Bitter Business

to think. But whatever happened, I don’t think it was a coincidence.”
    “You live in a lawyer’s world,” Blades said carefully. “Where you live, actions have consequences and riddles have answers.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Nothing. I just want you to be prepared for the fact that this business with Dagny Cavanaugh and Cecilia Dobson may not end up the way you think.”
    “Why? How do you think it’s going to end up?”
    “I’m a policeman. I’m not paid to think. I’m paid to find out.”
    Before I could press him for an explanation, a redfaced man opened the door just wide enough to stick his head in. Between his beefy shoulders and the door frame
    I could see that he held a man in handcuffs by the scruff of the neck. The man was bleeding profusely from his nose, which resembled nothing more than a quarter pound of raw ground round. I could hear the faint pat, pat , pat of drops of blood landing on the tile.
    “Wordell Jones says he wants to talk to you about the Jonavich shooting,” the red-faced man said.
    “Put that worthless piece of shit into the big interrogation room and tell him he’d better not bleed all over everything before I get there or I’ll tear him a new asshole,” Blades snarled.
    The head withdrew and the door closed.
    “You have quite a way with people,” I said.
    “It’s the job.” Blades grinned. “It teaches you the subtle art of conversation.”
     
    It was almost midnight before I got home from the office. The time it was taking to deal with the Cavanaughs was cutting into the rest of my cases to the point where I dreaded even the sight of Cheryl’s carefully typed to-do list. I drove home fighting exhaustion, slipping an old Warren Zevon tape into the player and turning the volume all the way up so that I could sing along with “Lawyers, Guns and Money” in order to stay awake.
    The apartment was empty when I got there, the red light on the answering machine blinking in the dark. I switched on a light and pushed the button to rewind the tape—one message. I kicked my shoes off and began gratefully shedding the trappings of the workaday world—earrings, jacket, panty hose—as I stood listening to Elliott Abelman’s voice asking me to meet him for breakfast at the Valois at seven the following morning to discuss the Cavanaugh case.
     
    The next morning I chose the grubbiest running clothes I could find—a pair of stretched-out leggings that sagged dramatically in the rear and an old turtleneck in a pustulent shade of green that I’d bought in college to wear as part of my Halloween costume the year I went as an iguana. I crowned the whole ensemble with a hot-pink baseball cap advertising an ulcer medication made by Azor Pharmaceuticals. When Elliott looked at me he was going to see the name of Stephen’s company directly above my face.
    On the steps in front of my apartment I stretched my hamstrings. The sun was out—brilliant and warm. The snow was melting into little rivers on the sidewalk. Birds seemed to have appeared from nowhere, along with a half ton of rapidly thawing dog shit. Aaaah... springtime in the city.
    I launched myself into a five-mile loop that took me south through the university and back up again to Fifty-third Street. Pushing it the whole way, I managed to cut three minutes off my usual time and arrived at the restaurant, sides heaving and soaked with sweat, at five minutes to seven.
    Elliott was already waiting for me, leaning up against a parking meter in jeans and a worn jacket of soft brown leather. He had the Tribune open to the sports section, which he closed when he saw me.
    The Valois is a neighborhood institution. True Hyde Parkers pronounce the name of the storefront restaurant so that it rhymes with boy. As long as anyone can remember, the “See Your Food” cafeteria has served up hot, cheap food to the students, bookies, cops, pimps, and petty thieves that parade through its doors daily—home cooking for people who barely have a home.
    Pete, the surly Greek short-order man, was behind the counter taking orders, flipping pancakes, and shouting at Adele, his nemesis at the cash register. Elliott ordered two eggs over easy, grits, biscuits, coffee, and orange juice.
    “What you want?” demanded Pete, turning his rheumy eyes on me.
    “Coffee, please.”
    “You don’t want nothing else? No eggs? No potatoes?”
    “No thank you.”
    “Come on, honey, you got to put meat on those bones,” urged