“We lost but we knew we would. Anything else would have put us all in the hospital from shock. Now we’ve got something we can appeal, take it out of cowboy heaven.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“Maybe sometime. Right now I’m so happy to be out of there I don’t even want to think about it. I drove straight through from Rock Springs. As of this time last night, I’m on vacation…three glorious weeks to write, contemplate, and recover.”
After a moment, she said, “I thought of calling around three o’clock, in case you actually were standing here in some goofy white sport coat. Then I thought no, this would be more fun. Arrive when all hope is lost. See if you’re still here. Razz you a bit. How’s it working so far?”
“I’m getting pretty damned annoyed, if you want to know the truth.”
“Miranda should have told you, I’m a card-carrying member of Lunatics Anonymous. We Loonies see the world as one big insane asylum. Our goal is to laugh at everything. If I don’t find some kind of laughter in all this chaos, I’ve got to cry, and I hate that. So I make fun of the handicapped. Tell racially insensitive jokes. Put down those who are already oppressed.”
A moment later she said, “I’m kidding.”
“I knew that.”
“I figured you did. Right from the start you seemed to be as crazy as I am.”
“I must have compared wonderfully to the stuffed shirt you were driving that night.”
When she said nothing to that, I said, “Did I step on professional toes there?”
“Would it matter?”
“Of course. Mr. Archer may be a jerk on a world scale, but I no longer feel any uncontrollable compulsion to say so.”
“Don’t bite your tongue on my account. Just be aware that an escort who speaks ill of her client soon has no clients to speak of. So I may not participate in the verbal dismemberment.”
“Whatever you say, my lips are sealed.”
“In that case, yes, Archer’s right up there among the most pompous asses that the ill winds of New York have ever blown my way.”
“As much as it grieves me to say it, he’s actually a very good writer. He was one of the modern authors I liked best…”
“Until you met him.”
“That does take away some of his sex appeal. What’re you doing driving authors around?”
“Didn’t Miranda tell you? She told me you asked.”
“Miranda is proving to be an untrustworthy confidante.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I got into the author tours early, for spending money in college. Now I don’t need the spending money so it must be the intellectual stimulation.”
“So if you’re driving the author of
“I don’t drive those authors.”
“Must be nice to pick and choose.”
“The woman who owns the agency became one of my best friends. When I see who’s coming through, I can put in a request if it’s someone I like.”
“But this time you got stuck with Archer.”
“No, I asked for him.”
“Couldn’t be his personality. Must be because he’s an old friend of the judge.”
“I don’t remember saying that. You sure jump to a lot of conclusions.”
“I’m trying to get you properly placed in the cosmos and you’re giving me no help at all. Are you saying you knew Archer was a pompous ass and still you asked for him?”
“Life is strange, isn’t it?”
She found a layer of dust, flicked it away, and said, “You need a woman’s touch in here.”
Before I could answer that, she said, “If it wasn’t Archer I wanted to meet that night, who could it be? God knows it couldn’t be you.”
I did a beating heart gesture that made her smile.
She said, “I had already met Mr. Archer on a couple of occasions. I lived with Lee and Miranda for several years when I was growing up, so I already had a pretty good line on Archer. Didn’t Miranda tell you that?”
