The Shake
but she isn’t talking.”“Why not?” she asked. “Is she scared?”
“It’s more intractable than that,” I explained. “She’s dead. She killed herself a few weeks ago.”
“Shit! Was she, like, a friend of yours, or something?”
“No, I barely knew her. But I have some reasons of my own for wanting to know why her husband was killed.”
Karla sipped her coffee and thought about it. “Couldn’t you talk to the private eye?”
“I could, but I doubt if he’d tell me much. You know, client confidentiality, that sort of thing.”
“So,” she asked, anticipating where the conversation was leading, “is that where I come in?”
“If you’re willing.”
“What makes you think he’ll talk to me?”
“He may not,” I said. “On the other hand, he’s male, divorced, probably lonely.”
Karla grinned impishly, a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “You could break into his office and read his files.”
“I already did that,” I said flatly.
Her grin widened. “You broke into his office? Really?”
“His house, actually. He has an office in a spare bedroom.”
Karla stared, her smile still spread across her face. She leaned forward, as if suddenly our conversation required more privacy. “You really did? You really broke into his house?”
“Does that surprise you?”
She sat back, crossed her arms and looked at me, her head cocked quizzically. “I hope you don’t expect me to jump in the sack with this guy?”
I was weighing how to answer her when she apparently decided for herself that either I wasn’t asking her to do that, or if I was asking, she was willing.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Go to this bar he frequents. Make yourself available for a little friendly conversation. If he obliges, see if you can get him to talk about the Arnauds. Maybe he’ll tell you something that wasn’t in his files.”
“See if I can get him to talk about the Arnauds?” she asked, skeptically. “Should I just ask him, or am I supposed to somehow innocently steer the conversation to that one particular topic? I mean, the guy’s probably had a lot of cases. Why should he suddenly start talking about that one?”
“I think it’s better if you don’t arouse his suspicion. I imagine you’ll have to do some steering. For all I know, he may have forgotten about the Arnauds. On the other hand, there’s always the possibility that the case still eats at him. Sometimes our failures stay with us more tenaciously than our successes. The Arnaud case could be stuck in his little private-eye brainpan, scratching at his professional self-image. Maybe a couple of drinks and a pretty face will loosen him up.”
Karla picked quietly at her salad for several minutes. “You say this Arnaud guy was killed about a year ago?”
“About a year, yes.”
Again, she sat quietly for several minutes. When she spoke, it was as though she’d figured something out and this had given her the resolve she was looking for. “I’ll get him to talk.”
•
On the following Tuesday, Karla picked me up at the footbridge at 7:30 p.m. She was wearing running shoes with cutoff jeans over black tights and a white blouse under her leather jacket. She’d replaced the spiked hair with a softer style, her makeup was more corporate, and her perfume had been applied more liberally.
“Evening, Shake.”
“Bergamot and coriander.” I said.
“Sorry?”
“Your perfume,” I said. “Bergamot and coriander.”
She’d started to pull away from the curb, but stopped, gawking at me like I’d just guessed some dark secret. “That’s one hell of a nose you’ve got! Anything else you’d like to comment on? My bathing habits? Menstrual cycle?”
Those were things I could have commented on, but didn’t. “Bergamot and coriander are both fairly distinctive fragrances. I wasn’t complaining. I imagine Hamilton will like it, too.”
She gave me a questioning look, then went back to her driving.
“Speaking of Hamilton,” I said, “let’s drive by The Intermission and see if his car is there. If it is, you can park across the street and I’ll wait in the car while you do your stuff.”
“Do my stuff?”
“Initiate a surreptitious attempt to extract information from an unwitting subject.”
“Right, do my stuff.”
Karla was watching something in the rear view mirror. She let up on the gas, allowing the car to gradually slow. A moment latter, an SUV accelerated past us.
“I hate it when people tailgate. If he wants to stick his nose up someone’s ass, why doesn’t he go home and stick it up his wife’s?”
“Feeling a little prickly tonight?” I asked.
“Sorry. I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“Relax, Karla. You’ll be fine. Nothing is riding on this. If Hamilton talks to you about Arnaud, good. If not, it doesn’t matter. Either way, don’t sweat it.”
As it turned out, Hamilton’s silver Volkswagen was in the parking lot. We parked in front of a Chinese restaurant across the street and I watched as Karla crossed the intersection and entered the bar. I reclined my seat so that I could just see the passing traffic above the dashboard, making myself comfortable for the wait. Even though it wasn’t late, not yet even eight o’clock, there were very few pedestrians in the area. After a few minutes, two young girls passed on the sidewalk, a rapid-fire exchange of empty chatter pulling them on their way. “It was so, like, shut up!” one of them said. “She’s like, in a bad mood. I’m like, okay!” the other said. I lost interest in them so quickly, it made me wonder if my attention span was even shorter than theirs.
A few minutes later, a sheriff’s patrol car stopped in the turn lane at the intersection, then shot off against the light, tires smoking. When the car got up over the speed limit, its roof lights began flashing and the siren came on. I thought about some of the encounters I’d had over the years with the police. Most cops today, especially the young ones, are little more than punks with guns. I wonder sometimes if it’s because they’re the first generation of police to be brought up on