I’m not exactly proud of it. But with the stress I’m under…damn, it’s good.

“I don’t know, baby.…”

“C’mon, things are nuts there. That’s why I stayed home. And I’ve been thinking of you since I woke up this morning.”

My temperature’s starting to rise. She has that way about her.

“Get your sexy self over here and maybe we can help each other forget all about it.…”

That’s all the encouragement I need.

“Meeting Steve Zimmerman for early drinks and dinner,” I tell Mo on the way out the door, explaining why I’m leaving work at five—a final meet with the new business prospect from Weight Watchers before our pitch Friday.

“Got it. I know you’ll be your usual charming self,” she says. “See you tomorrow.”

Bonnie Jo lives over in Tudor City, First Avenue and 40th way over on the East Side, near Turtle Bay, in one of the co-op apartments. A classic neo-Gothic building, it was the first residential skyscraper in the world. Fabulous old apartments. BJ’s is renovated, with a spectacular bedroom view of the UN headquarters and the East River from the twenty-sixth floor.

I grab a taxi out on 11th Street. Don’t want to waste a minute getting up there.

Chapter 26

The security guy behind Bonnie’s reception desk recognizes me and waves me on to the elevators. Up on twenty-six I ring BJ’s doorbell and there she is, opening the door, slowly, to reveal her full, gorgeous, sexy…naked self.

Takes my breath away. Always does.

“Hi, Timmy,” and she leans in to me with a soft, lingering, open-mouthed kiss. “How nice to see you.”

“How nice to see you, too,” is all I can come up with.

“Come in, love, I have something I think you’ll enjoy,” she says, and leads me by the hand over to the couch where we sit down. She torches the weed in her pipe, takes a toke, and passes it over to me.

“It’s some of Ramon’s finest.…” she reminds me.

Perfect.

We’re in no hurry. No need to be. Besides, there’s nothing like making love when you’re high.

I’m about to be saved by a beautiful, talented woman, who will make us both forget the madness around us. Nothing else will matter, for a while anyway.

We kiss. The high is taking hold. Mouths open, tongues searching. We kiss again, and she unbuttons my shirt and caresses my chest. Has me totally under her spell. Then it’s my jeans, and the rest of it, and there we both are, fully revealed.

This time I lead her by the hand, into the bedroom. We turn down the covers and lay facing each other, and pull the other close. There’s a rush of blood and a flash of light until finally, we lay back on the bed, gazing into each other’s eyes.

She lights up her pipe for another hit and passes it over to me, and we linger in the moment for a while. I’m starting to think none of this tragic shit matters, that it will all blow over.