Billy the Goat
A Freddie O'Neal Mystery
Catherine Dain

The investment scam in this story is one that I had heard of some years earlier and had filed away for future use. When I decided the scam would involve Freddie's cousin, there had to be a motive stronger than simple greed. And what could that be but passion?

"What Cousin Billy? You mean the Cousin Billy who dragged me around Idlewild pool with my head under water when I was six years old? That Cousin Billy?"
	"You only have one Cousin Billy, the son of your Aunt Freddie, for whom you were named. Yes. That Cousin Billy."
	"She doesn't even send me birthday cards, and I wouldn't recognize either of them on the street. And Billy has to be fortysomething. Why would a fortysomething man still use the name Billy?"
	"I don't know. You'll have to ask him."
	"Why does he want to see me? And why doesn't he just call?"
	"I can't answer either of those questions," Ramona snapped.
	She was getting testy, probably because I was. Her relationships with her sister, her sister's assorted husbands, and her sister's three adult children weren't any better than mine. So it wasn't fair of me to push her.
	On the other hand, it wasn't fair of Cousin Billy to call her after all these years and ask a favor. Especially when the favor he asked was to arrange a quiet meeting with me. Which meant my mother had to ask me a favor.
	Not a good start for a telephone call.
	"Okay." I figured I could give in on this one. Find out for myself what was going on with Billy. "Where are we supposed to meet?"
	"The Arcade at the Clarion."
	"The Arcade? You mean the place next to the ice cream counter where the video games are? The place where the kids are dropped while the adults gamble?"
	"That way you can spot each other. He'll be playing Space Invaders, tonight at seven."
	"He could be playing anything he likes. He'll be the only person over twelve."
	"I think that was the idea. He wasn't certain he could recognize you, either."
	"All right. I'll see what he wants."
	"Thank you." Her tone was icy. Asking me to help a nephew she hadn't seen in twenty-five years was tough.
	"And I'll call you tomorrow."
	She hung up without thanking me again.
	The Clarion wasn't one of my favorite places, but I could understand why Billy—or anyone else needing to set up a discreet meeting by way of a third party—might choose it. It was one of the newer hotel-casinos, built a couple of miles south of the downtown gambling center, and airport-handy. There were always at least three conventions on the daily schedule, and the crowd at the tables would welcome the space in a sardine can.
	Two people could have a conversation without the possibility of being taped in the din. Only a lip reader would have a shot at picking it up.
	I pulled the Jeep into the parking lot about fifteen minutes early. The asphalt covered an area the size of a football field. Even so, the first space I spotted was against the back fence.
	The sun hadn't set, and the early evening air was still warm. By late May, the temperature swings run around forty degrees, dropping slowly from the mid-eighties in the afternoon to the low forties just before dawn. I figured this wouldn't take much time, so I hadn't bothered to bring a jacket.
	I walked down a long row of cars, vans, and pickups, mostly with California plates. I wondered where Billy had been living for the past twenty-five years. Not in Reno, I was certain of that.
	Scattered lines of people converged on the double doors from the parking lot to the casino, like ants discovering a chocolate bar.
	The inside was a sudden explosion of light, color, and sound. Another football field, with the center open for a couple of stories straight up, the floor jammed with tables and machines all swarming with people.
	A glass-encased announcement board welcomed the conventions of the day—orthopedic surgeons, travel writers, and the Arkansas Bar Association.
	I stayed on the outskirts of the pit as much as possible, working my way toward the corner escalator that led to the hollowed-out second floor, where the video games and ice cream counter were located.
	The post-World War II gamblers who built the city were probably rattling their dry bones in wonder at the new emphasis on family-friendly entertainment, and the way gambling had morphed from a pastime somewhere between sleazy and sinful to good, clean fun and a healthy source of state revenue to boot.
	The video game players were all minors, as usual. A sole adult stood just outside the area, a man about five foot seven, with reddish-brown hair, as twitchy as a pedophile watching for security guards.
