I said, "Jesus Christ, Riggens, why'd you come along? Moral support?"

Riggens said, "No one's trying to muscle you, smart guy. Everyone's playing straight up." Riggens jerked his head toward Thurman. "Tell him we're playing straight up."

Mark Thurman looked back at me, only now there was a lost quality to his eyes. "I didn't want you telling Jennifer. When it comes, it's got to come from me." He was leaning forward so far I thought he'd fall out of the chair. "Do you see?"

"Sure. I see."

"It's personal. That's how it should stay."

"Sure."

Riggens said, "No one's asking you to turn down the fee. Just play it smart. Do us the favor and someday you'll get a payback"

"But I can keep the fee."

"No problem."

I looked at Thurman. "Some right guy you've got as a partner, Thurman, saying it's okay for me to stiff your girlfriend."

Riggens said, "Fuck you," and banged out. Thurman sat in the director's chair, not saying anything, and then he pushed himself up. He was twenty-four years old and he looked like a baby. When I was twenty-four I looked a million years old. Vietnam. He said, "You do what you want, Cole. No one's telling you what to do. But I'm asking you not to tell her what I said. I get ready, I should be the one tells her. Shouldn't I?"

"Sure."

"I just got to work this out, that's all I'm saying." Like he was in the principal's office, like he had been caught throwing eggs at the class geek's house, and now he was ashamed of it. He went to the door. Riggens was already down the hall.

I said, "Thurman."

He stopped and looked back at me with his right hand on the handle.

"Why don't you just tell her?"

He didn't answer. He stood there, sort of staring, like he didn't know what to say. Maybe he didn't.

I said, "She didn't say anything to me about crime. She said that she thought you were seeing another woman. She said that she always knew you were that way."

Mark Thurman went as red as Jennifer Sheridan when I told her that I hadn't been making a pass. He stared at me with the sort of look you'd have if you were in a hurry one day and backed out your drive without looking and ran over a child. Like someone had pushed an ice spike through your heart. He stared at me like that, and then he went out. He didn't close the door.

I went to the little balcony and stood back from the rail and watched the street. Mark Thurman and Floyd Riggens came out of my building, climbed back into the brown sedan, and drove away. Neither of them spoke, as far as I could tell, and neither of them looked particularly happy. It was six minutes after one, and it looked as if my case was solved.