Painted Ladies

Pearl was sitting still and focused, studying the drawer in Lila’s desk where she knew the cookies were kept, on the off chance that today, for the only time, Lila would give her another one. But Lila and I had agreed that since Pearl was insatiable, and you’d have to say no eventually, you might as well say no after one cookie.

“Sooner or later,” Lila said, “we’ll have to stop meeting like this.”

I nodded sadly and jerked my head at Pearl. We went across the hall to my office. As I took out my keys, Pearl stopped stock-still and began to growl. It wasn’t her usual sort of rambunctious there’s-a-dog-I-don’t-know-passing-the-house growl. This was primordial. A low, steady sound that seemed to pulsate. I stared at her. The hair was up along her spine. Her nose was pressed against the crack where the closed door met the jamb. The growl was unvarying. It was as if she didn’t need to breathe. There was a hint of snowmelt on the floor. I looked down the hall. It was dry, except at Lila’s office, where I’d left some wet footprints. I stepped to the side, away from the door, and took Pearl with me.

Pearl was idiosyncratic. She could be growling at the doorknob. But the growl was so malevolent. I reached silently over and tried the doorknob. The door was locked. I leaned my head around the jamb and put my ear to the door. I heard nothing. Maybe Pearl was wrong, though she was certainly insistent. And someone had left a trace of melted snow outside my door. And I was working on a case involving people who had blown someone into small pieces.

I took Pearl by the collar and led her back into Lila’s office.

“Your door lock?” I said.

“Sure,” she said.

“Okay, give her another cookie while I go out. Then lock the door behind me and keep her here while I do a little business.”

“What’s going on?” Lila said.

“Official detective business,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“If anything unusual happens in the hallway or my office, keep your door locked and call nine-one-one.”

“ ‘Unusual’?”

“Yeah.”

“Unusual, like what?” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “The usual, you know. Gunfire, that kind of stuff.”

“Fucking gunfire?” she said.

“Just giving you a hypothetical example,” I said.

“You mean, like, I’m in danger?”

“Only if you flash that smile,” I said.

“I’m serious,” she said.

“No one is interested in you, except, of course, me,” I said. “Sit tight and you’re fine.”

“Me and Pearl,” she said.

I nodded. I was watching my office door as we talked. I didn’t want to take my gun out, thus causing Lila to freak. But I let my hand stay close to my hip.

“What do I tell my employers?” she said. “If any of them come in.”

“Tell them you’re doing me a favor,” I said.

“Most of them don’t like you,” she said.

“Oh, of course they do,” I said. “How could they not?”

“And they pay my salary,” she said.

“But do they feel about you the way I do?” I said.

“Probably,” she said. “But nobody’s due in today until late afternoon, anyway.”

“I owe you,” I said.

“You certainly do,” Lila said.

“Lock the door,” I said.

23

My office was on the second floor, with windows that opened on Berkeley Street. I went out into the hall and down the back stairs to the alley, where my car was parked illegally. The snow was still drifting down halfheartedly. I got a pair of binoculars from the car and ducked with my head down across Berkeley Street in the middle of the block, and got glared at. If there was somebody in my office, they would be watching the door, not looking at the street.

I went into the Schwartz Building across the street from my office and up to the second floor. It was the office where, when the building was in another incarnation, a dark-haired art director with great hips had often been visible from my office, bending over her board. I slid behind a counter, stood at the window, and adjusted the binoculars.

A clerk said, “Excuse me, sir. May I help you with something?”

“Shhh,” I said. “Surveillance.”

He apparently didn’t know what to say about that, so he stood and stared at me. With the binoculars I brought my office into focus. There were two of them. One sitting behind my desk with an Uzi-like automatic weapon, maybe a Colt M4. The other guy stood to the right of my door, so that he’d be behind the door when it opened. He had a handgun. Neither of them moved around any. As far as I could see from where I was, neither of them said anything.

I lowered the binoculars and looked at the clerk, who was still staring at me.

“Thanks,” I said, and left.

I went back downstairs and out, and crossed Berkeley at the corner, with the light. I hated being glared at. In the alley, I took off my coat and put it on the backseat, along with the binoculars. Then I sat in my car, took out my gun, and made sure there was a round in the chamber. I got an extra magazine from the glove compartment and slipped it into my hip pocket. Then I cocked the gun and got out and went back up to my floor.