When I turned, however, I found that I had misperceived my situation, and was sitting in my chair, pen in hand, notebook open in front of me. Beside the notebook, several pages of which were filled with writing, was a card that read, “Mr. Smith,” and gave an address — the address to which I had followed my previous client’s “husband.” As for my client, having presumably said all he wished to, he had seen fit to take his leave.
I found, now that he had gone, that I was very tired, and even though it was late and I would soon be expected for my shift at the transactions firm, it seemed hard to move. It was pleasantly warm in my office and the yellow bulbs gave off the kind of soft, inadequate light that lends itself to lucubration and dozing. Aware, then, that I was in my element, I depressed the intercom switch and said, Are you there?
Yes.
You’re back from your little stroll.
Yes.
Don’t let anyone in.
There is a woman here to see you.
Make an excuse. Send her away.
I switched off the intercom and, leaning back in my chair, let out a sigh, took up my notebook, and read the following:
[Client]: I have a story too. It’s not coming to me right this second, but it will.
We sit. I ask the client for details of the business matter he has come to share with me.
[Client]: Ah, here it is, I knew it would come. It is of a slightly older vintage than the one you related, and while it does not involve princes and airfields, I think you will find it makes for agreeable listening.
Client’s story summarized: A great-great-uncle or aunt or client, having fallen in with a certain group, burns rose at midnight and waits up until dawn for ghost of rose to appear.
[Me]: And? [Client]: It didn’t. Or so it seemed to my relative, for a number of weeks, months, or even years — the account isn’t clear — and then one morning at breakfast, on a sun-flooded table, an iris, very pale, appeared and began slowly revolving, all through breakfast. [Me]: An iris? [Client]: Yes, strange isn’t it? The ghost of an iris for a burned rose. My relative took to burning all kinds of flowers after that. Whole bouquets. But it is not clear whether there were any more apparitions. [Me]: I see.
Client falls silent. Starts to hum. Pretty green eyes. Somehow familiar. I offer him a drink. We drink. Toast relatives. I ask him if the story he has told me is true.
[Client]: Yes. [Me]: I see. [Client]: But there were no witnesses. Or none have come forward yet. [Me]: The victim had been bludgeoned to death? [Client]: So our sources tell us, but we haven’t been able to confirm. None of our people have seen the body. It is, you understand, a very delicate matter. [Me]: Delicate in what sense? [Client]: In all senses. [Me]: Where is the body? [Client]: We aren’t sure. [Me]: But you are sure the victim was one of your firm’s employees? [Client]: No. [Me]: So you want me to find out if it was.
Client doesn’t answer. I ask client if any employees are missing. Client says it would be impossible to say.
[Me]: You mentioned sources. How about some names?
Client gives names, places of business, phone numbers: Mr. Jones, Ms. Green, Ms. Krumpacher. Settle on fee. Reasonable. Client looks at watch. Says he has to leave. Leaves. Room is suddenly filled with flowers. Very pale. Slowly rotating. Whole bouquets.
By this time (I had been rather slow in reading), it was quite late and high time I left my office and made my way over to the transactions firm to see what they had for me that evening. Before leaving, however, I carefully copied the above-mentioned names and phone numbers onto a fresh sheet of the notepad, tore the sheet out of the book, put the book in the desk drawer, closed the drawer, locked the drawer, pocketed the key (I thought), went out and had a short conversation with my secretary, who I found in high spirits (the new client had tipped him generously), left him the names and numbers with instructions to set up appointments, felt for my pulse, couldn’t find it, asked my secretary to take it, was told it was eighty, asked him if he was lying, watched him smile, shrugged, then smacked him, gently, then left.
And while it had been my intention to mull over certain aspects of the new case, especially those aspects that (even if only hypothetically) impinged upon my own person, before I could begin, before, in fact, I could begin even to be aware of my passage, i.e., down the hall, down the stairs, out the front door, along the crowded streets, then streets plural, I found myself at home, sitting on my couch with a scotch and soda in my hand.
I took a sip.
This was scotch from a good bottle, not any bottle I owned. For a moment, then, I had the pleasant thought that the entire night had slipped by, that not only had I misplaced my passage home, but also my passage to the firm, some light banter in the copy room, a welcome dose of exegesis from my fleshy friend or one of the more senior transactionists, an assignment, perhaps on one of the rooftops this time, or near a furnace, or outside the city in the wetlands, or on one of the many dark plains; at any rate, a fine night’s work, it occurred to me, might have passed, been completed, been achieved, after which I might have purchased (or even been awarded) this fine scotch.
I sighed. I took a sip. As I pulled the glass away from my lips, a woman came out of the kitchen with her own glass and sat down beside me.
Now it came back to me. I had been on my way to work and, in light of the seriousness of the case I was now working on, had stopped off at home to retrieve my gun. Arriving at my door, I had met this woman, who, she had told me, had attempted to see me earlier that evening at my office and had been turned away.
I’m sorry, I said.
You’ve already apologized, it’s all right, she said, sipping at her drink.
She, too, was quite an interesting aggregate. By that I mean that she was in possession of attributes both comely and less so, some of them simultaneously. Take for instance her legs. They were exquisitely shaped, but exceptionally short, as if she had on the legs of a much smaller person. Her hands, too, which looked as though they’d been chiseled out of brown granite, were tiny, so that she was obliged to hold her glass of scotch, rocks no water, with both of them. Her face, for its part, was gorgeous, and it was a little hard not to just stare at it, and stare at it and stare.
I’m sorry, I said. I mean for staring.
How do you like the whiskey? she said.
Lovely, I said.
She had poured it from a leather-wrapped stainless steel flask that she had taken from an inside pocket. When she had pulled it out, I had seen her shoulder holster and the small but deadly looking automatic it held.
How do you do with that thing? I had asked.
Marvelously, she had said.
At that point, I had excused myself to the bedroom where I had retrieved my own gun, a revolver, not too accurate but persuasive, had slipped it into my pocket, then returned to the living room and sat down.
I took another sip.
The apartment seemed a little cool to me.
I asked her if she would like me to turn up the heat.
She told me that she was adequately heated.
It seems cool to me, I said.
It’s probably your bruise.
Probably.
Take another drink.
I took one.
Helps, doesn’t it?
I told her it did.
For a while we sat there drinking.
Any particular reason you stopped by?
Yes.
We drank a while longer.
I found that most of my thoughts, though dull, had to do with her face.
The tiny hands, too, had their charm.