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at whozit’s for that frame I wanted, and get to Eileen’s office.
    “Of course I didn’t,” said Mac. “Never admit to anything. Make them prove it.”
    “Well…?” I kept working.
    “Speaking of export-import…”
    “You going to get me in on another one of your multi-level marketing schemes, Mac?”
    “I admit the water-purifier thing didn’t pan—”
    “Never admit anything,” I said, still typing. “Get on with it.”
    “I need you to do some work. Work for me.” He bent his head for eye contact. “Is all.”
    “Paid work, Mac? Or is this the local LEO cashing stamps for favours from his friend, the highly ingenious but down-on-his-luck private detective, like on TV?”
    “Why, Jim Rockford, you nasty little man,” Mac said. “I never indulge cliché.”
    “You grab a new cliché a week,” I said. “You’re hooked on cliché.”
    “I can quit anytime I want to.”
    “So quit now.”
    “Um…not
this
time, Jack, I’m afraid.”
    “Well, then I’ll be ready to help
next
time.”
    “C’mon, Jack…”
    His voice had changed. It was something like real pleading, now.
    I looked up. “This to do with the new…whatever-it-is commission?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes?”
    “Yes and no.”
    “Always is, with you.”
    “It’s…private. Sort of.”
    “Who’d you boink this time, MacDonald? Did I perchance accidentally capture the action on film?”
    “Not the places
you
go, Jack. The Rebel Inn? Jesus.”
    I looked him in the eye. “How’d you know I was there?”
    “I drove by. Just…happened.”
    “I thought
I
was the grand champeen of ‘It just happened.’”
    “The profession…
you
know…takes one anywhere.”
    “‘One,’ Mac? Another novel slice of lexical pretension,” I said.
    “One does one’s best.”
    “Well, perhaps one could get on with whatever freebie fricking favour it is that one wants from one’s—incidentally, rather neglected—friend.”
    “Here’s the deal, Jack—”
    “And, speaking of deals, one will be receiving some sort of compensation, I presume?”
    “One will. I’m sure, I’m…confident one will.”
    “To state the query with maximum directness and economy …what?”
    “I couldn’t squeeze a dime out of the commission, Jack. Not for this.”
    “Didn’t Chief Larry and Mayor Wharton dump in zillions?”
    “Um…yeah. Sure. But the task force mandate…”
    “I thought it was a ‘commission.”
    “It’s…complicated.”
    “Enlighten me.”
    “Well, the task force is part of the commission. Sort of.”
    “So who’s on this task force?” I asked.
    “Well, there’s me.”
    “And…?”
    “Um…
you
, Jack.”
    “So the official staffing of this task force is…one?”
    “Um…slightly less, actually.”
    “Stands to reason,” I said. “And I’ll be paid in…Chinese food?”
    “Probably some of that, yes. I think the task force could see its way clear to—”
    “Gasoline?”
    “Count on it. Don’t know where I’ll—but, yeah, count on it.”
    “Tailor-made British shirts, perhaps?”
    He brightened at that. “Actually, given we get someone to take the measure of your…ample girth, perhaps we
could
arrange—”
    “Impromptu dates with fabulous babes?”
    “I’m not a miracle worker, Jack. And I wouldn’t even know where to look for the types
you
go for.”
    “Educated? Erudite? Able to use ‘postmodern’ in a sentence? Given to witty, improvisational uses of excerpts from the later Wittgenstein?”
    “
Those
I could find,” he said. “It’s the fifty-something bimbos in hoop earrings and lip gloss and spandex jeans I don’t know.”
    “I’m looking for the whole package—all in one.”
    “Vassar by way of Vegas, as it were.”
    “Right.”
    “Good luck with that. Besides, man, you’re
sixty
. Just about to turn, what, next couple of months, as I recall…?”
    “MacDonald,” I said. “There may be snow on the roof—”
    “And not much of that.”
    “I’ve been striving for the Bruce