She wanders around the apartment while I get the bottle and pour the drinks. We're on the ground floor. The trap that leads to my real digs is sealed. She's peeking in the bedroom. I leave dirty laundry strewn about and the bed unmade; everything meant to look lived in and well used. I hand her a drink.
– Thank you.
My senses are dull, but I can smell that she's not wearing the lavender oil she had on when we first met. She's scrubbed and clean, wearing a low-cut, sleeveless black blouse, short black skirt, and knee-high black leather boots. The uptowner's uniform for a trip to the East Village. Her bare arms are lean, cut muscle. She's not just toned by yoga classes, but hard, conditioned by hours of weight lifting. A sharp vein rides the edge of her right bicep. I can almost see the blood pumping through it. She walks to the secondhand couch and drops onto it, some of the whiskey sloshing onto her leg.
She wipes her finger through the dribble of bourbon on the bare patch of skin between the hem of her skirt and the top of her boots. She licks the finger.
– Not bad, Joseph. What is it?
– Old Grand-Dad.
– Excellent. And I should know.
– Whatever you say.
I sit in the chair across from the couch. She leans to the side and lifts the edge of a curtain to look out at the street. Her limo is gone. I asked her to send it away. Limos aren't all that rare around here, but I don't need one sitting out front collecting eyeballs. She gestures at the window.
– Aren't these a bit of a hazard?
– How so?
– You know.
She makes a little burning noise at the back of her throat and dances her fingers like flames.
I shrug.
She exhales loudly through her nostrils.
– Joseph, you are being positively… reticent. I'm trying to make conversation and you're being reticent.
– Sorry.
She laughs.
– Oh, you are droll.
– That's what my friends tell me.
She leans forward, elbows on knees. Her skirt creeps up a couple inches and I see the lace edge of a black silk half-slip.
– You have friends?
I shrug. She scoots farther forward. The skirt edges up another inch.
– A girlfriend?
I shrug. She shakes her head, reclines back into the seat.
– Positively reticent. So much for my morbid curiosity. I imagine you would prefer to talk professionally.
– I assume that's why you're here.
She rolls her eyes.
– Yes, I suppose it is. Well?
– Well?
– Have you found anything?
– This.
I take the ATM card out of my pocket and offer it to her. She leans forward and reaches, deep cleavage is exposed by several undone buttons on her blouse. She looks at the card. Her face shows nothing.
– So you found her?
– Just the card.
– Where was it?
– Chester Dobbs had it.
– And how did he get it.
I take a drink.
– I'm guessing she gave it to him.
She furrows her brow. I point at the card.
– You said you called him when she first went missing. He said he'd look for her, then called the next day and bailed. Figure he found her on that one day, but she didn't want to be found. She offered him a bribe. The card and her code. Two hundred a day for as long as she wasn't found. Damn sight better than the one-day fee he was gonna get if he turned her right over. Least that's what he thought.
I take out the sheaf of ATM receipts, about a week's worth. All of them telling him the maximum had already been drawn for that day.
She looks at them, starts to giggle and covers her mouth.
– Oh no. Amanda.
– Yeah. She must have been going into the bank right when it opened and getting the max from a teller.
She's looking at the last one.
– But why didn't he just go to an ATM right after midnight?
– The real question is why he didn't stay on the job and collect from both you
She drops the slips and the card on the couch, holds her glass between her thighs and claps.
– Well done, Joseph.
She takes the glass in her hand again, drains it.
– How much does he want to tell us where she is?
– Couldn't say. He's dead.
Not a flicker.
– Oh, my.
She holds out her empty glass.
– Would you mind?
I take the glass to the kitchen counter, toss in a couple ice cubes and fill it. When I pass it back our fingers graze.
– Thank you.
She drinks.
– How did he?
– Strangled.
She lifts her glass and presses it against her neck.
– Why?
I point at the card.
– For that.
– Did you…?
– No.
– Is there reason to be concerned for Amanda's well-being?
I finish my drink.
– Yeah, there's plenty of that.
I'm fixing our fifth round. I tell myself the drunker she gets the more she'll talk. And that's true. But it's also true that the drunker I get the more I peek up her skirt.
I walk over to the couch, hand Marilee her drink. She has to try twice before she can get her fingers around it. Reclined on the couch, she props her head up with her hand and takes a sip.
– They're getting better. Why is that?
– I'm pouring more in the glass.
She laughs and a little bourbon sprays from her lips.
– A joke! Excellent, you're loosening up, getting into the spirit of things.
– Yeah, life of the party, that's me.
