“Where did you hear an expression like that?”

“I read it in a book. Let’s cut the snappy dialogue-just tell me who to make my check out to.”

“Make it out to cash. Then take it to your bank, hand it to the teller, exchange it for greenbacks and bring them all back to me. I’ll be happy to give you a receipt, but we don’t take checks in this business.”

Kind of hard to take checks when you don’t have a bank account, but let her think that her own honesty wasn’t exactly certified at my end.

“Okay, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She got off the couch, sort of shook herself so her clothes settled back on her frame without a wrinkle, and went over to the door. Her hips moved the way a woman’s do when she’s annoyed but not ready to sever the relationship. Even Pansy seemed entranced-she called upon some hidden reserves of energy and raised her massive head a couple of inches to watch the lady leave. I’m not one of those who wants to see a check so he can tell what bank the customer is using-who cares? Anyone with half a brain knows how to get around that dodge, and she looked like she had more than enough smarts.

If I was a detective, I would have spent the next few hours productively trying to deduce what kind of case this was. I never read Sherlock Holmes but I saw all the movies, so I did the intelligent thing and totally analyzed her character from her clothes. I came up with a flat zero. When I checked it out with Pansy, she confirmed my diagnosis.

I picked up the telephone gently to see if the trust-fund hippies downstairs were discussing one of their major marijuana deals again. It’s their phone-I simply had an associate hook me up an extension so I could make calls without the inconvenience of monthly bills. But I don’t abuse the setup-I have a good supply of slugs for the pay phone downstairs when I have to go long distance. The line was clear, which it usually it is until the late afternoon when the hippies get up-it must be nice not to have to work for a living. Thinking about it, I was sure that the lady would be back soon, and I’m not a man to leave money lying around uninvested. So I put in a quick call to my broker, Maurice.