LITMIR.BIZ

      I

      SOON AS THE office was cleared for business, Phelan trashed the yellow crime tape and hired industrial cleaning guys to blast the blood from the wood floor, patch up the stain. He’d paid them extra to work on the weekend. Still smelled funky though. Bleachy—and underneath, a whiff of something live, gone over. He pushed up the windows and let Beaumont’s August heat K.O. his stuttering AC unit.

      The radio hijacked his attention: the Senate had, for once, done a day’s work, slapping Kissinger and Nixon away from Cambodia. Mitts off the bomb money, boys. The news segued into War’s song Why Can’t We Be Friends? Was KJET’s DJ feeling cynical? Wistful? Both?

      Phelan, dressed in ragged jeans and an undershirt, squatted down and pried up the paint can’s lid with a screwdriver. He popped it open to a round of Apollo White, a creamy ivory. Poured some into a tray and let the fuzzy roller drink it up.

      One swipe across his slug-green office wall and he stepped back, mouth drifting open. Look at that. Like a wash of spotlight.

      The office must have been shabby all along. Dingy. Had Miss Wade noticed that? Boy, he hadn’t. To Phelan, this two-room office suite, home of his new business, had appeared vacated by angels.

      He dipped into the paint tray again, more white swathes, wasn’t sure he liked it. Kind of glaring. But the least he could do was make the place look different from the office where Deeterman had tried to kill her.

      The phone rang. He rubbed his right hand with a rag, tossed back the drop cloth from the metal desk—and Aw, man still hand-printed its black receiver white when he clutched it.

      “Phelan Investigations.”

      “Would I be speakin’ to Mr. Phelan himself?”

      An older voice, deep, slow, borderline courtly.

      You be, Phelan thought and replied, “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?” He was facing the wall most needing paint: the one behind his desk, with the spray and the spots and the rusty line bleeding down.

      “My name is Xavier Bell. I b’lieve I spoke with your secretary, Miss Delpha Wade. She informed me about your fees. I would like a personal consultation next month. I thought it best to book an appointment well in advance.”

      “That’s wise, sir, considering our schedule. Tell me when you’d like to come in, and I’ll check the book.” Which meant: look straight down onto the blank desk calendar.

      “Allow me to deliberate a minute, Mr. Phelan.”

      “Sure thing.” There was some muffled exchange, like Mr. Bell had a deliberation partner. Man could deliberate with the U.N., as far as Phelan was concerned.

      He was already waving in the delivery of a new-used couch for the secretary’s office. Phelan had bought two fattish pillow-chairs that, shoved together, made a short couch. Pretty aquamarine color, like water before ships got in it. He’d got a deal because the couch was originally what L&B Pre-Owned Furniture described as a “sectional,” a bunch of pieces that stuck together, and Lester, the furniture-entrepreneur, was missing an end piece. Wanted to rest your elbow on a nice solid couch arm, you were out of luck.

      Lester waited by the door as two L&B employees seized the old plaid sofa and began hauling it off. As it passed, he pointed at the plaid and pinched his nose. Phelan, muting the receiver, blew him a raspberry. Lester himself rolled in a gently used client chair, lined it up with the pillow chairs. He raised his eyebrows and escorted out the blood-stained leather one that hydrogen peroxide and leather-cleaner had failed to rehabilitate. Stuck his head back in the door, rubbed thumb and forefinger together. Phelan flexed his fingers: five, he’d be over to pay around then. Lester hoisted his thumb and thumped down the stairs.

      Mr. Bell cleared a phlegmy throat. He had decided on Friday, September 7 at ten o’clock in the morning, if that was good.

      “Good,” Phelan said. “Would you be the gentleman who was concerned about…being located?” Miss Wade had reported they’d had a caller who wanted to be invisible. To someone.

      “I want you to find my brother, Mr. Phelan. I suppose you’d say that he is the one…concerned about being located.” As for more details, Mr. Bell would prefer to wait until they could speak confidentially.

      All righty. Appointment recorded on the 7 square in September. Phelan hung up the phone, picked up the roller soaked in Apollo White and vanished smudges and patches of spackle. His spirits were rising from around his ankles where they’d been puddled.

      He finished painting the wall with the window that faced the New Rosemont Hotel, running the roller up to the cut-in portions. My god, this place was looking different already. He moved on to the wall with the connecting door in it. That one went quick. He set up the paint tray behind his desk, near the wall screaming for coverage—a starburst spray of reddish brown drops and drips like a frozen firework—squatted and bounced to loosen up, rolled his shoulders. The phone trilled.

      Again? He made a fist, raised it straight up. Phelan Investigations was booking work. He picked up the receiver with a rag and answered cordially.

      His face hardened as he listened. “Yeah, I’m Tom Phelan. ‘Scuse me, say again—who are you? OK, OK, Doctor, got it. Now, they took her where?”

      Phelan slammed down the receiver, forced the rotary dial around as fast as his index finger could shove it. He blasted his way past the law office secretary on the other end by barking the word URGENT! When Miles Blankenship Esq., attorney at law, took the line, Phelan rattled out what he wanted: he had a friend in police custody who not only needed counsel,

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