match the tassled shoes. He glanced at the snarl of exposed film on the floor. Then he stopped in place and raised his hands, as if to acknowledge that some sort of gun had been mentioned.
“You can relax, ” Andrew said.
Benjy lowered his hands. “You're the boss.”
“Ironic, considering I seem to be the only guy in the room who doesn't know why we're all here.”
“I can help with that.”
“That's what Trav here tells me.”
The man named Benjy took a moment to regard the man named Plum. “Nice, ” he said.
“Kiss my ass, ” Plum told him. “I didn't sign up for this.”
“Five hundred a day plus expenses, ” Benjy said. “What a joke.”
“I resent that.”
“A metal detector and Bermuda shorts?” Benjy looked at the stripped apparatus on the floor and snorted. “Where'd you learn surveillance,
Simon and Simon
reruns?”
“Okay, people, ” Andrew said. “This is getting us nowhere.”
Benjy dismissed Plum and turned back to Andrew. “I owe you an apology. And an explanation, obviously.”
“You can just skip to the explanation.”
Benjy nodded as though that suited him fine. “Can I assume by the fact that you haven't picked up that gun yet that we're starting on friendly terms?”
“It isn't even loaded, ” Plum said from the couch.
Benjy shot him a look.
“Well, it isn't.”
“Then that makes you even sadder, doesn't it?”
“You and I can start right where we are, ” Andrew said. “We'll see how it goes.”
“Fair enough.” Benjy closed the distance between them, extending a hand. “The last name's Corbin.”
“Andrew. But I'm guessing you know that already.”
“I didn't. Hello.”
Andrew noticed a few things as he shook the hand. Faint scars on the knuckles. A workingman's forearms covered by thick brambles of wheat-colored hair. Thepolo shirt had what looked like some kind of corporate logo embroidered on the sleeve.
“Nice Lincoln outside, ” Andrew said. “Do you lease or own?”
“I just drive it.”
Andrew nodded. “I thought that outfit of yours looked mandatory. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“I'm listening.”
Benjy said, “I'm going to reach around my back and take something out of my pocket. We're still friendly?”
“Sure.”
Benjy made his reach and brought back a fat envelope. He handed the envelope to Andrew.
“What's this?”
“That's the apology, ” Corbin said.
Andrew could smell the ink even before he slipped the rubber band from around the envelope. He ran his thumb along the edge of the bundle inside and estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of five grand in crisp new bills.
“I think you'd better get back to the explanation.”
“The first thing I need to let you know is that Ace over there wasn't spying on you, ” Corbin said. “At least not you in particular. We had him following a cop who seemed to be interested in this address. We wondered why. That's as far as it goes.”
“He was here again this morning, ” Plum said. “They shook hands, talked on the deck for about fifteen minutes.”
“You're fired, ” Benjy said, “so you can shut up anytime.”
Andrew said, “Who's we?”
“I retained Mr. Plum as a favor to my employer's daughter, ” Benjy said. “Heather Lomax.”
Andrew filed away the name. “And this?”
“Miss Lomax has asked me to offer that in exchange for any information you might be able to supply regarding the whereabouts of her brother, David.”
Andrew extended his arm, offering back the cash.
“You can tell Miss Lomax to keep her money, ” he said. “I don't know her brother. Or his whereabouts. I told the cop the same thing when he asked me this morning. And he wasn't paying.”
“The money's still yours.”
Andrew tossed the package. It slid across the bare floor and stopped against the sole of Benjy's shoe. Corbin looked at it. He didn't bend to retrieve it.
“If you don't mind me saying so, I get the feeling you've got more on the ball than this,
Skeleton Key, Konstanz Silverbow