Judging Time

1

At fifteen minutes after midnight on January sixth, when Merrill Liberty took a phone call at her table in Liberty's Restaurant, she had thirty minutes to live.

"It's the boss." Patrice, the cocoa-colored maitre d' from Haiti, smiled and handed her a mobile phone.

Merrill tensed and made a face before reaching for the phone. "Where are you?" she asked in a low voice.

"Just got in." Her husband's voice sounded as strained as hers.

She nodded at her companion—he's back—then leaned forward in her wicker chair with its high fan back. "What took so long, Rick?"

"Hey, don't start, baby. Haven't you noticed it stinks out there? My flight was canceled. I just squeaked in on another airline. I'm lucky to be here tonight at all."

"Same old story." Merrill's voice, so often sweet and silky in her TV roles, took on its less famous offstage sulk. "You didn't have to go," she muttered.

Frederick Douglass Liberty—known as Liberty in his football days—sighed his martyr sigh. "You know I had to go."

"No, I don't." Merrill glanced at Tor, who was shaking his head at her, smiling and pouring himself the last of the wine.

"Say I said hello," Tor murmured.

Merrill ignored him.

He shrugged.

"If the weather was so damned bad why risk your life?" Merrill demanded.

"For you, baby. I risked it for you."

"How's your head?"

"The head's all right, but I'm exhausted. How was your evening?"

Once again Merrill fixed her deep green eyes on Tor. He was sipping wine and smiling. "First rate."

"Time to come home, then."

Merrill drummed her fingers on the table. "You've been away all day. You in any particular hurry now?"

"Fine. Patrice said you just got your dessert, enjoy it."

His voice had taken on the bitter edge she hated, so she gave him a lighthearted laugh. "Nothing's secret here, I see."

"You better believe it."

Suddenly Merrill smiled at Tor. The lusty way he'd begun attacking almost at the same moment both her spiced apple cobbler and his fried bananas with crunchy toasted coconut was characteristic of his approach to life. It made her want to laugh again.

"Merril-?"

"Yes?"

"Just remember I love you." They were the last words Rick Liberty said to his wife.

"And I love you, too," were her last words to him.

Tor rolled his eyes as she punched the off button and handed the phone to Patrice, who had drifted over to the table to retrieve it. "You two."

"Thanks, Patrice," Merrill said. "Will you tell Jon everything was great?"

"I'll tell him, but he won't believe it from anyone but you. Anything else I can get you tonight?"

Tor raised his eyebrows, questioning. Did they want anything else? Merrill shook her head. No, they did not. Patrice smiled and drifted away.

"Rick's cool?" Tor asked.

Merrill frowned for a second because with Rick one could never be absolutely sure. "He's cool," she said.

Then her mood lightened. "Hey, Tor. Leave me a bite, will you."

"Go ahead, dig in."

After thirty-five years in America, Tor still had a bit of a Scandinavian accent, a feature Merrill found charming. She picked up her fork and tasted the spiced apple cobbler that was one of Rick's mother's recipes. "Amazing, as usual," Merrill pronounced it.

Tor gazed at her. "So are you."

"Well, thanks. But I know you say that to all the girls."

He laughed. "With you, though, it's the truth."

"Well, I think you're pretty terrific, too." Merrill's face shone with the wine, food, and other pleasures she'd enjoyed that evening. At that moment she did think Tor Petersen was terrific. For a second she wondered whether Tor had told his wife where he was going, and what the dizzy Daphne herself might be doing with the free time. But only for a second.

"I've always been crazy about you, you know that."

At six one, Tor was an inch shorter than Rick and had almost as sturdy a build. Fourteen years older, however, Tor now had to fight in earnest the spreading abdomen of middle age, affluence, and complacency. And where Rick had the mixed blood of African, American Indian, and Caucasian, Tor was pure Nordic, with an ample head of hair more flaxen than silver and eyes as blue as the Vikings of his ancestry. Tor's second wife had been the daughter of an Arabian princess, and when the two couples had gone out together, people were always confused because the two blonds were married to the two people of color and not each other.

"If I'd married you, we'd still be together."

Merrill considered the declaration with a twinkle. Tor was marching out onto a limb that couldn't hold him. "Which time?"

