LITMIR.BIZ

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Sam. Can it wait?”

      “Come on, Dan, I’ll owe you one, and best of all, it’s easy.”

      “Will we get a kudos on the air?”

      “For you, I’ll do a special segment.”

      “Okay, what’s up?”

      “I have a lady here, living, breathing, and talking to me, that the social security department thinks is dead. Can we correct the state records, and mail one of your official letters to those nasty bureaucrats in Washington that wouldn’t know a heart if it was, well, a living heart?”

      “Name of the un-dead?”

      “Geraldine Brady,” answered Sam, and then reeled off the rest of Geraldine’s pertinent info while she beamed as any non-dead citizen would. “Got all that?”

      “Yeah. Blockheads, all of ’em. I’ll fix it.”

      “You’re a prince among men, Dan.”

      “Save it for your fans, Sam.”

      He just laughed and hung up. “I think it’s taken care of it, but here’s one of my cards, and let me know if you don’t get a letter in a couple of weeks.”

      Geraldine put down her books and gave him a hug. Right in the middle of the bookstore. Sam smiled politely, because he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the touchy-feely aspects of his job, especially not under the wicked, gleaming eyes in the photograph of Mercedes. Sam ran a finger under the collar of his leather bomber jacket, feeling the sweat that had collected there. Somehow, some way, he was absolutely sure Mercedes Brooks was laughing at him. He swore under his breath, and shook his head, clearing the ghosts, clearing the image of her.

      O’Kelley’s was a much-needed reprieve from the bookstore. The place was casual, dark, and ear-poppingly loud. He scanned the room for the guys, spotting them at a table against the black-paneled wall, underneath the Harp beer sign. Bobby was a journalist who he’d bonded with when he was a political reporter for WNBC. Across from him was the reason for the dinner—Tony Rapanelli. Seven years ago, after a particularly rowdy New Year’s Eve party, Tony had mistaken Bobby for a mugger and tackled him in the middle of 8th Avenue. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

      Things had been quiet for awhile, but now Tony was going through the last throes of a painful divorce, and it was sucking the life out of him slowly and surely. For the past few months, Sam and Bobby had been working with Tony, trying to cheer him up, trying to let him see life after a break-up. Tony—who had been married for seventeen years, with two kids, two dogs, and one house on Long Island—hadn’t even cracked a smile.

      However, they were determined to keep trying.

      Sam plastered a grin on his face. “Hey! Didn’t mean to keep you all waiting.”

      Bobby stood and they knocked fists, an odd mix of formality and urban America. Although he always wore a jacket, Bobby was half Puerto Rican, half Italian and still carried around some of the ways of the street. “My man, how’s things?”

      “Eh,” Sam answered, ordering a Diet Coke from the waitress.

      He settled into a chair and grabbed the bowl of pretzels, the best he was going to manage for dinner.

      Tony raised his glass. “To women.”

      At that, Sam raised a brow. This was new. Maybe they were lucky and Tony had gotten laid. In Sam’s experience, sex always put a rosy spin on life.

      “Today is Tony’s anniversary,” muttered Bobby, before Sam could get too carried away with excitement. “Listen, Tone, the wife has a friend. Now, she’s not a stunner, but she’s nice—”

      The table broke out in groans. “And she got a boob job last year,” he finished.

      “Age?” asked Tony.

      “Thirty-two.”

      “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

      “Now, wait a minute,” Sam interrupted. “Tony, you’re thirty-seven. Absolutely nothing is wrong with you, and there’s no reason to assume that there’s a problem.” Sam believed in fighting injustices wherever they occurred, even in his friends.

      “Point taken,” admitted Tony, and then turned back to Bobby. “So what’s wrong with her?”

      “Were you listening?” said Sam. “There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with her. Right, Bob?”

      Bob got all shifty-eyed and Sam groaned. “Look, she’s got this voice. Kinda Brooklyn.”

      “No, absolutely not,” said Tony, using two syllables at the end, just like any good Long Islander would do.

      “Jeez, how do you plan on meeting any women if no one is good enough?”

      Bobby laughed at Sam. “Spoken like the eternally single man that you are.”

      “I was married. Once,” said Sam.

      Bobby rolled his eyes. “Anything before twenty-six is too young to count.”

      Bobby was right about that. The marriage had been too short, too casual to count, and Sam had stayed far away since then. Maturity and wisdom would do that to a man. But today, he found himself wishing there was someone to go home to. Not because he wanted a home-cooked meal, oh, no. His reasons were more basic. Sam was still carrying around an extra seven inches of pain and misery from a little too much “cold silver against a naked breast,” and it would be nice to have someone to take the edge off.

      Like Mercedes Brooks, for example.

      Sam closed his eyes and groaned, low and painful, and a mere two decibels louder than he intended.

      Tony looked at him sideways. “What’s wrong?”

      Both his friends were staring, because Sam didn’t have problems. He didn’t groan. He didn’t complain. And usually he didn’t suffer from slip of the tongue disease. Lack of sleep, lack of sex seemed to be taking its toll. Damn. Sam shook it off. “It’s the show. We got stuck without a second guest for Thursday night. A city manager broke his leg, and now I’m guestless, except for the judge.”

      “What does Charlie say?”

      “He wants to do something lighter.”

      “What do you want?”

      It was a loaded question because up until that moment, Sam would have answered differently, but his whole body was tense and taut, and the more he considered it, the more he thought that maybe Charlie was right. They did need something lighter. More provocative. “Sex.”

      Bobby howled. “Hard up?”

      “I meant for the show.”

      “Then book a sex therapist.”

      “No.” His mind was racing along various roadtracks, but he kept coming back to the same endpoint.

      “A hooker? You know, they’re trying to unionize in Canada. That could be both sexual and political.”

      You know, Bobby had a point, but not now. And not in San Francisco. Sam was busily pondering other plans for San Francisco. “No.”

      “Sam, you’re boring.”

      “I’m not boring,” he protested.

      “So find somebody.”

      He knew somebody. She’d be the perfect somebody. They could discuss the white-noise of sex in America. She could blissfully talk about sex—meaningless, passionate sex between two consenting adults, locked in a tangle of bare flesh, while he drove inside her, tasting the curve of a firm naked breast…

      Damn.

      Sam really needed to get laid. It’d been over three months since he’d broken up with Shelia. She’d been nice enough, but she wasn’t The One. She wasn’t

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