I arrived at TORT the next morning before 9.00 a.m. My IN basket was piled high with requests for investigations and research, but after shuffling through them, I decided that most could be handled by Mrs Kletz and the rest could wait.
Shortly before ten, I phoned Gardner amp; Weiss, who did all the job printing for Tabatchnick, Orsini, Reilly, and Teitelbaum. I spoke directly to Mr Weiss and explained what I wanted on the Stonehouse reward posters.
'No problem,' he said. 'I'll send a messenger for the photograph and copy. How many do you want?'
I had no idea. 'A hundred,' I said.
'Wednesday,' he said.
'This afternoon,' I said.
'Oh,' he said sadly. 'Oh, oh, oh.'
'It's a rush job. We'll pay.'
'Without saying,' he told me. 'You want to see a proof first?'
'No. I trust you.'
'You do?' he said.
'By one o'clock this afternoon?'
'I'll try. Only because you said you trust me. The messenger's on his way.'
I dug out the photograph of Professor Stonehouse and typed the copy for the poster: REWARD! A generous cash award will be paid to any cabdriver who can prove he picked up this man in the vicinity of Central Park West and 70th Street on the night of January 10th, this year. Then I added the TORT telephone number and my extension.
As usual, Thelma Potts was seated primly outside the 287
office of Mr Leopold Tabatchnick.
'Miss Potts!' I cried. 'You're looking uncommonly lovely this morning.'
'Oh-oh,' she said. 'You want something.'
'Well, yes. I have a friend who needs legal advice. I wondered if I could have one of Mr Tabatchnick's cards to give him.'
'Liar,' she said. 'You want to pretend you're Mr Tabatchnick.'
I was astonished. 'How did you know?' I asked her.
'How many do you need?' she asked, ignoring my question.
As I was leaving she dunned me for a dollar for the sick kit. I handed it over.
'Still betting on Hamish Hooter?' I asked her.
'I only bet on sure things,' she said loftily.
When Gertrude Kletz came in I called her into my office and showed her the photograph of Professor Stonehouse and the reward copy. I explained that she should expect the posters to be delivered by Gardner amp; Weiss in the early afternoon. Meanwhile, she could begin compiling a list of taxi garages, which she could get from the Yellow Pages.
'Or from the Hack Bureau,' she said.
I looked at her with admiration.
'Right,' I said. I told her the posters would have to be hand-carried to the garages and, with the permission of the manager, displayed on walls or bulletin boards.
'I'll need sticky tape and thumbtacks,' she said cheerfully. The Kipper file had hooked her; now the Stonehouse case had done the same. I could see it in her bright eyes. Her face was burning with eagerness.
I told her I was off to the lab to check into Stonehouse's tests, and that by the time I got back, she'd probably be out distributing the posters. I put on hat and coat, grabbed up my briefcase, and rushed out, waving at Yetta as I sailed past.
She was wearing the green sweater I had given her, but curiously this failed to stir me.
The chemical laboratory was on Eleventh Avenue near 55th Street. I took a cab over. Bommer amp; Son, Inc., was on the fourth floor of an unpretentious building set between a sailors' bar (BIG BOY DRINKS 75 CENTS DURING HAPPY HOUR, 9 TO 2 A.M.) and a gypsy fortune teller (READINGS. PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE. SICKNESS). The elevator was labelled FREIGHT ONLY, so I climbed worn stairs to the fourth floor, the nose-crimping smell of chemicals becoming more intense as I ascended.
The receptionist in the outer office was typing away at Underwood's first model. She stopped.
'I'd like to speak to Mr Bommer, please.'
In a few moments a stoutish man wearing a stained white laboratory coat flung himself into the office.
'Yes?' he demanded in a reedy voice.
The receptionist pointed me out. He came close to me, peering suspiciously at my face. I thought him to be in the sixties — possibly the 1860s.
'Yes?'
'Mr Waldo Bommer?'
'Yes.'
I proffered Mr Tabatchnick's card. He held it a few inches from his eyes and read it aloud: 'Leopold H.
Tabatchnick. Attorney-at-Law.' He lowered the card.
'Who's suing?' he asked me.
'No one,' I said. 'I just want a moment of your time. I represent the estate of Professor Yale Stonehouse. Among his papers is a cancelled cheque made out to Bommer amp; Son, with no accompanying voucher. The government is running a tax audit on the estate, and it would help if you could provide copies of the bill.'
'Come with me,' he said abruptly.
