The Referral Game

started. Is that how you feel?”
    It sounded corny, like something out of a B movie or an overwrought poem, but it was exactly how I felt. I was hers.
    We sat together holding hands, touching each other’s cheeks, anything to stay in contact with each other for the rest of the day. She fed me lunch, she fed me dinner, and when I woke the next day she fed me breakfast. The food was awful, but I didn’t notice it, I had a woman who loved me.

Chapter 9

The Fox

W hen I left the hospital I wanted to take some time off, but Paula said that we were both working stiffs and getting back on the job would be the best therapy for both of us. I didn’t agree, but it was true that we needed some money coming in.
    For her part she left the club for a better paying dispatchers job at a local trucking company. I couldn’t figure out how she had landed it until I realized that it was the same company that Bill had broken up a theft ring for on their loading docks a year or so ago. I remembered him telling me about it. He must have called in a favor and gotten her the position, although he wouldn’t admit to it. He had contacts like that all over town.
    As for me the publicity, misinformed as it was as for as I was concerned, gave the business a big boost. Not a day went by without a fresh call for my services. I was actually in a position to pick and choose, instead of complaining about the rotten jobs that came my way, but still accepting virtually every one. For all my carping about domestic stuff I had taken plenty of photos of husbands, soon to be ex-husbands paying alimony, coming out of by-the-hour motels straightening their ties among other things. I had that kind of work down cold, but those days were over, at least while this ride lasted.
    For a time everything was going according to plan, my plan anyhow. Paula and I saw each other almost every day and I had cut back on the booze. My head was as clear as it had been in years. There was one catch; Paula wouldn’t take the next step with me. Two months after I was released from the hospital I asked her to marry me. I assumed it was just a formality. I thought she would cry, call my name and smother me with kisses and whatever else she had handy. It didn’t turn out that way. She hadn’t said no, but she wouldn’t say yes either.
    “Frank, a lot has happened very quickly,” she said as we sat in my car outside of her apartment. “We’ve got the rest of our lives, let’s not rush into marriage just yet.”
    I was confused and a little hurt. What she was saying made sense, but I wanted less logic and more raw emotion.
    “Honey, we’ll both know when the time is right,” she continued. “Let’s just let this pot simmer, okay? You know you can ruin a good stew if you let it boil over onto the burner.”
    I wasn’t in the mood for cooking based homilies, but I agreed to wait until she felt comfortable.
    So we drifted along for a time. We saw each other five nights a week instead of seven. It was still nice. She was still affectionate, even though I could feel a slight chill develop between us. She became irritated at any mention of the Pomeroy affair. She said it was a closed chapter and she didn’t want to talk about it or be around anyone who did. I got the message and dropped it. I could understand her feelings. She hadn’t been exposed to that side of the human condition as I had in my life. There were things that I didn’t like to talk about too and she respected that. The least I could do was reciprocate.
    Things were better for a time, then worse, then a little better. Now I remembered why I didn’t seek out relationships. We began going out only on weekends and gradually, without formally breaking up, we stopped seeing each other.

    I fell back into old patterns. The only changes were that I kept off the sauce and business was still good. I considered the possibility that the two were related and dismissed it out of hand. No sense in kicking myself while I was down.
    I worked several out of town jobs for awhile with mixed results. Two were rich kid runaways. I don’t think I did the parents any favors by finding them, but I’m not paid to judge these things. When I came back to the city I began work on a case at a family owned electronics store undercover. The owner, a guy named Paul Bristol was a vital looking man in his late fifties, couldn’t believe any of his employees, mostly long timers, would rip him off, but it was all he could figure