‘Well, let me pull my clothes into place.’

‘Yes, adjust a little, honey, and don’t mind me.’

‘You did behave like a wild bitch,’ said Amy. ‘Do you always do every goddamn thing that rushes into your head?’

‘Well, at least I didn’t set you up for a hit.’

‘She joked about trying to set up Heisinger,’ Amy said to me later.

‘I understand your getting sore. But I take you for the kind of woman who might see the fun side of it.’

‘Of tea poured in my lap?’

‘I already explained why. It did happen kind of fast, I admit, and I acted on it as soon as it came into my thoughts. It rushed in, just as you said. But it was also kind of a comment. You looked like such a damn matron.’

‘How would you look with scratches on your face?’

‘That’s nothing but talk. You’d queer yourself with the Adletskys. It pays you to be on your best ladylike behavior. That Dame Siggy can make you popular as a decorator in her social set of billionaires. How would it look if I went back with toilet tissue on the scratch? … Just a moment, till I get the little stool out of the shower stall.’

She draped the light plastic seat in a towel and leaned back against the wall. The tiles were shining their damnedest.

‘Why do we have to talk in the toilet? Why not your boudoir?’

‘It’s more basic in here. You’ll dry quicker if I turn up the heat and the fan. You may want to take off your things and hang them over the vent.’

‘I’ll stay as I am.’

‘Suit yourself … How big an estimate will you give on the furnishings?’

‘You won’t think it’s high enough.’

‘There’s not one single cheap item in the whole house.’

‘Are you proposing that I should jack up the appraisal? I’d have a fat chance of misleading a person as sharp as Mr Adletsky.’

‘Of course, a top, superpower billionaire. Besides, you could never do anything dishonest,’ said Madge. ‘You’re one of those ladies who maintain a heavy honest image.’

‘This sounds like the view of the outside you’d hear from convicts. It’s general opinion by now, in or out of jail, and it runs like this: “If the facts were known, people behind bars are no guiltier than people outside, because nobody is clean, and only people inside know what’s real and what’s phony.” I suppose you have to make the most of, or get what advantages you can out of the time you served.’

Madge Heisinger made no reply. She might have been weighing her options, and in the end she decided not to take Amy up on this. She said, ‘I liked Jay Wustrin … He wasn’t a brainy lawyer. He came on strong – I can tell what you’re thinking – but all we had was a business relationship, strictly. I laid out the strategy in my case, and he did the paperwork. Well, he’s dead now. How long has it been?’