I followed him through a rear door into an enormous loft laboratory where five people, three men, two women, all elderly and all wearing stained laboratory coats, were seated on high stools before stone-topped workbenches.
They seemed intent on what they were doing; none looked up as we passed through.
Mr Waldo Bommer led the way to a private office tucked into one corner. He closed the door behind us.
'How do you stand it?' I asked him.
'Stand what?'
'The smell.'
'What smell?' he said. He took a deep breath through his nostrils. 'Hydrogen sulphide, hypochlorous acid, sulphur dioxide, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. A smell? I love it. Smells are my bread and butter, mister.
How do you think I do a chemical analysis? First, I smell.
You see before you an educated nose.'
He tapped the bridge of his nose. A small pug nose with trumpeting nostrils.
'An educated nose,' he repeated proudly. 'First, I smell.
Sometimes that tells me all I have to know.'
Suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close. I thought he meant to kiss me. But he merely sniffed at my mouth and cheeks.
'You don't smoke,' he said. 'Right?'
'Right,' I said, pulling back from his grasp.
'And this morning, for breakfast, you had coffee and a pastry. Something with fruit in it. Figs maybe.'
'Prune Danish,' I said.
'You see!' he said. 'An educated nose. My father had the best nose in the business. He could tell you when you had changed your socks. Sit down.'
Waldo Bommer shuffled through a drawer in a battered oak file.
'Stacy, Stone, Stonehouse,' he intoned. 'Here it is.
Professor Yale Stonehouse. Two chemical analyses of unknown liquids. 14 December of last year.'
'May I take a look?' I asked.
'Why not?'
I scanned the two carbon-copy reports. There were a lot of chemical terms; one of them included arsenic trioxide.
'Could you tell me what these liquids were, please?'
He snatched the papers from my hands and scanned them. 'Simple. This one, plain cocoa. This one was brandy.'
'The brandy has the arsenic trioxide in it?'
'Yes.'
'Didn't you think that unusual?'
He shrugged.
'Mister, I just do the analysis. What's in it is none of my business. A week ago a woman brought in a tube of toothpaste loaded with strychnine.'
'Toothpaste?' I cried. 'How did they get it in?'
Again he shrugged. 'Who knows? A hypo through the opening maybe. I couldn't care less. I just do the analysis.'
'Could I get copies of these reports, Mr Bommer? For the government. The tax thing. . '
He thought a moment.
'I don't see why not,' he said finally. 'You say this Professor Stonehouse is dead?'
'Yes, sir. Deceased early this year.'
'Then he can't sue me for giving out copies of his property.'
Ten minutes later I was bouncing down the splintering stairs with photocopies in my briefcase. I had offered to pay for the copies, and Bommer had taken me up on it. I inhaled several deep breaths of fresh air, then went flying up Eleventh Avenue. There is no feeling on earth to match a hunch proved correct. I decided to press my luck. I stopped at the first unvandalized phone booth I came to.
'Yah?' Olga Eklund answered.
'Olga, this is Joshua Bigg.'
'Yah?'
'Is Miss Glynis in?'
'No. She's at her clinic.'
That was what I hoped to hear.
'But Mrs Stonehouse is at home?'
'Yah.'
'Well, maybe I'll drop by for a few moments. She's recovered from her, uh, indisposition?'
'Yah.'
'Able to receive visitors?'
'Yah.'
'I'll come right over. You might mention to her that I'll be stopping by for a minute or two.'
I waited for her 'Yah,' but there was no answer; she had hung up. Shortly afterwards Olga in the flesh was taking my coat in the Stonehouse hallway.
'I'm sorry Miss Glynis isn't at home,' I said to Olga.
'You think I might be able to call her at the clinic?'
'Oh yah,' she said. 'It's the Children's Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic. It's downtown, on the East Side.'
'Thank you,' I said gratefully. 'I'll call her there.'
Ula Stonehouse was half-reclining on the crushed velvet
couch. She was beaming, holding a hand out to me. As usual, there was a wineglass and a bottle of sherry on the glass-topped table.
'How nice!' she warbled. 'I was hoping for company and here you are!'
'Here I am, indeed, ma'am,' I said, taking her limp hand. 'I was sorry to hear you have been indisposed, but you look marvellously well now.'
'Oh, I feel so good,' she said, patting the couch next to her. I sat down obediently. 'My signs changed and now I feel like a new woman.'
'I'm delighted to hear it.'
