As Jimmy moved into the amber glow of the single spotlight, I got my first good look at his face. He was unusually handsome, in a stark, intense, Tony Curtis sort of way, and his dark brown Vandyke beard-as well as the dark brown hair on his head-was sleek and neatly trimmed. He wore a black turtleneck over a pair of charcoal pants. As he grabbed one of the musician’s stools with his free hand and dragged it over to the mike, I saw that his body was strong and thin, and his coordination precise.

Propping one buttock and thigh on the seat of the tall stool and planting the foot of the same leg on the crossbar, Jimmy placed Otto astride his charcoal shank and gave one long, loving stroke from the top of his pointy-nosed head to the tip of his string bean-size tail. Then, seeing that his pet was comfortable and perfectly balanced, he leaned his agile torso forward, grabbed the mike with both hands and-in a surprisingly deep, burnished baritone-began to recite:

Here it be, where we are we, together in the degenerate hell of this life. So what? What are we to do about it? Maybe you can’t care. Even a snail eats. It’s our cause to complain. Surround yourself with your own orchestra because we will always survive the creeps, hear our own music, defeat the streets. Our jumbo world is ours. Inside we will stay, away from our enemies and the luster of injustice.

A few seconds of silence ensued, then-as Jimmy let go of the microphone, tucked Otto under his arm and breezed off the stage-the crowd broke out in restrained but rapturous applause. Heads were nodding in profound agreement and faces were awash in earnest reverence. Some people rose to their feet and signaled their approval by raising their glasses in a silent toast to Jimmy Birmingham’s verbal brilliance.

Was I the only one in the room who felt like laughing till my sides split open?

I was straining my ears, hoping for a concurring giggle, or at least one poorly stifled snicker, when the waiter appeared with my coffee and set it down in front of me. “Here you go, Ma’am,” he said, putting a small bowl of sugar cubes and a puny pitcher of cream down next to the coffee mug. Then he turned aside, hoisted his drink-laden tray back up to his shoulder, and began worming his way toward other customers.

As the waiter moved away, clearing my line of vision, I saw that somebody else had suddenly appeared at my table. It was a medium-tall somebody with dark brown hair, a dark brown beard, and an adorable dark brown creature nestled in the curve of his arm. It was the cat with the dog. And the way the cat was leering at me, I realized I was the canary.

“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD USE SOME company,” Jimmy said, sitting down-uninvited-in the chair closest to mine. Cradling his little dog against his chest, he gave me a cocksure smile and said, “Otto saw you sitting here all alone, and he thought you were a real gone chick, and he told me he was itching to meet you right away. ”

“Maybe he just has fleas,” I said without thinking. Aarrrrgh! For a true crime writer whose main purpose in life, at that moment, was to find out the truth about a certain crime, I couldn’t have come up with a worse (i.e., less enticing and manipulative) reply. Jimmy and Otto had been dropped in my lap like a gift from the gods, and if I knew what was good for me, I wouldn’t make a stupid joke out of it. I would gratefully accept the gift, and use it in good health.

“Just teasing, Otto,” I quickly added, leaning over to pat the dog’s tiny head and fondle his warm, silky ears. “I’m sure you never had a flea in your life.” To prove the sincerity of my contrived (and, hopefully, conciliatory) words, I began rubbing the underside of Otto’s narrow chin and staring, like a lover, into his small, round, worshipful eyes.

Mission accomplished. Otto was in seventh heaven, and so-it would seem-was Jimmy Birmingham.

“He really likes you,” Jimmy said, lowering his deep voice to an intimate croon, writhing in his chair like a python, slithering so close to me I could feel his hot breath on my cheek. “And Otto’s the best judge of females I’ve ever known. He picks all the best tomatoes for me.”

Oh, brother! Does this line work on most women? Did it work on Judy? I wanted to believe that Terry’s little sister had seen through Jimmy’s come-on in an instant, that she had toyed with his affections as much as he had no doubt toyed with hers, but-hard as I tried-I couldn’t bring myself to embrace that theory. Judy had been young and hungry, and all alone in the world. And from everything Elsie Londergan and Vicki Lee Bumstead had told me, I knew she had probably soaked up Otto’s-I mean Jimmy’s-atten tions like a sponge, and begged her desperate little heart out for more.

“So Otto picks your girlfriends and your vegetables,” I said, shifting my gaze from Otto’s face to Jimmy’s. “He’s a hound of many talents. Does he write your poetry for you, too?”

(Look, I know that was another really stupid response. I should have been flirting with the suspect, flattering him, trying to gain his confidence and coax some information out of him, instead of casting aspersions on his literary skills. But I couldn’t help myself. Really! I was so crazed and exhausted-and still struggling so hard to suppress my inner giggle fit over Jimmy’s silly poem-that I didn’t know what I was doing, or saying, anymore.)

Jimmy was enraged. A fire blazed up in his dark brown eyes and I thought, for a moment, he was going to hit me. But-as I sat there frozen like a dumbstruck deer, trying to decide whether to duck right or duck left-his taut muscles suddenly relaxed and his facial expression underwent a dramatic transformation. And you probably won’t believe this (since I couldn’t believe it myself), but Jimmy’s entire stance toward me flipped, in the space of a single heartbeat, from flaming anger to-of all things!-burning attraction.

“You’re a mischievous little minx, aren’t you?” he said, putting Otto down on his lap and scooting his chair even closer to mine. “I’ve got your number now, sweetheart. You’re a doll with an attitude, and you like to cause trouble, and I go crazy for women like that.” To prove it, he fastened his left hand on my thigh, clamped his right hand around the back of my neck, yanked my face forward, and planted a deep, ferocious kiss on my astonished, gaping mouth.

I would have kicked him in the crotch if Otto hadn’t been sitting there. I would have clawed his face to ribbons if it hadn’t been protected by his beard. I would have pushed him backward and socked him in the nose if he hadn’t been so much stronger than I was. And if I’d had a knife in my hand, I would have (okay, surely wouldn’t have, but at least could have) stabbed him in the stomach.

But I didn’t have a knife, or a gun, or any other deadly weapons in my possession. The only instruments of destruction I had at my disposal were my teeth, and I decided-without a second’s hesitation-to use them.

“Owwwww!!!!!” Jimmy wailed, shoving me away with one hand and nursing his bleeding lower lip with the other. “You bit me!!! It hurts like hell!!! What did you do that for?!!!”

“I did it for Judy Catcher,” I said.

I was as shocked by my answer as Jimmy was. Though I had meant to bring up Judy’s name and try to get Jimmy to talk about her, I hadn’t planned on doing it in such a sudden, brutal, indiscriminate way. But now the cat was out of the bag and running down the street like a rabid lion on the loose, and I had no choice but to chase after it.

“Judy was a very good friend of mine,” I added, as if that would explain everything.

“So what if she was?!!!” he cried, eyes big as half-dollars. “That doesn’t give you the right to bite me!” Blood was trickling from the cut on his lip and seeping down into his beard. Otto rose up on his hindquarters and began to paw at Jimmy’s chest, whimpering.