“Doing what?”

“Do I know? A client wants someone who can, quote, operate discreetly in the Chinese community.”

“So why did he call you?”

“Apparently, because I speak Yiddish. And he’s a she.”

“I don’t-”

“I don’t either. Come to the Waldorf at four and we’ll both find out.”

“Today?”

“Of course today.”

“Well…” Chasing to a meeting with Joel Pilarsky when I’d just fought my way in from JFK wouldn’t have been my first choice; but work is work. “Okay.”

“Good girl. I’ll be lurking behind a potted palm.”

I bristled at the “girl,” but Joel was on the far side of sixty, and I was in fact younger than two of his three daughters.

As I clicked off, my mother’s face floated around the doorjamb. She must have been in the hall, responding to a sudden need to rearrange the linen closet or straighten the family photos. “Who was that? You were talking about work. Was that the white baboon?”

“Bill? No. I haven’t heard from him in a while.” I busied myself with my suitcase. “That was Joel Pilarsky. You’ve met him. I helped him last year when he was looking for that Jewish lady who ran off with the Chinese restaurant owner.”

“In Flushing, I remember! Nobody in Flushing is busy enough, so they make trouble for themselves.”

Well, mentioning that was obviously a mistake. “Anyway, Joel has a job for me. I’m meeting him later.”

“Today? He’s sloppy. He gives you orders. And he sings. You get a headache when you work with him.”

“Only when he sings.” She makes a point of not listening when I talk about work, so how does she know this stuff? “And it’s good to have work. Keeps me busy.”

“Pah. Keep busy so you won’t think about who isn’t calling you.”

“Ma! You don’t even like Bill. And I haven’t called him lately either.”

“If you never call him again, your mother and your brothers will be happy. But for him not to call you? He values himself too highly. Make you go all the way to California.”