Mayson’s world was crumbling. There’d been no one to help her build it, nor was there anyone now to help her save it. She’d spent her life making sure of that.
Shutting herself in her office, she slumped at the desk and gazed into a mountain of work. Movement, thought, any form of activity, seemed suddenly pointless. She was paralyzed by fear. All that mattered now was taking place in the conference room upstairs. When would she be called back? Would a warrant be waiting this time? Should she run or stay and find out? She wouldn’t go to prison. Vinny had died there. Santa would remain there until he did, too.
Afternoon shadows lengthened and yet she didn’t move, nor did the pile of work she’d once tackled with a feverish obsession. Why? It was difficult to recall. Her world was coming apart.
The autumn evening crept into the window and still she hadn’t been summoned back upstairs or even to review the inventory of Morris’s records. What review? Wasn’t it a smokescreen? Did Lamp have a hidden agenda? Elusive ghosts swirled in her head: Morris’s probate cases, secret documents. Crenshaw.
Finally rising, she went to the window. Night was falling over Manhattan’s endless granite walls. Once the ramparts of a mighty fortress, they were now the infinite, gray blocks of a prison. And the city’s myriad lights didn’t illuminate the barracks of gallant centurions but the cells of lost, pathetic souls. This wasn’t a City of Warriors like the Songbird had assured the little girl. It was a City of Prisoners; that’s what life had taught the grown woman. Her gaze fell upon the building’s last commuters trickling across the darkened square. Weren’t they prisoners, too? Their suits, briefcases, and umbrellas didn’t disguise them. Nor did their cars and train tickets provide a means of escape. No one escaped this prison. No one but the Songbird anyway. When would she finally accept it?
Night conquered the Manhattan sky. The conference room upstairs had been abandoned by now. Had Lamp’s mysterious records review begun? And where was the golden boy, Tyler? He hadn’t pestered her once since the morning. Closing her eyes she prayed, Lord, should I run or wait for a miracle to sweep this disaster into the East River? Faithfully she clung to the silence, but no answer came. Had it ever? She’d learned that faith was the flower of betrayal, blooming with promise only to wither and die. That behind every joy lurked a greater disappointment. That to invest the slightest bit of emotion guaranteed a return in pain only a fool would bargain for. And what had she invested instead? Sweat and labor — in schoolwork, Cellini’s Market, endless night jobs. And her return; seventy-hour weeks at Lieber Allen and a West Side flat slightly larger than the one in Brooklyn. Lord, please don’t abandon me now!
But had He ever been there? When the child waited by the silent door? Or now, as the woman poisoned by cynical parables waited by the office window? Was it more foolish to wait for a Songbird or the lifting of suspicion’s shadow? Was the Lord telling her now that if she ran, she wouldn’t be leaving much behind? No humanity, anyway. The Songbird had flown off with that long ago. And the woman, Mayson Corelli, was self made. Her hard work had paid the bills and financed her education. At Columbia she’d spent four years amassing credits and juggling jobs. Then catching her breath, she’d moved on to law school, passed the Bar and finally saw the sun’s first glimmer: Lieber Allen. If only Rosa had lived to see it.
She’d left Brooklyn after Rosa’s death, acquired her West Side apartment, shiny red BMW and lawyer suits. Finally she was on the fast track, too excited to care where she was going. She’d known only that nothing could stop her. But it had... last night, just as it had stopped Vinny. Foolishly, he’d trusted the system. She wouldn’t make the same mistake.
Turning from the window, her gloomy eyes drifted over the cluttered office. Was this her farewell? She saw the work; there was nothing else here. No personal items or family pictures. A framed Rosa gleaming across the desk would’ve been too sad. Vinny, too painful, Santa, too shameful. Work in exchange for more work. She flicked off the light. Hadn’t she expected a better return?
The Metropolitan, once known affectionately as Wall Street’s Grand Old Dame, was now simply the Old Dame and Lieber Allen its oldest tenant. The black, haggard-faced janitor who mopped the floor never failed to reflect her own gloomy exhaustion after fourteen-hour days. But he had a smile that could be tugged out, as she’d discovered late one evening. As they’d crossed the lobby, Tyler Waddill, she discovered, possessed something no one else had ever acquired - the mopper’s name. “Hey Amos!” he’d greeted. “Your Giants better be pumped for Sunday because my Redskins are coming to kick their ass!”
