Bad-Ass Bert’s was still closed, of course, and it looked lonely. I wondered if Bert would give in to pressure from Sheila and sell the place. It wouldn’t be the same with a new owner.

“Everything changes,” I mused, as I parked the Volvo.

“You just figuring that out?” Jolie asked.

“It’s a process,” I replied. “An unfolding.”

“Where do you get this stuff?” Jolie teased. “Is there a Damn Fool’s Guide to Psychobabble?”

“Shut up,” I told her, but I meant it in the kindest possible way.

We hiked up the stairs, Jolie, Russell and I, and I unlocked the door. Scoped the place out, detective style, scanning for unexpected food deliveries and other signs of intrusion.

Zip.

With routine reconnaissance out of the way, I proceeded to the kitchen, filled Russell’s water dish and checked the voice mail.

Glory hallelujah.

No death threats.

No special offers from my personal Lucretia Borgia.

Jolie disappeared into the bedroom, to get ready for the big interview.

The phone rang, just as I was logging on to the computer, and I had the cordless receiver on the desk beside me.

I picked up. “Sheepshanks, Sheepshanks and Sheepshanks,” I said confidently. Sure, there was only one Sheepshanks in my new agency, but adding two more gave the business substance.

Tucker laughed. “Whatever you say, Moje,” he said. “Sorry to indulge in hot sex and run, but I got a call.”

I was in a good mood, so I let him off the hook. “It’s not as if I just sit around here waiting for you to give me an orgasm,” I said loftily. “I’m starting a business. People are trying to kill me. I don’t have a lot of free time.”

“You’re really serious about this private dick thing?”

“Serious as a flat tire on a lonely road,” I replied. “And I think I can do it without a dick.”

He laughed again. “True enough,” he said. “But it takes money to start an agency. Even a shoestring operation like the one you’re probably planning.”

“It just so happens that I have money.”

“What Greer gave you won’t—”

“I have more than that.”

“Have you been playing slot machines again?”

I thought with regret of the credits I’d left behind on the last visit, and the shock of Geoff appearing beside me, at the Sizzling Sevens. Remembering made my nape tingle. Geoff was still out there someplace, and he might have been the one to send the poisoned chow mein. He was almost certainly the mystery caller, too.

I decided not to get so happy about the windfall from Margery DeLuca that I relaxed my guard.

Later that day, I would buy myself a gun.

A private detective needs a gun, right?

For a fraction of a second, my clothes felt heavy and wet. Blood-soaked. I saw a black pistol with a long barrel, lying on avocado-green shag carpeting.