"Did my big detective get all worn out working all day?"

Tino appeared at the patio door.

"May I bring you something, sir?"

I smiled gratefully.

"A gimlet," I said. "Make it a double."

Tino nodded and disappeared.

"I talked to Lipshultz," I said. "I also talked to Mrs. Les Valentine."

Linda raised her eyebrows. "Muffy Blackstone?"

"Woman maybe forty-five," I said. "Looks like someone pasted the head of a schoolteacher on the body of a Varga girl."

"That's Muffy. Though I'm not sure I like you noticing the body."

"Just doing my job," I said.

"She's Clayton Blackstone's daughter. He's a friend of Daddy's. Very wealthy. At forty she married for the first time, a nobody. The Springs was in an uproar."

"What do you know about Les?"

"Very little. No money, no distinction. It is assumed he married her for her money. Clayton Blackstone is perhaps wealthier than Daddy."

"Heavens," I said.

"He seems quite a drab little man," Linda said.

"Yeah," I said. "Probably has a run-down office someplace, over a garage."

"Oh, darling," Linda said. "Don't be such a bastard."

Tino appeared with a large square glass set on a squat stem. He took it carefully off the tray and set it down on a napkin by my elbow. He looked at Linda's glass, noticed it was nearly full and went silently away.

"What does Clayton Blackstone do?" I said.

"He is wealthy," she said. "That's what he does."

"Like your daddy," I said.

Linda smiled brightly. I sipped some of the gimlet. It was clean and cold and slid down through the desert parch like a fresh rain.

"Hard to make all that money," I said, "without getting your hands a little dirty."

"Daddy never said that."

"No, I'll bet he didn't."