"Can't wait to go to the beach," she said as though reading his mind and confirming his judgment.
She seemed completely cool now, not agitated as on the phone. He tried again to get her on track. "Your phone call, what's up?"
She was quiet for a moment then, "I do need your help. Maybe I'm in trouble."
"Okay. Before you start a public disturbance, can we end the show here and talk in your room?"
"Well, just let me tell you. Ah-." She appeared serious now. She sat up and arranged her beige see-through beach shirt around her shoulders. Then blurted out, "My best friend was raped."
"My God! That's what this is about?"
"Happened in her apartment, night before last."
"They catch the guy?"
"Oh, we know who did it, Sonny Barner, her boyfriend. Her bastard boyfriend."
"Date-rape? How is she?"
"Beat the hell out of her, blackened one eye. I told her to call the police. She was shaking. Kept mumbling about maybe it was her fault, maybe she teased him...all that cliché crap. The next day she was still hurting, still curled up."
"Rape by a boyfriend tough to prove, he-said she-said. Is she going to let him get away with it?"
"The next day she decided to call the cops." She shrugged. "But by then it was too late."
"Why?"
"Because I had already shot him."