“Oh, yeah. And that was so helpful, too.”
“No, really. It was. I also want to thank you for your first-rate fieldwork. You got a lot more out of Spud than I ever did. I won’t forget it.”
Jones leaned forward eagerly. “Does that mean you’ll let me do more investigating in the future?”
Ben cleared his throat. “Well…we’ll see.” He turned and almost smacked into Loving, who was carrying a tall stack of file folders. Loving veered away at the last moment before impact, plopping the folders down on one of the new desks.
“Loving!” Ben said. “What are you doing here?”
Loving looked back at him, puzzled, “Didn’t she tell you? Christina hired me.”
“Christina hired you? To do what?”
“To be your investigator, of course. Nuttin’ personal, Skipper, but you’ve really been lettin’ the work pile up around here.”
“I’ve been kind of busy.…”
“Anyway, I went through all your active files, and figured out where I could lend a hand. I’ve already started working on several of these cases.”
“You have?”
“Yeah. It’s going pretty well. I may have to rough some people up, but I’ll get the dope you need.
Rough some people up? “Wait a minute—”
“Hi, everyone.”
Ben whirled around and saw Christina come through the front door. “Just who I’ve been wanting to see,” he muttered.
“It’s Ben Kincaid!” she cried out. “My hero!” She batted her eyelashes.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, Christina—”
“Do you like my new desk?” she asked.
“Yeah. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Guess what! I figured it out.”
Ben knitted his eyebrows. He had the distinct impression this conversation was getting away from him. “Figured out what?”
“My dream, silly. Frosty the Snowman and the tremendous explosions.”
“It was just a dream, Christina. It doesn’t have to mean anything—”
“But it wasn’t just a dream. I was fighting the drug, trying to shrug off its influence and see what was going on in Tony’s apartment. I saw a blurred image of Margot with coal black eyes, wearing a big white overcoat and a black scarf. She fired a gun three times. Hence, in my drugged-up state, Frosty the Snowman and the tremendous explosions.”
“Pity you didn’t think of this sooner.”
“True. Comme çi, comme ça.”
“I guess so,” Ben concurred. “Anyway, what’s with the new desks?”
“That’s my handiwork. Consider it a down payment on legal fees owed.”
“That’s not necess—”
“My thinking is, if you’re going to be a big-time lawyer, you’re going to have to start upgrading your appearance.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And your staff. So I hired Loving to handle your investigations. And,” she said, pulling some files out of her briefcase, “I’m going to be your new full-time legal assistant.”
“Christina, I can’t afford to pay him. Or you.”
“Oh, Ben, don’t be such a spoilsport. Look how happy he is over there, playing with his little files, threatening to punch people’s lights out. He really wants to be part of our little family.”
“Family?”
“Besides, he’s already gotten more work done in a day than you’ve done in two weeks. He’ll generate his own salary.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“And don’t worry about me. I realize this will mean a serious cut in my usual paycheck, but I’ll live. I think it’s clear you need me here. Where I can keep an eye on you.”
Ben felt a familiar burning sensation creeping up his neck. “There’s not going to be much money here for anyone,” he said. “At least not at first.”
“Don’t worry about it. After all you’ve done for me, I owe you.”
“That’s nonsense. You don’t owe me anything. I was just lucky, that’s all. I made a thousand mistakes.”
Christina swiveled around in her chair and grabbed Ben by his shoulders. “I can’t believe you would say that. After all you’ve accomplished. Listen to me, Ben. You are a miracle worker. You’re like the White Queen. You’ve accomplished at least six impossible things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, getting me off the hook against incredible odds—numéro un. Deux, nailing Stanford for killing Lennie. Trois, convincing the U.S. Attorney’s Office that Margot should get counseling, rather than a jail sentence. Quatre, finding Spud a nice job at the file desk in the downtown police station.”
“Mike had something to do with that.”
“Cinq, saving Polly from Reynolds and finding her a good home with Wolf, whom you also managed to keep out of J.D. court. Six, um—” Her eyes darted from side to side. She stalled for time. “Er, getting rid of those chickens.”
“Stretching it a bit, aren’t we?”
“Well, okay, number five was really two impossible things. The point is, Ben, you’re a winner and everyone knows it but you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m rather busy. I’ve got a lot of work to do if I’m going to whip this Popsicle joint into shape.”
She closed her briefcase, put it away, and opened her top desk drawer. “Oh!” She gasped. “Ben!” She removed her small French porcelain pig, cochon emblazoned on the side. The cracks showed where it had been broken, but it was more or less intact. “You put my French piggy back together! And put it in my—” She looked up at him. “Then you must have known!”
“Well, I suspected.”
“But this is so—oh, Ben!” She placed the pig atop her desk and looked up at Ben with sparkling eyes. “I’m going to keep my piggy right there, always. And whenever I look at it, I’ll think of you.”
How flattering.
Ben surveyed his new office, marveling at the changes. No toilet paper, no chickens. Loving was growling into his phone, threatening to “make someone’s life a misery.” Jones was banging away at the typewriter, still typing on the wrong side of the carbon. And Christina was right beside him: Safe.
Ben smiled. Things could be worse.
Acknowledgments
I WANT TO THANK Kathy Mozingo and Deborah Loss for their assistance in the preparation of the manuscript; Arlene Joplin and Kindy Jones for their assistance with the intricacies of federal criminal law; countless volunteers at the Oklahoma offices of the American Humane Society; and my wife Kirsten, for the closet bit.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1992 by William Bernhardt
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4532-7713-3
This 2012 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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