“The truth,” I said.
He laughed again. “Will you do it?”
The plastic surgeons’ little girl had started talking, but both parents’ lawyers had phoned this morning and informed me the case had been resolved and my services were no longer necessary.
“Sure,” I said.
“Seriously?” said Montez.
“Why not?”
“It didn’t go that smoothly on Duchay.”
“How could it?”
“True. Okay, I’ll have her call and make an appointment. Do my best to get you some kind of reimbursement. Within reason.”
“Reason’s always good.”
“And so rare.”
CHAPTER 4
Michaela Brand came to see me four days later.
I work out of my house above Beverly Glen. In mid-November the whole city’s pretty, nowhere more so than the Glen.
She smiled and said, “Hi, Dr. Delaware. Wow, what a great place, my name’s pronounced Mick-aah-la.”
The smile was heavy firepower in the battle to be noticed. I walked her through high, white, hollow space to my office at the back.
Tall and narrow-hipped and busty, she put a lot of roll-and-sway into her walk. If her breasts weren’t real, their free movement was an ad for a great scalpel artist. Her face was oval and smooth, blessed by wide-set aquamarine eyes that could feign spontaneous fascination without much effort, balanced perfectly on a long, smooth stalk of a neck.
Faint bruising along the sides of the neck were masked by body makeup. The rest of her skin was bronze velvet stretched across fine bones. Tanning bed or one of those spray jobs that last for a week. Tiny, mocha freckles sprinkled across her nose hinted at her natural complexion. Wide lips were enlarged by gloss. A mass of honey-colored hair trailed past her shoulder blades. Some stylist had taken a long time to texturize the ’do and make it look careless. Half a dozen shades of blond aped nature.