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practical joke to me, but to justify my retainer I had to at least go through the motions. “Know of anyone who might want to smother Roger with a pie?” I found it impossible to ask such a question and sound serious.
    Carol didn’t laugh, though. She burrowed sideways into her chair and bounced her answer off the wall. “No, no one. Roger hasn’t any enemy in the world.”
    I treated my next question pretty much as a joke, too. I asked her if she had seen anyone hanging around outside her studio this morning when Roger left, maybe someone packing a loaded pie.
    No, she told me without so much as cracking a smile, she hadn’t seen anyone. She got up, poured herself another drink, but didn’t offer to do the same for me.
    Better lay off, I figured. The lady obviously had no sense of humor. “I talked to Jessica Rabbit this morning,” I said soberly. “She gave me a slightly different version of the story I got earlier from you.”
    “How so?”
    “According to her, it was Roger who underwent the big personality change that broke up their marriage. She says he became an ogre. You see any evidence of it in your work with him?”
    She twisted the ends of her hair around her index finger. “None. She’s lying. Roger’s the same sweet bunny now as he’s always been.”
    “She also said that Roger made up that bit about Rocco DeGreasy promising Roger his own strip. She says the rabbit has no talent.”
    Carol slammed her drink down on her coffee table. “I don’t know whether or not Rocco promised Roger his own strip. If Roger says yes, I believe him. Roger wouldn’t lie. As for Roger’s talent, the rabbit’s absolutely loaded with it. He deserves a strip of his own. I can’t see why the DeGreasys don’t give it to him. Rocco’s a tyrant, but he does know natural ability when he sees it. Which is a lot more than I can say for Jessica. Not having any talent herself, I would guess it’s probably hard for her to recognize it in others.”
    “Funny but you’re the only one with a good word to say about the rabbit. I always wonder when I see one person bucking the crowd. In my experience, the majority’s usually right.”
    She got out of her chair and traveled toward me in the kind of half-circle a ballistic missile takes on its way into enemy territory. She pointed at me, standing so close that, if either of us moved forward by so much as an inch, her fingers would hit my nose. “Now I understand. You’re going to dump Roger, aren’t you? He hired you to help him, and you’re going to abandon him, instead. You’re not in this for truth and justice. You’re in it for the money!” She jabbed me in the chest with a fingernail sharp enough to pin me to the wall. “Well, no matter what anybody says, in my book, Roger is one fine rabbit, and he deserves a lot better than he seems to be getting from you.”
    I grabbed her tiny hand. “I don’t think you understand, lady,” although quite clearly she understood only too well. “He’s my client, and I care about him, sure. But I’m beginning to suspect he’s a certified nut case. He does go to a psychiatrist, you know. Instead of a detective, I think he might need a padded room ten feet square.”
    She pulled back her hand and held it rigid and slightly away from her, as though it had to be sterilized before she could use it again. “Of course, Roger’s a touch goofy. He’s a cartoon rabbitl What do you expect him to be, Albert Einstein?”
    She yanked open her front door. I went through it sideways, to prevent her from kicking me in the pants on my way out.
    In a crazy sense I had to envy that fruitcake rabbit. I sure never had a friend that devoted to me.

Chapter •10•
    Rocco crossed his legs so that two teeny-weeny trolls, gripping opposite ends of a third troll dipped in shoe polish, could seesaw across his immense upraised oxford. When they had finished with him, the troll threesome scurried over to me, took one look at my hopelessly scarred