I peered over Dr. James’ shoulder for Brown Shirts but all I saw was the vaguely familiar face of the grocery store checkout girl. She was staring queerly at me from behind the chain-link fence of the store’s parking lot. I quickly looked back to Dr. James and felt a tingle of satisfaction when I saw her pawing at the dirt with her feet.

Her words came in a rush. “I’m sorry to have caught you so offguard. Perhaps we could move inside?”

Still unwilling to trust my voice, I nodded and backed through the open door. I closed my eyes for a second to make her disappear, but she just followed me inside. The morning chill had finally cracked my numbness and I felt like reaching for a robe, only I didn’t have one. I tried talking around the lump in my throat. “Look, I have to get dressed. I haven’t made coffee yet either. I’ll get it in a minute.”

She was looking around the kitchen with a quick nervous intensity. “Please don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

Although lack of use kept this room the neatest of any in the apartment, everything out of place crowded into my sight. I waved toward the kitchen table. “Look, why don’t you sit down? Make yourself comfortable. Don’t worry, I won’t slip out the back window.” I walked into the bedroom and caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. She looked confused, as if she didn’t understand what I was talking about.

I fumbled through my dresser trying to find something clean or unwrinkled. I gave up and grabbed yesterday’s clothes off the chair by the bed. When I returned to the kitchen she was sitting at the table eyeing the black deco design baked into its brown enamel top.

She pointed to the table. “Why is it signed, Mr. Jacob?”

“It was a way for artists to work during the thirties.” I paused behind a chair. “Listen, Dr. James, you can call me Mr. Jacob in your office but here I don’t like to be called ‘Mister.’ There was no reason for you to come and get me. I was going to turn up.” I aimed my finger at the clock. “Probably on time.”

She looked startled, then jerked her hand up over her open mouth. I had trouble watching her. In her office she always seemed so implacable.

I threw up my hands. “Dr. James, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She gasped for air, then suddenly burst out laughing. Her shoulders trembled and her eyes filled. She was laughing out loud, while I felt like a fool. I grasped the back of the chair and felt my legs grow weak.

She rummaged through her oversized pocketbook and pulled out a man’s blue handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “You thought I came to get you for our appointment. I’m sorry, Mr. . . .” She stopped and caught her breath. “What would you like me to call you?”

“I don’t care. Matt, Matthew. It doesn’t matter.”

She placed her purse down by her feet. “Matthew seems best.”

The way she said “Matthew” reminded me of my mother. I tried to hold my annoyance in check. “And you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What am I supposed to call you?”

My tone drove the laughter from her voice. “I don’t mind Dr. James.” She was staring at me and pressing her lips together in a tight line.

I turned away and walked over to the stove and shook the espresso pot. I thought about making fresh, but just turned on the flame under last night’s leftover. I could hear her twist in the chair behind me. “This is really a wonderful kitchen. It feels so comfortable. Like my . . .

“Grandmother’s.” I turned and faced her. “Dr. James, it’s too early in the morning to feel like a fool. If you’re not here to harass me about attendance, what the hell are you doing here? A survey of client artifacts?”

Her eyes narrowed and she spoke without a hint of amusement. “I’m not used to your sharp tongue.”

“And I’m not used to having my shrink laugh at me in the middle of my kitchen.”

The standoff gave us both a moment to regroup. She ran her hand through her short brown hair. “I’m sorry for this intrusion, especially if my laughter disturbed you. I’ve been so anxious that it was a relief to be misunderstood.” She shook her head. “The days have been such a blur that I even forgot that we meet today.”

I imagined myself banging on the door to her empty office—an image that left an unwelcome taste of my own medicine in my mouth. I took two cups from the cabinet, poured some black sludge, and returned to the table. I didn’t ask if she took cream or sugar.

From where I sat I could see her entire body. Her legs were crossed and her skirt pulled tight across her thighs. I grew anxious as I felt a slight movement between my legs. When we regularly met she was behind a desk, so all I usually saw was a jacket or sweater. I kept my eyes on her face. “Dr. James, what exactly are you doing here?”