Amos had grinned deeply, shattering all of life’s safe assumptions. “Don’t be talking that trash now, Tyler. If there’s any asskickin’ to be done over at the Meadowlands, it’ll be the Redskins who get it.”
She’d left them to face a night much like this one - collar up, shoulders hunched against the chilling rain. Only this one hadn’t been forecasted and like a fool she’d left her umbrella at home. Paying the price now, she hurried across the darkened square.
Minutes later she reached her bus, collapsing into the first seat, her clothes drenched, hair plastered to her face. The engine groaned, rain beading on the window as she slipped back into her gloom. Tyler Waddill: police informer, Virginia curse. Morris Mendelsohn: arrogant bully, despicable womanizer. If finding Tyler a convenient instrument of torture, Morris must’ve been tortured himself to discover that his young protégé need only smile to have all he coveted — a planet full of women.
She wasn’t blind to what the others saw in Tyler: a young man, undeniably charming in a superficial way, yet able to convince a woman, whoever she might be, that she was the most special person on earth. It was a powerful force, yet simple in practice. He smiled. She melted. But if his charm was a talent, his physical beauty was a gift. Tall and lean-muscled, he moved with a commanding grace in his tailored suits. His thick, golden hair was naturally tangled as if swept by a sea breeze. It was the kind women loved to run their fingers through. His splendidly angled face included a fine chiseled jaw and the burnished glow of a summer beach. No man should be that handsome, but Tyler defied all the rules as he drifted through his charmed life.
The bus soon reached Mayson’s stop and, bracing, she got off to confront the rain again. She hurried along the wet street, dodging puddles, still brooding over Tyler - the asterisk to every rule, the man born at the mountaintop others struggled a lifetime to reach. He was rich, she was poor. He didn’t need a job and yet had hers. His image, like the bull’s red flag, taunted her as the chilling rain sunk deeper into her bones.
“Where the hell have you been?” Like black magic he appeared, hands jammed into his drenched coat, gold hair dripping. “We need to talk, Mayson.”
Waking to the weather’s discomforts — numbed hands and chilled toes, crimping in her wet shoes – she snapped, “You just don’t get it, Tyler. This isn’t kindergarten and I don’t want to be your friend!”
His hard glare held little patience. “You don’t have any friends, Mayson, in case you haven’t noticed. And don’t worry, I’m no kamikaze, if you think I’m here to become the first.”
Glancing at the warm lights glowing in her brownstone, she’d never longed more for her safe, dry apartment. “Your insult proves we have nothing to say to each other. Now unless you’re here to arrest me, please leave.”
“What do you mean arrest you?”
“You’re a police informant. I thought perhaps they’d given you a badge by now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ransacked, you idiot!” she scanned the misty night. Were the others staked out in a nearby building? “How did you know I lived here?”
“This great new invention called the phone book. Now can we go inside? I’m chilled to the bone.”
“Are you bugged?” Her eyes gleamed. “Yes, you are!”
He grabbed her before she could flee. “I’m not bugged!”
“Let me go!” she flailed. “I’ll scream! I’ll...”
“What?” he held her firmly. “Call the cops?”
“You stupid gavonne!” She squirmed furiously.
“Come on, Mayson, I hate it when you talk like that.”
He turned just in time to avoid a savage blow to the family jewels. She snarled; he smirked. She snorted; he gloated. The more she squirmed, the deeper his grin. Finally grasping the futility of her struggle, she contented herself with watching the rain bead on his handsome face, trickle off his elegant nose. He was thoroughly soaked, and, she hoped, completely miserable. Finally he sighed, “Now may we please go inside?”
“I didn’t ask you to come here and wait like a fool in the pouring rain!”
“Thanks for pointing that out. Now open the door!”
“Screw you!”
“Don’t start that shit. I’m not in the mood for it. I’ve been waiting under the eave of that building for the last hour, getting wetter and colder by the minute. And because of that, I assure you, I’m not going anywhere until I say what I came to say — inside your apartment. Now open the goddamned door!”
“Don’t curse me!” she shouted insolently.
“Why not? You’re cursing me, aren’t you? ‘Screw you.’ ‘Gavonne.’ It’s that same shit you slung at Morris every day.”
Her eyes widened. “You heard that?”
“Hell, everybody did. You didn’t think anything man-made like an oak door could drown out your Italian shock waves? When your mouth hits top gear, the Old Dame’s walls tremble.”