I watched her reach forward to fill her glass with a tremulous hand. She straightened back slowly, took a sip, looking at me over the rim with those milk-glass eyes flickering. The mop of blonde curls seemed frizzier than ever. She touched the tip of her nose as one might gently explore a bruise.
'Would you care for anything, Mr Bigger?' she asked.
'A drink? Coffee? Whatever?'
'Bigg, ma'am,' I said. 'Joshua Bigg. No, thank you.
Nothing for me. Just a few minutes of your time if you're not busy.'
'All the time in the world,' she said, laughing gaily.
She was wearing a brightly printed shirtwaist dress with a wide, ribbon belt. The gown, the pumps, the makeup, the costume jewellery: all too young for her. And the flickering eyes, warbling voice, fluttery gestures gave a feverish impression: a woman under stress. I felt sure she was aware of what was going on.
'Mrs Stonehouse,' I said, 'I wish I had good news to report about your husband, but I'm afraid I do not.'
'Oh, let's not talk about that,' she said. 'What's done is done. Now tell me all about yourself.'
She looked at me brightly, eyes widened. If she wasn't going to talk about her vanished husband, I was stymied.
Still, for the moment, it seemed best to play along.
'What would you like to know about me, ma'am?'
'You're a Virgo, aren't you?'
'Pisces,' I told her.
'Of course,' she said, as if confirming her guess. 'Are you married?'
'No, Mrs Stonehouse, I am not.'
'Oh, you must be,' she said earnestly. 'You must listen to me. And you must because I have been so happy in my own marriage, you see. A family is a little world. I have my husband and my son and my daughter. We are a very close, loving family, as you know.'
I looked at her helplessly. She had deteriorated since I first met her; now she was almost totally out of it. I thought desperately how I might use her present mood to get what I wanted. 'I'm an orphan, Mrs Stonehouse,' I 293
said humbly. 'My parents were killed in an accident when I was an infant.'
Surprisingly, shockingly, tears welled up in those milky eyes. She stifled a sob, reached to grip my forearm. Her clutch was frantic.
'Poor tyke,' she groaned, then lunged for her glass of sherry.
'I was raised by relatives,' I went on. 'Good people, I wasn't mistreated. But still. . So when you speak of a close, loving family, a little world — I know nothing of all that. The memories.'
'The memories,' she said, nodding like a broken doll.
'Oh yes, the memories. . '
'Do you have a family album, Mrs Stonehouse?' I asked softly, and, to my surprise, she responded by producing the album with unexpected rapidity.
What followed was a truly awful hour. We pored over those old photographs one by one while Ula Stonehouse provided running commentary, rife with pointless anecdotes. I murmured constant appreciation and made frequent noises of wonder and enjoyment.
Wedding Pictures: the tail, gaunt groom towering over the frilly doll-bride. An old home in Boston. Glynis, just born, naked on a bearskin rug. Childhood snapshots.
Powell Stonehouse at ten, frowning seriously at the camera. Picnics. Outings. Friends. Then, gradually, the family groups, friends, picnics, outings — all disappearing.
Formal photographs. Single portraits, Yale, Ula, Glynis, Powell. Lifeless eyes. A family moving towards dissolution.
When Mrs Stonehouse leaned forward to refill her glass, I rapidly removed a recent snapshot of Glynis from the album and slipped it into my briefcase before she sat back again. 'Remarkable,' I said, as if I were riveted to the book. 'Really remarkable. Happy times.'
She looked at me, not seeing me.
'Oh yes,' she said. 'Happy times. Such good babies.
Glynis never cried. Never. Powell did, but not Glynis. It's over.'
I didn't dare ask what she meant by that.
'Emanations,' she went on. 'And visits beyond. I know it's over.'
'Mrs Stonehouse,' I asked anxiously, 'are you feeling well?'
'What? she said. 'Well,' she said, passing a faltering hand across her brow, 'perhaps I should lie down for a few moments. So many memories.'
'Of course,' I said, rising. 'I'll call Olga.'
I found her seated at the long dining room table, leafing through Popular Mechanics.
'Olga,' I said, 'I think Mrs Stonehouse needs you. I think she'd like to rest for a while.'
'Yah?' she said. She rose, yawned, and stretched. 'I go.'
In the kitchen Effie was at the enormous stove, stirring something with a long wooden spoon. Her porky face creased into a grin.
'Mr Bigg!' she said. 'How nice!'
She put the spoon aside, clapped a lid on the pot, and wiped her hands on her apron. She gestured towards the white enamelled table and we both drew up chairs.
'Effie,' I said, 'how are you? It's good to see you again.'
