BEFORE I LEFT McGINLEY'S, I called my woman. Her daughter, Lucy, answered the phone. “Albert, where are you!” she said. “We've been waiting!”
“Get your mother, please. I only have three minutes.”
“What?”
“Your mother. I need to speak to her.”
“O.K. O.K. But get your ass over here, hear?”
“Lucy . . .” I began again, with impatience. But she was gone.
It seemed forever before my woman took her place. But it was only about thirty seconds. And counting. She said, “I know you Hollywood types go in for late arrivals and grand entrances but I think you'd better hurry. Your fan club is running out of patience.”
“Ho-ho.”
“Are you coming over, Al?”
“Only after they've left. How long should I leave it?”
“An hour should do it. They'll have finished the beer by then and they've already gotten tired of patting each other on the back.”
“I'll go home first, then, and pick up a six-pack on the way. It's not Sunday, is it?”
“No, it's not Sunday. What's the matter, TV star? The flunky who counts days for you gone to the John?”
I stopped at the Liquor Locker across from the office and then locked the liquor in my trunk before ascending my stairs.
I should have been more alert. I would have heard the car door slam.
What I did hear was footsteps at the bottom of the stairs as I put the key in my door. I looked down. Someone in a cape and broad-brimmed hat was outlined in the streetlight. The someone was making its way up the stairs. There was an unsteadiness of step about the someone's progress.
It was not anyone I recognized and as it got closer I saw that my visitor was a woman. Hopes that her trek up the stairs was a mistake vanished four steps below me when she said, “Mr. Samson? Mr. Samson?”
I thought about denying myself, but, typically, I didn't act fast enough.
She said. “I knew you had to be out. I just knew it!”
I said. “Uh.”
She arrived on the landing. I saw that she wore extremely high heels and that was enough to account for the wobbles up the stairs.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do I know you?”
“No, no,” she said. “Can we go in?”
“What?”
“In. Can we go in now? It's not very comfortable out here, is it? And I have been waiting for you. It's only been twenty minutes, but I was ready to stay all night if I had to. See, I knew you were out. It was the only humane explanation and if there's one thing that I know about you it is that you are humane.”
I said, “I don't mean to be inhospitable, but what is it that you want?”
“I left messages when I called. But you haven't gotten them, because you've been out! Of course I didn't explain anything on the phone. I find I can't bare my soul to an answering machine. But I did call three times.”
Ah.
“Ah,” I said.
“Please. Can we go in?” We went in.
“It's just like I thought it would be,” she said immediately.
I pointed to my Client's Chair. “Have a seat,” I said. “Miss . . .?”
“Seals,” she said. “Monique Seals. Of course Monique isn't the name my parents gave me.”
“Of course,” I said.
I looked at my watch. I looked at Monique Seals. I sat down. I said, “Now, what was it that you wanted me to look into for you. Miss Seals?”
“It's Mrs. Ashworth.”
“Excuse me?”
“I'm married. My married name is Ashworth, but Monique Seals is how I think of myself.”
“I see.”
“No, you don't,” she said, “but I see, very clearly.” She leaned forward.
“Excuse me?”
“What I am about to say is going to embarrass you,” she said.
“Then please don't say it.”
“No, honestly. It will!”
“Miss Seals. Mrs. Ashworth. I think—”
“I saw you on television,” she said. “And I knew, just knew, that you were different”
“Different from what, ma'am?”
“I could tell it by the eyes. And by the way you moved your little head when you seemed uncomfortable. You're not like other men, are you?”
“Uh, I'm not sure I exactly—”
“And so attractive! But you must get tired of women telling you that, I bet.” She grinned at me.
I couldn't think of anything to say.
“How old do you think I am?”
“Excuse me?”
“How old do I look? Take a guess. Don't be shy.”
“I couldn't begin . . .”
“Thirty-nine years old. But I don't look more than twenty-eight or twenty-nine, do I? Do I?”
“Uh . . .”
“No, I know I don't. That's because I take care of myself, always have. Even when I was itty-bitty I stayed out of the sun and ate all my vegetables. I have an instinct for things like that.”
“Look . . .”
“And so when I had an instinct about you, I just knew I was right! You see, I saw you on TV. So human and frail and yet so overpoweringly capable and come-hither. And I knew that if anybody could help me, you could. And you can. I know you can, can't you? Why so silent?”
“I'm afraid,” I said, “that at the moment my caseload is very heavy. Miss Seals. I don't know exactly what it is that you would have liked me to do for you, but—”
She stood up abruptly. The friendliness on her face flipped to hostility. “You're not going to, are you? You won't help me. You won't even try!”
I stood up and began to move toward the door. The idea was to open it for her.
But as I moved around the desk, she stretched out one hand to restrain me by the arm. “Don't!” she said. With the other hand she opened her cape.
From the waistband of dark blue slacks she pulled out a gun.
I stopped where I was.
“Don't do anything foolish now,” she said.
“I . . . I . . .”
She beamed. “Surprised you, huh?” I nodded.
“You bastards are all alike,” she said.
“Miss Seals,” I began.
“Mrs. Ashworth,” she said.
“Mrs. Ashworth—”
“I told you!” she shouted. “I think of myself as Monique Seals.” I lunged for the gun.