We slept on it.
I slept on it at my place.
Dorita at hers.
It seemed like the right thing to do.
In the morning we met at Starbucks. Being at the office helped me think.
We reviewed the bidding. We chewed over the alternatives.
We listed the candidates. We weighed the options.
We chewed the fat. We crunched the bones.
We picked the lint off the jacket.
We ditched the metaphors.
We sat in silence for a while.
Butch called with some news. The preliminary autopsy result on FitzGibbon. Death caused by the fall. No doubt about that. No signs of pre-fall trauma. Though after a fall from that height, it was hard to tell.
No surprises there, I said.
No.
Doesn’t rule out being pushed.
No, it doesn’t, he said. And also…
Yes?
The blood work was awfully weird.
Out with it. You’re killing me here.
All kinds of shit. Mescaline. LSD. Meth. Whatever.
What the fuck?
Yeah. That’s what we all said.
This was the big cheese on the mayor’s antidrug task force, for Christ’s sake.
Exactly. And anyway, just not the type in general.
Man. Another fucking curveball. Wait a minute.
I pulled out a blank index card. Filled it with scribbles.
Okay, I said, listen, we need you now. We need you on the team. I know you’ve got your job to do. I’m not asking you to compromise your job. But we need you. Come over and talk to us, anyway. We’ve got to make sense of all this shit. We’re just about there. I know it. But the last step, this is going to be heavy. We need your brain. We might need your muscle, too.
He hesitated. I argued. He wavered. I persuaded.
He came to Starbucks. It started all over again. He had a duty to the force. He couldn’t just become a cowboy vigilante. He wasn’t Clint Eastwood. He had a job. A mortgage. Why couldn’t we just go to his boss with the stuff we got from Sarah? They’d follow it up. Hell, it was dynamite.
Besides the problem of our obligations to our client, which he understood, it wasn’t dynamite, yet, I explained. It was the scent of dynamite. We still didn’t have a shred of real evidence. We had suppositions. Educated guesses. Okay, highly educated guesses, veritable Ph. D. s of guesses. But still guesses. Odd behavior. Conflicting statements.
We wore Butch down.
He shook his head in resignation.
Okay, he said. But on one condition.
Shoot, I said.
When I say the word, we call it in.
I looked Butch in the eye. There were not many people I could trust. Trust not only to not betray me when the chips were down. But to have the judgment to know when they were. But Butch was one of them. We needed him. He was a man of action. Action was coming. I could feel it in my bones.
The choice was elementary.
Okay, I said. You’re the man.
All right, he said.
Plan time, said Dorita.
The weakest link, I said. It’s worked so far.
I’ll give you that, she said. But are there any left?
By definition, I said. However strong the weakest link, it’s still weaker than the rest.
I knew that philosophy degree would come in handy one day.
What makes you think this was the first time?
Just a wild guess.
Okay, kiddies, said Butch. Let’s get to the point.
I had a thought. A very good thought. I was proud of my thought. I decided to string it out. For maximum effect.
Why, I asked, did Lisa run?
Because she knew something, said Dorita.
That she didn’t want to tell you, added Butch.
And?
They looked at me.
That’s not a sufficient explanation, I said. She could have just said nothing. Denied. By running, she told us we were on to something. Why did she run?
Ooh, said Dorita, you’re so sexy when you’re being mysterious.
Just the Socratic method. You brought me back to undergraduate days, with that philosophy remark.
All right, Monsieur Descartes, can we get to the goddamn point?
Lisa knows something, I said.
Right.
She didn’t want to tell us.
Correct.
And.
And.
And she knew that if she stayed with us, she would tell us.
Exactly.
Ah.
So.
So, she’s still the weakest link.
Bingo, said Butch.
Oho, Monsieur Descartes, said Dorita. If you keep this up, I might even start respecting your intellect.
You keep threatening.
All right, children, said Butch, let’s go grab the little bitch.
I prefer to think of her as misguided, said Dorita.
Whatever, I said. Let’s grab her.
By force? asked Dorita.
Why do you think Butch is on the team? I asked.
Wait a minute… said Butch.
Just kidding, I said.
But we do have to get her away from Jules again, said Dorita. And persuasion isn’t going to work this time.
Let’s figure that out when we get there, said Butch.
I couldn’t agree more, I said. But first, I think I’ll finish this tall skinny latte.
Butch and Dorita got up.
Okay, I said. Just kidding. Let’s go.