Lawrence Block - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, No. 6. Whole No. 790, June 2007

“Everything all right?”

I think back to that summer, so many years ago. And, weeks later, to that cool September morning when I found on my porch a single MoonPie wrapper, carefully folded and placed beneath a chipped and yellowed bowl.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I think it is.”

Copyright © 2007 Ed Gorman

The Carolyn Hart website. This website offers Hart fans and readers a well-organized and useful look at both the books and the life of a writer who took many of the cozy conventions and tropes and gave them much more depth than they once possessed. Especially notable is Carolyn’s advice to writers, in which she talks about how difficult but rewarding the writing process can be. A major talent and a very cordial guide through the world of publishing, she has a site that warrants frequent visits. www.carolynhart.com

The Jan Burke website. Jan is not only a bestselling writer, as she notes, she’s also “the founder of The Crime Lab Project, which works to increase awareness of the problems facing public forensic science labs in the U.S.,” so you’ll find not only material about Jan and her books but some impressive material on this particular subject. Jan makes very clear what her website readers can find here: “This is a place where readers can ask questions and get information about my books and stories, and where I’ll be talking about subjects both related and unrelated to my writing.” An excellent site. janburke.com/blog.html

© 2007 by Bill Pronzini

2007 marks the 40th anniversary of the “Nameless” detective series (to which this story be-longs), making it the longest-running of all ongoing P.I. series. Nameless’s 31st book-length case, Savages, is due soon from Forge, and another Pronzini novel, The Crimes of Jordan Wise (Walker 2006) has just been nominated for the prestigious Hammett Award.

Jake Runyon and I were hunched over mugs of coffee and tea in an all-night diner near the Cow Palace when the man and woman blew in out of the rain.

Blew in is the right phrase. They came fast through the door, leaning forward, prodded by the howling wind. Nasty night out there. One of the hard-rain, big-wind storms that sometimes hammer the California coast during an El Niño winter.

The man shook himself doglike, shedding rainwater off a shaved head and a threadbare topcoat, before the two of them slid into one of the side-wall booths. That was as much attention as I paid to them at first. He wasn’t the man we were waiting for.

“After eleven,” I said to Runyon. “Looks like Maxwell’s a no-show again tonight.”

“Weather like this, he’ll probably stay holed up.”

“And so we get to do it all over again tomorrow night.”

“You want to give it a few more minutes?”

“Might as well. At least until the rain lets up a little.”

Floyd Maxwell was a deadbeat dad, the worst kind. Spousal abuser who owed his ex more than thirty thousand dollars in unpaid child support for their two kids; hard to catch because he kept moving around in and out of the city, never staying in one place longer than a couple of months, and because he had the kind of job — small-business computer consultant — that allowed him to work from any location. Our agency had been hired by the ex’s father and we’d tracked Maxwell to this neighborhood, but we’d been unable to pinpoint an exact address; all we knew was that since he’d moved here, he ate in the Twenty-Four/Seven Diner most evenings after ten o’clock, when there were few customers. Bracing him was a two-man job because of his size and his history of violent behavior. Runyon was twenty years younger than me, a former Seattle cop with a working knowledge of judo; Tamara and I couldn’t have hired a tougher or more experienced field operative when we’d decided to expand the agency.

This was our third night staked out here and so far all we had to show for it were sour stomachs from too much caffeine. I had mixed feelings about the job anyway.

On the one hand, I don’t like deadbeat dads or spousal abusers and nailing one was always a source of satisfaction. On the other hand, it amounted to a bounty hunt, the two of us sitting here with handcuffs in our pockets waiting to make a citizen’s arrest of a fugitive, and I’ve never much cared for that kind of strong-arm work. Or the type of people who do it for a living.

The new couple were the only other customers right now. The counterman, a thin young guy with a long neck and not much chin, leaned over the counter and called out to them, “What can I get you folks?”

“Coffee,” the man said. He was about forty, well set-up, pasty-faced and hard-eyed. Some kind of tattoo crawled up the side of his neck; another covered the back of one hand. He glanced at the woman. “You want anything, Lila?”

“No.”

“Couple of hamburgers to go,” he said to the counterman. “One with everything, one with just the meat. Side of fries.”

“Anything to drink with that?”

“More coffee, biggest you got. Milk.”

“For the coffee?”

“In a carton. For drinking.”

The counterman said, “Coming up,” and turned to the grill.

The tattooed guy said to the woman, “You better have something. We got a long drive ahead of us.”

“I couldn’t eat, Kyle.” She was maybe thirty, a washed-out, purse-lipped blonde who might have been pretty once — the type who perpetually makes the wrong choices with the wrong people and shows the effects. “I feel kind of sick.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t you stay in the car?”

“You know why. I couldn’t listen to it anymore.”

“Well, you better get used to it.”

“It breaks my heart. I still think—”

“I don’t care what you think. Just shut up.”

Lila subsided, slouching down in the booth so that her head rested against the low back. Runyon and I were both watching them now, without being obvious about it. Eye-corner studies with our heads held still.

Pretty soon the woman said, “Why’d we have to stop here, so close? Why couldn’t we just keep going?”

“It’s a lousy night and I’m hungry.”

“Hungry. After what just happened I don’t see how you—”

“Didn’t I just tell you to shut up?”

The counterman set a mug of steaming coffee on the counter. “You’ll have to come get it,” he said. “I got to watch the burgers.”

Neither of the pair made a move to leave the booth. Kyle leaned forward and snapped at her in a low voice, “Well? Don’t just sit there like a dummy. Get the coffee.”

Grimacing, she slid out and fetched the coffee for him. She didn’t sit down again. “I don’t feel so good,” she said.

“So go outside, get some air.”

“No. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Yeah, well, don’t do it here.”

She turned away from him, putting a hand up to cover her mouth, and half ran into the areaway that led to the restrooms. A door slammed back there. Kyle loaded sugar into his coffee, made slurping sounds as he drank it.

“Hurry up with the food,” he called to the counterman.

“Almost ready.”

It got quiet in there, except for the meat-sizzle on the grill, the French fries cooking in their basket of hot oil. Outside, the wind continued to beat at the front of the diner, but the rain seemed to have slacked off some.

Runyon and I watched Kyle finish his coffee. For a few seconds he sat drumming on the tabletop. Then he smacked it with his palm, slid out, and came up to the counter two stools down from where we were sitting. He stood watching the counterman wrap the burgers in waxed paper, put them into a sack with the fries; pour coffee into one container, milk into another.