Sex and Murder Magazine

By David W. Landrum

When Chalmers told me the name of the group, I laughed. I knew he could not be joking (you don't joke in our line of work). I asked him if he knew anything about them.

"They are listed as an organization, so I think they're legitimate."

"Let me make sure I got this right: it's an organization of witches, sorcerers, and practitioners of the magical arts. Sounds like a bunch of loonies."

"They're offering you a hundred-thousand."

That made me stop.

"This isn't a sting?" I asked after a long pause.

"No agency I know of would try to do a sting with a group that looks loony. Do you want me to make the contact?"

I had not caught an assignment in a couple of months. Money was getting a little short.
"Set it up," I told him.

I lay down on the sofa in my living room and started to read. Tinidril, my cat, an elderly brown tabby, jumped up and settled on my stomach. After an hour, I heard my computer beep. From the signal I knew Chalmers had arranged a meeting. I got up, shooing off Tinidril, who yowled in protest as I walked over to the computer and read the message. Representatives of the organization would meet me at Veterans' Parks tomorrow at ten a.m. Veterans' Park was right across the Ryerson Library. I smiled. I could make the contact and pick up a couple of new books to read.


I sat down on a bench, in the clear autumn sunshine, wondering what these sorcerers and witches would look like. Ten minutes later, they showed up.

They looked pretty ordinary. The man, who was probably in his fifties, wore a black suit and a broad-brimmed hat. He had thrown a coat over his shoulders like a cape. He walked painfully and his skin had a colorless tint to it. A woman, probably about sixty, accompanied him. She looked pretty in the way older woman can be pretty, with a round, pleasant face, bright eyes, and a nice smile. She wore her graying red hair pulled back and had on a long blue dress under a cloak. Cold weather had set in but I wore only a suit jacket. I got used to cold when I lived in Germany. I usually don't dig my winter wraps out of storage until the beginning of December.

"Mr. Mallinson?" the man asked.

"That's me."

"I'm Donovan and this is Miss Cuba."

"Happy to meet you."

"Do you want to talk here?" he asked, looking around nervously.

"For our initial conversation this might be a good place."

They nodded and sat down beside me. People in their situation often don't know what to say, so I spoke first.

"You have a job you want me to do?"

"We do," he said.

"Who is the person?" I asked.

They flinched. Donovan looked at Miss Cuba. It took her a moment to understand that he meant she should give me the required information. She folded her hands in her lap.

"The name of the person is Helena Adamson," she said, her breath outlined in frost as she spoke. "She is known to us by the name Maireen."

"Under what name would she be listed in public records?"

"She is not listed in any public record."

"Why do you want her killed?" I asked.

They looked at each other. There has to come a moment, I knew from long experience, where the reality of the thing is frankly stated. This makes people squirm. They want to dress the matter up in nice euphemisms. I won't let them do that.

Miss Cuba cleared her throat.

"She has violated the laws of our organization. She is causing us difficulty."

"What kind of difficulty?"

"Do you really need to know that, Mr. Mallinson?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Remember, I have not agreed to take this job. Before I draw a contract on someone, I want to know about the person. If I think your cause for wanting her out of the way is sufficient, I will eliminate her. But there has to be a good reason. Taking someone's life is a serious matter, and I will only proceed if I'm convinced her death is warranted."

They looked back at me, wide-eyed and unsettled. A wind kicked up, blowing Miss Cuba's cloak and Donovan's hat. I felt it hit my face. I like the feel of cold against my flesh. The raw October breeze hinted at a long, hard winter ahead. The thought of a cold winter pleased me. My two potential clients shivered.

"Maireen has left the organization," Donovan said. "She was one of our most skilled practitioners. Now she is using the things she learned to disrupt our coven."

"How?"

"She interferes with what we do. I can't tell you more than that."

"If you'll come to my house," Miss Cuba put in, "I can demonstrate it to you. That will be best, Mr. Mallinson."

This was odd. I wondered vaguely if it were a set-up but decided it couldn't be. No one in town knew about me. And while these people seemed a bit eccentric they did not seem dangerous.

"All right. Give me the address and I'll meet you there."

She wrote down her address. She lived in an attractive brownstone on the edge of John Ball Park Zoo. I brought the car to a rest on the street in front of her place. Though I did not suspect any intrigue, I got my gun out of the trunk of my car and slipped it into a concealable shoulder holster. I knocked. The door opened and I stepped inside.

