Loving Time

visitors.

Harold stopped in the center of her living room and shook his head, admiring this, too. “Nice place. You’ve made it warmer and more inviting, of course.… You’ve certainly come up in the world, Clara.”

“Do you have a problem with it, old friend?” Clara asked, feeling more secure now, and finally smiling a little.

The older Texan gentleman of sixty-something, with his nondescript suit, thickened waist, and white, white hair demurred convincingly. “No, no. I’m proud of you at the head of the table. You’re the mommy of us all, and you do it very well, Clara.”

But he was the daddy no more. Maybe he couldn’t handle it. “You really mean that?” she asked. Did anybody ever mean anything?

“Of course I mean it. I’m absolutely bursting with pride in you, you know that.”

Clara had heard those words from him before. Years ago, they’d fed and fired her. Now they warmed her more than her hot bath. She realized he could still make her hold her breath. For a second, she tried to look deep inside him to see if what he said was true. He appeared admiring and full of pride. She decided she could handle him alone.

“I’m glad, because it’s taken a long time, Harold, and I’ve worked very hard to get here.… Look, why don’t you help yourself to a drink while I get dressed.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

Clara wandered back into her room, where her navy suit was a mess on the bed. She decided to change her underwear and put the suit back on. When she returned to the living room, Harold sat in the wing chair by the fireplace that had no fire in it, sipping scotch with no ice. She sat in the chair opposite. She’d give him five minutes and no more.

“So, what’s happening with you, Harold?” she said softly.

“Is it unusual for old friends to meet, spend time together?” Harold cocked his head, trying to look jaunty and not nearly as old as he was.

“It is when they haven’t been close in many years. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since—”

“Of course the water is always flowing, Clara; but when two people were as close as we were, some things don’t change. I still care about you. I still worry about you. There’s not a lot I don’t know about what’s going on here. I could help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

“That isn’t what you used to say.” Harold smiled.

“I’ve changed.”

Harold shook his head. “No, Clara, you still need my help. I can still make things go right for you if you’ll let me.”

Clara made a noise.

“Don’t scoff at me,” he said sharply.

“I wasn’t scoffing.” She stared at him coldly. He had a lot of nerve making trouble for her, then offering to fix it.

“I hear you had a visit from the police today.” He changed the subject and took a sip of his drink.

She nodded, her face tight. “Who told you?”

“I had one, too.”

“You did?” Clara was appalled.

“Didn’t the two detectives tell you they … uh, interviewed me first?”

“What did you tell them?”

“What do you think?”

“Don’t play games with me, Hal. I have no idea what you told them.”

“Do you know why they visited me first?”

“No.”

“Oh, baby, don’t play games with me, either.”

“I’m not playing games with you. I don’t know what’s going on. They didn’t tell me.”

“What have you been up to, Clara?” Hal was irritatingly serene. “Why would that young man commit suicide? Did you seduce him, too?”

“Jesus, Harold, don’t get on my case about this. I don’t sleep with my patients.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I don’t sleep with my patients!” she hissed. “That’s a horrible thing to say. How could you suggest such a wicked thing?”

“It happens. It’s unethical, but it happens. Occasionally one even commits suicide.… ”

“Hal, I get the feeling you’re threatening me.”

“You’re in trouble. You need help. I’ll help you.” He shrugged again. “It’s not a hard one. I’ll conduct the review for you. We could spend some evenings going over it, maybe take a weekend.… I’m sure the Quality Assurance Committee will—”

“Harold, no! You’re the last person in the world who could review this case. You were my supervisor.”

He smiled. “It went very well, as I remember.”

“You know perfectly well I can’t be held responsible for anything that happens to a patient fourteen years after I stopped treating him.”

“You can if you were still seeing him.”

“I wasn’t seeing him!”

“Well, Clara, as the police will tell you, all this is extremely easy to establish. The question is: What game are you playing with me?”

She froze. “Hal, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Clara, you must know perfectly well why the police came to me first.”

Her face was blank. “No, I don’t.”

“My name and telephone number were found next to the dead man’s body.”

“Oh, my.” Clara took a deep breath and was instantly calm. She almost clapped her hands with joy. Hal was on the hook, and she was off.

“I gather you gave my number to him.” Harold put his drink down on the table beside his chair and his two palms on his knees. “Never mind. We can work it out. I’ve missed you, Clara. I know it’ll be great working together again.”

Clara smiled. She knew if she opened her mouth right now she’d say he was a dead man.

nineteen

Around eleven-thirty A.M. on November 2, April Woo paid a visit to the Fifth Precinct on Elizabeth Street, which now had its first Chinese commander. The first person she saw in the detective squad room was Lieutenant Alfredo Bernadino. The wiry Italian had a huge nose that had been broken more than once and looked as if he’d been born on the wrong side of the Mob fence. Smooth as the roughest grade of sandpaper, Lieutenant Bernadino was very popular in Chinatown. People believed he was fair in the right kind of way. The Lieutenant kept one eye open to the big things and the other eye closed to the little things.

“How ya doing, Alfie?”

“Dio mio, it’s April Woo, as I live and breathe. How’s life in the Two-O?”

Her former supervisor and head of the squad gave her the high-five, then settled down to talk in the metal visitor’s chair of Detective Francis Harding, who was out on a call.

“Busy.”

Different. Down here they were Alfie and April and Frank and Carlin, they high-fived each other and didn’t stand on too much ceremony. Uptown was kind of starchy. If somebody tried to call Sergeant Joyce Margret Mary or MM or anything cute like that, she’d take his head off. Which was one of the many reasons April didn’t appreciate the serious etiquette breach of Sergeant Sanchez calling her querida as if they were high school sweethearts.

“Or is it sergeant now?” Alfie chewed on a wad of gum at the same time as an unlit cigarette hung from the