“Did he make a specifi c proposal.”
“No. But he made an appointment for next Tuesday and he acted as if he were in for the long haul.”
“The therapy or the seduction?” I said.
“Both,” she said. “One being the means to the other.”
“Levels within levels,” I said.
“Pretend therapy,” Susan said, “in order to pretend seduction, so that he can get control of you, so that he can prevent you from whatever exactly it is he wants to prevent you from doing.”
Chollo smiled.
“I am not sure, senorita, that the seduction part is pretend,” he said. “It would be deceitful, but I believe he would be very happy to carry it off while he was at it.”
“Why, Chollo,” Susan said. “How gallant.”
“I too am compliant,” Chollo said.
Susan smiled a wide smile.
“I knew that,” she said.
43.
Susan had dinner with three women friends at the
Bristol Lounge in the Four Seasons Hotel. Vinnie and Chollo had the evening off. Hawk and I sat at the bar and nursed one beer each, and watched out for Susan.
“What the two gunslingers doing?” Hawk said.
“Vinnie is showing Chollo the town,” I said.
“How you like to be seeing the town with Vinnie?” Hawk said.
“Not fun like with you and me,” I said.
Hawk looked at his half-drunk glass of beer getting warm and fl at in front of him.
“What could be more fun than you and me?” Hawk said.
“Swapping jokes with Don Trump?” I said.
“Well, yeah,” Hawk said. “That would be more fun.”
Susan stood and said something to her friends. I slid off the bar stool. She turned and strolled toward the ladies’ room. Several people, men and women, turned and looked at her. In her understated shrink uniform she was stunning. Out with friends, she was flamboyantly so. I caught up with her at the ladies’ room door.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” I said. “You go in and look around and come back and report to me. Is there a window? Is there another way in or out? Who else is in there? If you are not back out here in one minute from the time you go in, I’m coming in after you.”
“One minute?”
“Plenty of time to do what I ask.”
“Isn’t this a little overproduced?” she said.
“Better too much than too little,” I said.
She nodded.
“Okay,” she said, “here I go.”
As she went in, I looked at my watch. It took her twenty-eight seconds to reconnoiter and report.
“No one else is in here. There are two full toilet stalls. Floor to ceiling. Both doors are ajar. There is neither a window nor another way in or out.”
I nodded.
“Can you get everything done in there in five minutes?” I said. “Including standing in front of the mirror and poking at your hair?”
“If I must,” she said.
“After fi ve minutes,” I said, “I come in.”
“If there are too many more rules and ultimatums I may not be able to go,” she said.
I smiled and bowed her back into the ladies’ room. Two women came by a minute and sixteen seconds later. They looked at me in mild askance as I leaned against the wall beside the door. I shrugged and smiled. They went past me in silence and entered the ladies’ room. Two minutes later Susan came out.
“I didn’t even look in the mirror,” she said. “Just washed my hands and came right out.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
She smiled.
“I didn’t look very long,” she said.
