Scimitar

9

There was no answer at the number Geoffrey had given her for Sonny’s apartment. She let the phone ring twenty times, and then dialed the number again in case she’d made a mistake the first time, and let it ring another twenty times before hanging up. The second number he’d given her was for the hospital where Sonny worked. She dialed that next, slowly and carefully. It was a quarter to two in New York, ten forty-five in Los Angeles.

She told the woman who answered the phone that she wanted to talk to someone in Personnel, please. The nurse, or whoever the twit was, asked Elita what this was in reference to — she hated when underlings in doctors’ offices or hospitals did that. She said, “It’s a private matter, thank you.” Like a vaginal itch, she thought, as if it’s any of your goddamn business.

“Personnel,” a woman’s voice said.

“Yes, this is Elita Randall,” she said. “I’m calling from New York City.”

“Yes?”

“I’m trying to get an address here for Dr. Krishnan Hemkar, I wonder...”

“I’m sorry, we don’t give out personal information on staff.”

“This is regarding his mother,” Elita said. “She’s very ill.”

Which was sort of what Sonny had told her on the train.

“It’s important that I get in touch with him,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but...”

“Before she dies,” Elita said.

There was a long sigh on the line.

“How do you spell the last name, please?” the woman asked.

“Hemkar. H-E-M-K-A-R.”

“Just a moment, I’ll connect you with the page operator.”

“No, I don’t want to page him,” Elita said. “He isn’t in Los...”

The line went dead.

She’s cut me off! Elita thought. The stupid...

“Page Operator,” another female voice said.

“Yes, this is Elita Randall,” Elita said, “I’m calling from New York City.”

“Yes, Miss, whom did you wish paged?”

“I’m trying to get some information on Dr. Hemkar,” she said. “I don’t want him paged, he isn’t...”

The line went dead.

Elita visualized a page going out all over the hospital, speakers blaring, “Dr. Hemkar, please call the operator, Dr. Hemkar, please pick up,” or whatever the hell it was they announced in hospitals.

“Hello?” a voice said.

A male this time. Somewhat preppy sounding.

“Hello,” she said, “this is Elita Randall, I’m calling from New York. I’m trying to locate Dr. Krishnan Hemkar, but the page oper...”

“You and everybody else,” the man said.

“What?” she said.

“Who’d you say this was?” he asked.

“Elita Randall. Who’s this?”

“Dr. Welles,” he said. “Benjamin J. Welles. Did you say New York?”

“Yes, I’m calling from New York. I’ve lost track of Sonny...”

“Is he in New York?”

“Yes. Well, yes.”

“You don’t know how happy this makes me. We’ve been worried stiff out here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he disappears from sight without a word, we thought he’d been kidnapped or something. That’s why I answered the page. I thought it might be someone who...”

“Well, no. Actually I’m trying to locate him, too. Would you know his mother’s phone number here in New York?”

“I thought she lived in Paris.”

“No, he came here to see her. New York. She’s here in New York.”

“That’s funny, his father works in Paris, I’m pretty sure that’s where they live.”

“No, she was sick, and he...”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

“Well, Sonny Hemkar,” she said, “how many Sonny Hemkars can there be? I mean, that isn’t exactly a common...”

“From Los Angeles, right?”

“That’s where he... excuse me, but how well do you know him?”

“We’re very close friends.”

“And he... never mentioned he was going to see his mother in New York?”

“Never mentioned he was going to New York at all. I’ve got to tell you, his job is at risk out here. If you see him, tell him BJ said he’d better...”

“When did you see him last?”

“I had brunch with him a week ago Sunday. Called him a little after eleven that night, got no answer.”

Because he was already on the train by then, Elita thought.

“And you don’t know where he is now?” she asked.

“No, I don’t. I wish I did.”

So do I, she thought.

“If you see him, tell him he’d better have a damn good story for Hokie.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Hokinson. He’ll know.”

“I’ll tell him.”

If I find him, she thought, and hung up.

He lowered the windows on the rental car the moment he realized he was getting close to the ocean. Salt air wafted in over the marsh grass. He took a deep breath and turned the car onto a narrow, packed sand road that was undoubtedly impassable in any kind of heavy rain. Today, though, the sky was a magnificent robin’s egg blue, wisps of clouds brushed across it by a mild and languid breeze. He heard now the hollow rasping sound of surf rolling in against the shore. And smiled.

