Chapter 15.

Jimmy Lish's place was on the second floor of a walk-up above a dry cleaners, which had closed at 5.30.

The sign on the door was tastefully lettered James P. Lish, photography, appointments only.

It was a nice job, and made the person reading it begin to forget the narrow wooden steps they had just climbed,

or the smell of solvents that crept up

from the first floor. He had certainly paid more for it than he did for the lock on the door,

which was 30 years old if it was a day, and would have taken me no more than six seconds to get

past if it had actually been locked. As I pushed the door gently opened, I looked at Trixie,

and she pulled the barretta from her handbag.

It wasn't the most reliable handgun on the planet, and I suspected that she had selected it because it looked nice, but it did, and I wasn't prepared to argue the point.

We crept into the office and saw immediately that Jimmy Lish might be a smut peddler and a blackmailer,

but nobody was going to mistake him for a housekeeper. There were loose papers everywhere,

and several of the drawers on the row of filing cabinets were left hanging open. The smell was actually

stronger. I don't know how he stands it in here, I said. Trixie stepped over to the window and

pried it open. That's not the cleaners, she said. That's gasoline. How can you tell, I said,

sniffing the air. If you had your suit cleaned's gasoline.' "'How can you tell?' I said, sniffing the air.

"'If you had your suit cleaned more than once a year, you'd know the difference,' she said.

"'Get the light.'

The office looked worse under illumination.

This place was not just a normally occurring mess.

"'It's been tossed,' I said.

"'You think?' Trixie said.

...