The woman who answered the door to the third-floor apartment was perhaps thirty-three years old, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike with a Carly Simon mouth. She had short blonde hair (“The same color hair all bimbos have”) and wide brown eyes, and she was wearing high-heeled silver slippers and a long silver robe belted at the waist. Michael did not think either the robe or the slippers were real silver, but they certainly did look authentic.
Like the gun in Detective O’Brien’s hand had looked authentic. All those many years ago, it seemed. Was it still only Christmas morning? Had it been only three hours since he’d first learned from Albetha Crandall on the telephone that there was a bimbo with red silk panties in her husband’s life? He wondered if Jessica Wales was wearing red silk panties now.
“Please come in,” she said.
Little tiny breathless Marilyn Monroe voice.
Carly Simon smile.
She stepped back and away from the door, the robe parting over very long, very shapely Cher legs. It suddenly occurred to Michael that Jessica Wales was not wearing red silk panties or anything else under that robe. There was nothing and nobody but Jessica Wales under there. Here I am with a famous movie star who’s wearing nothing under her robe, he thought.
A Christmas tree was in one corner of the large living room, festively decorated with ornaments that looked expensively German in origin, and minuscule white lights and angel’s hair spun into tunnels that seemed to recede into a distant childhood where sugarplum fairies danced in everyone’s head. Wrapped Christmas packages in different sizes and colors were spread under the tree and a pair of bulging red stockings with white cuffs were hanging over a fireplace in which cannel coal was burning. The record player, or the radio, Michael couldn’t tell which, was playing what sounded like Old English carols. He stepped past Jessica, the scent of Poison wafting up from her, and heard the door clicking shut behind him. She turned the lock, put on the safety chain.
“So,” she said, “how can I help you?”
“Well, as I told you on the phone …”
“Yes. But I don’t know where he is.”
“I thought he might be here.”
“No. In fact, until you called, I still thought he was dead.”
“No, he’s alive.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I saw him on television.”
“I’m so happy to hear that,” she said, “would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you. Miss Wales, it’s urgent that I find Mr. Crandall.”
“Yes, so you told me. Are you sure? A little cognac?”
“Well, just a little, thank you.”
Jessica moved like molten silver to a built-in bar on the wall alongside a unit containing a television set, a VCR, a turntable, a tuner, a tape deck, and a compact disc player. Michael still didn’t know whether he was listening to a recording or to the radio. He looked around as Jessica began pouring the cognac. The living room adjoined the dining room, an open swinging door between them. Beyond the dining room, he could see only a portion of a kitchen with sand-colored cabinets. On the other side of the room there was an open door with a small library beyond it, and a closed door leading to what Michael guessed was the bedroom. The place was luxuriously furnished. He wondered how long Jessica had been a famous movie star he’d never heard of.
On the radio—it was the radio, he now discovered—an announcer was telling the world or at least the tri-state area that this was WQXR and that an uninterrupted program of Christmas music would continue immediately after the three A.M. news.
Michael moved closer to one of the speakers.
Jessica handed him a snifter half full of cognac.
“Roll it around in your hands,” she said. “Like this.”
She was holding her own snifter in both hands, close to her abundant breasts, rolling it gently between her palms. Michael was suddenly reminded of the commercial Jonah Hillerman had pitched at lunch yesterday. Eat ‘em. Squeeze ‘em. Mmmm, good. Mmmm, sweet.
“To bring out the bouquet,” Jessica said.
On the radio, a newscaster was giving the latest on the continuing conflict in the Middle East.
Jessica kept rolling the snifter between the palms of her hands.
The newscaster said that a large American corporation had sold one of its divisions to the Japanese for a billion dollars.
“Mmmm, good,” Jessica said, and brought the snifter to her nose.
The newscaster said that a United States senator had been indicted for violating the law against …
Jessica was sniffing the bouquet.
… said in a televised news conference that he would be exonerated once the true and complete story was …
“Mmmm, sweet,” Jessica said.
The newscaster said that the dollar had fallen against most major currencies in U.S. trading.
“Taste it,” Jessica said.
The newscaster said that a new cold front was moving in from the Canadian Rockies.