The plan was to have Tompkins meet me at Jake's. Lloyd would be elsewhere. I wanted a public setting, just in case tempers flared. There was always a possibility that I could get cuffed while Jimbo flashed his badge and yelled that he was on the job. He could frog-march me out of the bar and I'd never see the police station.
     There was also the possibility that I watch too many movies. After all, this is just Lincoln.
     Tompkins glided into the bar. That effortless movement that doesn't even seem to disturb the air. It was a good way to not get noticed. Professional.
     He slid into the booth. I had a nice, smoky, Gurkha going, and made no move to defer to his clean living abstinence. I smiled inwardly.
     "What did you find out on your citizen-funded excursion to the left coast?" he asked, smiling but with the undertone of a growl. He looked like a tiger sizing up potential prey and calculating if it was worth the effort.
     "Three things," I said, blowing a cloud of smoke up toward the beaten copper ceiling tiles. "One: Fresno is  a lot like Gaza, but without the charm, a few airstrikes would do wonders. Two: The Huskers can play in California. Three: just because the girl looks hot in a 20-year-old video, doesn't mean she's hot, today."
     "So you found Robin?" he leaned into the table. He was playing with the water on the table, moving it around. He was absently separating the drops into droplets, and moving them back into new shapes.
     "Yes...and no," I lied as nonchalantly as I could. I blew another cloud, slowly, I let it drift into my face. My eyes stung and watered. I looked uncomfortable. Body language countermeasures. Double-blind deception. Maskirovka, baby.
     "You could clear that up, just a bit, now."
     "We found the company Robin founded, after she quit being Robin. We talked to the current CEO, she said that the years of being an actress in the 'Adult Entertainment Industry' had taken its toll. She retired, moved to Carmel and shacked up with her cats and shot guns with Clint Eastwood."
     "You did go to Carmel to follow up that lead, didn't you?"
     "Yeah, sure," I lied. "We tracked her down. Lloyd was very disappointed. Let's just say his image of her smashed head-long into brutal, unyielding reality. People change, even movie people."
     "Did she tell you anything useful about Jamie?" he asked, more interested but trying not to show it.
     "Not a damn thing." I shook my head, slowly as I blew out another cloud. The smoke eddied and danced in slow swirls before drifting upward and spreading. Be like the smoke, I thought. "That girl is bat-shit crazy. Lloyd thinks it is too much of that primo No-Cal dope. The only flicker of coherence came when we mentioned Lincoln. Other than that, her life since trying to make it big is one big blur of flesh and chemicals."
     Tompkins looked at me. He looked through me. It felt like if he just stared hard enough, he'd see Robin sitting behind me, and the cover story would be shot. "All that way, and nothing to show for it."
     "I know. Sad, isn't it?" I tried to look crestfallen. "We're not done, yet, though."
     "What do you plan to do, now?" he asked. "It's not like you've made a lot of headway on the case."
     "Hey now," I mocked indignation. "We tied up one loose end. Sure we went off a bit half-cocked, but we've realized that the husband is probably the best bet. We should have been bracing him, hard, like you wanted to, back in the day."
     I was rolling the dice, here. I was going to play on his ego and see if I could roll a 7, natural. "You were making good points and scoring same with your detective-mentor, according to the files."
    For an instant, I thought I had come up craps. His eyes searched through the haze, he broke contact, leaned back and smiled. Too bad it was the tiger smile. "Yeah, I was a bit, shall we say, overzealous, at the time. I wanted to find her. I wanted to be sure it wasn't me that she ran away from. I thought that if we went hard after Mr. Brewer, he'd topple and spill."
     "I get that," I said, being as good natured and disarming as I could. "I'd have done the same thing. Make him think you've got the goods to send him to play with the big boys in Tecumseh, and he'll tell you if he's wearing lingerie. Shame it didn't work."
     "Exactly."
     "I should be moseying along. I have a couple more angles I want to try. If those don't work, we might be stuck."
     "Who do you have in mind?" he asked. I could tell he was mentally reviewing the files.
     "Just the rest of the girls from the hen's night, and 'll see if hubby will be willing to have a chin-wag."
     Tompkins' face visibly darkened. "Tread carefully around him. It could be dangerous."
     With that, Jimbo glided out, the way he entered. I still had my cigar to finish. I was calculating the odds. I think I rolled an 8. Not a natural winner, but not a tough point to make. I decided to finish my cigar while watching the people, outside. A lot of them had dressed for the nice weather when they left. The rain started and they started scurrying, looking for cover. I could relate.