But I raised a traffic-cop palm with one hand, the check drooping from my other.

“Is there a problem?” he asked, frowning, confused.

“A technicality. I work through an attorney. You become his client and that grants us the attorney/client confidentiality privilege.”

His eyebrows went up and so did the corners of his smile. “Very wise, Mr. Hammer.”

“My terms are $250 a day, the retainer my minimum. You cover expenses. My secretary will give you a detailed accounting at the wrap-up.”

A hand flicked the air, as if shooing a fly. “Let’s call it $1,000 a day, bump the retainer to $10,000, and you cover your own expenses.”

“Sure.” Having a rich client already had its benefits. “Unless there’s out-of-state travel. That you’ll cover.”

“Certainly.”

I carried a small stack of my attorney’s cards in my wallet and got one out and handed it to him. Then my host rose, went to his mahogany monster of a desk, and filled out a new check (with a fountain pen), crumpling the old one and tossing it in a mahogany wastebasket. This chamber was an office, after all.

When I had the ten grand tucked away, I said, “Now we can talk. If your son is back at work, after such a short hospital stay, what’s the problem?”

Seated across from me again, he leaned forward, hands folded and draped between his legs. He had a look of parental concern that every working private investigator knows too well.

“Mr. Hammer,” Vance began, and sighed, and was searching for words when the words of someone else interrupted, loudly.

“What the hell is he doing here? ”

The door behind me slammed as Vincent Colby entered, stalked across an Oriental carpet, talking to us as he approached, his face flushed, his eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, fists tight.

The father looked up as the son towered. “Son, I’m engaging Mr. Hammer here to find the offender.”

Colby’s fists went to his waist as he positioned himself at the end of the coffee table, his back to the fire, standing there like a demented Superman. “The ‘offender’? You mean the son of a bitch who ran me down? That offender?”

“Yes,” his father said calmly. “The driver.”

Young Colby turned toward me. He stuck out a forefinger in my direction, more casual than accusing, as if at a zoo identifying which chimp threw monkey shit at him.

“I don’t like this person,” he blustered. “I don’t like him one little bit.”

He was twice as loud as necessary and he began to pace.

“Hammer said offensive things about someone I care deeply about, and he’s lucky I didn’t break him in half, then and there.” Finally his eyes landed on me and his upper lip curled back. “But it’s just not my habit to abuse the elderly.”

I crossed my arms, and put my right ankle on my left knee as I took it all in expressionlessly. A comment or a grin from me would just make this worse. Nothing to do but wait it out.