THE STARS

Jade Parris was not having the best of days when the woman of his dreams walked in to his office. His secretary had quite the day before not that she had been much of a prize anyway, being more vigilant about her manicure than maintaining the phone logs. But he needed someone to keep track of things and shuffle papers into files . Even the raise he offered out of sheer desperation had not swayed her to give up her sudden determination to become a country and western singing sensation. so his secretary was heading off to Nashville in a second hand pick up, and his office looked like the ten miles of bad road he sincerely hoped she traveled.She had not exactly had her mind on her work the past month or two. That impression had been more than confirmed when he fished bologna sandwich out of the file drawer. At least he thought the blob in the plastic bag was bologna. And it had been filled under for lunch? He didn't bother to swear,nor did he bother to answer the phone that rang incessantly on the empty desk in the reception area. He had reports to type up, and as typing wasn't one of his finer skills, he just wanted to get out with it. Parris investigations wasn't what some would call a thriving enterprise. But it suited him, just as the cluttered two room office squeezed into the top roof of a narrow brick building with bad plumbing in north west D.C. suited him. He didn't need plush carpets or polished edges. He had grown up with all that, with the pomp and pretenses,and had had his fill of it all by the time he reached the age of twenty. Now, at thirty, with on bad marriage behind him and a family who continued to be baffled by his pursuits, he was, by large a contented man. He had his investigators license, a decent reputation as a man who gets the job done,and enough income to keep his agency well above water. Though actual business income was a bit of a problem just then. He was in what he liked to call a lull. Most of his caseload consisted of insurance and domestic work, a few steps down from the thrills he had imagined when he set out to be a private investigator. He had just cleaned up two cases, both of them minor insurance frauds that had not taken much effort or innovation to close. He had nothing else coming in, his greedy blood sucker of a landlord was bumping up his rent, the engine in his car had been making unsettling noises lately, his car air conditioner was on the fritz. And the roof was leaking again. He took the spindly yellow -leafed philodendron his double - crossing secretary had left behind and set it on the uncarpeted floor under the steady drip, hoping it might drown. He could hear a voice droning into his answering machine. It was his mother's voice. Lord he thought , did a man really escape his mother? " Jade, dear I hope you have not forgotten the Embassy Ball. You know you're to escort Pamela Anderson. I had lunch with her aunt today, and she tells me that Pamela just looked marvelous after her little sojourn to Monaco." " Yeah, yeah, yeah," he muttered,and narrowed his eyes at the computer. He and machine had poor and untrusting relationship.He sat down and faced the screen as his mother continued to chatter: Have you had your tux cleaned? Do make time to get a haircut, you looked so scraggly the last time I saw you." And don't forget to wash behind the ears, he thought sourly, and turned her out. She was never going to accept that the Parris lifestyle wasn't his life style, that he just didn't want to lunch at the club or squire bored former debutantes around Washington and that his opinion wasn't going to change by dint of her persuasion. He had wanted adventure, and thought struggling to type up a report on some poor slob's fake whiplash wasn't exactly Sam Spade territory,he was doing the job. Mostly he didn't feel useless or bored or out of place. He liked the sound of traffic outside his window, even though the window was only open because the building and its scum- sucking landlord didn't go in for central air conditioning and his unit was broken. The heat was intense, and the rain was coming in, but with the window closed, the office would have been as airless and stifling as a tomb. Sweat rolled down his back, making him itchy and irritable. He was stripped down to a T-shirt and jeans, his long fingers fumbling a bit on the computer keys. He had to shovel his hair out of his face several times, which ticked him off. His mother was right, he needed a haircut. So when it got in the way again, he ignored it, as he ignored the sweat, the heat, the buzz of traffic, the steady drip from the ceiling. He sat, methodically punching a key at a time,a remarkably handsome man with a scowl on his face.He had inherited the Parris looks- the clever green eyes that could go broken bottle sharp or as soft as sea mist, depending on his mood. The hair that needed a trim was dark mink brown and tended to wave. Just now, it curled at his neck, over his ears,and was beginning to annoy him. His nose was straight, aristocratic and a little long, his mouth firm and quick to smile when he was amused. And to sneer when he wasn't. Though his face become more honed since the embarrassing cherubic period of his youth and early adolescence, it still sported dimples. He was looking forward to middle age, when with luck, they had become manly creases. He had wanted to be rugged,and instead was struck with the slick, dreaming good look of a a GQ cover for one of which he had posed in the middle twenties, under protect and great family pressure. The phone rang again. This time it was his sister's voice, haranguing him about missing some lame cocktail party in honor of some big bellied senator she was endorsing. He thought about just ripping the damn answering machine out of the wall and having it,and his sister's nagging voice, out the window into the traffic on Wisconsin Avenue. Then the rain that was only adding to the miserably thick heat began to drip on the top of his head. The computer blinked off, for no reason he could see other than sheer nastiness, and the coffee he forgotten he was heating boiled over with a spiteful hiss. He leaped up, burned his hand on the pot. He swore viciously as the pot smashed, shattering glass, and spewing hot coffee in all directions. He ripped open a drawer, grabbed for a stack of napkins and sliced his thumb with the lethal edge of his former and new thoroughly damned to perdition secretary's nail file. When the woman walked in,he was still cursing and bleeding and had just tripped over over the philodendron set in the middle of the floor and didn't even look up. It was hardly a wonder she simply stood there,damp from the rain,her face pale as death and her eyes wide with shock. " Excuse me." Her voice sounded rusty,as if she hadn't used it in days. " I must have the wrong office." She inched backward, and those big, wide brown eyes shifted to the name printed on the door. She hesitated, the looked back at him. " Are you Mr. Parris?.