Shakespeares Counselor Page 0,63

after a minute or two, and was able to look pleasant, if nothing else.

I had my back to the entry, so I couldn't see what made Roy stiffen and look angry a moment or two after we'd ordered. "Crap," he said under his breath, and his eyes flicked to my face, then back over to Jack. "Trouble coming," he said, a little more audibly.

"Who is it?" Jack asked, sounding as though he were afraid he already knew the answer.

"Her," Aunt Betty said, her voice loaded down with significance.

"Why, it's the private detective table, isn't it?" said a voice behind me, a youngish woman's voice with a Southern accent so heavy you could have used it to butter rolls. "My goodness me, and I wasn't invited along. But who have we here, in my old place?" A navy-and-beige pantsuit, well packed, twitched by me, and I looked up to see a pretty woman, maybe a couple of years my senior, standing by the table. She was looking down at me with false delight. The perfect makeup and honey-colored shoulder-length tousled hair were designed to distract attention from a nose that was a little too long and a mouth that was a little too small.

"You are just too precious," said this sleek newcomer. I don't believe anyone had called me "precious" in my life, even my parents. "Let me introduce myself, since Jack seems to have lost his tongue. His wonderful tongue." She gave me a roguish wink.

Well, well, well. I didn't dare to look at Jack. I wavered between amusement and anger.

Roy said, "Lindsey, this is Lily. Lily, Lindsey Wilkerson."

I nodded, not extending my hand. If I shook with her, some of my fingers might come up missing. You don't often meet people who will lay an unattractive emotion out on the table like that. Showing your hand so clearly is a big mistake.

"Dear old Betty, how you been doing?" Lindsey asked.

"Fine, thank you," said 'dear old Betty,' her voice as weathered as old paint. "And I hear you're flourishing on your own."

"I'm paying the rent," Lindsey said casually. She was carrying a leather handbag that had cost more than two of my outfits, which mostly come from Wal-Mart. Her beautiful shoes had two-inch heels, and I wondered how she walked in them. "Lily, how do you like working under Jack?"

I shrugged. She was about as subtle as a rattlesnake.

"You watch out, Lily, Jack's got himself a reputation for fooling around with his co-workers," Lindsey warned me with mock concern. "Then he just leaves 'em high and dry."

"Thanks for the advice," I said, my voice mild. I could feel Jack relax prematurely.

"Where'd he find you?" she said. Her southern Arkansas accent was beginning to grate on my nerves. "You" comes out "yew," and "where'd" was awful close to "whar'd."

Not under the same rock he found you, was my first, discarded answer. I exercised my option of not speaking at all. I looked into her eyes, instead. She began to shift from pump to pump, and her nasty smile faded.

But she rallied, as I'd been willing to bet she would.

"Jack," she said, leaning over the table right in front of me, "I need to come by your place and pick up some clothes I left there."

Her throat was exposed, right in front of me. I felt my fingers stiffen into Knife Hand. At the same time, the part of my brain that hadn't lost its temper was telling me that it's not right to hurt someone just because she's a bitch.

"I don't believe I have anything of yours," Jack said. From the corner of my eyes I could see his hands clenching the edge of the table. "And I don't live in that apartment any more."

She hadn't known that. "Where'd you move to?"

"Are you a detective, too?" I asked.

"Why, yes, honey, I sure am." She straightened up, now that she knew I'd had a good time to look at her impressive cup size.

"Then you can find out." She would also find out we were married.

"Listen, bitch..." she leaned back down toward me, extending a pointing finger. People around us were beginning to stop eating in order to listen.

My hand darted up, quick as an arrow, and I seized her hand and dug my thumb into the pit between her thumb and first finger. She gasped in pain. "Let go of me!" she hissed. After a second's more pressure, I did. Tears had come into her eyes and she stood there nursing her