	Ironically, I would have recognized Billy after all. With that small, tight mouth and pointed chin, he had to share Ramona's gene pool.
	The cowboy boots gave him some needed height, but he didn't seem comfortable in them, and they didn't exactly coordinate with his blue suit, white shirt, and burgundy tie. And he was still four inches shorter than I when he walked up and held out his hand.
	"My God, Freddie, it's good to see you."
	The hand was a little sweaty. I was glad he hadn't tried to hug me.
	"Hey, Billy," I replied. I was trying to reconcile this thin, nervous man with the teenager who had seemed so powerful when he dragged me around the pool.
	"We could have met at the bar. I would have recognized you—you look just like your father."
	I took my hand back.
	"I'd just as soon talk over a beer," I said.
	"Fine, fine. How about dinner? We need a little time to catch up."
	"I can't handle the line at the buffet, but the area that serves the little pizzas would be okay."
	"I was thinking about the restaurant across the way." He gestured to the area on the other side of the doughnut hole, where the exception to the rule that casinos serve inexpensive food hid behind a bright seafood menu and a dark door.
	Billy had to be doing pretty well. Or be using someone else's credit card. It wasn't a nice thought, but the combination of the twitchiness and the reference to my father brought my guard up.
	"Your choice," I said.
	We walked the balcony in silence. Billy was working hard at the cowboy boots, but they were pitching him forward, and I was reminded of the way a baby walks, almost falling with every step, half-running just to stay upright.
	Billy looked both ways quickly before slipping through the door.
	A smiling man in a tux who stood somewhere between Billy's height and mine showed us to a corner booth in a room so dim that I couldn't tell if it was full or empty or somewhere in between. He handed us menus and left.
	I set mine aside.
	"You know what you want?" Billy asked.
	"Catch of the Day and a beer," I said. "Now cut the crap and tell me what this is about."
	"I thought we might chat a little first."
	He looked hopeful, but I didn't help him out. He shook his head and sighed.
	"I need you to run an errand for me." The hazel eyes tried to look sincere, but the lids twitched.
	"What kind of errand? Why me?"
	"I need someone I can trust, and someone who can take care of herself in a tight situation."
	"Start from the beginning."
	He couldn't focus. He waved at a waiter and ordered for both of us. I didn't bother to react.
	"All right," Billy said, but he didn't sound as if he meant it. "I'm a stockbroker. I sell securities at a small, independent firm in Newport Beach—that's in Southern California. We do a lot of private placements for very wealthy people who want investments with an above average return. A few months ago a certain party approached me with an interesting idea—railroad tank cars."
	"What's interesting about railroad tank cars?"
	"These particular cars would be used to transport oil to Southern California. And they wouldn't be ordinary tank cars. These would be Cadillacs, not Chevys. With shining brass fixtures, and brass plates with the owner's name on the side. For a mere one hundred thousand dollars, a far-sighted individual could own a vehicle making continual trips from the oil-rich territories of Alaska to the automobile-dependent territories of Southern California. A can't-lose proposition."
	He pulled a folded brochure from his inside coat pocket and flipped it open to a photograph of a tank car. The brass fixtures glowed, even in the imitation candlelight.
	"This isn't a real tank car. This is a model," I said.
	"Right. Every investor got a model of a tank car, just like the real one, as a desk ornament. Terrific sales tool."
	"So what went wrong?"
	Billy sighed. "Nothing was wrong with the idea. I did all the due diligence anyone could ask. The SEC approved the prospectus."
	"So what went wrong?" I asked again.
	"It seems the persons who wrote the prospectus and the persons who created the brochure took the word of the same party who talked to me. That is, we all believed that the tank cars were lined up."
	"Whereas?"
	"There are no tank cars." Billy cringed as he said it, waiting to be hit.
	I shrugged. "You didn't create the scam. You didn't even write the prospectus. Turn the certain party in to the SEC. There might even be a reward."
