Jonathan Lethem: Gun, with Occasional Music

“You’re using a lot of ugly punctuation.” She stuck out a hand. “Let’s see it, tough boy.”

I pulled out my photostat. “Last time I worked, it was for your husband, Mrs. Stanhunt. That was two weeks ago.”

She looked it over and tossed it in my lap.

“You’re really a private eye.” She composed herself. “You don’t work—”

“It’s all straight,” I said. “I don’t work for Danny. I’m not actually working for anybody right now. I guess you could say I’m a hobbyist.”

“You have to excuse my rudeness,” she said. She wanted to take it all back. “The last twenty-four hours have been a nightmare.” Her intonation was different. It went with the house and the car and the doctor now. The veneer had peeled up momentarily, but she was gluing it back down as fast as she could.

I went along. “You don’t have to ask for my indulgence. I’ve been more than a little rude myself. You’d be within your rights to have me thrown out of here.”

“I’ve already been treated pretty roughly by the inquisitors,” she said, and her lip started to tremble again. Then she made a show of a show of strength. “But if there’s anything I can help you with … A friend of Maynard’s…”

“I’d rather not misrepresent myself, Mrs. Stanhunt. Your husband didn’t count me among his friends. Our relationship was purely supply and demand.”

“I see. And you supplied—”

“I followed you around for about a week. No hard feelings. It was a job.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So that little scene in the bar—that was just part of the job.”

“I work pretty much around the clock when I get work, if that’s what you mean. I pick up my dividends where I can.” Even I wasn’t sure what that meant.

She opened a cigarette box on the coffee table and took out a cigarette, then began fussing with a pack of matches.

But she was nervous and handled the cigarette like a cigar, except for biting off the end.

“I’m still unclear, Mr. Metcalf, as to whether you’re working now.”

“I guess I am. Sorry for wasting your time.” I crossed my legs. “When you say the inquisitors treated you rough, do you mean they treated you as a suspect?”

She smiled. “That’s indirect, even for you. No, they were fairly civil. If it crossed their minds, they never said anything.”

“They didn’t ask where you were last night, during the killing?”

“I told them I was here, Mr. Metcalf. If you ask, I’ll tell you the same thing.”

“Then I don’t think I’ll bother. Let’s try another angle: Do you know a man named Orton Angwine?”

She answered fast, but the rhythm was off. “Not until this morning. I understand he had some kind of grudge against Maynard.”

“The inquisitors seem to think so. You sure he doesn’t ring any bells? Most enemies start out as friends—but I’m sure you know that. He was never in the house?”

“No.”

“Most people would say, ‘Not that I can recall.’”

She got the joke and took it pretty well. “Not that I can recall,” she repeated, mimicking my intonation.

“Not bad. But I’m in the business of unmasking liars, not helping them polish their act. What’s the story with Angwine?”

“It can’t be good business for you to go around calling people liars, Mn Metcalf. That license you carry says you’re allowed to ask me questions, but it doesn’t say I have to answer them.”

“I rely on circumstance for that Let’s put our cards on the table, Celeste. You can’t afford to brush me off. You don’t know who I might talk to next, and what I might find out. You want to know whose side I’m on—well, so do I. We’re both involuntary participants in a murder investigation, only I think you’re in a little deeper than you say. As for me, I’m a free agent. Just because I get paid doesn’t mean I get paid off. Now you want very much for me to leave with the impression that you cooperated. Which makes two of us. Only problem is, I’m wearing a bullshit-proof vest. I can’t help it. I was born with the thing. Lies bounce off me and land on the carpet like ticks picked off a dog.”

I watched her cross and uncross her legs while she thought this over. It was a sight that could lull a man into awakeness. But when I looked up, her eyes were hard.

“You make it sound like if I help you, I gain a valuable friend,” she said carefully. “But in my experience tough guys don’t make such good friends.”

The afternoon was evaporating, and I had an appointment with a doctor. Besides, this tap dance was getting me nowhere. “You keep peeling off the mask,” I said sourly. “But there’s always another one underneath.” I got up from the couch.

“Don’t go—”

“If you still want to talk to me in an hour, give me a call at your husband’s office.” I loved getting phone calls in the field—it made whoever I was visiting jumpy as hell. “After that, my office. It’s in the index.”

Suddenly she was up out of her seat and pressed against me in all the right places—which on her was almost anywhere. She couldn’t know what a mistake that was. I pushed her back against her chair, but not too hard.

“You bastard.”

I brushed at my jacket with the flat of my hand. “I understand,” I said. “You’re scared of something.” I paused in the doorway. “Say good-bye to the kitten for me.”

In my car I opened the glove compartment and laid out a couple of lines of my blend on a map of Big Sur. I snorted them off the blade of my pocketknife until I stopped shaking, then cleaned it up and started driving back to Oakland.

I drove along Frontage, which runs between the highway and the bay. The sky was clean and blue. I tried to concentrate on it, to keep my mind off what I’d just had in my arms and pressed against my body, as well as the fact that I made my living picking the scabs off other people’s lives. But the day I can’t shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I’m washed up for keeps.

Don’t call me silly.

THE LOBBY OF THE CALIFORNIA WAS CLEAN OF INQUISItors, which is the kind of clean I like. I walked through it to the elevator and pushed the button. I was a few minutes late for my appointment with Testafer, thanks to my reverie by the ocean, but if my bluff had worked, he’d be waiting. And I was sure my bluff had worked. I’d done a job for Stanhunt, and Testafer’s affairs were all mixed up with the dead man’s. He would wait on the chance that I knew something.

I sat on the same couch and waited for the nurse to come out so we could resume our clever banter, but for a long time nobody appeared. Then a stout, red-faced man with nervous eyes and neat clothes came out of the back room. His hair was full but completely white, which served to heighten the effect of his ruddy complexion. He wasn’t dressed to see patients, but I had a feeling it was Testafer. I stood up.

“My name is Metcalf, Doctor.”

“Very good,” he said, but he didn’t look like he meant it. “I’ve been expecting you. Follow me.”

I followed him into the office in the back. He sat down at Maynard Stanhunt’s desk, only this time the nameplate read GROVER TESTAFER, followed by a string of initials. He folded his hands across the desk, and I could see that they were as white as his face was red.

“Jenny tells me you have some of the office files in your possession.”

“Something got garbled in the translation, Doctor. I keep all my files right here.” I tapped my head. “I’ve got nothing of yours.”

“I see. I suppose I have to guess why it is that you wanted to see me.”

I tossed my photostat on the desk. “I want to see you for the usual reason. I’m conducting an investigation, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. I can’t be the first.”