“At least you try. You question. Have you ever considered that black guys who are tall and can shoot baskets face the same problems? Should they use their natural advantages, make money young, and forget about whether they’re being exploited until they’re older?”
“No. I never compared Playboy centerfolds, say, with big-money student athletes. But you’re right. They’ve both got something they can selclass="underline" being young and in shape. I should judge: I never had those temptations.”
“Why not?”
“Look at me! I looked twelve until I was past twenty, and now that I’m approaching thirty, I look twenty. Well? Don’t I?”
He looked her over, so much more thoroughly than he ever had before that Temple regretted her impulsive challenge. Why draw anyone's attention to your perceived deficits? Bad PR.
“What’s wrong with that?” Matt asked at last. “They sell expensive creams to get the same effect. Someday you’ll be seventy and look fifty.”
“But I’m never taken seriously! Everybody’s always saying I’m too young or too small. They think that my brain matches my stature. They think I’m cute!” she snarled. “They especially think I’m cute when I’m mad.”
He put up his hands. “Not me. Listen, Temple, I understand your frustration.”
“Why? I’m sure everybody takes you very seriously. Face it, you’re one of the born-beautiful people, and you don’t even work at it.”
Tactful, calm Matt Devine suddenly tensed. He turned away, hands in his pockets. “You say you don’t find the perfect bodies in a strip show real. What about the other way around? What if ‘perfect people’ never find anyone else real?”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have personalized it. You know what I’ve been working against.”
“You hate being typecast by your size. I hate my so-called looks. I don’t think of myself that way, but everybody else does. I have to wonder if they’re fooling themselves, and if they’re fooling me.”
“I suppose,” Temple ventured, “that women have chased you since Day One.”
He nodded, not happy at the memory. Was that how the women with big boobs felt? Valued for their outsides and not their insides? You could get cynical and use it. Or you could be honest and come to hate it.
“Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “I might be tempted to try myself, except that I’m recovering from my own emotional Waterloo.”
He turned back with a smile that would melt an igloo. “Why try? You have all those physical handicaps, remember?”
“I am ‘cute.’ Some people find that appealing.”
“And you’re fated to hate the ones who do.”
She nodded. “Are you fated to hate the ones who are attracted to you?”
“I hope not,” he said, just lightly enough that she knew the heavy stuff was over. For now. “Saddest of all are the people who hate themselves.” Matt glanced at his watch face, frowning.
“Is something wrong?” Temple asked.
He went to sit on the sofa arm, then rubbed his neck. Maybe Cheyenne would come out to the Circle Ritz and give him a back massage.
“I’m punchy from switching shifts,” he admitted. “And I didn’t remember until this afternoon that I have a regular caller who missed me last night when I was here instead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry that I—”
“It’s not your fault. She was on the brink in her personal situation—cutting it close, that’s all. Abusive boyfriend or husband, never said which. I’ll be at the phone again in half an hour, and she never calls until evening.” He paused, concern still puckering his face. “I just checked with my substitute, but she didn’t call at all yesterday.”
“Maybe when she heard you weren’t in she rang off without leaving her name.”
“We don’t use names, not even the counselors, only invented “handles,” like CBers. Sometimes they’re pretty revealing anyway.”
Temple nodded. “Like stripper names. Pseudonyms say a lot. Can’t you reach her somewhere, somehow?”
He shook his head. “Anonymity is the heart and soul of a hot line. I can’t find her, she can’t find me.” He sighed. “She’s probably all right. Just like you.”
“Yeah.”
“So tell me about the second murder?”
Temple sat on the matching arm. “Terrible. I know now how you must feel about your clients, because I met this girl last night just before I left the Goliath and had my head-on with the Goon Squad. She was in a bad way, but I thought I’d cheered her up. This morning, she was found dead. Strangled with her cat’s tail.”
“Her what?”
“She was costumed as Catwoman. Someone ripped off the tail and strangled her.”
“That’s a lot kinkier than the ABA murder.”
“Maybe book people are better at writing and reading about murder than doing it.”
“Crawford Buchanan handed you a hot potato, after all.”
“Don’t remind me! But I did get a crazy idea, at least Lieutenant Molina thinks it’s crazy.”
“How crazy?”
“That the murderer is following that old rhyme about ‘Monday’s child is fair of face.’ Monday’s victim had a face to die for. The girl yesterday was a magnificent gymnast—‘full of grace.’ ”
“You think that there’ll be more murders?”
“Molina doesn’t. She says that everybody over there is fair of face and full of grace, even the men.”
“Lieutenant Molina doesn’t look like the type to be grading men.”
“I added that part, all right? But no men have been killed. Yet.”
“Just what you don’t need, Temple, all that sensational publicity when you’re recovering from your own troubles.” Matt shook his head. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when Lieutenant Molina came up to us in the emergency room. From what you said, I pictured some beefy veteran who liked throwing his overweight around against defenseless solid citizens like you.”
“Don’t let the navy-blue pants suits fool you. She may dress like a nun, but I bet Molina can be meaner than a K-9 attack dog.”
“Not to you?”
“She doesn’t cut anyone much slack.”
“That’s not her job. You and I can afford to be bleeding hearts. We’re removed from the misery and danger out there. I’ve got my phone line and—when you’re not stumbling over bodies-—your work concentrates on good news, not bad.”
“Not lately,” Temple said glumly.
Matt stood and yawned. “I’d feel better about leaving for work if Electra were here.”
“There are other tenants.”
“But none who know what you’ve been through. Here.” He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a card.
Must be her lucky day, Temple thought. This card had no name on it, just a number, a 731 exchange, and a word: “ConTact: Crisis Intervention for the Nineties.”
“What kind of callers do you get?”
“Everything imaginable. Rape victims. Physical-and sexual-abuse victims. Alcoholics. The suicidal. Compulsive drug addicts and gamblers. The mentally distressed.”
“How awful to hear so much grief.”
“It can get intense, but the counselors are insulated by the phone, and by the anonymity. We hold the fort until we can put them in touch with the community agency that can help them in the long term.”
“You said every kind of caller imaginable. That include obscene callers?”
“Not yet, but we get some pranksters, kids killing time. They don’t fool us. It’s hard to mimic real misery.”
“Amen,” Temple said, accompanying him to the door. “Maybe I should lighten your load and give you a naughty call now and then.”
She had meant it as a joke. Like a lot of jokes it struck closer to home than was meant.
Matt’s ears reddened suddenly. Temple could see that even from behind. Wow, she thought. For some reason, that comment had pushed his buttons.
By the time they reached the door, the moment had passed. He held it open for her to pass through.
“Oh, by the way,” she said, smiling. He looked perfectly collected. Too bad. “Thanks for fixing the shoe. I felt like Cinderella when I found it in the morning.”