LITMIR.BIZ

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Phelan cut off the silence with, “All right, then, your retainer will buy you around, as you said, three weeks from Phelan Investigations. Full weeks but spread out over whatever time period is required, including nights and weekends if we’re obliged to work then.”

      Bell seemed to stuff his preoccupations back into himself and attend to the office around him. “Surely that’s long enough?”

      “Can’t say. Depends on how deep your brother’s buried himself. But you should know that we do work several cases at a time.” Phelan spread his palms. “Busy schedule. Now. Yours is a heavy research case. Any reason you’re in a hurry?”

      Bell stroked his mustache with a knuckle. “Not really, I suppose. Having someone working for me already helps.” He nodded, almost bashful. “It’s, well, it’s been such a long time since I’ve had…allies.”

      “Got allies now, sir. Phelan Investigations will do our best.”

      The flash in Xavier Bell’s dark eyes was that of a yearning six-year-old who knows better than to ask for anything, but dogs you anyway. It passed. But the tremulous smile combined with the mossy old nose activated Phelan’s sympathy gland.

      Phelan scooped up the hundreds and set them in his desk drawer on top of a bank deposit booklet. He came out from behind the metal desk and walked their client to the door, making a detour for the client’s still-wet umbrella.

      Behind them, he heard Delpha say quietly, “Mr. Bell.”

      Xavier Bell did not turn toward her. Instead, he offered his hand to Phelan and a speech that he seemed to be cranking out from memory. “I will be relying on you—”

      “Mr. Bell.” Delpha, a shade louder this time.

      Phelan glanced back at his secretary, saw the client’s sunglasses dangling from her hand, returned to Bell, who, reciting confidential discretion results, either didn’t hear her or didn’t want to lose his place in the speech.

      “…and I do appreciate your best effort. Thank you.” The old fellow exhaled.

      With a flip of his hand, Phelan directed his attention to Delpha. Bell twisted himself back toward her and exclaimed, “My word, I just walked right off without those!”

      Delpha presented the glasses to him as if they were General Eisenhower’s binoculars, smiled.

      Her smile imprinted on his face. He fit on the sunglasses and wagged his finger at her. “Madeleine Carroll.” They heard him descend the stairs carefully.

      Phelan went back and nabbed his camera from his desk. He was thinking that Bell was a nice enough old guy. A mixed bag. Delpha could melt him with sweet talk, but Phelan had the feeling he wasn’t always meltable. A tiny bit of unstandard about Xavier Bell.

      Hearing the outside door shut, Phelan trotted down to the dentist’s office on the first floor. Jogged across the waiting room with a nod to the receptionist, who trailed a hand at him. He dodged into a room where a girl reclined on a chair with her mouth gaping and her eyelids squeezed shut, the dentist bent toward her with a silver hook.

      “Beg your pardon, Milton, this’ll just take a second.” Phelan leaned toward the window and took hurried photos of Xavier Bell. The rain had let up some, but the man had unfurled his umbrella, looked left, right, then crossed the street.

      Here was something different: a brisk gait, unlike the deliberate steps on the stairs. Old age was afflicting Bell, but it had not yet unsteadied his legs. On the corner he paused, leaning out from the umbrella—perfect profile snap—to speak to a guy with a hat sitting in a dark car. For a second, he turned full face and looked toward Phelan’s eyes. Phelan snapped the button and pulled back.

      “Tom, I’m gonna charge you rent for my window. It’s not sanitary.”

      Phelan straightened. “Borrowing your window is helping me make your rent, Dr. Building Owner. Very sorry for the intrusion, Miss.”

      Phelan exited the treatment room, raised a hand to salute the receptionist behind the desk, and was rewarded by a paper airplane to the jaw.

      V

      HE WAITED WHILE Miss Wade, no, Delpha, de-cyphered the shorthand and typed up the case notes in English complete with a carbon copy, installed them into a manila file folder, labeled the folder ‘Bell,’ and delivered it to his desk. The woman kept to her order of things, and she liked those folders.

      She was sort of standing over him now, so Phelan read out, in crisp Courier, their missing person Rodney Bell’s given name, former name and places of residence, age, hobby; and Xavier Bell’s name, his age, former profession and pastime, city, his pouch of tobacco. She didn’t know the name of the rolling papers—hadn’t ever seen such before—but she’d described them: looked like the man was burning hundred dollar bills.

      “Hadn’t seen those? Patriotics. Writing on the bills says something like…like…” Phelan grinned. “‘A free country rolling in money is the greatest government.’ If I remember right. Wait, no. Is the highest government. Hippie dippie joke.”

      “Have yet to meet a hippie, Mr. Phelan.”

      He looked up at her. “Not too late. Plenty still around. Listen, let’s don’t go backward. I’m Tom, and you’re Delpha, and I didn’t say yet—welcome back. I’m glad…I’m…glad.”

      Well, that sounded stupid.

      “Thank you. I mean it, I do. Been stuck in my room or watching a little TV in the Rosemont lobby. Watergate hearings hitting a lull, I got so bored I helped Oscar in the kitchen couple days. Can that man cook! But it’s funny. In the lobby, Oscar’s pretty regular, but once he crosses the kitchen threshold, he turns into this…Egyptian pharaoh. Says I’ve got a heavy hand on the cinnamon.”

      “No such thing as too much spice.”

      That just about did it for the small talk.

      “OK,” Phelan said, “we got an odd duck for a client here. As it were. Please don’t make me ask you to sit down. Pull over the chair.” He didn’t look up. “So we search out Rodney’s new house. Which’d probably be bought under another name. But not his real name. And, I’m wondering…if you were seventy-three, would you blow a lot of money on a house? Why not rent? I mean, have a landlord mow the yard and all. No taxes, no upkeep.”

      “You could wanna leave it to somebody. Maybe Rodney’s got a life Mr. Bell doesn’t know about.”

      They looked at each other, agreeing. Delpha pushed over the client chair and sat down.

      It was one of the two original chairs, identical to the one she’d sat in that day Phelan had found her in the office. Shoulda spent the extra fifteen bucks and replaced both of them. That day flashed in on him, the day he knelt at her knee, listening as she talked about the book, the diary of victims Deeterman had come to get. That she was holding in her bloody hand.

      He backhanded that picture right out of range. There was a lot to be said for not thinking about what you didn’t want to think about.

      “Listen, when you said ‘Mr. Bell’ twice, were you doing what I think you were doing? That wasn’t just about handing over the sunglasses.”

      “Kinda a test. Name’s not really your name, you might could forget it. Then again, you’re seventy-five, you might not hear right. I don’t know, Tom. Had this feeling when he came in he brought something with him. Silly, I guess.”

      “Brought what?”

      Delpha’s shoulders lifted, fell.

      Troubled, Phelan got up and strolled over to the window to find out how the rain was doing. It was on the job again. Spearing down and splatting on the street, joining its brothers and sisters in the gutter and rolling industriously along. Rain was independent as hell.

      However, it was conceivable that Thomas

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