LITMIR.BIZ

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no-nonsense effect of the business card contrasted with the image Solly painted in his head of the party girl from back in the day.

      “So, you gonna do it or what?” Solly asked. “You gonna call her?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Have your stuff together if you do. I got the impression that she’s pretty tough.”

      “I can handle her,” Bastien said confidently.

      “So, you think you’re going to call.”

      Bastien shoved the card into his jumper pocket. “I guess it doesn’t cost anything to give the lady a call.”

       Chapter 3

       “T hat’ll be four seventy-nine.”

      The young man standing behind the register looked to Phaedra as if he could use a dose of his own product. Bleary-eyed and slow to move, he yawned as he accepted her money and squinted at the cash register, trying to find the button that would ring up the coffee purchase.

      “Iced mocha. Iced…iced…iced…mocha latte. Iced mocha…” he repeated the order as if he were trying not to let himself forget.

      “On the left.”

      When the clerk failed to locate the proper register key, Phaedra looked up from the PDA that she was scanning to review her next appointment and raised an eyebrow at him. She didn’t have to say a word. The lift of her eyebrow told him everything. It spoke of impatience and intolerance with the lack of service that she’d gotten. Where was Dana, the usual morning clerk? Phaedra wondered. Dana knew what Phaedra liked without her even having to order. That’s what Phaedra liked about coming here. The usual impeccable service.

      “The left?” he echoed, shifting his entire body to the right as if the wires in his brain were misfiring.

      “Third row from the bottom, second button from the left.” Speaking in distinct, one-or-two syllable words, she enunciated clearly to make certain that he understood her.

      “Oh. Riiiiggghhhttt… Now, I see it.”

      “Glad to hear it.” She scooped up the extra large iced mocha latte.

      “Hey, you must come here a lot,” he remarked, indicating how well she seemed to know her way around the cash register.

      “No,” she added, and then muttered under her breath as she turned away. “Not anymore I won’t.”

      Phaedra raised the white-lidded cup to her lips. She scanned the shop for a quiet place to sit. It was still early in the day. Not yet nine o’clock in the morning. Yet almost every couch, every booth, every table was occupied. She finally found one over in a corner near the window. Phaedra sat down in the deep cushioned club chair, set the coffee cup on the table beside her and opened her newspaper to the business section. It took her a moment to focus her thoughts as she lamented the early days of her favorite coffee shop’s grand opening.

      When the shop had opened a few months ago, she could usually count on a good hour or two of quiet contemplation before the shop filled up. She could take her purchases, browse through the newspaper or read through her notes in undisturbed silence. And everyone who’d come through that door was content to take their purchases, grab a seat and wrap themselves in their own solitude. They didn’t bother her, and she didn’t bother them. If anyone did get the idea that they could hit on her while she worked, a glare as scalding as the cappuccino machine steam was all it took to make them back off. This coffee shop was her second office, and she treated it with all the proper decorum it deserved. She’d even brought a client or two here and formed partnerships over cappuccino.

      Phaedra checked her watch. Nearly an hour before her next appointment. Plenty of time to enjoy her coffee. Maybe she would send out a few e-mails. Surf the Internet looking for her next potential job before—

      Phaedra’s cell phone, set to vibrate, rattled in her purse.

       So much for a quiet cup of coffee.

      She checked the caller ID, slipped a Bluetooth wireless earpiece over her ear and spoke softly to keep her conversation as private as possible in the crowded coffeehouse.

      “Hello. Phaedra Burke-Carter speaking.”

      “Ms. Burke-Carter?”

      “Yes. Speaking,” she repeated and pressed the earpiece closer to her ear. “Can you speak a little louder? I’m having trouble hearing you.”

      “Hold on a minute.” A few seconds of muffled noise followed by the sound of a slamming door, but not before a disgruntled shout echoed in her ear. “Knock it off out there, will you! Can’t you see that I’m on the phone?”

      Wincing, Phaedra pulled the earpiece away. But then the voice came back again. Clearer this time. A man speaking with the slightest hint of a dialect that she couldn’t quite place. Definitely Southern. A low, deep drawl, rich in timbre.

      “Ms. Burke-Carter, my name’s Bastien Thibeadaux.”

       Bastien Thibeadaux, she mentally repeated the name. Now the accent made sense to her. Definitely Southern. Mississippi. Georgia. With a name like Thibeadaux, most likely Louisiana.

       Bastien Thibeadaux.

      How did she know that name? From where? She closed her eyes, part of her listening to his end of the conversation that continued. The other part of her rooted through her memory, trying to dredge up a face with a name. Phaedra was usually pretty good at making and keeping connections like that. The face didn’t immediately come to mind, so she stopped trying to remember and focused more on the caller. It would eventually come to her.

      “I got your business card from a mutual friend from college. Solomon Greenwood.”

      “Solly! I just saw Solly a few weeks ago. How’s he doing?”

      Even though they both lived in Houston, it had been years since she’d seen Solly. Two weeks ago she’d run into him and his son at a sushi restaurant downtown. She was on her way to another appointment and didn’t have time to talk. They’d exchanged information with the promise that they’d catch up on old times.

      “He’s doing fine. I’ll tell him that you asked about him.”

      “How can I help you, Mr. Thibeadaux?”

      “Ms. Burke-Carter, I’m not convinced you can. You’re going to have to do some fast talking to sell me on your services.”

      The reply was frank to the point of bluntness. Phaedra didn’t let it get to her. She was used to getting that tone. It was the kind of attitude she always received from men who were forced to seek the professional advice of a female. Maybe she was generalizing. All of her meetings didn’t start off this way. Enough of them did, though. She knew what to do to keep the potential client talking, keep the conversation polite, but professional. The moment it strayed too far in a disrespectful direction, she was going to hang up. That’s the way Phaedra maintained control.

      “You called me. You must have some reason why, Mr. Thibeadaux.”

      “Because Solly told me to.”

      “I see.”

      “No, I don’t think you do,” he went on in a condescending tone.

      “Then, if you can’t make me understand why you called within the next fifteen seconds, I’m going to end this conversation. I have a very full schedule, Mr. Thibeadaux.”

      “What? You gonna hang up on me, now? Let me guess. In your rule book, time is money? I think maybe you wanna make time for me, cher. ”

      That southern dialect came out thick and strong then with his casual use of a term of endearment. Cher. Dear one. With it, he resurrected in Phaedra long-buried vestiges of a memory. Less than vestiges. Flashes. A jumbled mix of chaotic impressions. Images, though disjointed and out of sequence, that told Phaedra a story that she’d deliberately

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