So they knew she’d hated Morris. “Let me go!” She flailed again.
“After I’ve had my say.”
“Unless it’s the Gettysburg Address, you could’ve said it a dozen times and been gone by now instead of keeping me out here in the rain.”
“Mayson, you’re just wasting time with all this blustering.”
True, she was forced to concede. He wouldn’t leave without first having his say. And she wasn’t about to scream for the cops. “All right, say what you’ve come to say and then leave. Deal?”
“Deal.” He released her.
Digging out her key, she let them inside the empty lobby. A TV droned in the back office. They rode the rattling elevator upstairs, and scowling, she led him down the hall to her apartment.
It was small, cold and gloomy, like her - precisely what he would’ve expected, had he expected anything. He searched in vain for a plant, hanging basket, needlepoint pillow... anything bright, cheerful, feminine. Even the walls were barren, except for a few cheap pastels. The furniture was stiff and uninviting. An ancient TV sat in a corner, black-and-white no doubt, like everything else in the apartment. How could she live in such a dreary place, where hard, colorless objects filled up space, yet added neither warmth to the air nor food to the senses? Why was she so cold, miserable, and angry, when she was so intelligent, strongwilled and beautiful? What he’d never pondered before he did now intensely, in this strange moment of introduction to her world.
“Get a good look,” she said. “It’s the only one you’ll have.”
Her coat drenched and hair sopping, she leaned against the counter separating the living room from the kitchen. Even dripping wet she was gorgeous, yet from a world he couldn’t begin to understand. “A good look at what?” he replied. “I mean, I don’t see anything. It’s almost like...” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What?” she snapped. “If you must insult my home, at least have the courtesy to finish the job.” Teeth chattering, chilled to the bone, she simmered with contempt.
“I was just going to say there’s no warmth or color, as if no one actually lived here.”
“Certainly that doesn’t surprise you. Everyone at the firm thinks I’m cold and dead inside, anyway.”
He’d hurt the feelings he now realized she had. “I am curious to know why a person with such obviously sharp senses would live in a place that offers them no gratification.”
She’d underestimated him. He wasn’t the empty-headed playboy she’d assumed. He was perceptive enough to make her very uncomfortable suddenly. Lamp, Duke, or whoever was behind this visit wouldn’t have sent him unless they were convinced he could satisfy their objective. “Now that we’ve dispensed with your opinion of my home, state your piece and leave.”
“All right,” he nodded. “I came to warn you this murder investigation is moving quickly. Now that Duke has his suspect, meaning you, it’s all downhill in his mind. He and Santinez had planned on spending the day at the firm yet were gone by one. After returning to their precinct, they left again - this time for the Essex, where they spent the afternoon. They then returned to the precinct, jubilant I’m sure, and got their grunts busy with some computer checks. What they’re looking for exactly, I don’t know.”
The Lips, her stomach knotted, that’s who they were looking for!
“Anyway,” he continued, “with the NYPD computers cooking, they returned to the firm for a confidential meeting with Lamp. They were still behind closed doors when I left at seven.”
“What they were talking about?” she asked.
“For starters, I’d say the evidence they obtained in their afternoon chats with Ruby Carter and the other Essex residents who saw you last night.”
“They didn’t see me!” Her heart pounded. “I wasn’t there!”
“Of course you were, Mayson.”
Her eyes narrowed as he peered through the blinds. “How do you know so much about all this?”
“Don’t worry about that.” He scanned the dark street.
“You’ve accounted for everyone’s activities this afternoon except yours. Where were you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Stop saying that! I wouldn’t be asking these questions if I wasn’t worried!”
“Honestly Mayson, there’s no law requiring you to be such a goddamned pain in the ass all the time.”
“Why wasn’t I asked to help with the review of Morris’s office records?”
“Because there was no review.” His restless eyes searched the street again.
“But I thought you and Frieda were preparing an inventory?” “We did,” he nodded. “Lamp took it and nothing else was said.”
She frowned. “Lamp thinks I killed Morris, too.”
“No shit, Mayson. Everyone does, except me, of course. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. You may be the world’s biggest pain in the ass,” he squinted out the blinds again. “But you’re no murderer.”
“How can you be so sure?” she challenged him. “Unless you killed Morris yourself?”
