she asked us to wait in the reception area. I whispered my amazement into Amanda’s ear.
“She’s got a crush on you, obviously,” she whispered back. “Doesn’t want to let on to me.”
The thought made me want to run back to the car and eat a handful of Markham’s pills.
Ross called for me the moment Jackie came through the door. She nodded at Amanda and glowered at me.
“Would you ask Ross if I can have a couple private moments with my client before we sit down?” she asked Orlovsky. “We haven’t had a chance to talk.”
“Sure thing, hon,” said Orlovsky, smiling graciously at Jackie, assuming common cause. “Take the interview room, down the hall, second right. I’ll tell the Chief.”
She buzzed us through the door, leaving Amanda out in reception with the public safety posters and dog- eared copies of
Jackie wore black stretchy slacks, an iridescent green silk blouse opened one button too many and a camel hair sport coat that I swear had tails like an antique tux. I wanted to chase down the sadist who sold it to her and get her money back.
“Looking good, Jackie,” I said, as we pulled chairs up to a small conference table.
“You’re supposed to call me at the moment of catastrophe, not the next morning.”
“You’d only just yell at me for waking you up.”
“I’m yelling at you now.”
“Here’s the headline: Two guys tried to run me off the road and shoot me. Instead, they ran into the back of the Grand Prix and killed themselves. I recovered the gun and at least one of the bullets, which I gave to Joe Sullivan. There are no witnesses I know of, and yes, I’d been drinking heavily, but I always drink heavily, and no, I wasn’t drunk.”
“Breathalyzer?”
“Nope. Joe got there in time,” I said.
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
I told her everything I’d done in the last twenty-four hours, as thoroughly as my memory would allow. She huffed through the entire thing.
“I was going to brief you as soon as I had a chance,” I said. “I didn’t think we’d have to work against a deadline.”
“Deadline. Nice choice of words,” said Jackie.
“What matters is what I think now. I think it’s all connected to the maneuverings over Con Globe. I think all sorts of interested parties, including Angel Valero and nominally Phillip Craig, Eisler, Johnson, and insiders like Marve Judson and Mason Thigpen, are licking their greedy chops over the possibilities. An aberration in George Donovan’s behavior lit the fuse. Uninteresting to the casual observer, shocking, or inviting, to the insider. And somewhere in all the fog and fury some bastard thought killing Iku Kinjo was a good idea.”
“So it’s all connected,” said Jackie.
I huffed this time.
“Of course it’s connected. Occam’s razor. The most obvious interpretation is almost always the right one.”
“Almost.”
I huffed some more.
“Okay. I used the word ‘almost.’ A concession to relativism. A polite qualification meant to dress up a naked absolute. What do you want, a philosophical debate or an assessment of the situation? Either one’s okay with me.”
“How about a quieter voice?”
I realized I’d reared up off my chair and was half pitched across the table. Nerves.
“Sorry,” I said, settling back down.
“I’m on your side,” said Jackie.
“I know you are.”
“I would be even if you didn’t pay me.”
“And what have I paid you so far?” I asked.
“A dollar. I’ve invested it wisely.”
“Keep up the good work. There’re more dollars where that came from.”
“I’ll inform my broker.”
“I can’t let this stand,” I said.
“Our compensation arrangement?”
“Iku’s murder. There’s an assumption in the air that it’ll never get solved. You can smell it. The stink of inevitability. They’ve already conceded defeat with barely a fight.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Jackie asked.
“The collective ‘they.’ Cops, associates, reporters, friends—ostensibly—prosecutors. I’ve seen it before. Iku Kinjo becomes a casualty of war. An unidentified soldier in the battle between the difficult and the expedient.”
“Not Joe Sullivan.”
“No. Not Joe,” I said.
“And I think it’s a little early to start judging.”
“Probably is. We allowed to smoke in here?”
She made that face that was part grin, part smirk.
“You haven’t asked me about my trip to Princeton,” she said.
“You went there?”
“I assume all this condemnation doesn’t apply to me. The person who drove all the way to the middle of New Jersey in response to a single harebrained request from a guy who the next second forgot all about it.”
“I didn’t forget. I thought you forgot.”
She milked her triumph. I waited it out.
“Okay,” I said. “What did you find out.”
“Princeton is a beautiful place. People are always pissing on New Jersey, but parts of it are like paradise.”
“I feel that way about the Bronx.”
“Harder sell.”
“You learned some things at Princeton,” I said.
“I did. I don’t know how much bearing it’ll have on our chat with Ross,” she said.
“Give me a headline.”
“Your group renters were a bunch of art majors.”
“Iku?”
She laughed.
“Hell, no. Double major in economics and political science. Magna cum laude. No sports, no sororities, no clubs. Her extracurriculars were all curricula.”
“How’d you find this out?”
“Like I always do. I traded sex for information.”
“Now you tell me.”
“I found a guy in the alumni office who knew Bobby Dobson. He knew another guy in the office where they keep student transcripts. We formed a love triangle. At least in their dreams.”
“Why would an artso like Bobby hang around with a grind like Iku Kinjo?” I asked.
“He didn’t. He hung around with her roommates.”
I could tell by her face that we were about to play the guessing game.
“How ’bout we skip all that and you just tell me, in the interest of time.”
She shook her head.
“Ross’ll wait.”
“Elaine Brooks and Zelda Fitzgerald,” I said.
“You are such a pain in the ass.”
“Lucky guess.”