When I turned, I saw a beautiful young woman who looked like Miss Cuba standing beside the door. She had the same oval face and amber-colored eyes, the same reddish hair pulled back and tied in the back, and she wore a similar long blue dress; but this woman looked to be in her early twenties. A daughter, I guessed, or a close relative.

"I'm glad you came," she said, her voice sounding exactly like Miss Cuba's.

"Thank you. I don't believe we've met."

She smiled, something like wryness but also like bitterness in her expression.

"Mr. Mallinson, we met a few minutes ago in the park. I'm Dolores Cuba."

I gaped at her. She smiled.

"I perceived," she said, "you did not believe one word of what we were telling you. I could also see you don't believe in magic and thought you were dealing with a group of mildly deranged people. You wanted to know why we are hiring you to kill Maireen. I usually live in this form. I have been the young woman you see standing before you for two-hundred years. Maireen has used her skills as a sorceress to block the incantations I use to remain young.

"I can return to this form for a short time, but cannot sustain it. She interferes in different ways with all the members of our group and interdicts our magic. Donovan, for example, has cancer, but magic enables him to live in a reality from before the disease took hold of him. This woman has interposed her magic to nullify his spells. He is dying. A could tell you dozens of similar stories. Her use of magic is malicious. We can't understand why she is doing this, but all attempts to contact her have been rebuffed. We need her out of the way. She is destroying us. That is our justification for hiring you to kill her."

A tremor ran thought her face and then shook her entire body.

"I can't sustain this form any longer," she said. "Please excuse me." And with that she turned her back on me, shuddered from head to foot for as long as a minute. Then her body went still and she turned to me. Once more I saw the pleasant, apple-faced old woman I had met in the park less than an hour ago. I gaped in amazement.

"Has this convinced you?" she asked, her eyes tired.

I could only nod. She invited me to sit down and brought out tea and croissants.

"You don't look two-hundred years old," I commented, picking up a delicate china teacup, still shaken but trying to appear calm.

"I don't look it now," she said, "but I will soon, and then I will die. My age is slowly catching up with me-slowly but inevitably. I only have a few months left. And when I start to cross the line to my real age-which is actually 226 years-I was born in 1783-it will not be pleasant. I tremble at the thought of what will happen to me." She took a sip of tea then said, "I see you have a certain ethic about what you do."

"Does that surprise you?"

She pondered a moment.

"Yes, I suppose so. That may be because of stereotypes. You seem like an intelligent man who has thought his way through what he has chosen in life. The same is true of entering the magical arts. A great deal is demanded of you, but you go into it because you think it's right and the only thing for you to do-and a thing that, in its own way, brings about good."

"Perhaps," I said.

She put the cup down. She had delicate manners. I realized she had learned etiquette in an era when people considered it much more important they do now.

"Will you do what we want you to do? Donovan was too ill to come, but we need an answer immediately."

I thought a moment. I looked at her.

"I'll take the job."

"We appreciate it."

"Of course, it won't be easy if you don't even know where I can find her."

"She lives in town, we know that much. And there is a way to find her. Now that you've agreed to do this for us, we will perform the ceremony that will enable us to locate her. You need to attend."

"Why?"

"Not only we will find out where she is, you will get a look at her face."

A chill ran through my body. I nodded and took a sip of tea to warm myself.


They gave me half the money and the address of the house where they would perform the ceremony. Two days later I drove there, expecting the House on Haunted Hill, finding myself instead in a restored Victorian home in the Heritage Hill District of Grand Rapids. Donovan greeted me at the door. A group of fifteen or so average-looking people had congregated in the room. I saw Dolores Cuba, who smiled and came over to me. She began to introduce me to her associates.

The group divided equally between men and women. Four were married couples. Some were young, some old. Dressed normally, polite and friendly, they did not fit my image of occultists. We had drinks. After the sun set we went into a back room for the ceremony.

The scenario once again interdicted my expectations. I had envisioned a room hung with black crepe and a huge image of Beelzebub. Instead, we gathered in a semicircle around a mahogany table on which sat the cliché image of a "crystal ball." This was not small like you see on most TV shows, but large, like the one the Wicked Witch has in The Wizard of Oz. Dolores turned to one of the group participants.

"Go and get her," she said. "We all know it's time."

He and another man left the room. I felt tension and sadness run through the group. Dolores took me aside.

