52 pickup

In the foyer she took off her coat and draped it over a chair. It was when she paused then, listening, that she knew someone was in the house. There was no sound that she heard; she sensed it. Someone was here, now.

Alan Raimy was sitting in a big chair by the fireplace, his legs crossed, an attache case on the floor at his feet.

He watched Barbara come into the living room: nice tan legs in the short te

He said, "Slim, I'll tell you what I'm going to do."

Barbara turned abruptly to see him fifteen feet away from her in the easy chair: a bony, pale-looking young man with long hair, wearing a dark business suit, sitting in Mitchell's chair. She noticed his boots and the attache case.

"I'm going to give you a personalized monthly accounting service," Alan said. "Take care of all your bills and expenditures for a low three-and-a-half-percent charge, guaranteed to be accurate or we eat the difference."

"Who are you?"

"In fact, that's our motto. Silver Lining Accounting Service-we satisfy or we eat it."

"How did you get in here?"

"I walked in, Slim. I knocked, nobody answered. The door was open so I walked in."

Barbara kept her voice cold, dry. "Well, would you mind getting up now and walking out?"

"For example," Alan said, "I figure you got about an eight-, nine-hundred-dollar mortgage payment. You got all the credit cards ever invented and you spend in excess of four thou on monthly bills, right?" Barbara stared at him and Alan shrugged. "All right, let's say four for right now."

"I'm going to ask you once more-"

Alan held up a hand. "Another couple hundred for restaurants. You sign because it's easier, am I right?"

"Or I can call the police," Barbara said.

"What for?"

"What for? You walk in my house, you refuse to leave-"

"I didn't refuse to leave. You haven't given me a chance."

"All right, you've got it. Now get out."

Alan took his time rising, picking up his attache case. "Forty-two hundred times three and a half, that's roughly, in round figures… five fours are twenty, three fours are twelve… about a hundred and forty bucks a month, you never have to balance another bank statement. How does that sound?"

"What's the name of your company?"

"Silver Lining Accounting. I told you."

"What's your office phone number?"

Alan started across the room. "That's all right, I'll get back to you. Never inconvenience the customer, put them to any trouble."

"Give me the number," Barbara said. "Or your card."

Alan patted his side pocket. "I ran out of cards." He smiled at her then. "Don't worry, Slim, we'll be in touch."

He walked through the foyer and out the front door.

Barbara reached the door, opening it again partway, to see him crossing the lawn to the street. He waited at the edge of the pavement. After only a few moments a white Thunderbird appeared and rolled to a stop. The bony, pale young man got in with his attache case and the car continued up the street.

Barbara turned again to the living room. From the arched entranceway she looked around. Nothing seemed to be out of place. She ran upstairs to the master bedroom, went directly to her dresser and took out the case that held her good jewelry. Nothing was missing. She looked around. The room didn't seem to have been disturbed.

She knew she should call the police. But she'd have to wait here for them and answer questions and what, specifically, could she tell them? It hardly seemed worth the trouble-in the light of eternity, or just in the light of current events. The bastard. She began to change, taking off her te

"I see the car pull in," Leo Frank said, "and I think, Christ, what's he going to do?"

"I was upstairs," Alan said. "You can't ever get caught upstairs. They don't believe shit they catch you upstairs. But she stayed in the car a while like she was sneaking a smoke. So when she comes in I'm sitting in the living room in my blue suit."

Leo drove carefully, watching the speedometer, as the Thunderbird followed Long Lake Road east, through a rolling wooded residential area of large homes set far back from the road. Leo didn't know the area and it made him nervous to be here. He was anxious to hit Woodward and turn south, toward the hazy skyline of the city.

"I gave her Silver Lining Accounting Service," Alan said. " 'We satisfy or we eat it.' "

"Silver Tongue Service," Leo said. "You chow-hound."

"She's not bad," Alan said. "It wouldn't be bad duty at all."

"I'm surprised you didn't proposition her."

"Who says I didn't?" Alan sat with the attache case on his lap, his palms flat on the leather surface, his bony fingers drumming slowly, in silence.

"Well," Leo said, "you going to tell me what's in there, or what?"

"You won't believe it."

"Tell me. Let's see if I do."

Alan's thumb snapped the brass fasteners open. "You ready? Ta-daaa."

"Come on, for Christ sake."

Alan opened the case. "I got a sport coat."

"Yeah." Leo glanced over. The coat was folded neatly to fit in the case and seemed to fill the inside.

"I got a shirt. Underneath."

"Yeah."

"I got a tie. Just in case."

"Sharp-looking tie?"

"He doesn't own one. And I got-you ready for this? The fucking good luck jackpot award of all times." Alan raised the coat, folded, out of the case and Leo glanced over again.

"Jesus Christ," Leo said.

"A genuine no-shit thirty-eight Smith and fucking Wesson, man," Alan said. "How's that grab you? The piece, the paper that goes with it and a box of thirty-eights."

"Jesus Christ," Leo said again. "You're hoping for something like that going in, unh-unh, never in a million years."

"Clean living," Alan said, closing the attache case. "It pays off every time."

6

Mitchell waited.

Ross's hand was now up under the waitress's brief skirt, resting on her can. They were at Ross's table, the good table in the corner where he believed no one could ever see what he was doing.

"Do you still love me?"

The girl smiled, holding the order pad in front of her with both hands. " 'Course I do."

"Then when the hell are we going to consummate it?"

She smiled again. "Two of the same?"

"How about this weekend?" Ross said. "We'll go up north. You're a good girl, I'll take you up skiing next winter."

The girl wrote something on the pad. "I'll have to ask my mother."

"Your mother skis?"

"Vodka martini and a Bud," the girl said, and took off through the Motor City Mediterranean decor, through the roomful of businessmen having the businessmen's lunch at the tables with maroon lamps and maroon checkered cloths.

"Irene's twenty," Ross said, "but she's got the mind of a fifteen-year-old. I'm sorry, what were you saying? About the plant problem."

"No," Mitchell said patiently, "I told you we'd handle that."

"Right. I tell you we're putting in some improvements at the lodge? I mean big ones," Ross went on. "Blasting out a couple of hills, making the runs longer, putting in a couple more chair lifts. You don't ski, do you?"

"No. I never tried it." Mitchell wanted to say something, but he waited too long and Ross was off again.

"I look for a dynamiter, you know, for the job. I have to go all the way to Colorado to get a guy who knows what he's doing."

"There was something I wanted to ask you," Mitchell said.

"What?"

"Remember the day we went to all the go-go bars? About three months ago."

"Vaguely."

"We met a girl the last place, sitting at the bar."