Kiss Of Evil

36

Randi Burstein had never seen the man at the counter before, but she seemed to recall hearing the name somewhere. On the younger side of thirty-five, she thinks. Too well dressed to be a cop. Too handsome to be a civil servant.

Lawyer. Definitely.

Who else ever comes in here?

“I can get that file for you right away,” Randi says. “Going to need some ID of course. Social security number at the very least.”

“Of course,” he says, handing her a social security card. “May I ask you something…”

“Randi.”

“May I ask you something, Randi?”

“Sure,” she says, hopes awakening. In the fifteen years she had worked in the records office of the Veterans Administration, she had yet to meet a man she had seen, socially, more than twice. Now that she was over forty, and a few pounds south of svelte, the opportunities seem to be diminishing every day. But, still, hope springs and all. “What would you like to know?”

“Have there been other folks requesting these files lately?”

“Now, now,” she says, a little disappointed, but still happy to engage in banter with someone so handsome, someone so much younger than the usual fossils with whom she deals. “You know I am not permitted to tell you that.”

“Well, I believe that rule exists because no one ever asks as nicely as I just have.”

“That may be true,” she says, crossing the room, pulling out the file drawer marked Saar-Salz. She finds the file, then closes the drawer with a slightly exaggerated bump of her ample hip. She makes a quick photocopy of the requested file. “I am still not allowed to break it.” She lays the form on the counter, slashes an X with her pen. “Sign for me there, please.”

The man scribbles a signature with his own pen.

“Any special plans for New Year’s Eve?” she asks, retrieving an envelope from beneath the counter, hoping to keep the conversation going.

“Oh yes,” the man answers. “I’m going to have a party.”

“Well, that sounds like fun,” Randi says as she slips the photocopy into a manila envelope, seals it. “Big or small?”

“Huge,” he says. “In fact, I’m thinking of inviting the whole world.”

“That would include me, of course,” she replies, amazed at her boldness. Maybe it’s just the holidays, she thinks. Or maybe the two eggnogs at lunch. She lays her left hand atop the counter with great deliberateness. The hand that sports no wedding or engagement ring whatsoever. “What should I wear?”

The man pauses for a moment, dramatically lost in thought. “A black leather jacket,” he says with a smile. “I think you would look very sexy in a black leather jacket and a little white skirt.”

Two full minutes later, long after the man with the dark eyes and the darker lashes had left without a further word, Randi Burstein finds herself still standing at the counter, a little flushed, a lot intrigued, her mind giddily rummaging through her closets.