“Jesus.”

He put his palms on the table for leverage, hoisted himself to his feet. “I’m getting this round,” he announced. “I don’t need some pimp payin’ for my drinks.”

Back at the table he said, “He’s your client, right? Chance?” When I failed to respond he said, “Well, shit, you met with him last night. He wanted to see you, and now you got a client that you won’t say his name. Two and two’s gotta be four, doesn’t it?”

“I can’t tell you how to add it.”

“Let’s just say I’m right and he’s your client. For the sake of argument. You won’t be givin’ nothin’ away.”

“All right.”

He leaned forward. “He killed her,” he said. “So why would he hire you to investigate it?”

“Maybe he didn’t kill her.”

“Oh, sure he did.” He dismissed the possibility of Chance’s innocence with a wave of his hand. “She says she’s quitting him and he says okay and the next day she’s dead. Come on, Matt. What’s that if it’s not cut and dried?”

“Then we get back to your question. Why’d he hire me?”

“Maybe to take the heat off.”

“How?”

“Maybe he’ll figure we’ll figure he must be innocent or he wouldn’t have hired you.”

“But that’s not what you figured at all.”

“No.”

“You think he’d really think that?”

“How do I know what some coked-up spade pimp is gonna think?”

“You figure he’s a cokehead?”

“He’s got to spend it on something, doesn’t he? It’s not gonna go for country-club dues and a box at the charity ball. Lemme ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“You think there’s a chance in the world he didn’t kill her? Or set her up and hire it done?”

“I think there’s a chance.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, he hired me. And it wasn’t to take the heat off because what heat are we talking about? You already said there wasn’t going to be any heat. You’re planning to clear the case and work on something else.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily know that.”

I let that pass. “Take it from another angle,” I suggested. “Let’s say I never called you.”

“Called me when?”

“The first call I made. Let’s say you didn’t know she was breaking with her pimp.”

“If we didn’t get it from you we’d of gotten it somewhere else.”

“Where? Kim was dead and Chance wouldn’t volunteer the information. I’m not sure anybody else in the world knew.” Except for Elaine, but I wasn’t going to bring her into it. “I don’t think you’d have gotten it. Not right off the bat, anyway.”

“So?”

“So how would you have figured the killing then?”