'Yes.'
'Nice theory.'
'It is, isn't it?'
'Pretty cold,' Becker said.
'Very cold,' I said.
'Can you prove it?'
'Sooner or later,' I said.
'Where's Delroy fit into all of this?'
'I don't know. Pud Potter says that Delroy and Penny Clive are intimate.'
'Penny?'
'That's Pud's story.'
'Was he sober when he told it?'
'Yes. The other thing about Delroy is that he's a phony. He was never with the FBI. He was never in the Marine Corps. And I'm pretty sure that there isn't any big company that he works for. Security South is him, working out of a letter drop in Atlanta.'
'Well, you're a detecting fool, ain't ya?'
'We never sleep,' I said.
'On the other hand, so he's bullshitting his way to success,' Becker said. 'Don't make him unusual. He's got the proper accreditation from the state of Georgia.'
'That would mean his prints are on file,' I said.
'Sure.'
'Maybe you could run them for us, find out what he was doing while he wasn't in the FBI or the Marine Corps.'
Becker took a pull at his Coke.
'Yeah,' he said. 'I can do that.'
'While you're doing that, I'm going to commit several covert acts of illegal entry,' I said.
'Be good if we get something that will be useful to us in court,' Becker said.
'On an illegal entry by a private dick who's not even licensed in Georgia?' I said.
'Be better if you didn't get caught,' Becker said.
'Be good if you don't look too close at what I'm doing.'
'Be good if nobody asks me to,' Becker said.
'Eventually I'm going to find out what happened,' I said.
'Be nice,' Becker said.
FORTY-THREE
I HAD A drink with Rudy Vallone at a restaurant called the Paddock Tavern, downstairs from his office. There was a bar along the right-hand wall as you came in; other than that, the place was basically the kind of restaurant where you might go to get a cheeseburger or a club sandwich, or if you had a date you wanted to impress you could shoot the moon and order chicken pot pie, or a spinach salad. There were Tiffany-style hanging lamps and dark oak booths opposite the bar, and a bunch of tables in the back where the room widened out. There was a big mirror behind the bar so you could look at yourself, or watch women. Or both.
'You're an industrious lad,' Vallone was saying as he sipped a double bourbon on the rocks.
'Thank you for noticing,' I said. 'Did Walter Clive ever talk to you about changing his will?'
Vallone took a leather case from the inside pocket of his suit coat and took out a cigar. He offered me one. I declined. He trimmed the end of the cigar with some sort of small silver tool made for the task. Then he lit the cigar carefully, rolling it in the flame. Drew in some smoke, let it out, and sighed with contentment.
'Man, smell that tobacco,' he said.
It smelled to me like there was a dump fire somewhere, but I didn't comment. Vallone sipped some more bourbon.
'Now,' he said, 'by God, this is the way to finish a workday.'
'Did Walter Clive ever talk to you about changing his will?' I said.
'That might be considered a private matter between an attorney and his client.'
'It doesn't have to be,' I said. 'Especially since the client got shot dead.'
'There's something to that,' Vallone said.
He puffed on his cigar and rolled it slightly in his mouth.
