It was a Tesla; that explained the stealth entrance. Sewing machines are louder. It smelled like a new plastic toy, accelerated without a burp, and reached forty by the time we got to the corner.
“Ever drive one of these?” Goss said.
“What do you think?”
He might have chuckled. It made no more noise than the engine. “All you locals think the electric motor’s a conspiracy aimed directly at Detroit. I’ve got a Camaro on lease and sixty thousand invested in the upkeep on a ’68 Mustang. Does that let me back in the club?”
“You misunderstand me. I don’t care if you’ve got a Japanese Zero in a private hangar. I was talking about the size of my bank balance.”
“Funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“The timing. But then I’m in a business that runs by the clock, so I’m sensitive to that kind of thing.”
I let it go. I had a good idea where he was headed, but it wasn’t my place to step on his punchline. Timing’s my thing, too.
He was dressed for work behind the camera: slacks from an old suit, deck shoes thinning at the toes, U of D sweatshirt. I pointed at the shirt. “I wouldn’t have tagged you for a Catholic.”
“I don’t fit the mold? Didn’t know there was one.”
“There isn’t. I only see you on the receiving end of the confession box.”
“I lapsed.”
He turned the corner with one hand on the bottom of the wheel, cruised down an empty street. I ran down my window to listen to the never-ending hum from the freeways. All that silence in the airtight cabin was murder on the nerves.
“Been a long day for me, too,” I said. “I started out in prison and wound up thumbing through photo albums in a police interrogation room.”
“So my spies tell me.” He shook his head. “Wild Bill’s got nothing on you. That’s two shootings in a week.”
“It’s been a slow week.”
He drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Are you always this hard to start a conversation with?”
“I’m a chatterbox when I’m not dead tired. If you picked me up to hear all about my adventures in the detective trade, I’ll have to charge you for the research.”
“Idle curiosity. Call it a busman’s holiday. You don’t turn off the sleuthing after the five o’clock whistle.”
“Still waiting for the other shoe,” I said.
He swung into a side street, coasted to a stop in front of a row of houses, some of them with the lights on. The morning shift at Ford and Chrysler starts early. A soporific mosquito wobbled into the car and sang in my ear: It sounded like a drunk crooning “Old Man River.” My bat wasn’t so far ahead of the season after all. I ran up the window.
Goss twisted around to face me, one arm slung across the back of his seat. He looked older in the greenish glow from the dials on the dash. It would take an expert in studio makeup to fill in those trenches under his eyes.
“We got off on the wrong foot before,” he said. “Mea culpa. When you told me you were reopening the case, it was like the last twenty years hadn’t happened. That’s why I don’t keep a lot of pictures of April in my house. Anytime I want to see her, all I have to do is close my eyes.”
His voice shook a little. It was important to remember he played to an audience for a living.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “I should have said that the other day.”
“That’s a police phrase. It must be in the manual. Not that anything more original would help. You got kids, Walker?”
I shook my head. I wanted to smoke, but I didn’t want to air the place out and let any more early skeeters into the car.
“You don’t know, then. Put short, you’re not supposed to outlive your children. It’s a crime against nature. And you know how I feel about crime. Which was part of it, how I reacted.”
He shifted his attention to the windshield, opaque now with only darkness in front of it. “I’m a salesman,” he said. “I peddle justice. If I ran all the stories I covered where a guilty man went free because of an overwrought cop or an incompetent clerk or a bleeding-heart judge, Dogs wouldn’t last a season. I follow an investigation for weeks, months sometimes, waiting for some animal to get what’s coming to him, and when he doesn’t—when it looks like he’s even better off for what he did—I want to buy a gun and make my own correction in the corrections system. But I don’t, because of the thing I’ve appointed myself to defend. That doesn’t make it any easier.” He turned back my way. “So maybe you can see how I felt when it looked like you were out to spring that filth that killed my little girl.”
“What if he didn’t?” I said. “Putting aside the innocent-man-wronged angle, it means the filth that did it is still on the loose.”
“Vail told me you said something like that. Yeah, I got it out of her. It wasn’t hard. She has no talent for lying. I think that’s the reason I was attracted to her in the first place.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t buy it, Walker. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I’ve invested too many years in this thing to cash out now. I won’t be one of those grieving cases who say how precious their loved one was to them, when in fact they weren’t. April and I didn’t get along. I loved her; don’t think I didn’t, and I think she loved me. But she was always closer to her mother.