He smiled, “I have one of those air-tight alibis. I was at McDougal’s last night when Morris left those messages I told you about. Only a hundred or so regulars saw me. Have you been there?” he asked. “McDougal’s, I mean. It’s just a few blocks from here.”
No, but she’d walked past it dozens of times and peered through the windows at the mahogany and brass bar with its sparkling glass racks and cozy dining area. She’d wanted to go in but hadn’t. There’d been many places like that.
“McDougal’s is like an oasis in the desert,” he said. “Which I guess tells you what I think of Manhattan. Anyway, that’s where I hang out.”
Usually with a woman, she felt certain. “Did you have a date last evening?”
“I had dinner. Prime rib, the best anywhere.”
“I didn’t ask about dinner. I asked if you had a date.”
“I said there were a hundred familiar faces. Does it really matter whose they were?”
“You can assume it does since I asked.”
“All right yes, I had a date.”
“With whom?”
“I’m certain that doesn’t matter.”
Her eyes narrowed, “Someone from the firm, wasn’t it? Jill Allen, your hall fairy, or Sibyl Harrison?”
“Meg Wilkinson,” he confessed.
She scowled. “You had a date with Curtis Samuels’s secretary! The firm’s Vice Chairman! You know the firm’s rule against dating employees.”
“Let’s not go ballistic here, Mayson, it was just dinner. And that stupid rule should be abolished.”
“Stupid or not, you just confessed to breaking it, something Lamp will be most interested in.”
“Probably,” he nodded. “If Lamp didn’t already know. He was present this morning when Duke asked about my evening. Obviously he wasn’t thrilled I’d been out with Samuels’s secretary, but I had the distinct impression he was more interested in Morris’s murder.”
She watched him peer out the blinds as he’d done several times already. Her eyes hardened suddenly. Duke, Santinez - they were probably staked outside her building! Nostrils flaring, she charged him, the blinds rattling as they crashed against the window. “You filthy gavonne!” She clawed at his coat. “I knew it!” Struggling, he managed finally to latch onto her hands. Still she wrestled furiously. “It won’t work! It’s there! I’ll prove it!” Again she lunged, clawed at his coat. Again he struggled to subdue her.
“What the hell are you looking for?” He dodged a vicious kick.
“The bug!” Grabbing his coat collar, she shrieked, “Screw you, Duke! Screw you, Santinez! You’ll never trick me into a confession!”
Gazing at her in disbelief, he opened his coat. “Look, goddamnit! No bug! No recorder! Nothing but your goddamned paranoia!” She withered against his indignation like a sheepish child. “Here!” He ripped a pen from his jacket. “It might contain a micro bug. I sometimes forget to remove them when my 007 missions are over. Check it out. You can never be too sure about these things.”
But she didn’t dare. His point made, he slipped the pen back in his jacket. “Why would I want to trick you into a confession when I’ve just said I believe you’re innocent?”
His anger was incomprehensible to her. In her world, actions were explained by self-interest, not moral codes. If the action resulted in gain there was nothing else to consider. “You’d entrap me, Tyler, because it would mean my arrest and dismissal from the firm; at least after my conviction for Morris’s murder, which my confession would guarantee.”
“I see,” he nodded. “And I guess it’s equally clear why I’d want this?”
“Don’t pretend you’re so stupid!” she snapped angrily. “You know exactly why - to get my job.”
He shrugged. “I thought I already had it Lambrusco and the other stuff.”
“They’re just assignments. To get my job, you must push me out, meaning that in six months you could have what’s taken me two years to earn. Specifically, Senior Associate.”
“You’re sure?” he squinted. “All this I can have just by putting you in prison for a crime you didn’t commit? I had no idea.”
As he started away she followed, her eyes gleaming angrily. “No one can trick me into a confession for something I didn’t do! Never, do you hear me?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “And it was stupid to try. I’ll tell Duke we need another approach, or on second thought, that I’ve had enough of this case.” He turned at the door. “Mayson, I hope you’re not offended, but your job just isn’t worth the hassle. In fact if it’s not too much to ask, maybe you could tell Duke for me.”
Hopelessly confused, she watched him leave. Did he work for the NYPD or not? Dashing to the window, she scanned the street below. They were out there... weren’t they? Clenching her fists, she raced from the apartment. He turned in the hall as she approached. “Are these elevators always so slow?”
“Tyler, don’t go!”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because... I mean, we were...”
