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"Hard way to "

"So you love it"

"Do I? I suppose so"

"Of course you do"

"I guess It's satisfying when you can keep ha until it starts todoes" We were on dessert now, soooey honey cake, too sweet for ht us Moroccan coffee, which was the same idea as Turkish coffee, very thick and bitter, with powdery grounds filling the bottoood day's work That's satisfying But I's at once?"

"Probably, but nobody's payingwhether or not Richard Thurman killed his wife"

"You're working on it"

"Ahts, with the excuse that he was producing the telecast I established several things I established that he's the kind of guy ill take off his tie and jacket when he's working And he's spry, he can cliain without breaking a sweat I got to watch hiirl a pat on the ass, and-"

"Well, that's so for hiif he can play grab-ass with a tootsie two months after his wife's death"

"Two and a half months," I said

"Same difference"

"A tootsie, huh?"

"A tootsie, a floozie, a bi He wasn't exactly playing grab-ass He just gave her a pat"

"In front of millions of people"

"They should be so lucky A couple hundred people"

"Plus the audience at ho a commercial Anyould it prove? That he's a coldhearted son of a bitch who puts his hands on other women while his wife's body has barely had tirave? Or that he doesn't have to put on an act because he's genuinely innocent? You could see it either way"

"Well," she said

"That was Thursday Yesterday, relentless fellow that I ain joint with hi at opposite ends of a crowded subway car, but ere both actually in the sa"

"And last night I had dinner at Radicchio's, on the ground floor of his apart special The pasta was pretty good We'll try it sometime"

"Was he in the restaurant?"

"I don't even think he was in the building If he was ho in the dark You know, I called his apart all those other calls so I called hiot his e"

"I hope he'll find that as frustrating as I always do"

"One can only hope You knohat I ought to do? I ought to give Lyman Warriner his money back"

"No, don't do that"

"Why not? I can't keep it if I don't do anything to earn it, and I can't seem to think of a way to do that I read the file the cops built on the case, and they already tried everything I could think of and more"

"Don't return the ive a daot killed and if he thinks he's doing so about it he'll have a chance to die in peace"

"What a?"

"If he asks, tell hi him for more money-"

"God, no"

"- so he'll have no reason to think that you're hustling him You don't have to keep theto earn it Give it away Give it to AIDS research, give it to God's Love We Deliver, there are plenty of places to give it to"

"I suppose"

"Knowing you," she said, "you'll find a way to earn it"

THERE was a ht and there was a long line that neither of us felt like standing in We walked around for a while, had soirl folksinger in a no-cover club on Bleecker

"Long hair and granny glasses," Elaine said "And a long ginghas sound the same"

"Well, she only knows three chords"

Outside I asked her if she felt like listening to souard? Pick a place"

"I was thinking maybe Mother Goose"

"Uh-huh"

"What's that supposed toI like Mother Goose"

"So do you want to go?"