remarked in admiration. "Nice place you got here. Big for just one guy."
"We tried to call first," Sally St. Claire explained. "No one answered." She crossed a leg and expertly dangled a shoe from one toe as she puffed away on her ultra-long cigarette. The shoe had at least a four-inch heel that tapered down to a wicked point. Everywhere you looked, the woman ended in dangerous, jabbing spikes.
Their arrival would teach him to turn off the phone.
"How did you know where I lived?" T.S. asked suspiciously.
Worthington stared at him as if he were daft. "You're in the phone book," he explained.
T.S. tried to look casual. Damn. He should have paid that extra fourteen dollars a month for an unlisted number. He recovered his composure as much as he could under the circumstances. "To what do I owe this honor?" he inquired politely. He sat on the edge of a chair and tried hard to pretend that he was not barefoot or that he had any reason to regret his actions of the night before. If only he knew what he had done…
"Did you have a good time at my party last night?" Worthington asked suddenly. He had lightly seized one of his tiny, chimpanzeelike ears and was squeezing it methodically as he spoke. He stared at the top tier of T.S.'s curio shelf and a miniature sailor carved out of whalebone caught his attention. He reached for it and hefted it casually in his free hand, still squeezing his tiny ear. T.S. kept a careful eye on the carved treasure; it would fit neatly into the producer's coat pocket. Then he remembered: he'd just been asked a question. Damn those chimp ears. They were positively mesmerizing.
"Well, yes. Of course," T.S. stalled before shifting into full-blown fabrication. "I had a simply marvelous time at your party, in fact." He doubted this was strictly true, but given that his clothes were in a heap in one corner of his bedroom, it was probably a safe bet to assume that he had whooped it up in some manner or other.
"You left so suddenly," Worthington remarked. He was staring out at T.S. from under furry black eyebrows. His eyebrows, T.S. noticed, met in the middle of his forehead like a caterpillar whenever the producer concentrated heavily. "I thought perhaps we had offended you somehow," Worthington added carefully.
"Oh, no. Not at all." T.S. attempted a smile. "When you've got to go, you've got to go," he joked feebly. Where the hell was Lilah? She'd be able to tell him the truth.
The producer's brow smoothed and he relaxed. "Quite so. I always say 'live and let live' myself."
The phrase snagged at his memory with a curious foreboding, but T.S. could not remember where or when he had heard it recently.
"Given any thought to the show?" Worthington asked. "Remember, there are only a couple of investing spots left."
"Well, I haven't had much time to discuss it with Lilah. I mean, Mrs. Cheswick."
"Oh, yes. Ms. Cheswick. Or Lilah, as I believe she asked me to call her." Worthington wandered over to the large sliding glass doors that led to the balcony and stood staring intently out over York Avenue. The day had turned cloudy and distinctly gray. It made T.S. sad to think that he had slept the sun away. He was seized with a sudden longing to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over his head and wait for Lilah to arrive.
"She's a very wealthy woman, as I understand it," Worthington added casually. He seemed quite fascinated with the flow of traffic thirty stories below them.
"I'll say," Sally piped up. She stubbed out her cigarette viciously in T.S.'s immaculate teak ashtray and he suppressed a wince. It was not an ashtray intended for actual use. Those were kept locked away in a drawer lined with cedar chips. "Did you see that rock she had on her right hand?" she asked, impressed. "And I bet those earrings were real diamonds, too."
"Sally." Worthington said her name so gently that T.S. nearly missed it, but the effect was not lost on the girl. Her mouth tightened and her shoulders rose defiantly. She shot a quick glance at her boyfriend, then leaned back petulantly against the couch. As she was recrossing her legs and attempting to avoid impaling the footstool with a spike heel, a small furred paw whipped out from beneath the couch and snagged one of her metallic stockings. Her screech brought T.S. to his feet, but