His voice had a gentle hoarseness, which as he talked, you soon forgot.
'Hello Tedy. This is Susan Silverman.'
'The shrink,' Sapp said.
'Yes,' Susan said.
'And main squeeze,' Tedy said.
'And only squeeze,' Susan said, and put out her hand and smiled.
Tedy didn't appear to scare her. Tedy smiled back and stood and put out his hand and shook hers. Susan didn't appear to scare him. He gestured us to sit.
'Coffee? Beer? Late breakfast?'
'Coffee,' I said.
'Could I get some hot water and lemon?'
Sapp grinned and didn't comment. He gestured one of the waiters over.
'Two coffees,' he said. 'And a pot of hot water and some lemon.'
The waiter nodded and started away.
'And could I have some of those fake sugar thingies?' Susan said.
The waiter paused.
'We have Equal, m'am.'
'That'd be great,' Susan said.
'High maintenance,' Tedy said.
'And well goddamned worth it,' Susan said.
'You think?' Sapp said to me.
I nodded vigorously.
'How's the ophthalmologist?' I said.
'High maintenance,' Tedy said.
He smiled.
'And well goddamned worth it,' he said.
The waiter brought coffee and hot water with lemon and some little Equal thingies. I put a little cream and sugar in mine. Susan squeezed the lemon into the water, and stirred in a packet of Equal.
'So,' Tedy said, looking at the room. 'What do you need?'
'There's a town out west, place called Potshot. It's being harassed by a bunch of bad guys, and the cops can't seem to do much.'
'They got the wrong cops,' Sapp said.
'They do,' I said.
Sapp picked up his coffee cup and held it in both hands while he took a sip.
'Lemme guess,' he said to Susan. 'He's gonna ask me if I want to go out there with him and straighten things out.'
'How could you know?' Susan said.
'Gay intuition,' Sapp said.
'Of course,' Susan said.
Sapp looked at me.
'How many bad guys?' he said.
'Thirty or forty,' I said.
'How many guys you got?'
'Counting you, three.'
'There's two guys you asked ahead of me?' Sapp said.
'They were closer to home.'
Sapp grinned.
'Aside from the fun of going out to West Bum Fuck, excuse me, Susan, in August to shoot it out with forty hoodlums, what's in it for me?'
'You get to work with me again,' I said.
'Hot diggity,' Sapp said.
'And I'll pay you a lot.'
