work?”
“Not if you mean finding people. Military police for four years, private security work for the past dozen.”
“I see,” she said again. Another sip of her margarita. She seemed to be thawing a bit. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe what he’d told her. Or maybe a little of both. “What made you come here to ask about Court Spicer?”
“A jazz musician who knows Spicer saw him at a jam here last Sunday.”
“Ah, yes. David’s all-consuming passion for jazz.”
“Did you see Spicer then?”
“I saw him, yes.”
“Talk to him?”
“No. We have nothing to say to each other.”
“So he’s been here before. At other parties.”
“But not to listen to the music. On business, I think.”
“What kind of business?”
“My husband prefers not to tell me that.”
Fallon said, “Spicer was with a man called Bobby J. last Sunday.”
“Was he? I wouldn’t know.”
“The initial J. Bobby J.” Fallon described him. “Familiar?”
“Vaguely. I seem to recall the tattoo. But there were quite a lot of people here. There always are at one of my husband’s jams.”
“His jams?”
“Ours,” she amended, but a faint resentment lingered in her voice. David Rossi was the jazz buff, not his wife.
“Was Spicer playing at the Sunday jam?”
“No. He wasn’t a spectator either. He and my husband spent some time together in David’s study.”
“Any idea why?”
“No, but I’d like to know. I’d very much like to know.” Sharon Rossi drank again before she added, “My motives now, Mr. Fallon.”
He waited.
“Do you know anything about my husband?”
“Not much, no.”
“He’s usually very sure of himself. I’ve never known him to be afraid of anything or anyone-except Court Spicer.”
“How do you mean, afraid?”
“Just that. Nervous, on edge-afraid. Every time Spicer has come here, David has looked and acted the same, during and afterward.” She made a low, mirthless chuckling sound. “It’s almost Pavlovian, the effect that man has on him. And I haven’t a clue why. The one time I asked him about Spicer, he told me to mind my own damn business.”
Fallon asked, “How long has he known Spicer?”
“I’m not sure. A while.”
“More than three years?”
“At least that long.”
“How often does Spicer show up here?”
“Not often. And when he does, judging from David’s reaction, it’s without an invitation.”
“I wonder if your husband knows where he’s living now.”
“He might. It would depend on their business, wouldn’t you say?”
“What do you think that business is?”
She poured her glass full again, drank deeply this time. The thaw was complete now; there was high color in her cheeks, a faint glaze on her eyes. She was the type of drinker who knew her limits and seldom exceeded them, but she seemed to feel she had cause today. Dutch courage for what she was about to reveal.
“I think Court Spicer has some sort of hold on my husband,” she said. “I think he comes here for money, large amounts of money.”
“Blackmail?”
“Or extortion. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but David keeps a large sum of cash in his safe. The morning after the last jam, I opened the safe and there was quite a bit less than there should have been.”
“How much less?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
Spicer’s outside source of income-not much doubt of that now. He must have stumbled onto something three years ago, something David Rossi didn’t want revealed, and been using it to bleed him ever since.
Fallon asked, “So you thought I was Spicer coming back for more. What were you planning to do?”
“Confront him.”
“Just like that?”
“No.” She reached into the pool bag, came out with nickel-plate and pearl shining in her hand. “With leverage.”
It wasn’t much of a gun. A.32-caliber automatic slightly larger than her palm. Lethal enough at close range, but unreliable at any distance.
“Suppose he wasn’t intimidated,” Fallon said. “What would you have done then?”
“Would I have shot him? I don’t know, I might have.”
“It takes a lot of courage to shoot a man.”
“Or a lot of provocation. When it comes to protecting my nest, I’m as much of an animal as any wild thing.”
Fallon believed it. He said, “Why tell me all this, Mrs. Rossi? It’s personal and you don’t know me, you didn’t even know I existed until a few minutes ago.”
“Isn’t it obvious? You have a good reason for finding Court Spicer and you seem determined to do so. When you do, you’ll be in a position to find out what hold he has on my husband. And to recover anything in his possession that might be… shall we say embarrassing?”
Fallon said nothing.
“The idea doesn’t appeal to you? You’re big and strong, Spicer is small and soft. You shouldn’t have any difficulty.”
Still didn’t say anything.
“If you agree,” she said, “I’ll pay you the same amount my husband gave Spicer-five thousand dollars. And if you succeed, I’ll double that amount.”
He said carefully, “I’m not in this for money. Money isn’t important to me.”
“Oh, come on now. Money is important to everyone.”
“Not me.”
“So noble. Just doing a favor for a friend. Why not do what I ask and make it two favors, the second one paid for?”
It sounded good on the surface. Return a kidnapped boy to his mother and at the same time put an end to a blackmail or extortion game. Recoup his expenses and make a profit, whether he succeeded or not. But there were pitfalls. As things stood now, all he had to do if and when he located Spicer was to call the police and have him arrested on the kidnapping charge. What Sharon Rossi wanted meant confronting the man, maybe threatening him, maybe leaning on him. Breaking the law. Another thing: suppose the hold Spicer had on David Rossi involved a felony of some kind? Suppose there was incriminating material and he could lay hands on it? If he turned it over to Sharon Rossi or her husband for pay, he’d be guilty of withholding evidence, compounding a felony. He could go to jail.
“Well, Mr. Fallon?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “No.”
“Why not, for God’s sake?”
He told her why not.
“False concerns,” she said. “Whatever Spicer’s hold, it can’t possibly involve a serious crime. I know my
