“Maybe she’s at the hotel gym?” I said. “Or out for a walk.”
“We checked the gym,” he said. “And it would be a long walk, even for Melanie Joan. She’s been gone for at least three hours.”
I exhaled. “I don’t understand her sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
Bregman hit a home run. The place exploded in cheers. I needed to pay my bill and get out of this hellhole. “Have you tried Spike’s?” I said. “She sort of has a thing for him.”
“I know,” he said. “I tried. She’s not there.”
Just as he said it, I thought I heard the sound of my own name ringing out from the din. “Wait a minute,” I said. I listened. There was no mistaking it. Melanie Joan’s voice was strange like that. It occupied its own special register. “She’s here,” I said.
Thirty
I told Tony I’d call him later. Then I stood up and set about scanning the crowd for Melanie Joan, who was much less imposing physically than she was vocally.
When I spotted her, she was elbowing her way past two college-aged guys in Red Sox T-shirts, nearly upending their beers in the process.
“Melanie Joan!”
“Sunny, thank God.” Melanie Joan rushed at me and threw her arms around my shoulders. She smelled of Bottega Veneta perfume and gin.
She took a step back and smiled. “You look wonderful,” she said, as though she hadn’t just seen me a few hours ago.
“Thanks,” I said. “You, too.”
Melanie Joan had changed into jeans and a black silk blouseand slicked her hair into a chignon. Chic as ever. But her cheeks were flushed, her eyes a bit wild. I wondered how much gin she’d had, and where she’d been drinking it.
“Where have you been?”
“Terrorizing your poor assistant again,” she said. “Good thing he’s never been trusted with any state secrets. He gave up your location very easily.”
“Did Blake tell youwhyI’m here?”
She shook her head.
“I was going to meet Leila Donnelly. She said she had some important information for me, and to keep it to myself.”
“She contacted you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Couple hours ago,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve obviously been stood up, so all bets are off.”
“Wait,” Melanie Joan said. “You haven’t talked to the press about her yet, have you?”
I shook my head.
“Have you told anyone else?”
“Just Tony. He said we should keep it to ourselves.”
“Thank God.”
“Why?”
