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father, or his girl friend…. I’m just trying to find out why it couldn’t be you.”
    He shook his head. “I can’t do anything to prove it. Except that I don’t know how to handle a gun—but I’m not sure I could prove that to you.”
    I laughed. “You probably could…. What about Masters?”
    “Yardley? Come on! The guy’s one of the most respected people you could hope to find at Ajax.”
    “That doesn’t preclude his being a murderer. Why don’t you let me know more about what Peter did there.”
    He protested some more, but he finally agreed to tell me about his work and what Peter Thayer had done for him. It just didn’t seem to add up to murder. Masters was responsible for the financial side of the claim operation, reserving and so on, and Peter had added up numbers for him, checking office copies of issued drafts against known reserves for various claims, adding up overhead items in the field offices to see where they were going over budget, and all the dull day-to-day activities that businesses need in order to keep on going. And yet… and yet… Masters had agreed to see me, an unknown person, and a detective besides, on the spur of the moment. If he hadn’t known Peter was in trouble—or even, maybe, known he wasdead—I just couldn’t believe his obligation to John Thayer would make him do that.
    I contemplated Devereux. Was he just another pretty face, or did he know anything? His anger had seemed to me the result of genuine shock and bewilderment at finding out the boy was dead. But anger was a good cover for other emotions, too…. For the time being I decided to classify him as an innocent bystander.
    Devereux’s native Irish cockiness was starting to return—he began teasing me about my job. I felt I’d gotten all I could from him until I knew enough to ask better questions, so I let the matter drop and moved on to lighter subjects.
    I signed the bar tab for Sal—she sends me a bill once a month—and went on to the Officers’ Mess with Devereux for a protracted meal. It’s Indian, and to my mind one of the most romantic restaurants in Chicago. They make a very nice Pimm’s Cup, too. Coming on top of the Scotch, it left me with a muzzy impression of dancing at a succession of North Side discos. I might have had a few more drinks. It was after one when I returned, alone, to my apartment. I was glad just to fling my clothes onto a chair and fall into bed.

3

That Professional Touch
    Peter Thayer was protesting capitalist oppression by running wildly up and down the halls at Ajax, while Anita McGraw stood to one side carrying a picket sign and smiling. Ralph Devereux came out of his office and shot Thayer. The shot reverberated in the halls. It kept ringing and ringing and I tried seizing the gun from Devereux and throwing it away, but the sound continued and I jerked awake. The doorbell was shrilling furiously. I slid out of bed and pulled on jeans and a shirt as a loud knock sounded. The fuzziness in my mouth and eyes told me I’d had one or two Scotches too many too late in the evening before. I stumbled to the front room and looked through the peephole as heavy fists hammered the door again.
    Two men were outside, both beefy, with jacket sleeves too short and hair crew-cut. I didn’t know the younger one on the right, but the older one on the left was Bobby Mallory, Homicide lieutenant from the twenty-first district. I fumbled the lock open and tried to smile sunnily.
    “Morning, Bobby. What a nice surprise.”
    “Good morning, Vicki. Sorry to drag you out of bed,” Mallory said with heavy humor.
    “Not at all, Bobby—I’m always glad to see you.” Bobby Mallory had been my dad’s closest friend on the force. They’d started on the same beat together back in the thirties, and Bobby hadn’t forgotten Tony even after promotions had moved him out of my dad’s work life. I usually have Thanksgiving dinner with him and Eileen, his warmly maternal wife. And his six