The house loomed suddenly ahead.

He looked at his watch.

Three twenty-seven.

It had taken him an hour and forty minutes to drive here from the city.

He parked the car, got out, stretched, and looked up at the house. The smile was still on his face. There was nothing quite like this in Southern California, where he had spent the past six years of his life. The beach houses out there — even those that were unabashed reproductions of Cape Cod cottages — had none of the authentic look that this one so effortlessly achieved. Here, the outside walls were covered with sun-bleached shingles the color of seagulls. The roof was shingled with cedar shakes streaked brown and black, eroded by time and weather, twisted and gnarled. Sand-drifted pieces of flagstone led to a front door painted a blue faded paler than the sky.

Everywhere around the house, tufted sea oats and plumed pampas grass leaned in the mild ocean breeze, gently rustling. Something spidery and green sent long tendrils across the sand, trailing off in every direction. Sonny climbed a dozen or more rickety wooden steps to the top of the high dune and looked out over a beach more magnificent than any he’d seen in California. The Atlantic Ocean stretched endlessly before him, the roiling water a bluish-grey reflecting sunlight in tiny sparkling glints, waves rushing in against the sand, tumbling and receding again, whispering. He took a deep breath, all at peace with himself and the world. This was exactly what he wanted.

All he’d said to Arthur was, “I need that safe house.”

Walking back to the car, he unlocked the trunk and took from it the single large bag he had carried from Los Angeles. Fishing in his pocket for the key Arthur had messengered to the hotel, he walked up the sand-strewn flagstone path to the pale blue door at the front of the house. There was an absolutely appropriate tarnished brass knocker and doorknob. He inserted the key into the keyway, twisted it, and gently shoved the door inward.

Sunlight splashed through the French doors at the far end of the room, beyond which he could see a spacious deck overlooking the beach and the ocean. There was an immediate aroma that brought back to him memories of every summer seaside house he’d ever known, a combination of mustiness and damp, mildew and salt air. The room itself was furnished casually, almost sloppily, with slip-covered sofas and easy chairs that looked as if they’d come from a thrift shop on La Cienega. A rolltop desk stood against one of the unpainted cedar walls. There was a standing floor lamp with its shade hanging crooked, and a footstool with an upholstered needlepoint top. Rows and rows of books on rickety plank shelves hung on the cedar wall opposite the desk, where a partially opened door revealed a simple kitchen with more windows facing the sea. It was altogether charming, exactly what a beach house — not to mention a safe house — should be.

He carried his suitcase up a steep, narrow staircase to the floor above, where a door at the top of the landing opened onto one of the bedrooms, again facing the sea and streaming late afternoon sunlight. A canopied bed with a paisley-patterned quilt on it was just to the left of the entrance door. The sliding glass door opposite the entrance door opened onto a deck narrower than the one below. He slid open the door and went to stand outside.

The sea moved restlessly below.

There was a house close by on the left, architecturally similar to this one, but with a weathered wooden fence on all sides save the one facing the ocean. Some fifty yards to the right, there was yet another house, storied and gabled with a wide deck running along its oceanfront side. On the northern side of the house, the side facing Sonny, there was a hidden second-story deck some twelve feet square, catching only scant sunlight now, a wooden fence guaranteeing complete privacy — except for a narrow sunwashed section of deck against the wall of the house, visible from where Sonny stood.

A woman was lying in that narrow space now.

Lying on her back in the space near the wall, soaking up the last slanting rays of the sun on the one section of deck vulnerable to observation from above.

The woman was naked.

Long blond hair fanning onto the striped inflated mat beneath her. Echoing blond hair tufting brazenly at the joining of her legs. Black sunglasses covering her eyes. Firm breasts flattening gently in repose, lolling toward her arms where they rested one off, one on the mat, the palms of her hands turned upward as if in supplication. Brown sandals rested on the deck beside the striped mat. An open book with a red jacket was lying face downward alongside her; Sonny could not read the title from this distance.

Unaware of his presence, she lay all golden in the sunshine. Time seemed to stop. He was vaguely aware of the ocean nudging the shore, the sound of a record player up the beach, music floating, muted laughter drifting. Silently, he stood watching her.

And suddenly she sat up, and rose, almost in one motion, stretching her arms over her head, shaking out her hair, bending like a dancer to retrieve her sandals and her book, closing the book, the sandals dangling from one hand, totally oblivious to him until... she must have sensed something. An unseen observer. A presence. She glanced upward all at once, and saw him where he stood transfixed on the upper deck.

