'They hit Lance. The black man hit Lance.'
Hawk smiled at Ellen.
'Kinda liked it,' he said.
L ance hissed again. But briefly.
'Bernie?' Ellen said.
'What the fuck,' Bernie Eisen said, 'is going on here.'
'Funny you should ask,' I said.
63
We had ourselves arranged in the living room. Hawk was leaning against the wall near the door with his raincoat still on but unbuttoned. I was on a straight chair, turned around so I could lean my forearms on the back of it, like the cops in film noir movies. Ellen and Bernie were on a couch. Darrin and Lance sat in matching wing chairs set at a slight decorator's angle on either side of the window through which you could see such a great view over the Common where not long ago Marty Siegel had explained special purpose entities to me. I was more comfortable now. I understood this kind of thing better.
'Here's an interesting thing,' I said. 'Hawk and I have consistently acted in a high-handed, indeed, quite probably illegal manner, both at the O'Mara home earlier this evening, and here in your lovely condo high above the city.'
No one said anything. Lance was giving me the death stare with his little reptilian eyes. The stare would have made me more nervous if Hawk hadn't taken his gun.
'And no one has mentioned calling the cops,' I said. 'Seems odd.'
No one said anything.
I had Lance's scrapbook in a manila envelope. I picked it up off the floor by my feet and opened it and took out the scrapbook. I opened it to the pages devoted to Rowley and Gavin, leaned around the back of my chair, and placed it faceup on the coffee table where all of them could look at it. Everyone looked at it. No one spoke. Lance licked his lips once.
'We found that in Lance's shirt drawer, which, incidentally, Hawk, who is clearly fashionable, tells me is filled with handsome shirts.'
'What is it?' Ellen said.
'A scrapbook filled with press clippings about murders dating back some years, of which our particular case is only the most recent.'
'Who would have such a thing?'
'The murderer might, if he was sufficiently creepy.'
The Eisens looked at Lance. Lance kept his obsidian stare on me. There was a trace of saliva showing at the left corner of his mouth. O'Mara sat very stiffly, and didn't appear to be looking at anything. Hawk was motionless as he often was. His expression was pleasant. He didn't look interested, but he didn't look bored. He looked like he might be reviewing a highly successful sex life.
'And,' I said, 'I gotta tell you that Lance seems to me sufficiently creepy.'
L ance spoke for the first time. 'Fuck you,' he said.
'Well, that's a valid point,' I said. 'But let me remind you that we have your gun, and I'm betting that the slugs match up.'
'Fuck you.'
'Well,' I said to the group, 'Lance has made his position clear, but let me expand on mine a little.'
Bernie was still trying to be a ballsy executive. After all, he belonged to a health club. He had a trainer.
'Nobody here is interested in your damn position.'
'I know, Bernie, that you and Rowley were manipulating mark to market accounting and SPEs in a criminal manner.' I managed to do things when I said it: to sound like I knew what I was talking about, and to do it with a straight face. It made me proud to be me.
'You're fucking crazy,' Bernie said. 'You know that?'
'I know that you and Ellen were wife-swapping with Marlene and Trent Rowley,' I said.
'You're disgusting,' Ellen said.
I looked at Hawk.
'You like me, don't you?'
Hawk's expression didn't change.
'Honky bastard,' he said.
'See?' I said to the group.
'You're not funny,' O'Mara said.
'I am too,' I said. 'But we'll let that go. I know you and Lancey Pants are involved in this criminal affair with Bernie and the late Trent, because you are listed as owners of some of the SPEs. I know that you, Darrin darlin',
