As I tried to make up a list of tasks for Mary Louise and me to split on the Georgia inquiry, I couldn’t help thinking of Alex’s remark, that if I did the work she wanted, Global had the resources to express their gratitude. A bonus in the high five figures. I wondered how high. Fifty thousand would not only get me a new car but let me build a cushion, maybe hire someone full–time instead of relying on Mary Louise’s erratic hours. Or what if it were seventy or eighty thousand? Murray was driving a powder–blue Mercedes these days; I could pick up that red Jaguar XJ–12 I’d seen in the ads on Wednesday.

“And that’s how they catch their fish,” I admonished myself out loud. “If you can be bought for the price of a used car, V. I., then you’re not worth owning.”

I worked hard for another couple of hours, stopping only once, to go out for a sandwich and to let Peppy relieve herself. After that I didn’t look up until Tessa came in around three–thirty.

“Mary Louise hasn’t been in for a while,” she commented, perching on the couch arm.

“You keeping an eye on the premises?”

She grinned. “No, doofus. You aren’t the only detective around here: when Mary Louise comes in she always tidies up the papers. I’m taking off. Want to go for a coffee?”

I looked at the clock. I told her I’d have to take a rain check so I could get back to pick up Mr. Contreras. I started my system backup program and began hunting through the heap on my desk for the report Max had faxed over from Beth Israel: I wanted to discuss it with Mary Louise. I’d forgotten stuffing the papers into the folder labeled Alumni Fund but came on it by the sophisticated method of going through all the folders I’d stacked up lately.

I pulled out the report the paramedics had filed with the hospital. It described where they’d found Aguinaldo, what steps they’d taken to stabilize her, and the time they’d delivered her to Beth Israel (3:14 A.M.), but not the names of the officers who’d talked to Mary Louise and me in Edgewater. I wondered if I needed to know badly enough to pay for Mary Louise to talk to the ambulance crew and see if they remembered the guys. But I didn’t know how else to start finding out whether Baladine or Poilevy had been pulling the strings that made the cops come after me.