She lifted the cup to her lips and drank warily. I was surprised by the maroon color of her nail polish. I was seeing things I’d never before noticed. Someone once said that paranoia was just a form of heightened awareness. I think it was Charlie Manson.

Her face was cloudy and her finger ran a trace around her eyes. “Mostly I’m here on instinct.” She smiled automatically but her face continued to droop. “I’m not in the habit of visiting unannounced, and never a client’s home, but I’ve tried to call you for two days and thought you might be keeping the phone off the hook. I took the chance of dropping by. Now that I’m here,” her hand swept over the apartment like a benediction, “I keep wondering if I made a mistake?”

“Something you find disturbing about the decor?”

She spoke earnestly. “No, not at all. I like your taste. When you’ve talked about junk stores you made it sound like Goodwill.”

“Some of this stuff is from Goodwill.”

She took another tentative sip of coffee, grimaced, and ignored my remark. My anger was disappearing and in its place something like curiosity started to nibble. I guess I’m a softie when it comes to my shrink in distress.

“Look, I guessed wrong about why you came. You were right about the phone. Something seems to be bothering you, so why don’t you tell me what it is.” It was disconcerting to be the one doing the reassuring. I took out my cigarettes, lit one, and threw the pack on the table. What I really wanted was a joint.

She started to reach for the pack, hesitated, then pulled one out with her fingertips and looked at me. I nodded, surprised. Smoking during our hour had been an early point of contention that I had lost. I handed her my lighter and watched as she lit the cigarette, inhaled, and kept the smoke in her cheeks. It might have been funny but I felt impatient. Despite the wrestling match with the cigarette, worry never left her face.

“Dr. James, I think it would make it easier for both of us if you told me why you’re here.”

She tilted her head. “That’s what I’m wondering about. Seeing you this angry makes me realize how complicated talking to you really is.” She looked off into the living room. “Of course Eban would laugh at my discomfort. Tell me that I was acting like an uptight, traditional psychologist. Maybe he’s right. Or perhaps that’s just my personality.” She turned back toward me and took a few rapid puffs on her cigarette. I pushed the ashtray toward her and noticed a roach half hidden among the stubbed-out butts. “Of course if Eban knew I was here because of him, he would be the one who was uptight.”

Her musings only added to my hazy discomfort. “Dr. James, what are you talking about? Who is Eban? And why is anyone other than me uptight?”

She met my eyes. “For days I’ve thought about nothing except hiring you and now that I’m here I think it will destroy our therapeutic relationship.”

At that moment I could guarantee it. “What do you want to hire me to do? I don’t want to manage another building.”

She shook her head impatiently. “No, not janitorial. Detective work.”

I looked at her and felt helplessness sit on the neck of my frustration.

“Dr. James, I’ve never done any psychological research. Just legal. You know that. Graduate students are a dime a dozen around here. What do you want with me?”

She looked up from the table. “I wasn’t thinking of research. I need a detective, a private investigator.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I felt like I was chasing the White Rabbit. “What are you trying to pull? I don’t do detective work, you know that. I take care of this building and do occasional legal research for a friend. All I do with the license is hang it on the wall when I clean my gun.”

“Well, I thought this might be an opportunity for you to do something else with it.”

I recognized the look and tone and didn’t like either. Never had. “Goddamnit, lady, it’s one thing to sit in your office and push me to get more active with my life, another to create work therapy. I appreciate your good intentions, but isn’t this a little much?”

Dr. James pushed her cigarette into the ashtray and pulled out the roach. “I didn’t think you were still using drugs.”

I shrugged and lied. “Just sometimes.”

She pulled up her bag, rose to her feet, and began to stuff the handkerchief back in. “This was a terrible idea. I don’t know what got into me.” She finished tugging the bag closed and looked at her watch. “Believe it or not, I came here for me, not you. Please, let’s meet next week at our regular time, so we can discuss all of this. I’m sorry I’ve upset you, but believe me there was no sub rosa therapeutic agenda for my visit. None.”

Her choice of words broke through my anger. I began to laugh, and some of the tension eased. “Sub rosa agenda? Does that mean you’re inviting me out for Italian subs?”

