"Yes, I can see that," Cordelia answered. "And you're the faker, always misleading people, so they never expect a punch when you throw it." She stopped in front of my building. I wondered if she meant my karate, or me in general. "For example, right now, you're in a lot more pain than you're admitting. The only clue is that your reaction time is slower. And, if I hadn't just treated you in the emergency room, I'd find it hard to believe you aren't the mercenary bimbo that Karen makes you out to be. I still have no idea who you are."

"And that bothers you?"

"A bit."

"It's what you get for hanging around with the Karens of the world. Real people are always complicated," I answered and started to get out.

"Wrong," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder to stop me.

"Real people are usually very simple, I've found."

"You've found your kind of real people and I've found mine. I'm sure you've had more psych courses than I've had, so I'm not going to bother arguing with you." I shrugged her hand off and got out of the car.

She got out and followed me.

"I'm coming up with you to make sure you have nothing to sue me for," she explained.

"A doctor making house calls. Aren't you n.o.ble?" I opened the downstairs door. She entered behind me.

"It's true what they say about you, isn't it?" she retorted.

"I don't know what they say about me," I replied, with my back toward her as I started up the stairs.

"That Micky Knight has never slept with the same person for more than a week and has never in her life held a serious conversation."

I kept walking, faster than my pained body wanted to. It was just true enough for people to have said it, and true enough to sting.

"For a straight woman, you're sure up on the queer gossip," I shot * 106 *

back down the stairs. "Does your boyfriend know how well informed you are about us d.y.k.es?"

"My personal life is my own," she replied.

I noticed that the light on the third-floor landing had been fixed.

Miss Clavish had probably given the landlord an earful. At least this time, if anything was going to hit me, I would see it. Cordelia was still coming up the stairs behind me. My door wasn't locked. I swung it open and turned on the light. Chaos met me. Papers were all over, furniture overturned, broken gla.s.s from the windows all over the floor.

"s.h.i.t," I said. Cordelia came up behind me. I heard her sharp intake of breath. Everything in the place was on the floor and trampled over. Almost everything. Something was missing. No cat.

I started looking frantically for her. I threw open the closet to look on the top shelf, where she usually hid. The closet was in disarray, with all my clothes crumpled in a heap on the floor. The top shelves were bare. I pawed through the clothes on the floor, hoping she was hiding under them. But she wasn't. I went into the kitchen to look in the one other place that I knew her to hide. What little food I had had been spilled and ground into the floor. I looked for the stool to stand on, but couldn't find it. It had been used to break the kitchen window and was lying in the alley three floors below. I jumped up, jackknifing my upper body over the top of the refrigerator, so that I could see down behind it.

I felt a sharp pain in my ribs. There was no cat behind the refrigerator.

"Micky, Micky," Cordelia called from the doorway. "What are you looking for? It can wait until tomorrow."

"No!" I yelled, sliding off the refrigerator. "Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Those f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! They killed my cat. They f.u.c.king killed my cat!"

This was it. The point where everything becomes too much. Too much anger, too much pain, and all I wanted to do was. .h.i.t something or get very drunk. Or both. I slammed my fist into the wall.

"Stop it. You'll hurt yourself."

"So?" I demanded. I took off her sweatshirt and threw it at her. It landed on the floor with everything else. "Get out of here. Take your G.o.dd.a.m.n do-goodism and leave me the f.u.c.k alone."

"No," she replied.

I shrugged and started looking for my Scotch bottle. Maybe they hadn't gotten to my back cupboard. I found the Johnny Walker against * 107 *

the back wall, twisted it open, and took a long swallow. f.u.c.k her, she would leave soon enough if I ignored her. I took another gulp, feeling the liquor burn its way down my throat.

Cordelia grabbed the bottle out of my hand.

"No," she said. "You're not mixing alcohol with those pain killers."

I didn't want her here. I didn't want anyone to watch me. I couldn't cry at my father's funeral, and I wasn't ever going to let anyone see me cry again.

"Just get out," I said, trying to make my voice calm and controlled.

"Please." I had acted calm and reasonable many times before, I could do it now. If I hid how upset I was for a little longer, she would leave.