"Any time. How about this time?' '

"Well, maybe later this week after you've dumped this one."

"Oh, you know." He looked surprised.

"Darling, you're an open book." Merrill laughed and took a bite of the "fried 'nanas" with the drop-dead crunchy coconut. "I don't know how you get away with it. Let's go home."

Tor finished his last bite and looked up. "Okay, okay. Time for bed?"

Merrill nodded and pushed back her wicker chair. At 12:38 A.M. on a cold January night, the stylish restaurant was not yet empty. There were still a few people drinking exotically flavored coffees at the bar and finishing their desserts at their tables. Suddenly she was sorry that Tor was always so solicitous of his driver, sending him home every time the man complained about the weather. Earlier, it had been no big deal to walk a block from the theater to the restaurant. Late at night though, when every street comer was a deceptive snow-covered slush pit that sucked the unwary into a frigid ankle-deep lake and it wasn't always so easy to get a cab, she didn't relish the possibility of having to walk home. Merrill grabbed her fur-lined black suede coat off the chair beside her, draping it over her arm as she headed for the dazzling stainless-steel kitchen to say good-night to Jon the chef. Then she shrugged on the coat, waved at Patrice, who was busy at a table, and went out the front door where Tor had preceded her some minutes before to get a cab.

Liberty's had a tiny garden in front with a step up to the street and a gate on the sidewalk level. The dwarf fir trees in planters surrounding the space were crusted with snow and still wore their Christmas lights. Merrill closed the two doors of the restaurant and stepped out into the garden. Tor and another person were standing close together, as if in deep conversation. Merrill hesitated. Something was odd about them. She heard the sound of car wheels slapping through the slush just slightly above them on the street, but not the sound of voices. The other person drew closer to Tor as if to embrace him. He had his broad back to Merrill, and she couldn't see what was happening. Suddenly, without a sound, Tor slumped to the wet pavement. Merrill lurched forward, crying his name "Tor—!"

Almost instantly she was at the place where he had fallen. "What happened? My God, what is that thing? What are you doing? Not you! No! Tor, Tor—?" Merrill's voice became frantic as the shiny thing she'd seen disappeared into a coat sleeve, and Tor tried to raise himself from where he'd fallen, facedown on the freezing cement.

Merrill lunged forward to help, but a black-gloved hand grabbed her arm and prevented her from sinking to her knees. She became hysterical at Tor's desperate struggle and the hideous noise that erupted from his mouth as he tried to speak, tried to breathe, and failed at both.

"What are you doing? Let go. Tor—Tor—?"

Suddenly Merrill felt a little dizzy from the wine. She was further confused by the powerful fingers digging into her arm that wouldn't let go. Tears stung her eyes as terror for him—not herself—overcame her. She formed the word help in her head, but all that came out of her mouth was a whimper. "You?"

She couldn't get to Tor, couldn't help him. "Don't— please!" Two powerful hands held her arms so tightly the throb in her biceps felt like screams.

"Tor!"

He'd stopped moving. "Oh, God, what did you do to him?" Panicked, Merrill finally wrenched her head around toward the restaurant door and started to scream.

Her body jerked against the vise that gripped her arm. "Let go, please." The coat she hadn't had time to button flew open.

"Stupid bitch! Can't you see it's too late now."

One hand released her arm. Merrill thought she was finally being freed. Then she saw the shiny thing again, felt a pressure on her neck, heard her assailant grunt the way tennis champions did when they leaned into a 110-mile-an-hour serve. "Uh."

"Oh, God, no!" In that grunt, Merrill heard something give in her neck. The grip on her arm loosened and was gone. Blood bubbled out of her throat like a fountain. She put her hand up to stop it. "Oh God." Her mouth filled with blood. She staggered, unable to breathe.

The gate to the street opened and closed. Her vision blurring, Merrill Liberty saw Tor's killer melt out into the street. She turned to the restaurant door, but couldn't stand up. She collapsed on the body of her friend. Her head lolled on Tor's shoulder, her blood soaked his back. Her eyes were wide open in horror. By the time the restaurant door opened and Patrice came running out, Merrill could no longer tell anyone anything.