Except that the target came down with a bad case of death. And it always looked like suicide, a hit-and-run, or another tragic case of random violence. Pretty girls were raped and killed all the time. And if the pretty girl was also a P.I., well, she just had been in the wrong place, and hadn’t been careful enough. It’d be good for about two nights on the local news, and wouldn’t even make the nationals.

Pros didn’t leave tracks. And they didn’t come back after blackmail money. It was bad for repeat business.

Smith ought to know some pros in this area … he’d certainly hinted that he did.

Should he call Smith in on this? That was the question. He rubbed his thumb over the leather of the fetish and looked out the window, noting absently the small flock of scrawny black birds in the tree outside. Funny; they were absolutely silent, so they weren’t blackbirds, starlings, or grackles. They were too thin to be ravens, and too big to be crows.

Still, weren’t black birds some kind of omen of death? Maybe that was the sign he ought to move on this. Let them pick the Talldeer girl’s bones, not his.

He called Smith back.

“I need someone,” he said. “A reliable Tulsa mechanic. I think our equipment needs about five grand worth of work.”

“I have just the right men,” Smith said.

“John Smith” hung up the phone, jaw clenched, and a vein in his temple starting to throb. Not that he cared if Calligan had the chick rubbed out; in his opinion, it should have been done before this. No, the real problem was that Calligan was stupid and small-time; if things went wrong, he could implicate Smith.

No—if anything went wrong, Calligan would implicate Smith. He would sing so fast and so well, they’d put him in the opera.

Even if things didn’t go wrong, there was no guarantee that Calligan would stay quiet. He was getting nervous; sounded a little hysterical whenever Smith said anything about Talldeer. In fact, if he’d tried something of his own to get rid of the girl, he probably left a pretty messy trail behind him.

Damned amateurs.

It might not be a bad idea to collect a little insurance of his own.

He left his desk and took a quick walk outside, to a public telephone kiosk. Not one right outside his building, but one further down in the office park. He always had a roll of quarters with him, just in case.

He waited ten minutes, then called the same number he’d given Calligan.

“Fixers,” said the voice on the other end.

“I need some custom work done on my car,” he replied. “Something really special.” That was the code that he needed a safe line to talk openly.