Bookman's promise

“That’s none of your business either, but I was in South Carolina, working.”

“Can anybody verify that?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“It’s a really, really simple one, Hal. It means, did anybody see you there?”

“I know what it means. Why are you asking? Why do I have to verify anything?”

“Obviously you don’t…yet. I’d still like an answer.”

“The answer is no. When I’m working I see no one and I don’t pick up the telephone. Does that satisfy you?”

“Sure. I admire that intensity, that’s why you’re so good. But I couldn’t help wondering if you were in Denver last Wednesday night.”

“Why would you wonder that?”

“I don’t know, just a wild hair. You’re sure you weren’t there?”

“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I wouldn’t know if I’d just been halfway across the goddamn country?”

“You’d know, all right.”

“Why would I hide that? Did somebody rob a bank last Wednesday?”

“Yeah, that’s what happened, Hal, I’m trying to pin a bank robbery on you.”

He walked to the window and looked out into the night. “I think I’d like you to leave now,” he said softly. “This meeting hasn’t exactly been productive.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

I got up and went to the door, betting he’d say something.

“What are you going to do now?” he said.

I looked back across the room. “Oh, I don’t know, screw up your life as much as possible, I guess. I’ve got a friend at Publishers Weekly who’ll be interested that you’re doing Burton. She’ll call you to verify. Of course you’ll lie, but I’ll tell her to expect that. It won’t be much of a story, just a little squib. ‘Is he or isn’t he?’ Enough to let the world know.”

“Damn it, Janeway, will you please listen? I am not doing Richard Burton.”

“Then whatever I say won’t matter, will it?” I reached into my distant past and pulled out a name, a freckle- faced kid with pigtails I had loved madly in the third grade. “My friend’s name is Janie Morrison. If you read Publishers Weekly, you’ve probably seen her byline. She’ll love you, Hal, you’re such an awful liar. Janie cut her teeth on the New York Post, so she knows a bad liar when she hears one.”

I pulled the chain out of its slot and looked through the peephole at the empty hall. I could feel his eyes on my back, and when I turned for a final look, he had moved away from the window and was regarding me with a pitiful, whipped-dog look. “I’m really sorry, Hal,” I said. “I’m sorry you’re such a flaming fucking dick-head, because I really did love your books. You’ve got the rarest of all rare gifts, and you’ve got it by the bucket. If you’d just get your head out of your ass, maybe you’d even be happy.”

“What would you know about happy? Are you happy?”

“Hey, I’m doing what I like, why wouldn’t I be happy? So what if it’s not perfect, I don’t believe in perfection. Maybe happy’s as good as it gets.”

He said nothing.

“C’mon, honey, talk to me. It’s not too late, we can still be friends.”

He looked up and met my eyes. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“I never do. But if you change your mind, I’m at the Bozeman Inn.”

I watched the floors tick off as I went down in the elevator. It stopped on three and I braced back against the wall, expecting…what?

An elderly couple got in, eyeing me suspiciously.

I was not just nervous, suddenly I was very nervous. What had seemed like a good idea had become, in Archer’s continued silence, heavy and tense, fraught with peril. I had had that sudden hunch, and once it was there I couldn’t shake it.

Let it settle. See if it sticks.

How many murder cases had I solved just this way? I’d get an idea, some harebrained notion that had no facts or logic to support it, and I’d start growing a case around it. How many times had I gone after a killer with nothing more than a wild hunch, and suddenly had the whole ball of wax fall into my lap?

Long ago I learned that murder isn’t logical. Sometimes it is but those are the easy cases: the old man kills the old