'They tell me there's a couple around.'
'Yeah, working traffic.'
'Anyway, I'm not a cop. Just crooked.' Her eyebrows went up. 'I left the force a few years back.'
'Then I don't get it. How do you wind up with the stuff?'
Either she was honestly puzzled or she knew Spinner was dead and she was very good indeed. That was the whole problem. I was playing poker with three strangers and I couldn't even get them all around the same table.
The waiter came around with the drinks. I sipped a little bourbon, drank a half inch of coffee, poured the rest of the bourbon into the cup. It's a great way to get drunk without getting tired.
'Okay,' she said.
I looked at her.
'You'd better lay it out for me, Mr. Scudder.' The well-bred voice now, and the face returning to its earlier planes. 'I gather this is going to cost me something.'
'A man has to eat, Mrs. Ethridge.'
She smiled suddenly, whether spontaneously or not. Her whole face brightened with it. 'I think you really ought to call me Beverly,' she said. 'It strikes me as odd to be addressed formally by a man who's seen me with a cock in my mouth. And what do they call you—Matt?'
'Generally.'
'Put a price on it, Matt. What's it going to cost?'
'I'm not greedy.'
'I bet you tell that to all the girls. How greedy aren't you?'
'I'll settle for the same arrangement you had with Spinner. What's good enough for him is good enough for me.'
She nodded thoughfully, a trace of a smile playing on her lips. She put the tip of one dainty finger to her mouth and gnawed it.
'Interesting.'
'Oh?'
'The Spinner didn't tell you much. We didn't have an arrangement.'
'Oh?'
'We were trying to work one out. I didn't want him to nickel me to death a week at a time. I did give him some money. I suppose it came to a total of five thousand dollars over the past six months.'
'Not very much.'
'I also went to bed with him. I would have preferred giving him more money and less sex, but I don't have much money of my own. My husband is a rich man, but that's not the same thing, you see, and I don't have very much money.'
'But you've got a lot of sex.'
She licked her lip in a very obvious way. That didn't make it any less provocative. 'I didn't think you noticed,' she said.
'I noticed.'
'I'm glad.'
I had some of my coffee. I looked around the room. Everybody was poised and well dressed, and I felt out of place. I was wearing my best suit, and I looked like a cop in his best suit. The woman across from me had made pornographic movies, prostituted herself, worked a confidence game. And she was completely at ease here, while I knew I looked out of place.
I said, 'I think I'd rather have money, Mrs. Ethridge.'
'Beverly.'
'Beverly,' I agreed.
'Or Bev, if you prefer. I'm very good, you know.'
'I'm sure you are.'
'I'm told I combine a professional's skill and an amateur's zeal.'
'And I'm sure you do.'
'After all, you've seen photographic proof.'
'That's right. But I'm afraid I have a greater need for money than for sex.'
She nodded slowly. 'With Spinner,' she said, 'I was trying to arrange something. I don't have much cash available now. I sold some jewelry, things of that sort, but just to buy time. I could probably raise some money if I had a little time. I mean some substantial money.'
'How substantial?'
She ignored the question. 'Here's the problem. Look, I was on the game, you know that. It was temporary, it
