O'Clair said, 'Who's that?'
'Guided by Voices,' Megan said.
O'Clair said, 'Where're they from?' He'd never heard of them.
'I think, Ohio,' Megan said. 'The lead singer was a schoolteacher. He drinks like twenty beers during a show. Best live band I've ever seen, but they broke up.'
He rubbed his right eye. He could feel it swelling up and itching like crazy.
'Do you have something in your eye? I've got drops if you need them.'
'It's all right,' O'Clair said, but it wasn't. He didn't have much time.
'I hope you're not allergic to Snickers.' Megan sat in a worn leather chair with her back to the wall.
O'Clair took the couch. 'Nice view,' he said. 'Detroit doesn't look so bad from this angle. How long have you lived here?'
'I moved in when I got the casino job. So I guess about a year and a half.'
Snickers walked across the floor in front of O'Clair and jumped into Megan's lap. Her eyes lit up. 'Well, look who wants some attention.' Megan stroked the cat and hugged it.
O'Clair noticed it had a strange pug face like somebody had squished it. He wasn't going to ask any questions about why the cat's face was that way, and hoped he didn't have to hear any cat stories. 'I'm looking for a suspect named Robert Gal, goes by Bobby.'
'What's it have to do with me?'
'He's a regular at the MGM. I'm hoping you can ID him.' O'Clair got up and handed the photograph of Bobby to Megan. She stared at it without any kind of reaction. Why was she pretending she didn't know him?
'I'll say this, he does look familiar. I've probably seen him. Maybe even cashed him out.'
O'Clair knew Bobby wasn't in the apartment at that particular time. His car wasn't in the parking lot. He wanted to scare her, give her something to think about. But if she was afraid, she didn't show it. She was cool as could be.
Megan took another look at the photograph. 'Can I keep this? I'll ask the girls at work, see if anybody knows him.' She stared at the photograph one more time. 'He's kind of cute.'
A white cat with black spots on its head wandered into the room. Megan said, 'Look who just woke up from her nap.'
The cat yawned.
'Is her still tired? Is my girl teepee house?' Megan said in a singsong voice.
The cat jumped up on the couch and curled up next to O'Clair, burrowing in close.
'You've got yourself a friend, Detective. Her name's Judy, and she's a cuddler and a teeper, aren't you girl?'
Megan, O'Clair noticed, had a goofy look on her face when she talked to the cats. Her tone of voice was also different, like somebody talking to a baby.
'Judy's a Van.'
Jesus, there she goes.
'Vans are Exotics-usually with white fur, spots of color on their head and a colored tail.'
O'Clair was in fucking agony.
'Not to be confused with Harlequins.'
His eyes were on fire.
'They're a lot like Persians except for the coat.'
O'Clair sneezed.
'God bless you.' Megan held up Snickers. 'I think the poor detective's allergic to you guys.' She put the cat on the floor.
O'Clair had to get out of there. He stood up. The white cat stared at him and purred.
'What should I do if I see him?' Megan said.
O'Clair said, 'What?'
'If I see him,' Megan said, 'you know, the guy?'
'Call me.' He had a small notepad in his pocket. He wrote his number down and handed it to her.
O'Clair didn't know if she was fucking with him or not. All that cat talk, she might have been putting him on. Her reaction when he mentioned Bobby was strange too. He planned to come back for another visit if his eyes ever recovered.
Megan knew if they found Bobby it was all over. He'd give her up in a second to save his own ass. Blame the whole thing on her. She had to talk to him. He'd taken off and she hadn't seen him in a few hours. He was going to get her money.
What if they checked her phone records and saw all the calls she made to him. She was getting nervous, paranoid. Why was she even being questioned? There had to be a lot more to it than what she'd been told.
Aside from cashing him out, Megan was careful never to talk to Bobby at the casino. Never to be seen with him. Wait a minute, did this have something to do with Lou Starr? How could it? There was nothing to connect her. So what did they have? Nothing was her guess. Megan was coming out of her funk now. Fuck 'em. They didn't have shit. She turned up the music and heard the start of 'Glad Girls.'
'Hey, hey, glad girls, I only want to get you high.'
O'Clair thought Megan would panic and make a move, run to Bobby and tell him the police were looking for him. He waited in the parking lot for thirty minutes and when she didn't come out he drove to Bobby's and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. He picked the lock, went in and said, 'Anybody home?' Silence. There was a lamp on in the living room. Bobby had nice- looking furniture, leather couches, an overstuffed leather chair with an ottoman, plasma TV, tropical fish tank; Bobby Gal was living pretty good. The tank must've been five feet long and there was only one fish in it, an ugly little thing floating on its side near the surface of the water. It looked dead. He poked it with his index finger and the little son of a bitch spun around and tore off a piece of his flesh in a split second. There was a cloud of blood in the water and O'Clair was bleeding like crazy.
He went in the kitchen and wrapped his finger-the tip was bit off and gone-in a paper towel that turned red as soon as it touched his raw flesh. He folded a paper towel three times around the end of his finger that stung like a son of a bitch, and wrapped the whole thing in duct tape he found in a drawer.
What kind of fish was it? O'Clair would've guessed a baby barracuda or a shark, but it just looked like a normal dumb fish. He went back in the living room and looked in an old rolltop desk that was against a wall at the far end of the room. He found a bent photograph wedged in one of the narrow compartments. O'Clair stared at it. It was Bobby, no question, squinting, a big grin like he had a buzz on, holding a cocktail, posing with his arm around Megan, the little blonde he'd just visited.
He put the photo in his pocket. There were a couple of bills and an orange flyer announcing a Friday Night Mixer in the desk. These swinging Somerset people really knew how to have fun. The answering machine showed six messages, but no tape. He already knew who the calls were from.
O'Clair checked the bedroom. Pulled the mattress off the box spring, slashed it open with a knife from the kitchen, a serrated blade that sliced through the soft fabric, making a big X from corner to corner, exposing the guts, but no money. The bedding was in a pile on the floor. He picked up each layer, sheet, blanket, sheet, and shook it, but didn't find anything.
He went through a chest of drawers, pulled out clothes, socks, underwear, khakis, Levi's and then rows of golf shirts. Bobby had four times more clothes than O'Clair. He was neater too-all his stuff was folded in perfect piles, perfect rows. Maybe he was a fag. Who else would spend time folding his clothes like that? Even his underwear was folded in neat piles.
O'Clair looked in the closet. On the floor he noticed a pair of brown and white saddle shoes. He wondered how a grown man could wear shoes like that even to play golf. This guy Bobby had to be light in his loafers. He picked up Bobby's two-tone golf bag that said 'Taylor Made' on it, and dumped the clubs out on the living room floor. He grabbed a 3-iron, took a swing, dropped the club and went through the golf bag, checked every pocket and compartment. Nothing except golf shit: tees and balls and a couple of gloves, a scorecard, a warm can of Bud.
He went back in the bedroom closet and pulled out all the coats, checked the pockets and threw everything on the bedroom floor. He looked in the closet one more time, checked the shirts that were lined up on hangers. He
