“You don’t believe that theory,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s the stupidest theory I ever heard. And you’re not stupid.”

“Oh, flatter me some more, Mr. Kenzie. Please.”

“We want Jay Becker’s money, right?”

“The hundred grand we found in the trunk of the Celica with his fingerprints all over it, yeah, that’s the money I’m talking about.”

“But the hundred grand we used to bail him out of jail,” I said. “Why’d we do that? So we could trade one stack of hundred thousand dollar bills for another?”

He watched me with his shark’s eyes, didn’t say anything.

“If we planted the guns on Cushing and Clifton, why did Clifton have powder burns on his hands? I mean, he did, didn’t he?”

No response. He watched me, waiting.

“If we drove Jay Becker off the bridge, how come all the collision damage to his car was done by the Lexus?”

“Go on,” he said.

“You know what I charge for a missing persons case?”

He shook his head.

I told him. “Now that’s dramatically less than two hundred grand, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would.”

“Why would Trevor Stone shell out a combined four hundred thousand dollars, at least, to two separate private investigators to find his daughter?”

“Man’s desperate. He’s dying. He wants his daughter home.”

“Almost half a million dollars, though? That’s a lot.”

He turned his right hand, palm up, in my direction. “Please,” he said, “continue.”

“Fuck that,” I said.

His front chair legs came back to the floor. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Fuck that, and fuck you. Your theory’s a crock a shit. We both know it. And we both know it’ll never stand up in court. A grand jury would laugh it out.”

“That so?”

“That’s so.” I looked at him, then back at the two-way mirror over his shoulder, let his superiors or whoever was back there see my eyes, too. “You have three dead bodies and a wounded bridge and front-page headlines, I’m assuming. And the only story that makes sense is the one me and my partner have been telling you for the last twelve hours. But you can’t corroborate it.” I locked his eyes with mine. “Or so you say.”

“So I say? What’s that mean, Mr. Kenzie? Now, don’t be coy.”

“There was a guy on the other side of the bridge. Looked like a surfer dude. I saw cops interviewing him after you got there. He saw what happened. At least some of it.”

He smiled. A broad one. Full of teeth.

“The gentleman in question,” he said, looking at his notes, “has seven priors for, among other things, driving under the influence, possession of marijuana, possession of cocaine, possession of pharmaceutical Ecstasy, possession—”