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Mary doesn’t get the reference. “Huh?” Then: “Sorry, I know you’re in a meeting. I’ll let you go. I miss you, Linc.”
Really?
“Me, too,” he blurts nonsensically.
Mary hangs up.
Amy stands abruptly. “I have to go. More photos to chase down.”
“Wait!” Lincoln cries.
Amy sits again, but she cocks her head and studies Lincoln. “Are you OK, John?”
“Fine,” he lies, then continues carefully, “I just thought we should maybe talk. Last night—I had a really good time, and you’re terrific, but I think we ought to lay out the parameters...well, we probably should just cool it.”
Amy aims a hard little smile at him.
“I mean, I’m still married, technically, and I don’t know what’s happening with that, and given that we work together...”
Amy lets a silence settle between them. Finally, she says, “I envy your ego, John. I really do.”
“Ah...”
“Last night was last night. Get over it.”
“Right, right.” Lincoln nods frantically, though on top of everything, he feels let down. As a lover, is he really that fungible?
After another pause, Amy asks, “Why are you always rubbing your arm?”
“I guess I didn’t realize I do it.” Lincoln drops his hands to his lap. “It aches sometimes where I broke it once.”
“How’d you break it?”
“It’s a long story.”
More silence. Amy stares at him evenly. It startles Lincoln, how she can make herself appear so different from those early impressions. Her layered, dark brown hair divides in a neat part stylishly askew from the crown of her head. Dark brows and lashes frame her chestnut eyes, and her thin nose is softened by surprisingly full lips. Even now, with all hell breaking loose, memories of last night tease him.
“What about my novel?” Amy asks.
“I love the idea.”
“You know, I didn’t sleep with you just so you’d help me.”
“And I didn’t encourage you just to get you in bed.”
Amy rises to go. “I’m glad we understand each other,” she says.
“Right.”
At the door, Amy stops and sends a parting shot: “You know, it’s terrible, when you think of all the damage Glenn Close did to one-night stands in Fatal Attraction.”
Wisely, Lincoln says nothing.
8
OVER A RESTLESS afternoon and semisleepless night, Lincoln decides he will go it alone on the battery complaint, without a lawyer, at least for now. Some obsessive surfing of the Internet yields the intelligence that complaints filed by citizens are fairly routine and often amount to little. Hiring a lawyer will almost certainly turn the case into something larger. And what if Duddleston finds out? It’s bad enough that Lincoln abuses writers. He also punches out old black ladies? Besides, Lincoln has enough confidence in his intellectual dexterity to assume he can parry the detective’s questions without giving up anything. And if the discussion turns difficult, Lincoln will simply leave and then hire a lawyer, if necessary. He reminds himself repeatedly: he hasn’t done anything wrong! Well, at least, not legally wrong. On another scale (what would it be—morality, courage, dignity?), he wishes he had a do-over.
The next morning, Lincoln calls Pistakee to say he’ll be late and then walks the fifteen or so blocks to the Twenty-Third District headquarters, a surprisingly attractive Italianate redbrick building with green awnings and a green cornice. Inside, beyond a heavy wood door, Lincoln feels as if he’s seen this place before on any of a hundred cop dramas. A motley assortment of citizens are milling around a cramped lobby papered with official notices. A high counter separates a crew of bored-looking cops from the bothersome public. A blonde policewoman with a rote manner fields questions from a line of petitioners.