She stood tall and motionless, the book in one hand, the sandals in the other, her head tilted toward the deck above, black sunglasses reflecting sunlight and sky and shielding her eyes from him. She stood that way for several breathless moments, looking up at him in seeming defiance, still and silent in the sunshine. And then, in brief dismissal, she turned her back to him, tight tanned buttocks swiveling as she walked to a sliding glass door at the side of the house, and opened it, and entered the house without a backward glance.

The truck from Advance Laundry Service was covered with scrawled graffiti. The company was located in the South Bronx and the trucks were parked overnight in an area enclosed by a cyclone fence, hardly a deterrent to determined graffiti writers. The white side and rear panels of the truck were simply too tempting to ignore. So it rode through town looking like an inner-city wall, hardly an image to project, especially when Advance listed among its customers some of the better hotels in New York.

At four o’clock that afternoon, Sammy Leone backed the truck into the Hilton’s loading dock on West Fifty-third Street, climbed down from behind the wheel, walked directly to the steps leading up to the platform, and rang the bell set in the metal jamb that framed the service doors. A uniformed security guard opened one of the doors, recognized Sammy, said, “Hot enough for you?” and beckoned him in.

It was cooler inside, but not much. The service doors were in constant use, and each time one of them was opened, a blast of hot air rushed in to dilute the effects of the air-conditioning. Most of the hotel’s soiled linens had already been separated into rolling canvas bins provided by Advance, separately brimming with towels and washcloths, sheets and pillow cases, tablecloths and napkins. The laundry from the Hilton alone would fill the entire back of Sammy’s truck; it was straight back to the Bronx when he finished here. He wheeled the first of the bins out onto the loading platform, opened the truck doors, and rolled the bin deep into the truck. This is pneumonia weather, he was thinking. You go from air-conditioning to heat and then back to air-conditioning again. He was starting to wheel the second of the bins out to the truck when he noticed a Hilton laundry cart sitting near the elevator doors.

“What’s that?” he asked the security guard.

“Just came down,” the guard said.

“Anybody separated it yet?”

“Don’t look that way.”

“Shit,” Leone said, and tried to remember what he’d just wheeled outside. Towels? Sheets? “This stuff’s supposed to be separated before I get here,” he said.

“They usually do that over by the chutes,” the security guard said, and gestured vaguely toward some inner recess of the service level.

Leone wheeled the cart over to where the company bins were standing. Wearily, he began separating the laundry, sheets here, towels there, muttering about people not doing the goddamn jobs they were supposed to do, napkins in this one, washcloths over there, sheets here, reaching blindly into the cart behind him, identifying whatever he pulled out, and tossing it into its appropriate bin. He reached into the cart again, touched something sticky, and yanked his hand back.

It was covered with blood.

He looked into the cart.

A man was lying on top of the remaining laundry.

An icepick was sticking out of his left eye.

From the bedroom window of the beach house she’d received in settlement from The Late Colonel, Carolyn Fremont looked down at the rear of the house next door. The man she’d seen on the deck not an hour ago was out back there, examining the potting table under the deck. Late afternoon sunlight struck his dark hair, glanced off the high cheekbones and smooth planes of his face. How on earth could any of Martin Hackett’s friends be quite so attractive?

Hackett himself was a crashing uneducated bore, a man who’d made his fortune selling live Maine lobsters to restaurants and fish markets. Whenever he discussed lobsters, and he did so with the fervor of a true believer, he reminded you that the lobsters were live, as if anyone would want to buy a dead Maine lobster. The people he invited as house guests were either restaurateurs or somehow connected otherwise to fish and other types of seafood. A total lot of bores.

The dark stranger turned away from the potting table, his brow furrowed. Was he going to pot some growing things? Did he have a green thumb, the little darling? She was suddenly glad her daughter hadn’t joined her here in Westhampton. Being alone here would be a definite advantage should Martin’s guest decide to stay awhile. Crony of the Lobster King, here are the keys, pal, enjoy yourself. But where was Martin when a person needed him? Carolyn, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, he’s...

Yes, what? Another restaurant owner, another big fisherman?

He’ll be here for...

How long? A week, ten days, the entire summer, oh God, wouldn’t that be wonderful!

His name is...

What? Who?

