One Hot Mess by Lois Greiman Read Free Book Online Page A

on my shrink record,” I said.
    “Jesus.” He brushed one palm across his close-cut scalp. “More fuckin' guilt,” he said.
    And I laughed for the first time all day.

5
    If it looks like a cat, walks like a cat, and has whiskers like a cat, it's probably a damn cat. But if it eats your groceries, messes up your kitchen, and makes you want to rip out your hair by the roots, you either married it or gave birth to it.
    —
Shirley Templeton,

who should know
    EY .”
    I glanced up from where I was supposed to be updating records but was really just staring into space. My temporary secretary Shirley Templeton (don't laugh, I didn't name her), was glancing around the edge of the door, mug in hand.
    “You okay, honey?” she asked.
    “Yes.” I straightened with military professionalism. “Certainly,” I said, but I was lying. The day had been a killer. After Micky, there had been a kleptomaniac, a pathological liar, and a man. Not a normal egg in the clutch.
    Shirley came in. She was on a one-day-flu loan from my regular secretary, the Magnificent Mandy In fact, she wasthe Magnificent Mandy's aunt. I wondered a little hazily if that made her the Magnificent Shirley then decided it probably didn't since she was the antithesis of her niece. Where Mandy was small and thin and as scattered as confetti, Shirley was broad and round and solid. She was also as black as a brokers power suit. She waddled a little as she approached my desk, and I noticed she carried a small paper bag in her left hand.
    “Thought you might need a little pick-me-up,” she said, and set the bag on my desk.
    If my olfactory system didn't fail me, and it rarely did when considering copious amounts of calories, there was something filled with chocolaty goodness in the bag. But following my post-Thanksgiving binge I had finally screwed up my nerve and stepped onto the scale. Subsequently, I had sworn off goodness of all sorts.
    “That's very kind of you,” I said, “but I should get these records taken care of.”
    “You working on Mr. Goldenstone's?”
    I glanced up. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that she was familiar with my client list, but Mandy of the magnificent caliber had never quite gotten a single name right. The last time, I believe, she had referred to Micky as Mr. Nugget.
    “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am.”
    She nodded, just a couple of superfluous chin wobbles. Shirley Templeton was not an attractive woman. But then, according to her niece, she had gestated a baker's half dozen kids, and that can't be gentle on anybody. “Poor fellow, carryin' around that load of guilt.”
    “Shirley!” Granted, I didn't know her well, but she didn't seem like the type to eavesdrop. “I don't mean to berude, but you cannot listen in on my sessions with clients.”
    “Listen in,” she said, then chuckled a little. “Now, why would I do that?”
    “Well…” That was a good question. Still, her niece had done so until her ears grew into cauliflowers. “You seem to know more about Mr. Goldenstone than is easily explained. I just assumed you—”
    “Oh.” She waved a dismissive hand. “That.” Shaking her head, she bent with some difficulty to retrieve a little geometric metal shape from the floor and stuck it back on its magnet sculpture atop my coffee table. “I've seen enough troubles, honey. Don't need to hear nobody else's.”
    “Then what made you think Micky was guilty?”
    “I didn't say he
was
guilty,” she explained. “Said he carried around a load of it is all.”
    Maybe there was a difference there, I wasn't sure.
    “How do you know he carries guilt?”
    “I don't know.” She shrugged shoulders wide enough to make a linebacker wealthy and an ox useful. “Maybe I got a nose for it.”
    “You can smell guilt?”
    “Can't you?”
    Maybe I gave her a look like she'd lost her marbles, 'cuz she chuckled again. “Not
smell
smell. But, you know, sense it.”
    I wasn't sure I did, but I nodded. Maybe my nose was good