That was true, and it was a comfort to be honest again.
She was such a jolly tub of a woman.
'Getting along,' she said. 'You look a little puffy around the gills. Not sick, are you?'
'No,' I said, 'I'm okay. But I've been talking to Mrs Stonehouse. I'm a little shook.'
'Yes,' she said, wagging her head dolefully. 'I know what you mean. Worse every day.'
'Why?' I asked. 'What's happening to her?'
She frowned. 'I don't rightly know. Her husband disappearing, I guess. Powell moving out. And the way 295
Glynis has been acting. I suppose it's just too much for her.'
'How has Glynis been acting?'
'Strange,' Effie said. 'Snappish. Cold. Goes to her room and stays there. Never a smile.'
'Is this recent?' I asked.
'Oh yes. Just since your last visit.'
She looked at me shrewdly. I decided to plunge ahead. If she repeated what I was saying to Glynis, so much the better. So I told Effie what I knew about the arsenic. She listened closely, then nodded when I had finished.
'Are you a detective?' she asked.
'Sort of,' I said. 'Chief Investigator for the legal firm representing Professor Stonehouse.'
'You don't suspect me of poisoning him, do you?'
'Never,' I lied. 'Not for a minute.'
'Glynis?'
We stared at each other. I wondered if her silence was meant to imply consent, and decided to act as if it did.
'I must establish that Glynis had the means,' I said.
'You just can't go out and buy arsenic at Rexall's. And to do that, I need the name of the medical laboratory where she worked as a secretary.'
'I'd rather not,' she said quickly.
'I was going to ask Mrs Stonehouse, but she's in no condition to answer questions. Effie, I need the name.'
Once again we stared at each other.
'It's got to be done,' I said.
'Yes,' she agreed sadly.
After a while she got up and lumbered from the kitchen.
She came back in a few minutes with a slip of paper. I glanced at it briefly. Atlantic Medical Research, with the address and phone number.
'I had it in my book,' Effie explained, 'in case we had to reach her at work.'
'When did she stop working there?'
She thought a moment.
'Maybe June or July of last year.'
About the time Professor Stonehouse became ill.
'Did she just quit or was she fired?'
'She quit, she told us. Said it was very boring work.'
'Effie, did you ever hear her mention a man named Godfrey Knurr? He's a minister.'
'Godfrey Knurr? No.'
'Is Glynis a religious woman?'
'Not particularly. They're Episcopalian. But I never thought she was especially religious. But she's deep.'
'Oh yes,' I agreed, 'she's deep all right. Before her father's disappearance, was she in a good mood?'
Mrs Dark pondered that.
'I'd say so,' she said finally. 'She started changing after the Professor disappeared and in the last week she's gotten much worse.'
'Me,' I said. 'I'm troubling her. I told her I knew her father had been poisoned.'
'You didn't!'
'I did. Of course I didn't tell her I thought she had done it.'
'What are you going to do now?'
'Dig deeper. Try to find out what happened to the Professor. Effie, what kind of a car do the Stonehouses own?'
'A Mercedes.'
'Do they keep it in a garage over on 66th Street and West End?'
'Why, yes. The garage people bring it over when we need it. How did you know?'
'I've been looking around.'
'You surely have,' she said. 'Have you found the will yet?'
'Not yet. But I think I know where it is.'
'I don't see why it's so important,' she said. 'If he's dead 297
and didn't leave a will, the money goes to his wife and children anyway, doesn't it?'
'Yes,' I said, 'but if he left a will, he might have disinherited one of them.'
'Could he do that?'
'Probably. With good cause. Like attempted murder.'
'Oh,' she said softly, 'I hadn't thought of that.'
'Effie, can I count on your discretion about all this?'
She put a fat forefinger alongside a fatter nose.
'Mum's the word,' she said.
I rose, then bent swiftly to kiss her apple cheek.
'Thank you,' I said. 'I know it's not pleasant. But we agreed, it's got to be done. One last question: will Miss Glynis be in tonight? Did she say?'
'She said she's going to the theatre. She asked for an early dinner.'
'Uh-huh. So she'll be leaving about when?'
'Seven-thirty,' Mrs Dark said. 'At the latest.'
'Thank you very much,' I said. 'You've been very kind.'
I had a Big Mac and a Coke before I returned to the office. Yetta Apatoff was on the phone when I entered the TORT building. She blew me a kiss. I'm afraid I responded with a feeble gesture. Her scarf had come awry and the diving neckline of the green sweater now revealed a succulent cleavage. I wondered nervously when Mr Teitelbaum or Mr Tabatchnick would instruct their respective secretaries to order Yetta to cover up.
