I WAS IN BED with J. Mark Hamilton, my brother-in-law. We had spent the night together because my sister, Laura, was in Park Central, recovering from plastic surgery. She’d had her tits elevated.
So there we were in the morning, J. Mark and me, his unshaved jowls scraping at me. “Bon appetit,” I murmured, and then the phone rang.
It was Sol Faber, my literary agent.
“Morning, doll,” he said brightly. “We got a meet with the man at tennish. Remember?”
That’s the way Sol talks.
“I remember,” I said. As a matter of fact, I had forgotten. I have that frailty: I lose the remembrance of unpleasant coming events.
Sol told me to meet him in the lobby of Binder Publications a few minutes before ten. Then we hung up. My brother-in-law raised his bald head to stare at me.
“Who was that?” he demanded.
“Your wife,” I said. “She asked me to remind you to pick up the drycleaning.”
His face went white before he realized I was ribbing him. J. Mark is not the fastest wit in the world. He does, though, possess certain skills, even if I don’t allow him between my sheets solely because of them. It’s a form of hostility directed against my sister. Laura is the pretty, blond, petite one. I am constructed more along the lines of a Marine drill instructor, and I have a profile that belongs on postage stamps.
In all modesty, I am not a gorgon, but I am large. Five-ten, to be exact. J. Mark Hamilton was my sister’s height: five-four. Like most tall women I inspire dreams of conquest in short males. Simply, I suppose, because we’re there.
I am extraordinarily slender, but hardly fragile. My breasts are not as large as Laura’s, lifted or descended, but I have strength in my shoulders, arms, back, and legs. I work at it: jogging, yoga, swimming, sex. My health is indecently good.
I wear my hair quite short. It is a rather indeterminate shade of dark brown. My eyes are brown too.
I am twenty-eight years old, and was born in Lima, Peru, where my father was serving as consul. Laura, who is three years younger, was born in Paris. Of course. She would be.
My father died when I was twenty-two, in a manner so ridiculous that I blush to mention it. A golf cart he was riding tipped over and fell on him, breaking his back. Near the sixth green. My mother waited a decent interval (five weeks) before remarrying. Juan, my stepfather, is two years older than I, very Spanish, and can’t decide whether to be Picasso, Manolete, or Cervantes. He and my mother live on the Costa del Sol in a seafront condominium. My mother’s name is Matilda. She is called Matty, and we exchange Christmas cards.
I visited them only once, and fled after Juan made his interest clear. He is quite short.
I have never been married. I don’t live a celibate life, but neither do I sleep around. I like men better than women.
I think that concludes the vital statistics. Oh, one more thing: I have very long feet. I offer this only as proof of my intention of making this narrative as honest as possible.
I still feel I did nothing wrong. The New York Police Department and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, of course, feel differently.