Scam

police cars, looking at the building where the cops had gone, and occasionally looking at me.
    I was in the back of Belcher’s car. The minute he found the girl, Belcher had dragged me out of the apartment, down the stairs, and out to his car, where he had handcuffed me in the back seat before phoning it in. The handcuff went around my right wrist, through a metal bar in the door, and around my left wrist. The cuffs were tight, the bar in the door was about an inch thick. I wasn’t going anywhere.
    I sat in the back seat, reflecting on what I’d just seen.
    The girl had been crumpled on the floor in the living room of her apartment. She’d apparently been shot in the chest. The light yellow pullover she was wearing was stained with blood. The bullet had penetrated one enormous breast and entered her heart.
    It occurred to me that was quite a feat.
    A half hour later Belcher came out. He opened the door, slid in next to me on the back seat. Too bad. I’d have preferred him in the front, with the metal screen between us. Still, it didn’t seem a good time to argue.
    “Okay,” Belcher said. “Consider yourself Mirandized. No one’s taking this down, but it’s no excuse to get cute. Anything you say could dork you, and probably will. On the other hand, you have the right to remain silent. Should you choose to exercise that right, I will beat the living shit out of you. You got it?”
    “That seems fairly clear,” I said, and wished to hell I was wearing a wire. It was the first time Belcher’d ever let the facade slip. Flat out told it like it was. After waiting so long to hear it, it was almost a relief.
    “Good,” Belcher said. “Now, I want a straight answer. How’d you happen to find the girl?”
    “Just detective work.”
    Belcher’s face darkened. “I said a straight answer.”
    “You did, and that’s it. I found her through detective work. I deduced where she was. You want me to tell you how I did it?”
    “I would strongly advise it.”
    I jerked my thumb. “The night I followed her home she took a cab to that corner. I figured she either lived on Third, or a few doors in on 85th. I figured the cab didn’t turn on 85th ’cause it was one-way. I figured she lived on the north side of the street, ’cause the cab stopped on the northeast corner. I figured she had to live closer to Third, or she’d have had the cab go around to Second.”
    Belcher blinked. “You expect me to buy that?”
    “I don’t expect anything. I’m just telling you what happened.”
    “How come you don’t remember any of this the first time you told your story?”
    “Not a case of remembering. I told all the facts before. This is just what I figured out from them.”
    “Oh, sure,” Belcher said. “Days later you make this miraculous deduction. What happened, you figure it was time we found the body?”
    “I figured it was time we found the girl. I had no way of knowing she was dead.”
    “No, of course not,” Belcher said. “Super says you asked if he’d seen her lately. You implied there was something wrong and asked him to open the door.”
    “He hadn’t seen her lately. And she hadn’t been to work.”
    “So you decided she was dead?”
    “Or skipped out. In which case, she was probably involved.”
    “Right,” Belcher said, sarcastically. “You thought she’d skipped out. You were hopin’ to get into her apartment to find some signs of flight.”
    “Frankly, that would have been a relief. I was afraid of something like this.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she was involved in the scam. And everyone involved in the scam is dead.”
    “What scam?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “Yeah,” Belcher said. “You wanna try again?”
    “Huh?”
    “Give it to me again. How you found the girl.”
    “I told you how I found the girl.”
    “No, you didn’t. You gave me some fairy story about cabs and one-way streets. I’m askin’ you point-blank, how you knew that body was there.”
    “I didn’t know it was there.”
    “Yeah, sure,” Belcher said. “How’s your math?”
    “Huh?”
    “How’s your math? You pretty good at arithmetic?”
    I blinked at him. “Arithmetic?”
    “Yeah. Tell me, punk, what’s two plus one?”
    I blinked again. “What?”
    “Two plus one. Two plus one. Whatsa matter, these too hard for you? I’m tryin’ to figure two plus one.”
    “Would three be the answer you’re looking for?”
    Belcher pointed at me. “Harvard man. I knew with a little prompting, you