82 Desire

should hang up, but he’d just said five or six magic words.
    The man kept talking. “In fact, I’ve already paid you half. Why don’t you check under your doormat? Go ahead. I’ll wait for you.”
    She put the phone down on the table.
    Lamar asked, “What’s up?”
    “I’ve got to go see something.”
    The cashier’s check was for $750. She gave it to Lamar and picked up the phone again.
    The client said, “Fifteen hundred dollars for one week’s work—a day’s, really. But you need to finish out the week so they don’t get suspicious. Now, I know what Allred paid you: He let you keep your paycheck from United. Where else you gonna make this kind of money?”
    He had a point. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was sure more than she could get any other way, and it would buy her more time to get her career going.
    “What do I have to do?” she said.
    “Just what you did before. That’s all there is to it. Get that file again.”
    Talba exhaled. If he wanted the file, he probably wasn’t the murderer. “Are you saying you never got the file from Allred?”
    “Girlfriend, he was dead when I got there. What does it take to get you to believe that?”
    “Don’t ‘girlfriend’ me, asshole. You don’t have a real good record of telling the truth where I’m concerned. Besides, you roughed me up.”
    “I didn’t kill Allred, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “Who did?”
    “Frankly, I couldn’t care less. I just want the damn file.” He hung up.
    She turned to Lamar, whose nose was already wrinkled in disapproval. “Who the hell was that?” he asked.
    “The guy in the ski mask. He just offered me a job.”
    When she had outlined it for him, he said, “Uh-uh. No way. You’re not doing it.”
    That irritated her. She said, “Oh, shut up, Lamar. I don’t know who you think you are.”
    “Talba, Allred was killed for the damn file. Did you ever think about that?”
    “How dumb do you think I am? Of course I thought about that.” She was steaming.
    “If the client was supposed to get it and the place was ransacked, and now he doesn’t have it, what does that tell you? Whoever killed Allred for it would kill you to keep him from getting it. And that’s on the off-chance Ski Mask isn’t the murderer. Uh-uh. Too many variables. Uh-uh and no.”
    “You go fuck yourself, Lamar.” Something about his attitude was making her downright evil.
    He didn’t stalk out, as she’d intended. He enfolded her in his arms. Perverse bastard , she thought, and kissed him.

Nine
    PUTTING THE CHECK under the mat was a risk, but worth it to Ray. From the looks of the cottage, Talba needed money the worst kind of way, and half of fifteen hundred dollars ought to be damn persuasive.
    He needed her to do this job. He knew she could get hired again, he knew she could get the file, and besides, he liked her. She was bright and she was computer-literate and she had the right demographics. How many detectives had those qualifications?
    Besides, now that Russell Fortier was high-profile, anybody Ray went to was going to be suspicious. He didn’t need that, and he didn’t need screw-ups. He needed to get the damn job done.
    He was a good ten years older than these assholes and they’d outwitted him, betrayed him, cheated him, and caused him to lose everything.
    His daughter was on scholarship at Vanderbilt, and she was working as a waitress to stay there.
    His son was at UNO because there was no money to send him anywhere else.
    He and Lucille were living in a stupid little rented house with only one bathroom.
    A year ago they’d had a gorgeous, reproduction plantation-style house on the North Shore with four bedrooms, a sunroom, three baths, granite on the kitchen counters, and marble on the bathroom walls.
    Not bad for a kid from Shreveport who lucked into a few things, like an education and a wife who more or less fell from heaven and landed at his feet. He’d had some luck; no question about it, he’d been lucky as hell.
    He’d also worked his butt off. And he was smart. Or so Cille said, and it had to be, considering where he’d come from. He had to admit it might be true—he was the third son of an alcoholic electrician who used to beat him for studying. His dad absolutely could not stand watching him with a book in one hand and a pencil in the other. He had no idea why not, but Cille had theories. She said it had to do with low self-esteem and not wanting his son to do better than he had.