Small Town

“What I figured,” he said. “The fellow who introduced me to Drambuie told me you had to sip it and savor it and make it last, but you know what?” He tossed off his drink. “Turns out he was full of crap. Drink up, Susan. I’ve had a yen for you for the past hour. Well, longer than that, but you were married. C’mon, how long are you gonna keep an old man waiting?”

Now, twelve years later, he said, “Why did I call you? For the pleasure of your company. And because it doesn’t hurt for the world to see me now and then with a woman of substance instead of an adorable airhead. A woman like that, she could be with anybody, and she’s with him? What’s he got?”

“What’s he got? He’s got an awfully good line.”

“My stock-in-trade. This silver tongue has kept a lot of worthy young men out of prison. Of course” — he showed her the tip of it — “that’s not all it’s done.”

She felt herself blushing. “Dirty old man.”

“C’est moi, chérie.”

“Speaking of prison...”

“Oh, is that what we were speaking of?”

“I see they made an arrest in my friend’s murder.”

“She showed you an apartment. It’s not like you were sorority sisters in Chi Zeta Chi.”

“My acquaintance, if you like that better, but—”

“Now that was one joke you didn’t get. Chi Zeta Chi? In Yiddish that means Chew, Grandpa, chew.”

“They arrested a writer. The name’s familiar, but I’ve never read anything of his. Blair Creighton?”

“John Blair Creighton, but he drops the John on his books. And that’s as much as we’re going to talk about him, or your late lamented real estate person.” And, when she looked blank, he added, “Because I’m representing him, sweetie, and I can’t talk about the case.”

“You’re representing him? But he...”

“Killed somebody, except we don’t know that, do we? And that’s what I do, darling. People kill each other, and I represent the survivors.”

When the coffee was poured, Irv Boasberg wondered aloud if anyone had dessert anymore. “My granddaughter turned down a piece of Shirley’s chocolate cake last week,” he said, “announcing that she had to watch her weight. A, she’s not fat to begin with, and B, she’s all of eleven years old.”

“I don’t know what it is, society or the parents,” Avery Davis said. “If they’re not obese you find yourself worrying that they’re anorexic. Life doesn’t cut a person much slack nowadays, does it? Fran, you could have dessert. I’ll bet you haven’t put on an ounce since you walked a beat.”

“If he hasn’t,” Hartley Saft said, “maybe that’s why he hasn’t. How’d you escape the cops-and-doughnuts syndrome, Fran?”

“Just dumb luck,” he said. “I never had a sweet tooth.”

“That’s luck, all right,” Davis said. “I don’t have dessert because if I did I’d want six of them. Now there’s a man who’s not skipping dessert, and he looks as though sometimes he has the whole pie. And, unless we’re supposed to believe that’s his niece, the pleasures of the table aren’t the only sort he enjoys. Do I know him? Because he looks familiar.”

“All fat men look alike,” Saft said, “but I know what you mean. I don’t know him, but I’ve seen him before.”

“Probably in restaurants,” Boasberg said.

“I think you’re right, Irving, and if it’s the man I’m thinking of he’s always got something young and fluffy across the table from him. As a matter of fact, they’re usually younger and fluffier than the current example. She looks as though she actually has a thought in her head from time to time.”

“Less of a tootsie and more of a trophy wife,” Avery Davis suggested.

“His name’s Maury Winters,” Buckram told them. He’d spotted the lawyer when he first sat down, and would have said hello if he’d caught his eye. “He’s a criminal lawyer, a good one, and like most of them he’s something of a character.”

“Of course,” Davis said. “I’ve seen him on television. He was on Larry King, along with three or four other experts, talking about that little girl in Colorado. You never had anything to do with the Boulder Police Department, did you, Fran?”

“I taught them everything they know.”

They laughed. “He had one great line, Winters did. I think he must have used it before, because he sort of shoehorned it in. It didn’t particularly fit, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He prefers murder trials, and do you know why?”

“I know the line,” Buckram said, “and you’re right, he’s used it before.”

“One less witness,” Davis said.

“That’s it.” He took a sip of coffee. The others had ordered decaf, but his was the real deal. He told himself decaf never tasted right to him, but maybe that was only true if he knew it was decaf. Maybe he just plain wanted the caffeine.

Either way, L’Aiglon d’Or’s coffee was delicious, a richly aromatic French roast you could sip like a tawny port. He put his cup down and said, “Maury must be feeling good. Great food and attractive company, and he’s got a murderer to defend.”

“Oh?”

“That writer, I forget his name. The one who strangled that woman in the Village.”

“Crichton,” Boasberg said.