The way he’d stared at her. Eyes devouring her. She’d stared right back at him, daring him. You want to look at me? Fine, go right ahead. How do you like it? Want some of it? Fat chance. Eat your heart out.

She looked at the clock.

Almost four-thirty.

The cocktail party at the Cabots was supposed to begin at six. Nobody in the Hamptons was ever on time, especially to a cocktail party, but she hadn’t even showered yet.

She took one last look at him...

He was heading back into the house now...

... and wondered what his favorite color was.

Ozzie Carruthers was supposed to be relieved at five o’clock, and he did not particularly welcome a visit from the Secret Service at fifteen minutes before quitting time. The two men resembled lean bookends. Both of them wearing blue suits that looked entirely too heavy for this weather. White shirts. Dark ties. As somber a pair as he’d ever met. One of them introduced himself as Agent Dobbs, the other as Agent Dawson. The men shook hands all around, and then Carruthers asked how he could help them. He could not resist looking up at the wall clock, a covert glance that was not wasted on Dobbs, who had been trained to detect the slightest suspicious movement in a crowd.

“Miss Lubenthal in the Catering Department told us you’d be in charge of hotel security on the night of the party,” Dobbs said.

“The Canada Day affair,” Dawson said.

“That’s right,” Carruthers said.

He was a former Marine who kept himself in shape with thrice-weekly visits to Nautilus, where he worked out on the machines and with free weights as well. Carruthers gauged a man’s worth by his muscles, and these guys looked entirely too flimsy for the job; these guys could press twenty pounds between them, he’d be surprised.

“The Canadian Consulate has provided us with a seating arrangement,” Dobbs said, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. “What we’d like to...”

“They sent me one, too,” Carruthers said, and unrolled a larger plan than the reduced Xerox copy Dobbs took from his pocket.

“What we’d like to do,” Dobbs said, unintimidated, “is check the room the function’ll be in, see where we can put our people for the best possible security.”

“Happy to show it to you,” Carruthers said.

He was thinking this was a case of overload, pure and simple. Security for the Canadian Prime Minister, security for the Mexican President and the former British P.M. and now Secret Service protection for...

“Our regular people here in New York’ll be carrying the brunt of it,” Dobbs said, as if reading his mind. “We’re just a team of six, lend them a hand.”

“Big affair like this one,” Dawson said, “lots of people, lots of opportunity for mischief.”

“Well, we don’t get too much mischief here at the Plaza,” Carruthers said, sounding miffed.

“’Specially when there’ll be such big guns here,” Dawson said, totally oblivious.

“Come on, I’ll show you the room,” Carruthers said.

She was writing him a long letter when the telephone rang. She was telling him that if he didn’t appreciate her as a person, if he thought all he could do was walk out whenever he felt like it, disappear into thin air like a ghost or something, then she wanted nothing further to do with him. Her concentration was intense; when the phone rang, she almost jumped out of her skin. She went from her desk to the bedside table, and picked up the receiver. On the wall alongside her desk, there was a poster of Boy George, a holdover from her teeny-bopper days. Sonny made her feel like a damn teeny-bopper all over again.

“Hello?” she said.

“I know it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other...”

Geoffrey Turner.

“... and I must apologize for not having called sooner...”

Little touch of humor there; she’d left him at the consulate not four hours ago.

“... but what are you doing tonight?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I’d like to see you,” he said.

“You just saw me,” she said.

“I know.”

A long silence.

“Elita...”

The first time he’d said her name.

It sounded very British on his tongue.

Elita.

“May I see you tonight?”

But suppose Sonny calls? she thought.

“Elita?”

“What time?” she asked.

The first thing Dobbs noticed were the steps in the alcove off the far corner of the room.

“Where do they go?” he asked.

“Upstairs,” Carruthers said.

“What’s up there?”

“Business offices.”

“Any access to other parts of the hotel?”

“Sure.”

“What kind?”

“An elevator. And fire stairs down the hall.”

“Let’s take a look,” Dobbs said.

Sonny had spread the various ID cards on the dining room table, where they could catch the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows. Live at Five had just come on. A black woman named Sue Simmons seemed to be running the show, never mind the blond guy with her. Telling all about the detective who’d been found in a laundry basket at the Hilton Hotel this afternoon. Sonny kept studying the fake ID cards.

The one for the Plaza was particularly good. So were the two Detective Division cards. He’d never seen an FBI card, but the seal looked legit and McDermott undoubtedly had copied it from a real one.

