"See you around," Pud said to me. "Hope you make some progress."

I gave him my card.

"You think of anything," I said, "I'm at the Holiday Inn, right now, or you can call my office in Boston. I check my machine every day."

Pud took the card, gave me a thumbs-up, and left the sandwich shop.

"Did you know he's stopped drinking?" Cord said.

"No."

"Hasn't had a drink since this happened."

"Amazing."

"He's coarse and dreadfully incorrect, and not, I'm afraid, terribly bright," Cord said. "But my God, I don't know what I'd have done without him."

"People are often better sober," I said. "Do you think Delroy is humping Penny?"

"Well, I hadn't really thought about that, but she's known him so long. I mean, what was she when Delroy came upon the scene, maybe fifteen?"

I waited while Cord tried to think about Delroy and Penny. This was hard for Cord. I was pretty sure he'd spent most of his life considering himself, and very little of his life considering anything else.

"I don't know," he said. "The idea seems sort of natural to me. I guess I'd have to say that if it proved so, I wouldn't be surprised by it."

"How about Stonie?" I said. "Do you think she was unfaithful?"

I knew the answer to that, though "unfaithful" didn't seem to quite fully cover truck-stop fellatio. I wanted to know if Cord knew.

"I would have understood," he said, "and I would have forgiven her, given how things were, and of course it's possible that she did things I don't know about. But no, I don't believe she was ever unfaithful."

"Hard to imagine," I said.

THIRTY-FOUR

THE LAMARR TOWN library was a two-and-a-half-block walk through the dense Georgia heat from the sandwich shop. By the time I got there my shirt was stuck to my back. The library was a white clapboard building, one story, with a long porch across the front. The porch roof was supported with some disproportionate white pillars. I went in. It was air-conditioned. I breathed for a while and then found an Atlanta phone book and looked up Security South. It had an address on Piedmont Road in Buckhead. Good neighborhood.

It took me two and a half hours to get to Atlanta and another twenty minutes to locate the Security South address on Piedmont in a small shopping center near the corner of East Paces Ferry Road. It was no cooler in Atlanta. When I got out of the car, the heat felt like it could be cut into squares and used to build a wall.

The little shopping center had a bookstore, a Thai restaurant, a hair salon, a place that sold bed linens and bath accessories, and a storefront office with a sign on the front window that read, "Bella's Business Services." The more I looked, the more I didn't see Security South. My best bet seemed to be Bella's, so I went in.

The room was cool and small and empty except for a switchboard, a few office machines, two file cabinets, a desk, a chair, and a woman. The woman was in the chair behind the desk. She was black, with very short hair and good shoulders.

"Bella?" I said.

"Denise," she said. "I bought the place from Bella."

"I'm looking for an outfit called Security South," I said. "Which is listed at this address but does not seem to be here."

"Right here," Denise said.

She was wearing a maroon linen dress with no sleeves and her arms were strong-looking.

"Here?" I said.

"Yes, sir. If you'd like to leave a message, I can have Mr. Delroy call you back."

"This is a mail drop," I said.

"And a phone service. We also do billing."

"Ah hah," I said.

"Ah hah?"

"Detectives say that when we come across a clue."

"Are you a detective?"

"I was beginning to wonder," I said. "I don't suppose you could tell me who their clients are."

"No, sir, I'm sorry," Denise said. "But you can see why we'd have to remain confidential about our customers."

"Sure," I said.

"You really a detective?" she said.

"Yep."

"Atlanta Police?"

"Boston. Private."

"A private eye?" she said. There was delight in her voice. "From Bahston?"

"Hey, do I make fun of your accent?" I said.

She smiled.

"Why, honey," she said, "we don't have no accent down here."

"Sho' 'nuff," I said.

I looked around the office. In the back, behind Denise's desk, was a window that opened onto a parking area. I could see the nose of what might have been a Honda Prelude parked behind the office. I smiled my aluminum-siding-salesman smile.

"While I'm here," I said, "you want me to check your security? I can give you a nice price on a beautiful system."

"No, thank you," she said. "I feel perfectly safe here."

"I meant an alarm system," I said. "Protect the office at night."

"From what? Somebody want to sneak in here and steal paper clips?"

"Well," I said, "I just assumed you had an alarm system. I could update it for you for cost, just cover the expense of my trip here."

"I don't have an alarm system," she said.

"I could put one in," I said. Always a plugger.

"Well, aren't you a hustler," Denise said.

"Well, you can't blame me for trying to salvage something," I said. "I don't find Security South, I don't get paid."

Denise smiled. She looked great when she smiled.

"No, I don't blame you, but I don't want anything you've got to sell."

"You're not the first woman to make that point," I said.

"I'm sure I'm not," Denise said. "You wish to leave a message for Mr. Delroy, I'll see that he gets it."

"Mr. Delroy?"

"Yessir, the CEO. Do you wish to leave a message for someone else?"

"No," I said. "No message."

"Best I can do," she said.

"Me too," I said, and smiled and opened her front door and wedged my way out into the swelter and thence to my car.

THIRTY-FIVE

THE POPULATION OF Atlanta is less than Boston's, but it is the center of a large region and for that it seems bigger. I was in the Buckhead neighborhood, north of Atlanta, where the governor lives, surrounded by large lawns, expensive houses, an upwardly mobile constituency, and some very good restaurants. One of them, Pano's and Paul's, was located out past the governor's mansion, in a small strip mall on West Paces Ferry Road. It was 5:35 when I got there, and there were tables available. I asked for one, got one, ordered an Absolut martini on the rocks and a deep-fried lobster tail, and tried to look like I preferred to dine alone in a fancy restaurant.

If Jon Delroy was the CEO of a security business that operated out of a file cabinet in Bella's Business Services, then how big an operation was it, and why was its CEO out in the field all the time, guarding a horse? Why wasn't he in the Peachtree Center, in an office with a large reception area, shmoozing clients and serving on crime advisory councils, and having lunch at the Ritz-Carlton downtown with the commander of the GBI?

I declined a second martini, ate my lobster tail, paid my tab, and went out to my car. It was twenty to seven. I headed back to Bella's Business Services and parked behind the building just after seven. Her back door would be three down from the left end of the mall. I got out of my car, got a toolbox out of the back, and went to the door. It was locked with a spring bolt on the inside, but the frame had shrunk a little since it had been installed and there was a sliver of an opening. I put on some crime scene gloves, turned the knob and held it there with duct tape. Then I got out a putty knife and tried to spring the lock tongue back with no success. I put the putty knife back and got out a flat bar. There was no one in sight. I put the bent end of the flat bar into the crack at the door edge and pried the thing open. It made some noise as the spring bolt screws inside tore out of the door, but if anyone heard it they didn't care, and no one came running. I untaped the doorknob and picked up the toolbox and went in and closed the door behind me. The spring bolt was hanging by one remaining screw. I went to the file cabinet. It was still light outside, but inside it was too dark to read the labels on the files, so I got a small flashlight out of the toolbox and held it in my cupped hand and went through the files. Denise was an orderly person. The files were alphabetized, so I found Security South quickly.