HERBIE GOT a cab home, and as he walked into his apartment, the phone was ringing. He sat down in the living room and picked up. “Hello?”

“Is this Herbert Fisher?” a low female voice said.

“Speaking.”

“My name is Carson Cullers,” she said. “I don’t know if that means anything to you.”

Herbie thought for a moment; the name sounded familiar. “Dink Brennan’s friend,” he said. “Washington, Connecticut.”

“That’s right. New York, really, Washington is just a weekend place. I live at Park and Seventy-first.”

“Then we’re neighbors. I’m just a couple blocks away.”

“I wonder if we could have a drink sometime?” she said. “I’d like to talk to you about Dink.”

“Sure,” Herbie said. “Would you like to come here now?”

“That would be great,” she said.

He gave her the address. “It’s the penthouse,” he said.

“I’ll be there shortly,” she replied, and hung up.

This was interesting, Herbie thought. Why would Dink Brennan’s girlfriend be calling him? He’d already had a call from Parker Mosely, Dink’s roommate, and now this? Was this some sort of campaign to persuade him that Dink should be released?

He got up and walked around the living room, straightening up a bit. Ten minutes later, the doorman rang, and Herbie asked that she be sent up. He answered the door to find a tall, slender, elegantly dressed young woman standing in the foyer, in a nearly sheer dress, looking a little nervous. “Come in, Carson,” he said, and showed her into the living room. “Have a seat. What can I get you to drink?”

“Can you make a vodka martini?” she asked.

“Of course.” Herbie went to the bar and began to put that together. Since Allison had opted out of his life earlier in the evening, he felt glad to have someone there.

Then he brought himself up short. Hang on, this was his client’s son’s girlfriend, he thought. Better be careful.

He returned to the sofa with her martini and his cognac on a tray and started to take a chair.

“Please,” she said, patting the sofa next to her. “Sit here.”

Herbie had already had a drink and half a bottle of wine, and the girl was looking very good. What the hell, he thought. “Give me a minute, will you? I have to go to the powder room.”

“Of course,” she said.

Herbie got up and left.

Carson opened her purse, took out a prescription bottle, and shook two small pills into her hand. She put them on the glass coffee table, took a razor blade from her purse, and chopped them into powder, then held Herbie’s brandy snifter at the edge of the table and raked the powder into his glass. She stirred it with a finger, watching it dissolve, then licked her finger and put the glass back on the table.

Herbie came back from the powder room, sat down beside her, and raised his glass. “Cheers,” he said.

Carson smiled. “Cheers, indeed!” She took a gulp of her martini and rested her hand on his thigh.