A young woman named Perri Peltz was now doing a remote outside the loading platform at the Hilton. She was here with Lieutenant Hogan, she was saying, of Homicide North. Hogan was a short man with a face reddened by the heat. His shirt collar looked too tight. He was wearing a hat, Sonny couldn’t believe it. He was telling Perri Peltz that Allan Santorini had been with Homicide North for twelve years. Good detective, good man.

“Any idea what he was doing here at the Hilton?” Perri Peltz asked.

“None at all.”

“Was he conducting an investigation that might have brought him here?”

“I have no idea. The manager tells me Santorini spoke to him earlier today, but...”

Uh-oh, Sonny thought.

“What about?”

“He wanted to know who was in room 2312.”

“Have you learned anything about that?”

“The room was registered to a man named Albert Gomez.”

Goodbye, Albert, Sonny thought.

“Hispanic?” Perri Peltz asked.

“Possibly. The bellhop who carried his bag up described a man some five feet ten inches tall...”

Eleven, Sonny thought.

“... weighing about a hundred and seventy pounds...”

Sixty-five.

“... with light eyes and dark hair.”

“Was Detective Santorini armed?” Perri Peltz asked.

“He was.”

“But as I understand it, when his body was found, the gun was still holstered, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, it was,” Hogan said, and shook his head. “Santorini was an experienced detective. How anyone could have taken him so completely by surprise...” He shook his head again.

Sonny grinned.

He had stabbed him in the eye the moment he’d entered the room.

“Is it your opinion that the murder took place where the body was found?” Perri Peltz asked.

“I would rather not comment on that,” Hogan said.

“Thank you, sir,” Perri Peltz said, and turned away from him to look directly into the camera. “This is Perri Peltz, News Four, New York,” she said, “reporting from outside the Hilton Hotel on Fifty-third Street and Sixth Avenue. Back to you, Chuck.”

Chuck was the blond guy — Chuck Scarborough, a good code name for a Scimitar agent. He began talking about New York City’s deficit. Sonny watched Sue Simmons trying to look solemn about it all, but managing only to look cute as hell. He reached over to snap off the set, gathered up the cards, and returned them to the leather Mark Cross portfolio. He was carrying it toward the steps leading upstairs to the bedroom when a knock sounded at the front door.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Carolyn,” a woman answered.

“Just a moment, please,” Sonny said. He dropped the portfolio on the lowermost step, where he’d remember it later, went to the door, unlocked it, and opened it wide.

The woman he’d seen naked on the deck earlier today was standing there.

Wearing a white dress.

High-heeled, ankle-strapped white sandals.

Blond and tanned and blue-eyed.

“Hi,” she said, sounding surprised. “Is Martin home?”

“I’m sorry, no, he isn’t,” Sonny said.

She was trying to peer into the house, past his shoulder. Blue eyes looking faintly suspicious. Was it possible she didn’t recognize him as the same man who’d...?

“I’m Scott Hamilton,” he said. “Martin’s house guest.”

“Carolyn Fremont,” she said.

“How do you do?” he said, and extended his hand. She took it. Their eyes met. Locked.

“I live right next door,” she said. “I was on my way to a party...”

He was still holding her hand. Eyes sweeping her body. Lingering on the swell of her breasts in the low-cut white dress.

“... at the Cabots, and I thought Martin might have been invited, too. He knows them...”

Still holding her hand.

“I thought we could walk over...”

His hand warm around hers.

“... together.”

Her sentence trailed.

She shrugged like a little girl.

Retrieved her hand.

Shrugged again.

“Well,” she said.

“Won’t I do?” he said.

They had come back down to the Baroque Room again.

“We’ll want to put one of our men at the bottom of those steps and another one at the top,” Dobbs told Carruthers.

“Block access in and out of the room that way,” Dawson said.

Carruthers was thinking they’d only be doing what ten thousand security people had done before them.

“You might want to think about putting somebody at that door coming from the pantry, too,” he suggested.

This had also been done ten thousand times before.

“Good idea,” Dawson said.

“Way I’ve got it,” Carruthers said, “cocktails’ll be served at seven, dinner at eight, dancing afterwards. What time do you expect...?”

“Around six-thirty,” Dobbs said. “Check out the room and anything leading into it.”

“I was asking about him. What time do you think he’ll be getting here?”

“Our New York people’ll have that information. I’ll let you know sometime tomorrow.”

