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there.”
    â€œHow did Jane Rust die?”
    â€œPreliminary says overdose.”
    â€œDrugs?”
    â€œSleeping pills.”
    I looked at him.
    Arbuckle said, “What’s the matter, you don’t know what sleeping pills do?”
    â€œI know what they do. I also know she said she couldn’t take them.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œShe couldn’t swallow pills. Made her sick.”
    â€œI don’t know anything about that and I could care less. Coyne and Rust are yesterday’s news, understand? In fifteen minutes, I got a story conference in the executive editor’s office on thirty-six pages of today’s news.”
    â€œAnybody else here that knew her better than you did?”
    Again the exaggerated breath. “Let’s make a deal, okay? I give you two names and the rest of the day to poke around here. After that, I see you in the building again, I call the cops to kick your ass off the premises. Seem reasonable to you?”
    â€œWhat are the names?”
    â€œMalcolm Peete and Liz Rendall. They’re both Gee-Ay’s and knew Jane as well as anybody could. Okay?”
    â€œThanks for your consideration.”
    â€œDon’t mention it. Close the door behind you.”
    When I pulled the door shut, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked into a face badly weathered by the elements, so long as you counted alcohol in with wind and rain. His eyes were bleary, his nose a road map etched in red. The hair was gray, but given the booze his age could have been anywhere from me to sixty.
    He said, “You’re here about Janey.”
    â€œWord travels fast.”
    â€œThe drums, fellow traveler. The drums tell all.”
    He didn’t seem stiff, just overly metaphorical. “Can you point me toward Malcolm Peete?”
    He extended his right hand. “At your service. I plan to get stinking drunk to mourn the poor girl’s passing. Care to join me?”
    I shook his hand. “Only for one.”
    â€œDrink or bottle?” he said as he moved to the closest desk and wangled a tweed sports jacket off the back of its chair.

Four
    â€œA NOTHER?”
    â€œNot just yet, thanks.”
    Peete shrugged, filling his own glass from the liter of Smirnoff he’d persuaded the bartender to leave with us. It didn’t take much persuading in the Watering Hole. Six stools over were two truckers tossing shots-and-beer, sawdust on the floor to soak up any sloshed Bud draft. Wooden bowls of pretzels and peanuts, mixed together, clattered on the oft-wiped old mahogany. No butcher block or ferns in sight.
    â€œThey’ll be here someday, you know,” Peete said.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe nouveau gentry, who else? There is a limit to which even sweetly slumping Nasharbor can sink before urban renewal rears its ugly, and unwanted, head.”
    â€œI haven’t seen any warning signs so far.”
    Peete threw back three fingers of vodka and reached for the bottle again. “You’ve but to open your eyes to see the waste about to be destroyed around you. Poor Janey was panty-deep in the current efforts before she grew weary of the good fight.”
    I figured I would have to move pretty quickly to get straight answers from the man. “She said something to me about a development story.”
    â€œYes, development. Or, to be precise, redevelopment. Has an encouraging ring to it, ‘redevelopment.’ As though society has already tried nobly and failed, but has gleaned something from the initial effort which will improve the next one.”
    â€œWhich effort are we talking about here?”
    â€œThe Harborside Condominiums, Limited. Limited, that is, by the peculiarly polyester vision of its principal partner, one Richard Dykestra, the Horatio Alger of our modest metropolis.”
    â€œI haven’t seen many likely buyers.”
    â€œNo, no and you won’t, good sir. You see, the buyers aren’t going to be