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  The smirk again. "I'll bet you are, Ketchum, I'll just bet you are."

  "Your mommy didn't think so."

  Immediately he was tight. "Like I said, leave my mother out of this."

  "Nice lady. You must think so, too. Giving up a wife for her."

  He flushed. "She was a bitch."

  "Mommy knows best."

  "I don't really give a damn what you think of me, you know that? All I really give a damn about is you delivering this envelope tomorrow."

  "And if I don't?"

  "Then I call the police and tell them where you were around the time your partner was murdered."

  I put out my hand. He put the envelope in it.

  He looked at my face and smiled. "Life's a bitch, ain't it, Ketchum? Right now you look like somebody just injected you with a quart of sour pickle juice."

  I tapped the envelope against my fingers. "I assume I'm being used in some kind of blackmail number."

  "Mr. Genius."

  "I also assume that whoever picks this up is the person who killed Denny."

  "You're on a roll. Keep going."

  "I also assume that once you get paid off, you'll probably keep right on bleeding them."

  'Too bad you didn't kill him, Ketchum. You'd be fun to squeeze." Instead of anger there was now a look of torment in his eyes. For a moment I regretted my ugly crack about his mother.

  I nodded to the door. "So long, Stokes," I said. "I'm tired."

  "Bridges Park. Quarter to twelve. Feeder A."

  He had regained his angry edge. He examined the apartment once more before he left. "Really is kinda nice up here. Maybe someday I'll have a place like it." He smiled. "See you, Ketchum."

  TWELVE

  When I pulled into my parking space in the morning, Tommy Byrnes swung in a few stalls away.

  We met near the exit door leading to our floor. He smiled. "You in better spirits today?" I tried hard to smile back. "Sorta, I guess."

  "You really had me worried."

  The butt-kissing tone was back in his voice. I had probably had Tommy worried about as much as George Bush worries about the derelicts in the Bowery.

  I decided to let his bowing and scraping pass.

  When you come in from the parking garage, you walk through the art department, which is where in most agencies you find both the highest number of prima donnas and the highest number of everyday, sensible people-the worst and the best.

  At 8:23 it was still too early for the prima donnas to be here.

  Instead, gathered in the coffee area the artists had made for themselves, stood half a dozen of the people in production, who looked and generally acted more like factory hands than agency types. Which was great as far as I was concerned.

  Ab Levin, a sixty-two-year-old World War II veteran who kept a faded photograph of himself in uniform on his desk and who was probably the best traffic manager in the city, glanced up from his coffee and said, "Talk to you a minute, Michael?"

  "Sure," I said.

  "Well, see you," Tommy said, walking on.

  So much for demonstrations.

  "Yeah, Ab," I said, "what can I do for you?"

  The other employees looked at Ab, then at me, then back to Ab again. Obviously they'd been talking among themselves.

  Ab was a barrel-chested and hairy man whose physical strength belied the extra pounds he'd put on. He always wore clip-on ties. He had shiny black eyes and a voice that sounded sore.

  "The people in the back of the shop generally don't hear things right away," he said. "Not usually, anyway. But a couple of us stopped in at The Cove last night and what we heard was…" He flushed, seeming embarrassed and ill at ease, as if he were going to tell me he'd betrayed the agency in some way. "Well, we got to drinking, and we got to talking with some people from other agencies and, well, the consensus seemed to be we stood a good chance of losing the Traynor account, now that Denny Harris is dead."

  The Cove was a splashy downtown bar where agency people and media types drank. It was the model of the leper colonies I'd mentioned before, the place where both Denny and my ex-wife had spent too many of their hours.

  "You really believe everything you hear in the Cove?" I said.

  "We're just nervous is all," Ab said. "About our jobs." Several other people muttered agreement and nodded their heads.

  "I mean, to be truthful, Michael," Ab said, "people were wondering if your relationship with Clay Traynor was good enough to keep the account. You know him and Denny catted around a lot-"

  My smile must have startled them.