Aunt Greta and her children didn't know what to do with me when I cried or was angry. She had told me to stop and they had laughed at me, telling me I should be glad that my dad died and I got out of that backward bayou. I hated them and I learned to never let them see what I felt. It was my way of tricking them and getting even, even if they didn't know. Never let anyone watch you when you're weak.

"I'm all right," I said in my calm rational voice. "Please go."

"Come on, Micky. People have tried to kill you two days running.

Your apartment has been thoroughly ransacked, your cat's dead, and you're all right? Bulls.h.i.t. Even if you were Karen, I wouldn't leave you alone in this mess."

Then Cordelia did something I didn't expect. Most people at least pause and genuflect at my defenses, but she ignored everything I was saying and doing and walked over to me and gently put her arms around my shoulders. When I didn't jerk or move away, she pulled me closer and with one hand on the back of my head, pressed my face into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she said and that was all.

No "you'll get over it," "there are plenty of cats at the pound,"

"no one told you to be a detective, you could've worked for the bank."

None of the things I had expected her to say. Tentatively, I put my arms around her waist. I realized that it was cold when I felt how warm her arms were about my shoulders. I shivered a little from the chill on my bare back.

I couldn't cry, not in front of her. I knew that Cordelia wouldn't * 108 *

hold it against me if I did. But it takes a long time to break old patterns.

I still felt tense, I couldn't relax into her embrace. There was nothing s.e.xual between us. I couldn't sense that she wanted anything from me.

She warmed me because it was the decent thing to do, like I was a kitten that was wet and needed to be dried and kept warm. Maybe that was why I was stiff; if she didn't want anything from me, then I had nothing to offer her. If nothing else, kittens are cute. Soggy detectives aren't.

Cordelia, I was beginning to realize, was one of those rare people whose instinct is to be kind. Most of us have to think about it. I started to pull away from her because genuine kindness is the hardest thing to repay. I didn't know if I could.

"I'm very sorry," she simply repeated. She didn't let me pull away from her, but held me a moment longer. Then she released me. "It's chilly in here, you need to put a shirt on. You're shivering," she said.

"Look, I'm sorry for the way I acted..."

"Pretty bad acting."

"I'm trying to apologize."

"I know. But put a sweater on first. I'm getting cold looking at you."

I turned to go over to my closet when I noticed a silhouette walking on the ledge outside my window. It meowed. I always kept the bottom window shut, because, cat or no, three stories is a long way to fall.

Hepplewhite was not allowed to play balance beam on the five-inch ledge around the building. With the windows broken she had found her way out.

I grabbed her off the ledge and carefully pulled her through the broken gla.s.s.

"You are an idiot cat," I said. "Next time you scare me like that you're going to be out catching rats on the river." Hepplewhite purred as usual, ignoring my threats.

"Don't you believe her, kitty cat," Cordelia said. "Just minutes ago, she was tearing up this place looking for you." Heppy had found an ally. Cordelia took her from me, saying, "Cats and bare skin don't mix."

She was right. I had enough scars for the moment. I rummaged through the clothes pile on the bottom of the closet until I found something to wear.

* 109 *

"Get a change of clothes. You're not staying here tonight,"

Cordelia said.

I would have to clean this mess up soon. But before I went to bed tonight was too soon. Cordelia helped me look until we found two shoes, two socks, some jeans, and a top. She did come across my panties that had "A lesbian was here" stenciled in the crotch, but we both ended up laughing.

Cordelia also found the little pile that Miss Clavish had left. She had collected my belongings from the stairway and put them inside my doorway. She also left a note, which said: Dear Ms. Knight, I hope you're all right and that the police catch those men soon. I would have aimed the shotgun at them instead of over their heads, but I was afraid of hitting you, too.

Don't worry about your cat. She can get into my office through the old steampipe hole in our shared wall. I love her company and she and Hecuba (my cat) get along quite well.

I've left out enough food for them both and there's a litter pan, so she won't be making any messes on top of the mess you've already got.

Sara Clavish To prove her point, Hepplewhite yawned, stretched, sneezed disapproval at the mess, and then disappeared into my closet and through a hole in the wall behind the clothes pile.

"Well, she'll be fine," Cordelia commented.

