'I'll be damned! If it isn't the old lonesome stranger himself, J. P. Beaumont. Long time no see, Beau. Sit down. What the hell happened to your hand?
Without waiting for a response, Kelley stole a vacant chair from an adjoining table and shoved me into it, summoning the cocktail waitress with his other hand. 'You still swilling that rotten MacNaughton's? he asked.
The other questions hadn't merited answers. This one did. I gave the waitress a grateful nod while Kelley ordered another round for the whole table. Everybody else was drinking martinis.
'Hey, Beau, you know these two guys?
I did, but he introduced us anyway. Chip Kelley was on a roll.
'So what brings you to this joint? I thought you ran more to the Doghouse these days.
'I came to see you, I said. 'It's easier than trying to make an appointment.
The drinks came and he tipped his glass in my direction. 'Salut. Here's to not having to make appointments. So what can I do for you?
One of the reasons I don't hang around Vito's anymore is that Chip can drink me under the table any day of the week and still sound sober as a judge, if you'll forgive the expression.
'I understand you were the judge in a patent infringement case that went to trial several months ago.
Kelley nodded. 'Probably. Seems like a couple of those turn up every year. And if it's still in the appeals process, I may not be able to comment.
'Let me ask you about it in theoretical terms then, no names.
'All right.
Observing Vito's long-standing and inviolable rules of order and without ever leaving the table, the other two men drifted tactfully into a quiet discussion of golf scores, leaving us with as much privacy as if we had physically moved to another room.
'Go on, Chip urged.
'Let's suppose that this guy invented something on his own time while he was working for somebody else, and suppose he offered it to his employer. The employer didn't want it, in fact refused it outright, but when the poor schmuck who invented it began developing and marketing the product on his own, the former employer filed suit saying that the patent really belonged to him, that the guy had done the work while working as an employee on company time.
'So? Chip asked.
'So eventually the poor schmuck loses in court. Damages, court costs, the whole ball of wax are awarded to the former employer. But supposing there was a witness to that same conversation between the schmuck and the employer, a witness who could testify to that effect, that the product had been offered to the employer and subsequently turned down, and that the development didn't happen during work hours.
'So what's the problem?
'At the time of the trial, the witness was nowhere to be found.
Kelley considered the situation for a few moments. Finally he shrugged. 'I don't know all the extenuating circumstances here, but off the cuff I'd say that without the witness, the schmuck would be SOL. With the witness, the case would probably go the other way. I would have dismissed it with prejudice so the ex-employer couldn't jack him around anymore. I take it this missing witness has now been found? Is he willing to testify?
'I can't say.
'Well then, I don't know what the exact judgment was, but there may be nothing to stop the schmuck from reopening the case and filing a countersuit of his own.
'Yes, there is, I said.
'What's that?
'He's dead.
'Oh. My answer had a visibly sobering effect on Judge Chip Kelley. 'Maybe the heirs can file a suit, then, Kelley suggested after a moment. 'It's been done.
'That's all I needed to know. I finished my drink and pushed back my chair.
'Hey, you can't go yet. You've only had one. Aren't you going to have something to eat?
'I'm too tired to eat, and one drink is more than enough. Thanks for the help.
Ignoring Chip's squall of protest, I made my way out the door into the clear fall evening. It was a long way from Moscow, Idaho, to Vito's, and it had been a long, long day. All I wanted to do was spend a quiet evening at home in my recliner.
Dream on, you fool. I should have known better.
CHAPTER 13
My hand still hurt like hell as I rode upstairs in the Belltown Terrace elevator. My plan was to go to bed early and try to get some sleep, but I knew that idea was screwed the minute the elevator door opened and I smelled the garlic.
Ames was inside my apartment and up to one of his culinary shenanigans. Several times now I've accused him of being a closet Italian with heavy investments in a multinational garlic-growers cartel. He denies it, but whenever Ralph Ames starts dabbling in the gourmet kitchen he helped design for me, he goes crazy with the garlic.
I stood outside the door for a moment, wondering if there was any way I could gracefully get out of dinner by pleading a combination of illness and fatigue. Then I heard voices. Not only was Ames cooking dinner, he had invited company.
Ralph popped his head out of the kitchen when he heard the door open. 'There you are. I was hoping you'd get here in time to eat. Come on out to the kitchen. I want you to meet a friend of mine.
Plastering a reasonable facsimile of a smile to my face, I went into the kitchen disguised as Mr. Congeniality himself.
The place was in total uproar. Generally speaking, Ralph Ames is a very precise, well-contained individual, but he lets his hair down completely when he cooks Italian. His preferred method is to start with enough boiling water to deliver several babies. He continues from there, cutting and chopping with increasingly wild abandon. The majority of the ingredients end up in the pots, but debris tends to fall where it may and stay there.
Once the cooking is over, Ames has the enviable ability to turn out the lights in the kitchen, shut the door on the chaos, and go into the dining room, where he eats with obvious enjoyment, without giving the least thought to the disaster area he's left behind. My whole problem with cooking is that I hate cleaning up, and I never forget, not even for a minute, that the mess in the kitchen is sitting there, waiting for me. Waiting and congealing. I still don't have nerve enough to leave one of my cooking catastrophes for Florence Cooper, my cleaning lady, to straighten up.
Tonight Ames' culinary masterpiece was linguini primavera. The pasta had boiled over on the stove, leaving a huge dark brown stain across and around the burner. Both the pasta and the sauce had evidently progressed through a series of smaller pots to larger ones, so that the whole counter was littered with empty but nonetheless dirty cooking utensils. And at the far end of the kitchen sat a man I didn't know, a man with a glass of wine in his hand.
He didn't sit so much as he lounged, his back against the partially opened kitchen window. He appeared to be about Ralph's and my age. His short gray hair was tightly permed into a frizzy halo. He wore a yellow silk shirt with the top two buttons unfastened, revealing an expanse of tanned chest as well as a single gold chain. His shoes were expensive and polished to a mirror shine. On his face was a look of bemused detachment as he observed Ralph's frenetic meal preparations.
Ames stopped in the middle of the room, waving a slotted spoon in one hand. 'Beau, I'd like you to meet an old college chum of mine, Raymond Archibald Winter, III. This is my friend and client, Detective J. P. Beaumont.
Winter put down his wineglass, held out his hand, and grinned a white-toothed, wolfish grin. 'How do you do, Detective Beaumont. My friends call me Archie. Any friend of Aimless is a friend of mine.
'Aimless? I asked, puzzled.
