Only Child

“Solving that murder?” he asked, sarcasm smearing his thick lips. “The case is over a year old. Maybe you’ll find who killed Chandra Levy, while you’re at it.”

“I’ll solve it, or I won’t,” I said, matter-of-factly. “It’s my time. I’m not asking you for a dime in front. Not even expenses.”

“And if you did manage to come up with the killer...?”

“It would be yours. A total exclusive.”

He puffed on his cigar, trying to get the hang of it. Said, “We can’t issue press credentials. Internet journalists don’t get the same respect our brothers on the print side do.”

“The only credential I want is, if the cops call, you say I’m working for you. On this assignment.”

“What do you need us for? Just tell anyone who asks that you’re freelance.”

“Sure, I could do that. But I’ll get treated better if I’m working on an assignment.”

“You might,” he conceded. “But a story like that...I mean, if you actually found the killer, it’d be worth a lot. Why should I trust you to bring it to us?”

“I’ve got references.”

“Is that right?” he said, just short of snide. “Who would they be?”

“I’ll have them call you,” I said.

“Why should I believe you?” Wolfe.

“I can prove it,” I said into the phone. “If we could just—”

“Arm’s-length,” she said, sugarless.

“Whatever you say.”

“I won’t say it twice,” she warned.

“Guy’s down here, looking for you.”

Gateman, whispering into the phone he kept in the room behind the front-desk area.

“Me? Or a name?”

“Burke.”

“Ever see him before?”

“No. Big guy. Dresses like a fucking lumberjack. Stands like a fighter, though.”

“Send him up, okay?”

“You’re the boss.”

Mick came up the stairs slowly, hands open at his sides, distributing his weight carefully. He saw me watching through the open door, walked in.

“I was expecting Wolfe,” I said.

“After I look around.”

I waved my hand to indicate he could look wherever he wanted. Giving up my address to Wolfe was the only way I could get her to meet with me. Mick was part of the package.

“You got another dog?” he asked, wary.

“No.”

“Sorry,” is all he said. More than I thought he would.

“Hi, chief!”

Pepper. Sporting a red beret and a white jumpsuit with a matching red belt.

“Hey, Pepper. You guys going to keep coming in waves, or what?”

“She’ll be here. In a minute. I’m just picking up Mick. Today’s our anniversary, and I thought we’d—”

I shot a quick glance at Mick. I’d known him for years, and I was sure that nothing that walked the earth could make him nervous. But I didn’t think that bulge in his jacket was an anniversary present. And there was a definite look of alarm on his face. He disappeared in the direction of the bedroom.

“Pepper, can I ask you a question?”

“Talk’s cheap,” she said, then giggled to take the sting out of it.

“Wolfe doesn’t really think I’d ever—”

“Ah, don’t go there,” she advised, not unkindly. “I’m not here for nothing.”

Just as I opened my mouth to ask her what she meant, Mick came back to where we were sitting, and a barrel-chested Rottweiler strutted through the open front door. The beast came toward me, making little trash- compactor noises.

“Bruiser!”

Wolfe. In a tightly belted silk trenchcoat of pale lilac and matching spike heels with ankle straps. Her long dark hair was streaked with auburn highlights now, but the trademark white wings still flared out from her high forehead. Gray gunfighter’s eyes took my temperature.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

She clapped her hands, one short, sharp sound. The Rottweiler hit the deck, never taking his baleful gaze off me.

“Bruiser has a good memory,” she said.

“Then why doesn’t he relax?”

“Oh, he never liked you,” Wolfe said, no trace of a smile on that gorgeous mouth.

It took less than half an hour for me to lay the whole thing out for her. Mick went back to roaming around the apartment, but Pepper never left Wolfe’s side.

All business, then.

Fair enough. Where I come from, whatever train you want to ride gets to call the price of the ticket.

“You want what, exactly?” Wolfe asked. Then added, “What do you want to buy?” avoiding a mixed message.

“Whatever you can get me on the crime that I couldn’t get for myself out of the papers.”

“The same stuff a defense attorney would get if they’d ever brought anyone to trial?”

“No. Not just the Brady stuff. McVeigh-type discovery. The whole thing. Investigative reports, suspects ruled out, blind alleys. Everything.”

“I’m not sure I can get all that. Some of it, sure. But I don’t have the same contacts on Long Island that I do in Queens.”

“Why Queens?”

“That’s where the body was dumped,” she said, a faint note of surprise in her voice. “You didn’t know that?”

“No. No, I didn’t. So Long Island’s connection with the case is only because that’s where the girl was from?”

“I don’t know. I took a quick look. Maybe there’s more to that, but I can’t say right now.”

“All right.”

“And what else?”

“Whatever you can get me on Giovanni Antrelli and Felix Encarnacion,” I said, not pretending surprise that she knew there was another reason for me calling her in.

“Didn’t you just say they were your clients?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“So...?”

“So I meant what I told you on the phone. This is straight-edge. Me, anyway, I am.”

“So you think your clients might have had something to do with—?”

“No. Not in the way you mean. But they think it’s about them. That’s one out of three.”

“Burke...” she said, with just a trace of impatience.