"You're absolutely right. Regular features have no character, but even the most perfect face has its quirks. Start with the shape of her face, her coloring."
"Her features were very sculpted, but pointed."
"Good bones."
"Her head was small, her neck rather long and thin. Snow White coloring, but not wide-eyed like Snow White."
"Not looking for a handsome prince, huh?"
"Not looking for anything predictable. Black hair. Thick, with a harsh sheen. Not pretty hair, not pliant."
Janice nodded, her fingers sweeping over the porous paper. Her pencil hissing soft as a serpent on each long stroke.
"Odd eyes. Blue-green. Could be contact lenses. The only other creature I've heard of with aqua eyes is a purebred cat. A shaded silver Persian."
" 'Creature.' An odd thing to call her."
Matt considered it a compliment, under the circumstances.
"Chin?"
"Small, like everything else about her. Nose, ears small. Tidy, neat. Even her teeth were unusually tiny. Made you realize why people used to compare them to pearls."
"Nose straight, or turned up?"
"I. . . didn't notice. Straight, I think."
"Lips?"
"She wore little makeup, or maybe little noticeable makeup. I'm not an expert, but I'd suspect she had on more than I thought. And her lipstick hadn't rubbed off when shed kissed him. He'd noticed that hours later in the bathroom mirror when he was changing his dressing for the first time.
"She made you distinctly uncomfortable."
Matt laughed, though it hurt. "That was her intention, but I think that's her intention with everyone. Every man, anyway."
"A femme fatale?"
He nodded slowly, pleased that she was putting his impressions into words as well as pencil strokes. "So focused. So .. . manipulative."
"Weight and height?"
He understood now that she needed to visualize the whole person before she could finish the face.
"I'd say she was about five-six. And about fifteen pounds more than a model would be at that height."
"But not plump or blowsy."
"Lord, no! Sleek as a carnivorous otter, if that makes sense."
"Aha! Now I can see her. Smug, too, I bet."
"Smug? Certainly . . . knowing."
"Feral. Tidy. Lovely to look at in a self-involved way. We girls have another name for her than femme fatale."
He merely looked puzzled.
"Bitch," Janice said sweetly.
Matt, serious, weighed the term. "Actually, in her case, I think that's too mild."
Janice lifted both eyebrows without comment. She was expertly drawing out his feelings about Kitty to imbue her image with his emotions.
"Perverse," he said suddenly. "She is the most perverse human being I've ever met."
"Do you mean sexually?"
"How could I? I've only seen her twice."
Then he realized that, yes, if he were a man with an ordinary background, he could very well have known her sexual inclinations in two meetings, especially in this town.
A blunder. He felt he ought to blush, and not too long ago could have. But not anymore. Not over such a minor faux pas. He wasn't trying to impress Janice with anything about himself, only to give her all she needed to work with.
"Scarlett O'Hara," she suggested again.
He had seen endless clips of the film's various TV "events" through the years. He thought of Vivien Leigh's pretty, pointed, feral face, and nodded.
"Not a double of Leigh, of course. But very like Scarlett her-self."
"Someone who lost something once, long ago, and has never forgotten it."
"Exactly! And she's Irish. Or at least she gave an Irish name."
"Black Irish."
Janice's pencil fairly flew now, her face a mask of satisfied intensity.
When she turned the pad to face him, he was stunned. "That's it. That's her."
Janice shook her head. "No, not yet. Maybe close. But look again. Examine each feature.
Eyelashes. What were they like? Thick, black, mascara-coated? Insignificant? That space between the upper lip and the nose. So crucial to good likenesses. The 'blind spot,' I call it, because so few people observe it. Should it be wider? Narrower?
Under her relentless interrogation, Matt found himself nagged into refining the image until, the last time Janice turned it around for his approval, he had to repress a shudder.
Janice noticed. "What did she do to you?"
"I can't go into it."
"You know--," Janice rested an elbow on her bent knee, then braced her face on her hand.
"You pay your money and you get the best sketch I can do, but I'm really curious about what you need them for and why these people mean something to you."
"You're too good at what you do."
"Thanks. That's the first time I've been accused of being an artistic overachiever." She smiled until he caught the virus and smiled back.
"I really appreciate your art skills and interviewing technique. Gosh!" He took refuge in his watchface. "It's after eleven-thirty!"
"And you have to be going."
The wry assumption in her voice made him bristle. She was so good at summing up people; he resented being one of her easy reads.
"I was going to say, it's almost lunchtime. Could I treat you?" Then he realized he was in no position to offer anything. "But... my motorcycle is out of commission and I don't know any restaurants in this neighborhood--"
"How did you get here then?"
"Cab."
"Say no more. You buy lunch, I'll drive, and I'll drop you wherever you want to go. Fair enough?"
He nodded, pulling out his checkbook and wishing she took credit cards. His account was getting decidedly flat and would deflate a little bit more with lunch. Having a social life was expensive.
"Give me five minutes to freshen up," she said as she took the check. "Just look around. I'm an artist. Mi casa es su museo."
He was too strictly reared to wander her house at will, but he did some minor exploring.
More photos of two carefree-looking preteen kids, always a dangerous assumption with kids.
Conch shells and other seaside salvages that looked found, rather than bought. Everything bright and somehow California. He wondered suddenly if she would appreciate his Vladimir Kagan sofa . . .
"Ready." She'd switched to one of those long, pleated dark velvet skirts so popular nowadays, topped by a patchwork bomber jacket in brocade and velvet and denim. "We won't go any place too chi-chi. Good southwestern chow. If that's all right."
"Sounds wonderful. I haven't been in Las Vegas that long. I can always learn about a new restaurant."
The red Jeep Cherokee he remembered took them to a strip shopping center about a mile away and a small unpretentious place with lacquered tabletops and pottery napkin rings.
Water glasses came with lime slices, the lunch menu didn't offer an item above ten dollars, and the blackboard listed an awesome number of Mexican and foreign beers. The joint was jump-ing with a decibel-level so high that it gave you the false sense of a privacy bubble around your own table.
After they'd ordered tasty melanges of salsa, black beans and pico de gallo over the dish of their choice, Janice folded her arms on the tabletop and leaned closer to be heard.
"That woman I just sketched is a piece of work, in the worst sense. What does she have to do with you?"
"You know . . . Effinger was my stepfather."
"Was?"
"You're very quick." Matt sipped the Bohemian beer he had ordered. "I didn't want to tell you. He was found dead early Tuesday morning. The police are proceeding as if it was an unnatural death."
"You're saying he was murdered?" She whistled between her teeth when he nodded. "And the woman?"
"She's the one who told me where to find Effinger. Where to start seriously looking anyway."