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with you?” I smiled.
     
    “Ummm...yeah, but...” he stammered.
     
    “Then you know,” I said. Lee has an absolute mania about the vitals of everyone around him. I knew damned well he could not only spit out her age but her dog’s name, shoe size, and favorite color, if pressed.
     
    “31,” he sighed.
     
    I made my game show buzzer noise and sipped my beer.
     
    “Too young,” I nodded.
     
    Well, fu...screw me,” Lee sighed. His tune-up for the run at DA included a resolution to swear less which, for Lee, was like taking a vow to cut back on breathing.
     
    “Okay,” he groaned, tucking into the new pint. “So thumbs down on the only deranged woman I know who is actually interested in you. Hmmm....let’s see.”
     
    “Don’t you have a job?” I muttered. “Fairly time-consuming job?”
     
    “I can make time for a little creative match-making,” Lee replied. “It’s worth it. People above me on the food chain, when they forget your name, refer to you as ‘your buddy, the loner’. Didja know that?”
     
    “How would I know that?” I shrugged. “I remember my name.”
     
    “Ha-ha,” Lee said dryly. “Besides, if I don’t help you, you’ll fu...uh, bugger it up.”
     
    “Better watch ‘bugger’,” I grinned. “Might piss off the English voters.”
     
    “Bugger off,” Lee yawned.
     
    The rest of the evening was spent in my warding off Lee’s relentless attempts to think of just the right date for me. The phrase ‘get back on the horse’ kept popping up and I finally told him I might be a tad rusty on the dating do's and don’ts but, I was pretty sure that women don’t wear saddles. Then I told him I’d do another nine years of abstinence if he said another word. The conversation became a little stilted after that.
     
    I got home just about midnight and took Clyde for a quick spin up to Kerry Park. I was asleep as soon as my hair met linen.
     
    My dreams were a full-tilt montage of every thorny relationship episode since I was 14. I woke at 3:49, bladder screaming and brain afire with ghosts of liaisons past.
     
    It took me until 4:45 to get back to sleep. When the alarm buzzed at me at 7:50, I slapped at it and went back to sleep.
     
    Four
     
    I was still in the fog after walking Clyde and got to the office, finally, at a quarter of eleven, groggy, grumpy, and in no shape to talk with Art D’Onofrio. I made a note to call him after lunch and spent the morning paying bills, placing my office supply order, and returning emails from my mother, my cousin Rachel, and my wine guru and good pal, Phil Plochman. Phil was offering Lamborghini Campoleone at $74 a bottle, so I bit down hard and ordered six.
     
    Rachel and Mom had obviously conspired a bit, as Mom’s was the periodic full-court press for me to start dating and Rachel worked the subject artfully into a description of her sister-in-law.
     
    I shut down the computer and went downstairs to Torrefazone d’Italia for an espresso, an occasional sin that my caffeine sensitivity mostly rules out. I was already climbing the walls, so what more could the caffeine do?
     
    My office line was ringing as I walked in the door.
     
    “Truman North,” I managed.
     
    “Tru?” A voice croaked, “How’s tricks?”
     
    “Arturo D’Onofrio,” I smiled. “Come state, signor, mi amico.”
     
    "I'm about as Italian as you are, Bubba." It was a vintage exchange, "Did I catch you at a bad time?"
     
    “Any time before noon is technically a bad time for me, Art,” I laughed. “But…show must go on. I’d made a note to call you after lunch."
     
    "Hey, I can call back," he said hastily.
     
    "No problem," I replied. "Now is good."
     
    "Outstanding," he murmured. "Well, Tru, I sorta don't know what I've got here, if, in fact, I have anything at all. I got a longstanding client, a builder/developer from D.C., who's one of the backers of this new hunting/fishing/resort/casino deal going in on the Colville Reservation west