"I considered that, but there were notes of hope, anger, frustration, and desperation in her voice that are difficult to convincingly feign… I think I know when someone is lying or not."

He was uncannily good at reading people, even when there was a telephone in between. I could trust his judgment; it was this damned alley that put my back hairs up. Just like the other place, it had stinking trash barrels, a scrawny cat nosing through the garbage, and sludgy water tricking down the middle.

This one didn't have a body in it yet, but my mind's eye could provide.

"I have my waistcoat on," Escort added, meaning his bulletproof vest. His business occasionally required dealing with all sorts of unsavory characters—I was considered by a select few to be one of them—so I was grateful he'd bothered. How he could stand the extra weight of those metal plates in this heat was a mystery, though.

"You think you need it?"

He gave a small shrug, fingers twitching once toward the pocket where he kept his cigarettes. That told me he had some nerves after all. A smoke would have calmed him, but it was also a distraction. For a meeting with an unknown client in a dark alley he'd keep himself focused.

We glanced up at the sound of thunder rumbling a long, slow warning. I couldn't smell the rain yet, but change was in the sky. It would get worse before it got better. Storms coming down off the lake from Canada were like that.

"Crap," I said.

He grunted agreement. "If she doesn't appear before—"

We jumped when the door in the building on my left abruptly opened, filling the alley with the noise and brightness of a busy kitchen. A large man in a sweat-stained undershirt banged out with two buckets of leavings. The scrawny cat went alert and darted toward him with an impatient meow, tail up. This was a regular event. Escott must have come to a similar conclusion, but he relaxed only slightly.

The stink of cooked food fought against the rotting stuff in the garbage cans a few yards away. Fresh or foul, unless it was blood, all food smelled sickening to me. Coffee was the one exception; I'd yet to figure out why.

The big man dumped the buckets' contents more or less accurately into a trash barrel and tossed a large scrap of something to the eager cat, who seized it and ran off. The man fit one bucket inside the other, giving Escott and me a hard once-over.

We had no legitimate reason to be here, and I looked suspicious. Escott was respectably dressed, but I was in my sneaking-around clothes, everything black and cheap, because sneaking around can be rough work. The man would be within his rights to tell us to clear out or dump us into the barrel with the leavings—he had the size for it.

"You waitin' for someone?" he finally asked.

It was Escort's turn to take the difficult questions. I made sure the guy didn't have a gun or friends with guns.

"I'm from the Escott Agency, waiting for a Miss Weaver. Is she an acquaintance of yours?"

He gave no answer, going back into the kitchen. A second later, a tall, sturdily built woman hastily emerged.

She was too big-boned to be fashionable, but there was grace in her simple blue dress. A matching hat teetered on her head, barely held in place by several hatpins stuck in at various angles. The hat was an oddball thing with a brim that was supposed to sweep down to cover one eye, but now askew, as though she'd pushed it out of the way and then forgotten. She had a small purse, but no gloves. My girlfriend never left her flat without them.

"Miss Weaver?" Escott stepped forward into the spill of light.

"Yes, but not here," she whispered. She shut the door, moved toward him, and promptly skidded on something in the sudden dark. I caught her before she could fall. She gave a gasp of surprise. I can move fast when necessary, and this alley murk was like daylight to me. I decided to be kind and not tell her what she'd slipped in. Maybe that cat would come back later and eat it.

"Sorry," I said, letting go when she got her balance.

"Mr. Escott?" She squinted at me, uncertain because my partner and I have nearly identical builds, tall and lean. Our faces are very different, and I look about a decade younger even though I'm not.

"The skinny bird with the English accent and banker's suit is who you want. I'm just here for the grouse hunt."

Escott shot me a pipe down look. "I am Charles Escott. This ill-mannered fellow is my associate, Jack Fleming."

I tipped my hat.

"Mabel Weaver," she said, and ladylike, extended a hand to let us take turns shaking her fingers. She had dusty red-brown hair, a long, narrow, humped nose in a long face, and a lot of freckles no amount of makeup could conquer.

"May I inquire—?" began Escott.

"We have to be quick and not attract attention," she said, glancing toward the kitchen door. Her strong husky voice sounded unused to whispering. "The owner's an old friend and let me sneak out the back."

"Toward what purpose?"

"I'm ostensibly having dinner with my boyfriend and his parents. They're my alibi—no one else should know about any of this. I'll tell you why if you take the job."

"Which is?…"

"I heard about you through Mrs. Holguin. She said you pick locks, recover things, and can keep quiet. She said I could trust you."

Escott does everything a private detective does, except divorce work, calling himself a private agent instead. It's a fine point, allowing him to bend the law when it's in the interests of his client. He'd found it profitable.

"Mrs. Holguin's assessment is accurate. How may I assist you?"

"I need you to recover something my cousin Agnes stole from me. She's my first cousin on my late mother's side. We've never liked each other, but this time she's gone too far."

"What was taken?"

"This…"

Miss Weaver wore a long necklace with a heavy pendant dangling from it. She held it up. Escott struck a match to see. Set in the pendant's ornate center was an oval-cut yellow stone the size of a big lima bean.

She pointed at the stone just as the match went out. "This is supposed to be a nearly flawless intense yellow diamond. That color is rare, and one this size is really rare. Sometime in the last week my cousin Agnes got into my locked room and switched them. She had a copy made of this pendant, a good one—that's real white gold, but around a piece of colored glass. She thinks I'm too stupid to notice the difference."

"You want to recover the original?"

"And substitute this one, but I'll handle that part. I happen to know she is too stupid to know the difference. When I get the real one back I'll put it in a safety deposit box so she can't steal it again, but it has to be done tonight. Can you help me?"

"Before I undertake such an errand I need proof of your ownership of the diamond."

She gave a flabbergasted stare, mouth hanging wide. "Isn't my word good enough?"

"Miss Weaver, please understand that for all I know, you—"

I put a hand on his arm before he could finish. Accusing a client of being a thief using us to do her dirty work was a good way to get slapped. She looked solid enough and angry enough to pack quite a wallop.

Another, louder rumble of thunder rolled over our little piece of Chicago. A stray gust of cool air made a half-assed effort to clear the alley stink, but failed and died in misery.

"Tell us a little more," I suggested.

For a second it was even money whether Miss Weaver would turn heel back into the kitchen or give Escott a shiner, but she settled down. "All right—just pretend you believe me. The diamond is called Hecate's Golden Eye. It's been in my family for generations, passed down from mother to daughter. There's no provenance for that."

"What about insurance? Is your name on a policy?"