“If you’re the cops, you go to Owen’s phone, if it tracked him and the track matches Winston’s, you have them both moving to the place where Winston died and arriving at the same moment. If Owen’s phone didn’t track him, Winston’s still gives you exact times and places. That narrows the window and it makes it far more likely you’ll find witnesses.

“After you color it in, you visualize Owen and Winston together in the office. They argue. Winston leaves. Owen stays, then goes after him. That’s a guess. Catches up with him. Winston stands still. I expect they were continuing the argument. Standing in the street. Then Winston tells him to fuck off and heads for his car. He’s walking faster, like angry people do. Owen watches him. Fuming. Coming to a boil. Goes after him again. He would’ve known Winston was going to the parking garage, because that was the normal thing. Finds him there. There’s whatever, whatever, back and forth, it ends up Owen shoots him.

“Owen knew that once I saw it, I’d figure it out. So would the cops.”

Allison said, “I want to do what you do.”

“What do you think I do?”

“Rescue girls and kill bad guys.”

“That makes it sound like a bad TV show. An old one. In the new ones, girls kill bad guys and rescue boys. And they do a lot of karate. In spike heels, too.”

“I can do that.”

“The spike heels?”

“I can walk in them,” she said.

“Kicks and stuff?”

“No.”

“Karate? Kung fu? Tae kwon do?”

“None of them,” she said. “Can you?”

“No.”

“Can you even walk in spike heels?”

“I don’t think so.”

“There you go. I’m one up on you already. But there’s one thing I need to know.”

“What’s that?”

“Does it make good money?”

“You called me and said you were worried because someone was maybe following you. I came all the way to Brooklyn.”

“That’s the place to be now.”

“And it was late. I knew it would keep me up past my bedtime. Am I charging you?”

She gave me a quick look, sharp and wary, was I? If I was, how much, did she have it, could she negotiate it down?

“Don’t worry,” I said.

She relaxed.

“There’s your answer,” I said. “About making good money.”

“It should,” she said.

“You’re right.”

“But not by charging me. Though you really should get yourself organized so it makes good money.”

“Like poetry,” I replied.

“Verse, verse.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Poetry is so deadly serious it arrives in a hearse. What could be sadder, what could be worse? If I were judgmental, I’d call it perverse. I want rhythm and rhyme, pointed and terse, and so, my friend, I end up with verse.”