She looked flustered but I didn’t care. “I’ll tell you the truth; it’s hard to make promises about next week. If this isn’t about therapy, I can’t fathom why you’re here. I’ve never detected anything that moved on its own accord, and you know that. How will we be able to discuss anything if all I keep asking is why were you here?”

She began to fiddle with the clasp on the bag but didn’t move. I stayed seated. After a moment she sat back down. She put the purse back down on the floor and placed her hands in her usual prayer position. She looked familiar and my kitchen looked familiar, but the combination of the two seemed awfully strange.

She took a deep breath. “I think I’m only compounding a mistake, but I’m sure what you say about next week is true. I know how stubborn you are. It was one of the reasons I thought of you.” She paused and I pondered my bullheadedness. When she continued her voice dropped an octave; she kept her eyes on the table and I felt myself grow tense. “Eban Holmes is a therapist and friend I care strongly about. He is considered a renegade by most local psychologists. His beliefs, his politics, fall outside establishment norms and values. In fact, he wouldn’t even like that I called him a therapist.”

She looked up from the table and searched my face for a reaction. I forced a blank look and tone despite my uneasiness.

“What does he call himself?”

She shrugged. “It depends on the week. Consistency is not one of his virtues.”

Something about her last remark left me wondering if she was referring to his work. I kept my tone neutral. “I don’t quite see the problem?” There wasn’t anything unusual about an oddball shrink. There sometimes seemed more charlatans hovering around the mental health field than clients. “He doesn’t sound terrible,” I added.

She seemed relieved by my remark. “He’s not at all terrible. Quite the opposite. He even gets grudging respect for his ability to work with people who wouldn’t go near a psychiatrist or psychologist.” There was a moment of quiet. I had a hunch we both were thinking of the same example.

She tossed her head as if she were shaking hair from her face. “It’s his writings that cause the stir. Since The Radical Therapist folded, no one will publish him. The journals won’t print his attacks on what he calls the ‘helping industry.’ Eban believes that the industrialization of a professional helping hierarchy is one way the culture maintains the status quo. He is brilliant but they won’t publish a word! Worse, they hate him for his assault on what he sees as their self-serving professional greed.”

I was surprised and embarrassed by the bitterness and passion in her voice. The delicate therapeutic relationship we had constructed over the past four years creaked under the weight of the morning.

Still, I was aware of a hint of relief mixed in with my discomfort. Also, Eban Holmes sounded interesting. An antitherapy therapist. My kind of shrink. But I didn’t think Dr. James was offering me a referral.

I lit another cigarette and offered her one but she shook her head and frowned. “I have a complicated relationship with Eban. We often disagree but he is a longtime friend and teacher.” She hesitated. “And sometimes therapist.” She stopped momentarily, as if considering whether to answer the question that shot into my head. She took another cigarette out of the pack, rolled it in her fingers, then flicked it onto the table. “I’ve tried to return his help as best I can. Since he is so far out of the mainstream he has difficulty getting referrals. I’ve helped him with that and other things.”

“Other things?” My curiosity outmuscled my discomfort.

“An office in Number 290 opened, and with a little help he was able to rent it at a cost he could afford.” Her voice faded.

“What sort of help?”

“One of my clients was related to the landlord.”

I shook my head. “I don’t see much harm in that.”

“I don’t want you to think I routinely make it a practice of asking favors of my clients.”

I smiled. “I can’t imagine you asking many favors of anyone. What you did sounds like a nice thing.”

She clenched her fist and a note of panic crept into her voice. “Maybe, but last weekend the building was ransacked. One of the offices broken into was his, and I feel responsible. I am indebted to Eban, and, if something horrible should come of this, I’ll never forgive myself.”

I realized that I didn’t want her to continue. Every answer brought me closer to Alice’s rabbit hole, but I heard myself say, “Dr. James, I can understand your feeling responsible, even though it seems like reaching, but so what? Won’t insurance cover any damage?”

She ran her hand back through her hair. “It’s not damage that I’m worried about. I’m afraid Eban is vulnerable to blackmail.”

I suppose a real P.I. might salivate at the mention of blackmail, but I wasn’t a real P.I. What kept me rooted to my seat was the tone of Dr. James’ voice, the explosiveness of her anxiety, ber vulnerability. But vulnerability to what?