"I know. She's probably been eating food at two places for years."

"Let's get out of here. We're both dead tired."

I picked up my canvas bag, found the keys that Ms. (it had to be Ms., not Miss, after that shotgun trick) Clavish had removed from my door. I locked up and we left.

Cordelia lived in the French Quarter in a second-story apartment on Ursaline Street. She pointed it out as we drove past on our way to the garage where she parked her car.

"My one unearned luxury," she explained as she handed the car * 110 *

keys to the attendant. "Granddad hates the idea of my parking on the street, so I let him pay for the garage."

"Can I ask a rude question?" I said, as we started walking back to her apartment.

"Sure, this is the time of night for rude questions," she answered amicably.

"Something in your tone of voice says that you're not totally enamored of your grandfather, but..."

"But I spend a lot of time and effort on him, considering my ambivalent feelings, particularly since I've renounced any money he might leave me, you mean?" she finished the question for me.

"Yeah, so why?"

"I feel sorry for him. He's like a mean bulldog that has had all his teeth taken out. The people that used to be afraid of him, now laugh at him. His heart's very bad and getting worse since he won't give up bourbon or cigars. He's not going to live very much longer. He can be a real b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but he has always been kind to me, even when he didn't have to be. So I feel I owe him something. He'll probably be dead within the year. I suppose if I thought he'd be around for longer, there are a lot of things I would argue about, but it's not worth it now."

"Why did you turn down his money?"

"Because I'm a wonderful, altruistic, n.o.ble person." She smiled at me, then continued, "Well, not quite. Karen, Harry, and I all have trust funds, which we got at twenty-one. It was all set up by our great-grandfather. Tax purposes, I suppose. I find it more than adequate."

"Karen and Harry don't?"

"Particularly Karen. Harry's only twenty-two and has too much money and too little guidance."

"So you have, as Jane Austen might say, independent means?"

"Right. And I know I'm very lucky. Do I sound like a disgusting rich kid?"

"No, of course not. Disgusting rich children never take home derelicts from the hospital."

"M. Knight, Derelict Detective, it's got a certain ring. Why do you do it?"

"P.I. work?"

"Yes. It can't be the hours, or the money, or the benefits," Cordelia * 111 *

said as she led me up the stairs to her apartment. "I'm a doctor because I get to save lives, I'm well paid and get a lot of respect. Why do you do what you do?"

"Why not?" It wasn't really a flip answer, but it would probably take more energy and concentration than I had at the moment to explain it to Cordelia.

In the cla.s.s which convinced me to study philosophy, I had a white-haired professor by the name of Marsh. She was tall and very straight-backed and made us work very hard. The question she always ended cla.s.s with was, "Why?" She never answered it, just left it hanging in the air for us to think on if we wanted. For our final exam, that was the test, that one question, "Why?" I remember watching my fellow cla.s.smates madly writing answers, sure if they could get enough information on the paper they might include the answer that she wanted. Part of me, the part that Aunt Greta had gotten hold of, wanted to join them and to scribble every pithy line from Aristotle to Arendt. But I didn't. I decided that Professor Marsh didn't want us to recite, but to think. Even if what I thought wasn't terribly brilliant or original, it would still be better than regurgitating what I'd memorized. So I took a deep breath, exchanged my pencil for a pen and wrote, as an answer to "Why?" "Why not?" and handed it in. The rest of the cla.s.s must have thought I was crazy to hand in my test fifteen minutes after the exam had started.

A week later, Professor Marsh called me into her office to tell me that I had gotten a B. All the mad scribblers got C's, if they were coherent, D's and F's if not. One woman had gotten an A. Her answer was "Because."

I started to ask Professor Marsh why a "why not" was a B, but a "because" was an A. I said, "Why...?" Then I knew what she would say. And I laughed out loud. Professor Marsh joined in because she knew I had gotten it.

Her answer would have been, "Because..." "Because" implied reason, a positive. "Why not" didn't give reasons, a negative. And every "why" we posed for Professor Marsh, she would answer with a "because," not a "why not."

And I agreed with her.

Some day I would have to explain it to Cordelia. She opened the door to her apartment and let us in.

* 112 *