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hyena caught in the bowels of a kill.
    “Bobby, do the women you date ever go out to eat with you more than once?”
    “Sure, babe.” He licked his fingers with the dedication of a cat. “The women of today realize that a man with a hearty appetite has a keen appreciation for other pleasures of the flesh, know what I mean?” He wiggled his eyebrows at me and har-harred, causing a rope of half-eaten cheese to fly out of his mouth and across his desk. A lesser man would have apologized and whisked it from sight. Bobby plucked it from the telephone and dangled it in the air as he chewed at one end with undisguised gusto.
    I stared. He chewed. I stared some more.
    “What?” he finally said, defensively.
    “This whole thing sucks,” I told him. “Nash was a good guy and you should have seen what that fire did to him. He looked like a giant spare rib. I’m not touching meat for at least ten years.”
    “They got any idea who did it?” Bobby asked.
    I shook my head. “I was thinking about looking into it on my own. He does have quite a few hours left on his retainer fee.”
    Bobby probed the corners of his lips with a fat red tongue for stray tomato sauce. “Casey,” he said with a gentle belch, “what we need are live clients, not dead ones. Let the cops handle it. They won’t let you get near it, anyway.”
    “If the cops won’t let me near it, that’s all the more reason why I ought to look into it on my own,” I told him. “I owe it to the poor guy.”
    Bobby rolled his eyes. He is only sentimental about women, and not even women if they happen to be clients, too. “Face it, babe, the guy gave you the hots and you’re sorry you never had a chance to tango. That’s what this is about.”
    “It is not,” I said indignantly. “It’s about honor. I said I would protect him.”
    “It’s about hormones. He was your type. Tall. Brown hair. Kept bumping into things.”
    “That’s my type?” He made it sound like I enjoyed dating Great Danes.
    “No, but he was breathing. And that is your type.”
    I punched him on the arm. My fist sank harmlessly into a sea of flesh. “I’ll be in my office if any new clients come in,” I told him.
    “Don’t worry, I’ll send them your way. Hey, did I show you my new gizmo?” He started to open his desk drawer and I stopped him.
    “Bobby, we agreed. No more new gizmos. I don’t want to see it.” But it reminded me. “How do I get the film in that cigarette pack camera developed?”
    “Leave it with me, babe,” he said. “I need something to do to occupy the afternoon. I’ll drive out to the spy shop and drop it off.”
    Yeah, while he waited out those long lonely hours between his afternoon snack and his dinner. I handed the cartridge over for processing. I was curious to review just how Thomas Nash had spent his last afternoon. Maybe I’d spot something I’d missed the first time around that would point toward his killer.
    Unfortunately, my good intentions died within half an hour. Exhausted by my night vigil at the fire, I fell asleep at my desk with my cheek resting on a roll of scotch tape. I woke in the early evening, alone in the office, with a dent in my face centered bynd center what looked like a boil the size of Cleveland. I wasn’t about to visit any of my regular haunts with the outline of a giant snail on my face. So I drove home to Durham and resumed my fitful sleep in bed.
    All night long I dreamed of fire and smoke, awaking at intervals, choking for breath and certain that I was trapped by flames. By morning—which was a long time coming—I knew that I had to somehow find the money to ignore my other cases, so I could find out who had killed Thomas Nash. If not, I’d be trapped in my own private hell forever.
    If your intentions are pure, the universe will further them. I know because two weeks later, after a depressing but financially necessary fourteen days of boring divorce cases and missing persons work, a stunning woman in her