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Until at last, it s spent its time.
Icould smell the gin as I came downstairs.
Harry was fixing martinis.
My sonnet was Italian in form, not a form I write in
normally, and had come full of strange symbols, an inner
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code. But I accept the eccentricity of my muse; she has a
mind of her own. And she d worked me in her enigmatic
way.
Now I deserved my reward. I could feel my nose
twitching.
Um, yes, please, a very dry martini, I said. Just
what the girl needs.
I m making enough for you too, Mattie. Harry kept
his back to us, fussing with the fixings.
I don t know, Harry. Mattie stopped in the foyer to
hang up her coat and hat.
You re going to need it, girls, Harry said. He poured
gin into the cocktail shaker and stirred, added olives to
three glasses, then poured.
Lovely, I said after my first sip. There s nothing
quite like a good martini to restore one s sense of well-
being.
Drink up, Mattie, Harry said.
Oh, do, Mattie, otherwise Harry will never let us in
on what he s discovered.
First tell me about the shoes, Oliver, Harry said. By
this time we were all sitting, more or less relaxed. The
smoke from our cigarettes was making the room hazy, or
maybe it was because I d put gin on my empty stomach
again. Did you trace them?
The trademark belongs to a woman named Eppie Di-
amond who designs and cobbles them to order out of her
shop in Chelsea.
Aaaah, Harry said.
What is the aaaah for? I asked, a trifle more peev-
ish than I meant it. Or maybe exactly as peevish as I
meant it.
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What you ve already deduced was on the shoes found
with the body.
I nodded. The wide strap across the arch. Very
smart.
Then Eppie Diamond was able to tell you who sent
them to you?
I held out my glass. I need another, Harry, please.
Mattie got up. I knew she was annoyed with me. You
will be home for supper, Olivia?
No, Mattie, dear. I have rehearsal. I ll get something
to eat at Christine s. Christine s is a nice, really cheap
little place conveniently above the Provincetown Play-
house.
You will fade away to nothing, Mattie said. But she
didn t leave. She remained in the doorway, listening.
You haven t answered me, Oliver. Harry poured me
half a glass and what was left went into his.
About what, Harry?
Eppie Diamond.
I didn t go.
Why not?
I want to bring the shoes to show her and the shoes
are still at home in their box under my bed. I was on my
way there when I thought that Bennett Newman you
know him, Harry Harry knows him, too, Mattie. He s
one of the Players. And he s a graphic artist. He does the
drawings for the department-store fashion ads. I thought
Bennett would be able to tell me a little about Eppie Di-
amond so when I went to see her, I d know how to talk to
her.
I ll take it from here tomorrow.
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No, you won t, Harry. I know what I m doing. Ben-
nett told me his friend Mackey works for her
Mackey? Harry frowned. His eyes lost their focus.
Then he looked surprised, as if he d discovered some-
thing. Came around with Bennett once or twice? That
one?
Yes. He s moved in with Bennett. From what Bennett
told me, this Eppie Diamond started taking over his life.
Then while he s telling me, La Diamond barges right into
Bennett s place looking for Mackey. She is truly the most
bizarre woman, and her behavior is rude, to say the
least.
Was Mackey there?
No. Bennett said he hadn t seen him in a couple of
days. Why?
Harry took my empty glass from my hand. Because
they ve discovered one thing for sure about the dead
woman you stumbled on outside of Chumley s.
What is that?
She wasn t a woman.
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Chapter Twelve
Mattie s gasp was an explosion.
Recovering, I said, What do you mean, she s not a
woman?
He was a transvestite, Oliver. A man dressed as a
woman.
But she he looked so real . . . My voice trailed
off. I was remembering the streaked makeup, the vague
sense of the familiar, as I sat waiting for Whit to return
with the police. He was made up to look like me.
Dear God, Mattie said. She came back into the room
and sat down beside me on the sofa, taking my hand.
Yes.
But what about Andrew Goren, Harry? He said she
was his wife.
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