Chapter 10: The Real One

He knocked at six o'clock on Tuesday, a small, careful knock.

I opened it with Ephraim behind me and Wynn on the couch holding a rolling pin she had brought for no reason.

The man on my landing was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, fair, and good-looking in a tired way.

He wore a navy suit with a red silk square folded in the pocket.

He looked at the three of us and managed a smile.

"Hi," he said. "I'm sorry I'm not who you ordered."

I let him in.

He stood in the middle of my living room and took in the drawing desk and the bathtub in the kitchen.

I felt a ridiculous flash of shame.

"Sit," I said.

He sat on the very edge of the couch.

Wynn lowered her rolling pin an inch.

"I'm not going to lie to you," he said. "I'm a call boy. It's an agency job. I do it to pay for school."

"I don't know who you are or what's going on."

"But I've been thinking about it since Thursday."

"Tell me about Thursday," I said.

"I got the booking Wednesday night. Eight o'clock at the Aldine bar, a woman in a black dress, alone."

He pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

"This came with it."

I took the page.

It was an email printout, with a header from a booking agency.

Client note: "Make sure the lady is photographed arriving with you and leaving with you."

The note went on, "Client will pay triple for full documentation."

Under that was an account name.

Aldous Capital, Accounts Payable.

My hands were cold.

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