Bad Business

57

I went over to police headquarters and sat with Belson. Neither Devaney nor O'Mara had a record. So we looked at pictures. We looked at pictures of people with long hair and big glasses. I didn't see Lance. We looked at pictures of people who had the initials L. D. and D. O. and didn't find Lance or Darrin. We looked under first names. We looked under last names. We tried under sex scams. Extortion. Shooting incidents. Every possible cross reference we could think of. Neither of them was there.

"Maybe if I had the kind of clout that a sergeant of homicide had, I could get the radio station to help us with O'Mara's background."

"And what do you think the station will say first?" Belson said.

"Freedom of speech. Freedom of the press. Freedom from unwanted search and seizure. Freedom to misinform us about the weather and almost everything else."

"And if I cut through all that and we get something," Belson said. "What issues will come up in court?"

"Freedom of speech," I said. "Freedom of the press. Freedom from unwanted search and seizure. Freedom to misinform us. Freedom to sell advertising. . . ."

"So forget the station. Anything we want to find out we have to have a persuasive reason to be asking."

"Even if it wasn't evidence that would hold up in court," I said. "If I knew something about him, I could find a way to get him."

"From what you told me maybe we could get him for pimping," Belson said.

"Couple things wrong with that," I said. "He gets paid for his seminars, which are legal. Hard to prove any more than that."

"How about the broads he sends out to clients. He doing that because he's a fool for romance?"

"Almost certainly not," I said. "But to prove he's doing anything worse than running a dating service and calling it something else, we'd have to force a lot of people to testify who don't want to."

"And ruin the reputations," Belson said, "of people who didn't do anything worse than get laid."

"Lot of us guilty of that," I said.

Belson grinned at me. "Thank God," he said.

"So we don't want to do that," I said.

"Probably not," Belson said.

"Of course O'Mara doesn't have to know we don't want to do that."

"That's right," Belson said. "He doesn't."

"I'll keep it in mind," I said.

"Here's another thing to keep in mind," Belson said. "So far you haven't told me anything much that this guy is guilty of that matters much. You got any reason to think he murdered anybody?"

"I know."

"You holding back?"

"Of course I'm holding back," I said. "But nothing that would change what you know."

"So why do you think he's a suspect?"

"Because," I said, "I suspect him."

Belson nodded.

"Thanks for clearing that up," he said.

By the time I got out of Police Headquarters the thunder had arrived and the lightning and rain were with it. The rain was nearly overwhelming the windshield wipers. The traffic was crawling. The thunder was close and assertive, followed almost at once by the lightning, which gleamed like quicksilver on the wet cars and slick streets. It was almost seven when I got back to my office. I was just hanging up my raincoat and shaking the water off my hat when Hawk came in, wearing a black silk raincoat and no hat. He was carrying something in a plastic grocery bag.

"Glorious feeling," Hawk said. He took off the raincoat. "Laughing at clouds," he said.

He went to my closet and opened the door and got a towel and dried off his gleaming head.

"So high up above," he said.

"Stop it," I said.

Hawk shrugged.

"Just being cheerful," he said. "You got any food?"

"I'll call for a pizza," I said.

"Two," Hawk said.

He went to my office refrigerator and took out two bottles of Stella Artois and handed me one.

"You got anything to tell me?" I said.

"Darrin and Lance," he said.

"The love that dare not speak its name?"

I drank some beer.

"This will give rise to considerable speculation on our part," I said.

"I thought it might," Hawk said. "That's why I wanted two pizzas."

"I'll get right on it," I said and reached for the phone.