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forehead.
Perilously close to a stroke, he was. He pointed his finger at
me.
    I was sorely tempted to break it for him, but
I didn’t know if he had a good medical plan.
    “Don’t let yourself get overexcited, my
friend,” I said as I slammed the door in his face. “It’s bad for
your digestion.”

CHAPTER XII
     
     
    Rachel opened the door just a crack and
peeked out. Her eyes were half-closed and it looked like she’d just
been rousted from the comfort of her cozy bed. It was after noon
and she was still wearing a nightgown. White lace with little pink
roses, thigh length. She opened the door wide. It didn’t seem to
bother her in the least to greet me like this. She didn’t even take
the trouble to put on a robe. Her hair hadn’t been combed and she
wasn’t wearing any make-up. Her face was dry and clear. She was
barefoot.
    “I’m going to make a Bloody Mary,” she said.
“Would you care for one?”
    “Sure, as long as you put in two shots of
vodka.”
    She eyed me. “On the road to becoming an
alcoholic?”
    “The path of excess leads to the palace of
wisdom.”
    She nodded. “Come with me,” she said as she
led me down a long hallway. The place was huge and expensively
decorated. To my practiced eye, the apartment was worth at least
three million, maybe four. Two or three bedrooms and a maid’s room.
The decor was classical—obviously professionally done. There wasn’t
a jarring note. Everything fit together like one of those homes in
the decorating magazines that you thumb through, looking at the
glossy pictures of perfect rooms that nobody lives in. You figure
it out. The girl lives like an empress and then goes downtown and
smokes pot in a broken-down cold-water flat.
    She led me into the living room and I sat on
a sofa that was as almost large as the H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth. Over
the fireplace in front of me was a Constable. It was a pastoral
scene of a countryside with cows grazing in front of a large hay
wagon. If I were English, it would’ve put me in a real King and
country mood. I didn’t have to get a close look to know it was an
original. I whistled to myself without making a sound.
    She caught my reaction. “It was my Daddy’s,
you know. He died a long time ago. Do you like the painting?”
    “Magnificent,” I said. “And your Daddy left
you some money too?”
    “Enough now. Sweet Daddy,” she said with a
note of bitterness. “But he left it in like a trust that I couldn’t
touch until I was thirty. So I had nothing for all those
years.”
    “And then one day you had the entire
world.”
    She laughed. It was a musical laugh. “Have
you ever been poor? And then, you know, hit the jackpot—rich
overnight?”
    “Can’t say I have. How does it feel?”
    “Better than the other way around.”
    She turned and left the room, her nightgown
flowing behind. I watched her as she walked. She moved like nothing
could frighten her. At least, nothing conceived by man.
    I stood and walked over to the window. Down
below on Park, the island in the middle of the street was bright
with yellow flowers. I couldn’t hear the traffic. The windows were
soundproof and the air-conditioning was humming low.
    Inside of two minutes, she was back. In each
hand she had a Bloody Mary. I took one and raised it in a silent
salute. The glass was Baccarat. The drink wasn’t bad either.
    I took another swallow and sat back down on
the sofa. She sat down next to me and curled her legs up under her.
It was the way the nightgown fell. She wasn’t wearing any
panties.
    She took a long pull on her drink and looked
at me. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I was just thinking how Alicia
described you.”
    “Nuclear physicist and male model?”
    She considered for a minute. “Well, she said
you were…you know. What was the word she used?” She rolled those
dark eyes up and to the side. “Unyielding—that was it. And she said
you were like well-informed about a lot of things—but in a
superficial way.”
    I