“They do. Dammit.” She looked away. “If I said your place or mine, would you feel manipulated?”

“Maybe for a nanosecond.”

“I’m not going to say it. Not tonight. I’m feeling really unattractive.”

“There’s a delusion for you.”

“Inside I’m unattractive,” she said. “I wouldn’t be good, believe me.”

I raised my glass. “To brutal honesty.”

“Sorry. Want to forget about dinner?”

“Dinner wasn’t a ploy to get you in the sack.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know...maybe a ploy to get you in the sack.”

She smiled. I smiled.

Eduardo had positioned himself across the room, spying on us while pretending to be above it all.

I said, “I could eat.”

“I could, too.” She waved him over. “Dinner with a former lover. How civilized in that French-movie kind of way.”

Shifting closer, she lifted my left hand, traced the outline of my thumbnail. “Still here.”

“What is?”

“That split in the crescent— the little Pac-Man growing out of your nail. I always thought it was cute.”

My body part, I’d never noticed it.

She said, “It’s the same you.”

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12

I spent the next day interviewing the three women who’d filed suit against Dr. Patrick Hauser. Individually, they came across vulnerable. As a group they were calmly credible.

Time for Hauser’s insurance company to settle and cut its losses.

The following morning, I got to work on my report, was still in the thinking phase when Milo called.

“How’s it going, big guy?”

“It’s going nowhere at warp speed. Still haven’t gotten into Michaela’s place, landlord doesn’t like leaving La Jolla. If he doesn’t get here soon, I’m popping the lock. I talked to the Reno detective who nabbed Reynold Peaty for peeping. The story was Peaty was in an alley behind an apartment building, drunk as a skunk, looking through the drapes of a rear unit bedroom. The objects of his affliction were three college girls. Some guy walking his dog saw Peaty wagging his weenie and yelled. Peaty ran, the guy gave chase, knocked Peaty to the ground, called the cops.”

“Brave citizen.”

“Defensive tackle on the U. Nevada football team,” he said, “Student neighborhood.”

“Ground-floor rear unit?” I said.

“Just like Michaela’s. The girls were a little younger than Michaela but you could make a case for victim similarity. What got Peaty off light was that these three had a history of being less than careful about the drapes. Also, the prosecutors never got word of Peaty’s burglary conviction years before. That was a daylight break-in, cash and ladies’ undies.”

“Voyeur meets up with exhibitionists and everyone goes home happy?”

“Because the exhibitionists didn’t want to testify. The girls’ exuberance extended to getting creative with videotape. Their main concern was their parents finding out. Peaty’s a definite creep and I’ve promoted him to the penthouse of the high-priority bin.”