“It’s you. You don’t know who you’re messing with, girl,” he yelled over the distance separating us. “Do you know who I know? And Meachum’s not even your real name. I’ve filed a report. Impersonating a police officer is a crime. You’ll go down for that.”

I let “girl” go. It was misogynistic and also harkened back to a time of subjugation when black men were always “boy,” no matter their age, and full-grown women, no matter their color, were always someone’s “girl.” Had I been closer, things might have been different, but standing a good distance away from Reese, the slight wasn’t worth the shoe leather. There would always be men like Reese. His ignorance wasn’t my immediate problem.

I let his vitriol hum along, tuning it out. I’d thought maybe the back room held a secret that might be related to Tim’s death, until Renault called to dash my hopes. All Cap and Reese captured were naked women. It was good the two were out of business, but it didn’t get me any closer to where I needed to be.

Reese shook his bony fist. “I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got.”

I turned my back on him and walked away. He didn’t like it. The threats continued at a high decibel. He probably wasn’t used to being ignored, which made me like ignoring him all the more. The Magnifique was still locked and dark. Darby had been Johnny-on-the-spot while Tim was alive, always around, hovering. Now that Tim was dead, he was gone. What’d that say? Tim hadn’t needed a minder or a babysitter, and even if he had, I was sure he wouldn’t have picked Vincent Darby, a man it didn’t appear he knew that well. What had Darby been watching out for?

I lodged my business card in between the grating on the locked gate as a calling card, then headed back to Peter Langham’s place, which Darby now called home. I felt like the tiny ball inside a pinball machine, back and forth, up and down, bouncing off lies and dead ends, slammed doors and stony faces. And I wasn’t even sure at this point what I was doing it all for. My client was still MIA, which was beginning to freak me out. Did Jung know more about Tim’s death than he was letting on? He’d lied to me before. He’d lied to me a few times now. I only had his word for it that he and Tim were close. And, truthfully, I didn’t know a great deal about Jung. Could he have killed Tim? Would he have hired me if he had?

The door opened the second I rang the bell and I stumbled back, startled.

“What do you want?” Darby said. It wasn’t a friendly greeting, far from it.