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what I mean?”
    I did, but I didn’t say anything.
    â€œAt the same time, I’m frightened. I’m not supposed to be, but I can’t help it. I’ve never felt in danger from a patient before. And I tell myself: all the killings have been random, so the police say, and even if Carter McCloy was a murderer, he’s incapable of matricide, which is what his neurosis is really about. Or even surrogate matricide, meaning me. Yes, I know that’s right clinically, but if it’s supposed to reassure me, it doesn’t. Because what if I’m wrong? What if he’s charged? The victim this time—last night—was older than the others. And blonde. The first blonde. And I’m blonde. And I know that’s irrational, hysterical, but what if it isn’t? So I’m a little freaked out, Phil. Not a lot, but a little. But here’s the point: in order for me to do anything, like going to the police or anything, I need to be surer than I am now. I’ve also decided I can’t just wait—for him to show up or make contact again. Or for the killer to kill someone else.”
    I waited for her to continue, but that was all she had to say. We stared at each other across the desk.
    â€œSo that’s what brings you to me?” I said.
    â€œThat’s what brings me to you,” she said, smiling.
    â€œAnd you haven’t told Mr. Camelot?”
    I watched the crinkles vanish, and her eyes went that deep blue, and her voice, when she spoke, dripped icicle water from some underground pool.
    â€œHe doesn’t know anything about it. I don’t want …”
    She glanced at her watch and suddenly started.
    â€œMy God, Phil, it’s almost eight! Why didn’t you tell me? The limo’s late, I’m going to be late for the show! God, I’ve got to run!” She stood, rushing and reaching at once, then, as quickly, jerked back at me, her eyes on mine. “But please, Phil, please come with me. I need someone with me tonight, I can’t help it. I mean it. Besides, I’ve got more to tell you about him. I …”
    I hesitated. In fact I had nothing on for that night. Laura Hugger maybe, but she hadn’t called back. Actually, I think I’d been tilting toward Chinese take-out, a rental video, and my feet up. But she already decided everything: that I was coming with her, that I was going to investigate Carter McCloy for her and determine if he was the Pillow Killer, and God knows what else.
    Simplify it: it was hard to say no.
    By way of explanation, I ought to say something about our relationship, undefined though it is.
    We’re close to the same age, and probably because of that there’s a kind of running banter that goes on between us. Usually it takes this form: (a) I’m a hopeless and sexist philanderer; (b) I’m a confirmed and generally prudish bachelor; (c) since (a) is unacceptable and (b) is wasteful, somebody (she, namely) has to take me in hand and fix me up permanently from a seemingly endless roster of available candidates.
    I’ve never taken her up on the available candidates.
    On occasion—rare occasion—the teasing has threatened to get out of hand. It never has, though. By presumably mutual consent.
    After all, she’s the Counselor’s Wife and I work for her husband.
    In some weird way, I guess that makes us friends. At least I imagine that’s what she’d say, and it’s why it wasn’t so strange that she’d turned to me in the Carter McCloy situation. Or that, in the end, I went along with her in the limo provided by the television station, she leaning back in the seat and talking animatedly as we drove to the studio way west in the Fifties. Or that I sat in the studio way west of the Fifties. Or that I sat in the studio audience, the only male in the joint, it seemed, except for the cameramen, while she did the show.
    If you go in for that kind of thing, and a lot