I nodded encouragingly.
'Well I know at least two men she had flings with. I assume they weren't the only two.'
'I'll be damned,' I said. 'Who were they?'
Bebe slugged in some gimlet.
'The men she had flings with,' I said. Spenser, you old gossip.
'Well Mark, for one, and dear old Dean-o for another.'
'Mark Ratliff?'
'Un-huh.'
'And the cop?'
'Dean Walker,' she said.
'And how do you know this?' I said.
Bebe smiled as serenely as she could, being fairly well bagged.
'Men like to kiss and tell,' she said. She might have said, 'kissh.'
'These guys just stopped by the office one day and told?' I said.
'Not exactly,' she said.
'Am I to gather that you were flinging a little yourself?' I said.
She giggled and drank.
'I like to kissh and tell, myself.'
'Don't we all?' I said.
She finished her gimlet.
'You got a room?' she said.
'Sure do,' I said.
'Let's go see it,' she said.
'Let's,' I said.
I was trying to leer, but she was too drunk to notice. I signed the tab and took her arm and we went out of the bar and into the lobby and up the stairway to my room.
Inside, she looked around the room.
'So neat,' she said. 'Whyn't you have room service bring us up a drink? I gotta freshen up a little.'
'You bet.'
She was in the bathroom for a long time. When she came out I could see that she had worked on her hair a little, and there was a fresh smell of newly sprayed perfume.
'Room service come yet?'
'Not yet,' I said.
'Well maybe we should lie on the bed and wait for them,' she said.
'That would be swell,' I said.
She walked over to the bed, and lay down on it. She smiled at me and patted the bed beside her.
'Come on,' she said. 'I won't bite.'
I sat on the edge of the bed next to her.
'So tell me a little about Steve Buckman,' I said.
She stared up at me. Her eyes were unfocused. Her pupils looked very big.
'Steve?'
'Yes, what was he really like?'
She kept looking at me.
'Come on,' she said. 'Let's do it now.'
'You think Steve was different than he seemed?' I said.
Her eyelids drooped. I thought she might be trying to look vampish. Then her eyelids shut. I was saved. She was asleep. I straightened her out a little, put the
Chapter 9
WHEN I CAME back into the bar, the bartender gave me a look full of questions he knew he shouldn't ask.
'Beer,' I said.
'Will there be a gimlet with that, sir?'
