They always get more Irish when they’re warning you.

“For a hundred bucks a day,” I said, “I can leave my dick in a drawer, if you like.”

“Fine,” he smiled, picking up the check. “And leave the key with me.”

It’s funny I didn’t recognize her name. Hell, I didn’t recognize her, at first, as she sat at a typing stand near her desk in the little wood-paneled outer office on the tenth floor of the Fisher Building. She was small, and what you saw about her first was all that dark brown hair, the sort of dark brown that looks black till you study it, piles of curls cascading to the squared-off shoulders of her yellow dress, a startling dress with black polka dots, shiny cloth, silk perhaps. It hadn’t come cheap, this dress, but it seemed out of place in a law office, even a cubbyhole like this.

She turned to me and smiled, in a business-like way, and then the smile widened.

“Nate,” she said, standing, extending a hand. “It’s been a long time.”

She had pale, pale skin, translucent skin, with the faintest brown trail of freckles over a pert nose. She had a wide full mouth with cherry red lipstick, and big violet eyes. Her eyebrows were rather thick, unplucked, unfashionably beautiful, and she had a couple pounds of eyelashes, apparently real, and the whitest teeth this side of Hollywood. She looked about seventeen, but she was ten years older than that-a few laugh crinkles around the enormous eyes were almost a giveaway-and she had a very slim but nicely shaped frame. The hand she extended, in an almost manly fashion, had short nails with bright red polish, the color of her lipstick.

She was a stunning-looking girl, and in 1938, I’d slept with her once. Well. That was part of what we’d done together that night….

“Peggy,” I said, amazed. “Peggy Hogan.”

Her hand, as I grasped it, was firm and smooth and warm.

Her big grin, dimpling her slightly chubby cheeks, was one of amusement and pleasure.