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ersian rug on the right-hand wall (the second office is against the left wall) so that it looked as though there were a connecting door, and I opened the outer door just as she was getting ready to knock again. I motioned her to come inside and sit on the low couch next to my desk, activated a switch to open the phony intercom, and said “Sally, hold my calls for a while, okay?” A quick push of the second switch got me “Certainly, Mr. Burke.” I then turned to look at my new client.The low couch usually bothers people but this lady couldn’t have cared less. I guess she measured about five feet total (maybe an inch or so less), white-blonde hair, high forehead, thin nose, wide-set dark eyes, and a kind of thick chunky build you would call buxom if you hadn’t had a look at her from the waist down. I hadn’t yet so I mentally settled for old-fashioned “buxom.” She wore wide-legged gray wool slacks over medium-heeled black boots, a white turtleneck pullover covered by one of those unstructured ladies’ jackets, no hat, no jewelry that I could see, pale lipstick, too much eyeliner, and some rouge that didn’t quite hide the tiny scar just under her right eye. It looked as though someone had engraved a tic-tac-toe crosshatch with a fine scalpel. She crossed her legs and folded her hands over her knee; one of the knuckles had a faint bluish tinge.Everything fit together on her nicely but you can’t always tell what a woman spends on her get-up the way you can with a man-no jewelry, for example, didn’t mean she was broke. She sat as calmly as a toad waiting for flies, and the dog’s presence didn’t seem to unsettle her. It didn’t look like a matrimonial to me, but I’ve made a career out of being wrong. So I just asked, “How can I help