  They looked at me with peculiar eyes.

  "I wouldn't worry about my relationship with Clay Traynor," I said.

  "Yeah, Michael?" Ab said, sounding happily surprised, as if he were about to clap me on the back.

  "Yeah," I said. "We had a long talk yesterday and Clay assured me that the account would be staying with us."

  The way they looked, I thought they might roll out a pony keg and have a party right on the spot.

  I didn't want to spoil their fun by telling them the truth- that the account was staying because of blackmail.

  ***

  The rest of the morning was much like the scene with Ab Levin. People wanting reassurance that things were going to be all right with the agency-i.e., that we wouldn't lose the Traynor account and fall flat. Advertising is largely a business of rumors, many of which are totally false, but rumors can kill you. Too many of our people spent too many hours in posh dives like The Cove and began to think that the world really was the way it was presented in the dank shadows of the place.

  Sarah Anders did something she never had done before- came in late. I wasn't watching the clock because I was angry, rather because I was worried. Having caught Gettig and her on some mysterious mission in Denny's office, and having exposed her affair with Gettig, I was afraid that I'd caused her to do something foolish-like confront her comfortable, suburban husband and tell him that she was in love with somebody else. Even though Sarah was a few years older than I, I felt paternal toward her. People's lives were crazy enough. I didn't want to see hers go the way of all flesh too.

  Around ten o'clock she leaned against my doorway and knocked once. When I looked up, I was staring at a Sarah Anders very different from the one I was used to. My Sarah was always neat, combed, attractive in a matronly way. This Sarah looked as if she'd been up all night drinking beer and watching professional wrestling-her hair was a tumble, her suit unpressed, her makeup blotchy. But that wasn't what I really noticed-that honor went to the blue-gray circle on her right cheekbone, a splotch makeup could not disguise. Either she'd run into something-or somebody had hit her. Given the events of the last few days, the latter seemed more likely.

  "Why don't you come in and close the door, Sarah?"

  "I should've stayed home today," she said. She sounded as if she were underwater, her voice lost beneath fathoms of fatigue.

  "Please," I said, "come in."

  I found her a match for her cigarette, a cup of coffee, and my best priestly manner.

  When she was all arranged, the first thing she said was, "I wish you'd stop staring at it."

  "Sorry," I said.

  She sighed. "Here I'm forty-nine years old," she said, "and I'm living out some trashy teenage novel."

  I had assumed it was her husband who'd struck her. But something in her tone made me wonder for the first time.

  "I just thought I'd like you to know," Sarah said. "I'm quitting. As of right now." Tears silvered her eyes. "Have to, Michael. Have to."

  Despite all the puff pieces about the captains of advertising, most agencies worth a damn are run by two or three women who are ostensibly secretaries or executive assistants. The men get the glory, the women do the work. Our agency was no exception. Denny had spent his time keeping Clay Traynor happy, I had spent mine working on the creative product. Neither of us had done what we should. It had been up to Sarah to remind us about appointments, to be sure to keep so-and
-so especially happy (usually because she'd learned that another agency was wooing them), and in general see to it that our shoelaces were tied and that we wore clean underwear in case we got hit by a car.

  So I had mixed and profound feelings about Sarah's resignation-mixed in that I would miss her personally but even more I would miss her professionally. She ran the damn place, no matter what the names on the door said to the contrary.

  "Sarah, why don't you take the next couple of days off?"

  She shrugged. "I'll be busy with the funeral, for one thing." She shook her head. She was one of those women who had spent her life being one of the boys-men were comfortable with her in ways they weren't comfortable with other women. She could hear the grossest story, keep the darkest secret, and work the longest hours-without once complaining. The trouble was, this robbed her of a certain humanity. I'd never thought I'd see Sarah sounding or looking like this. I felt pity and a curious kind of disappointment, too, like knowing one of your favorite All-Americans is really a junkie.

