“It did. One of the band members was Devon Hawley—I believe he was one of your last clients.”
No reaction.
I angled for a soft connection of the eyes. “And Devon Hawley was murdered last week.”
Gladstone took this with a frozen frown and stared down the blank TV screen like he hoped it would turn back on. Then he looked back to me. “Murdered?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I barely knew him,” he blurted. “And I don’t know about any band.”
“But…he did hire you.”
“Yeah, so?”
“What did he want you to find out?”
Gladstone grumbled. Then: “Garbage. He wanted to look into a fellow that was killed in prison a million years ago. And his girlfriend, the runaway, she—” He stopped himself, shook his head a little in bafflement, then squinted in disgust. “Hawley was murdered?”
“He was.” I scooched a little closer. “What were you saying about the girlfriend?”
He tightened his grip around the cane. “Nothing, I didn’t say anything. I told you, I barely knew Hawley—”
“But you got here. Is that what brought you here?”
“Huh?” One beat too fast.
“Was…she here? The runaway?”
“You know you got a hell of a nerve busting into my place and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Mr. Gladstone—c’mon. This is our racket. And I’m trying to be a pro—just like you.”
His jaw went hard, so did his eyes—he didn’t go for these little I-Spy affinities. Through gritted teeth he said, “I got nothing for you.”
I scooched closer. “But you were saying something about the girlfriend, Cynthia, Cinnamon—”
At the mention of her nickname, his countenance transformed by centimeters, his color went high. The data was uploading to his eyes, hiding behind a firewall.
“Nothing,” he repeated. “I got nothing.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, changing tactics, staying soft. “So maybe just tell me why you came here—and why you stayed.”
Staring contest—young Jew vs old Jew.
I smiled. “Spill it, grandpa.”
“Why should I?” he cackled.
“ ’Cause I’m not leaving till you do?”
Now he pointed the cane like a weapon. “First you tell me who you work for—Hawley?”
I shook my head. “I told you, Hawley’s dead.” In a swift parry, I yanked the cane from him, put it aside. “And there’s nobody here to protect you.”
“You don’t scare me,” he spat out. “You’re a wimp.”
“True,” I said. “But I’m a thirty-seven-year-old wimp and you’re an octogenarian wimp. Odds are, I can take ya.”
He glared at me like a cornered animal—then the cell on the coffee table vibrated and rang: FG SECURITY. We both stared at it, frozen. He reached for it; I grabbed his arm with one hand, grabbed the phone with the other, chucked it toward the kitchenette—it went skidding like a hockey puck across the lime parquet, ricocheting off the oven. He didn’t flinch, the composed geezer—another member of the seen-it-all-done-it-all club. The phone kept ringing. I pushed the cane farther away.
When it stopped ringing, he said, “You getting any good leads?”
I shook my head.
“ ’Course not. ’Cause there are none.” He hoisted himself up and walked himself slowly to the kitchenette, but I got up and blocked him. He gently nudged me out of the way, picked up the phone and rested it on the kitchen island. There was something measured in his movements, like those of a man who had vowed to never do anything sudden ever again. Then he turned to me with a resigned sulk. “What do you want from me?”
“Just to know what happened here.”
“Here?” He gestured to the avocado living room.
“Yes, as in, what are you doing here? They brainwash you?”
“Brainwash? My God, you’re a cornball.” He laughed, and for the first time I saw the handful of teeth in his big giddy mouth.
