“My age? Small, brown hair, big purse? Her name’s Sharon.”
“I — I know you,” the frazzled girl whispered. She sounded as if she had lost a lot of blood. “Only I c-can’t think of your name.”
Cassie gave it, although the frazzled girl did not seem to hear her.
“I’d better tell Ben.” She seemed to have come to some sort of decision. “I’ll go get him. May I have your autograph? While I’m gone, I mean.” She fumbled below the counter, at last producing a paper napkin. “It’s not for me! It’s for — for my sister.” She whirled and was gone.
Cassie borrowed a pen from a disconsolate man on a folding chair and wrote Cassie Casey, with all good wishes.
She had just returned the pen when the frazzled girl reappeared with a youngish man who wore a blue tie with a purple shirt.
“A pleasure, madam,” the youngish man said. “Your friend’s expecting you. Drinking coffee, you know. Said he wouldn’t order until you arrived. Please follow me.”
He? Cassie followed anyway, through one noisy room crowded with tables and redolent of good food and into another, this one equally redolent though smaller and not quite so crowded and noisy.
A slender, olive-skinned man sitting alone at a table set for three looked up from his menu as they approached. It was Gideon Chase.
THE UNSEEN AUDIENCE
“I’ve got just one question.” Cassie lowered her voice. “Who the hell gave you permission to tap my phone?”
Gideon almost smiled. “No one.”
“You — you slick little bastard! I thought we were friends.”
He nodded. “As did I. May I add that I haven’t tapped it?”
“You didn’t know I was coming here? This is pure coincidence? I don’t believe it.”
“I knew. I came here to meet you and Sharon Bench. May I explain?”
“It had better be good!”
“It will at least be truthful. This morning it struck me that you had called someone named Sharon as soon as you had read my note. Thus it was reasonable to suppose that you might call her again on awakening. When you two talked last night, you implied that she worked on a newspaper.”
Gideon paused, glancing back at his menu, until Cassie had nodded. It was a reluctant nod, but a nod nonetheless.
“Since you clearly knew her, it was also reasonable to assume that Sharon’s paper was local. Three newspapers are published here. You look surprised.”
“I am,” Cassie said.
“Two are quite small, and one of those is given away. As it happens I know — or at least I believe that I know — everyone who works on the other small one. Thus it seemed likely that Sharon was on the large one, the Sun-Tribunal. I called their offices and asked to speak with Sharon. The operator asked whether I wanted Sharon Wilks or Sharon Bench. Forced to guess, I said Sharon Wilks.”
Cassie grinned.
“When I had Sharon Wilks on the line, I explained that I was a friend of yours and that you had mentioned your friend Sharon in my hearing. Sharon Wilks told me she had never met you — though she knew who you were — and gave me a number for Sharon Bench. I called her, and she asked for an interview.”
Slowly, Cassie nodded. “Begged for one, I imagine.”
Pad in hand, a waitress cleared her throat.
“We’re waiting for the third member of our party,” Gideon explained.
“Go on,” Cassie said.
“I will.” He watched the waitress’s departing back. “Now then. I told Sharon I’d be happy to give her an interview on one condition. It was that she call me if you called her, and report what you’d said. To her credit she told me that she would not do so if she had agreed to keep your call confidential.”
“She didn’t. I never asked her to.”
“I’m glad to hear it. What do you think of the blueberry pancakes?”
“They’re dotty. She called you and told you I was meeting her here for lunch. Except it’s breakfast for me.”
“As for me,” Gideon said. “You’re correct of course. She told me you’d called and that you seemed different. Her word was spacey. She said you’d described me as weird and sexy.”
“That’s better than spacey.”
“I suppose, although I’d guess that I am both. She said you’d slept long, and that you had difficulty deciding which of your experiences had been mere dreams.”
“I didn’t say that. Or not exactly.”
“Newspapers are not notorious for their painstaking accuracy.”
Sharon came in, and after a moment Gideon waved. In a whisper he added, “Follow my leads and I’ll follow yours. For your life, don’t mention those pictures or the man in them.”
Cassie nodded almost imperceptibly as Sharon perched on the edge of a chair.
When they had put down their menus, Sharon looked from one to the other. “It seems like you two are an item.”
Gideon nodded. “We are.”
Cassie said, “Get real, Sharon. Just because I meet a man for breakfast...”
“Gee, it seems like only yesterday you were calling me to get a line on him. You’re a fast worker.”
Cassie smiled.
“That is beautiful! Wow! Can you smile like that for a picture?”
“I’ll try.” Cassie smiled again.
“Great! Put your hands under the table, both of you, like you’re holding hands.” Sharon’s purse had yielded a small camcorder. “Move your chair closer, Dr. Chase. That’s it!”
The camcorder lit.
“Let me move over just a trifle. Keep the smile.”
Sharon dropped to one knee.
Gideon raised his free hand in protest. “That’s enough, surely.”
“One more shot...”
After more footage taken from a new angle, Sharon sat again. “This is s-o-o-o great! I’ve got the lead already. Now where did you two go?”
The waitress reappeared. “Anybody want to order?”
When she had gone, Gideon said, “We went on a drive. I kept Miss Casey up most of the night, I’m afraid.”
“A drive where?”
Cassie said, “You wouldn’t know the place, Sharon, and it’s quite a ways from here anyway. It’s a sort of — of a scenic overlook.”
“I won’t pry.” Sharon grinned.
“But you’ll speculate.”
“Sure I will, I can’t help it.” The grin intensified. “This is going to be so big — ”
The waitress who had just left returned. “She’s a star, isn’t she?”
Gideon said, “Correct.”
“I knew it! I told the other girls, and they’re taking peeks. Nobody can think of her name.”
“Neither can I,” Gideon told the waitress firmly, “but I believe I can recall the name of the manager here. Isn’t it Ben Janas? I seem to remember that.”
The waitress backed away.
Cassie whispered, “I thought you didn’t lie.”
“Of course I do.” Gideon’s tone was normal. “I’ve been mistaken for various things at various times, but never for a saint. Though I suppose they must lie, too, now and then. What I meant to say, and should have said, was that I could not think of you without feeling a trifle dizzy. You are, after all, the most desirable woman in the world. And I was, after all, holding hands with you just a moment ago.”
“Aren’t you going to turn on that tape recorder gadget you wear?” Cassie asked Sharon.
“She did,” Gideon said. “She turned it on as she came into the room. That’s how I knew she was Sharon. Did you drive here, by the way?”
Cassie shook her head. “I took a cab. I don’t have a car.”
“I do,” Gideon told her. “I have one here, I mean. Not the one we used last night. I’ll be happy to give you a lift when we’ve finished eating.”
LATER, in a small brown convertible with the top up, Cassie asked, “Is my phone tapped, by the way?”