“I want to make sure he gets a nice welcome,” Carruthers said, and smiled. “Lots of people are mighty fond of that man.”

“I’ll bet,” Dobbs said.

Sunset was expected at seven thirty-three.

In the Hamptons, a cocktail party invitation for six P.M. was usually honored at seven. People drifted in and out in a variety of costumes. Those who planned to go home after the drinks and finger food generally arrived in casual beachwear ranging from jeans to shorts to — on one memorable occasion in Easthampton — a woman wearing only high heels, a bikini bottom, and a gold chainlink top she’d purchased in the city of Rome. Those who planned to go on to dinner at one of the local eateries came dressed in what some of the hostesses called Casual Elegant. For the men, this usually meant blue blazer, pale slacks, and white shirt open at the throat, with or without a colorful ascot. Some women actually managed to look both casual and elegant. Others, loaded for bear the way Carolyn was tonight, arrived in more blatantly seductive outfits; the white dress was recklessly low-cut, tight across the behind, and high on the leg. Sonny was wearing white slacks and a purple, crew-necked Ralph Lauren shirt.

On the deck of the Cabot house tonight — while the assembled guests, some fifty in all, waited to “ooh” and “ahh” yet another magnificent sunset, ho-hum — the talk was mostly about the murder that had taken place at the Hilton Hotel.

A woman who introduced herself as Dr. Sylvia Hirsch — who Sonny later learned from Carolyn was a noted psychiatrist — was holding forth on the theory that the murder had been homosexually motivated, an icepick being the weapon of choice in such murders, although she was surprised the victim’s hands hadn’t been tied behind his back with a wire hanger.

“Mr. Gomez?” he’d said.

“Yes, come in, won’t you, please?” Sonny said.

The icepick behind his back. From the refrigerator bar. The door to the room closing. The detective turning toward him.

“It’s very nice of you to...”

The icepick thrusting.

“Because an icepick is a phallic weapon,” Dr. Hirsch said.

“I thought a knife was supposed to be phallic,” someone said.

“Also,” Dr. Hirsch said, with a curt nod. She had a faint German accent. The word came out “Ahlzo.”

A man whom Carolyn introduced as Buddy Johnson of CBS News told Dr. Hirsch — and the several other people who were now gathered to hear the inside story — that his people had come up with some particularly grisly footage that the police wouldn’t allow them to show because...

There had been a lot of blood, Sonny recalled.

... only the killer would know all the details of the crime.

Wrapping him in the quilted bedspread, checking the hallway to make sure it was empty, hearing the chambermaids chattering in Spanish down at the far end. Dragging the body down the hall and dumping it into a wheeled laundry cart standing alongside a service elevator. Scooping up a handful of dirty towels and sheets lying on the service alcove floor, tossing them in over the body. Making sure the body would not be linked to room 2312. And buying time as well. The longer it took them to discover the corpse, the further away he’d be.

“How about those other two?” a woman said. She was wearing purple slacks and a white silk blouse unbuttoned very low on her tanned chest.

“Got to be some kind of satanic cult,” the man with her said. He was wearing a boldly striped Tommy Hilfiger sports shirt.

“The newspapers didn’t say what kind of tattoos, though, did you notice?” someone else said.

Sonny was instantly alert.

“Or where on the body they were located.”

“Probably you-know-where,” a woman said, and giggled.

“Tell us where, Sally,” a man suggested.

“Two women with tattoos, I think that’s odd,” another woman said. “You don’t find too many women with tattoos these days.”

“Oh, there must be thousands of them, Jean.”

“Two women with tattoos? Both of them shot with the same gun?”

“Very odd.”

“Very very odd.”

“I think this new one is even odder. A man in a laundry bin? Jesus!”

“Wasn’t a musician killed on the roof of the Hilton a little while back?” a woman asked.

“That was Carnegie Hall,” the man with her said. “The roof of Carnegie Hall. She was some kind of musician.”

“Lincoln Center,” someone said.

“A cellist,” someone said.

“I thought a flautist,” someone said.

“Watch your language,” someone said, and everyone laughed.

“Will you be covering the President’s speech on the Fourth?” Sonny asked the man from CBS.

Geoffrey was telling her that once, when he was thirteen years old, he pretended he’d had a fist fight — and faked a resultant black eye — just to impress a girl with hair as blond as Elita’s.

