The third book in the Zack Walker series, 2006

TRIXIE SNELLING SEEMED TO BE working up to something over lunch this particular Tuesday, and really just killing time talking about scouring costume stores to find forehead ridges to please a client who liked to be dominated by a Klingon, but she never got to it because I had to take a call on my cell that my father had been eaten by a bear.

“There were those two Klingon chicks in the series where the bald guy was the captain, right?” Trixie asked me, because she knew that I was something of an authority when it came to matters related to science fiction.

“Yeah,” I said. “Lursa and B’Etor Duras. They were sisters. They tried to overthrow the Gowron leadership of the Klingon High Council.” I paused, then added, “Lots of leather and cleavage.”

“I’m okay there,” Trixie said, shaking her head at the useless information I had stored in my head. I wondered sometimes what important stuff gets crowded out when your brain is filled with trivia.

“My closet’s so full of leather,” Trixie continued, “I’m afraid it’s all going to congeal back into a cow. I should show you sometime.” Even though Trixie was dressed, at the moment, in a dark blue pullover sweater and fashionable jeans over high-heeled boots, it wasn’t difficult to imagine her in full dominatrix regalia. I had seen her that way once-and not as a client-back in the days when we were neighbors. We’d kept in touch after Sarah and I and the kids had moved away, and even though we were just friends, and met regularly for lunch or a coffee, I never quite got over the novelty of what she did for a living.