'I was at this one place,' he said, 'they had pizza with fruit on it.
You ever hear of that?'
'I've heard of it.'
'Never tried it, though?'
'It never sounded like a good idea to me.'
'Me either,' he said. 'Had pineapple on it, an' somethin' else, but I disremember what. Wasn't peaches, though. Was that straight what you was sayin' before? Peach pits really got cyanide in them?'
'Traces of it.'
'How many of 'em you have to eat before you kill yourself?'
'You don't have to eat any of them before you kill yourself. You just put a gun in your mouth and—'
'You know what I mean, Dean. You couldn't poison somebody with peach pits 'cause he'd take one bite an' make a face an' spit it out.
But could somebody lookin' to commit suicide choke down enough of them to do the job?'
'I have no idea,' I said. 'Of course if we had a computer I'm sure you could find out in no time.'
'You right, you know. All you gotta do is post the question on the Internet and some fool E-mail you the answer. How we gonna find out if Johnson bought the cyanide?'
'We'll wait.'
'For what?'
'For Joe Durkin to make a phone call.'
'Which he just said he ain't about to do.'
'That's what he said.'
'Said it like he meant it, too.'
I nodded. 'But it'll stick in his mind,' I said. 'And tomorrow or the next day he'll pick up the phone.'
'An' if he don't?'
'I'm not sure it matters. I know what happened. I'd need to fit a couple more things together in order to
prove it, but I don't even know if I want to do that.'
'Why's that?'
'Because I'm not sure I see the point.'
'Biggest story all year,' he said. 'Man sells newspapers even when he don't do nothin'.'
'Where is he now that we need him?'
'Whole city's holdin' its breath, wants to know what he's gonna do next. Say he's retired, but maybe he bidin' his time. Everybody waitin' on his next move, wonderin' what's the next name on his list.'
'But we know better.'
'When you know the truth,' he said, 'don't you have to tell somebody? Isn't that what detectin' is, findin'
out the truth an' tellin' somebody?'
'Not always. Sometimes it's finding out the truth and keeping it to yourself.'
He thought about it. 'Be a real big story,' he said.
'I suppose so.'
'Story of the year, what they'd be callin' it.'
'Every month there's another story of the year,' I said, 'and every year there's a story of the decade and
a trial of the century. One thing we'll never have to worry about is a shortage of hype. But you're right, it would be a big story.'
'Get your name in all the papers.'
'And my face in front of a lot of TV cameras, if I wanted. Or even if I didn't. That's almost reason enough right there to keep the story quiet.'
'On account of you shy.'
'I'd just as soon stay out of the spotlight. I don't mind having my name in the paper once in a while. It draws clients, and while I don't necessarily want more business it's nice to be able to pick and choose.
But this wouldn't be a little publicity. This would be a circus, and no, I wouldn't want to be the trained seal in the center ring.'
'So Will's secret be safe,' he mused, 'just because you don't want to go on 'Geraldo.' '
'I could duck most of the publicity. I could feed it to Joe and let him whisper it into the right ears. He'd find a way to make sure other people got the credit. That's probably what I'll do, if I do anything.'
'But you might not even do that much.'
