The Best American Mystery Stories 2005

I put my bourbon aside. “It’s not a drink for beginners,” I said.

“You’re not a beginner,” he said. She’d overmeasured or maybe some of the ice had melted — the glasses were brimming full. Carefully, carefully, she walked them both over, nearly teetering “All those fishbowls I had to carry in Miss Brimley’s class,” she said. “Finally coming in handy. To us, Mr. Jones. To our good health.”

I didn’t drink. “Where is she?” I said.

Davis shrugged, which was a sight to see, each shoulder rising and falling, like a sheet in the wind. “I don’t know. Probably in some summer cottage of Timothy Speed’s. Dyeing her hair or however that goes. Everybody wants to join the circus when they run away from home, but that might be too easy. He’d look for her there, maybe. But a dead girl’ll need money.”

“Speed could help her sell the necklace,” I said.

“That’d be a start,” she said, and sighed. “When did you figure it?”

“When you reached for those glasses,” I said. “Nobody ever remembers to look up. The drink broke the window and made them look the wrong way. Just the time she needed. They took a trip to the basement, they took a trip to the roof, and by the time they got back from the roof she was out the front door like a person. Speed left a car maybe.”

“And Gregor? Really dozing, you think?”

“Really dozing, I think,” I said. “Without shoes she could tip toe past him. Or maybe he could lie to the cops after all. Maybe he watched her swing down from that chandelier, as skinny as she was, and let her go after all the fights he saw. She must have been very scared.”

“Scared?” Davis said. “She hatched a plan to ruin her husband. It’s like he said. They’ll never charge him but he’ll never be mayor, either. He’ll just be a rich guy who got away with murder.”

“That’s what he is anyway,” I said. “That’s why she was scared. Scared to fall. If she fell it’d be the end of her — maybe from hitting the floor, or maybe from her husband hitting her. It was a risk. Even an acrobat. Even someone who’d whittled herself away to almost nothing.”

“Then she had almost nothing to lose,” Davis said. She took a sip and pursed her lips. It’s a bitter drink, or maybe bitter’s not what I mean. It’s sharp and sour. It’s complicated. It’s difficult to get down unless that’s the sort of thing you like. “I feel that way myself sometimes,” she said. “Almost nothing, or maybe that’s just Chet Baker nudging me to say that. You think I was wrong not to tell him.”

“You told him where the drink went,” I said. “That’s enough for someone like that. Without a body they won’t charge him. He’ll never know for sure. Maybe Timothy Speed will even blackmail him.”

“Or just keep overcharging him for furniture,” Davis said. “Wesson never made any rugs. The whole point of a Wesson is the sheer lines of the place. The floors are bare so you can see the wood.”

“Callahan Jeffers,” I said, “would never see the wood.”

“Not for the trees,” Davis agreed. She put her drink down and walked to the jukebox with one of Jeffers’s damp bills. She punched a number in and her hair just slayed me in the red lights shining inside the machine that sits in the Slow Night waiting for people to ask it to sing. I tried the drink myself but didn’t like it, but I liked watching the tilt of the surface of the drink as I moved the glass, like water too cold to swim in. When we’re alone like this the room sinks in a bit, like we’re locked away from all the people. There are some who can’t stand to stay in a room like that but this is my regular spot, right here at the bar where I can see her. Time and time I want to tell Davis that I love her, but of course she’s so smart — of course she is — there’s no way she hasn’t figured it our already.