people you wouldn’t wipe your feet on otherwise, because they might remember the name of a moving van parked across from the house they were casing on a certain afternoon. Sometimes people don’t like your questions or the tie you’re wearing and bounce things off your skull, and that might not be so bad except they call you names while they’re doing it. Then the cops call you names because you didn’t run to them with information you didn’t know you had about felonies you weren’t aware took place and shine lights in your eyes and shove tape microphones up your nose and tank you for forty-eight hours on suspicion without a telephone call or a lawyer. They can do that and to hell with what you saw on Adam 12, all bets are off when you get sucked up into the big blue machine. All to keep the bloodsuckers off your back and your belly from scraping your spine, or so you answer on those not infrequent occasions when you find yourself asking why you do what you do.
Every morning is your last. You’ll put in one more day and then hang up the shoulder holster, ditch the forms, let your dues lapse in the Snoopers and Sleuths Union and get a real job with a place that has a bowling league and a company picnic and every other Friday a check you can almost raise two-point-five kids on with a wife who thinks she really ought to have a facelift, you make that decision and then the telephone rings or the door opens and the devil enters disguised as an old lady in widow’s weeds with a thousand dollars and a picture of a new missing face and you bite the apple. You’re hooked, you’re an addict. You’ve got the call.
The oven timer made a rude noise and I drank off what was in my glass and went in and ate my dinner standing up at the drainboard. It saved washing dishes and wiping up afterwards. I don’t know why I bothered. It was too late to reserve a table at the Rooster Tail.
When that was done I mixed some more Scotch and water and sat back down in front of the set and dialed Martha Evancek’s number in St. Clair Shores.
“Hello?”
It was the voice of a young woman without a foreign accent. After a pause I asked if I had the right number.
“Yes, that’s correct. Is this Mr. Walker?”
I said it was and asked if she was related to Mrs. Evancek.
“I’m her companion. She’s gone to bed. May I take a message?”
“It can wait till tomorrow,” I said.
“Wait, Mr. Walker. Hello?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m in Mrs. Evancek’s confidence. I know she’s hired you to locate her grandson and I’m familiar with the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. You can talk freely.” The voice was fresh and cool, like an ice-green mint.
“I’m sorry, Miss —?”
“McBride.”
“I’m sorry, Miss McBride, but you’re not in my confidence. No one ever is. I have one or two more questions I’d like to ask Mrs. Evancek. I’ll swing by in the morning if that’s all right.”
The voice got a little cooler. “Any time after nine o’clock would be acceptable.”
I thanked her and cradled the receiver.
There was nothing on television and I sat up for a while smoking and trying to read a paperback mystery I’d picked up in a drugstore once while tailing someone. It was about a private eye back East who wore expensive running shoes with everything and squawked so much about the things he wouldn’t do that you had to wonder what people hired him for in the first place. His partner was a professional killer and if there was a mystery to it at all I couldn’t find it and gave up. To hell with P.I.’s with codes they have to keep hauling out and looking at like pocket watches and to hell with cool fresh voices in women’s mouths. They never match the faces. I put down the book and looked around the room in the light of the one lamp I had burning. It needed dusting, all right. She probably had pinched nostrils and fuzz on her chin.
I went to bed and dreamed I was a Cossack who got his head lopped
Every morning is your last. You’ll put in one more day and then hang up the shoulder holster, ditch the forms, let your dues lapse in the Snoopers and Sleuths Union and get a real job with a place that has a bowling league and a company picnic and every other Friday a check you can almost raise two-point-five kids on with a wife who thinks she really ought to have a facelift, you make that decision and then the telephone rings or the door opens and the devil enters disguised as an old lady in widow’s weeds with a thousand dollars and a picture of a new missing face and you bite the apple. You’re hooked, you’re an addict. You’ve got the call.
The oven timer made a rude noise and I drank off what was in my glass and went in and ate my dinner standing up at the drainboard. It saved washing dishes and wiping up afterwards. I don’t know why I bothered. It was too late to reserve a table at the Rooster Tail.
When that was done I mixed some more Scotch and water and sat back down in front of the set and dialed Martha Evancek’s number in St. Clair Shores.
“Hello?”
It was the voice of a young woman without a foreign accent. After a pause I asked if I had the right number.
“Yes, that’s correct. Is this Mr. Walker?”
I said it was and asked if she was related to Mrs. Evancek.
“I’m her companion. She’s gone to bed. May I take a message?”
“It can wait till tomorrow,” I said.
“Wait, Mr. Walker. Hello?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m in Mrs. Evancek’s confidence. I know she’s hired you to locate her grandson and I’m familiar with the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. You can talk freely.” The voice was fresh and cool, like an ice-green mint.
“I’m sorry, Miss —?”
“McBride.”
“I’m sorry, Miss McBride, but you’re not in my confidence. No one ever is. I have one or two more questions I’d like to ask Mrs. Evancek. I’ll swing by in the morning if that’s all right.”
The voice got a little cooler. “Any time after nine o’clock would be acceptable.”
I thanked her and cradled the receiver.
There was nothing on television and I sat up for a while smoking and trying to read a paperback mystery I’d picked up in a drugstore once while tailing someone. It was about a private eye back East who wore expensive running shoes with everything and squawked so much about the things he wouldn’t do that you had to wonder what people hired him for in the first place. His partner was a professional killer and if there was a mystery to it at all I couldn’t find it and gave up. To hell with P.I.’s with codes they have to keep hauling out and looking at like pocket watches and to hell with cool fresh voices in women’s mouths. They never match the faces. I put down the book and looked around the room in the light of the one lamp I had burning. It needed dusting, all right. She probably had pinched nostrils and fuzz on her chin.
I went to bed and dreamed I was a Cossack who got his head lopped
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