He was startled, then confused when he realized it was me. James, who insisted the world call him James because his first name was Elmer, came to the door. He took another look at my face and bells rattled against glass as he turned a key.

‘What in the world?’ he said, letting me in.

‘You and I must talk,’ I said, unzipping my coat.

‘I’m all out of lab coats.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it.’

‘Me too,’ he said in his petty way. ‘Sold every one of them for Christmas. I sell more of those silly lab coats than anything in the gallery. We’re thinking of silk-screened scrubs next, the same style you folks wear when you’re doing autopsies.’

‘You’re not disrespectful of me,’ I said. ‘You’re disrespectful of the dead. You will never be me, but you will someday be dead. Maybe you should think about that.’

‘The problem with you is you don’t have a sense of humor.’

‘I’m not here to talk about what you perceive the problem with me is,’ I calmly said.

A tall, fussy man with short gray hair and a mustache, he specialized in minimalist paintings, bronzes and furniture, and unusual jewelry and kaleidoscopes. Of course, he had a penchant for the irreverent and bizarre, and nothing was a bargain. He treated customers as if they were lucky to be spending money in his gallery. I wasn’t sure James treated anyone well.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked me. ‘I know what happened around the corner, at your office.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ I said. 1 can’t imagine how anybody could not know.’

‘Is it true that one of the cops was put in …’

I gave him a stony stare.

He returned behind the counter, where I could now see he had been tying tiny price tags on gold and silver bracelets fashioned to look like serpents, soda can flip tops, braided hair, even handcuffs.

‘Special, aren’t they?’ He smiled.

‘They are different.’

‘This is my favorite.’ He held up one. It was a chain wrought of rose-gold hands.

‘Several days ago someone came into your gallery and used my charge card,’ I said.

‘Yes. Your son.’ He returned the bracelet to the tray.

‘My what?’ I said.

He looked up at me. ‘Your son. Let’s see. I believe his name is Kirk.’

‘I do not have a son,’ I told him. ‘I have no children. And my American Express gold card was stolen several months ago.’

James chided me, ‘Well, for crummy sake, why haven’t you canceled it?’

‘I didn’t realize it was stolen until very recently. And I’m not here to talk to you about that,’ I said. ‘I need you to tell me exactly what happened.’