“You’re going to tell Duke I’m off the case and went to McDougal’s for a beer. I may have forgotten to tell you that part. And I think now I’ll have a steak, too. Tell him a T-bone... No a Rib-eye; and a baked potato. Can you remember all that?” The elevator opened and an elderly woman peered at them curiously. “Sorry,” he smiled.
As they returned to her apartment, she asked, “If not Duke, who were you looking for?”
Lifting the blinds, he scanned the dark street again. “Who said I wasn’t looking for him?”
“What!” she snapped. “Why I ought...!”
“What you ought to do,” he quickly cut her off, “is stuff a sock in your mouth and let me explain.” The miracle unfolded; she became quiet. “Now I’m looking for Duke because I don’t want him to see me, something that could easily happen if your apartment is under surveillance. Which is a clear possibility, since you’re the prime suspect in a murder case. And if I’m spotted they’ll think one of two things: I’m sympathetic to you or else insane, a diagnosis I’m beginning to fear may have some validity. Furthermore, if I’m under suspicion I’ll lose the flexibility and resources needed to help you. That’s why I didn’t pester you this afternoon, waiting instead in the pouring rain to tell you what you must know.”
Absorbing this explanation, she quietly came around the counter. “I don’t have beer, but there’s wine or coffee if you want.”
He studied her warily. Had a peace been negotiated? “Thanks, but it’s late.” If he was lucky, he could still catch Marilyn Warren before she left McDougal’s.
Mayson stopped her forage in the cabinets. “You must be anxious to escape this colorless place. I can’t blame you for that.”
Yet he remained, unable to escape the struggle in her eyes. She needed help but refused to admit it. She wanted him to stay and hated herself for it. The conflict was much too deep to grasp, yet there was hope at least for a cease-fire. “The only time I’ve spoken with Duke and Santinez was in the conference room today. That’s the truth, Mayson.”
“Did you tell them about Morris’s calls last night?”
“They didn’t ask about that.”
“Not if you didn’t disclose them. But they certainly asked when you last spoke with Morris.”
“And I told them the Friday before he left on vacation.”
“Then you lied. You spoke with him last night.”
“No, he spoke with me or rather with my machine. I just listened to his recorded voice. That’s not speaking with him — a technical distinction maybe, but a material one.”
“And one Duke could give a damn about! Honestly, Tyler, do you expect me to believe you’d obstruct justice to spare me?”
“They also asked if I knew Morris had returned from his vacation,” he continued. “I said I found out this morning like everyone else.”
“That’s certainly a lie.”
He shook his head, “I didn’t discover Morris’s messages until midnight, which was this morning.”
Arms folded, she glared at him. He was a paradox she could never hope to understand. “I thought you had to leave.”
Marilyn, he remembered now. “May I use your cell?” As he grabbed it off the counter, their eyes met. Hers weren’t hard like he’d believed, but soft and vulnerable. More frightened than hostile, like a fawn lost in the woods... and deep. How deep? Did he really want to know?
She watched him drop the phone without dialing. “Backing out on your date? Missing tonight will probably snap a streak or something. Maybe end your quest for the Guinness Book of World Records. ‘Most Consecutive Dates: Tyler Waddill, Virginia Gavonne.’ Do you sleep with them all?”
“I’m sure that’s none of your business.”
“Have I become the next notch to add to your prodigious belt? It’s either sex or my job. I have nothing else you could want.” She watched him start for the door. “What, not even one token denial?”
“What’s the point?” he swung around. “You’ve already found me guilty. And besides, you’re so blinded by paranoia you couldn’t see the truth anyway.”
“Then try me!” she snapped angrily.
“All right, I don’t want sex or your job; I just want to help you. And the reason’s obvious but unfortunately one you can’t grasp. The idea of you going to prison for someone else’s crime offends me.”
“Tyler, people don’t lie to the police in a murder investigation just because they’re offended!’”
“Believe what you want, Mayson, I don’t care anymore.”
Again he started for the door. “Why don’t you want sex?” she asked. “I’m not pretty enough?”
“I never said you weren’t pretty.” Returning inside now, he quickly shifted the conversation to safer ground. “I don’t understand Lamp’s attitude. It’s bad enough a firm partner has been murdered, but why make it worse by assuming his associate did it? When I told Duke your relationship with Morris had seemed fine to me, Lamp said it was only natural I wouldn’t want to cast you in a bad light after just taking your most important assignments. ‘The gracious victor,’ he called me while insisting that Lambrusco must have caused bad blood between you two.”
