Requiem for a Realtor by Ralph McInerny Page B

flowed down her cheeks. She had to blink to get Joe into focus. Then she took him in her arms and began to sob. Nobody was more surprised than Joe. He looked over her head at Cy with a silly pleased expression.
    â€œWe work together,” he explained. He spoke into her hair; he had little choice. “Wanda, we’re going for a drink. Come on along.”
    She stepped back and looked at him with anger. “Now? Tonight?” She didn’t hit Joe, although she seemed to consider it. They all watched her leave, a treat in itself.
    â€œYou work with her, Joe?”
    â€œThat is Wanda Janski,” Joe said, as if they should have known. “She sings at the Rendezvous.”
    â€œBut not tonight.”
    â€œYou heard her.”
    â€œSo let’s go somewhere we can see one another.”
    At that hour, the sports bar across from the courthouse was all but empty. They took a booth and ordered a couple pitchers of beer. When those were gone, they ordered another. Joe didn’t drink much. “I see too much of it.”
    That left a lot of beer for Cy and Phil. On the third round, Agnes Lamb came in, sober as a probation officer. She pulled up a chair. Joe, who was a bit of a racist, decided to have a glass of beer after all. A mistake. After three glasses, his tongue was thick, and he wouldn’t shut up.
    â€œI knew the guy. He drank at my bar. He was, well, not a friend exactly, but someone I knew. That makes it different. It hits you, someone you knew…”
    â€œWho’s he talking about?” Agnes asked.
    â€œStanley Collins.”
    â€œDid Cy tell you we found the car, Captain?”
    â€œWhere?” Joe asked.
    â€œIn the parking lot at some dive called the Rendezvous.”
    â€œDive,” Joe protested. “I work there.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œHis car?”
    Agnes nodded. “Pour me another.”
    â€œRight there in the parking lot?” Joe asked.
    â€œNot twenty-five yards from where the body was found.”
    â€œWhat do you make of that?”
    Agnes thought about it. “I don’t think he was driving it.”

10
    The talk around the press room at the courthouse was of the way Stanley had been killed, and Bob Oliver wondered how many of the reporters knew that the victim was his brother-in-law. It wasn’t something he had bragged about.
    â€œIt wasn’t a hit-and-run,” Tetzel said in an authoritative voice.
    â€œHe didn’t get hit by a car?”
    â€œSure he did. But it was his own car.”
    Everybody began to talk at once. Bob Oliver left unobtrusively while Tetzel’s pronouncement had everyone’s attention.
    He took the elevator to the main floor and then walked around the rotunda, thinking. Which meant he was going around in circles, literally and metaphorically. His first thought was of Phyllis. God knew she had reason enough to run Stanley over. If it came to that, and if she was brought to trial, she would probably get a standing ovation from the jury when they found out how Stanley catted around.
    Something Verdi had said to him displaced this thought. The manager of the Frosinone had walked into Luigi’s the other night with Flora on his arm and he seemed to steer her in Oliver’s direction.
    â€œHow’s the intrepid reporter?”
    Oliver was trying not to look at Flora.
    â€œThis is my wife,” Verdi said, and he might have been a crowing rooster.
    â€œHi,” Flora said, and her manner seemed to promise professional discretion.
    â€œMy third wife, to be exact.”
    â€œIt’s best to be exact.”
    Was the idiot serious? But Verdi was dumb enough to marry one of the escort girls who worked out of the Frosinone.
    â€œCongratulations.”
    â€œOh, we’re divorced,” Flora chirped.
    â€œWhich is it, Verdi?”
    â€œBoth.” Why was the manager grinning?
    â€œWe’ve met,” Oliver said.
    â€œI know.”
    And off they went