Jade, who’s had substance abuse problems since leaving the Bears, had mainlined a potent mixture of ether and hydrochloric acid before drinking a quart of bourbon. When he came to his first words were characteristic: “Get the f- out of my face.”

Logan then concluded with the obligatory rundown on Jade’s career and its demise, with a pious sniff about the use and abuse of sports heroes left to die in the gutter when they could no longer please the crowd. I read it through twice, including the fulsome last line, before Brigitte arrived.

“You see, Jade’s still alive, so I couldn’t have killed him,” she announced, sweeping into the booth in a cloud of Chanel.

“Did you know he was in a coma when you came to see me yesterday?”

She raised plucked eyebrows in hauteur. “Are you questioning my word?”

One of the waitresses chugged over to take our order. “You want your fruit and yogurt, right, Vic? And what else?”

“Green pepper and cheese omelet with rye toast. Thanks, Barbara. What’ll yours be, Brigitte?” Dry toast and black coffee, no doubt.

“Is your fruit really fresh?” she demanded.

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Honey, the melon pinched me so hard I’m black-and-blue. Better not take a chance if you’re sensitive.”

Brigitte set her shoulder-covered today in green broadcloth with black piping-and got ready to do battle. I cut her off before the first “How dare you” rolled to its ugly conclusion.

“This isn’t the kind of place where the maître d’ wilts at your frown and races over to make sure madam is happy. They don’t care if you come back or not. In fact, about now they’d be happier if you’d leave. You can check out my fruit when it comes and order some if it tastes right to you.”

“I’ll just have wheat toast and black coffee,” she said icily. “And make sure they don’t put any butter on it.”

“Right,” Barbara said. “Wheat toast, margarine instead of butter. Just kidding, hon,” she added as Brigitte started to tear into her again. “You gotta learn to take it if you want to dish it out.”

“Did you bring me here to be insulted?” Brigitte demanded when Barbara had left.

“I brought you here to talk. It didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t know diner etiquette. We can fight if you want to. Or you can tell me about Jade and Corinne. And your cat. I had a visit from Joel Sirop last night.”

She swallowed some coffee and made a face. “They should rinse the pots with vinegar.”

“Well, keep it to yourself. They won’t pay you a consulting fee for telling them about it. Joel tell you he’d come around hunting Lady Iva?”

She frowned at me over the rim of the coffee cup, then nodded fractionally.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the damned cat when you were in my office yesterday?”

Her poise deserted her for a moment; she looked briefly ashamed. “I thought you’d look for Corinne. I didn’t think I could persuade you to hunt down my cat. Anyway, Corinne must have taken Iva with her, so I thought if you found her you’d find the cat, too.”

“Which one do you really want back?”

She started to bristle again, then suddenly laughed. It took ten years from her face. “You wouldn’t ask that if you’d ever lived with a teenager. And Corinne’s always been a stranger to me. She was eighteen months old when I left for college and I only saw her a week or two at a time on vacations. She used to worship me. When she moved in with me I thought it would be a piece of cake: I’d get her fixed up with the right crowd and the right school, she’d do her best to be like me, and the system would run itself. Instead, she put on a lot of weight, won’t listen to me about her eating, slouches around with the kids in the neighborhood when my back is turned, the whole nine yards. Jade’s influence. It creeps through every now and then when I’m not thinking.”

She looked at my blueberries. I offered them to her and she helped herself to a generous spoonful.

“And that was the other thing. Jade. We got together when I was an Alabama cheerleader and he was the biggest hero in town. I thought I’d really caught me a prize, my yes, a big prize. But the first, last, and only thing in a marriage with a football player is football. And him, of course, how many sacks he made, how many yards he allowed, all that boring crap. And if he has to sit out a game, or he gives up a touchdown, or he doesn’t get the glory, watch out. Jade was mean. He was mean on the field, he was mean off it. He broke my arm once.”

Her voice was level but her hand shook a little as she lifted the coffee cup to her mouth. “I got me a gun and shot him in the leg the next time he came at me. They put it down as a hunting accident in the papers, but he never tried anything on me after that-not physical, I mean. Until his career ended. Then he got real, real ugly. The papers crucified me for abandoning him when his career was over. They never had to live with him.”

She was panting with emotion by the time she finished. “And Corinne shared the papers’ views?” I asked gently.

She nodded. “We had a bad fight on Sunday. She wanted to go to a sleepover at one of the girls’ in the neighborhood. I don’t like that girl and I said no. We had a gale-force battle after that. When I got home from work on Monday she’d taken off. First I figured she’d gone to this girl’s place. They hadn’t seen her, though, and she hadn’t shown up at school. So I figured she’d run off to Jade. Now… I don’t know. I would truly appreciate it if you’d keep looking, though.”

Just say no, Vic, I chanted to myself. “I’ll need a thousand up front. And more names and addresses of friends, including people in Mobile. I’ll check in with Jade at the hospital. She might have gone to him, you know, and he sent her on someplace else.”

“I stopped by there this morning. They said no visitors.”

I grinned. “I’ve got friends in high places.” I signaled Barbara for the check. “Speaking of which, how was the Vice President?”

She looked as though she were going to give me one of her stiff rebuttals, but then she curled her lip and drawled, “Just like every other good old boy, honey, just like every other good old boy.”

V

Lotty Herschel, an obstetrician associated with Beth Israel, arranged for me to see Jade Pierce. “They tell me he’s been difficult. Don’t stand next to the bed unless you’re wearing a padded jacket.”

“You want him, you can have him,” the floor head told me. “He’s going home tomorrow morning. Frankly, since he won’t let anyone near him, they ought to release him right now.”

My palms felt sweaty when I pushed open the door to Jade’s room. He didn’t throw anything when I came in, didn’t even turn his head to stare through the restraining rails surrounding the bed. His mountain of flesh poured through them, ebbing away from a rounded summit in the middle. The back of his head, smooth and shiny as a piece of polished jade, reflected the ceiling light into my eyes.

“I don’t need any goddamned ministering angels, so get the fuck out of here,” he growled to the window.

“That’s a relief. My angel act never really got going.”

He turned his head at that. His black eyes were mean, narrow slits. If I were a quarterback I’d hand him the ball and head for the showers.

“What are you, the goddamned social worker?”

“Nope. I’m the goddamned detective who found you yesterday before you slipped off to the great huddle in the sky.”

“Come on over then, so I can kiss your ass,” he spat venomously.

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “I didn’t mean to save your life: I tried getting them to send you to the morgue. The meat wagon crew double-crossed me.”

The mountain shook and rumbled. It took me a few seconds to realize he was laughing. “You’re right, detective: you ain’t no angel. So what do you want? True confessions on why I was such a bad boy? The name of the guy who got me the stuff?”