“At least one of us is.” He peered at me over the great crystal shell.

“What about the money? Who was that for?”

“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 shells, 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 carcass 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 scrap 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 craps spread at a ten-dollar table. You play craps?”

“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 craps, 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 assortment of antennae and legs sticking helter-skelter from the shells, the whole thing looking like some bizarre Klingon meal served to interstellar diplomats on the USS 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 shells, 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, classic 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 arses, 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 hell needs that?”

“There you go.”

“Well, you’d be good at it nonetheless. Most of sales is bullshit 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 anticipation.”

“Like billiards.”

“Now you’re getting it, yes you are. You like stories?”

“Who doesn’t?”

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