I should’ve been sympathetic, but I couldn’t let her have the upper hand. “You think you got problems? I’m charged with assaulting a police officer and theft of a weapon. Oh, and I’m also under suspicion for murdering a mentally handicapped man.”

Imelda, who’d been quietly listening to the two of us talk, suddenly moved around Katherine until she was close to my bed.

“You two done?” she asked in a sharp tone.

“What?” Katherine asked, looking up in surprise.

Imelda glared down her short, pudgy nose at both of us. “Are you two done with this woe-is-me shit? Have you got all that shitty self-pity outta your systems?”

I drew a deep breath, scratched my hair, and looked away. I could smell what was coming. Katherine had no idea. She’d never experienced an inspirational assault from Imelda, which I’ll briefly describe as a conversation where Imelda does the talking, and you keep your mouth shut and nod your head at all the appropriate moments, and generally try to look inspired as hell. Oh, you can try to ignore her, or argue, but I really don’t recommend it.

Katherine had a baffled look on her face.

“Okay,” Imelda said, sliding her feet back and forth like a boxer, “you got a client in jail. His trial might or might not start Friday. You got one lawyer laying on his ass, actin’ hurt. You got the other with a case of the self-moanies. At least you two’re alive. Least it ain’t neither of you iced up in one of them meat wagons parked out back. Right?”

I nodded enthusiastically and looked wildly inspired. Yes, yes, that’s right, Imelda. At least it’s not me.

Katherine looked even more bewildered. Wrong answer.

“You got a problem with this, girl?” Imelda barked, bending over and spitting her words into Katherine’s face. “You not hearing ol’ Imelda right?”

Katherine’s lips opened, but Imelda’s finger popped up right in front of her nose. Imelda’s face was now directly in front of Katherine’s, scrunched up in fury, and her eyes were sizzling.

“Don’t you talk,” she barked. “Don’t you dare talk. If it was me was your client, I’d shoot you two. I shit you not, girl. All this moanin’ an’ groanin’. Hmmph! Hmmmph!” she stomped a boot on the floor like she was crushing a bug.

Katherine’s eyes peeked over in my direction. She quietly observed me nodding my head so hard I was about to break my neck. My eyes, at least the one I could get open, communicated awed reverence.

As I said earlier, Katherine’s no dummy. She started nodding… weakly at first, then like a piston.

“All right, now.” Imelda spun on her heels and faced me. “I’m gonna get me a wheelchair and roll your bony ass outta here. Don’t let me hear no bitchin’ from you, boy. You ain’t hurt. You only think you’re hurt.”

Yes, yes, I only think so, I nodded. Forget these bruises and stitches and bandages. Figments of a fevered imagination.

She turned back and faced Katherine. “Forget about what happened yesterday, hear me? Focus on that boy in that cell. Let me and the major handle them South Koreans, got it?”

Katherine was nodding even more ferociously than I was. Her neck was snapping like a birch tree in a hurricane. I swear I saw saliva fly out of her mouth.

Of course, I then made an effort to look even more wildly inspired than her, and let me tell you, that’s not easy when your face is all swollen and bruised and you’re missing a front tooth. I looked like an overanxious Halloween pumpkin who just couldn’t wait for the big night.

I said, “Raring to go, Imelda. Hot damn! Can’t wait. Go get that damned wheelchair. Get me the hell out of here.”

She studied my face a moment, decided I was sufficiently galvanized, turned and examined Katherine, who was still jerking her head up and down. Instant and unquestioning obedience was all Imelda ever wanted, so she yanked up her trousers and stomped noisily out of the room, clicking her teeth and grunting curses, which was her way of expressing rabid satisfaction. She made the same sounds after polishing off a really good steak.

As soon as the door shut, there was the sound of two people letting a roomful of air out of their lungs.

“Jesus,” Katherine said, gently massaging her neck. “I never imagined. She’s so tiny.”

As for me, I was trying to get my damaged face to recover its normal expression of rubbery nonchalance. “Well, you asked for it,” I said. “Sitting there feeling sorry for yourself like that.”

“Attila,” she said, with a murderous look, “don’t go there.”

“Only kidding,” I replied, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t giggle.

Then I said, “Hey, Moonbeam, we got what, three days?”

“Three days. Right.”

“He was framed, right?”

“No question about it. Framed.”

I stretched out my hand and we shook.

I grinned and appeared completely sincere, but if you think I was buying it, you haven’t been paying attention. This was Katherine Carlson. I had to test the limits of our new partnership.

I grinned harder and said, “So, when were you gonna tell me about Frederick Melborne?”

Surprise popped onto her face. It quickly turned into a sly smile. “You found out about Fred, huh?”

“Yeah. Who is he? Really.”

“A crackerjack PI. He was once an Army officer. He knows how to get around and he specializes in gay cases.”

“Hah! Exactly what I figured from the start.”

She smiled. “Of course you did, Drummond, of course you did.”

“Well, I did,” I lied.

“Drummond, Fred had your number the instant he laid eyes on you. Christ, he had you so fooled I thought you were going to faint. You should have seen your face when you shook his hand that first night. He did that Liberace act and you sprinted over to the corner like a frightened squirrel.”

I felt a rush of blood to my face. “What? That was an act?”

“Of course it was an act.”

“Well, he is gay, isn’t he?”

“Of course he’s gay. He’s also quite macho. He was testing you.”

I guessed I hadn’t done real well on that test. Anyway, I wasn’t going to let her dwell on it. “So what was he doing?” I quickly asked. “Running background on Lee, Moran, and Jackson?”

“Just Lee. Moran’s an open book. Fred ran some checks with a number of OGMM members who’ve been assigned with him over the years, and they helped us compile a profile. A promiscuous male hunk, and an accomplished bar brawler, but he’s never beaten or threatened a lover. Appearances aside, he’s supposed to be a very tender lover. As for Jackson, he doesn’t matter. We judged him to be largely irrelevant. He was there that night, but we think he was bewildered by everything that went down. Lee No Tae is the key.”

“And what did Melborne find out?”

“Nothing.”

I gave her a dubious look. “Nothing?”

“I swear. Lee was never seen in any of the bars local gays frequent. He’d never dated anybody but Thomas. He never flirted with anybody, never got propositioned, never gave any hint he was gay.”

“But if he did, he probably ran with Korean gays, right? Maybe Fred was looking for love in all the wrong places.”

Forgive me for that, but I’d always wanted to use that line.

Katherine leaned back into her chair and shook her head. She was back to not getting my bad jokes. “Of course we considered that. Fred even hired some local PIs. He had them ask around with Lee’s high school and college classmates. He threw a pretty wide net.”

“Could Fred have been meeting with somebody that night in Itaewon? Maybe somebody found something?”

“Possibly. He liked to operate without my breathing down his back, so maybe.”

The door slammed open and Imelda reentered pushing a wheelchair with a cane hanging from it. I had to ask her and Katherine to give me a hand getting out of bed. Thankfully, I was wearing underpants, although to be perfectly technical, being naked in front of two lesbians probably isn’t a whole lot different than walking around a men’s locker room without a towel. Anyway, Imelda threw a hospital gown over me, then started wheeling me out.