I grabbed my tote and met Mike by the front door of the club. “You okay?” he asked. “You look like somebody just hit you over the head with a tire iron.”

“C’mon. Let’s get down to the gate.” I was fuming as we took the elevator downstairs, pushed and were pushed as we tried to cross the entire length of the ticketing counters in the main section of the terminal, and stood in the crowded line of departing travelers to go through the security checkpoint that led down the concourse to our gate.

“What’s bothering you?”

I lifted my bag off the screening machine and started to tell Mike about the conversation I had just finished in the club, as we were able to walk side by side for the first time.

“Take it for what it looks like, kid. It’s a coincidence.”

“Bullshit. You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“You’re watching too many movies.” Chapman was shaking his head and grinning. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Your new main squeeze killed the doctor? Then, a day later, he tells your best friend he’s dying to meet you. He does. You fall for him. He gets laid-”

“He didnot get laid.”

“You didn’t do him? No wonder he didn’t kill you yet-he’s waiting for one shot at you to see if that’s all it’s cracked up to be.Then he’ll kill you to get you off Dogen’s case.”

“You know how stupid that sounds?”

“Yeah, in fact, I do. That’s why I said it out loud and you didn’t. Are you really thinking that this white-shoe lawyer, who’s been mourning his wife for two years, has anything to do with stabbing Dogen to death in the middle of the night in her office? And, your obvious charms apart, for what earthly reason would he take up with you-unless it’s to kill you to get you off the case because he doesn’t want it solved. I know that’s the way your mind is working right now and I’m here to tell you that it’s crazy. Maybe he doesn’t like to talk about his wife. Maybe he doesn’t even remember the doctor’s name.”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe. I want to know the answers. I hate maybes and I hate coincidence.”

“You hate any circumstances you can’t control. Just calm yourself and put it out of your tired little brain until we get back.”

We had almost reached the end of the corridor and I could see the passengers filing through the door of Gate A20. “Go ahead and get on the plane. I want to try Joan one more time. Please.”

I stopped at a pay phone, dialed the number, and waited for the connection while I heard the loudspeaker announcement for the last boarding call of our flight. Mike was pointing me out to a woman I guessed was the Special Services agent as the last few stragglers showed their tickets and boarded. She was holding Mike’s envelope and he jogged the fifty feet back to the phone bank as I again urged Joan to pick up her line. She still wasn’t home, so I told her to call me tomorrow at Cliveden.

Mike picked up my tote from the ground, took a firm hold on my elbow, and guided me up the incline to the gate agent’s desk. “She needs your boarding pass.”

I handed it over and watched her cross out some numbers and reenter a new designation on the seat assignment. She gave it to the Special Services representative, who asked us to accompany her onto the plane. Instead of turning right and wading through the scores of coach passengers engaged in the battle to squeeze their carry-on luggage into the overhead bins, she pointed us to the left. “You’re up ahead in first class, seats 2A and 2B. Hope you enjoy the flight.”

“I’m afraid to ask who you bribed to get this done. You didn’t show anyone your badge and demand an upgrade, did you?” At least I was smiling again. “Or did some poor stewardess have to put out for this exchange?”

“You’re such a skeptic, Blondie. I thought it would be a nice surprise. Remember Charlie Bardong?” Charlie used to be a lieutenant in the District Attorney’s Office squad and was now a private investigator. We both knew him well. “His wife runs Special Services at American. I called her this morning and she said if there were any empty seats it wouldn’t be a problem. Cheer up, Coop. A few cocktails after takeoff, I’ll forget I’m airborne and you can forget about Lew-”

“Drew.”

“Whatever his name is. I keep telling you, don’t go seeing ghosts where there aren’t any. We got enough confusion already.”

There were only twelve seats in the first-class section of the 767, half of which were empty. I took the one by the window, emptied some magazines from my tote, put on the slippers from the complimentary travel pack, and settled in with my pillow and blanket at the ready. Mike ordered me a Dewar’s and himself a double Jameson’s, making good on his plan to transfer my affection to Irish whiskey.

By the time the plane reached our cruising altitude, all I could see was the darkened sky and the occasional lights of another aircraft speeding by below us. We were on our second round of drinks and the assortment of warmed nuts, mulling over our options for the microwaved dinners. The liquor was relaxing me and I was losing the edge of my annoyance about the circumstances of my introduction to Drew. There would be plenty of time to focus on all that after we got home to New York. I was happy to be six miles above the earth, out of the range of beepers and sky-pagers. I liked my flying isolation booth.

Mike talked to me nonstop during the meal service. He relived old cases and escapades with ex-partners, unsolved murders, and victims whose corpses had never been identified or claimed. By the time the icecream sundaes and brandy were served, it was close to ten o’clock and I was snuggled into the reclining chair, somewhere east of Greenland.

“If you could be anybody in the world, who would it be?”

“What?”

“Don’t you ever do that? Just take yourself out of your own skin and pretend you could be someone else?” Mike asked. “Tell me three people-dead or alive-that you’d like to have been. Sheer fantasy, no goody-two-shoes stuff. Don’t give me Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer or Jonas Salk or Clara Barton. Just for fun, who would you change places with if you could?”

My legs were drawn up in the seat, under the blanket, and I cradled the Courvoisier with both hands while I thought of my answers. “First choice-Shakespeare.”

“For you? Never would have guessed it. I figured you for great clothes but not cross-dressing.”

“I can’t imagine any one mind creating all of those remarkable writings-the language, the themes, the images, the range of words and ideas. Maybe I’d rather have been Mrs. S.-simply lie there at night and let him come home and read to me the lines he’d worked on all day. Just be the inspiration for that incredible poetry. I don’t think anyone has ever used the language more magnificently.”

“You like it all? I mean, you’ve read all his plays?”

“Not all, but my favorites over and over again. Mostly the tragedies and histories. But, of course, the histories are usually tragedies, too. I adore his tragedies.” I picked my head up from the pillow and looked across at Mike. “Something wrong with me, you think? That I like tragedies so much? And murder mysteries, and the kind of job that I have-?”

“You’re just coming to that conclusion now?”

“Some days it seems more obvious than others, I guess. Who’s your choice?”

“Neil Armstrong. First man to walk on the moon. The idea of being a pioneer in an entirely new world and-”

“Time out.” I pressed a finger on the cushioned arm pad and imitated the sound of a TV game show penalty buzzer. “Bad answer. You’re terrified of flying-you can’t be an astronaut.”

“I just want to be the guy who takes the first step on the moon. I didn’t say anything about flying B-52s or-”

“Not fair. There’s only one way to get to the moon and you would be completely and totally ineligible. Too long a flight, no alcohol. Next idea.”