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the loft.
    Paul McCarthy sat alone at a corner table. Hawker had met him only once before, but he realized again that McCarthy looked less like a cop than he did the junior partner of some respected law firm. McCarthy wore a navy blazer and gray worsted slacks. The grin was boyish and the brown hair—worn stylishly long—seemed to represent a personal balance between the excesses of the late sixties and the responsibilities of the eighties. He stood when he saw Hawker and waved him over.
    â€œThe legend walks,” McCarthy chided, “but is the legend hungry?”
    â€œDon’t let your hand stray near my mouth or you may lose it. Is the food any good here? Or did we just come for the cosmopolitan atmosphere?”
    â€œHey, don’t knock The Three Sisters yet. Let me tell you about the place. Three Amishmen started it. Built the barn themselves, put in the kitchen, actually milled the wood to make the tables. Almost all the food they serve here comes off the farms from an Amish community outside Pontiac. They make their own breads, pies, everything.” McCarthy closed his eyes momentarily in an attitude of reverence. “And James, James, the beef is … is heavenly. It’s the best. Period. It is unbelievable. They feed the steers especially for the table. Hand-feed them nothing but corn and—here’s their secret—homemade beer.”
    â€œBeer?”
    â€œGreat, huh? A quart a day. All that barley and malt really fattens ’em up. Keeps them happy too. The Amish can’t drink it, so they feed it to their private herd. The results, James, are beyond description. It didn’t take long for the word to get around, so the place started filling up. It got so popular that the Amish families finally decided to just tend to producing the food and overseeing the kitchen, and turned the rest of the responsibilities over to a manager. The quality of the food didn’t go down, but now they can serve alcohol. Speaking of which …”
    Hawker signaled the waitress and ordered a bull-shot because of the cold and a Strohs because beer was his favorite drink. She placed menus in front of them, smiled, then walked off wag-hipped toward the kitchen.
    Hawker stirred the alcohol into the beef bullion then took a sip of the bullshot. “So where is Detective Riddock? I thought he was having dinner with us.”
    McCarthy’s expression was unusual. Hawker thought it a mixture of confusion and amusement. He said, “Riddock’s always late. It’s a character flaw. But it’s good in a way, because I want to talk to you first.”
    â€œSure.”
    McCarthy studied the scotch in its heavy crystal tumbler. “First, I need to fill you in on what happened when we showed up at the porno offices on East Jefferson.”
    â€œLet me guess: The body was gone.” Hawker smiled.
    â€œWrong. The body was still there. The dead man’s name arrived from the coroner via fingerprinting: Solomon Goldblatz, alias Solly Golden, alias Steven Grosvenor—”
    â€œSteven Grosvenor?”
    â€œThere’s a little bit of the wistful WASP in all of us.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œGoldblatz was a small-time crook but a really big-time slime. I’m talking about a real major-league puke. Officially, he was mostly a con man. There were several characters he used. One was the brilliant researcher who needed backers before he could go ahead with the experiments that would make his investors rich. What he was supposedly trying to discover varied, but usually it was a cure for arthritis or cancer. He and his people kept an eye on the obituary columns, and when someone with money died, Goldblatz was at the widow’s door before the body was cold in the ground.”
    â€œAnd the donations were usually much bigger when the deceased died of the Big C.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œCharming guy.”
    â€œYeah. Another one of his characters was a