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volunteer uniform. Today she wore a matching red beret pinned to one side of her hair. I didn t mean to
cause any trouble.
Oh, no, Selena said.
Actually I was trying to locate a phone.
Follow me, she said. They went back downstairs to the lounge, where Selena showed him a booth in
the wall near the front desk. He sat in it and closed the door.
Hello, operator. Give me Washburn-one-six-oh-oh. That s right, City Hall. Hello? Is this the
switchboard? Let me talk to Sergeant Willson. Thanks.
Willson, came the gruff voice over the line.
This is Constantine. I m calling from the institute.
Good for you, Willson said blandly.
Listen. They ve got a morgue out here, and I had a look at the tramp. You ve got to send someone
down here right away to pick up that body.
Like who? Percy s two weeks behind.
You and the Swede come if you have to. Larsen was suffering from a gunshot wound. Therefore the
coroner s got a right to the body.
Don t quote procedure to me, Constantine!
I m telling you you ve got to get that body. Selena was looking in on him through the glass door.
Look, I ve got to go. I ll explain later. Just do it, Willson! He put the receiver back on the hook and
pushed the door open.
All set? Selena asked.
I hope so, Danny said.
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Chapter
17
I felt like I had to do something,
Selena Crockett was saying as
they headed for the children s
ward, which took up the first
floor of the institute s south
wing. And so I help here
whenever I can. My family s
always given money, of course.
Tons of it. Tons more to come.
But that s so boring. How hard is
it to sit at a desk and write out
checks?
Oh, it s impossible, all right, Danny said. Selena laughed.
I m sorry, she said. I deserve that one. I only meant that money & Oh, I don t know. It just seems so
passive, sometimes.
It took something to make it in the first place, Danny suggested.
That was Grandfather. He s the one who came and built the flour mills. He and his brother built the first
one right above the falls with their bare hands. They ground up wheat and filled the sacks and loaded the
wagons, and ran it like a real business. They got rich because they worked hard. I ll bet they never wrote
a check in their lives. It s so much better to do things, don t you think?
It depends what kind of things you re doing, Danny said.
Selena stopped and looked at him quizzically. I hope you don t take this the wrong way, but why do
you pretend to be so hard-boiled all the time?
I m not. I was just making a joke, Danny said, caught off guard.
What is it you think I m doing that you don t approve of?
Nothing, he said.
You re not hard-boiled enough to be honest, obviously.
Danny stopped then. You want honest? Okay, sister: I don t like Simon Gray. And it s pretty obvious
that you do.
Assuming that is true, she said, What does that have to do with anything?
It means one of us is wrong about him. And I don t think it s me.
Why does one of us have to be wrong?
Because, Danny said, either he s the way you see him or he s the way I see him.
Couldn t he be more than either of us sees?
Oh, I m sure he is. I think he s fooling everybody. And I don t think he s making much of an effort to
hide it, either.
Selena searched Danny s face. Is that what you do? she said. Make up your mind about someone all
at once and so completely?
I trust my instincts, Danny said.
There you go being hard-boiled again. Every time you re afraid of something.
Yeah? And what am I afraid of?
What you don t know. That s what you re afraid of. You dismiss it and pretend it s not important.
You re doing it with me now. You do it with everybody.
You sound like some two-bit alienist, Danny said.
You say you ve got instincts? Well, I ve got them, too. But unlike you, I don t assume they re
everything. You stand here, thinking you ve got me all figured out, and the joke is, you really don t know
me at all! You know nothing about me! And you know nothing about Simon Gray.
All right. Forget him. And forget you for the moment. Let s talk about what I know about me. I know I
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