Looking for Rachel Wallace

“And he broke your nose?”

“If he’d been in his prime, he’d have killed me,” I said.

“You were a fighter then.”

I nodded. Ticknor was washing down a bite of salad with the rest of his Negroni.

“And you’ve been on the police?”

I nodded.

“And you were dismissed?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“They said I was intractable.”

“Were they right?”

“Yeah.”

The waiter brought our entree.

“I am told that you are quite tough.”

“You betcha,” I said. “I was debating here today whether to have lobster Savannah or just eat one of the chairs.”

Ticknor smiled again, but not like he wanted me to marry his sister.

“I was also told that you were—I believe the phrase was, and I’m quoting—‘a smart-mouthed bastard’—though it was not said without affection.”

I said, “Whew.”

Ticknor ate a couple of green peas from the side dish. He was maybe fifty and athletic-looking. Squash probably, tennis. Maybe he rode. He wore rimless glasses, which you don’t see all that often anymore, and had a square-jawed Harvardy face, and an unkempt gray crew cut like Archibald Cox. Not a patsy even with the Bryn Mawr accent. Not soft.

“Were you thinking of commissioning a biography of me, or do you want to hire me to break someone’s arm?”

“I know some book reviewers,” he said, “but … no, neither of those.” He ate five more peas. “Do you know very much about Rachel Wallace?”

“Sisterhood,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I have an intellectual friend. Sometimes she reads to me.”

“What did you think of it?”

“I thought Simone de Beauvoir already said most of it.”

“Have you read The Second Sex?”

“Don’t tell the guys down the gym,” I said. “They’ll think I’m a fairy.”

“We published Sisterhood.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Nobody ever notices the publisher. But yes, we did. And we’re publishing her new book.”

“What is that called?”

“Tyranny.”

“Catchy title.”

“It is an unusual book,” Ticknor said. “The tyrants are people in high places who discriminate against gay women.”

“Catchy idea,” I said.

Ticknor frowned for a moment. “The people in high places are named. Ms. Wallace has already had threats against her if the book is published.”

“Ah-hah,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My role in this is beginning to take on definition.”

“Oh, yes, the threats. Well, yes. That’s it essentially. We want you to protect her.”

“Two hundred dollars a day,” I said. “And expenses.”

“Expenses?”

“Yeah, you know. Sometimes I run out of ammunition and have to buy more. Expenses.”

“There are people I can get for half that.”