Jung slid onto the edge of his seat. “So you’re definitely in, right? Like in ‘in’?”

I thought it over. “I’ll take a look. No promises. If I come up with nothing, I’m out, but, more important, you’re out. Got it?”

Jung grinned, pumped his fists, and then reached into his pack and pulled out a checkbook with the symbol for yin and yang on the cover. Leave it to Jung to flake up a check. “You wouldn’t take my cash before, so I brought a check this time. It’s more professional, anyway. I know I’m right about this. I can feel it. How much?”

I charged up to two hundred dollars an hour, depending on the complexity of the case, but I didn’t think asking around about Tim Ayers rose to the level of complex; besides Jung slung sandwiches for a living. How much could he afford to pay? I calculated the discount in my head. “Let’s round it off to an even hundred.” I was taking a bath on the deal.

He wrote out the check and handed it to me, beaming like a four-year-old buying cotton candy at the circus. “We’re going to catch a freaking murderer.”

“No we. Me. And that’s maybe,” I clarified emphatically. “Condition two. You stay out of my way.”

His face fell. “What? But . . .”

“Out of my way, or I drop this right now.”

He began to fidget in the chair, his eyes quickly scanning the office. I could almost see him trying to think up a way to circumvent my conditions.

“I want to hear you say the words, Jung.”

“Fine. Out of your way.”

I slid a piece of paper over to him and a pen, then reached into my drawer and pulled out a standard contract. Business was business.

“Good, now give me Stephen Ayers’s information and the names of anyone Tim might have had a beef with—friends, partners, all of it. Then read and sign the contract.”

“Stephen won’t see you. He’s way too important for that.” He looked the contract over. “And is this really necessary? It looks, like, official.”

I slid Jung’s New Age check into my top drawer. “Just write. Let me worry about getting to Ayers. And, yes, it’s necessary, and it is official. Read it. Sign it. Then go about your business. If I need you, I’ll call Bucky’s phone or buy a bag of rocks.”

Jung and I shook on the deal. We were now, for better or for worse, client and operative.

And I already regretted it.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10