“A retainer,” he said.
“I can’t raise their son, Bert, or his girlfriend.”
“Can you at least talk to the detective in charge of their case?”
“So you can keep the money?”
“I was thinking more that you might offer your expertise to the police.”
“I am not a specialist in murder, Bert, not unless there are monsters involved.”
“Does a serial killer count as a monster?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Their son and his date were the first, but not the last. He killed a couple the year after.”
“Are they sure it was the same person?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You’d need to talk to the police on the case, and for that you’ll need the permission of the parents, since as you pointed out it’s not a crime that you have jurisdiction over.” He almost smiled.
“I’ll make you a deal, boss man. I’ll talk to the cop in charge.
If they think they know who it is, but don’t have proof, then I can’t help, but if they’re lost, then I have one idea.”
Bert smiled full out. “I knew you would.”
“But if my idea tanks, and they get nothing out of it, you will write them a personal check for ten grand.”
“Anita, I’ll just give back the money.”
I shook my head. “No, your personal check for ten grand.”
“You can’t make me,” he said.
“But I can start a vote to kick your ass out of here. You don’t know shit about raising the dead, or crime, or vampires. You’re the money man. But you’re not the only money man in the world, are you?”
“Anita… you really mean it,” he said, and he sounded surprised.
“You just cheated these people out of ten thousand dollars, Bert.
It makes me wonder what else you’ve done. Makes me wonder if we need an audit of the books.”
He was getting angry, it showed in his eyes and the tight line of his mouth. “That is out of bounds. I have never cheated anyone in this company.”
“Maybe, but if a man will cheat in one way, he’ll cheat in another.”
“I cannot believe you would accuse me of that.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t wondered about it before,” I said.
His face was darkening with his effort not to explode. You could watch his blood pressure rise. “Audit and be damned.”
“I’ll make you a deal, Bert. I’ll settle for you giving them back their check, instead of a personal check from you, but you have to stop this shit. We make enough money, Bert, you don’t have to cheat people.”
“They offered the money. I didn’t ask for it.”
“No, but I bet you made it so they’d think of it. Nothing said outright, like you said, but you put it out there, somehow, you made them think of it.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then leaned back against the door.
“Maybe I did, but, Anita, they made it so easy.”
“You just couldn’t resist, could you?”
He let out his breath in a long shoulder moving sigh. “I lost my head, a little.”
I shook my head and almost laughed. “No more losing your head, Bert, okay?”
“I’ll try, but I can’t promise. You wouldn’t believe me.”
I did laugh. “I can’t argue that.”
“Do you want me to tear up the check now?”
I watched his face for the signs of pain that parting with money usually cost him, but all I saw was a resignedness, as if he’d already given the money up for lost.
“Not yet.”
He looked up, hope showing momentarily in his pale eyes.
“Don’t get excited. It’s a slender little hope, but if it helps lead to something that can help the police then we’ll have earned some money. If it doesn’t, then we can return the money.”
“Do I want to know what your plan is?” What he was asking was, was it illegal, and did he not want to know so he’d be able to deny it later. Bert knew that I stepped over lines that wouldn’t just get jail time, but an execution notice. I knew that he was just this side of a con-man, a swindler, but he knew, or suspected, that I was just this side of a cold-blooded killer. There were bosses that couldn’t have handled that doubt, or that almost knowledge. We stood and met each other’s eyes, and we had an understanding, Bert and I.
“I’m going to see if the cops will bring down some of the boy’s clothes for Evans to look at.”
“The touch clairvoyant that tried to cut his own hands off?” He made a face when he said it.
“He’s out of the hospital,” I said.
He frowned. “But didn’t the paper say that he tried to cut off his hands so he wouldn’t see murders and violence every time he touched something?”
I nodded.
“Anita, I never thought I’d say this, but leave the poor guy alone. I’ll give back the money.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he being nice to fool me? Did he mean it? Out loud, I said, “Evans is feeling better than he has in years. He’s taking active clients again.”
Bert looked at me, and it wasn’t an entirely friendly look. “This man has tried to kill himself to keep from seeing these things, and you want to take items from a serial killer case where he cut up a nice teenage couple. That’s cold, Anita, that’s truly cold.”
“Evans put himself back on the market, Bert, I didn’t. He’s married now, and he’s a lot more relaxed than he ever was before.”
“Love may be grand, Anita, but it doesn’t cure everything.”
“Nope,” I said, “it doesn’t.” What I didn’t try to explain to Bert was that Evans’s new wife was a projective psychic null. She negated most psychic abilities within yards of her. Evans was a lot calmer around her. She truly had saved him.
His small pale eyes narrowed at me. “That man out there, the boy, he’s your boyfriend.”
I nodded.
“Just your boyfriend?” he made it a question.
“What else could he be, Bert?” And it was my turn to have the innocent face.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but the noises from your office were a hell of a show, and that was without any visuals.”
I didn’t blush, because I was working too hard at keeping control of my face and eyes. “Do you really want to know, Bert, or do you want deniability later?”
He stood there for a moment, thinking, then shook his head. “I don’t need to know.”
“No,” I said, “you don’t.”
“But you’d tell me the truth, if I wanted to know?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Why, why would you tell me?”
“To watch your face,” I said, and my voice was soft, and not altogether pleasant.
He swallowed hard and looked just a little paler than his untanned face had a moment before. “It would be something bad, wouldn’t it?”
I shrugged. “Ask and find out.”
He shook his head again. “No,” he said, “no.”
“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” I said.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said.
I nodded, again. “Exactly.”
He gave that roguish, I-know-something-you-don’t smile. “But we get to keep the ten grand.”
“For now. If Evans agrees to see the evidence, we’ll need a bankroll.”
“Is he that expensive?”
“He risks his sanity and his life every time he touches another clue. I’d make people pay for that, wouldn’t you?”
A light came into Bert’s eyes. “Does he have a business agent?”
“Bert,” I said.
“Just asking, just asking.”
I had to shake my head and give up. Bert had a real genius for making money from psychic gifts that other people thought of as curses. Would it be so bad if he could help Evans make more money? No.
But I wondered if Bert understood that Evans was one of the most powerful touch clairvoyants in the world. That to brush against another person with his fingertip told him more about that person than most people would ever know. Bert would probably offer to shake hands, and the deal would be off. I only suspected what Bert was. One touch, and Evans would know for sure. In a way, if Evans didn’t run screaming it would be reassuring for me. I would never offer to shake hands with Evans. One, you never offer your hand to a touch clairvoyant, just bad form. Two, Evans had brushed up against me before, by accident, and he hadn’t liked what he saw. Who was I to throw stones at Bert, when he might pass Evans’s radar unscathed, and I knew that I would go down in bloody flames?