Celebrity in Death

he’d front me. I don’t do that kind of thing—gamble. I can’t afford to. And I don’t play with money I don’t have in the first place. So I said I’d pass. I had work anyway.”
    “Okay.”
    “It could be he played too deep, lost what he didn’t have, or needed to get more from his office.”
    “Did he keep money there?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe.” His eyes tracked to the door as Barbie let loose another spate of sobs.
    “My partner’s good with the grieving,” Eve told him.
    “Yeah, okay.” Bobbie pressed his fingers to his eyes, took a couple long breaths. “Okay.” Dropped his hands back to the desk. “Anyway. It could be he got into it over the bet, and whoever he owed or was there to collect killed him. But—”
    “Kill him, you don’t get paid,” Eve finished. “But we have to check these things out. Do you know where he played yesterday?”
    “They move around. I think he said he was picking it up in Chinatown. The thing is—Lieutenant, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    “The thing is, yeah, A liked to play, but he wasn’t stupid about it. I went with him a couple times, and I never saw him play past his limit, never used a marker, never swung toward the high-stakes, break-your-legs-if-you-welsh kind of game. He just liked to play, have some fun at it. So I don’t see it going here.”
    “You see something else.”
    “Maybe. Listen, do you want some coffee?”
    “I’m good, thanks.”
    “I’m just going to get some coffee.” He rose, went to a shoe box–sized AutoChef on a short counter. It made ominous grinding noises, then clunking ones. “I’ve got to replace this piece of crap.”
    He pulled out a mug, and the steam sent out a scent worse than Morris’s morgue coffee.
    “I don’t know if it’s anything. But …”
    “But.”
    Bobbie sat, sipped, winced. “God, this is truly horrible. A asked me some legal questions, hypothetically. Bought me a beer the other day, made it like conversation. But I’m not stupid either.”
    “Did he hire you?”
    “No, or I wouldn’t be talking to you. It still doesn’t feel right, but he’s dead. Not just dead. Murdered. I liked him, a lot. Everybody liked A.”
    “What was the hypothetical?”
    “He wondered if somebody had something come into their possession, and they requested compensation of a monetary nature for that something from an interested party, how much legal hassle would there be? I asked straight out if he was talking about stolen property, and he said no. Just a kind of memento. Nothing exactly illegal.”
    “Exactly illegal,” Eve repeated, and Bobbie managed a faint smile as he choked down another swallow of coffee.
    “Yeah, I caught that, too. I said I couldn’t tell him specifically since I didn’t have specifics, but if he had something that had come to him, without crossing the law, requesting compensation shouldn’t be a problem. But if that something was legally the property of the interested party, or obtained by illegal means, he was in a very shadowy area.
    “He said something about finder’s fees, possession being nine-tenths of the law. I hear bullshit all day, and I know when somebody’s trying to rationalize. I also know sometimes A skirted the line in his work. I also know he wanted to retire.”
    “And adding things up,” Eve prompted.
    “Yeah, adding them up I told him maybe he should give this idea more thought, which isn’t what he wanted to hear. He had this thing about moving to the islands—and opening a little club or casino/bar deal. I got the feeling he saw this as a big score, something that would polish off his retirement plan. I actually thought that’s why he was flushyesterday, and asked him if he’d exchanged the memento for compensation. He said he was working on that. Then …”
    He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, still taking it in. Yesterday when he dropped in about the game, I poked at him a little about it. It just bothered me. He said how current events had changed—how did he put it—changed the complexion. How he was rethinking his position, and maybe he’d just pass the memento over to the interested party, take his bird in the hand and be done. He said how we’d grab some coffee tomorrow—today—and he’d tell me how it went.”
    Bobbie stared down at his hands. “I’m afraid it didn’t go well, at all. I’m afraid I wasn’t clear or strong enough in how I answered when he asked me.”
    “Hypothetically?” Eve waited until Bobbie