“You only talk to me when you want something,” I say, and follow her in. I pour some allegedly gourmet cat food into her bowl. “You don’t call, you don’t write.”
Alice ignores me; she’s heard it all before. I squat down and watch her. She eats with her eyes closed, but still manages to find each little kibble fish. It’s her best trick, I decide, stroking her silky back. She’ll tolerate my touch until the kibble fish are gone; then she’ll return to the windowsill. Her next feeding will be the next time she acknowledges that I pay the rent around here. I’d give her away in a second, to a science lab, if it weren’t for Mike. He found her in a trash can and brought her home in the pouring rain, wrapped in his denim jacket. She didn’t move the whole time, so Mike thought she was dead.
“If she’s dead, why did you bring her home?” I asked, ever the pragmatist.
“I couldn’t leave her there, like she was trash,” he said. “I’ll bury her tomorrow, before school.”
He put her in a Converse shoe box and put the shoe box under the bathroom sink. The next morning, Mike found her in the bathtub, staring in wonder at the dripping faucet. He named her Alice in Wonderland; she imprinted him on her cat brain as Mommy. They were crazy about each other.
After Mike died, I got the idea that he would want to see Alice again, at least to say good-bye. I know it sounds crazy, but I drove the animal to the cemetery and made my way through the graves with the bulky cat carrier until I got to the plain gray headstone that saysLASSITER. It doesn’t sayBELOVED HUSBAND on it, because I couldn’t bear to see that chiseled so finally on his headstone.
I set Alice’s carrier down at the foot of Mike’s grave and opened the door of the carrier with shaking hands. Out came Alice, sniffing the summer air. I watched, teary-eyed. I didn’t know what to expect, but I hoped it would be something magical and profound. It was neither. What happened was that Alice took off, springing between the monuments like a jackrabbit. I shouted for her and gave chase, leaping in my espadrilles over mounds that constitutedANTONELLI andMACARRICCI, by the flying eagle that saidTOOHEY and the weeping cherub that markedFERGUSON. Alice kept going and so did I, because the last thing I wanted to do was lose Mike’s cat in the frigging cemetery. I caught up with her by theCONLEY mausoleum. She scratched me all the way back toLASSITER.
Brrrnng!The telephone rings loudly, jolting me out of my daydream. I stand up and set my jaw. I’m ready for you, asshole. Star sixty-nine. I run in and pick up the receiver.
“Hello?”
No answer, thenclick, and a dial tone. No static. My heart begins to pound. No static means he’s not in the car. He’s at home, wherever he lives, lying in bed. Thinking about me. I pound the buttons for star sixty-nine.
I hear one ring, then another. What am I going to say to this guy? There’s another ring, then a fourth, and a fifth. He’s not answering.
I hang up the phone. This has got to stop. I look around the empty apartment, suddenly aware of my aloneness. I stow the coffee in the freezer and slip out of my T-shirt in the bathroom, away from any windows. I lock the bathroom door before I shower. I’m no dummy; I’ve seenPsycho.
I dress quickly and leave for the office. In the cab, I keep an eye out for the sedan, but it’s not in evidence. As soon as I get in, I ask Brent to change my home number.
“Hallelujah,” he says.
“Let’s have my office number changed, too.”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
“Did I get anything more evil than usual in the Evil mail?”
“No. And no calls from weirdos, either. Except the ones who work here.” He hands me a packet of yellow phone messages.
“What is it with these people, they don’t sleep?” I look over the messages. Martin, Jameson, a couple of clients, someone named Stephanie Fraser. I hold up the message. “Do I know Stephanie Fraser? Is she at Campbell’s?”
“No. That’s Stephanie Furst. This one said she met you after your Bitterman argument. She wants you to call back.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember her. She thinks Bitter Man hates women. Absurd. He hates everybody.” I hand Brent back the messages.
“Did you see the car again last night?”
“No.”
“We’re on a roll,” he says, relieved. He looks good, in a soft rayon shirt.
“New shirt?”
He looks down at it like a little kid. “Jack gave it to me. You like?”
“It’s nice. Something about it looks familiar. Let me think. I got it! It’s black!”
“Shows how much you know. It’s midnight. And yesterday was more of a charcoal.”
“Right.”
“Get out of my face. I’ve got filing to do. Now, git!”
“Be that way. I’m going down to see Judy.”
“But you have a deposition, remember? Tiziani will be here in an hour.”
“Oh, shit! Shit. Shit. Shit.” With all that’s going on, the dep slipped my mind completely.
“You prepared him last week, didn’t you?”
“Right. I gotta go. I’ll be back in time.” I hand him the messages.
“Did you think any more about the police?” he asks, but I’m off, down Stalling’s internal stairwell to Judy’s floor.
Judy’s office is like a bird’s nest. The desk is littered with bits of paper, the bookshelves stuffed with messy books and files. Photos are everywhere. On the wall, there’s Kurt, two black Labradors, and Judy’s huge family. The Carriers are California’s answer to the Von Trapps. They grin from various craggy summits, with heavy ropes, clips, and pulleys hanging from harnesses around their waists. The first time I saw these pictures, I thought the entire family worked for the telephone company.
“Anybody home?”
“Behind the desk,” Judy calls out. I find her sitting on the floor in front of an array of trial exhibits. She looks up at me and smiles wearily. “I remember you. I knew you before I became consumed by the price of computer chips in Osaka.”
“What are you doing?”
“TheMitsuko appeal. You know, the trial that Martin lost last month. The antitrust case.”
“The zillion-dollar antitrust case.”
She giggles in a naughty way. “I heard that the morning after he lost the trial, the litigation partners dumped a pile of dirty socks in the middle of his desk.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Smell defeat! Smell defeat!” She laughs, then her smile fades. “What’s the matter, you don’t think that’s funny?”
“It’s funny.”
“You didn’t laugh.”
I tell her about my dinner with Ned, which I refuse to call a date, and also that he didn’t own up to his meeting with Berkowitz. We talk again about the phone calls and the note. She says she suspects Ned because he’s so ambitious, or maybe Martin, because he lost the case for Mitsuko and I replaced him onHarbison’s. Then I remind her of how Delia was fuming at me, and Judy rakes a large hand through a hank of chopped-off hair.
“It could be anyone,” she says.
“That’s comforting.”
“Look. Kurt’s sleeping at his studio tonight. Why don’t you stay at my house?”
“Why?”
“You’ll be safe, genius.”
“I have to be able to live in my own apartment, don’t I? What am I going to do, spend the rest of my life at your house?”
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing. You can cook.”
“Oh, sure, we’d be great roommates. I’d give us one week before we killed each other.”
She looks hurt. “You always say that, I don’t know why. Stay with me for a while. Just until you get your number changed.”
“Nah, I’ll be okay.”
She shakes her head. “So stubborn.”
“I appreciate it, though. I do.”
“At least answer the phone. I want to be able to reach you.”
“You can’t. Brent’s going to unlist the number, and I don’t have the new one yet.”
“They won’t do it by tonight. I think it takes a day. I’ll call you tonight with a signal. I’ll let it ring twice and then call right back.”