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in addition to his other vices. He went through a lot of money, without—I could add, if I were that kind of person—without directing much of it at me.”
    I said, “What’s Ronnie short for?”
    She reached up and touched the fork jammed into her hair as though she wanted to make sure she’d used the sterling. “Veronica. What name is hiding behind Junior?”
    “Junior,” I said. “It’s my name. My dad was named Merle, and he wanted to name his son after him, but wasn’t going to hang
Merle
on me, so he called me Junior. Veronica’s a pretty name.”
    “A little long,” she said. “There’s something about a fourth syllable—”
    “I really hate to break in on all this,” Louie said, “but I’m sure you got a lot to do.”
    “Not really,” Ronnie Bigelow said. “I’ve exhausted the thrill of scouring. Have you had lunch?”
    “I haven’t even had breakfast,” I said.
    She looked at me as though I’d just told her I was scheduled for a heart transplant and I was too busy to go. “Oh, that’s not good. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
    “I keep hearing that,” I said, “and I’m sure it is, to the people who eat it.”
    “This money thing,” Louie said.
    “So.” She looked at Louie but pointed at me. “He’s quick, and you’re focused. Is that how it works?”
    “He’s focused some of the time,” Louie said.
    “Well, then,” she said. “It’s interesting that the police didn’t ask me about this.”
    “About the additional opportunities for income?” I asked.
    “Of course. It should have occurred to them, shouldn’t it? Here he is, Derek. He developed damaging information about people with money. That’s what he did for a living. He had the ability to get that information into supermarket lines all around the world with nothing more than a keyboard and an Internet connection. So he could take it two ways, couldn’t he?”
    “Sure,” I said. “How often did he take it the other way?”
    “Often enough to keep his nose running,” she said.
    “For example.”
    “Okay. Thad Pierce, you know Thad Pierce?”
    “That series,” Louie said. Louie watched a lot of television. “
Black Lightning
or something.”
    “Right,
Black Lightning
. Thad Pierce is the nation’s top-rated stud. Mister Cool-Tattoos-Ultra-Macho-Series-Star. Well, Mr. Pierce is a big fan of
America’s Next Top Model
.”
    Louie said, “So? Me, too.”
    “But he’s
really
a fan. He’s such a fan he has a stenographer take down every word spoken in every show and turn it into a script, and then he invites a bunch of the guys over and they act it out. In costume.”
    Louie said, sounding dismayed, “Awwwww. You mean, like dresses?”
    “And bikinis and the occasional thong panties. And they take a lot of pictures.”
    I said, “Ouch.”
    “Derek got a bunch of them. The pictures. Bought them from one of the guys, one who wasn’t getting any work and had borrowed too much money from the wrong people. And Derek was faced with an ethical dilemma, wasn’t he? Hand the pictures over to the publishers of a rag that’ll pay him five, six thousand for them, or have a chat with Thad Pierce, who will part with ten or twenty times as much.”
    Louie says, “Or maybe have him killed.”
    “In Thad Pierce’s case, he went with the money. But, see, Derek was good. He knew the secrets of being a successful blackmailer. He knew instinctively how much to demand, and he never, ever went back for more. But you’re right, of course. If Derek threatened the wrong kind of people, there was always the possibility that they’d choose the cheaper option of just, you know, beating him to death.”
    “That’s how he died?” Louie asked.
    “According to the police, fourteen broken bones,” Ronnie Bigelow said. “They left him eight teeth. A closed-casket funeral was strongly recommended.” She put her cup down and said to me, “So, then, how about an early lunch?”
    “Okay,” I said.