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Georgie Jobbs was an entire flight down the stairs from Lesley and Onions He had alanted to be a PI, but he didn’t have the patience to meet the standards and pass the test He also didn’t like the idea of being able to carry only a licensed gun, or of giving anyone a legitimate reason to call hi as you didn’t ask hiebraic equations or, for that matter, any math at all

While Lesley and Onions were on their way to the larized their places of business Vernon Lesley’s place of business had been the crappy apartations occupied a backstairs rooie had stolen the brains of their computers, their files-which were thin-appoint on which they had scribbled notes of any kind whatsoever Together, he and Billy transferred everything froo space of the Rover

Because Georgie was as thorough as he was thick, Billy was confident that when authorities eventually began to investigate the disappearances of the two PIs, they would find nothing linking therim wasn’t his true nao on using it because it had sentimental value to him Besides, his boss-the wealthy heir turned successful cri a loose end, and could not afford to leave one

Georgie had also brought two rigid-wall Samsonite suitcases that Billy had requested, and he handled these with a respect bordering on awe

"I’d never have thought I’d have so ie said

"It’s a day you’ll rereed

"I gotta say, ood, you trusted ie"

"So long I can’t count that far," said Georgie, which was nearly true

After he examined the contents, Billy closed the two suitcases, locked theo space of the Rover, but on the floor in the backseat

Billy paid Georgie in cash, and while Georgie tucked the money in a jacket pocket, Billy shot him three times point-blank with a silencer-equipped pistol

He recovered the ie’s body into the Rover with all the other crap He arranged a blanket over it

At fifty, he could not manhandle a corpse as easily as he’d done at thirty He needed every trick he had learned over the years If he hadn’t delighted in his work, he otten the job done

After he closed the tailgate on the Rover, he did not bother to search the Suburban He knew that Georgie Jobbs had not kept an appointment book and had not written any notes to hiie couldn’t have spelled Jesus if that had been the one thing he’d been required to do to get into Heaven

Georgiethe two private detectives’ offices on Billy’s behalf, but not now The last tenuous connection between Billy Pilgri had been erased-or soon would be

Behind the wheel of the Rover, without headlights, Billy cruised the radiant concrete riverbed, happy that he had no agent proble their knives for hikeeper were in the box when Brian and As

The first was succinct: It will bethe screen over Brian’s shoulder, A"

He opened the secondby

When Amy sat in the second office chair, Fred levered hih and roll his eyes up at her

"Good Fred," she said, rubbing his face "Good, good Fred"

Witness to this, Ethel roused herself from the brink of a nap and cah

"Oh, yes, yes, Ethel is good, too Good, pretty, pretty Ethel"

Nickie had not settled on the floor when they returned She sat beside Brian, allowing hi at the coht to the study of a squirrel in the park

He was looking down at her eyes, whichwhy earlier they had driven him to draw obsessively and why they conaled the receipt of an e-mail

He read it aloud to A The caller ID was blocked

Brian didn’t reach for the receiver

"It’s her," Amy said

"I haven’t spoken to her in ten years"

NoHope fro another step back into Vanessa’s universe was daunting

The phone rang again, then a third time, and when he picked it up, he said sined fallen down yet?"

"Not yet," he said, deterer hiht jeopardize his chance to recover Hope

"It’s only a matter of ti"

He had forgotten the extraordinary quality of her voice, an instrument of smoke and steel

"I think it’s time," she said, "for you to take responsibility for the consequences of your funky sperlanced at Amy, but then he felt that so at her when he was on the phone with Vanessa, and he averted his eyes

"Whatever you want is all right withon , invest"

"I don’t want your money, Bry You live above your offices If your folks weren’t dead, you’d probably be living with theot, ould it buy me? A nice coat, soe he had said in the e-ed over the years

"You said you wanted souy now, he’s got more money than God He’s even richer than the creep your baby would have gotten me if she hadn’t been a freak Money’s no problem You know, Bry, there was a time hat I wanted was you dead"

"I think I knew that"

"And not slow by cancer Since then, I’ve been with soot over that pretty early"

If his nerves had been piano wires, nothing but high notes could have been struck from them