True-Life Adventure

Koehler. Big deal. There was probably a conference room in there where they were having a meeting.
    Anyway, she’d been there with him and you’d think that would be enough to satisfy just about anyone’s curiosity, but you’d be wrong. I followed them all the way back to the parking lot where Sardis’s car was, watched them kiss— quite passionately, I might add— and then watched Sardis get in her own small, light-colored car.
    Then, having gone that far, I followed her home. By an incredible stroke of luck, I found a parking place not more than a half a block away from hers. But I thought I’d wait to go in till after she went in. I hadn’t yet decided whether or not to confront her with what I knew and I didn’t want it to be obvious that I’d tailed her.
    I watched her get out, lock her car, walk around it, and step up on the sidewalk. And then I saw a man step out of a doorway and walk toward her. Fast. I had to look away while I was getting out of my car, but I thought I saw him grab her arm and I thought I saw them start to struggle. Then I heard a godawful noise— the police whistle Sardis carried on her key ring.
    The man started running— right towards me. By this time I was running too, and I guess he figured I was going for him, so he turned around and ran the other way, around the corner. San Francisco being the kind of city it is, there was about a fifty-fifty chance of the route he chose being uphill. Uphill it was, and while I believe women find me all the more masculine owing to a trifling tendency to burliness, someone who meant to be unkind might suggest that I ought to lose weight. Thus I huffed and I puffed and I watched him put a couple of city blocks between us.
    Feeling ridiculous, I gave up and ambled back down the hill, trying to learn to breathe again on the way. Sardis was waiting at the bottom, looking white. She flung herself at me and I caught her, mumbling something like “Sorry I didn’t catch him.” She mumbled something like “Pish-tush,” and we didn’t say anything else, just held on to each other, until we got inside.
    Sardis’s apartment was small but very cozy— a brown velvet sofa, a rocking chair, quilts, that sort of stuff. At that moment it looked more inviting than the sumptuous den of the Count of Monte Cristo. Sardis poured us both a brandy, and I tossed mine back and held out my glass for more. I act macho when I’m terrified.
    Sardis sat down in her rocker. “He spoke to me, Paul. He knew me.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He said, ‘Where’s Lindsay Hearne? I won’t hurt you if you tell me.’ And he grabbed my arm.”
    “Did you recognize him?”
    She shuddered. “No. He had on a stocking mask. Horrible.”
    “How about the voice?”
    “He whispered.”
    “Are you sure it was a man?”
    “Oh, yes. A big one.”
    I sighed. “Shall we call the cops?”
    She shook her head vigorously. “Let’s not. There’s nothing they can do except make us wait for forty-five minutes till they get here, and then take a report. I can’t deal with them now— tomorrow I’ll call Inspector Blick and tell him it happened.”
    I was relieved. The last thing I wanted in that velvety, quilty, cozy place was cops. Also, I didn’t want the interruption. Sardis and I had a lot to talk about.
    I started out nice and slow-like, kind of subtle: “How long have you been sleeping with Steve Koehler?”
    “What?” she said. She looked as if I’d asked her whether Spot barked much. The question didn’t seem to compute at all. Suddenly I felt like the two-bit turd I was.
    “I meant— uh— well, I went to the show at the One-Act Theater and I happened to see you walking out of a hotel with him. I just thought, well… you might like to tell me about it.”
    “I might, yes. First we had the carpaccio. And then he had the duck and I had some pasta. Fantastic. And then…”
    “There’s a restaurant in that little hotel?”
    Again she looked as if she thought I was pulling her leg. “Donatello— haven’t you been?”
    “On my income, I haven’t even heard of it.” If I spoke testily, it was because I was so embarrassed at being such a dumb shit that I felt the need to take it out on somebody.
    But Sardis didn’t seem to notice. “Anyway,” she said, “it was strictly a business date. We had some things to clear up about his C.I.”
    “Do you always kiss your clients so enthusiatically?”
    “(A),” she said, “I do not kiss my clients at all,