“I never even set foot in her apartment,” he said. “I didn’t approve of her moving out, when she could easily have commuted between school and home. She wasn’t mature enough to live on her own. Events proved me right. I wish to God they didn’t.” He breathed. “Well, there was one thing I could do for her, useless as it was, and I did it. Only now it seems I failed even at that.”
A piece of lint on the seat caught his attention. He scraped at it with a nail. It turned out to be part of the upholstery thread. He pressed it back into place, looked at me.
“You’re not the weasel I took you for, Walker; I’ve done my research. I don’t get along with the police any better than you do, and we both have to cozy up to crooks to get what we want. I’m sorry I put you in the crossfire.”
“I’m not angry, Goss. I’ve been bounced harder with less reason. If that’s not in the P.I. manual, it should be. You didn’t have to waste a charge just to square things with me.”
“So you’re going ahead.” It wasn’t a question.
I said, “I didn’t know April. But if pushing the case against Corbeil was really for her, making sure it really was justice falls into that same category. If not him, it was someone else; and if it was him, taking another hard look at the evidence will nail the thing shut once and for always.”
He turned back toward the windshield. His narrow features reflected in the glass belonged to a three-thousand-year-old mummy.
“I don’t do my own legwork,” he said. “I’ve hired detectives. I know what they make as independents, because I ask when I interview them for the job. Just doubling the salary would be an insult. I double that, and they’ll never have to pay for a doctor’s appointment again. They don’t even see the bill.”
I caught myself just short of asking how many expert consultants his show needed; that’s how tired I was, ready to tip my hand on my partnership with Kopernick. Instead I said, “What would one of these former investigators do on a TV stage? I’d call dolly grip, but I don’t know what that is.”
“Chief safety officer: My safety, mostly. I get enough death threats in one week to spook a U.S. president. Most of them come handwritten in crayon. They don’t let you have anything sharp in maximum security. Most of them don’t amount to anything, but one is all it takes. I need a man who can not only protect me, but turn up a threat and neutralize it before it happens.”
“I’ve done bodyguard work. They never give you anything good to read in places where you sit around on your fanny four hours at a time.”
“You’d hire grunts for that. This would be strictly an executive position. Would I employ Al Kaline to serve as equipment manager? The only time you’d carry a weapon would be while you’re supervising on the target range. Oh, maybe for show, when I fly to Paris to consult with the Sûreté; London and Scotland Yard. The show’s going international next season. Keep that under your hat. We’re announcing it at the end of the season recap. First-class flights, the presidential suite in the George V, your own credit line on Savile Row.”
When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “You can’t go on forever staking out strangers’ houses and picking up a guy in Royal Oak and following him all the way to Mexico on a diet of burgers and greasy fries.” He pointed with his chin. “How long have you been favoring that leg?”
“I don’t play favorites.” I twisted to face him, dangling my own arm over the back of the seat. “If I took the job—assuming you’re offering me a job—could I finish the April Goss case before I start ordering mimosas on the Left Bank?”
“You’ll have to leave that to the police; they’re interested again, by the way. You did your job. My current head of security’s leaving Friday. He wants to spend more time with his grandchildren. Severance package I gave him, he can send them to Harvard. I can’t leave my flanks exposed without a backup in place. Insurance companies get snippy when they’ve got ten million riding on your head.”
“Thanks, Goss. Don’t lose any sleep over my bum leg. I’ve got a spare.”
“That’s a no?”
“I just got English down. I’m too old to start on French, and I wouldn’t know how to behave myself in a silk suit. I hear they ride up on your crotch.”
“Joking aside,” he said.
“Joking aside.”
He drummed his fingers again. “Sure? The offer expires with this joyride.”
“I’m parked behind the precinct. My leg will thank you if you pull around.”
This time the tires chirped when he took off. Back at the Second he swung in behind my Cutlass; of course he knew what I drive. I grasped the door handle, looked over at him. “Don’t think I didn’t appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“I guess I’m not so great a salesman after all. You’d have made a fine department chief.”
“That’s not the job I’m talking about.” I got out.