'Are you sure?'
Her eyes didn't look at the envelope again.
'Yes.'
'Look inside.'
She slipped her hand into the envelope and brought out five new one-hundred-dollar bills and three black- and-white glossy photographs. She put the hundred-dollar bills on the bar behind her, not looking at them, and then she looked at the photographs casually, one after the other. They were copy prints of old photos: two showed a couple each, a smiling man and woman next to a new car and in the other an older man and woman, she smiling slightly, the man frowning. There was what looked like a horse in the background, and a fuzzy field bordered by eucalyptus trees sloping up to the horizon. The third photo was of a man only, in a suit and tie; it looked like the kind of thing corporations put in their newsletters when someone gets promoted, the head turned slightly to one side, face set, mouth in a half-serious smile.
She finished with the photographs and put them back in the envelope and handed the envelope to Paine.
'Who are they?' she asked him.
'I thought you might tell me that.'
'I don't think I want to.'
'Would you look at them again? Closely this time.'
'I saw them,' she said. 'I don't want to know any of those people.'
'All right,' Paine said, half to himself. The girl was refilling her glass.
'Want another drink?' she asked.
'No,' he said, looking at the untouched one in his hand. She sat facing the bar, away from him.
'Miss Grumbach,' he said, 'your father hired me, over the phone, just before he died. He told me my instructions would be inside the envelope you're holding, and that I would find it under the name 'Johnson' at the Mallard Hotel. There's no note in there, only those photographs. The truth is, I'm not allowed to work for anyone without a written, signed contract between the client and the Barker Agency, for whom I work. Your father died before he signed that contract. Now the only way I can continue with this is if someone else-'
'I'll think about it,' she said from her faraway place. She took the five hundred-dollar bills from the bar and slid them back into the envelope, handing it back to him. 'I assume this money was to be your payment. Keep it. Give me your contract if you want.'
Paine gave her the folded contract from his inside jacket pocket. He saw that her glass was empty. She rose from the barstool, steadily, and began to walk to the doorway.
'Find out whatever you want,' she said.
'You told me he killed himself.'
'I said that's what I wanted to think,' she said. 'We all want a lot of things, Mr. Paine.'
'I'll need-'
'I'll think about it. I'm tired. I'm going to bathe.'
She left the room. She turned out the amber light, and Paine was left in semidarkness. Though it was dark and cool in the room he could sense the heat outside; the thin slats of light that fell into the room were bright against the leather chairs they settled on. He put the envelope back into his pocket and made his way to the door.
As he stepped out, there were voices in the hallway. Approaching him was a fuller, healthier, slightly older version of Dolores Grumbach. She wore tennis shorts, and her hair was cut boyishly short. Paine saw a man, shorthaired, healthy-looking, dressed also in tennis whites, mounting the marble steps at the end of the hallway.
'You must be Mr. Paine?' the woman said. She held out a long slim hand. 'I'm Dolores's sister, Rebecca Meyer.'
Paine took her hand; she curled her fingers around his, holding them an instant too long.
'I hope you didn't find my sister too full of ennui,' she said, smiling slightly. 'Part of it's an act.'
'Part?' Paine said.
She kept her eyes on him, and then they suddenly wrinkled up at the corners and she asked, smiling, 'Would you like a drink?'
'I was already offered one, thanks,' he said. He took out the envelope again, removing the three photographs. 'Would you mind telling me if you know any of these people?'
She took the photographs from him and concentrated on each one. She shook her head. 'I'm sorry, no.' She handed them back. 'Won't you please have that drink?'
She put a hand on his arm and Paine felt a tingle where her fingers rested.
Paine put the photos away.
'I really have to go.'
'Maybe next time, then.'
'Maybe next time.'
He went to the front door and the maid was there, holding it open. Then suddenly he was outside, in the bright sun, feeling the gardener's eyes keeping him on the flagstone walk until he got to his car.
THREE
Jimmy Carnaseca was building something on his desk. 'What the hell is that?' Paine asked.
Jimmy kept his eyes on the thing on his desk, but his mouth turned up into a delighted grin. 'Something I picked up on the way in.' He was fitting tiny sticks together, little bigger than toothpicks, perfectly slotted on each end so that they fit together without falling apart. It crowded out half the desktop; the telephone had been moved and there were papers restacked on one side, in a rough pile away from the construction.
'Looks like a bridge,' Paine said, sitting down in the desk chair and swiveling it away from Jimmy.
'Something like that. You'll see when it's done.'
'Barker in?'
Jimmy frowned. 'Not yet.'
'Good.'
'You'd better watch out,' Jimmy said. 'He'll chew your ass off, spit it out the window.'
'He wouldn't know where to chew.'
Jimmy continued with his tinkering, until Paine asked, 'Coffee boy been by yet?'
'That's good, too.'
'What's eating you?' Jimmy said, stopping his work. He stood as straight as his small, bent frame would let him. He stared unblinking at Paine, a tiny wooden girder held delicately in his fingers.
'You should have been a surgeon, Jimmy,' Paine said.
Jimmy said, 'I asked you what's eating you.'
'Nothing much. Coffee boy been by yet?'
Jimmy stared at him.
'Sorry, Jimmy,' Paine said.
Carnaseca regarded him dispassionately for a moment. 'What is it, Jack?'
Paine said nothing. Then he said, 'Lots of things, Jimmy.'
'Love trouble?'
Paine looked at him. 'I suppose that's part of it.'
'You should do like I do,' Carnaseca said. He began to work again, humming to himself.
'And what do you do?' Paine found himself smiling. Jimmy kept humming. He shook his head, a grin splitting his face.
'I ought to knock this thing down. .' Paine threatened, holding his fist playfully over Carnaseca's model.
'Bastard,' Jimmy said.
There was a banging out in the hallway. Paine cursed. 'Speaking of bastards,' he said.