	"That seems like good advice." Billy was twitching again. He must twitch off about eight hundred calories a day. "But the certain party wouldn't like that at all. I need to keep a low profile. Getting in touch with the SEC would mean drawing a little too much attention. I'm not sure who I can trust—except you."
	"Why me? You haven't seen me in twenty-five years."
	"Hey, Freddie, you're my cousin. Who can you trust if you can't trust your cousin?"
	Somebody who doesn't twitch, was what I thought.
	"There's something you haven't told me," I said. "Like who this certain party is, the one behind the scam."
	"I don't like the word 'scam.' I'd rather call it a misunderstanding." He looked around, making certain no one was within earshot, then lowered his voice anyway. "And I can't tell you the name of the party who put it together. You don't need to know. That isn't the problem here."
	"If you say so. But then the problem has to be one of the guys who bought a tank car on your say-so."
	"Right." Billy's eyes were starting to water. He reached up and rubbed them. "For whatever it's worth, there is only one. He's threatening to go to the SEC. And since I can't hand over the party behind the misunderstanding, a complaint means that I lose my license to sell securities, my livelihood."
	"Are you the only broker selling these cars?"
	"Not quite. Almost. There are three of us."
	"But there's a prospectus. The other party's name has to be on it."
	"I'm afraid it isn't."
	"Oh, Billy." I shook my head. "You're not telling me your name is on the prospectus."
	"And the other two brokers," he said. "It's not just me. It's like a limited partnership with a silent partner."
	"That has to be illegal."
	Billy didn't answer. He shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes again.
	The waiter brought my beer, Billy's martini, and a basket of rolls.
	"Dinner will be right up," he said cheerfully.
	"Looking forward to it," Billy said, with what he surely hoped was a believable smile.
	"How did the silent partner talk you three supposedly astute financial types into risking your licenses and livelihoods like this?"
	The rolls were sourdough, and warm. I tore one apart and buttered it while Billy decided what he was going to tell me.
	"By explaining why it was better that the SEC think it was a deal put together by three Southern California stockbrokers and by pointing out how much more lucrative it was for us. We'd be getting not just the sales commissions, but a cut of the partnership profits as well."
	"Greed. The silent partner appealed to your greed."
	"In a word." Billy nodded, doing his best to hold on to the smile. "And what's wrong with greed? Every man pursuing his own self-interest is what makes the invisible hand of the marketplace work."
	"Or not. If every man pursues his own self-interest at the expense of every other man, and woman, the marketplace is a jungle, and no invisible hand can turn it into a civilization. That takes effort and goodwill."
	"Have it your way. I didn't come here to argue with you."
	"That's right. You came to ask me a favor."
	"Jesus. You're not making this easy."
	"What do you want me to do, Billy?"
	"I just want you to talk to the guy. He's staying at the hotel, with the orthopedic surgeons' group. Ask him to forget about the SEC. Tell him I'll give him back the money. Out of my own pocket. Please."
	"You also want me to tell him you're sorry? And you'll never do it again?"
	"Whatever it takes to get him off my back."
	"Why can't you take the elevator to his room and tell him yourself?"
	"I tried to tell him myself. He said he'd hurt me if he saw me again. And the other party might hurt me, too."
	Billy shrank in his chair as he said it. I wondered how big this surgeon was. And how big the silent partner was.
	"I'll have to think about it."
	"Sure. We'll eat first." He took a deep breath. "And talk about something else. How's your mother?"
	"Fine. You ought to go up to the lake and see her while you're in the area. Do you have a car?"
	"Yeah. A blue Acura. And the rental agency gave me a map to go with it. Maybe I'll drive up there tomorrow."
	"I'm sure she'd like that."
	"How are you? You ever get married?"
	"No. You?"
	"Yeah, twice. One kid from the first. I guess I should have sent you an announcement or something."
	Billy shifted in his chair again.
	It turned out to be a long dinner. The more we tried to talk, the less we had to say.
