"I'm representing the Michael Litvak project."
If that registered, Prager wasn't letting on. She conveyed his continued puzzlement. "The Hit-and-Run Cooperative," I said. "The Michael Litvak project. It's a confidential matter, I'm sure he'll want to see me."
I was sure he wouldn't want to see me at all, actually, but she repeated my words and he couldn't really avoid it. "He'll see you now," she said, and nodded her curly little head at a door marked PRIVATE.
His office was spacious, the far wall all glass with a rather impressive view of a city that looks better the higher up you go. The decor was traditional, in sharp contrast to the harsh modern furnishings of the reception room. The walls were paneled in dark wood-individual boards, not the plywood stuff. The carpet was the color of tawny port wine. There were a lot of pictures on the walls, all of them seascapes, all unmistakably the work of Mrs. Henry Prager.
I had seen his picture in the papers I'd scanned in the microfilm room at the library. Just head-and-shoulder shots, but they had prepared me for a larger man than the one who now stood up behind the broad leather-topped desk. And the face in the Bachrach photo had beamed with calm assurance. Now it was lined with apprehension pinned in place by caution. I approached the desk, and we stood looking each other over. He seemed to be considering whether or not to offer his hand. He decided against it.
He said, "Your name is Scudder?"
"That's right."
"I'm not sure what you want."
Neither was I. There was a red leather chair with wooden arms near the desk. I pulled it up and sat in it while he was still on his feet. He hesitated a moment, then seated himself. I waited for a few seconds on the off chance that he might have something to say. But he was pretty good at waiting.
I said, "I mentioned a name before. Michael Litvak."
"I don't know the name."
"Then I'll mention another. Jacob Jablon."
"I don't know that name, either."
"Don't you? Mr. Jablon was an associate of mine. We did some business together."
"What kind of business would that be?"
"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Nothing as successful as your line of work, I'm afraid. You're an architectural consultant?"
"That's correct."
"Large-scale projects. Housing developments, office buildings, that sort of thing."
"That's hardly classified information, Mr. Scudder."
"It must pay well."
He looked at me.
"Actually, the phrase you just used. 'Classified information.' That's what I really wanted to talk to you about."
"Oh?"
"My associate Mr. Jablon had to leave town abruptly."
"I don't see how-"
"He retired," I said. "He was a man who worked hard all his life, Mr. Prager, and he came into a sum of money, you see, and he retired."
"Perhaps you could come to the point."
I took a silver dollar out of my pocket and gave it a spin, but, unlike Spinner, I kept my eyes on Prager's face instead of on the coin. He could have taken that face to any poker game in town and done just fine with it. Assuming he played his cards right.
"You don't see many of these," I said. "I went into a bank a couple of hours ago and tried to buy one. They just stared at me and then told me to go see a coin dealer. I thought a dollar was a dollar, you know? That's the way it used to be. It seems the silver content alone in these things is worth two or three bucks, and the collector value is even higher. I had to pay seven dollars for this thing, believe it or not."
"Why did you want it?"
"Just for luck. Mr. Jablon has a coin just like this one. Or at least it looked the same to me. I'm not a numismatist. That's a coin expert."
"I know what a numismatist is."
"Well, I only found that out today, while I was finding out that a dollar's not a dollar any more. Mr. Jablon could have saved me seven bucks if he'd left his dollar with me when he went out of town. But he left me something else that's probably worth a little more than seven dollars. See, he gave me this envelope full of papers and things. Some of them have your name on them. And your daughter's name, and some other names I mentioned. Michael Litvak, for example, but that's not a name you recognize, is it?"
The dollar had stopped spinning. Spinner had always snatched it up when it started to wobble, but I just let it drop. It landed heads.
"I thought since those papers had your name on them, along with those other names, I thought you might like to own them."
He didn't say anything, and I couldn't think of anything else to say. I picked up the silver dollar and gave it another spin. This time we both watched it. It stayed spinning for quite a while on the leather desk top. Then it glanced off a photograph in a silver frame, wobbled uncertainly, and landed heads again.
Prager picked up his desk phone and pushed a buzzer. He said, "That's all for today, Shari. Just put the machine on and go ahead home." Then, after a pause: "No, they can wait, I'll sign them tomorrow. You can head along home now. Fine."
Neither of us spoke until the door of the outer office opened and closed. Then Prager leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his shirt front. He was a rather plump man, but there was no spare flesh on his hands. They were slender, with long fingers.
He said, "I gather you want to take up where-what was his name?"
"Jablon."
"Where Jablon took off."
"Something like that."
"I'm not a rich man, Mr. Scudder."
"You're not starving."
"No," he agreed. "I am not starving." He looked past me for a moment, probably at a seascape. He said, "My daughter Stacy went through a difficult period in her life. In the course of it, she had a very unfortunate accident."
"A little boy died."
"A little boy died. At the risk of sounding callous, I'll point out that that sort of thing happens all the time. Human beings-children, adults, what does it matter-people are killed accidentally every day."
I thought of Estrellita Rivera with a bullet in her eye. I don't know if anything showed in my face.
"Stacy's situation-her culpability, if you want to call if that-stemmed not from the accident but from her response after the fact. She didn't stop. If she had stopped, it would not have helped the boy at all. He was killed instantly."
"Did she know that?"