I said, "Five now and five later. If I get you off the hook."
"Deal," she said, and grinned suddenly. "You could have had the whole thousand in front."
"Maybe I'll work better with an incentive. You want some more coffee?"
"If you're having some. And I think I'd like something sweet. Do they have desserts here?"
"The pecan pie's good. So's the cheesecake."
"I love pecan pie," she said. "I have a terrible sweet tooth but I never gain an ounce. Isn't that lucky?"
Chapter 2
There was a problem. In order for me to talk to Chance I had to find him, and she couldn't tell me how to do it.
"I don't know where he lives," she said. "Nobody does."
"Nobody?"
"None of his girls. That's the big guessing game if a couple of us should happen to be together and he's not in the room. Trying to guess where Chance lives. One night I remember this girl Sunny and I were together and we were just goofing, coming up with one outrageous idea after another. Like he lives in this tenement in Harlem with his crippled mother, or he has this mansion in Sugar Hill, or he has a ranch house in the suburbs and commutes. Or he keeps a couple of suitcases in his car and lives out of them, just sleeping a couple hours a night at one of our apartments." She thought a moment. "Except he never sleeps when he's with me. If we do go to bed he'll just lie there afterward for a little while and then he's up and dressed and out. He said once he can't sleep if there's another person in the room."
"Suppose you have to get in touch with him?"
"There's a number to call. But it's an answering service. You can call the number any time, twenty-four hours a day, and there's always an operator that answers. He always checks in with his service. If we're out or something, he'll check in with them every thirty minutes, every hour."