Then she hadn’t been imagining Lamp’s strange behavior. “What did you say?”
“That if you’d been upset initially, you got over it when you learned the reason for the reassignment.”
“The reason?” she asked, puzzled.
“The state court’s practice of inviting a Supreme Court Justice to join the panel when significant constitutional issues are involved,” he explained. “For Lambrusco, that would be Chief Justice Falkingham. That’s why Morris picked me to argue the case. I spent my first eighteen months out of law school as Falkingham’s clerk. I did such a great job in fact, he recommended me to his close friend, Lamp. That’s how I ended up here... And for the record, you’re not pretty. You’re beautiful.”
She stared at him, incredulous. “You told Lamp the reason Morris... why he...? Did you really mean that?”
“Of course,” he nodded. “Morris assumed that with Falkingham...”
“Not that, you idiot! The ‘beautiful’ part.”
“I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”
“How could you possibly think Lamp would believe that?”
“Mayson, everyone thinks you’re beautiful. Just like they think...”
“Not that! Your stupid lie of why Morris gave you Lambrusco. Can’t you keep anything straight?”
He had until this conversation. Now however, his head was spinning without a clue where it might be jerked next. “What’s so hard to believe? I learned enough at the Supreme Court to know a lawyer’s strategy is more than evidence and case precedents. If there’s a political advantage, like having a wise old mentor hear his apprentice’s first case, it’s exploited.”
“But it wasn’t here and Lamp knows it. He’s convinced Morris was pressuring me for sex.”
Tyler frowned. “Then he was?”
“No. The point is Lamp believes it, but not your political advantage theory. If the firm needed such an advantage he’d argue Lambrusco himself. All you’ve done is draw suspicion on yourself.”
Possibly, but if Lamp was suspicious, he was more suspicious of the Managing Partner.
“I repeatedly denied Duke’s sexual favors angle,” Mayson said. “Still, Lamp plans to investigate.”
“Goddamnit, I knew it!” he growled. “Morris was harassing you!”
“No he wasn’t! Now stop.”
Yes he was... or had been. The horny prick was now a dead prick, murdered not for sexual blackmail but for something else. What? Was there even one clue? “Do you know what Morris kept in the firm’s vault?” he asked. “Lamp was in there several times today.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “Meg Wilkinson told you?”
“She’s the vault custodian, Mayson.”
“I have no idea what Morris kept in the vault. But what’s so strange about Lamp being in there?”
“Several times in one day, specifically the day after Morris’s murder? Maybe it’s nothing.”
But clearly he wanted it to be something, she realized. He wanted to link Lamp’s vault visits to Morris’s death, specifically to help her. “Tyler, why are you doing this?”
He gazed at her vacantly. Besides outrage over the injustice he saw unfolding, what did he feel? Guilt, possibly, for having served as Morris’s instrument in sexual blackmail, and for not having been home that night to take his call? Had he been home, he, not Mayson, would’ve gone to the Essex that night.
“If you’re not working for Duke, how do you know what he was doing all afternoon?” she asked now. “You must be his informant. There’s no other explanation.”
Why was she so distrustful? Did the answer lie hidden in her large, dark eyes? If he discovered their depth, would he also learn their secrets? “Mayson, I can’t help unless you tell me the truth. I know you were at Morris’s last night. He called and you went. His message proves it, as do the residents’ descriptions. You used the freight elevator, then your apartment key. Why did you have the key?”
“I didn’t, Tyler. And I wasn’t there last night.”
“You said the apartment was ransacked.”
“No,” she insisted. “The radio did.”
“Did something in the apartment frighten you? Is that why you ran instead of calling the cops?”
“I did neither. And I wasn’t frightened.” She sighed, “This is all so pointless.”
More than pointless, the evening had been wet, irritating and completely wasted. Glancing at his watch, he started out. She followed, right on cue. “I always win.”
“You’ve turned away a friend, Mayson. That’s not winning.”
“You’re no friend.” Again on this roller coaster night, she stopped him as he opened the door. “Tyler, did you really mean what you said earlier?”
“About what?” he asked.
Her eyes dropped, her hands twisting nervously. “You know... the part about me?”
“Yes Mayson,” he smiled. “You’re very beautiful... a beautiful pain in the ass. But this gavonne you keep calling me... what does it mean?”
“Redneck,” she said closing the door.