They were sipping their cocktails and munching on the complimentary bruschetta their waiter had brought to the table. The place was an Italian restaurant on Fifty-third and Third. Geoffrey had earlier told her that he often came here for lunch, but that it sometimes got hectic at dinnertime.

“Unless you enjoy looking at Woody Allen,” he’d said.

Woody Allen wasn’t here tonight. Nor was the place particularly crowded at a little past seven o’clock.

“Although hers was curly,” he said.

“Mine used to be curly,” Elita said. “It got absolutely straight when I turned twelve.”

“A miracle,” he said.

“No, I think it had something to do with... well, never mind. But how can anyone fake a black eye?”

“With water-soluble pencils,” he said.

“With what?”

“They’re these colored pencils you can draw with dry, or else dip them in water and use them like water colors.”

“I still don’t...”

“I used them wet. Under my left eye. To draw a bruise. I must tell you it was an absolutely perfect shiner, all blues and greens and yellows, magnificent, a bruise of monstrous proportions. Judith never once doubted its authenticity. That was her name. Judith. I was madly in love with her. Well, with her hair, actually.”

“But why’d you pretend you’d had a fist fight?”

“To show her how much I adored her. I told her a great bully of a boy had said something derogatory about her honor, and I’d punched him halfway round the crescent before he landed a solid blow to my eye. I allowed the bruise to fade a bit each day, using the wet pencils, changing the color. It was quite the most brilliant bit of art I’d ever done.”

“Do you still draw?”

“Not under my eye anymore. And only every now and again.”

“Are you good at it?”

“Not very.”

“I can’t draw a straight line.”

“I do it because I find it relaxing.”

“No one’s ever faked a black eye for me,” she said.

“I’ll paint one on the next time I see you,” he said. “I still have the pencils.”

She imagined him at thirteen, probably long and lanky, with the same eyelashes he had now, lashes a girl would kill for, standing before a mirror and decorating his eye with blues, yellows and greens...

The scimitar.

Under Sonny’s left pectoral.

The brightest green imaginable.

The green of a lizard’s eye.

She visualized him standing before her naked...

“Something?” Geoffrey said.

She blinked at him as though coming out of a trance.

“You seemed very far away for a moment,” he said.

“Sorry, I was... just thinking how hungry I am.”

“Shall we get some menus then?” he asked.

“Do you live in New York?” a woman was asking Sonny. Except for Carolyn, she was quite the most attractive woman here. Sonny expected she was somewhere in her fifties, with a face-lift engineered by an expert. She was standing very close to him. Dark hair cut close to her face. Brown eyes looking up at him.

“No, I’m from San Diego,” he said.

“Where in San Diego?” Carolyn asked. She had not moved an inch from his side the moment the brunette appeared.

“Well, El Cajon, actually,” he said. “Are you familiar with it?”

“No,” Carolyn said, “not really.”

“I live on Garwood Avenue,” he said, making up a name on the spot.

“I love San Diego,” the brunette interrupted.

Careful, he thought.

“But I haven’t been there in years,” she said.

“It’s changed a lot,” he said.

“I’m sure. What do you do out there?”

“I run a small cable company,” he said.

“You do? How exciting!”

Careful, he thought again.

“We do informational programs,” he said. “Mostly medical.”

Back to safer ground.

“Like what?” Carolyn asked.

“Oh, a wide variety of topics intended to keep the layman informed. As for example, how to detect the early signs of various diseases. Or when to consider surgery. Or how to...”

“Are you married, Mr. Hamilton?” the brunette asked.

“No, I’m not. And call me Scott,” he said. “Please.”

“Then it’s Sally,” she said, and smiled.

“Sally,” he repeated, and returned the smile.

“Sally,” Carolyn asked sweetly, “when does your husband get back from Boston?”

“The food’s really quite good, don’t you think?” Geoffrey said.

“It’s delicious.”

“But do you see what I mean about it getting sort of crowded and noisy?”

“That’s okay, I like noisy places,” she said.

“You do?”

“Yes. This pasta is fabulous.”

She was eating penne with broccoli. He was eating the red snapper.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “Shall I order another bottle of wine?”

“No, no. Whoo, no,” she said, covering her glass with the palm of her hand. “So is New York the first assignment you’ve ever had?” she said.

“No, my first one was in Dublin.”

“Is Ireland nice?”

“Oh, terrific. Well, not where they’re shooting and killing people. But, yes, Dublin is...”

