Ray had come up behind him.

“I wanted her to come back. I didn’t want her dead.”

“How about her boyfriend?”

“Him I wanted dead.”

“But you didn’t kill him?”

Ray’s eyes went back to the pictures. “Seven years.” He shook his head. “You know what it’s like to be with someone that beautiful when she’s in love with you? It’s like nothing else. You walk in a room and you’re the proudest man there. It doesn’t really make too much difference what else is going on in your life. I mean, my scripts. So nobody wants them. At least I’ve got Maxine, I’m worth something. You know?”

Glitsky didn’t much buy the line. His wife, Flo, was a fine-looking woman, but he sure didn’t define himself by what other people thought of her. He also noticed that Ray didn’t deny killing Rusty Ingraham. On the other hand, Rusty wasn’t officially dead yet, so he said, “Were you separated a long time?”

“Five months, eleven days today.”

Glitsky kept coming back to the pictures. There were several nudes, tasteful, also erotic. She hadn’t looked the same this morning with bullet holes in her.

“How did she get with Ingraham?”

He tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out right. “That was pathetic. You had to know her.”

“I’m trying to,” Glitsky said.

They were back sitting down. Ray was smoking an unfiltered Camel. Glitsky saw another cigarette butt with lipstick on it in the ashtray. “Pathetic, how?” he asked.

“It was the way Maxine was. There always had to be a dream. I guess it comes with being an actress. Maybe we writers have it, too. I think it’s what kept us together so long, that shared dream.”

“What was the dream?”

“Oh, the usual, I guess. Fame and fortune. She becomes a star and I write the Great American Screenplay.” He drew on his cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke. He leaned back on the couch. “Then she had the accident and met Ingraham and the dream just changed.”

“To what?”

“All of a sudden it was just the money. For some reason, Ingraham made her feel like she was too old to be a star. At thirty-three. Look at her, she’s not too old.”

Glitsky didn’t have to turn around to remember what she looked like. “But Ingraham told her she was?”

Ray shook his head. “Not so much told her as made her see that the dream-our dream-just didn’t work. It wasn’t realistic, like a dream has to be realistic. Jesus.”

“So what happened?”

“She finally saw she had a chance to make some money right away, without the rejection, without having to keep herself ready for the break.”

“How was that?”

Ray looked at Glitsky for a moment in surprise, as though he didn’t understand why this wasn’t common knowledge already. “Well, the insurance.”

“What insurance?”

“She got badly rear-ended and sprained her neck something awful. Ingraham was literally hanging around the emergency room when she came in. What a sleaze the guy is.”

Is, not was. Glitsky made a mental note.

“Anyway, Ingraham told her he could get a settlement for like a hundred grand, maybe more, and she bought that. Then she started thinking if she got that much money, she’d just invest it and retire for a couple of years. And then I became no fun because I didn’t want to do that. I’d still want to write even if I was already rich.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “But it wasn’t her dream anymore. I guess Ingraham played make-believe with her better than me.” He stared down at the floor.

Well, motive is pretty solid, Abe thought. “What do you do during the day, Ray?”

Ray looked up, the question taking him off guard. “I’m a courier downtown. Bicycle demon.”

“You mind telling me where you were last night?”

The eyes looked down and up. “I was here all night.”

“By yourself?”

Again a pause. “I’m afraid so. Does that make me a suspect?”

Glitsky gave him his best man-to-man. “You were a suspect before I got here. I’m trying to eliminate you because I don’t have the feeling you killed somebody you loved that much. Do you own a gun, Ray?”

“No. I mean, yes. Well, I did.”

Glitsky waited.

“After the accident, Maxine got-” He stopped. “It was after she moved out, actually. Living alone, she wanted the protection, she said. She got really paranoid, in fact, and finally asked if she could take it and I said yes.”

“So she had it?”

He nodded.

“And what kind was it? Maybe we’ll find it in her apartment.”

“It was just a popgun, really. A twenty-two.”

Glitsky knew the kind of wound created by that type of gun. He’d seen several of them that morning. “You know, Ray,” he said. Then he stopped himself. He’d been about to tell him he was starting to look like a pretty good suspect. In fact, if there was any physical evidence tying him to Ingraham’s barge last night, Glitsky would bring him in right now.

Ray waited.

“When was the last time you saw Maxine?”

He thought about it. “Three weeks ago, maybe. She needed some money for rent and came by here. She said, you know, when the insurance came in, we’d both have a ton anyway.”

“You were going to split that?”

He lit another cigarette. “Well, it was community property. Even if we got divorced. One of those weird times when California law helps the husband.”

“And you helped her out?”

Ray looked down at the floor again. “She softened me up first.”

“How’s that?”

Ray Weir lifted his shoulders, an embarrassed kid.

“You made love? Three weeks ago?”

Ray was nervous now. “I know it doesn’t look very good, but we are, were, still married. And she came up, looking so beautiful. Radiant, really.”

Glitsky had to ask. “With a neck brace she looked radiant?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t have the brace. She stopped needing that a couple of months ago.”

“But-” Glitsky said, remembering that Maxine had had the brace on when found dead. “Never mind, go on.”

“Well, there’s nothing more. We made love. I gave her the money. She left.” He stubbed out the newly lit cigarette. “I thought… anyway, that’s the last time I saw her.”

Glitsky let the silence build for a minute before he stood up. “Ray,” he said, “if I were you I’d get myself a good lawyer.”

“But I was here all last night. I didn’t leave the flat.”

“That’s what you said. ”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I’d believe you better if you’d made some phone calls or ordered out for pizza or something.”

Ray started to say something but stopped himself again. “Well, I guess that’s about it, then.”

Glitsky stood by the door for an extra beat while Weir held it open for him. “That’s about it,” he said.

Normally, Hardy worked from around 12:30 to 7:30 P.M. and Moses McGuire picked up at 6:00 until 2:00 A.M. So for an hour and a half almost every day they shared duties behind the rail.

“Who ordered that?” Moses was a purist. Hardy was squeezing a lime wedge over a Manhattan. Moses whispered, “Whoever ordered that, cut him off.”

Hardy looked down at the drink, seeing it for the first time. He swore and dumped it into the sink. He tapped the side of his head, grabbed a fresh glass and the sweet vermouth, and started another one. “Good catch,” he said.

“Cherry,” Moses said, “is the proper garnish for a Manhattan. You need your Mr Boston?” Referring to the bartender’s guidebook.

Hardy finished making the drink, put it in front of the customer and came back down to the front of the bar, where Moses was now sitting on his stool, talking to his sister Frannie.

“He’s like a thermos,” Hardy said.

Frannie sipped at her club soda. Hardy thought she looked fantastic-highlights in her red hair, green eyes almost laughing again. “A thermos?”

“You know how a thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold?”

“Yeah?”

“Well”-Hardy paused-“how does it know?”

Frannie smiled, impossibly attractive-sexy. Impossible because this was Moses’ little sister, about five months pregnant. Impossible because Hardy had known her since she was in high school. Impossible she had come so far -Hardy had not seen her since a couple of weeks after Eddie died. Eddie, her husband.