people like me. I think they’re made for designers.

“So, Tommy, you finally lost the beard and cut the eighties hair. New look?”

“You like it?”

“It’s new.”

“What would you think if I told you the missing goodies may be an inside job?”

Sheila pushed back her hair and sank into her own chair, one ofthose plush jobs with a high back she could rest her head on. “Atkins?”

I laughed, just a little. “I doubt it. As much as you might want that, I don’t think he has the stomach for all the excitement that comes with being a thief.”

“One of his guards?”

You could see she was looking for an excuse to kick his ass out the door. Something told me she’d find one, eventually. Just not from me.

“I’m thinking higher up, Sheel.”

Her eyes went dull. “Don’t call me Sheel, Tom.”

“Oops, sorry, forgot. Is there anybody higher up here than the guards who may have been involved?”

“Have you even checked out the kitchen staff? The ones who were overcome?”

“I didn’t have to. I already know who stole the paintings. What I’m looking for is who commissioned it. Something tells me it wasn’t Unsteady Freddy.”

“If you know who the thief is, why not ask him who he sold them to?”

“He’s dead.”

She reacted to this news by not reacting. “So the paintings were shopped?”

I looked at the ceiling and then back at her. “Something like that.”

“You are a pain in the ass, Tom, anybody ever tell you that?”

“You told me I was a pain in the ass the night you threw me out of your apartment in my shorts. It was definitely a pain in the ass to stand downstairs and catch my clothes as you threw them out the window. I never did find my lucky rabbit’s foot.”

That night was the one where she’d had to go before the museum directors, the night she was up against it with the museum board president, Lee J. Rosenburg, for the expanding cost of the flying saucer. That was the night she cut a deal with him to name a wing after him, the one with the Mondrians, those blocks of color. I couldn’t figure out why she was so wigged out that night. I guessed that she’d had to humble herself and was going to try to humble me. She took out her hostility toward Rosenburg and the frustration over her predicament on me. I was the whipping boy. Like I said, I had a little rule about being a whipping boy.

Sheila closed her eyes, resting her head on the chair back. I don’t know whether she was savoring the memory of throwing me out or trying to force it from her mind.

With her eyes still closed, she says, “Can we stay on topic?”

So I says, “Who in your organization might flip?”

“Flip?”

“Where’s a weak spot, other than security, other than the kitchen? How about the conservators?”