One point seven million minus the thirty bucks they sprung on my pie.

I was glad that Gwen had gotten away with it, glad that she had slipped through the clutches of Trocek and Sims, glad but not surprised. When I look back on it, through the whole of that time after the murder of Wren Denniston, I can see Gwen’s fingerprints on much of what happened. She had sent me searching for Miles Cave, she had given the anonymous tips that kept Gregor on my case and the suspicions about me swirling, she had stayed by Julia’s side until Clarence brought the cash right to her. No matter how clever those of us on the trail of the money had been, there had always been one person one step ahead. That she would stay a step ahead only made sense.

And did I feel a bit deprived that I hadn’t had that chance to see my Julia again, to hold her in solace and feel the painful emotions wrap like barbed wire around my heart one more time? Not as sad as you might expect. Because I suspected I’d have my chance eventually.

An old lover is like the lumbago; no matter how free of the pain you might feel today, in the small of your back you always know that someday she’ll return.

It was Detective McDeiss who eventually clued me in on what happened to Sims. It came over the Interpol wire, a warrant issued by the government of Croatia for the arrest of two fugitives suspected of murder: Gregor Trocek and an American named Augustus Sims. I suppose, with Sandro dead and Gregor in need of a new enforcer, Sims just naturally slipped into the role. And he’d do a hell of job, too. Though having a Cadizian hit man might make quite the statement in America, it probably carried a lot less weight in Cádiz. But having a slick-suited Philadelphia hit man on your side, well, that would be enough to make any Iberian quaver in his boots.

Any Philadelphian, too.

So I was rid of Julia and Sims and Gregor Trocek, but I was not yet rid of Derek. He showed up at my outer office a few days after the shooting, showed up with Antoine at his side and a nine-page invoice in his hand. I read the letterhead on the first page.

DEREK MOATS – INVESTIGATIONS

No Girl Too Tall

No Case Too Small

“Nice motto.”

“I came up with that myself,” said Derek.

“Why am I not surprised?” I said, looking over the invoice.

It was quite a document, so overinflated in its self-importance, so rich in useless detail, so full of bogus items and bloated numbers, so nauseating in its final tally that for a moment I thought it could only have been drafted by a lawyer.

“Like it?” said Derek.

“I’m flabbergasted. How the hell did you come up with all this crap?”

“A man in my position, just starting out in the detecting business and never having done an invoice before, needs to find help wherever he can.”

“So who helped? Antoine?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then who?”

“I asked around, talked to people” – pause – “and Ellie had some ideas.”

I snapped my head to stare at my secretary, who had bent over to pretend to be looking for something quite important in a lower desk drawer. “My secretary?”

“I just needed a sense of what a proper bill looked like,” said Derek. “She helped me work on it while you were out.”

“My secretary?”

“He looked like a lost puppy,” said Ellie in a soft voice.

“A puppy?” I said.

“You should be proud as a papa,” said Derek. “She told me that everything she learned about invoices she learned from you.”

“This,” I said, waving the invoice in the air, “this is outrageous.” I stopped waving the document for a moment and looked it over again. “Which means you are well on your way, my friend. Well on your way. Now, if we can just negotiate some sort of a reasonable reduction among friends…”

“Can’t do it, bo. That would be unethical.”

“Unethical? But lawyers do it all the time.”

“Which just proves my point. I got to follow the guidelines. Giving you a break wouldn’t be fair to my other clients.”

“But you don’t have any other clients.”

“Don’t matter. I will, and, like you been telling me, it’s time I start thinking about my future. So you going to pay up, or do I got to put that bill into my collection department?”

“You have a collection department?”

Antoine doffed his porkpie hat.

“Ah, yes,” I said. “Now I see. Nice touch. You learn quickly, Derek, I’ll give you that. Okay, you don’t have to put it into collections. I’ll write you a check. No matter how outrageous your invoice, you did a fine job and deserve exactly what you get.”

“Thank you, bo. And now that that’s settled, I see you have some empty office space.”

“Yes I do, at least until my partner returns from overseas.”

“When’s he going to do that?”

“It’s a she, and I’m not holding my breath.”

“Because just now, we’re in the market for some office space ourselves.”

“You and Antoine.”

“That’s right. Derek Moats Investigations. No girl too tall-”

“Yeah, yeah. And no case too small.”

I thought about it for a moment. It would be nice to get some income out of that office. But then I’d have to see Derek’s face every morning, which would really put me off my appetite. But then, truth be told, I could afford to lose some weight. And I had to admit, in the whole of that terrible week, whenever I had asked for Derek’s help, he’d been there. He had the makings of the real thing. It’s one thing to lecture your clients on straightening up and making something of their lives, it’s something else to give them the opportunity. I thought it over and glanced once more at the invoice.

“I’ll need something up front,” I said finally.

“Now we’re talking business,” said Derek. “Let’s have it.”

“First month,” I said, “last month, a deposit for utilities and phone, equipment rental, furniture rental, secretarial usage-”

“Bo.”

“Don’t worry, Derek. It’s only the usual fees.” I gave him a car salesman’s smile. “I’ll just have Ellie work up the bill.”

And so it all was settled, the whole old-flame thing. It hadn’t worked out so great for Wren Denniston and Margaret and Sandro, I had to admit, but everyone else seemed to have gained something out of that week. I had come through it with my ghost lover finally put to rest, Julia had been freed from her fatal obsession, Derek had found for himself a new profession, Gwen would be living in the lifestyle she had earned all these many years, Sims had found his true calling as a murderous thug, and Hanratty had solved the murder. Even Terrence had finally found the thing he’d been searching for so diligently since his brilliant portrayal of the young, doomed Romeo: his death. All seemed to have come out okay in the end.

All but one.

49

“What do you want?” said Clarence Swift.

“To see how you’re doing,” I said.

“Do you care?”

“No, you’re right,” I said. “I really don’t.”

He was wearing orange prison overalls, which gave his face a green tint. His lips were pinched, his skin taut, his philtrum deep. And yet, without his usual tortured verbal phrasings and ostentatious humility, I sensed some calm within him that hadn’t existed before, as if here, in this place, finally, he could fully express his true inner nature. Prison seemed to agree with him, which was good, because he would be here awhile.

“How’s your mother?” I said.

“Disappointed.”

“I meant physically.”

“She’s recovered from the beating, if that’s what you mean. She’s a stringy old hen. But it’s the disappointment that is going to kill her. I’m her only child, she had such hopes for me. I was going to finance her retirement, cleanse her bony limbs when she was too weak to bathe herself, wipe her buttocks when she lapsed into incontinence. Now she has nothing to fall back upon except the street.”