  "Denny's brother called me last night," Sarah said. "He works for American Express in Europe. He wants me to make all the arrangements and everything."

  "Sarah," I said, "why are you quitting?" For now, I didn't want to get sidetracked.

  "I couldn't work here anymore with-Ron," she said. The tears started to become sniffles.

  "Then Ron won't work here anymore."

  "No-" she started to say.

  "I've been tired of his whining for years. He isn't half as good as he thinks he is, and his bitching isn't worth the trouble. Whether you stay or not, Gettig's done." I shook my head. "He was one of Denny's drinking cronies anyway. I don't owe him a damn bit of loyalty." I paused. "He's the one who hit you, isn't he?"

  She dropped her eyes. Nodded almost imperceptibly.

  "What happened?" I said.

  She looked up. "You have any whiskey?"

  "Sure."

  In a minute I handed her a shot of bourbon. Her years as a partner for men had taught her to drink like one-she upended the shot glass into her coffee. "Folger's was never this good," she smiled sadly.

  The bourbon seemed to help. Something like anger came into her eyes as she started to talk. Much better than the depression and self-contempt that had been there before.

  "After you found Ron and me in Denny's office last night," she said, "we went out and had some drinks, deciding what to do next about a lot of things-one of them being us. I was starting to feel terribly, terribly guilty about my husband. Ron's very possessive. The more I talked about my husband, the angrier he got. Finally, I told him that I just wanted it over with."

  "That's when he hit you?"

  "No, that came a little later, when I said I thought we owed you an explanation about why we were searching Denny's office."

  "Why were you?"

  "You know, I'm not sure. I'm really not."

  For the first time I wondered if I could believe this story. Searching an office without knowing why…

  "Michael, I'm not lying to you," she said. She had some more coffee, then continued. "Something's been going on the past four months between Denny and Ron and Merle Wickes. Something-I'm not sure what. All I know is that one night the three of them got into a terrible argument and Ron took a swing at Denny. This was in a bar. Things got so bad the bartender threatened to call the police. Nice publicity for the agency, huh?"

  "But you don't know what they were arguing about?"

  "No. I really don't."

  I thought of the photograph Stokes had taken of the person he claimed was the murderer. I wondered if Ron Gettig was going to pick up that photograph this afternoon…

  "Where does Merle Wickes fit in all this?" I said.

  "I'm not sure." She laughed. There was a certain malice in her tone. "Merle Wickes. He's almost pathetic. If he weren't so sad, I mean. He's got such a nice wife and here-" Then she caught herself and laughed again. This time the malice was aimed at herself. "And I've got such a nice husband, right?"

  "Yeah, Sarah. He is nice. Damned nice."

  She finished her coffee, set it down. "So yesterday, anyway, Ron had me help him look for a box. He said it was about the size of a shoe box. He wouldn't tell me what was in it. At the time I was still wrapped up enough in our sleazy little affair that helping him out sounded like the natural thing to do. Right now, all I want to do is get things back to where they were with my husband."

  "Does he know?"

  The tears were back. "I think he does, yes. I think he has known the past several months. But whenever he looks at me what I see in his eyes is a kind of pity-not anger or hatred or betrayal. Just pity-as if I don't know what I'm doing and managing to hurt both of us in the process. It's kind of the way he looked at me the night I had our first child-the pity, I mean, the love in that kind of pity. It's understanding, really, not just feeling sorry for somebody. Oh, Christ-" Now she broke down a bit more and gasped a couple times, gasped the dry, clutching reach for tears that won't quite come. There was something ancient in her voice and the way her body bent just now-a middle-aged woman resenting the girl she'd let herself foolishly be. "You got a damn hankie, Michael?" she said when she was finished.

  I handed her my handkerchief.

  Then I handed her the newspaper clipping.

  "What's this?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I was hoping maybe you could tell me."

  She read it. Shrugged. "I don't have a clue."