"We're bringing in Diane Conway. She is a girl we trained who has eating issues. By the time she came to full knowledge as a sorceress, anorexia had pretty much destroyed her. Then she was able to do what Donovan has done: recede to a time before she was afflicted. Helena has interfered with her magic and now she's about to die. There's nothing anyone can do for her now. I only tell you this so you won't be too shocked when we carry her in.

Just as we finished speaking, the man she had instructed came in carrying a human form.

I said a human "form," because she had wasted away so terribly that she hardly looked human. The girl, wearing what looked like a hospital smock, had lost her hair and eyebrows. Her arms and legs were pencil-thin, her face skeletal. Members of the coven wept, kissed and said good-bye to her. She responded dreamily. She stood on death's door, only barely cognizant of the group of people around her. The man who was carrying her brought her close to the table and the crystal ball.

"Can you reach out and touch it, Diane?" he asked quietly.

"I think so," she whispered.

She extended her emaciated arm and let her long, bony fingers rest on the top of the sphere. The members of the coven focused their attention on the crystal ball. After a perhaps five minutes the girl shuddered. She convulsed again and I heard the breath go out of her. It passed as faintly as the faintest whisper and she went limp in her handler's arms.

A second later, the crystal ball glowed. Purple clouds swirled through it and I saw a tumble of what looked like Cyrillic or Hebrew letters. Then, for a long moment, a face appeared in the globe. It glowed there for perhaps a minute and then went dark.

When this happened, the group of people seemed to droop. The man holding Diane's body laid her down on the table. Donovan removed the crystal ball. Someone brought in a sheet to cover her, though they did not at once cover her face. All of them went up and touched her. Men and women sobbed. Dolores, who still stood beside me, wept silently. Last of all, she went up, kissed the corpse on the lips, and gently touched her right cheek with two fingers.

They covered her face and two members of the group carried her body out. Several people followed them. Four or five stayed in the room, crying and comforting one another. Dolores came over to me.

"Now you see what she is doing to us," she said, her face suffused with grief and anger. "Diane Conway was the sweetest, gentlest girl I have ever known in my very long life. Helena murdered her-there is no other word for it. You've seen her face now. And the letters we saw have told us where she lives. I hope you consider this sufficient grounds to do justice, Mr. Mallinson."

"I think it is, yes."

Then let me give you her address. I hope you can do this quickly enough that Donovan will live."

"I'll get right on it," I said.


Helena Adamson lived in an apartment complex in Comstock Park, a suburb of my city. I planned to go there at two in the morning and kill her in her sleep. It would be an easy job and a safe one, especially since she had disappeared from public record.

I went to a coffee bar, Mad Cap, on the corner of Ottawa and Monroe Center, for breakfast. Putting down my book bag (which doubles as an accessory bag for items I use in my profession) I sat at a table near the door, enjoying the October sunlight through the wide windows, eating a bagel and sipping Brazilian coffee when Helena Adamson walked through the door and came up to my table.

The face from the crystal ball. I was so startled I spilled my coffee.

"May I join you?" she asked, looking pleasant but with an edge to her look and her voice.

I motioned for her to sit as I sopped up the spilled coffee with a napkin.

I guessed Helena Adamson's age at thirty. Slender, pretty, and well-dressed, she settled into the chair across from me.

"Would you like some coffee?" I asked her.

"I've already had three cups this morning. But maybe some steamed milk."

"What flavor?"

"Hazelnut."

I went over to the counter and ordered for her. I returned to my table.

"They'll bring it as soon as it's ready."

I could hear the obnoxious noise of the barista steaming the milk with a high-pressure jet of air.

"I know they'll bring it over," she said. "I come here a lot."

"I do too. I haven't seen you here before."

"You have seen me; you just don't remember seeing me. I make sure of that when I go out in public so I can stay incognito."

"I see." Silence fell. The barista brought over Adamson's steamed milk.

"Well this is a surprise," I said when the silence seemed too thick and hostile.

"You don't usually have coffee with your intended victims?"

"Not often-though I have."

"How often?"

"Twice. Once with a man who wanted a contract on his business partner, not knowing his business partner had already taken one out on him; once with a high-class prostitute who was blackmailing a politician. I made contact with her and we had coffee before we went up to her room."

"Did you sleep with her?"

"Yes."

"Was she good?"

"Fairly good. She was a sex worker just trying to get it over with so she could move on to another customer."

"And afterwards?"

