Free Pleading Guilty by Scott Turow Page A

of Mount Olympus. But Martin was rarely as mystifying as he was now. He seemed unshaken by anything that had occurred here. He met my inquiry with an inscrutable little tip of the hand, as if he could not alter bygones. "What do you think Krzysinski's going to say when Jake tells him about this?" I asked.
    Martin closed his eyes to weigh the inquiry, as if it had not occurred to him yet, and when he looked back a little wrinkle of something close to humor, an embracing irony, briefly crossed his worn face. He stood to regard me, as another of his funny clocks began to chatter like a chipmunk somewhere in the room.
    "I think you'd better find Bert," he told me.

    Chapter VI. THE SECRET LIFE OF

KAM ROBERTS
    A. Good News
    Most of the time as I am recording this, talking it through, I do not see the faces of Carl and Wash and Martin. I can't really imagine them with the pages in their hands. So there must be someone else I mean to talk to, sitting here in my rummage-sale bedroom late at night. In the stillness the voice seems to be the spirit, the way a candle is best represented by a flame. Maybe the Dictaphone's a medium, then, a way to enhance communication with the dear departed. Maybe this is really an extended message to sweet Elaine, with whom I used to speak three times a day. Today I've felt her absence starkly, the willing ear to whom I've muttered stray remarks, even as I sat in my office, shiftless and sour, feeling perplexed by the hunt for Bert. I stared again at the statement from the Kam Roberts bank card. My feet were on my desk, a large period piece with the formidable tiered look of a steamship, its rosy surface lost in a patchwork of discarded telephone messages, throwaway memos, and various briefs and transcripts that I was yet to file. When I came in at G &G with Jake Eiger's backing and made partner during those initial years when Jake drowned me in work, I ha d t he option to redecorate this room but never got around to it, too drunk to care I guess. I've lived all this time with what is in reality secondhand stuff, the big walnut desk, the glass-paned bookcases, two leather gooseneck chairs with brass studs, a nice, if worn, Oriental rug, a personal computer, and my own clutter. The only object I care much about is on the wall, a terrific Beckmann print--the usual dissipated people in a cafe. By daylight I have a fine view of the river and the west edge of Center City, girded by the Interstate, U . S . 843.
    I thought sullenly about how I was going to make Martin happy and find Bert. I still wanted to talk to the flight attendant in the apartment above his, but I didn't have her name--she hadn't left it on the mailbox--and the notion of putting myself in the vicinity of that stiff again gave me the willies. I phoned long-distance information for Scottsdale and after two calls found Bert's sister, Mrs. Cheryl Moeller, whom I'd met when the ma was buried. She didn't know where her brother was and had not heard from him in months, which was par for the course. She couldn't remember any pal of Bert's named Archie either. She didn't sound as if she liked her brother any better than she ever had and ended up reassuring me that Bert was going to turn up, as usual.
    Fellas, Elaine--whoever I'm talking to--I have to tell you, your investigator was stumped. I went over the statement one more time. Why was Bert booking hotel rooms on game nights when he had an empty apartment a mile away? Purely on a flyer, I called U Inn. I got the hotel operator and did what we used to refer to in Financial as a pretext call. I said I was trying to get information on a guy I'd had a business meeting with at U Inn on December i8. I'd lost my entire file in a taxi and was hoping maybe they had a forwarding address or phone for him. "What's this gentleman's name?" the hotel operator asked. "Kam Roberts." I was looking for any clue to Bert's present whereabouts. I heard a few computer keys click, then spen t m ost of eternity on hold,