  "Neither do I." Then I explained how, after she and Gettig had left Denny's office yesterday, I'd found it in a drawer. "I don't know," she said.

  I glanced at my watch. Smiled. "Don't you think it's time you got back to work?"

  "But I told you-" she said.

  "All you told me is that you're uncomfortable working around Gettig. And I've already told you that problem is about to be taken care of." I pointed to the door. "Now get back out there before I have to start acting like a boss."

  Now it was her turn to smile. "I always was a sucker for taking orders." At the door she turned and said, "Thanks, Michael."

  THIRTEEN

  I spent the next hour feeling a tad of respect for my much-maligned dead partner.

  In advertising agencies, it seems, almost nobody gets along. Bosses and supervisors spend nearly as much time refereeing petty squabbles as they do trying to politic their way up the executive ladder. Rivalries are almost as commonplace as adultery. Almost.

  For the next sixty minutes, a dozen people, some in couples, some individually, trooped through my office voicing complaints about co-workers. Usually the complaints had to do with turf. One art director didn't like copywriters who went directly to artists without consulting him first. One copywriter wanted to be taken off an account because it wasn't "creative" anymore what with the money-oriented new account exec running it-God forbid we make money. Then there was the paste-up person who wanted to know why he couldn't jog for two hours over his lunch hour-the extra time bound to make him a better worker. Right.

  So it went-and that's why I felt some respect for my ex-partner.

  Denny Harris had always relieved me of this pain-in-the-executive-butt part of the job. Denny was famous for listening to everybody's complaint, then promptly and forever doing nothing about it. Denny, out of laziness maybe, or maybe even out of real wisdom, believed that if you let things slide along enough they somehow took care of themselves.

  I didn't have the stomach for that. My taint was to be combative, as several disappointed-looking people this morning would tell you.

  During the last few complaints, my mind started to wander to the manila envelope I had in my car.

  I was still in shock that the private detective I'd hired had turned out to be a blackmailer. Stokes made me feel naive- as if, for all my romantic disillusionment and bitterness, I were some kind of kid. Denny's murder had been shattering enough, but the idea that Stokes was going to feed on Denny vampire-like was even more mind-boggling than the murder.

>   Which, of course, turned the whole situation right back on me.

  Despite the fact that I could tell the police that both the Traynors had been at the murder scene, I did nothing. I was going to save the account-run it up the flagpole and salute my ass off. Which is not the kind of self-image a guy-at least this guy-likes to have of himself. But it was the only way to keep on feeding my family.

  The only hope I could see was the newspaper clipping I'd taken from Denny's desk. But I had no idea why he'd kept it-the chances were good that it had absolutely nothing to do with the murder.

  ***

  This time Sarah Anders didn't scream. All Sarah managed to do, on hearing, was faint.

  This time it was one of the women from the copy department who told me. A curt knock on my door moments after my last interviewee of the morning, then: "Mr. Ketchum."

  "Yes?"

  "You, uh, you better go to the screening room, Mr. Ketchum."

  "What's wrong?"

  "It's Mr. Gettig."

  "What about him?"

  "He's dead, Mr. Ketchum. He's dead.”

  ***

  Gettig had been sitting in the darkened screening room looking at outtakes on a videotape machine. Because it was video instead of motion picture, he hadn't needed a projectionist. He'd been alone. Somebody had come in. Down the dark aisle. Apparently very quietly. Put something around his neck and pulled. Very, very hard. In the ugly harsh overhead light, Gettig's neck was a mess, black, blue, yellow, almost amber where blood had bruised along tendons.

  He was also a mess in other ways. When you strangle somebody, you not only kill them, you make sure you've humiliated them for whoever has the misfortune to find them. The bowels, you know.

  Somebody called the police and somebody else called an ambulance. I wanted to call my travel agent and go someplace. Fast. Far.

  Ab Levin put a hand on my shoulder as I turned away from the corpse. He said, "Somebody must hate us, Michael."