“You see, my wife and I were married before. To each other. This is the second time around. For both of us. We split up after the first time. Then we got back together again.”

“Yeah. Right. Mr. Durch, let’s see if we can concentrate on the—”

“My wife had problems with…you know, with…”

“With what?”

“With making love,” said Durch.

“That was a problem?”

“Yes, a big problem. But see, I’m a practicing sex therapist.”

“A sex what?”

“Therapist. I straighten out people’s sex problems. I even straightened my wife right out. Sexually, that is. She still has a few annoying personal habits, but now she fucks like a mink.”

“I see,” said the detective named Murphy, wriggling in his seat. He was a white guy with a nice smile when he wanted to smile. He had crew-cut brown hair, wore a gray suit and tie, and had a double chin. At that moment he was in decent shape, but he wouldn’t be for long. You could see exactly how he was going to look when he was seventy-five years old. “Can we get back to the kinda—”

“It was the cherry on the sundae,” said Durch.

“The what?”

“The cherry on the sundae. It made our union perfect. A textbook case that sex therapists live for. Straightening out an unhappy marriage. And the unhappy marriage I straightened out in this case was my own! How ’bout them apples?”

“Yeah, right,” said Detective Murphy. “So, Mr. Durch, what else did the kidnapper say? Did he make any demands? I assume the kidnapper was a he.”

“It was a he and he did make demands. He demanded five million dollars in small bills. Untraceable. I think that’s what he said. ‘Make sure they’re untraceable.’ Yes, that’s exactly what he said. He gave me forty-eight hours to put the money together.”

“Then what?”

“Then he said he’d call me in two days with further instructions.”

“Two days from now?”

“Yes, two days from now. That’s when he said he’d call with further instructions.”

“Did the kidnapper say what he’d do to your wife if you didn’t pay the ransom?”

“He said he’d kill her.”

“He actually said that?” asked the heretofore mute Detective Lynch, a cop straight out of central casting. He was fat, slovenly, out of shape, shirt sneaking out over his belt, always perspiring, and getting balder by the day.

“Yes, he said he’d kill her.”

“Could you tell us more about the kidnapper?” asked Detective Lynch.

“More what?”

“Like maybe what he looked like. If there was more than one, stuff like—”

“What he looked like? If there was more than one? Aren’t they stupid questions, Detective? He was on the phone, dum-dum. I never saw him. How the hell am I going to tell you what he looked like if I never saw him?”