Free Quicksilver (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini

opaque fiberglass wall that adjoined the next greenhouse. As he approached I saw that he was about thirty, tallish, wiry, good-looking in a careless sort of way. Bristly mustache, hair that fanned down over his shoulders, eyes that had the light of mischief in them. He wore running shoes and faded Levi’s and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off; on the front of the sweatshirt were the words NO NUKES in bright red letters.
    “Hey, Pop,” he said, “what happened to those live seafoam and shooting-star miniatures? I don’t see them anywhere.” Pop, like Number One Son addressing Charlie Chan. He didn’t even glance at me.
    “Gone,” his father said.
    “Gone? You mean you sold them?”
    “Yes.”
    “Pop, I told you yesterday morning the Crawley brothers wanted them. What’s the matter? You going senile on me?”
    Mr. Ogada didn’t say anything. So I said, “Everybody forgets things now and then, particularly when they’ve been working hard.”
    The young guy, Edgar, put his eyes on me for the first time. There was no hostility in the look, nor even any annoyance; it was just a look with a question: Who are you?
    I said, “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes, if you don’t mind. A personal matter.”
    “The washers in this valve need to be changed,” Mr. Ogada said, “Will you do it, Edgar? I have invoices to prepare.”
    “If I’ve got time.”
    “ Hai ,” Mr. Ogada said, and bowed slightly in my direction, and went away toward the outside door.
    Edgar said, “What’s this personal matter you want to talk about?”
    “A former girlfriend of yours. Haruko Gage.”
    His forehead wrinkled slightly; that was the extent of his reaction to Haruko’s name. “Why?” he said. “Who are you, anyway?”
    “A private detective.” I gave him my name and showed him the photostat of my license. “Mrs. Gage hired me to investigate a little problem she’s having.”
    “You mean Haruko’s in trouble?”
    “No, nothing like that.”
    I told him what the problem was, and he didn’t react much to that either. A little surprise and a little puzzlement, nothing else.
    “I don’t get it,” he said. “Anybody who’d do something like that has to be nuts.”
    “That’s what Haruko is afraid of.”
    “But why talk to me? I don’t know anything about it.” He paused and frowned again. “Hey, she doesn’t think I’m the one who’s doing it, does she?”
    “No. Your name was one of several she gave me—old boyfriends, men who’ve been serious about her in the past.”
    “Well, that lets me out. I’ve never been serious over any girl. There’s too many of ’em, you know? Too many sakana in the umi .”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “We had some fun, Haruko and me,” Edgar said. He grinned. “I brought her here once and we were, you know, getting it on over at the house and Pop almost caught us. That would have been a heavy scene. Pop’s old-fashioned; he doesn’t think people ought to screw unless they’re married.”
    “Is that how your mother feels too?”
    The grin vanished. “My mother’s dead,” he said in a different, softer voice. “She died last summer. It’s been rough on Pop; that’s why he works so hard.”
    Rough on Edgar, too, judging from his tone. I said, “How do you feel about Haruko now that she’s married?”
    “Same as I’ve always felt about her. We’re still friends, only without the sex.”
    “No regrets about that?”
    “A few, sure. I wouldn’t mind getting it on with her again if she ever dumps Art the Fart; we were good together, real good. But it’s no big deal. A guy can always get laid.”
    “I take it you don’t like her husband much.”
    “He’s a jerkoff. I don’t know why she married him, unless it’s because he lets her tell him what to do. Or maybe he’s Clark Kent with his clothes on and Superman in the sack.” He shrugged. “Who knows why women do anything? I never could figure ’em out.”
    That makes two of us, brother, I thought.