"But you haven't talked to her, the mom."

"I got a busy signal for about ten minutes, then no answer after that,"

Maureen said, "so I called the Bloomfield Hills police. They said the mother was away on a trip."

"But somebody was on the phone."

"I told them that. They said it was probably the maid, or maybe painters, rug cleaners, you know."

"Are they gonna check?"

"They said they'd look into it. Why, what're you up to?"

"Not a thing. You tell Wendell you called and got a busy signal?"

"Yeah, but he didn't seem too excited."

"That's all you can do, Maureen."

"Have you talked to him?"

"He's busy. There a lot of people killing each other."

She said, "Where are you?"

"I'm not sure," Chris said, "but if I find out I'll let you know."

He went back to Maureen's desk, dialed Robin's number and listened to four rings before she answered: her voice softer than Maureen's, sounding bored as she said hello.

"Robin? It's Skip."

There was a silence.

Chris said, "What's the matter?"

Now a long pause before she said, "Who is this?"

"I just told you, it's Skip."

She hung up.

Chris waited about twenty seconds and dialed Robin's number again. The line was busy. He looked at Maureen's notes, dialed Robin's mother's number, got a busy signal and continued to listen to it, telling himself it didn't mean it was Skip. Telling himself the hell it didn't. It was, it was Skip. During the next couple of minutes he dialed Robin's number five times before it finally rang and she answered.

"Hi. This is Chris Mankowski."

He waited. See if she remembered him. Picturing her in that dingy room with the zingy red design painted on the wall, Robin trying to think fast, get it together, wanting to sound cool when she came on.

She said, "You just called, didn't you?" With the bored tone.

"And you hung up on me," Chris said.

"I tried to call you back, but I guess you were talking to Skip."

There was a silence.

"Hang up and call Donnell this time. If he hasn't already told you about me, ask him. Mankowski?"

She said, "I know who you are, but that's about it.

You're either a cop or a two-bit hustler and I don't know why I'm even talking to you."

"I'll drop around and tell you," Chris said, "in about an hour."

"I won't be here. I have to see a lawyer."

"That's not a bad idea."

There was a pause before Robin said, "Well, if you're going to be downtown later…"

"How about Galligan's?"

She said, "No, I'll meet you at Hart Plaza about six," and hung up.

Chris waited, dialed her number and got a busy signal.

He copied phone numbers and addresses, Greta's, Robin's and her mother's, on a sheet of notepaper and put it in his coat pocket. When he dialed Robin's number again the line was still busy.

He couldn't think of why she wanted to meet him outside and not in a bar. There was not much doubt Skip would be with her. He didn't know Skip, if Skip was mean and nasty or what. He believed Skip was the type-judging from the way he put a bomb together-who didn't give a shit and would let you know it. Skip and Juicy Mouth.

Chris left Sex Crimes and went down to six, to Firearms and Explosives, his old hangout. He had turned in his police.38 along with his shield and I.D. The gun his dad had given him, the Clock 17 auto, was still here in a locked cabinet. He filled the magazine with 9-millimeter rounds, remembering the St. Antoine Clinic doctor trying to make something out of it, asking him if he liked guns and getting into all that shit about spiders. Spiders, Jesus, who worried about spiders.

Skip couldn't stand it for long down in the basement rec room, being underground. It seemed nice at first. The bar had a pinkish mirror back of it that made you look tan and healthy while you sat there getting smashed, all by yourself. He had to stay clear of the first floor, other than slipping into the kitchen now and then; somebody could look in a window and see him. So he hung out upstairs in Robin's mom's bedroom. It had a bed with a canopy over it, a fireplace and living room furniture, it was so big, and a bathroom full of different kinds of bubble bath, lotions, skin creams and shit and really smelled good in there.

Saturday afternoon lying on the couch he watched a movie on TV called Straight Time that had one of his all-time favorite actors in it, Harry Dean Stanton. Jesus, but the guy made it look so real, the nervous state you were in pulling a stickup.

Then to have your partner turn geek on you and you can't get him out of the fucking jewelry store-Skip could imagine that feeling. He was starting to get it with Robin as she turned from fun-loving to being a female hard-on. Harry Dean Stanton had died in that picture only because he made a bad decision and agreed to associate with gee ks Had to run when their driver spooked and got shot off a fence by the cops.

It was weird. This morning Skip had caught the tail end of The Sack of Rome on cable TV and watched himself get killed as one of Attila the Hun's guys. He felt he looked like a biker in drag. On location near Almeria he was run over by chariots and hacked to death with those short Roman swords. Then had to lie in the sun among the dead and wounded talking Spanish to each other while the director and his star sat in an air-conditioned trailer drinking German beer and shooting the shit. After a couple of months they moved up to Madrid to a five-million-dollar set of the Roman forum. Here, Skip was killed several more times in close shots wearing different wigs and fake animal skins, having been spotted as a good dier. Twice in Almeria the star himself, Steve Walton playing the Centurion, Fidelus, had killed him. But when they picked Skip to die at his hands on the forum set, part of the big finish, Walton looked Skip up and down and said, "He's too short." Ray Heidtke, the director, said, "We're in Spain, Steve.

He's the biggest one we have." Skip, almost six foot, sized up Walton as he and the director argued, Walton was maybe six three but knock-kneed and had hips like a girl. Ray Heidtke said, "You sense this Hun coming at you from behind, but you wait. Time it just right.

You turn, nothing to it, and stick him as he's about to take your nuts off."

Fourteen times Skip, hiding behind a statue, jumped down from the pedestal about eight feet off the ground, landed in his Hun shoes, Christ, that were like bedroom slippers, and fell the first couple of times.

"Cut!" After that Skip had his moves down, but then Walton was never ready, the guy screaming, "He's coming too soon!" Ray Heidtke said to Skip, "Pause after you land. Give it a three count. A thousand and one, a thousand and two…"

Walton said, "You tell me it makes sense, I have to stand here while you teach this asshole his timing?" That was when Skip decided to kill the star. Stick him in the throat with the wooden sword and push him down the temple steps. Ray Heidtke said, "Here we go." Skip got up on the statue and when the A.D. yelled for action he jumped, paused, but only for a second instead of a three-count, ran at Steve Walton, raising the wooden sword to ram it into him, and the knock-kneed son of a bitch turned too fast, stumbled, lunged trying to stay on his feet and drove his wooden sword into Skip, into that tender area where the leg meets the groin. The puncture wound wasn't serious; it was the infection that kept Skip in the hospital ten days.

After, he tried to go back to work, but they wouldn't let him on the set.

That's what could happen to you associating with gee ks You could get hurt and fired or, in Harry Dean Stanton's case, get shot off a fence in Beverly Hills.

Right after Harry Dean's geek partner drove off at the end of the picture, going down a highway on his way to hell, Skip heard somebody downstairs. A minute later Robin was in the room. She came over to Skip on the couch, kissed him on the head and he thought to himself, Look out.