	In the back of my mind, I was working out how to tell him I wouldn't do it. I didn't want to be anywhere near his scam, even to help him out from under a federal investigation.
	But things about him—the shape and color of his eyes, the small hands with the long, narrow fingers, the way he separated his salmon steak from the tiny center bones—kept reminding me of Ramona. Saying no to him would be like saying no to her, only worse. I'd have to tell her about it afterward. And even though she wasn't close to her sister, she felt some kind of an undefined obligation, one she would expect me to honor.
	All conversation had stopped by the time the waiter brought coffee.
	Billy looked at me with desperate hope in his eyes, eyes that needed only mascara, liner, and three shades of eyeshadow to match Ramona's.
	"How did you find out the tank cars weren't there?" I asked, still not ready to commit.
	"The guy—the orthopedic surgeon—found out. The base of operations was supposed to be the railroad yard in Sparks. Since he was coming to Reno for the convention, he thought he'd drive three miles east to check out his investment. But nobody in Sparks had ever heard of the deal, so he called me. I made a few phone calls and discovered he was right. I flew up here yesterday, just to make sure there was no mistake."
	"What did the silent partner have to say?"
	"Oh, hell, the usual. That I jumped the gun. That the cars weren't supposed to start rolling until September first, and everything would be worked out by then."
	"But?"
	Billy shook his head. He took a sip of coffee before he answered. "But this is almost June, and we've started selling cars, and the prospectus—with my name on it—says they're already sitting in the yard. And even if there's some way everything will be different in September, I don't think the surgeon would be willing to wait. And I can't blame him. So I want to give him the money back."
	"You have the check?"
	"I wish I did." He reached into his jacket.
	"Sorry for the delay, sir." The waiter slipped a black leather folder onto the table.
	Billy froze, hand in his pocket.
	"No problem," he whispered.
	The waiter disappeared into the shadows.
	"I have a down payment," Billy finished, his voice barely audible. He pulled out his wallet. "Ten now, the other ninety when I can get it together."
	His hand was shaking as he held out a sealed envelope.
	"Please."
	I took the envelope. There was no name or any other mark on it.
	"Where do I deliver it?"
	"Upstairs. Room 1103. Theo Georgopoulos. And I owe you one, Freddie, I swear, if you ever need anything I can give."
	I hoped it wouldn't come to that.
	"Are you certain he's in his room?"
	"No. But you might as well give it a shot while you're here."
	"Okay. Where will you be?"
	His eyebrows shot up, and his mouth formed a circle of speechless wonder.
	"I have to report back to you," I said. "Let you know what happens. Where will you be?"
	"How about the lounge? There's some kind of musical entertainment going on. I'll try for a table at the back."
	"Okay. And thanks for dinner."
	I left him there. I figured he could settle the bill without me.
	Outside the black door, back in the light and noise, I had to reorient myself to find the elevators.
	One stopped for me almost immediately. I rode alone to the eleventh floor.
	Room 1103 was the second door on the right. Whoever had last gone in or out hadn't bothered to pull it quite shut. I knocked, and it moved.
	"Dr. Georgopoulos?"
	No answer.
	I pushed with my elbow, and the door swung open.
	A closet and bathroom blocked the sightline to the bed, beyond them on the left. A solid wall stopped the door on the right.
	"Dr. Georgopoulos?"
	I stepped cautiously over the threshold and moved just far enough forward to see the rest of the room.
	A man was lying on the bed, legs partially hanging over the end.
	He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and striped tie, almost an echo of Billy's outfit, both of them too formal for Reno. And he was here for a convention. Maybe he had decided to come back to his room and take a nap after some kind of formal presentation. He had unfastened his belt buckle and his pants, getting comfortable. Certainly he was big enough to intimidate someone as small as Billy. Probably six-foot-four, if he had been standing.
	But he wasn't going to do that again.
	His hair had receded to a fringe of black around a high, white dome. A bullet hole sat like a third eye in the center of his forehead.
