Scam

She selected a jar, turned back to the stove. “I’m not saying there isn’t one. There probably is. But it probably has nothing to do with the girl in the bar.”
    “How is that a scam?”
    “That’s not a scam. It has nothing to do with it.”
    “Alice, you said it was a scam.”
    “Yeah. But not that.”
    “Then what?”
    “The guy’s story.”
    “I’m still not following you. Who’s pulling a scam on who?”
    “He’s pulling a scam on you.”
    “On me?”
    “Sure.”
    “Just how do you figure that?”
    “He wants the girl.”
    “Huh?”
    “The guy wants the girl. That’s obvious. It’s the one thing we know for sure. He wants you to find the girl. All the rest of this stuff is just window dressing.”
    I blinked. Off the wall as that sounded, I was not about to reject it out of hand.
    You see, Alice is often right. Or at least she gives that impression. The truth is, my wife could anchor a national debate team. If she wanted to tell me black was white, I’d be hard pressed to argue.
    Just as I was now.
    “I’m still not following. What do you mean by window dressing?”
    “Just that. The guy wants to find the girl. But he’s embarrassed to say so. So he invents a reason.”
    “That sounds pretty stupid.”
    “Men are not always totally logical when women are involved.”
    While I groped for a comeback to that, Alice said, “So you went to this bar?”
    “Yeah, but it was a washout.”
    “Why?”
    “The bartender wasn’t there.”
    “The one who was on that night?”
    “Right.”
    “So when will he be on?”
    “Tomorrow night.”
    “You’ll go back then?”
    “Sure.”
    “So you figure you worked what today, an hour?”
    “What?”
    “On this case. You gonna bill him for an hour?”
    “I wasn’t going to bill him at all.”
    Alice turned away from the stove. “What, are you nuts? You went to the bar.”
    “The guy I wanted to see wasn’t there.”
    “So what?”
    “So it’s not like I did anything.”
    “You made the effort. What’s the guy want, a written guarantee?”
    “No, but—”
    “You say the guy’s not paying you by the day.”
    “Right. Because I have other cases.”
    “You could cancel them.”
    “Huh.”
    “The guy agreed to fifty bucks an hour, right? Isn’t that what you said? Well, Richard’s paying you twenty. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but you got a hundred and sixty dollar day working for Richard, or four hundred dollars working for him.”
    “Your math is fine. I’m just not sure if finding this girl is a full-time job.”
    “Well, you put in an hour already, right? Going to this bar.”
    “I’m not sure I should bill him for it.”
    “Right,” Alice said. “And do you know why?”
    “I told you. Because I didn’t really do anything.”
    “Don’t be silly,” Alice said. “That’s not why.”
    I took a breath. “Okay,” I said. “Then you tell me why.”
    “You’re afraid you won’t find her.”
    “Huh?”
    “You’re afraid you won’t find the girl. You’re afraid you can’t do it. In which case, you won’t want to bill him at all.”
    “Oh.”
    “Will you?”
    I hated to admit it, but as usual Alice had put her finger right on it. That was exactly the case. My main problem with finding this girl for Cranston Pritchert was I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it. Because, aside from talking to the bartender who was unlikely to be any help at all, there wasn’t much I could do.
    While I hesitated, thinking this, Alice bored in, voicing my doubts. “You think the bartender will be any help?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “If he isn’t, what will you do?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “The bartender’s your only real lead?”
    “More or less.”
    “So basically this guy hired you to interview the bartender?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Why can’t he do it himself?”
    “Huh?”
    “Why does he need you? Why doesn’t he go in there and ask the bartender himself?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Did you ask him?”
    “Huh?”
    “Did you ask him why he didn’t want to interview the bartender himself?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “It didn’t occur to me.”
    “Well, it’s occurred to you now. It might be a good idea to ask the gentleman.”
    “It’s probably nothing, Alice. He’s probably just embarrassed.”
    “Maybe so. But that in itself would be something. Fifty bucks an hour is pretty embarrassed.”
    “You know, you’re making a lot of deductions from no facts at