True-Life Adventure

why should Lindsay be any different? No reason at all. Either Brissette or Tillman or both of them had been murdered. That was the only way it added up.
    Most people probably don’t figure probabilities that way, but it was good enough to throw a renewed scare into me. I was now approaching the Women’s Bank of the Golden State and hoping I’d find Joan in one piece.
    I went in. I don’t know what I expected, it being a women’s bank and all, but it was just like any other bank. There was some wood and some marble and some glass and some of the tellers were men and some were women and that went for the customers as well.
    Joan was in her office on the second floor. She had a finely molded face like Lindsay’s, but larger lips and much darker hair, which was frizzed but still managed to look neat. She had blue eyes and a tawny, almost orangy complexion. Her dress was a couple of shades lighter than her skin and it had blue stuff at the neck, sleeves, and hem that more or less matched her eyes. Intellectually, I knew the effect was a bit contrived, but given a choice of, say, one hundred fifty interesting things to look at and one of them was Joan in that dress, I’d have chosen Joan. Another thing about the dress— it sort of clung, and not only that, it sort of wrapped around, so that you always thought it would slip a bit and you’d get a glimpse of cleavage or leg, but it never did and you never did.
    I figured if I were some guy she was doing business with, I’d be so distracted I’d be helpless. But what the hell— men dress to intimidate; women have to have strategies, too. Whatever works, you know?
    “Sardis called about you,” said Joan. The hand she gave me was sweaty. “She said you work for the Chronicle but I should trust you anyway.”
    I sat down. “Have the police talked to you yet?”
    She nodded. “This morning.”
    “So you know about Birnbaum.”
    “Yes.” Her lips were very tight.
    “He tried to blackmail you, didn’t he?”
    “What are you trying to pull?” The gorgeous shoulders tensed under the clingy dress. Joan’s fingers closed around a letter opener, and the way her face looked, I figured she’d just as soon cut my liver out as not.
    “Whoa. Joan, whoa. I’m on your side.” I spoke softly, as softly as I knew how, but I didn’t see the shoulders untensing. The blue eyes were very, very scared.
    I tried speaking quickly: “I think Jack tried to blackmail a lot of people. It was his m.o., that’s all. I don’t want to know what he threatened you with— I mean what information he had, if he had any…” I was starting to stammer, but she was relaxing. “I just took a guess, because that was the way he was. I’m not trying to pull anything.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, and now the eyes were filling with tears. “He was a horrid little sleazoid.”
    “He did threaten you?”
    “Yes.” She leaned way back in her chair and looked very sad now. “There
is
something in my past. Something that could lose my job for me. Or at least keep me from going anywhere from here. It would be the end of my career if anyone knew. Do you understand?”
    Since Sardis had filled me in, I understood perfectly. A lady who’d been in and out of loony bins was never going to make it big in banking. If anybody knew, that is. I nodded, to signify understanding.
    “Oh, God, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” She was getting scared again, probably remembering that I worked for the Chronicle .
    “Look, Joan. Someone’s tried to kill me twice. They burned my house down last night. I’m not here to ruin your career. I’m here to warn you. They may want to kill you, too.”
    She laughed. I kid you not. She laughed. “Me? Who’d want to kill me?”
    “I don’t know that anyone would. But let me ask you something. Did Lindsay talk to you about her boyfriends?”
    “Some.”
    “Two of them have died in the last twenty-four hours. Jack Birnbaum had talked to them. He also talked to you.”
    She laughed again. “You think someone’s systematically killing everyone he talked to about Lindsay?”
    “No, I don’t think it’s that. I don’t know what to think, except that people who were close to Lindsay are getting killed.” I don’t know why I used the past tense. I didn’t even notice that I did.
    Joan stopped laughing and her eyes filled up again. “You think Lindsay’s dead?”
    “I hope not.”
    “Why do you think that?” Joan spoke very harshly,