Mrs Kletz had left a note on my desk; she was indeed out distributing the reward posters to the taxi garages and had left me a copy of the poster. It looked perfect.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon typing out reports of my morning's activities and adding them to the Stonehouse file, along with the photocopies of the chemical analyses. Then I hacked away at routine inquiries until about 4.00 p.m., when I dialled the number of the Children's Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic in the Manhattan phone book and asked to speak to the director.
'Who is calling, please?' the receptionist asked.
'This is the Metropolitan Poison Control Board,' I said solemnly. 'It concerns your drug inventory.'
A hearty voice came on the line almost instantly.
'Yes sir!' he said. 'How may I be of service?'
'This is Inspector Waldo Bommer of the Metropolitan Poison Control Board, In view of the recent rash of burglaries of doctors' offices, clinics, hospitals, laboratories, and so forth, we are attempting to make an inventory of the establishments that keep poisonous substances in stock.'
'Narcotics?' he said. 'We have nothing like that. This is a clinic for underprivileged youngsters.'
'What we're interested in is poisons,' I said. 'Arsenic, strychnine, cyanide; things of that sort.'
'Oh, heavens no!' he said, enormously relieved. 'We have nothing like that in stock.'
'Sorry to bother you,' I said. 'Thank you for your time.'
My second call, to Atlantic Medical Research, was less successful. I went through my Poison Control Board routine, but the man said, 'Surely you don't expect me to reveal that information on the phone to a complete stranger? If you care to come around with your identification, we'll be happy to co-operate.'
He hung up.
It wasn't 5.00 p.m. yet, but I packed my briefcase with the Kipper and Stonehouse files, yanked on my hat and coat, and sallied forth. Yetta was not on the phone. She held out a hand to stop me.
'Josh,' she said, pouting, 'you didn't even notice.'
'I certainly did notice,' I said. 'The sweater looks lovely, Yetta.'
'You like?' she said, arching her chest.
'Fine,' I said, swallowing. 'And the scarf is just right.'
'Oh, this old thing,' she giggled, swinging it farther 299
aside. 'It just gets in my way when I type. I think I'll take it off.'
Which she did. I looked about furtively. There were people in the corridor. Was I a prude? I may very well have been.
'Josh,' she said eagerly, 'you said we might, you know, go out some night together.'
'Well, uh, we certainly shall,' I said with more confidence than I felt. 'Dinner, maybe the theatre or ballet.'
The image of Yetta Apatoff at a performance of Swan Lake shrivelled my soul. 'But I've been so busy, Yetta, Not only during the day, but working at home in the evening as well.'
'Uh-huh,' she said speculatively. She was silent a moment as I stood there awkwardly, not knowing how to break away. It was clear she was summing me up and coming to a decision.
'Lunch maybe?' she said.
'Oh absolutely,' I said. 'I can manage lunch.'
'Tomorrow,' she said firmly.
'Tomorrow?' I said, thinking desperately of how I might get out of it. 'Well, uh, yes. I'll have to check my schedule.
I mean, let's figure on lunch, and if I have to postpone you'll understand, right?'
'Oh sure,' she said.
Coolness there. Definite coolness.
I waved goodbye and stumbled out. I felt guilt. I had led her astray. And then I was angry at my own feeling of culpability. What, actually, had I done? Bought her a few lunches. Given her a birthday present. I assured myself that I had never given her any reason to believe I was. . It was true that I frequently stared at her intently, but with her physical attributes and habit of wearing knitted suits a size too small, that was understandable.
Such were my roiling thoughts as I departed the office that Monday evening, picking up a barbecued chicken, 300
potato salad, and a quart of Scotch on the way home. Back in Chelsea, I ate and drank with an eye on the clock. I had to be across the street from the Stonehouse apartment at 7.15 at the latest, and I intended to proceed to the Upper West Side at a less-frenzied pace than my recent forays.
Clad in my fleece-lined anorak, I made it there in plenty of time and assumed my station. It was a crisp night, crackling, the air filled with electricity. You get nights like that in New York, usually between winter and spring, or between summer and fall, when suddenly the city seems bursting with promise, the skyline a-sparkle with crystalline clarity.
As I walked up and down the block, always keeping the doorway of the Stonehouse apartment house in view, I could glimpse the twinkling towers of the East Side across the park, and the rosy glow of midtown. Rush of traffic, blare of horns, drone of airliners overhead. Everything seemed so alive. I kept reminding myself I was investigating what was fast emerging as a violent death, but it was difficult.
