'Very,' I said.
'Is she ashamed of herself for having been with this man?'
'Maybe,' I said. ''Though I don't know why.'
'I was with you in the last crisis,' Rachel Wallace said. 'When she went off with that man.'
'Costigan,' I said. 'Russell Costigan.'
'As I recall, she was, when it was over, ashamed of herself.'
'Well, she was, and she wasn't.'
'And with this, ah, Sterling?'
I started nodding before she finished her sentence.
'She is and she isn't,' I said.
Rachel Wallace looked enigmatic.
'Which means what?' I said.
Rachel Wallace shrugged.
'You were implying something,' I said.
'I'm not a psychiatrist,' Rachel Wallace said.
'I'll keep it in mind,' I said.
Rachel Wallace scrutinized the olive in her martini for a bit.
'I know of three men in Susan's life,' she said. 'And they permit ambivalence.'
'Three?'
'Her first husband, the man she ran off with, and you.'
'Me?'
She turned her glass to get a better look at the olive. Then she looked up at me.
'You look like a thug. You do dangerous work. And, however well contained, you are deeply violent.'
'I like dogs,' I said.
'Appearances are deceiving,' Rachel Wallace said. 'And I suspect when Susan first responded to you she didn't realize exactly what she was getting.'
'Which was?'
Rachel Wallace smiled. It was a surprising sight.
Her face softened when she smiled, and her eyes widened, and she was pretty.
'A large, cynical Boy Scout,' she said.
The waiter brought our dinner.
'She's attracted to men she can be ashamed of?'
'Perhaps.'
'You're not just saying that to boost my ego?' I said.
Again that lovely smile.
'You have no ego,' she said, 'or it is so large it is impregnable. I've never known which.'
'But the other two guys, she didn't last with them.'
'No.'
'With me she has lasted.'
'The other two guys,' Rachel Wallace said, 'were perhaps what she thought they were. You turned out to be more.'
'And?'
'She is a good woman, she would finally need a good man.'
'And need to be embarrassed,' I said, 'about the bad ones in her past?'
'Maybe.'
'Why?'
Rachel Wallace leaned back a little and rubbed her palms lightly together.
'We have reached the limits of pop psych,' she said.
'Which means you don't know.'
'I haven't a clue,' she said.
'Lot of that going around,' I said.
