"Okay," said Karp. "I should've been straight about it. I'm a cryptic son of a bitch, all right? But… if what Crane suggested to me checks out, if we could really crack the assassination…" He waved his hands, speechless before the magnitude of those "ifs."

"Big time, huh?"

"Not just 'big time.' If you want to know, it's mainly not working for the clown anymore. It's eating me up. Crane's a real guy. It'd be like Garrahy again."

Marlene took the little silvery pot off the stove and poured herself two ounces of tarry liquid into a squat clear glass cup. She put half a cube of sugar into her mouth and slurped the coffee past it until the sugar was all gone.

"Well. You shouldn't be eaten up. Except by me, of course." She smiled, faintly, not the real Marlene thousand-watt room-lighter, but a smile, and welcome.

"I haven't said I would yet, Marlene," Karp said, smiling back. "It's still not a done deal."

"I see in your eyes it's a done deal, babe. You want it, you oughta go for it."

He reached across the table and grasped her hand. "Okay. That's good. I'll call him tomorrow and tell him we're coming. It'll be okay, Marlene. Moving-it's not the end of the universe or anything."

"No, 'cause I'm not moving."

He cocked his head as if he hadn't heard her. "What?"

"What I said. Go do it! I'll keep a candle burning in our little home against your return. I mean, how long can it take, solve the crime of the century? For you? Couple of weeks, tops."

"Marlene, this is serious…"

"Yeah, you keep telling me. I'll tell you what else is serious. Ripping our life apart is serious. Dumping my career. Taking Lucy away from her grandparents and everybody she knows. Leaving our home. Serious stuff, and what's the most serious is that I can tell you haven't thought much about it. You hear crime of the century and Bert Crane, another solution to your perpetual lost-father complex, and you're off and running, and let old Marlene deal with the little details."