I had been waiting exactly twenty-three minutes when she came out, wearing the long, hooded mink coat I'd seen in the garage.
When she paused outside the lighted apartment lobby for a moment, I was able to see her clearly as she raised and adjusted her hood. Then she started off, walking briskly. I thought I knew where she was going; despite Mrs Dark's information, it was not the theatre. I went after her. Not too close, not too far. Just as Roscoe Dollworth had taught me, keeping to the other side of the street when possible, even moving ahead of her. It was an easy tail because as we walked west and south a few blocks, I became more and more certain that she was taking me back to that garage on West 66th Street.
Crossing Broadway, she went west on 69th Street, keeping to the shadowed paths of a housing development.
A man coming towards her paused and said something, but she didn't give him a glance, or slow down her pace.
When she crossed West End Avenue, heading towards the lighted garage, I hurried to catch up, staying on the other side of the street and moving about a half-block southward. I could see her waiting in the entrance of the garage.
I stopped the first empty cab that came along.
'Where to?' the driver asked, picking up his trip sheet clamped to a clipboard. He was a middle-aged black.
'Nowhere,' I said. 'Please start your clock and we'll just wait.'
He put the clipboard aside and turned to stare at me through the metal grille.
'What is this?' he said.
'See that woman over there? Across the street, ahead of us? In the fur coat?'
He peered.
'I see her,' he said.
I had learned from my previous experience.
'My wife,' I said. 'I want to see where she's going. I think someone's going to pick her up.'
'Uh-huh,' he said. 'There's not going to be any trouble, is there?'
'No,' I said, 'no trouble.'
'Good,' he said. 'I got all I can handle right now.'
We sat there, both of us staring at the figure of Glynis Stonehouse across the street. The meter ticked away.
Within three or four minutes Knurr arrived. I had expected him to pull up in a cab, then switch to the Mercedes, but instead he raced into the garage entrance, near where Glynis waited, and opened the passenger door of his old VW. As soon as she got in, he backed out fast, swung around, and headed northward again, shoving his way into traffic.
'Follow?' my driver said.
'Please,' I said.
'That guy is some cowboy. He drives like he don't give a damn.'
'I don't think he does,' I said.
We tailed them north. Knurr made a left on to 79th Street, then began to circle the block.
'Looking for a place to park,' the cabdriver commented knowledgeably. 'If he pulls in, what do you want me to do?'
'Go down to the next corner and wait.'
That's what happened. Knurr found a place to park on West 77th Street near Riverside Drive. We went past and pulled in close to the corner. Through the rear window, I watched them both get out and walk past. They passed by my parked cab, talking much too intently to notice me.
I let them turn north on the Drive before I paid and got out of the taxi.
'Thank you,' I said to the driver.
'Don't do anything foolish,' he said.
As I followed Glynis Stonehouse and Godfrey Knurr into Riverside Park. I noted with relief that a few joggers and groups of raucous teenagers still braved the darkened expanse. And yet my nervousness increased as we penetrated deeper along lonely, descending paths, heading westward. I lurked as best I could in the shadows of leafless trees, trying to tread lightly. But I was being overcautious, for the couple ahead of me walking arm-in-arm were so intent on their talk that they seemed innocent of the secret sharer padding along behind them.
They walked around the rotunda, a large circular fountain girdled by a walk that was in turn enclosed by a ring of archways vaguely Roman in feeling. The fountain had long since ceased to operate; the basin was dried and cracked.
All the white light globes were now shattered and dark.
The archways were sprayed with graffiti. Splintered glass and broken bits of masonry grated underfoot. The ground was crumbling.
I paused briefly, not wanting to follow Glynis and Godfrey into one of those echoing passages lest they hear my footfall. I waited until they were clear on the other side of the fountain before hurrying through.
Ahead was the molten river, a band of gently heaving mercury in the nightlight. Across were the flickering lights of the Jersey shore. Closer, the swell of black water. I searched frantically about until I spotted them again, approaching the boat basin at 79th Street. I kept well back in the shadows as Glynis and Knurr walked on to the planked pier. They stopped briefly to speak to someone who appeared to be a watchman. Then they continued along one of the slips until they stepped down carefully onto the foredeck of what looked like a houseboat.
Lights came on inside the craft. When I saw curtains drawn across the wide windows, I turned and hurried back the way I had come.