them up in the flexible frames I like. I just got these back.”
“You work some strange hours,” she said.
“Yeah, I do.” Nosy, too. “But that’s what this business is. The people I train, they’ve got important stuff to do. If I want to make a living, I need to understand that their schedule’s more important than mine.”
“I guess that pays pretty good.”
“Better than you might think,” I told her. I had a decent bit of cash upstairs. Not hidden, like I had done with that closet years ago, just stuck in different places, like one of my jackets and my gym bag. I figured she’d find it anyway. I was worried about snooping, not stealing, and I figured not having loose cash around would only make her suspicious.
“It sounds like you never have too much time for yourself.”
“Sure, I do. See, I work whatever hours the clients want, but that’s only when they’re here. In New York, I mean. They go away, I do, too. Like a long vacation. One time, I was gone almost three months.”
“Wow!”
“Well, like I said, they pay good. And I’m careful with my money; I don’t throw it around. If you don’t waste money on … things, you know, then you can pretty much travel anywhere you want.”
“That sounds—Ah, I’m holding you up, aren’t I?”
“A little,” I said, looking at my new watch. It gets a signal from some atomic station, and it’s always on the nose. It wasn’t flash, either.
“Well, nice talking with you.”
“Me, too,” I said. Then I got behind the wheel and turned the key. She walked back into the house like she was sure I’d be watching.
“Do you have an appointment?” the girl behind the glass-top desk asked me. She was slim, dark-skinned, with shiny black hair. She wore it pulled up, held with a little heart-shaped diamond clip.
“No, I’m sorry. A friend of mine told me about Mr. Ramirez, and I thought I’d ask him about this … thing. I guess I should have called.”
“Well … he is working on a very important case. A brief to the United States Court of Appeals. But let me just try.…”
She punched a number. Talked in Spanish. So fast that I couldn’t even make out a single word. I only know a couple of words, anyway—everyone who’s done time knows those.
The conversation went on too long. By the time she said it was okay to go on back, I figured out that she was the lawyer’s girl, not just some secretary.
He stood up when he saw me come in. Reached out his hand. I shook it. He made a little move, telling me to sit down across from him.
First thing I did was slide one of my business cards across to him. He glanced at it. Nodded to tell me he got the message—he’d never seen me before.
It was a seriously upscale office. Thick carpet on the floor, real wood on the walls, big window behind him. My money was on one-way glass.
“Look at the door behind you,” he said.
I turned, saw it had some kind of thick padding on it.
“Soundproof,” he said.
“Nice.” I doubled my bet on the one-way glass in his window.
“Gloriana said you wanted to see me?”
“Yeah. I want to do something, but I can’t do it myself. It’s completely legit, only I’m not the kind of guy who can go around doing it without taking a chance.”
“So mysterious?”
“Nah. I’m just … I don’t always know how to make things sound the way I want them to come out.”
“Ah?”
“I need to hire a private eye. A good one. Probably the kind a high-class lawyer like you would use on a big case.”
“You want this private eye to do … what?”
“I just want him to find somebody.”
“Somebody around here?”
“I don’t think so. I really don’t have very much to go on.”
“Tell me what you have.”
I did that. Gave him all the scraps Solly had, plus a description. I’m good at stuff like that. I see something once, and I’ve got it forever.
Jessop was a little taller than me, probably six four or so. We’d both been wearing the same kind of work boots, so I figured the measurement was right. I was about two sixty-five then, and Jessop was maybe a hundred pounds short of that.
That job had been hard work. Hot as hell. After a while, we took our shirts off. Then I could gauge his body real easy. Skinny, but all muscle. Not pop-out muscle; all ropy, like.
I thought