FORTY

It had taken Pam nearly the entire day to track down Abigail and Natasha, the two women from Kid Charlemagne’s. She had had to tell them lies, different lies to each, but she had managed to have coffee with Natasha, the hostess who had quit, and a glass of wine with Abigail before her shift. Pam had a gift for lying. That was how we met, through a series of her lies. Although I too could lie with as little effort as it took to blink, I’m not sure I ever got completely over how Pam and I came to be together. Even after Pam saved my life, I couldn’t forget her lies. Most of the time I was fine with it. She had just been doing her job. I knew that was true. True or not, it rang hollow, the way my words must’ve sounded to my first wife Katy when she discovered I’d been lying to her about her brother Patrick’s disappearance since before we were married.

Pam’s hard work had gotten her only so far.

“Abigail was very cooperative. She told me that a couple of months ago some of the crew from Kid Charlemagne’s went to the bar next door to the restaurant for drinks one night after work. They did that sometimes, nothing unusual about it. As it got later and later, the crowd thinned out until only she, another bartender, one of the other cooks, and Tillman were left. She said she liked older men and Tillman was handsome enough. They had flirted around a little bit. Then she started feeling weird, not sick exactly, just light-headed, and she went to the bathroom to throw some cold water on her face. When she came out, Robert Tillman was standing there. He opened his hand and there was a pill in his palm. He told her to take it, that it would make everything feel better. When she refused, he shoved her back into the bathroom and tried to force it down her throat. She spit it out, kicked him in the nuts, ran out, and caught a cab. Said she really doesn’t remember getting home and woke up still in her clothes like twelve hours later. She told her boss and Tillman was fired.”

“And the other woman, Natasha?”

“Nice girl, but fragile. She wouldn’t talk. She was scared shitless. When I brought up Tillman’s name, I thought she would snap in two.”

“Doesn’t make any sense. If Tillman was blackmailing her or even if he was just a pig and had pulled the same stunt with her as he had with Abigail, he’s dead. Dead is dead.”

“Maybe not,” Pam said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Listen, Moe, no matter how I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong, she wouldn’t. Finally, when I saw I wasn’t getting anywhere with her, I did a variation on Abigail’s story and told her Tillman had tried it on me. She began shaking like crazy and when I put my hand on her to try and calm her down, I could feel she was cold sweating. She asked me if he was still threatening me too.”

“What?”

“That’s what she said, Moe. ‘Is he still threatening you?’ When she saw the confusion in my eyes, I saw betrayal in hers. She knew I was lying and ran out.”

“This is nuts. The one thing we do know here is that Tillman is dead.”

Pam smiled a sad smile. “Well, Natasha doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Holy shit!” I smacked myself in the forehead. “It’s all right here.”

“What’s all here?”

“The answers,” I said.

“To what?”

“To everything.”

“Everything?”

“Almost.”

“Did the Mafia kill JFK?”

I kissed her hard on the mouth. “I said almost everything, wiseass. I’ve got some calls to make.”