'Gone?'
'They've taken him. I know he's dead.'
She drank some more coffee, holding the mug with both hands carefully. The mail I had come to check was in a pile on the floor near the mail slot.
'Tell me about it,' I said.
Rikki pressed the coffee mug against her cheek as if warming herself.
'My husband always stayed in his office at the restaurant until ten o'clock. Then he would have one scotch and soda at the bar, and come home. Two of the boys would drive him.'
'Death Dragon boys?'
'Yes. Last night he did not come home at ten. I called his office. There was no answer. I called the restaurant. My husband had left early, alone. He told the boys to wait there for him, that he would be back. The boys were still there waiting. He did not come back.'
'Why do you think he's dead?'
She shrugged.
'If he were not, he would have come home. They have killed him.'
'Who?'
'They. The people my husband did business with.'
'Do you know any names?' I said.
She shrugged again.
'I did not know about my husband's business. It was not my place to know. But it was a business where a person could be killed.'
'Have you been to the police?' I said.
'No. I do not trust the police.'
'Why not?'
Rikki shook her head.
'I do not trust them,' she said.
'But you trust me,' I said.
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'I do not know,' she said.
'But I do.'
I was hoping for a bigger endorsement than that, but one takes what's there.
'How about the Dragons?'
'I don't trust them either.'
I nodded.
'Would you like me to come up to Port City with you,' I said, 'and help you find your husband?'
'Yes.'
I nodded. So much for checking the mail. Or looking for Jocelyn. Now I could look for Lonnie. I wondered if his disappearance had to do with Jocelyn's disappearance. Maybe they were sitting in a motel room together, pretending to be kidnapped. This wasn't working like it was supposed to. The more I investigated, the more I learned, the less I understood. I was having trouble even keeping track of who my client was. Was I working for Christopholous, or the Port City Theater Company, or Jocelyn Colby, or Rikki Wu?
Or Susan? Since no one was paying me it was kind of hard to be sure.
'Okay,' I said.
'Let me make a call.'
I pulled the telephone over and called Hawk.
'Who we been looking for?' I said.
'Jocelyn?'
'Yeah.'
'And there someone there so you being cagey.'
'Yeah. I think things are not as they appear to be. I think the person is in a motel in the area. Voluntarily.'
'She faked it?'
'Yeah.'
'So she be in a motel under her own name,' Hawk said. '
