Fala Factor Read Free Page A

that if anything could bring some life to it, it would be Shelly at work. Seidman seemed to be as calm as usual. He was the perfect partner for my brother, whose emotions tingled on the surface of his face and in his fists like one of No-Neck Arnie’s overheated batteries.
    The coffee was hot and awful, just the way Shelly liked it. I had my own cup, a ceramic job that had W ELCOME TO J UAREZ hand painted on it along with a little picture of a sombrero. No one was supposed to touch the cup but me, though I suspected Shelly sometimes went for it when nothing clean was left.
    Cup in hand, I reached for the knob to my office door.
    â€œAlmost forgot,” Shelly said, looking at me over his shoulder. “Lady came in about ten minutes ago, just before Sergeant Seidman. She’s in your office waiting for you. Between you and me and the OPA, she could use some dental work on that overbite. You might suggest she stop and see me.”
    Since my office is not soundproof or Shellyproof, there was no doubt the woman inside had heard him, especially since at that point I had the door partly open.
    In the hope of finding a new client who could save me from the darkness of hotel corridors or worse, I regretted that I hadn’t tightened my tie, set my face in a serious frown, and stepped into my office … where I found myself face to face with Eleanor Roosevelt.
    â€œYou’re Eleanor Roosevelt,” I said.
    â€œI know,” she answered, looking over her glasses with an amused smile. “I’m afraid you will have to do a bit better than that if you are to convince me of your skills.”
    I closed the door to cut out some of Shelly’s humming and drilling, and stood there looking at her. She had cocked her head back to examine me from the single chair in front of my desk. Her hair, cut short, was dark with gray creeping in. She looked her age, which was fifty-eight, but there was something there that I had never seen in photographs. Sure, she was homely, not much in the way of a chin, an overbite, though not nearly as much as people joked about, and a body without moments. She wore a black dress with little flowers on it and a thin dark coat. But it was her eyes that made the difference, that gave something a newspaper or newsreel picture couldn’t catch. They were dark and deep and always looking right at you. From that moment on, every time I talked to her, she gave me all of her attention. She sat now with her hands neatly folded in her lap like an obedient schoolgirl.
    â€œWould you like some coffee?” I said, holding out my Juarez cup to show her what coffee was.
    She examined the cup seriously and then said, “No thank you,” as she removed her glasses and put them in a dark case that she pulled out of the May Company shopping bag at her side.
    â€œIs it all right if I sit down?” I said.
    â€œIt is your office,” she answered, the smile back, her voice slightly high-pitched, with a back-East accent that reminded me of tea parties and bad jokes about the rich, the kind they have in The New Yorker .
    I sat and looked at her to the somewhat muffled sound of the drill and of Shelly now singing “Ain’t We Got Fun.”
    â€œDid you get my letter?” she asked, leaning forward slightly.
    â€œLetter,” I repeated, cleverly wondering if I should open my top drawer and sweep into it the garbage on my desk, which included the remnants of two day-old tacos from Manny’s down the street, a handball, and an almost empty emergency box of Kellogg’s All-Bran.
    â€œRight,” I said, trying to wake up. “I got a letter a few weeks back from the White House, a note from some woman named Francis something, said somebody would be in touch with me about a personal matter and … that was you?”
    She nodded and opened her eyes wider. “What did you think it was?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I thought