	The wall behind the bed was spattered with blood, as if the guy had been upright, and the shot had knocked him more or less onto the bed. The blood still looked runny, as if it might be fairly fresh.
	I thought I heard a noise from the bathroom. A surge of adrenaline almost sent me flying back out of the room and into the hall, but I took a couple of deep breaths to get the fear and the anger under control, and realized the noise came from the room next door.
	I had two choices. I could call hotel security and be stuck for an hour, or I could find Billy and make sure I hadn't been set up. If the guy hadn't been so obviously dead, or if I thought the perp had been hiding in the closet, I would have called security. As it was, I wanted to find Billy.
	I slipped back to the door.
	A man and woman were walking toward the elevator bank, arguing.
	I listened for the elevator doors to open and close, the silence to return.
	When I was certain the hall was clear, I left the room and turned away from the elevators. I found the stairs, walked down two flights, and decided I could ride the rest of the way.
	I hoped Billy would be in the lounge. I really wanted Billy to be in the lounge.
	I wish I could say I was surprised when he wasn't there.
	He'd had more than enough time to settle the bill, stop in the men's room, and get to the lounge. I cleared a path through the crowd with my elbows and my boots, apologizing all the way, knowing I was too late to catch him in the parking lot if he wanted to escape that way.
	Once out of the building, I picked up speed. I trotted to the exit lane, then took it across the middle of the lot, checking the rows both ways for a little man in a blue Acura trying to head for the hills.
	I couldn't spot Billy, and I wasn't ready to check the lot car by car, especially when I didn't have a license plate number.
	On the off chance that he'd asked me to meet him at the hotel where he was staying, I went back inside and picked up the house phone near the door.
	"Billy Davis's room. William Davis," I corrected.
	"Just a minute," the operator answered.
	The phone started ringing.
	I let it ring until she came back on the line.
	"He doesn't seem to be there. Would you like to leave a message?"
	"Not just now."
	If he had a room, he'd have to go back to it, sooner or later. I just had to find it. I thought again about telling security. I still wanted to talk to Billy first.
	I had to check the lounge one more time.
	On stage, a man with shoe-polish black hair and a face dripping with flop sweat was belting, "What's New, Pussycat," while the band behind him did its collective best to keep playing, and to keep him from keeling over in embarrassment.
	Billy still wasn't at a table.
	I looked around for a sign that would direct me to a restroom. A stall seemed to be as good a place as any to see what was in the envelope. All I saw were bright, Disneyesque parrots pointing me toward the buffet. I figured restrooms would be close to the buffet line, and I was at least right on that.
	The restroom wasn't crowded. The first lucky thing that had happened since I arrived at the casino.
	The envelope contained just what Billy told me—his personal check for ten thousand dollars, made out to Theodore Georgopoulos.
	For the first time, I wondered if something had happened to Billy after I left the restaurant, something that kept him from the lounge. I had to check out his room.
	Finding his room would have been a lot easier in pre-electronic days, when rooms had keys instead of programmable cards, and messages were stuck in racks of key boxes behind the registration desk. I could have left him a message and watched where it was placed. But not here.
	My only quick idea was the maitre d' at the restaurant. If he wasn't bribable, or if Billy hadn't charged dinner to his room, I'd be reduced to calling security.
	I retraced my steps to the escalator, rode to the second floor, then walked around the balcony to the dark restaurant door.
	The maitre d' smiled when he saw me.
	"Did you forget something?" he asked.
	"Not exactly. I wanted to split the dinner bill with my cousin, Billy Davis, and he's being stubborn. Could you possibly retrieve our check from the waiter and let me see it?" I had a twenty folded in my hand.
	"Certainly," the maitre d' said, still smiling, once the twenty was his.
	He slipped into the dim recesses of the restaurant and came back with Billy's signed receipt. And I had the room number. Room 1115, right down the hall from the corpse.
