Chapter 9

When I got settled behind the desk, Cecelia reached into a pocket and pulled out folded paper – two sheets, I saw as I took it from her after she unfolded it. I glanced over it quickly, seeing that it was the questions as I'd originally written them out, with the answers in italics following each question. I scanned the list, knowing that I'd catch the important stuff and that I'd have Cecelia's verbal report to fill in stuff that never gets into print – no matter who's doing the writing.

I laid the sheets of paper on the desk. I did not put my feet up on the corner as I do at the office – the desk in the study isn't merely nice, it's beautiful, a work of art in its own right as far as I'm concerned, and I'd no more put my feet on it than I would casually lean against one of Monet's paintings. "Tell me about him," I said, lacing my fingers across my stomach and remembering Nero Wolfe, not that I'm anywhere near as fat as that fictional detective.

"In a word, Darvin, he is smarmy. He shows no remorse for his means of making a livelihood – he shows no consciousness that it is in any way wrong. To him it's just taking pictures, though I have no doubt that he derives prurient pleasure from the subjects of those photographs. He is genuinely disturbed at this particular subject, but not because of the use they're making of her; it is solely her age which bothers him. I asked each question several times, wording them differently, because I have no confidence in his veracity. I believe he would lie – in your phrasing – at the drop of a hat, and drop the hat himself. But after considerable time, and numerous expostulations that he'd already answered the questions, I derived the information on the sheets before you." Trust Cecelia to answer with a paragraph where I'd have used just a couple of words.

"Did you get it all out of him?" I asked.

"I believe I did. I am, of course, inexperienced in interrogation, and may have missed clues to mendacity or opportunities for enlargement of knowledge, but I certainly did the best work I was capable of."

"Well," I said, "lookin' at this stuff real quick, I couldn't see any glaring errors. An' I know you – you don't futz around when you wanna know something. Maybe I could have learned more, or gotten a few more details, but I doubt that I'd find you missed anything important. Looks like a good job."

"Thank you, Darvin," she said, a small smile and a slight flush showing more enjoyment of the compliment than the quiet words that she allowed herself.

"How'd Rudy and the rest treat you over there?"

"Rudy, of course, is a friend and acted as such. He also is a gentleman, and would be gracious to anyone. However, when I explained my professional purpose in visiting the office, I received professional courtesy in return. I do not believe that the officers present would tell me everything they knew, even if I had been making inquiries there for years, but they were neither rude nor uncooperative."

"No, tain't no cop gonna ever tell you everything he knows – that ain't how he makes his living. But it's good to know that you got cooperation. Did you drop my name?"

"I did mention that I was assisting you, but that's all."

I nodded. "That's what you shoulda done. Until and unless you get your license, legally all you can do is assist me – even when you're doing stuff that PIs do, you're doing it at my direction. Of course, I'm gonna treat you mostly the way I would if you had a license and I'd hired you, but still..."

"But still, I am unlicensed, and may act only at your orders. The officers understood that, of course, as do I. I have no complaints."

"Coolness. Okay, C, your next job is to extract the names that you got in the answer to the last question, put 'em in an address book file, and print that – two copies, in case I send you out on your own, which I may do. If I do, it'll be the book stores only, not the studios." I said it, but I knew as I did that circumstances might change my plans. I might wind up sending Cecelia to studios on her own, if it looked like that was necessary to clear the case.

"My relief at that has a tinge of unease. I certainly do not wish to enter a studio of that sort alone, but entering such a retail establishment is, if not quite as embarrassing, certainly not the sort of thing I anticipated when I embarked on this experiment."

I shrugged. "It ain't what I normally do – most of my 'sex workers' are ladies who stand on the sidewalk and wait for cars to stop. But it's part of this case."

"I know it is, darling, and I do not intend complaint; if that is how my words have appeared, I regret and abjure the implication."

I grinned. "What would you say, Cecelia, if some thug were holding you in a chair, while another beat you bloody and demanded to know your phone number?"

"Probably, between inarticulate sounds of anguish, I would tell them something like this: I have no intention of complying with your demands, and adding to my fund of abrasions and contusions merely increases my refractoriness."

I grunted. "I'd be screaming the number over and over as loud as I could go," I said, "an' makin' up numbers just as fast as I could go."