82 Desire

him?”
    “Oh, nothing. He’s upset because everybody’s snappy.”
    “Oh, God, is it all worth it? Maybe we all just ought to go for a hike.”
    Skip shrugged. “Cabinets to sand.”
    But Kenny turned around. “Yeah. Maybe we ought to.” He was the rare kid who didn’t mind doing things with adults.
    Skip saw he was smiling. “Y’all have fun.” She rejoined Steve in the courtyard.
    He said, “Listen, I’ve been thinking. You need a day off. Why don’t you stay home and wash your hair or something?”
    “You know what? That’s not a half-bad idea.” She did need a day off.
    They drank another cup of coffee and she kissed Steve good-bye. She was puttering about the kitchen thinking about flopping down with a good book when her pager went off, a rare thing for a Saturday morning.
    “What the hell?” she said aloud, and looked at it. It registered a number she didn’t recognize. “Oh, well.” Wearily she dialed it.
    A woman answered, and she identified herself. “Detective Skip Langdon.”
    “Oh.” The woman sounded surprised. “I get Sandra.”
    In a moment, a younger woman came to the phone. “Yes?”
    “Someone there paged Detective Skip Langdon.”
    “I paged Detective Langdon.”
    Skip said, “Yes?”
    “You’re Detective Langdon? Something’s funny here. I’m looking for a man.”
    “Something’s funny all right. ‘Cause I’m not one.”
    “Oh. Okay. Sorry.” The woman hung up.
    Skip shrugged and went back to loading the dishwasher. In a moment her pager went off again. It was the same number. Impatiently, she dialed again.
    The woman said, “I’ve thought things over. Somebody gave me your card. Said he was you. I think we need to talk about it.”
    “Okay. Talk.”
    “Uh-uh. Not on the phone. How do I know you really are Detective Langdon?”
    “Listen, it’s my day off. Why don’t you come in first thing Monday morning?”
    “The man who gave me your card—I found him rifling a friend’s office. He hit me and chased me, and somehow got to my house before I did. He said he’d kill me if I screamed, and he threatened to kill my mother. Then he blindfolded me, gave me your card, and said call him in the morning. I was going to call Public Integrity—maybe it’s good I didn’t.”
    “My card doesn’t have my pager number on it.”
    “No. It was written on the back.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “I’m not telling you till I can see you.”
    It didn’t matter—Skip had her number. But she didn’t like the sound of this. “Okay,” she sighed. “Meet me at my office in half an hour. You know where the Third District is?”
    “No.”
    “Seventeen hundred Moss Street.”
    Skip got there first, carrying yet another coffee. She read the paper while she waited.
    And in about ten minutes, an African-American woman arrived, a young, pretty one with gorgeous hair, large of butt and bust, stuffed into black jeans and a white T-shirt.
    “I’m the woman who called. Talba Wallis.”
    “Sit down, Ms. Wallis.”
    “If the guy wasn’t you, who was he? He knows where I live. How the hell could he know that?”
    “You better start from the beginning.”
    “I’ve been working with a private detective—Gene Allred.”
    Skip nodded as if it meant something. She had no idea who that was.
    “I went to his office yesterday and this guy in a ski mask was there. I told you the rest.” She ran through the story again, in slightly more detail. “I thought maybe Gene was in some kind of trouble, maybe in jail—I kept calling him and getting no answer.”
    “Did you try him at home?”
    “I don’t know his home number.”
    “Let me try a couple of things.” Skip tried the phone book and she tried Central Lockup; he wasn’t listed and he wasn’t in jail.
    “Can you describe the man?”
    “I never saw his face, but he was white and tall. Thin, I’d say.”
    “What were you working on with Allred?”
    “I can’t really talk about that.”
    There’d be time enough to insist, if a crime had been committed. “Could I see the card the man gave you?”
    “Sure.” She handed it over.
    The pager number was there, in Skip’s handwriting.
    There was nothing to do except get Wallis’s address, and Allred’s. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll be in touch.”
    “Wait a minute. Is that all? What do you think happened to me?”
    “I think you know more about that than I do. But you don’t want to talk about it.”
    “It wouldn’t be ethical.”
    What