I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason Read Online Free PDF Page B

shut, shut, shut. Finally, I couldn’t stop myself. I turned my head. He didn’t say a thing. He just gave me a long, lazy smile.
    Screw him. There was a minimall half a block away with a Starbucks in it. They’d be open by now. I ran up to Santa Monica, clutching my sides, then crossed against the light. He was stuck on red, but as soon as the light changed, he followed, pulling his beat-up blue Camaro into the parking lot just behind me. I sat down at a table in the corner and watched him get out of the car and come inside. This wasn’t happening. He walked right up to me.
    â€œI’m calling the police,” I said.
    He didn’t answer. He went up to the counter and ordered a small cup of coffee. When the girl handed it to him, he mumbled something about changing his mind. He turned to leave, bumping his arm against me on the way out. Hard. That spot would be black and blue by tonight. And no one had noticed a thing. Just another morning in the city of the angels. Nothing out of the ordinary.
    I sat there for a while, thinking how easy it is to feel safe when you’ve never been hurt. Then I picked up a paper someone had left behind and read the comics until I felt a little better, or at least too tired to think anymore, which amounted to the same thing.
    I went home and showered until the hot water ran out. I wanted to stay in there, but I had an appointment to keep. It had to be today. Well, it was going to be fine. No one had promised me a walk in the park, but it would be fine.
    I considered my wardrobe. According to the visitor handbook I’d downloaded from the Web, conservative attire was recommended. No clothing that in any combination of shades resembled California-issue inmate garb. No law-enforcement or military-type forest green or camouflage-patterned items. No spaghetti straps. No sheer garments. No hats, wigs, orhairpieces, except with prior written approval of the visiting sergeant. No clothing that exposed the chest, genitals, or buttocks. Party poopers.
    I wondered what Joseph Albacco would be wearing. Prison blues aren’t necessarily blue. I knew. I’d read up on it. They come in orange, red, or white, according to the unit in which the particular prisoner is housed. It helps correctional officers determine if a serial killer, say, isn’t where he’s supposed to be. That was the principle behind stripes as well, which were worn by convicts well into the first half of the twentieth century. The types of stripes (vertical or horizontal) and their combinations (horizontal on pants, vertical on shirts) likewise signified things like crime committed or time served. It was kind of the reverse of the old saying that clothes make the man.
    After mulling it over for a while, I dropped my towel on the floor and put on something that made me feel strong—a brown velvet Chanel suit with lots of white braid trim. I had snagged it from my mother’s cousin Drena, who’d bought it at a rummage sale, only to decide it made her look like a three-star general.
    She had underestimated the genius of Coco Chanel. That made two of us. I looked less like Patton than a Hostess cupcake, something a convicted felon could polish off in a single bite. Thinking about the creep in the Camaro, I squeezed some gelatinous goo into my hands and slicked my hair into a sadistic ballet-mistress updo. Better. Forbidding. You wouldn’t want to mangle a plié within ten yards of me.
    Enough with the metaphors. Joseph Albacco, Prisoner #C-36789, currently serving thirty-five to life for murder in the first degree, was waiting. For me.

5
    I knew the court transcript like the back of my hand.
    December 13, 1957. It was a Friday. The forecast had predicted rain, but little on that day happened according to plan. By noon, the early-morning clouds had dissipated and the sun was shining. Jean Albacco spent most of the day answering the phone, typing letters, and filing correspondence at