didn't even care. Not even he would pass up such an opening. "Let's go to dinner tomorrow night."
"That would be lovely. I think I'll survive until then."
He was so busy admiring her voice and marveling at her calm and apparent disregard of his own nervousness that, at first, he neglected to reply. When he realized he'd been holding the phone silently for nearly half a minute, he panicked and did what he'd always done with women: he blurted out the first thing that crossed his mind.
"Could we stop by the morgue first?" he asked, to his own immediate horror. God, what was he doing? Where was his finesse? He was acting like a teenage moron.
"You're such a romantic, Theodore," Lilah teased, seemingly impervious to any faux pas he might produce. "Have you grown kinky in our months apart?"
"Oh, this is horrible," he forced himself to confess, unleashing a torrent of words. "I'm making an idiot of myself and you must think I'm insane. I've been wanting to call you and I don't know why I haven't. And now I'm calling because I need a favor or, rather, Auntie Lil and I need a favor, but I'm afraid you'll think that's the only reason I'm calling you, so now I feel like a real ass. I think I'd better just hang up."
"Don't hang up, Theodore," Lilah told him cheerfully. "I'll take any phone call I can get from you. On any pretense whatsoever. And if Auntie Lil is involved, then all the better. It tells me that my boredom is at an end. I demand all details immediately."
"A woman died today in a soup kitchen where we work."
"You've been working at a soup kitchen? How wonderful. I'm very proud of you, though I must confess it makes me feel inadequate. I'll have to donate an extra thousand or so tomorrow just to compensate." The good thing about Lilah was that she never flaunted her extreme wealth and, in fact, often made fun of it herself. "But you, Theodore, you back your convictions with actions," she added. "I like that in a man."
"Well, I haven't been working there long," he confessed. He checked his watch. Nine hours, to be exact. No need to get into too many details.
"Anyway, this poor woman died today of a heart attack in front of everyone and no one knows her real name," he continued. "Auntie Lil thinks if we can get a photo of her and show it around the neighborhood, we'll be able to discover who she was and notify her family and then she can be buried under her real name."
"Well, she wasn't murdered, but it is a mystery of sorts. How can I help?"
"Can you find out where they've taken the body and get us in so we can take a photograph?"
"Only if I get to come along. Dinner and the morgue is my idea of the ideal date."
"Are you sure you want to come?"
"I'm sure. At least about the dinner part. I reserve judgment on the morgue. Give me the details, and I'll call you back later tonight."
He quickly filled her in and heard the ding of the microwave just as he finished the story. She assured him again she'd be able to help, then hung up with a cheerful goodbye. That left him with no one but Brenda and Eddie to engage in the all-important rehashing of the conversation. They regarded him with sleepy, yellow eyes and seemed infinitely bored at the possibilities of Lilah Cheswick. They had long since given up on their human being. In their estimation, he was really too dull for words. Brenda yawned and daintily licked at one paw. T.S. was dismissed.
He watched an old Barbara Stanwyck movie while he waited and it was almost as good as having Lilah right there. As promised, she called back several hours later and the deed had been done. Lilah had enough money and enough breeding that no favor asked was too great, and no amount of time too short in which to grant it. The strings had been pulled and the doors were being opened. The dead woman had been taken to the medical examiner's office on the East Side of midtown. They could drop by early tomorrow evening so long as they kept their visit discreet.
"They'll be holding the body there for a week, in case anyone asks about her," Lilah explained. "Then it's Potter's Field. Do you have a camera?"