“Were you a hooker in Barbados?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I was and maybe I wasn’t. But I can tell you this much. I was damn glad when the mating dance was over and we were in bed together because for a change I knew what I was doing. And going to bed with guys is what I do.”

I thought a moment. Then I said, “When I called earlier you said to give you an hour. Not to come over right away.”

“So?”

“Because you had a john booked?”

“Well, it wasn’t the meter reader.”

“Did you need the money?”

“Did I need the money? What kind of question is that? I took the money.”

“But you would have made the rent without it.”

“And I wouldn’t have missed any meals, or had to wear the panty hose with the runs in it. What’s this all about?”

“So you saw the guy today because that’s what you do.”

“I suppose.”

“Well, you’re the one who asked why I took the job.”

“It’s what you do,” she said.

“Something like that.”

She thought of something and laughed. She said, “When Heinrich Heine was dying—the German poet?”

“Yeah?”

“When he was dying he said, ‘God will pardon me. It’s His profession.’ “

“That’s not bad.”

“It’s probably even better in German. I shtup and you detect and God pardons.” She lowered her eyes. “I just hope He does,” she said. “When it’s my turn in the barrel, I hope He’s not down in Barbados for the weekend.”

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

When I left Elaine’s the sky was growing dark and the streets were thick with rush-hour traffic. It was raining again, a nagging drizzle that slowed the commuters to a crawl. I looked at the swollen river of cars and wondered if one of them held Elaine’s tax lawyer. I thought about him and tried to guess how he might have reacted when the number she gave him turned out to be a fake.

He could find her if he wanted to. He knew her name. The phone company wouldn’t give out her unlisted number, but he wouldn’t have to be too well connected to find somebody who could pry it out of them for him. Failing that, he could trace her without too much trouble through her hotel. They could tell him her travel agent and somewhere along the line he could pick up her address. I’d been a cop, I automatically thought of this sort of thing, but couldn’t anybody make this sort of connection? It didn’t seem terribly complicated to me.