Before he could swing I leaned back in my chair with as much insolence as I could and reached in my pocket for the slug I had dug out of the fence. It was a first-class gamble, but not quite a bluff. I had the odds going for me and if I came up short, I'd still have a few hours ahead of him.
I reached out and laid the splashed-out bit of metal on the desk. "Don't punk me, man. Tell ballistics to go after that and tell me what I want and I'll tell you where that came from."
Pat picked it up, his mind putting ideas together, trying to make one thing fit another. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, but one thing took precedence over all others. He was a cop. First-rate. He wanted a killer. He had to play his own odds too.
"All right," he told me, "I can't take any chances. I don't get your point, but if it's a phony, you've had it."
I shrugged. "When will you know about the license?"
"It won't take long."
"I'll call you," I said.
He straightened up and stared out the window over my head, still half in thought. Absently, he rubbed the back of his neck. "You do that," he told me. He turned away, putting his hat on, then reached for the door.
I stopped him. "Pat--"
"What?"
"Tell me something."
His eyes squinted at my tone. I think he knew what I was going to ask.
"Did you love Velda too?"
Only his eyes gave the answer, then he opened the door and left.
"May I come in?"
"Oh, Laura--please."
"Was there--trouble?"
"Nothing special." She came back to the desk and sat down in the client's chair, her face curious. "Why?"
With a graceful motion, she crossed her legs and brushed her skirt down over her knees. "Well, when Captain Chambers was with me--well, he spoke constantly of you. It was as if you were right in the middle of everything." She paused, turning her head toward me. "He hates you, doesn't he?"
I nodded. "But we were friends once."
Very slowly, her eyebrows arched. "Aren't most friendships only temporary at best?"
"That's being pretty cynical."
"No--only realistic. There are childhood friendships. Later those friends from school, even to the point of nearly blood brotherhood fraternities, but how long do they last? Are your Army or Navy friends still your friends or have you forgotten their names?"
I made a motion with my shoulders.
"Then your friends are only those you have at the moment: Either you outgrow them or something turns friendship into hatred."
"It's a lousy system," I said.
"But there it is, nevertheless. In 1945 Germany and Japan were our enemies and Russia and the rest our allies. Now our former enemies are our best friends and the former allies the direct enemies."
She was so suddenly serious I had to laugh at her. "Beautiful blondes aren't generally philosophers."
But her eyes didn't laugh back. "Mike--it really isn't that funny. When Leo was--alive, I attended to all his affairs in Washington. I still carry on, more or less. It's something he would have wanted me to do. I know how people who run the world think. I served cocktails to people making decisions that rocked the earth. I saw wars start over a drink and the friendship of generations between nations wiped out because one stupid, pompous political appointee wanted to do things his way. Oh, don't worry, I know about friendships."
"So this one went sour."
"It hurts you, doesn't it?"
"I guess so. It never should have happened that way."
"Oh?" For a few moments she studied me, then she knew. "The woman--we talked about--you both loved her?"
"I thought only I did." She sat there quietly then, letting me finish. "We both thought she was dead. He still thinks so and blames me for what happened."
"Is she, Mike?"
"I don't know. It's all very strange, but if there is even the most remote possibility that some peculiar thing happened seven years ago and that she is still alive somewhere, I want to know about it."
"And Captain Chambers?"
"He could never have loved her as I did. She was mine."
"If--you are wrong--and she is dead, maybe it would be better not to know."
"My face was grinning again. Not me, just the face part. I stared at the wall and grinned idiotically. "If she is alive, I'll find her. If she is dead, I'll find who killed her. Then slowly, real slowly, I'll take him apart, inch by inch, joint by joint, until dying will be the best thing left for him."
I didn't realize that I was almost out of the chair, every muscle twisted into a monstrous spasm of murder. Then I felt her hands pulling me back and I let go and sat still until the hate seeped out of me.
"Thanks."
"I know what you feel like, Mike."
"You do?"
"Yes." Her hand ran down the side of my face, the fingers tracing a warm path along my jaw. "It's the way I felt about Leo. He was a great man, then suddenly for no reason at all he was dead."
"I'm sorry, Laura."
"But it's not over for me anymore, either."
I swung around in the chair and looked up at her. She was magnificent then, a study in symmetry, each curve of her wonderful body coursing into another, her face showing the full beauty of maturity, her eyes and mouth rich with color.
She reached out her hand and I stood up, tilted her chin up with my fingers and held her that way. "You're thinking, kitten."
"With you I have to."
"Why?"
"Because somehow you know Leo's death is part of her, and I feel the same way you do. Whoever killed Leo is going to die too."
I let go of her face, put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her close to me. "If he's the one I want I'll kill him for you, kid."
"No, Mike. I'll do it myself." And her voice was as cold and as full of purpose as my own when she said it. Then she added, "You just find that one for me."
"You're asking a lot, girl."
"Am I? After you left I found out all about you. It didn't take long. It was very fascinating information, but nothing I didn't know the first minute I saw you."
"That was me of a long time ago. I've been seven years drunk and I'm just over the bum stage now. Maybe I could drop back real easy. I don't know."
"I know."
"Nobody knows. Besides, I'm not authorized to pursue investigations."
"That doesn't seem to stop you."
A grin started to etch my face again. "You're getting to a point, kid."
She laughed gently, a full, quiet laugh. Once again her hand came up to my face. "Then I'll help you find your woman, Mike, if you'll find who killed Leo."
"Laura--"
"When Leo died the investigation was simply routine. They were more concerned about the political repercussions than in locating his killer. They forgot about that one, but I haven't. I thought I had, but I really hadn't. Nobody would look for me--they all promised and turned in reports, but they never really cared about finding that one. But you do, Mike, and somehow I know you will. Oh, you have no license and no authority, but I have money and it will put many things at your disposal. You take it. You find your woman, and while you're doing it, or before, or after, whatever you like, you find the one I want. Tomorrow I'll send you five thousand dollars in cash. No questions. No paperwork. No reports. Even if nothing comes of it there is no obligation on you."
Under my hands she was trembling. It didn't show on her face, but her shoulders quivered with tension. "You loved him very much," I stated.