	I thanked the maitre d' and left the restaurant for the second time, heading again for the elevator bank and the eleventh floor.
	I barely glanced at 1103 as I passed. The door was still ajar. I hadn't pulled it shut, both because I wanted to leave it as I found it and because I didn't want to put my hands on anything in the vicinity of the dead man.
	When I reached the door to Billy's room, I knocked, out of habit, not really expecting an answer.
	But I could have sworn I heard a groan.
	I knocked again.
	"Billy? Are you there?"
	Silence.
	"Billy, if you're there, open up. Because if I leave, I'm coming back with hotel security. Two of them. One for the room down the hall, and one for you."
	I was about to walk away when I heard someone turn the lock.
	The woman who opened the door was easily six-foot-two in her stiletto heels. Long black hair hung straight down over her bare shoulders, all the way to her lace-trimmed red corset, the kind with matching underpants, and garters to hold up black fishnet stockings. Her arms were fleshy, and a roll of fat billowed softly over the satin-covered wires.
	But the set of her wine-red mouth was hard. I glanced down at her hand, expecting a whip.
	She was holding a gun.
	"Come in," she said, blinking a heavy fringe of fake eyelashes. "You must be Billy's cousin. He's told me so much about you."
	"Oh, God. Next you'll tell me he couldn't come to the door himself because he's tied up."
	In bare feet we would have been eye to eye. I didn't like having to look up to meet her gaze.
	She smiled one of those wide-lipped smiles that vampires use to expose their fangs.
	"I'm going to step back from the door," she said. "You're going to come in and shut it behind you. If you leave instead, I'm going to end your cousin's life and disappear before you can return with help. Do you understand?"
	"Yes, ma'am."
	She kept the gun on me as she moved away from the door. I followed her into a room that was the twin of 1103, except that the man on the bed was Billy, and he was still alive.
	He was naked and gagged, and his hands were cuffed behind his back, but he was still alive.
	I could tell because he squirmed, and his face turned red. He looked even smaller and more pathetic naked than he had in the suit and boots.
	"Sit down." The woman used her gun to point toward a chair on the far side of the room.
	I did as told.
	She leaned against the wall, regarding me thoughtfully.
	"What happens next?" I asked, not wanting to give her too much time to think. "I can't believe you're going to walk out of here and leave us to call the cops."
	"No. I hadn't expected you, and I'm afraid I'll have to improvise. In fact, I had specifically told Billy to leave the situation to me. Fortunately, I suspected that he was weak enough to panic. I've had friends keeping tabs on him. And when I saw him meet you, I knew what he was doing. I was about to punish him when you knocked."
	"We haven't been introduced. I'm Freddie O'Neal, and you are—?" I broke off the question to wait for her answer.
	"You don't need to know my name. You can call me Sada if you like."
	"Sada. Are you by some other name known as a financial whiz?"
	"I don't think you need to know that, either."
	"Maybe not, but if you are, it would make sense out of why three Southern California stockbrokers chose to risk their licenses in a scam. Had to be something more than greed."
	"A scam? Naughty Billy. I've told him not to use that word."
	Billy squirmed some more, drawing his knees up to protect his genitals. He tried to make sounds through the gag.
	"He called it a misunderstanding," I said.
	Billy nodded rapidly.
	"Good Billy," Sada purred.
	Billy didn't relax his knees.
	Sada looked at me again.
	"I had hoped I could control Billy, at least until the money from investors was safely deposited in an off-shore bank. Unfortunately, I don't think you're quite as amenable to persuasion as your cousin. So this is what we're going to do. You and I will exchange clothes. And poor Billy will shoot you and then himself, after having shot the good doctor down the hall, in a love triangle gone awry." She thought it over and sighed. "This is far too messy for my taste, but I don't see a way out of it. Undress now. Start with your boots."
	I bent over toward my right foot. And I pulled the gun out of my boot and shot.
	With a small .22 caliber, you have to pray when you shoot. It's the equivalent of throwing a Hail Mary pass in football.
