'It's a little like you do, I think. You keep listening and nothing much makes any sense and you keep listening and you keep listening and then something appears a pattern, an event, an evasion, a contradiction. Maybe just the small end of something you get hold of and begin to tug.'
Susan bent over and took another drink of water and stood up with a few drops of it on her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. She was wearing leather weight-lifting gloves, the kind without fingers. Her nails gleamed.
'Yes,' she said.
'Psychotherapy is like that. Though the hope is that it is the patient who sees the thing.'
'All analogies are partial,' I said.
'Anyway, that's what I'm doing. I'm walking around and listening.'
'And your goal is?'
'To find Bibi.'
'And when you've found her?'
'See that she's all right.'
'You are a very sentimental man,' Susan said.
'My profession permits it,' I said.
'Which is a reason you chose it,' Susan said.
I shrugged.
'It takes a very tough guy to remain sentimental in this world,' Susan said.
'My profession permits that too,' I said.
'Which is, of course, another reason you chose it.'
'I chose it because I heard it was a good way to meet lascivious Jewish shrinks,' I said.
'Is that your specialty?'
'No,' I said.
'Lascivious Jewish women are my specialty.
Shrinks are a subspecialty.'
'And how many have you met?'
'Lascivious Jewish women?' I said.
'Thousands. Shrinks?
One.'
'Had I been a lascivious Irish shrink, would you have loved me anyway?'
'The answer is yes,' I said.
'But I think you've just coined a tripartite oxymoron.'
'Oy way,' Susan said.
'Can the police help you find Bibi?'
'Vegas cops would like to talk with all three of them.'
'Anthony's her husband, Bibi's his lover, and they both disappear after Shirley was killed. Who's the third one?'
'Marty. He was at the MGM Grand. She had the phone number for the Grand with her when she died.'
'Will they keep you informed?' Susan said.
'I doubt it, but I'll call every once in a while.'
'How about our police? Frank Belson owes you a pretty big favor.'
'Quirk says he'll keep an eye on the wire for me.'
'Not Frank?'
'I wouldn't ask Frank.'
'Because he owes you a favor?'
'I wouldn't want him to think I'm collecting,' I said.
Susan took another drink, and straightened and wiped her mouth, carefully so as not to smear her lipstick. She looked at me with her great dark eyes and smiled her wide-mouthed smile.
'Big boy,' she said, 'you are a piece of work.'
'How nice of you to notice.'
CHAPTER 40
