“Murray Ryerson? He and I barely speak these days. Nope. There’re a couple of guys I see—but no one special.”

“Okay, Ms. W. Sounds okay to me.”

We moved closer and kissed. We didn’t talk about much of anything for a while. I reached out an arm and fumbled in my nightstand for my diaphragm. Afterward I dozed off in Rawlings’s arms. My dreams must still have been haunting me, because I suddenly blurted out, “You’re not the Buddha, you know.”

“Yeah, Ms. W. Someone already told me that.”

His hand stroking my hair was the last thing I remembered for a while. When I woke up again it was close to two. Rawlings had left, but he’d propped a note by the coffeepot explaining that he’d gone to work. “I gave your spare keys back to the old man, so don’t be afraid I’ll come breaking in again uninvited. I’ve got a squad car coming around every so often looking for that Subaru you mentioned. Don’t go facing down any gangs without calling me first. P.S.: How about dinner tomorrow?”

I found myself whistling Mozart under my breath as I got dressed. The Scarlett O’Hara syndrome. Rhett comes and spends the night and suddenly you’re singing and happy again. I pulled a face at myself in the mirror, but the thought didn’t dampen my spirits the way maybe it should have. Of course, on principle a private investigator should discourage close entanglements with the cops. On the other hand, where would I be if my mother hadn’t climbed in bed with a police sergeant? If it was good enough for her, it ought to do for me.

I continued with “Mi tradi quell’alma ingrata” as I cleaned the Smith & Wesson. The melody is so buoyant that the aria often comes to me at happy moments, despite its despairing words. Later, though, as I scrubbed the oil from my fingers, I wondered who the ungrateful wretch might be. Certainly not Conrad Rawlings or Mr. Contreras. But that left a wide-open field including Jason Felitti, Milt Chamfers, and my good old ex-husband, Dick. Unlike Mozart’s heroine I didn’t feel too much pity for the crew at Diamond Head, but some spark of sentimentality made me hope Dick wasn’t up to his eyeballs in their muck.

35

Hangover from a Hard Day’s Night

By the time the gun was clean and I was dressed, it was after four. I called Larry, the guy who puts my apartment back together when it’s been ransacked, and explained my problem. He wouldn’t be able to make it over until next Wednesday, but he referred me to an emergency glazier who agreed to take care of the window in the morning.