“When did all this happen?” Dill asked.
“At six minutes until midnight on February twelfth a year and a half ago. Eighteen months. It was a Friday.”
“She was with homicide by then.”
“Been there for two or three months. Transferred in from bunco.”
“Did you give up?”
Corcoran shook his head. “I got drunk and tried to see her once and made a mess of it. Then I called her three times. The first time she said, ‘I’m sorry, Clay, I can’t talk to you,’ and hung up. The second time I called her I said, ‘Hi, it’s me,’ and she said, ‘Don’t call me anymore,’ and hung up. The third time I called and said it was me she didn’t say anything. She just hung up. I stopped calling.”
“I don’t blame you. Were you in bunco with her?”
“We never worked together or anything like that. She did a lot of undercover stuff when she was in bunco. I was in public affairs and about all I did was go around and talk to school kids — real little kids — about what wonderful folks policemen are. I’d worked up this funny kind of talk with slides. Public affairs figured if the kids could get used to me, they’d never have any hangups about normal-looking cops. I kind of liked it. But then I started seeing Felicity around with Captain Colder and I couldn’t stand that, so I quit.”
“What do you do now?”
“I’m a frightener.” Corcoran scowled and once again Dill wanted to shrink away. The big man smiled and chuckled a little. “What I am now is almost as ridiculous as being a cuckold. I’m a private detective and you’re gonna ask me how the hell can anybody my size stay private.”
“I was really going to go upstairs and think about it.”
“Yeah, well, I do a lot of bodyguard work, for oil companies mostly, who’re in places where the politicians are a little weird — Angola, Indonesia, places like that.”
“You go there?”
“No, they use me when those folks come here, and my job is to make sure none of the native nuts get close. They keep me on a retainer — the oil companies — and that pays the overhead, which isn’t all that high except for the phone. As a frightener, I do a lot of work on the phone.”
“Who do you frighten?”
“Deadbeats. Say some guy loses his job out in Packingtown and falls behind on his car payments. Well, he’s a deadbeat, right? Now some folks would say he’s a victim of an outmoded economic system that scraps people the way it scraps old cars, but you and I know better, don’t we? You and I know that anybody in this grand and glorious country of ours can go out and find himself a job if he’ll just put on a clean white shirt and go look. I mean a guy who’s fifty-four years old and has been wrapping bacon for seventeen years for Wilson’s out in Packingtown and gets laid off, well, hell, he can go wrap bacon somewhere else. I’d hire him if I needed some bacon wrapped, wouldn’t you? Sure you would.
“So this guy, this skilled ex-bacon wrapper, falls behind on his car payments and the finance company turns him over to me. And if his phone hasn’t been cut off, I call him up and say in my real deep scary voice, ‘My name’s Corcoran, pal, and you owe us money and if you don’t pay up, something’s gonna have to be done about it — understand?’ I’m really a pretty good frightener. Well, sometimes the guy pays up — I don’t know how, but that’s not my worry. If he doesn’t, I get hold of this kid who used to steal cars for a living and we go out and repo the car so the guy can take the bus when he goes out looking for a job wrapping bacon.” Corcoran paused. “Like I said, I’m a little ridiculous.” There was another, longer pause. “I think I’ll have another drink.”
Corcoran had only to glance over his shoulder to bring the waitress hurrying over. After she left with the order, he said, “There’re some days I just want to go out and break something, know what I mean?”
Dill nodded. “I think so.” He took a sip of his cognac. “The services are going to be at ten on Saturday in Trinity Baptist.”
“Why there? Felicity was a real let’s-not-fuck-around atheist.”
“The last I heard,” Dill said, “she was sort of a well-intentioned agnostic.”
“That was before homicide. After about two or three Saturday nights down on South Broadway she had this sudden leap of faith and went all the way. We were still together then. I remember she called me up one Sunday morning about six. I said hello and she said, ‘There is no God,’ and hung up. I found out later some guy had just wiped out his family with a Boy Scout hatchet. There were six of them, not counting his wife. Six kids, I mean. The oldest was eight. Felicity was first through the door.”
“They’re sending a limousine for me,” Dill said. “You like to ride along?”
The big man thought about it for at least fifteen seconds and then slowly shook his head no. “I don’t intend any disrespect — hell, that’s not the word. Indifference is the word. I’m not indifferent, but I don’t want to go to Felicity’s funeral. Funerals are awfully final and I don’t want to say goodbye yet. But thank you for asking me.”
“Is there anyone else I should ask — anyone close?”
Corcoran thought about it. “Well, you might ask Smokey.”
“Who’s Smokey?”
“Anna Maude Singe — singe, burn, scorch — Smokey. Felicity’s lawyer. Mine too. They were close. It was Smokey who told me you were staying here.”
“You talked to her today?”
Corcoran nodded.
“Did she tell you about the two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy Felicity took out naming me as sole beneficiary?”
“No. When?”
“When did she take it out?” Dill said. “Three weeks ago.”
“Smokey didn’t tell me about it.” The big man’s expression grew thoughtful as he stared down at his drink. When he looked up Dill saw that the slightly mismatched green eyes had changed. Before they had been too small, too recessed, and too far apart, but clever. There was still too much wrong with them, but now they were more than clever. They had become smart, perhaps even brilliant. He tries to hide it behind all that size and ugliness, Dill thought, but occasionally it just seeps out. “There was no reason Smokey should’ve, was there?” Corcoran said. “Told me, I mean.”
“I guess not.”
“But it means Felicity knew, doesn’t it?”
“Knew?”
“That somebody was going to kill her.”
“Suspected.”
“Right. Suspected. If she’d known for sure, she would’ve done something.”
“What?”
Corcoran smiled, but it was a small smile that only made him look sad. “She was a cop. There were a lot of things she could’ve done and she knew ’em all.”
“Unless she was doing something a cop shouldn’t do.”
This time there was no pretense to the scowl. Corcoran leaned across the table, the green eyes angry now, the expression quite terrible. Dill sat very still, determined not to flinch. “You’re her brother,” Corcoran said, almost whispering the words, which somehow made them even more awful. “If you weren’t her brother and said that, I’d have to twist your fuckin’ head off. Maybe you’d better explain.”
“Let me tell you a story,” Dill said. “It’s about a brick duplex, a down payment made in cash, and a fifty-thousand-dollar balloon payment that’s due on the first.”
Corcoran, his expression still suspicious, leaned back in his chair. “All right,” he said. “Tell me.”
It took Dill ten minutes to tell what he knew. When he was done, Corcoran remained silent. Finally, he sighed and said, “That doesn’t sound too good, does it?”
“No.”
“Maybe I’d better look into it. You know, I really am a pretty fair snoop. It’s like research. I always liked research. Any objections if I look into it?”