“If you have a warrant with the guy’s name on it, I might. Without arguing over what I’m qualified to do.” I capped the polish tin and laid it and the rag on a newspaper.

“Vicki, look. You’re a cop’s daughter. You should know better than to go stirring around in a police investigation. When you talk to someone like Mclnerney without telling us, it just makes our job a hundred times harder. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay, I guess,” I said grudgingly. “I won’t talk to the state’s attorney again without clearing it with you or McGonnigal.”

“Or anyone else?”

“Give me a break, Bobby. If it says POLICE BUSINESS in all caps, I’ll leave it to you. That’s the best you’re going to get from me.”

We hung up in mutual irritation. I spent the rest of the evening in front of the tube watching a badly cut version of Rebel Without a Cause. It did nothing to abate my ill humor.

15

Chemistry Lesson

Manheim’s office lay between a beauty parlor and a florist among the little storefronts crowding Ninety-fifth Street. He had put his name on the plate glass in those black-and-gold transfers that are supposed to look old-fashioned and discreet—Frederick Manheim, Attorney-at-Law.

The front of the place, the part the little shops used as their sales floors, had been turned into a reception area. It held a couple of vinyl chairs and a desk with a typewriter and an African violet set on it. A few old copies of Sports Illustrated sat on a pressed-wood table in front of the vinyl chairs. I flipped through one for a few minutes to give the help a chance to make an appearance. When no one showed up I tapped on the door at the back of the room and turned the knob.

The door opened on a tiny hallway. A few pieces of wall-board had been stuck in the area where the stores held their excess inventory to create an office and a little bathroom.

I knocked on the door that had Manheim’s name on it—this time in solid black Gothic—and got a thick “Just a minute.” Paper rustled, a drawer slammed, and Manheim opened the door still chewing, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He was a young man with rosy cheeks and thick fair hair that hung over the tops of heavy glasses.

“Oh, hi. Annie didn’t tell me I had an appointment this morning. Come on in.”

I shook his proffered hand and told him my name. “I don’t have an appointment. I’m sorry to just come barging in, but I was in the area and hoped you might have a minute or two.”

He waved me in. “Sure, sure. No problem. Sorry I can’t offer you any coffee—I get mine from the Dunkin’ Donuts on the way over.”

He’d crammed a couple of visitors’ chairs in between his desk and the door. If you leaned back in the one on the left, you ran into the filing cabinet. The one on the right was jammed against the wall; a line of gray scuff marks showed where people had rubbed too hard against the pasteboard. I felt kind of bad about not being able to infuse a little cash into the operation.