From the Corner of His Eye

place?"
        "He's an attorney, and this grieving husband comes to him with a big liability case. There's money to be made."
        "Even if he thinks maybe the wife was pushed?"
        Nolly shrugged. "He can't know for sure. And anyway, he didn't get the pushed idea until he'd already taken the case."
        "Cain got millions. What was Simon's fee?"
        "Twenty percent. Eight hundred fifty thousand bucks."
        "Deduct what he paid you, he's still close to eight big ones ahead."
        "Simon's a good man. Now that he pretty much knows Cain pushed the wife, he doesn't feel better about representing him just because the payoff was big. And in the current case, he's not Cain's lawyer, so there's no conflict of interest, no ethics problem, so he's got a chance to set things right a little."
        In January 1965, Magusson had sent Cain to Nolly as a client, not sure why the creep needed a private detective. That had turned out to be the business about Seraphim White's baby. Simon's warning to be careful of Enoch Cain had helped to shape Nolly's decision to withhold the information about the child's placement.
        Ten months later, Simon called again, also regarding Cain, but this time the attorney was the client, and Cain was the target. What Simon wanted Nolly to do was strange, to say the least, and it could be construed as harassment, but none of it was exactly illegal. And for two years, beginning with the quarter in the cheeseburger, ending with the coin-spitting machines, all of it had been great fun.
        "Well," Kathleen said, "even if the money wasn't so nice, I'd be sorry to see this case end."
        "Me too. But it's really not over till we meet the man."
        "Two weeks to go. I'm not going to miss that. I've cleared all appointments off my calendar."
        Nolly raised his martini glass in a toast. "To Kathleen Klerkle Wulfstan, dentist and associate detective."
        She returned the toast: "To my Nolly, husband and best-ever boyfriend."
        God, he loved her.
        "Veal fit for kings," said their waiter, delivering the entrees, and one taste confirmed his promise.
        The glimmering bay and the shimmering amber candlelight provided the perfect atmosphere for the song that arose now from the piano in the bar.
        Although the piano was at some distance and the restaurant was a little noisy, Kathleen recognized the tune at once. She looked up from her veal, her eyes full of merriment.
        "By request," he admitted. "I was hoping you'd sing."
        Even in this soft light, Nolly could see that she was blushing like a young girl. She glanced around at the nearby tables.
        "Considering that I'm your best-ever boyfriend and this is our song…"
        She raised her eyebrows at our song.
        Nolly said, "We've never really had a song of our own, in spite of all the dancing we do. I think this is a good one. But so far, you've only sung it to another man."
        She put down her fork, glanced around the restaurant once more, and leaned across the table. Blushing brighter, she softly sang the opening lines of "Someone to Watch over Me."
        An older woman at the next table said, "You've got a very lovely voice, dear."
        Embarrassed, Kathleen stopped singing, but to the other woman, Nolly said, "It is a lovely voice, isn't it? Haunting, I think."

Chapter 61
        
        NORTHBOUND ON THE coastal highway, headed for Newport Beach, Agnes saw bad omens, mile after mile.
        The verdant hills to the east lay like slumbering giants under blankets of winter grass, bright in the morning sun. But when the shadows of clouds sailed off the sea and gathered inland, the slopes darkened to a blackish green, as somber as shrouds, and a landscape that had appeared to be sleeping forms now looked dead and cold.
        Initially, the Pacific could not be seen beyond an opaque lens of fog, Yet later, when the mist retreated, the sea itself became a portent of sightlessness: Spread flat and colorless in the morning light, the glassy water reminded her of the depthless eyes of the blind, of that terrible sad vacancy where vision is denied.
        Barty had awakened able to read. On the page, lines of type no longer twisted under his gaze.
        While always Agnes held fast to hope, she knew that easy hope was usually false hope, and she didn't allow herself to speculate, even briefly, that his problem had