Linda Fairstein - The DeadHouse

"Hope you had the good sense to take your Christmas present when you blew out of Jake's place. We could hock that heap of glass and run off to the Keys, live the rest of our lives down there without ever working again. I could go bonefishing all day and you could drink margaritas and listen to Jimmy Buffett. D'you bring it?"

I smiled and shook my head. It was Mike's way of making sure that my pin hadn't been stolen in the mugging, knowing I would be too embarrassed to want to tell him.

"Boa constrictor? West Eighty-third Street? No thanks." He hung up and checked the number for the Twenty-sixth Precinct, talking as he dialed. "Woman moved into a sublet last week. In the middle of the night, an eight-foot boa comes slithering up on the pillow next to her, trying to give her a kiss. Last guy who lived in the place raised 'em. Seems he left one behind as a housewarming gift. Speckled band and all that…

"Who's this? Yo, Monty, it's Chapman. Looking for a missing broad." The guy who answered asked a few questions of Mike. "No, schmuck. If I knew who or where then she wouldn't be missing very long, would she?" Chapman listened. "Why'd they go up to King's College at this hour of the morning?" After a moment he placed the receiver back on the cradle.

"Time for forty winks, blondie. I'll look for your damsel in distress tomorrow. Somebody broke into the administration building at your favorite school after they locked up tonight. Must have gotten spooked in the middle of the getaway. Cartons of books were piled up next to the back door. The thief only made off with a few of them. They're the boxes marked with Lola Dakota's name on them."

Renee and I caught up over morning coffee. I had finally fallen asleep about 3 A.M., and had not even heard David slip out to walk the dog at seven o'clock. I borrowed her bathrobe and the spare key to my apartment. It was too cold to shower there, with the window still not repaired, but I needed a set of my thin silk thermal underwear to put on beneath my charcoal-gray pantsuit. For once the weatherman's prediction seemed to be on target, and just the news reports of the impending snowstorm chilled me again.

At eight-thirty I went downstairs to wait for Mike. All of the Christmas tips had been distributed to the building staff in the preceding weeks, and they remained unusually responsive to opening car doors, helping women with baby strollers into elevators, and ferrying packages from the entrance to the elevator banks. Poinsettias fringed the tables and glass windows of the marble-trimmed lobby, and everyone except for me seemed especially cheerful as they set out to work on this last week of the year.

"How's my little Nanook doing this morning?"

I had left my coat in the apartment and opted to wear my ski parka over the long Johns and business suit. "Overkill, you think?" I asked Mike as I opened the car door.

"Not if you're planning to spend the night in an igloo. You get any sleep?"

"Took a steaming-hot shower and went out like a light. Listen, I really want to apologize for showing up on your doorstep last night. It was rude of me not-"

"Yeah, it was."

I turned to look at Mike's face, to see whether he was kidding. There was no smile. "I mean, it just wasn't like you at all. I didn't know who the hell was ringing the buzzer at that hour on a Sunday night. I just figured most people would have called first. You're the last person I expected to hear when I answered the intercom."

"But-"

"But what? You always get so grouchy when I show up in the middle of one of your romantic interludes, like it's gonna be the last time you'll ever get laid."

"How was I supposed to know I'd be interrupting a domestic vignette in your dark little lair if you never talk about your social life these days? I'm trying to apologize to you, if you let me get a word in. And to, to…? Does she have a name, Detective?"

Mike concentrated on the slippery road surface as he steered the car onto the FDR Drive.

"Maybe I'll just refer to your guest as 'her.' That okay with you?" I barreled off a list of questions about the nameless figure in the bed. "Did I spoil your evening with her? Are you going to tell me how you met her? Have you given any thought to when you're going to bring her out of the closet and let your friends-"

"Valerie."

"That wasn't too tough, was it? Valerie. Nice name. Okay, tell me about Valerie, Mr. Chapman. Am I moving too fast for you? I'm trying to start with the easy things."

"She's an architect. Only woman partner in a pretty sizable firm. Does design work for large urban projects, everything from creating new sites adjacent to Battery Park City to planning the Miami Heat sports complex."

I guess the answer surprised me. I paused long enough between questions for Mike to sense my reaction.

"You were expecting a barmaid? Or maybe a peanut vendor from Yankee Stadium?"

I blushed as I protested, "I, uh, I wasn't expecting anything in particular." I had seen Mike through a number of casual relationships over the years, usually with women who had a lifestyle as uprooted as his-journalists, flight attendants, actresses-and rarely grounded at a serious stage in their professions.

"Thirty-two years old. Went to UCLA, majored in medieval history. She can sit up all night talking to me about the rule of Saint Benedict and reciting lines from Havelock the Dane. Don't imagine it would turn you on, blondie, but it works like magic on me."

"She sounds-"

"Got so hooked on Gothic architecture-flying buttresses and Rayonnant design-he went on for her graduate degree at Stanford. Don't even toy with me on the subject, kid. I'll be murder on those Jeopardy! questions now."

"I'd love to-"

"Don't be patronizing with me. She's every bit as intelligent as your frigging pals."

"What are you getting so damn defensive about? I'm trying to tell you that I'd like to get to know her, to spend time with her."

"Jacobsen."

I slapped my hand on the dashboard. "That's what you're being so weird about." I laughed. "She's Jewish, too?"

"Like you're the only one I'm supposed to find interesting?"

"Like I'm delighted that you stepped out of your narrow-minded little world and-"

"You're only barking at me like this because you are jealous. I was right last night. You can't get beyond having me at your disposal, twenty-four-seven, then jerking me around when you set off on a jaunt with one of your fancy beaux."

"I can't believe that's the way you would characterize our friendship. There's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for you, and I know you've demonstrated that over and over again for me. Why wouldn't I want you to be happy?"

There was not a single reason for Mike to be sniping at me. I leaned back in the seat and pushed myself again to explore my feelings about our relationship. There was no question that I had never expected him to be seriously involved with someone who was not Catholic, and I had often wondered, despite his obvious intelligence, whether he was threatened by women of substantial professional accomplishment. Maybe we had both struggled against our mutual attraction from time to time. I hated the idea that I might be envious of his lover.

I shook off my concern and smiled over at Mike, hoping to soothe him with an effort at a joke. "What you don't realize is how flattering I find this whole thing."

"Right."

"Accomplished, interesting, smart, Jewish. Pat McKinney might even think I'm the one who opened your eyes to a different kind of woman."

Instead of responding with a clever dig, Mike snarled, "Val's nothing like you."

"Don't be such a Grinch. You know I'm just kidding about-"

"She's not lucky, Coop. You're the luckiest girl I know, and Val is way overdue for a heavy dose of the good fortune you've been dealt." I had not seen Mike this intense since Mercer's shooting. There was no relieving his edge.