Read When the Thrill Is Gone for Free Online Page B

his wife.
    “Mr. Tyler?” I asked.
    The man hung back, not passing through the secret doorway immediately.
    “Mr. McGill?”
    “That’s right,” I said brightly.
    He rested a finger on the door frame.
    “I’ve been looking through your books,” I said. “I don’t think there’s another collection like this in the whole world.”
    He brought his hands together and came through into the brown-on-brown-on-brown room.
    “Have a seat, Mr. McGill,” he said. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”

8
    I FELT AS if I were at an audition where a scene was being reenacted by successive thespians going out for the same role. The new aspirant shook hands with me before going to the chair that the previous actor sat in.
    Cyril Tyler, if this was indeed Cyril Tyler, had a fleshy and moist handshake. He went around the big brown hippopotamus and sat, moving with exaggerated gestures as if he were a much larger man. This more than anything inclined me toward believing that he was who he said.
    I returned to my branded chair, put my elbows back on its arms, and made that big fist with my hands.
    “How can I help you, Mr. McGill?” he whispered.
    I could barely hear him but resisted the temptation to lean forward.
    “Come again?” I said loudly.
    He smiled and then gave a slight grin.
    “How can I help you?” he repeated only slightly louder than before.
    I smiled and nodded, not for him but for myself. The reason I was in this dissembling profession was that I lied as much as my clients, not to mention the subjects of my investigations. I couldn’t trust them, but they couldn’t trust me, either—whether they knew it or not.
    And my lying was always the best. I could tell you something that was ninety-nine percent truth, but the way I told it would be completely misleading.
    “A woman came to my office this afternoon, Mr. Tyler. She said her name was Chrystal Chambers-Tyler and—”
    “Chrystal?” he said, at a perfectly normal volume.
    I nodded and continued. “She said that she wanted me to work for her. It seems she’s missing a valuable piece of jewelry and is afraid to tell you about it.”
    “Afraid? I don’t understand,” he said, his eyes darting around the room as if there was some strange sound coming from behind the brown walls.
    “I didn’t either,” I said. “She was obviously a rich and successful woman, the wife of a very wealthy man. Why would she be worried over a necklace that cost less than a million dollars?”
    Tyler stood up—unconsciously, I thought.
    “Where is she, Mr. McGill? And what do you mean, ‘afraid’? What did she say about me? About us? What was she wearing?”
    There was nothing commanding or dominant about the billionaire. He wasn’t far from fifty but looked younger. There was something boyish about him that the years had not worn away. Tyler was the classic milksop who happens to be a billionaire but reads adventure stories so that he can imagine himself a hero in a world where deeds and not money mattered.
    I liked him.
    “An off-white dress and a gold chain with a single pearl,” I said, remembering the picture Bug’s program showed me. “She said that the missing necklace could be the last straw on the back of an already strained relationship. That’s a quote.”
    “What strain? There’s nothing wrong between us.”
    My lie was gaining momentum.
    Even though I liked the man, I had no desire to let him get ahead of me. I took in a breath through my nostrils and held it three times as long as normal. I did this because I was beginning to lose myself to a feeling more dangerous than anger. I was becoming distracted by the puzzle of the man and woman, and maybe the woman and man pretending to be them.
    “You know women, Mr. Tyler,” I said. “They get squirrelly at the strangest moments. Maybe she’s worried about you kicking her out if she lost something so valuable . . .”
    “Never.”
    “Or maybe,” I surmised, “maybe she’s knows what’s