“How about that murder right here at the Hilton?” she said, and rolled her eyes.

“The city’s getting absolutely frightening, isn’t it?”

“Getting?”

“Well, it is already, isn’t it? You’re quite right.”

“I didn’t catch all of it, I turned it on when I came out of the shower. Was he a guest there, or what?”

“No, a detective. The victim, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“A detective. Actually, it’s the oddest thing. I know him.”

“You do?” she said, and opened her blue eyes wide, causing him to want nothing more in that instant than to lean over the table and kiss her.

“Well, he’s not a personal friend or anything near,” he said, “but we did have some business of a sort, Do you remember the two women I told you about? With the tattoos and the false passports?”

“Yes?”

“He was the detective who... you don’t suppose they’re related, do you?”

“The women?”

“No, the murders. His murder and theirs. He was investigating them, you see. The other murders. Do you think they know that?”

“Who?”

“The police. His superiors.”

“I would guess so.”

“Perhaps I should give them a call. Mention the possibility.”

“Might not be a bad idea. But I’m sure they know what he was working on. That’s something they’d check immediately.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Do you really enjoy noisy places?”

“Yes. Truly.”

“Do you like to dance?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to meet Margaret Thatcher?”

“Sure,” she said breezily. “Frank Sinatra, too.”

“You’re really quite lovely, do you know?” he said.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Would you like to walk up to Fifth?” he asked. “When we’re finished here? I love Fifth Avenue in the summertime, don’t you?”

“I love it all the time,” she said.

“Well, shall we then?” he asked. “We can walk up to Fifth and then up Central Park South to Rumpelmayer’s. Do you like ice cream sundaes?”

“I love them,” she said.

“In England, we’re sadly lacking places that specialize in them, more’s the pity. There’s one called Marine Ices, on the way to Hampstead, in Chalk Farm, but it’s not widely known and not very central. There’s always Fortnum’s, I suppose, but really there’s nothing in London quite like Rumpelmayer’s. Do you think you might care for some ice cream?”

“Yes, I think I would.”

“Well, splendid,” he said, beaming. “Super!”

“Sunsets out here always remind me of a Syd Solomon painting,” Carolyn said.

Sonny didn’t know who Syd Solomon was.

“A marvellous abstract expressionist,” she explained. “He lives out here part of the year. Sagaponock. I met him at a party once. He’s a delightful man, and a wonderful artist.”

The crowd was beginning to thin, one or two guests disappearing each time the sun dropped a bit lower on the horizon, the brilliant colors of the sunset dissipating, the sky becoming streaky and blurred.

“Looks like we should be leaving,” she said. “Before they put the chairs up on the tables. Let’s say good night to our hosts, shall we?”

She took his arm, and led him off the deck, back into the house. Out on the ocean, the sun was all but gone, the sky stained a violent purple immediately above the water, the color graduating to a deep blue, and then the blackest black high above, where only a single star shone.

“Good night, Phil,” Carolyn said to their host, and offered her cheek to him. “Marge,” she said, and kissed her hostess as well.

“Thank you for including me,” Sonny said.

“It was a pleasure having you,” Marge said by rote, and turned to another departing guest.

“Want to walk back on the beach?” Carolyn asked.

“Sure,” he said.

They climbed the wooden steps over the dune. The night was still except for the sound of the waves rushing the shore. She took off her sandals, holding his hand for support. Still holding his hand, the sandals dangling by their straps in her other hand, she began walking with him up the beach.

“If we’re going into town,” she said, “we’ll need a car. That is... well... would you like to have dinner together?” she asked;

“Sure,” he said.

“I should have asked first,” she said. “I just thought...”

“I’d really like to,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Though to tell the truth, I’m not all that hungry.”

“Neither am I,” he said.

They walked in silence for several moments. He could hear the murmur of the ocean against the shore. He could hear her breathing beside him in the darkness.

“Why don’t I take some hamburgers out of the freezer?” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

They walked a bit farther in silence.

“Start a little fire on the grill,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

She stopped suddenly. Turned to him. She was still holding his hand. Standing quite close to him now. Sandals hanging from the other hand. She looked up into his face. Raised the hand holding the sandals, and draped it over his shoulder, the sandals dangling. Moved in closer to him, released his hand, and brought her liberated hand up behind his neck, the fingers widespread. He heard her catch her breath.

“Start a little fire,” she whispered, and kissed him.