Free Dial H for Hitchcock by Susan Kandel Page B

into the house. It was 4:40 p.m. now. I had just enough time to check my machine.
    There were two messages.
    Hi, there, Ms. Caruso. Sy here. Glad you called the other day. I couldn’t tell from your message if you had or hadn’t gotten the dossier. We mailed it out last week in a big, fat manila envelope. It should’ve gotten to you days ago. Give me a call back if it hasn’t shown up. We appreciate your business, as you know.
    What dossier?
    What manila envelope?
    Who was Sy?
    The number was private, so I couldn’t call him back.
    The other message was from Detective McQueen. Apparently, she’d heard about the incident at the park with Alfalfa. She snickered unattractively. Then she said she wanted to make sure that the beat cop had told me about Sunday’s conversation. She dragged the word out so it sounded like “all-day interrogation without food or water in an overheated room with one-way mirrors.” But maybe that was me.
    My last moments at home were spent scurrying around looking for my own cell phone, which appeared to be AWOL. I called it from the home phone, but didn’t hear it ringing. Maybe it was somewhere in my car. If not, I was going to have to go back and see my friend George with the Afro. Or maybe I would live without a cell phone. What good had a cell phone ever done me? Why should I be reachableat all times and in all places? Thus far, it had only led to heartache.
    I flew out the front door.
    Jilly’s Porsche was blocking my driveway again.
    Shit. I didn’t have time to go next door and hear another one of Connor’s endless stories. I got into the car and pulled on my seat belt. I could just make it out if I didn’t mind mashing my grass a little bit. Javier could replace it with some sod next week. Or rip the whole thing out. Lawns were ecologically unsound anyway.
    As I backed out of the driveway, my neck craned at an unnatural angle, I caught a glimpse of a car in the rearview mirror. A familiar car. A ’68 Mustang, black with red interior.
    It was Gambino’s car.
    The car he’d dreamed of when he still lived in Buffalo, the car he’d promised himself if he ever had the money.
    It was going too fast for me to make out the driver. But I swear I saw Gambino’s square jaw. His close-cropped hair. His wire-rimmed glasses. The little crinkles around his eyes that appeared whenever he was concentrating hard on something, or laughing at something funny somebody had said.
    Maybe it was a trick of the light.
    Had to be.
    Because I wasn’t ready to admit it was wishful thinking.

Chapter 15
    T hey tried, you had to give them that. The walls were painted a soothing shade of blue, a jasmine-scented candle was placed discreetly in the corner, and Barry Manilow was crooning an inoffensive tune. But the room still radiated waves of anxiety.
    The window slid open with a creak.
    “Welcome,” said a woman with thick, horn-rimmed glasses and an advanced case of rosacea. “You’re here for a five o’clock, aren’t you? You look a little edgy.”
    “I’m fine—”
    “Take a deep breath. All the doctors are running behind. We had a fire drill at three. Do you need tissues? Take some. Please. They’re complimentary.”
    She gestured to a hamper filled with enough pocket packs for everyone in greater Los Angeles suffering from a serotonin deficiency.
    “I think there may be some confusion,” I said. “I’m giving thelecture on Hitchcock and the problem of identity. Your series on psychoanalysis and the arts? I’m not a patient.”
    My accountant, Mr. Keshigian, was the patient here. Given his creative approach to the tax code, I was surprised he could make do with biweekly sessions. The man had nerves of steel. Medication also helped. Anyway, he’d gotten me this gig. He was always finding me odd jobs. He worried about how I was going to manage in my impending old age, which was sweet, but rather rude when you thought about it. In any case, five hundred dollars was five hundred