"It was business-mine no less than hers."

"That's a good way to put it."

"I wonder what you're doing here, Miss Adamson. You seem to have some . . . shall we say, unusual abilities. I wonder why-since you obviously know about this whole matter-you don't just turn me into a toad or something like that."

She laughed. She had white, even teeth.

"I don't want to hurt you, Mr. Mallinson. I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You're hurting them."

"They are who I want to talk about."

"I'm sure you know Diane Conway died last night. I saw her. The suffering she went through must have been unimaginable. I'm told it was all your doing."

"I felt bad for Diane. I'm sorry she died. But it had to be."

"Why?"

She gave me a mysterious look and took a drink of milk.

"I'll answer if you'll tell me how you got into this business."

I paused, pondering.

"All right. I don't think you're wired and working for the FBI. When I served in the US military in Germany, I worked with a German who was a civilian employee of the Army.

"His daughter had jumped out of a third-story window after being abandoned by her boyfriend. He wanted him out of the way. He was not rich but had saved all his life and said he would give his life's savings-200,000 Deutschmarks-to have this guy killed. We worked together and got to be friends.

"One night he invited me to his home and got to ranting about his daughter and the man who had caused her death. I told him I would do the job for his stash of 200,000 Deutschmarks. I was surprised he agreed so readily. He told me who the guy was and where he lived. One night I followed him and caught him in an empty parking lot."

I stopped and looked around. We had kept our voices low but I am understandably nervous about discussing what I do in public places.

"No one can hear us," she said. "I can assure you of that. And no one who sees us will not remember us being here." She glanced down at my cup. "More coffee?" she asked.

My cup was almost empty. As I looked down it filled-not from the bottom up-one moment it was almost empty and the next moment it was full in a timeless altering of reality.

"Just a silly stunt to show you magic is real."

"I've already gotten a demonstration," I said.

"By Dolores? Did she make herself young for you?"

"She did."

"She's pretty, isn't she?"

"I think so."

"She's beautiful," Adamson said. "I'll admit that much. Now go on."

"Not much more to say."

"How did you kill him?"

"I was Special Forces. They teach you to kill with your bare hands in training camp. I left a block of hashish near him. The police thought his death was drug-related. They never suspected one of their solid citizens had hired a GI to take someone out. He paid me the money. We worked together another eighteen months before I left the military, and he was the happiest man I've ever seen."

I paused.

"After that?" she prompted. "I mean, did you just go on your own?"

"No. A few months before my Army time was up, the man I did the job for told me he had contacted what he called an 'agency'-it turned out to be the German mafia. He said he had decided against using their services and had told them he hired someone else. They read about my first hit, considered it skillfully done, and told him they were interested in contacting me. All of this was remote, of course. They did not know his real identity and he did not know theirs. He asked me if I wanted to meet with one of their reps.

"I was cautious. I knew it could be a government sting. But I was young and hotheaded and seduced by the money I'd earned so easily, so I took the chance-a very stupid move, I'll add. Today I would never contact an organization I don't know. Anyway, I agreed to meet with their representative."

"And?"

"Luckily, they were who they claimed to be. They wanted to know if I would work for them. I said I would. I did one more job while I was in the service and stayed over there four years after I got of the Army. They arranged for one of their women to 'marry' me so I wouldn't have any trouble getting in the country and establishing residency."

"Did you live with her?"

"A few months. They would provide me with women when I asked for them. And I dated a few German girls and British tourists. I ended up marrying an Australian girl who was traveling over there."

"You're married?"

"Divorced. Janetta and I were married eight years."

"Why did you split?"

"She got homesick and met an Aussie guy. We were living back in the States by then. Affair-the whole shebang."

"And you didn't take him out?"

"It doesn't work that way. Business doesn't intrude into life."

"Do you miss her?"

"I do."

"Anybody now?"

"I don't date. I haven't felt much like it since Janetta and I split."

"I see. How long did you live in Germany?"

"Five years. I made a lot of money and learned to speak German pretty well. Finally my agency botched a job-didn't organize it very well, left a lot of loose ends. I got in a shoot-out with their federal police. I told them I needed to leave the country. They paid me a tidy sum and I went home-with Janetta. The Germans gave my name to a similar agency in the US. Pretty soon I had work over here."

"Did Janetta know?"

"She had no idea."

Her hazelnut milk had gone cold. It started to steam once more with her touch.

