'That's what I mean.' She sounded slighted.
'Hey. We don't have to fall into a frenzied clinch on our first morning together. Let's learn to talk to each other first.'
'Fine,' she said.
'That doesn't mean you have to put up with it.'
'Sometimes I like that, too. Don't make me a victim, Simeon. It may be hard for you to understand, but I enjoy a lot of things about my life.'
'For example.'
'Freedom. I can do whatever I want, with whoever I want. I make cash every night, so I've always got money in my pocket. I don't want to work, I don't work. Little Korean girls don't get that much freedom.'
I sipped at her truly awful coffee and then put it down. 'So you kicked over the traces.'
'I knocked down the whole damn house. It was that or be Daddy's girl.'
'That doesn't mean what I think it means.'
'It doesn't?' She didn't take her eyes off me.
'Well, I hope not.' The screen on the computer went blank again. She leaned across me and hit a key to bring it back to life. She had a faint, sweet, yeasty smell, like fresh-baked bread. Her black hair brushed my arm. I put my hand on her warm, silky shoulder.
'Take a shower,' she said. She smiled at me and shook her head. 'You're a real innocent, you know? Listen, go get clean. Then you can face Toby and the lovely and talented Saffron with a pure heart. You'll need it.'
I put my arms around her, and she tilted her head up and gave me a butterfly kiss on the throat. Wrapping my towel virtuously around me, I headed for the shower. When I came back out, wearing my Saturday jeans and a brightly colored, loose-fitting shirt that Eleanor had bought me from Bali a couple of years before, the living room looked as though the Angel of Good Housekeeping had paid a visit. The few things that could be polished actually looked polished. Nana had taken a dish towel and twisted it around her head like a turban and poured herself approximately into her clothes from the evening before. She was on her hands and knees, using a paper towel to roll up a particularly virulent looking dust rat underneath the table. I hadn't even known I had any paper towels.
'Honey,' she said, 'it's all well and good to be a bachelor, but this is ridiculous. You should send the whole house to the dry cleaner.' She got up, went into the kitchen, and dumped the rolled-up towel into an overflowing waste-basket. 'When do the trash men come, or do they?'
'They come,' I said. 'I just haven't figured out the schedule.' A car door slammed down the hill. 'And speaking of trash, here's Toby.'
'Jesus. I look like Mother Hubbard.' She yanked the dish towel off her head and gave her head a shake.
'I thought you didn't like Toby.'
'I don't. I don't like Saffron, either. That's why I have to look good.' She ran her fingers through her hair. 'You know even less about women than you do about computers. It's kind of attractive.'
'I'm full of negative virtues.' I heard the scrunch of two people coming up the driveway, accompanied by an occasional ladylike gasp of displeasure from Saffron. I could imagine her teetering on her platform heels and clinging limply to Toby's arm as they negotiated the ruts. Nana vanished into the bedroom, tugging at obscure fastenings on her clothes. She was back before they knocked on the door, running her fingers through her hair. She looked beautiful.
Saffron came in first, out of breath and looking bad-tempered. 'Well,' she said, looking from Nana to me and back again. 'Don't we work fast.'
'Who's we, white girl?' Nana said. 'And here's Toby.'
Toby looked as if he really hadn't slept. His face was puffy and his eyes were red, and the patented hair was hanging limp. The mood of the moment was one of weary sincerity. 'Nana,' he said, 'I'm sorry about Amber.'
Nana's eyes flickered. If I'd been Toby, I would have stepped back. 'Aren't we all?' she said shortly.
'You didn't really think I had anything to do with it.'
'It's just a good thing you were with Cinderella here. Otherwise I'd have gone out there and cut your balls off.'
'And a good morning to you, too,' Saffron said.
'We can bicker in the living room,' I said. 'We've got some things to work out.'
'Like what?' Saffron said icily. She hadn't moved a step. She was going to be the great lady.
'Like what you two are going to say to the cops when they finally get around to you. Now come the rest of the way in here and sit down. Nana's fixed some wonderful coffee.'
Saffron and Nana maintained the greatest possible distance as we went into the living room. Saffron eyed the decor the way Margaret Dumont looked at Groucho's cigar. Toby cleared his throat but said nothing until he and Saffron were seated on the couch and Saffron had gathered her skirt around her as if she were afraid something might run up it. Then he said, 'Jesus, champ, what're you, Davy Crockett? I didn't know anybody still had a wood- burning stove.'
'Toby,' I said, 'just shut up for a couple of minutes. At this point I'm trying to figure out whether I want anything to do with you, and every time you open your mouth you just make it that much easier for me to decide.'
'Right,' he said. 'I'll shut up.' He patted Saffron's hand. 'And you shut up, too, darling.'
'Nana, get our guests some coffee.'
'Yes, master,' Nana said. 'Six lumps or eight, dear?' she asked Saffron.
'I don't eat sugar,' Saffron said haughtily.
Nana made a tiny gagging sound and went into the kitchen, banging things around a little more than was strictly required before reemerging with the worst mugs I owned. 'Don't touch the red one,' she said to Saffron as she set them down on the table. 'It's mine. I wouldn't want to put any impurities into your system. They wouldn't last a moment, poor little things.'
Saffron curled her fingers possessively around Toby's arm, ignoring his look of irritation, extended an elegant, red-tipped pinkie on the other hand, and picked up her mug. She swallowed, and her eyes widened. She put the cup down hastily. 'Oh, my God,' she said. 'That's horrible.'
None too gently, Toby disengaged his arm. 'So why are the cops going to want to talk to us? We left her at home. She was okay then.'
'Sooner or later they're going to find out I've got a private investigator's license, and they're going to ask what I was doing there.'
'And you're going to tell them?'
'Maybe. It depends on you.'
'On me? Why? What do you want me to do?'
'I want to know all there is to know about Amber, from you and from Saffron.'
'What's your interest?'
'I've got two. First, if I'm going to keep working for you and Stillman, I want to be satisfied that you really didn't have anything to do with it.' He made a gesture of protest, but I clapped my hands together to cut him off. 'Second, I made a promise that I'd try to find out who
'A promise to who?'
'To me,' Nana said fiercely. 'He promised me.'
'Damsels,' Toby said. It didn't sound chivalrous.
'The girl was destroyed,' I said. 'Somebody broke her systematically, one little bone at a time. Somebody who took his time about it. Somebody who enjoyed it.'
'Okay, okay,' Toby said. 'You don't have to be so goddamned vivid. I'll admit that I get a little out of hand from time to time, but I couldn't do anything like that.' He put his hands out, palms up, his blue eyes wide and earnest. 'Ask anyone.'
Nana snorted.
'Damn it, Nana, you know it's true,' Toby said.
'We all know it wasn't me,' he said. He looked around the room. Nana looked out the window. Saffron was
