She was gone when I woke up.
For one groggy moment, I wondered where she’d gone, then remembered I’d heard her leaving, last night, around midnight. She’d got up, got her clothes on, got her things together, stopping momentarily to brush my face with her lips before she left. She was barely out of there when I was sitting up in bed, in the dark, pointing the nine-millimeter at the door. But the door didn’t do anything, so after a few minutes I got out of bed, fastened the night latch, laid the gun on the nightstand, and slept through till nine the next morning.
This morning.
On the bureau I found a note she’d left, saying, “Think I’ll pass on the morning swim. Call me this afternoon, if you want another evening one.” Knowing her, that ambiguous use of the word “one” was on purpose. The note was signed, “Carrie,” with phone number beneath.
I decided to pass on the morning swim, myself, and not just because she wasn’t going to be there. Until now, I’d been reasonably convinced no one knew I was in town; but I couldn’t be so sure, now that my easy poolside pickup of the evening before had turned out to be Broker’s widow. I mean, I could hardly afford to just shrug and say, “Oh, so that’s who she is. Isn’t that an interesting coincidence.” Not that coincidences don’t happen, but in my position, chalking things up casually to coincidence could coincidentally lead to things going suddenly black… perhaps at the same time water in a swimming pool was taking on a reddish tone.
Cold needles of water struck my face, and I let them, wanted the water cold, showering and waking up at the same time, still thinking about Carrie and who she was. And the more I did, the less this seemed like a coincidence, or, anyway, the less it seemed a wildly, suspiciously improbable one. After all, I used to meet the Broker at the Concort, and knew that he had money in the place; well, now his wife had inherited his interest, and was it so unusual for her to come around and make occasional use of the pool?
This was, keep in mind, a young woman who evidently had been a showpiece-you should excuse the expression-for a husband twice her age, a bright, probably well-educated girl from a wealthy, sheltered background, no doubt, who would likely know little or nothing about her late husband’s illicit business activities. The fact that Broker died a violent death, which had led to a partial public surfacing of the dark side of his business life, could explain her extended period of mourning, which had apparently ended last night, in the pool, in bed.
I thought about all that, going down in the elevator, and by the time I’d had breakfast, had made my mind up about something.
So far, these several days I’d been in town, I’d kept a low profile, and that had its advantages; but it gets boring in the shadows, after a while, and I never did enjoy doing stakeout work. Besides, after my run-in with Broker’s wife, I was feeling confused, even paranoid, and enough of that. Time to come out.
Time to go see an old friend and say hello.
Time to see Ash.