office door. Donning a tan cashmere coat, he spoke abruptly to the couple and reached for the doorknob.
"I'll be back," T.S. promised the receptionist, turning abruptly and heading for the hall before he came face to face with Lance Worthington. He wanted to meet him, but not like this. He now had a better plan, a much better plan, in mind.
Turning his back, T.S. paused at the doorway of another office and fumbled in his pockets as if searching for keys. Lance Worthington exited Broadway Backers and passed directly behind him, not more than a foot away. He was humming something T.S. could not recognize. Perhaps the music to his new show.
The producer reached the elevator and jabbed the button impatiently. T.S. stared at him out of the corner of one eye. Lance Worthington was a small man, not more than five-eight, with short arms and stubby legs and a rounded head. There was not much of note about him: he moved impatiently with jerky motions, wore expensive shoes, had thinning hair and only a pair of small dark eyes stood out in an otherwise nondescript face. Until he drew attention to those ears. The producer tugged at one, then jabbed the elevator button a few more times for good measure and looked at his watch. If the elevator didn't hurry, T.S. would be left standing in the hall holding a whole lot more than his keys in his hand.
Fortunately, a car arrived and Lance Worthington boarded. T.S. caught a final glimpse of his thinning scalp and small round head just as the elevator door shut.
Boy, did T.S. hate those ears.
Auntie Lil was steamed. The desk sergeant at Midtown North would not let her past the entrance area.
"I demand to see Detective Santos," she told him for the third time.
"Demand away. The man's not here." The sergeant leaned forward and parked a fist against his chin so he could get a better look at Auntie Lil. He was a budding novelist and was collecting colorful characters for his first book. This old dame was a doozy.
Auntie Lil glared at him. "You certainly take a casual view of your job."
Out of habit, the sergeant checked the position of her pocketbook. It looked big enough to hurt if swung with sufficient force. "Lady, I cannot make a man appear when he is not here. I am an officer of the law, not a magician. Would you like to see anyone else in connection with your problem?"
"No. When do you expect him in?"
"We expected him in this morning," the sergeant replied. "When he actually arrives is anyone's guess. George is that kind of guy."
She did not bother to thank him—what for?—and marched from the precinct angrily, shouldering past a handcuffed suspect and throwing him against a folding chair. The suspect tripped over it and landed on the floor. The arresting officer looked after Auntie Lil in admiration, but she was moving too fast to accept the compliment.
She reached Mike's American Bar and Grill before T.S. It was deserted, except for a woman behind the bar and a handful of Mexican cooks sitting at a table enjoying cigarettes before the lunch rush. For some inexplicable reason, huge clusters of plastic grapes hung from the ceiling in endless waves and fake Grecian columns were parked willy-nilly throughout the interior. Oversized wine glasses served as flowerpots for silk grapevines that cascaded across the center of every table. The bartender, a willowy young woman with straight brown hair and enough black eyeliner to last Cleopatra a lifetime, wore a sheet wrapped over a leotard in an approximation of a toga. She watched Auntie Lil enter with professionally distant interest. In Mike's neighborhood, you never knew what was going to walk in the door. It was always best to reserve judgment until right before you yelled for the bouncer.
"Give me a double Bloody Mary," Auntie Lil ordered. Her fruitless visit to the precinct called for strong measures. She slapped her pocketbook on the bar and scraped a stool up closer to it. "Extra, extra spicy. I'd ask for ouzo, but I hate the stuff."
"Greek is just our theme this week," the bartender assured her. "Next week, we're going Oktoberfest." If she thought it was unusual for a little old lady to be slamming back a double Bloody Mary in midday, she wasn't going to point that out. "Having a bad day?" she asked.
"Having a bad week," Auntie Lil decided as she sipped at her Bloody Mary.