'Bibi never showed up in L.A.'
'You think anything happened to her?'
'I don't know. Chollo didn't know what she looked like. She could have walked right on past him.'
'Which she probably did,' Susan said.
'From what you've told me, she had very little reason to trust men.'
I shrugged again and had some donut. Susan smiled.
'Not even you, Sweet Potato,' she said.
'I know.'
'It's what's bothering you though, isn't it.'
'It's all bothering me,' I said.
'Hawk and I spent the last week or so wandering around Vegas without a clue.'
'You found Anthony Meeker,' Susan said.
'That is what you were hired to do.'
'And I don't know where he is now, and I don't know who killed Shirley, and I don't know what was going on between Anthony and Marty, and I don't know why Gino Fish was so interested, and I don't know whether Julius was involved, and I don't know where Bibi is, or what's going to happen to her. She showed no signs of being able to fend for herself.'
'You can't help people that don't want you to help them,' Susan said.
'Thanks, Doc.'
'You are a grown-up,' Susan said.
'You know that as well as I do. We both do work that teaches us that lesson daily.'
'True,' I said.
We were quiet. I started on my third donut. Susan broke another microscopic fragment off her first one and ate some of it. The sound of the traffic floated up from Berkeley Street. Somewhere someone was making a hole in something hard. I could hear the faint sound of a jackhammer.
'What are you going to do now?' Susan said.
'There were a couple of things I back-burnered,' I said, 'while I went to Vegas. I'll see if I can resurrect one.'
'Good to work,' Susan said.
'Good to eat,' I said.
'I'll always feed you,' Susan said.
'Didn't you get a large sum of money recently? From some insurance company?'
'Yeah. A percentage of what I saved them. More money than I deserve. Actually, more money than anyone deserves, except Michael Jordan.'
'So I don't have to feed you. You can take a little time off and pursue your hobbies if you wish to.'
'You mean the Vegas thing?'
'Money is freedom,' Susan said.
'I could go talk with Gino Fish again, see if he can tell me anything he didn't tell me before.'
'No harm in that.'
'No. Unless Gino finds it annoying and tells Vinnie Morris to shoot me.'
'Would he shoot you?' Susan said.
'Depends.'
'Would you shoot him?'
'Depends.'
'Everything does, I guess.'
'Everything but you and me, donut girl.'
'Present company, always excluded,' she said.
'This is going to bother you until you get some kind of closure on it.'
'I suppose it might,' I said.
'It will,' Susan said.
'I have a Ph.D. from Harvard.'
'This is going to bother me,' I said, 'until I get some kind of closure on it.'
Susan smiled.
