“That was a guess,” Elizabeth said. “That you’d take the train. I asked Madelaine to look for you.”

“I had to let three trains go by,” Madelaine said. “Before you showed up.”

“What if I’d driven or taken the bus?”

“I went down to the funeral,” Elizabeth said. “As a backup. I was sure that a woman on the train would be much, much better.” That was done as far as she was concerned. Time to switch to the exciting subject. “Now, this.” The absent Kaylee Voloshin. “She will put in half—as an investment—of however much she inherits. That will be huge. Then we’re really funded. We can’t fail. We can handle anything.”

I said, “You haven’t even paid me what you already owe me. Where is it?”

“I have a contract here for you,” she said, enthusiastic and ready to close her deal. “It puts you in charge of our investigatory unit. There’s a $200,000 signing bonus. A guaranteed $300,000 a year. An expense account. It would cover, for example, all your travel expenses going to St. Anton. Though it might actually be Lech? That’s sort of a suburb…”

“A separate village. Nearby.” I said. “But part of the same ski circuit.”

“Right, that’s fine then. We’ll get you an Amex Black Card. Bills to the company. Sign the contract. I call a bank in the Caymans; the signing bonus goes to your bank on Monday.”

“When you were downstairs,” I said, “putting Kaylee in the car, I was looking out your window. There was someone watching you. He looked a lot like a guy I think was watching me in Woodstock. I think of him as the Mormon because he has that look. The FBI has a lot of them that look like that. They clone them out in Utah. Using multiple wives.

“Money first. With some kindly letter of bereavement. About my dead aunt. You can make up a name or I’ll give you one. In my bank on Monday. First thing.” I had no intention of killing anyone, of investigating another trophy marriage, of going to St. Anton. No matter how good the skiing was there. But I wanted my money.

“Money first,” I repeated. “We only talk after that.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

RULES & RHYME

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma.

In the afternoon I put it back again.”

OSCAR WILDE

THE BROOKLYN POETRY SLAM HAD good rules. Rule #4 was: Competitors are prohibited from using animal acts, props, or musical accompaniment.

It was at BRIC—Brooklyn Information & Culture—on Fulton Street, two short blocks southeast of Flatbush Avenue. That puts it in Fort Greene, though right next to Downtown Brooklyn. Allison was performing.

Was someone actually watching her? Maybe.

She invited me. I said no.