'I can't say.'
'Where would I meet a rich guy?'
'At the hotel bar.'
'What, I serve him a few drinks in the bar three years ago, now he wants to give me a million dollars?'
'Apparently.'
'Why?'
'Guilt. For not treating you well.'
'At the bar?'
'When y'all dated.'
She shook her head. 'Wrong girl, Andy. I never dated anyone I met in the bar. I was married to Mickey.' She sighed. 'One mistake can last a lifetime.'
'Mickey said y'all got married right out of high school.'
She nodded. 'To get away from my father, even if away was three doors down. So I married Mickey and found out I had married my dad. God, he was always so jealous, Mickey. Some guy on the street even looked at me, he'd want to beat him up.'
'I bet that happened a lot.'
A little smile; a crack in the ice.
'He hit you?'
She just stared off.
'Did he hit your girl?'
'You wouldn't have talked to him if he had.'
'Why?'
'Because he'd be dead.'
She seemed sincere.
'Frankie, I know you're running from him.'
She started walking toward the house again.
'Right now I'm running from you.'
'My client's just trying to help his old girlfriends.'
She stopped again.
'Your rich client is giving a million dollars to his old girlfriends?'
Andy nodded. 'Seventeen.'
'Your client had seventeen girlfriends? What, does he look like Robert Redford?'
'Redford? He's old.'
'Don't you watch old movies, like The Way We Were? '
'Is that an action-thriller?'
'It's a love story.'
'Oh. Well, Frankie, you're number seven on my client's old love list.'
'It's a mistake. I don't belong on that list.'
They arrived at the front door. She turned to him.
'Andy, look, just tell your client you couldn't find me, okay?'
'I can't lie to my client.'
'You're a lawyer.'
'Frankie, he's given six million dollars to six former girlfriends. And he wants to give you a million, too.'
She held her hand out.
'Okay. Give it to me.'
He shook his head. 'It doesn't work that way. I get all the information and take photos first. Then I meet with him, show him the photos, and he gives me the money. Then I bring you a cashier's check for a million dollars.'
'What kind of information?'
'Your age.'
Like it was a joke: 'Twenty-eight.'
'Your daughter's age.'
'Eight.'
'Your debts.'
'None.'
'Your economic condition. You know, do you have any money?'
She waved her hand at the old rent house.
'Yes, this is my estate.'
'Do you have a job?'
'No.'
'How do you pay your bills?'
'I manage.'
'Any other problems in your life?'
'You.'
'Now, see, that wasn't hard. You're twenty-eight and broke, but otherwise all right, other than the fact that you're trying to quit smoking and you're hiding from your abusive ex-husband. You have an eight-year-old daughter who's… Oh, is she sick?'
Her expression changed. The joke was over.
'No.'
'She doesn't have a medical condition?'
A bit suspicious now.
'What kind of medical condition?'
'A disease.'
'No.'
'She's perfectly healthy?'
'Yes.'
Finally, a healthy child. The odds had turned.
'Well, that's different.'
'From what?'
'The others.'
'The other girlfriends?'
Andy nodded.
'They have sick kids?'
'Yeah. Well, one of them died.'
'But all six of them had sick kids?'
'Yeah.'
'How sick?'
'Cancer, cerebral palsy, paralysis…'
'Does your client have a sick child?'
Andy nodded again. 'His son's dying. A rare form of leukemia.'
Her complexion was no longer creamy; it was pale. As if she were now sick, too. She stepped inside and shut the door in his face.
The elevator door opened on a clown.
Andy stepped out; the clown slapped a party hat on Andy's head and shoved a blowout in his mouth like a new father passing out cigars. A HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZACH banner hung on the opposite wall, and colorful balloons and crepe-paper streamers hung from the ceiling. Two hours after leaving Frankie Doyle in Buda, Andy walked into the cancer ward on the seventh floor of the Austin General Hospital.
More clowns passed out party favors, face painters made the kids look like lions and tigers and bears, and magicians and jugglers entertained the kids. Balloon artists fashioned animals out of long balloons. Pretty nurses