"Aren't you afraid the people you work for will come after you sometime?"

I laughed quietly.

"You've been watching too many mafia shows on TV. With me they've got a competent, reliable agent. I get my assignments and, once I accept a hit, I do it clean, leave no clues and no trail. They like that and want to keep me around. I have an agency that does research on my assignments. I make sure I don't take any jobs that are territorial fights. I don't get caught in the middle of power struggles or gangland wars. That's how I stay safe."

"And you only go after people you think deserve it."

"You must have seen Grosse Pointe Blank."

She flushed.

"I did see it. And you're like the main character in that movie. You seem to have some . . . rules. That's why I wanted to talk to you. I can't turn you into a toad, Mr. Mallinson, but there are some things I can do to protect myself. I may be a little harder to kill than what you think. I want you to hear my side of the story."

"I very much want to hear it."

She traced a pattern on the table with her finger. Was it just a nervous habit, or was she tracing a rune or writing an invisible spell on the black formica?

"What they told you is basically true. I've left the coven. I use my skill to interfere with their magic so that it doesn't work."

"Why?"

"Because they have no right to privilege themselves as they do."

"You've asked me quite a few questions and I've answered them all. Can I ask you a few now?"

"That's fair."

"Dolores Cuba told me one must pay 'a big price' to gain skill as a practitioner of magic. What is it? Do you sell your souls to the Devil?"

"No. That's a stupid old myth that doesn't ever seem to die. Yet in some sense, we do. We take an oath to repudiate all good. We give ourselves to the practice and to the coven. We commit our lives to it. Considerations of right and wrong block our ability to do magic. To succeed as a practitioner one must achieve a level of amorality. Just as a swami who learns to levitate-a physical thing-first must mediate for years on end to attain a level of mental enlightenment, so we must achieve a morally neutral state of mind in order to succeed as a practitioner of the magical arts."

"But you just gave me an ethical and moralistic reason why you are using your skills to upset the spells of your former coven. That doesn't sound amoral to me. In fact, it sounds as if you're making a moral judgment on Miss Cuba and the others and acting upon it."

Her cheeks grew red with anger.

"What right does Dolores Cuba have to stay forever young and pretty? Everyone else gets old and dies."

The intensity of her response surprised me so much I could not answer right away.

"I suppose," I finally answered, "it's an even exchange. She repudiates all good. She works for years to attain this amorality you talk about. It seems to me she has the right to then use magic for whatever ends she wants."

"They all think that-every one of them-selfish pigs."

"Miss Adamson, you're now sounding very moralistic. You're condemning their behavior as selfish. If an amoral state of mind is necessary to be a skillful magician, how are you pulling this off? Cuba said you have achieved a high level of skill. If what you just told me is true, your moralistic behavior would seem to nullify your abilities. I don't get it." I looked around again. "You say people can't hear us and won't notice us?"

"They won't be aware we're here."

"Have you made us invisible? I want to know this if we keep talking."

"Not invisible-at least not the way you mean it. People can see and hear us. The magic I am using interferes with their minds and sensory perceptions. They see us but . . . well, sort of immediately forget we're here. So in a sense, we are invisible. You don't have to worry about people noticing. You could curl up on this table and go to sleep-people would see you but would not act on the fact that they see you-so, in a sense, it is as if we're not really here-to them, at least."

"Okay. So how can you morally judge and still remain a formidable magician?"

"I prefer the term 'sorceress.' 'Magician' reminds me of David Copperfield and Doug Henning. A sorceress is one who draws from the Source-the vital power that lies at the core of existence. But let me answer your question. When I began to see the selfishness and self-indulgence of this group, I immediately felt my power diminish. I ran away. I went to New Mexico. For two years I put myself under a regimen of severe asceticism-which is an alternative way to connect with the Source. Saints and gurus gain their power this way. Sorceresses gain it through apprenticeship. Are you following me?"

"Go on."

"For two solid years I lived in a cave. I went naked all that time and did not bathe or cut my hair or nails. I stood vigil in the snow and mediated at night in the desert cold. I fasted. When I did eat, it was roots and plants, and when I drank, it was spring water. Two years I suffered and denied myself. But in that time I accumulated a store of power-power I could use without the kind of amorality I depended on before that."

"You did this just so you could go against the coven?"

"Yes."

"Why? I still don't understand why."

"I suppose I underwent a conversion."

One corner of my mouth inadvertently turned up.

