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players liked him.”
    â€œYou mean he got his throat cut just because he didn’t get along with the other players?”
    Again the double shrug.
    â€œPerhaps he had begun to meddle where he wasn’t wanted.”
    â€œMeddle in what?”
    Dédé Delatour looked at me strangely. He didn’t answer. I decided to take a shot at it.
    â€œLike in the dope trade?” I persisted.
    It lay there between us. We stared at each other, and suddenly it was like each of us had things to hide. Then his eyebrows made a frowning v What uses over his nose, and he repeated:
    â€œWhere he wasn’t wanted.”
    That too lay there a moment.
    â€œPlease remember, Monsieur,” Dédé Delatour said evenly, “our relationship is based strictly on le basket . You supply the players, we arrange for contracts and payments. It is a small business now. It could be a much bigger one.”
    â€œCould be?”
    â€œ Will be.” The flash came back into his eyes. “We are creating something from the bottom,” he said, gesturing, “The European project is getting people excited. The right people. We will have our European league. It will take time, that’s all. We must all be patient. But once this little … episode … is out of the way, our control can only emerge reinforced.”
    â€œYes,” I said. “But meanwhile there’s a problem.”
    â€œWhat problem?”
    â€œHadley.”
    â€œThat’s what I don’t understand.”
    â€œSomebody has been setting him up for Grimes’ murder.”
    â€œSetting up …? Ah, yes, the police. I heard you spent yesterday afternoon with them yourself.” The idea seemed to amuse him. “You were the one who discovered the body, weren’t you?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œAn unfortunate coincidence.”
    â€œMaybe so, maybe not. But was it a coincidence that somebody tipped the police off to Hadley?”
    â€œDid they? Perhaps that was just a little joke.” He chuckled at it. “Our police have no sense of humor.”
    â€œNeither did Grimes when he was slit ear to ear.”
    â€œI don’t see …”
    â€œSimply that Grimes was murdered with a knife, and one of your boys seems pretty handy with the cutlery.”
    â€œYou mean Jeannot?”
    â€œI don’t know his name. The little guy. And here’s another coincidence that may or may not be one. The woman Hadley was with at the time. Now she claims she never saw him yesterday.”
    â€œWhat woman is that?”
    â€œCome on, Monsieur Delatour. Her name is Marie-Josèphe Lamentin.”
    â€œAh, you mean Greemse’s whore?” He dismissed her with a waving gesture. “That one will say whatever she is told to say, Monsieur.”
    The message, then, was clear enough. Whatever the real reasons for Odessa Grimes’ murder, it had been used as a warning. Against me, presumably, and the people I presumably worked for. For a minute there I thought I had Roscoe all but off the hook.
    All but.
    â€œNow, Monsieur,” said Dédé Delatour, “I’ve answered your questions. I’ll tell Jeannot you made the connection, it will flatter him. And rest assured, the whore can be taken care of, and also, if need be, the police. But I, in turn, have something to ask you.”
    â€œGo ahead,” I said.
    â€œWhy haven’t you disposed of Adlay?”
    It was the $64,000 Special, the one we’ve all been waiting for, and, logical as it may have been from Delatour’s point of view, I had no ready answer.
    â€œHadley is our business,” I said finally, keeping my voice level.
    â€œYes, of course,” with a magnanimous wave. “Just as Greemse was ours. But who is our , Monsieur? Who is us ?”
    There was suddenly nothing for me to say or do. It was his hand, and his to play.
    â€œI mean, I’ve heard what Adlay did to you people.