Pam Sharkey's office is on the first floor and sports the same network of cubicles I'd seen at California Fidelity. Nothing architecturally innovative for the insurance game these days. It must be like doing business in a series of playpens. The company she works for, Lambeth and Creek, is an independent agency that writes policies for a number of companies, CFI being one. I'd only dealt with Pam once, when I was bird-dogging an errant husband. His wife, my client, was in the process of divorcing him and was hoping for evidence of his philandering as a negotiating tool when it came down to the settlement. Pam had taken offense, not because I'd uncovered her affair with the man, but because I'd turned up two other women involved with him at the same time. None of this was ever brought up in court, of course, but her name was prominent in my report. She had never forgiven me for knowing too much. Santa Teresa is a small town and our paths cross now and then. We're polite to one another, but the civilities are undercut with spite on her part and sly amusement on mine.

Pam is petite, a bristly little chihuahua of a human being. She's the only woman I ever met who claims to be ten years older than she actually is so that everyone will tell her how young she looks. On that basis, she swears she's thirty-eight. Her face is small, her skin dusky and she applies pancake makeup in varying shades in a vain attempt to add "planes" to her cheeks. I got news for her. There's no way to disguise the bags under your eyes by the skillful use of "cover." From most angles anybody with a brain can see the bags sitting right there, only looking phantom white instead of gray. Who's fooled by this? Why not go for the dark circles and at least look exotic and worldly-wise... Anna Magnani, Jeanne Moreau, Simone Signoret perhaps. Pam had also taken lately to a permanent wave, so her pale brown hair looked frizzy and unkempt, a style apparently billed as "the bedroom look." That afternoon she was done up in a little hunting outfit: a hacking jacket, brown knickers, pink hose and low heels with buckles. The only hunting she did was in singles bars, bagging one-night stands as though the season were nearly over and her license about to expire. Well, wait a minute here. I can see I've been unfair about this. I don't like Pam any more than she likes me. Every time I see her, it makes me feel petty and mean – not my favorite way to experience myself. Maybe she avoids me for the same reason.