to be sure she'd get hers.'
O'Mara was watching the bartender pour the whisky. He seemed relieved when she started back down the bar with it. 'Hypothetically,' O'Mara said.
'Any sign that was happening?' I said.
'I am not a dating service,' O'Mara said. 'I instruct people in a certain philosophy, and I help them understand its implications.'
'Do you know anyone named Gavin?' I said.
'Not that I can think of,' O'Mara said.
He took a sip of the whisky and washed it with Guinness. He looked happier.
'Bob Cooper?' I said.
'No, I don't believe I know him either,' he said.
'And you don't know any reason somebody might shoot Trent Rowley?'
'God no,' he said.
'Eisen didn't mind his wife and Trent.'
'Absolutely not. Any more than Trent minded Bernie and Marlene.'
'And why would anyone,' I said.
'Why indeed,' O'Mara said.
The Irish boilermaker was cheering him greatly. 'You ever read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde?' I said.
'If I did,' O'Mara said with a smile, 'I've forgotten it. Why do you ask?'
'Character named Pandarus,' I said. 'I was going to ask you about him.'
O'Mara polished off the rest of the Irish whisky and gestured at the bartender for another one.
'I fear that you may be misled,' he said. 'The references to courtly love are metaphoric, if you see what I mean.'
The whisky arrived. He took a fond sip and let it trickle down his throat. Then he drank some Guinness.
'My field is not literature,' he said. 'Though literature is surely a stimulus to my thinking.'
He had swung fully around on his barstool, facing the big nearly empty room, with both elbows resting behind him on the bar. I felt a lecture lurking.
'My field,' he said, 'is human interaction.'
'You and Linda Lovelace,' I said.
I left O'Mara at the bar. As I came out, I saw a guy with shoulder-length black hair round the corner onto Causeway Street and disappear.
I only saw his back, but the hair looked like the guy I'd seen at Bob Cooper's club.
26
Healy came into my office with a bag of donuts and two large cups of coffee. He sat and handed me a coffee.
'Dunkin' Donuts,' he said. 'I get the cop discount.'
He held the bag of donuts toward me and I took one. Cinnamon, my favorite.
'I thought it might be time for us to compare notes,' Healy said.
'Wow,' I said. 'You are really stuck, huh?'
'Here's what we know,' Healy said. 'Somebody shot Trent Rowley to death.'
I waited. Healy didn't say anything. After a while I said, 'That much.'
'Just barely,' Healy said. 'Whaddya got?'
'What have I got, just like that? A cup of coffee and a donut and I spill my guts to you?'
'That was my plan,' Healy said.
We each drank some coffee. Healy and I had been sort of friends for a long time. Which did not mean I needed to tell him everything I knew unless there was something in it for me. There might be.
'The security guy at Kinergy,' I said. 'Gavin. He hired two, ah, marginal private eyes to follow the wives of a couple of his employees, including Marlene Rowley.'
'Tell me about that,' Healy said. I told him.
'And you can't find either gumshoe,' Healy said.
'Maybe I just keep missing them,' I said.
'Maybe. I'll have someone run it down.'
