Page 31 of The Furies

He worked through the implications. He was a practical man.

“I can look after the Dolors part, but not the rest,” he said. “Can I hire you to try?”

I took in his face, his scars, and his too-male house. I took in his past, his present, and a series of futures, in only one of which was his sorrow excised.

“You already have,” I said.

CHAPTER XXXVII

I returned to the Braycott Arms the following morning. Bobby Wadlin was still behind his plexiglass shield, and still watching cowboy oaters, but in all the times I’d been at the Braycott, I’d rarely discovered Wadlin viewing a film or show of any real quality. He gave the impression of deliberately eschewing features that displayed even minimal artistry in favor of bad B movies and worse TV, occasional aberrations like The Westerner excepted. On one occasion I’d even found him watching Dusty’s Trail, which was Gilligan’s Island for the mentally impaired. Admittedly, Wadlin hadn’t been laughing, but that was like saying no one smiled at Schindler’s List.

“Buker’s not here,” said Wadlin. “Hasn’t been back since yesterday.”

“Has anyone else been asking after him?”

“Only you. And I can’t give you that key again. I’d be fired.”

“Bobby, if you get fired, you can just rehire yourself. But in your position, I’d have fired myself a long time ago.”

His eyes remained fixed on the screen, and on dead men made eternal.

“Insulting me won’t change anything. I can’t let you have that key.”

“When’s his rent due?”

“He owes from tomorrow.”

I placed my card in the hatch.

“Call me when he gets back. Same if he doesn’t.”

“I’m not calling you.”

I decided playtime was over for today.

“Bobby,” I said.

Reluctantly he reached out a hand and drew in the card, like a trapdoor spider settling for poor prey.

“Nobody likes you,” he said, “not even me. And I like everybody.”

I processed my hurt as I left. It proved easier than expected. By the time I hit fresh air, it was gone.

* * *

JO NILES, THE PAROLE officer who formerly had worked with Raum Buker, was at her desk when I dropped by the Department of Corrections office on Park Avenue. She was in her early thirties, and might have scraped five foot in heels. Her dark hair was cut very short, her ears ended in the slightest of points, and she wore glasses with wide blue frames. Her skin was a very deep black. The eyewear apart, she looked as though she could have stepped from a painting in Strange Brews, possibly the big canvas with the naked female elf and the dragon. I was considering buying that one for Angel and Louis, as long as I could deliver it in person and watch while they unwrapped it. It was absurdly expensive—it would have been absurdly expensive at ten bucks—but what price happiness?

“So you’re Charlie Parker,” she said, as I took a seat opposite her. “I thought you’d be taller.”

“I get that a lot,” I said, “along with ‘I thought you’d be dead.’ ”

“We have to learn to live with wishful thinkers.” She opened a notepad on her desk. “Chris Attwood told me you were interested in Raum Buker. Have you been hired to investigate him?”

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“The current partner of one of his ex-girlfriends.”

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