'Yes.'
'I'm from the Bureau of Abandoned Property.'
I was glad the blonde across the street couldn't hear me.
'What the hell is that,' Mrs. Ratliff said.
She was petite, with thick black hair and sharp features.
'State Treasurer's Office,' I said. 'We have some money for Mr. and Mrs. Buckman.'
'Lucky them,' the woman said. 'You want to come in?'
'Thank you,' I said.
I sometimes wished I wore a hat so when I went into a woman's house I could impress them by taking it off in a gentlemanly way. I settled for removing my sunglasses.
The front door opened immediately to her living room, which was done in Indian rugs and hand-hewn furniture that was too big for the room. There was a little gray stone fireplace with gas jets on the end wall. There was a pitcher of martinis on the glass-topped coffee table that took up too much of the room.
'I'm having a cocktail,' she said. 'Would you care to join me?'
It was 3:30.
'Sure,' I said.
She went through an archway to the small dining room and came back with a martini glass in which there were two olives. She poured me a martini.
'Stirred, not shaken,' she said.
I smiled. She picked up her glass and gestured toward me with it.
'Chink, chink,' she said.
I touched her glass with mine and we each took a drink. The martini was dreadful. Not cold enough and far too much vermouth.
'So,' Nancy Ratliff said. 'What can I do for you?'
'Tell me about Steven and Mary Lou Buckman.'
'Well, she was a bitch. Still is I'm sure.'
'How so?' I said.
Nancy Ratliff took another drink. She didn't appear to know that the martini was dreadful. Or maybe she knew and didn't care.
'Well, for one thing she was fucking my husband.'
'How nice for them,' I said.
'Yeah, well, not so nice for me.'
'How did Mr. Buckman feel about it?'
'He didn't say.'
She drank again and stared into her glass. 'Well, actually he did,' she said. 'He said we should get even with them.'
'Tit for tat,' I said just to be saying something, though in the context, the choice of words was unfortunate.
We were silent while she looked into her martini glass.
Finally she said, 'Aren't you going to ask me if we did?'
'Only if you want to tell me, Mrs. Ratliff.'
'Nancy,' she said. 'And yeah, I want to tell you.'
I smiled happily. She didn't say anything. I waited. She poured herself some more bad martini from the pitcher where the melting ice would have diluted it by now. She took another sip and held her glass up and looked through it.
'I like how clear it looks,' she said.
I nodded helpfully. Friendly guy from the Treasurer's office. Eager to please. Eager to listen.
'Yes, we got even,' she said. 'In goddamned spades.'
'And how did Mr. Ratliff feel about that?' I said.
I had no idea where I was going. Except that Ratliff was a name I'd heard before.
'He left me and went chasing after her.'
'And Mr. Buckman?'
'He went too.'
'With his wife?' I said.