	My first shot landed in her right shoulder. Her gun hand wavered.
	My second shot grazed her ear.
	"Stop." She dropped her gun. Blood ran in one stream down her arm, in another down her neck and across her collarbone. "Stop."
	I kept the gun aimed more or less at her chest. My stomach was churning, and I was tempted to walk out and leave both of them. But I didn't.
	"Uncuff Billy and let him call security."
	"I'll have to get the key."
	"Wrong. Just ungag him, then. You can hit 0 for Operator, but I want him on the receiver. I don't want you faking the call and somehow alerting a friend instead."
	Awkwardly, with her left hand, she loosened Billy's gag, picked up the receiver, hit 0, and then held the receiver next to Billy's head.
	Hotel security arrived first, then the hotel doctor, followed sometime later by Detective Matthews and the crime team from the Reno Police Department.
	I told the story and Billy confirmed it.
	Sada was taken into custody.
	The first security guard to arrive tossed a clean towel over Billy, but he spent a lot of time naked and cuffed while people walked in and out of the room. If it wasn't Sada's idea of punishment, it was certainly mine. I'd have to think later whether it was enough.
	Billy not only gave his own name and address to the police, but Sada's as well. The silent partner no more.
	"How long are you planning to stay in Reno?" Matthews asked him. "We'll need your testimony to make the charge stick."
	"I'll stay as long as you need me," Billy said. "After all, I have family here."
	I winced.
	"Yeah, sure," Matthews nodded. He had raised his eyebrows when I introduced Billy as my cousin, but he was now beyond shock. "I won't blame you if you decide not to stay at the hotel after this. But make certain I have a good local address and phone number, okay?"
	That was to me as much as to Billy.
	I waited until Matthews had left and Billy was dressed before I brought up the question again.
	"Where are you going to stay?" I asked.
	"I'll have to think about it." He was still badly shaken. "The detective is right. I don't think I want to stay here."
	"Do me a favor and sleep on my couch tonight. I don't want to worry that Sada might make a phone call and get somebody to come after you." I was still pissed at Billy for getting me into this, and I wasn't happy with the idea of spending more time with him, but I didn't want to lie awake wondering whether he was going to disappear, whether he wanted to or not.
	"Oh, God," he groaned, "she's capable of it."
	"Okay. Tonight you sleep on my couch and we'll figure out the rest of it tomorrow. Maybe you could stay with Ramona for a while. Work on your tan."
	"Do you have to tell Aunt Ramona what happened?"
	"Billy, there was a murder in a hotel-casino. What happened will be in a police report. TV news vans root out crime scenes the way pigs root truffles. I won't be surprised if Ramona knows before I can call her. She watches the eleven o'clock news."
	He thought for a moment.
	"She'll know about the murder. She might even find out that the railroad tank car situation wasn't quite on the up-and-up. But I was led astray, and I can explain. It's just—she doesn't have to know about Sada, and about me being naked and cuffed, and all that, does she?"
	Billy was looking at me with hope in his soft, hazel eyes.
	"Maybe, maybe not. I'll have to think about it."
	"I'll owe you," he said, starting to twitch. "Remember when I dragged you around the pool? I'll let you drag me around the pool. Any pool in town. What do you say?"
	I almost liked the idea. But the thing was, he liked it better. The hope in his soft, hazel eyes was that I would drag him around the pool.
	Whatever punishment he wanted, thought he deserved, I wouldn't help him out.
	I clapped a hand on his shoulder.
	"Hey, Billy, we're family. I forgave you for that a long time ago. And don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."
	The hope drained from his eyes, then came back.
	"I'll think of something else," he said.
	I was uncomfortably aware of the old joke about what the sadist responded when the masochist begged, "Hurt me." But I said it anyway.
	"No."

Administrivia:
From: Dreams of Jeannie and Other Stories (Catherine Dain)
Scanned/Proofed: MNQ
Version: 2.0