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it a little different. I was the mommy and he was the baby, that’s what it all added up to, really. We never had enough money, either, and his parents hated me, really hated me, and then he started running around.”
    “That’s hard to believe.”
    “You’re nice, but he did. I didn’t really feel insulted by it, to tell you the truth. I had managed to figure out by then that he was a nice boy but that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with a nice boy who needed someone to wipe his nose and help him on with his rubbers. That came out dirty, I didn’t mean it that way. You know what I meant.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “So I went to Reno and threw my wedding ring in that river there, and came back to Bolivar, and there was a job opening in Olean, the job with Wally, and I took it, and you know the rest. I became a very private secretary. At first it was exciting and then it was secure and then his wife did die, finally, after hovering on the edge for years, and then we weren’t going to get married after all and instead of a fiery affair it was a back-door thing with a bad smell to it.”
    Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. When she spoke again her voice was thinner and higher. “I felt so goddamned good this afternoon. Watching that man, so hot to find a way to make a new fortune for himself, so excited he couldn’t sit still. And knowing he’s just going to get his nose rubbed in it, and that I’m going to do the rubbing. Oh, that’s a sweet feeling!”
    For a few minutes neither of us said anything. Her hands relaxed their grip on the wheel and she slowed the Ford and stopped at the curb. “There are things we ought to go over,” she said. “You’ve got to tell me how much I’m supposed to tell him, for one thing, and then there are the letters he gave me. I’ve got them in my purse.”
    “Are we supposed to be making a night of it?”
    “In a small way, anyway.” Her eyes narrowed. “He didn’t tell me how far to go playing the Mata Hari role. I guess I’m supposed to use my own imagination. There are bars we could go to, but they aren’t all that private.”
    “My hotel room?”
    “I thought of that. I think he might not like that. Everybody knows who I am, that I’m his secretary and that, well, that I’m more than his secretary. He might not like the way it would look if I went to your room.”
    “Where, then?”
    “My apartment?”
    “Fine.”
    “But I don’t think I’ve got anything to drink.”
    We stopped for a bottle. I paid for it, and she insisted on giving me the money back when we got in the car. This was on Gunderman, she told me.
    He was footing the bill for the evening.

Six

    She lived in a newish brick apartment building on Irving Street. Her place was on the second floor. She tucked the Ford into a parking space out in front and we walked up a flight of stairs. She unlocked the door and we went inside. The living room was large and airy, furnished in Danish Modern pieces that looked expensive. The carpet was deep and ran wall-to-wall. It wasn’t hard to guess who paid the rent, or who had picked up the tab for the furnishings.
    “I’ll hunt glasses,” she said. “How do you like your poison? Water, soda?”
    “Just rocks is fine.”
    She came back from the kitchen with a pair of drinks. We sat together on a long low couch and touched glasses solemnly. “Here’s to crime,” she said. “To successful crime.”
    “By all means.”
    We drank. She tucked her feet under her, opened her purse and pulled out a sheaf of letters. “He had a list of people who bought some of that Canadian land,” she said. “Not a complete list, but about twenty names. He wrote letters to all of them asking—well, you can read it yourself.”
    I read one of the letters. It was brief and to the point. Mr. Gunderman was interested in any dealings or correspondence that Mr. So-and-So might have had with the Barnstable Corporation, Ltd., of Toronto. Would Mr. So-and-So