“Something?” I asked.
“Everything,” he said. “Don’t stop for cigarettes on the way.”
I reloaded, hunted up my holster, and clipped the works to my belt. No one came to investigate the shot. The neighborhood had fallen that far.
On Beaubien I left the gun in the car to clear the metal detectors inside. Heading there I walked past a brown Chrysler parked in the visitors’ lot. There was no one inside and the doors were locked.
The lieutenant let me into his office, where two men in dark suits were seated in mismatched chairs. One had a head full of crisp gray hair and black-rimmed glasses astride a nose that had been broken sometime in the distant past. The other was younger and looked like Jack Kennedy with a close-trimmed black beard. They stank federal.
“Eric Stendahl and Robert LeJohn.” Winkle introduced them in the same order. “They’re with the Justice Department.”
“We met,” I said. “Sort of.”
Stendahl nodded. He might have smiled. “I thought you’d made us. I should have let Bob drive; he’s harder to shake behind a wheel. But even an old eagle likes to test his wings now and then.” The smile died. “We’re here to ask you to stop looking for Frank Corcoran.”
I lit a Winston. “If I say no?”
“Then we’ll tell you. We have influence with the state police, who issued your license.”
“I’ll get a hearing. They’ll have to tell me why.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Corcoran was the inside man in an elaborate scheme to bilk Great Western Loans and Credit out of six hundred thousand dollars in loans to a nonexistent oil venture in Mexico. He was apprehended and agreed to turn state’s evidence against his accomplices in return for a new identity and relocation for his protection. You’re familiar with the alias program, I believe.”
“I ran into it once.” I looked at Winkle. “You knew?”
“Not until they came in here this morning after you left,” he said. “They’ve had Mrs. Corcoran under surveillance. That’s how they got on to you. It also explains why Washington turned its back on this one.”
I added some ash to the fine mulch on the linoleum floor. “Not too bright, relocating him in an area where his wife’s cousin lives.”
Stendahl said, “We didn’t know about that, but it certainly would have clinched our other objections. He spent his childhood here and had a fixation about the place. The people behind the swindle travel in wide circles; we couldn’t chance his being spotted. Bob here was escorting Corcoran to the East Coast. He disappeared during the plane change at Metro Airport. We’re still looking for him.”
“It’s a big club,” I said. “We ought to have a secret handshake. What about Corcoran’s son?”
LeJohn spoke up. “That’s how he lost me. The boy was along. He had to go to the bathroom, and he didn’t want anyone but his father in with him. I went into the bookstore for a magazine. When I got back to the men’s room, it was empty.”
“The old bathroom trick. Tell me, did Corcoran ever happen to mention that the boy was in his mother’s custody and that you were acting as accomplices in his abduction?”
“He seemed happy enough,” said LeJohn, glaring. “Excited about the trip.”
His partner laid manicured nails on his arm, calming him. To me: “It was a condition of Corcoran’s testimony that the boy go with him to his new life. Legally, our compliance is indefensible. Morally — well, his evidence is expected to put some important felons behind bars.”
“Yeah.” I tipped some smoke out my nostrils. “I guess you got too busy to clue in Mrs. Corcoran.”
“That was an oversight. We’ll correct it while we’re here.”
“What did you mean when you said it was a big club?” LeJohn pressed me. “Who else is looking for Corcoran?”
I replayed the scene in my office. Lieutenant Winkle grunted. “Monroe Boyd and Little Delbert Riddle,” he said. “I had one or both of them in here half a dozen times when I was with Criminal Intelligence. Extortion, suspicion of murder. Nothing stuck. So they’re jobbing themselves out now. I’ll put out a pickup on them if you want to press charges.”
“They’d be out the door before you finished the paperwork. I’ll just tack the price of a new old desk and a picture frame on to the expense sheet. The bullet hole’s good for business.”
“How’d they know you were working for Mrs. Corcoran?” Stendahl asked.
“The same way you did, maybe. Only they were better at it.”
He rose. “We’ll need whatever you’ve got on them in your files, Lieutenant. Walker, you’re out of it.”
“Can I report to Mrs. Corcoran?”
“Yes. Yes, please do. It will save us some time. You’ve been very cooperative.”
He extended his hand. I went on crushing out my cigarette in the ashtray on Winkle’s desk until he got tired and lowered it. Then I left.
Millicent Arnold owned a condominium off Twelve Mile Road, within sight of the glass-and-steel skyscrapers of the Southfield Civic Center sticking up above the predominantly horizontal suburb like new teeth in an old mouth. A slim brunette with a pageboy haircut answered the bell wearing a pink angora sweater over black harem pants and gold sandals with high heels on her bare feet. Charlotte Corcoran might have looked like her before she had lost too much weight.
“Amos Walker? Yes, you are. My God, you look like a private eye. Come in.”
I kept my mouth zipped at that one and walked past her into a living room paved with orange shag and furnished in green plush and glass. It should have looked like hell. I decided it was Millie Arnold standing in it that made it work. She hung my hat on an ornamental peg near the door.
“Charlotte’s putting herself together. She was asleep when you called.”
“She seems to sleep a lot.”
“Her doctor in Austin prescribed a mild sedative. It’s almost the only thing that’s gotten her through this past month. You said you had some news.” She indicated the sofa.
I took it. It was like sitting on a sponge. “The story hangs some lefts and rights,” I said.
She sat next to me, trapping her hands between her knees. She wasn’t wearing a ring. “My cousin and I are close,” she said. “More like sisters. You can speak freely.”
“I didn’t mean that, although it was coming. I just don’t want to have to tell it twice. I didn’t like it when I heard it.”
“That bad, huh?”
I said nothing. She tucked her feet under her and propped an elbow on the back of the sofa and her cheek in her hand. “I’m curious about something. I recommended Reliance to Charlotte. She came back with you.”
“The case came down my street. Krell said she was referred to him by one of his cash customers.”
She nodded. “Kester Clothiers on Lahser. I’m a buyer. I typed Charlotte’s letter of reference on their stationery. The chain retains Reliance for security, employee theft and like that.”
“I guess the hours are good.”
“I’m off this week. We’re between seasons.” She paused. “You know, you’re sort of attractive.”
I was looking at her again when Charlotte Corcoran came in. She had on a maroon robe over a blue nightgown, rich material that bagged on her and made her wrists and ankles look even bonier than they were. Backless slippers. When she saw me her step quickened. “You found them? Is Tommy all right?”
I took a deep breath and sat her down in a green plush chair with tassels on the arms and told it.
“Wow,” said Millie after a long silence.
I was watching her cousin. She remained motionless for a moment, then fumbled cigarettes and a book of matches out of her robe pocket. She tried to strike a match, said “Damn!” and threw the book on the floor. I picked it up and struck one and held the flame for her. She drew in a lungful and blew a plume at the ceiling. “The bastard,” she said. “No wonder he never had time for me. He was too busy making himself rich.”