"A conversion? Were you born again?"

"No. Don't even say that. Conversion means change of mind. Somehow I decided what the coven does is wrong. Using magic is wrong. I want out of it, Mr. Mallinson. But unless the coven is dissolved, I can't get out of it."

"And if it is dissolved?"

"Once they're gone, I can let go of my contact with the Source. I can go back to being a normal woman."

She paused. She ran her finger around the rim of her bone-white cup.

"I have a reservoir of power I use against them-just enough to end their spells and put them out of business. I can't make you disappear or anything like that, but I can do some things that will make your life quite unpleasant. Yet to do so will draw off some of my power. I've accumulated it and I need all of it. I will attack you if I have to. I don't want to. If you'll agree to let this thing go, I won't need to do anything to you."

"Money has been paid."

"I'll match whatever they've given you."

"That would make things easier."

"It will," she said. "Excuse me. I've got to go to the little girl's room-those three cups of coffee. Think about it and let me know when I come back to the table. I can get you the money today."

She hurried to the women's room. I sipped my coffee, checked in my bag, and looked out the window at the people walking by: average citizens, business people in sharp clothes, pretty women, and teenagers with dyed hair on skateboards.

A few minutes later Helena Adamson came back to the table.

"Feel better?"

"Of course I do." She took a drink of her steamed milk.

"You say you'll match what the coven has paid me?"

"Dollar for dollar-yes, I will."

"If you'd said you would double it, I might have let you go."

Her face registered a look of displeasure.

"Let me go?"

But even as she spoke, I saw her eyes register that something was wrong. She tried to straighten up and rally her strength, but her shoulders drooped. She managed to raise her eyes and look at me.

"I decided to go ahead and execute the contract on you," I said. "You made it very convenient by coming here, Miss Adamson. You don't have much time left, so I'll make it quick. I poisoned you. It's fast acting and there is no antidote. You won't feel much pain. I slipped it in your drink while you were in the restroom."

She did not have enough breath to speak. The poison was starting to paralyze her nervous system.

"You agreed to repudiate all good. Then you turned traitor to the people with whom you made a covenant. Your moral arrogance turned me against you. I saw Diane Conway starve to death because of you-she looked like a concentration camp inmate. I felt for her. Whatever moral indignation you arrogated for yourself doesn't impress me one little bit."

I spoke rapidly.

"And what I did shouldn't bother you. It's not that I'm being immoral. I'm passing judgment on you. Maybe you'll understand as much in your last moments."

By now the toxin had paralyzed her respiratory system. Her lips and hands were blue. Bubbly froth streamed from one corner of her mouth. I pulled her white cup back so she would not upset it when she collapsed. She fell forward, her head and upper body resting on the smooth, black tabletop.

I looked around. People glanced at us-me sitting there, she draped over the table, one arm hanging down limp, a pool of froth spreading from her mouth, her eyes open but devoid of life-and then went back to coffee, newspaper, laptops, conversations. I got up and left, not knowing how long her spell would interfere with their perception now that she was dead.

The power she had accrued in her two-year stint in the desert must have been immense. No one noticed her body for five hours.


When Donovan delivered the other half of the payment, he was not the sallow, halting man I had seen in Veterans Park. Instead, a healthy, chipper man of perhaps thirty years laid a plastic bag on the table I sat at in the Ryerson Library, gave me a thumbs-up, and went his way.

When I walked out the door with the money and some new books to read, someone called my name. I turned to see an attractive woman in a short black dress, boots and a leather jacket. Dolores Cuba. She smiled at me. I returned her smile.

"Hello," I said.

She took my hands.

"I feel awkward," she said, "but I came to express my gratitude. Thank you, Mr. Mallinson."

Thank you for committing a murder, I reflected. Then I remembered what Helena Adamson had told me about amoral dispositions.

"Of course." I gave her an appraising glance. "You look very good," I said.

"I feel good for the first time in months."

Then I decided. I would do it. I would take the risk. I never-never-associate with clients after I do a job. They know too much. This job, however, had been different from any other I had done. The rules were different. In fact, the rules had been erased.

"I was wondering if I could buy you lunch." I glanced at my watch. "It's way past noon."

A smile lit her face. I had not seen such a beautiful smile since my days with Janetta.

"I'd be delighted," she answered.

I took her arm. We headed down past Civic Theater then toward the Amway Grand and the 1913 Room, a restaurant of which we both thought well.




















































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