He stopped again, stared into the shadows at the bottom of another footbridge across the FDR, where the stairway curled down from above.
His leash lay on the walk behind him, like a fuse.
She looked back. The man in the coat, hands still in his pockets, was walking along the fence, a bit closer to her than before. There was something about him that seemed familiar. She shook her head: imagination out of control. Don’t be a jerk, Nat.
She turned back, only twenty feet from Sir. Don’t run now, you little bastard. It’s been a long day. Just wait for me.
Sir was standing staring into the shadows. She recognized the pose. Sir, asking himself if he could just possibly pee one more time.
Somehow the leash had gotten on the far side of him.
She had to go all the way to him. She knelt beside him, where he stood rooted to the spot.
“What are you doing, you silly fellow?” she murmured, hugging his head.
She blinked.
Directly in front of her, perhaps two feet from her face, were two shoes.
She looked up.
A man stood in the shadows, grinning down at her.
Chapter Eight
SHE KNEW SHE WAS stretched out on her back. She felt something wet on her face, then her memory began to function again. Sir was sniffing her face, licking her cheek and nose, whining with impatience. His tongue was slippery and she got a whiff of his breath and pushed his head away with a gloved hand, forced herself to open her eyes.
The man in the trench coat was leaning over her.
“Lew …”
She closed her eyes again, then opened one hesitantly, thinking maybe she was hallucinating.
“Natalie, for God’s sake, are you all right?” His heavy glasses were sliding down his nose and he jammed them back up. She nodded, tried to say something but her mouth was stuck dry.
“Natalie,” he said, as if he enjoyed repeating her name. She heard a blast on a boat’s airhorn. The low roar of traffic on the FDR was dragging her back to wakefulness. “You fainted.” He looked very worried. “Your pulse is okay. But doctors hate it when people faint. … Do you have any nausea? Try to talk to me. Please, Natalie. And get that silly grin off your face.”
She wet her lips. “I’m all right. … There was a man in the shadows.” She blinked and saw him in her mind: the grin, the eyeballs like pinpoints of light in the blackness. An impression of rags, a vile smell, stringy hair … Quickly she forced her eyes open, hating the images playing in her mind.
“Yes, there was a man, a bum, I guess.” He put his arm around her, helped her into a sitting position. He watched her closely as she took a deep breath. Her face was damp and he patted her forehead with his handkerchief. “Tell me if you feel any nausea—”
“I’m okay,” she said. The cold air off the river felt good. “I think I cracked my head—no, really, I’m all right. Just had the pants scared off me.”
“The guy took off. All raggedy and with a stiff leg. You gave him a helluva scare, too. Just a crazy. Do you feel like standing up? Here, take my arm. …”
She leaned heavily on him, felt a moments dizziness once she was on her feet, sagged back against him. He held her. There was something wrong, something at the back of her mind—Yes, of course, she had just tried to call him. Now here he was. She was starting to hate coincidence.
“What were you doing out here anyway?” It was a sharp-edged question; not very grateful, but she wanted to know: she was sure he was the man she’d seen behind her, whistling. Lew …
“Well … I was following you.”
“Why? I don’t understand.” She felt the involuntary shudder of fear running along her spine. Why? Why was he following her? And why should she fear Lew of all people? Or was fear becoming a constant in her life?
“I saw the piece in the Post, called you at the office, missed you, called you tonight, ditto, and thought I’d drop by your place. You were gone, so I remembered Sir’s favorite course. Simple.” He had Sir’s leash and they were walking back along the river, back the way she’d come. She felt normal strength returning to her legs but she clung to his arm. “And there you were, out cold.” He shrugged. “Hell, we haven’t gotten together since when, Labor Day weekend? It’s about time. And to tell you the truth I didn’t like that little tidbit in Garfein’s column—I mean, it looks to me like your privacy’s being invaded. Who told him the story, anyway? Is it true?”
“Tony.” She sighed. “They’re pals and I don’t suppose he thought it would wind up in the column. Yes, it’s true, it happened.” They had reached the footbridge she’d crossed earlier and she realized she was a little slow going up the stairway. At the top, on the bridge, he said he thought they ought to stop for a few minutes.
Leaning on the railing, watching the traffic, he scrutinized her clinically. “Feeling bushed? Lightheaded?” She nodded. “You really shouldn’t be out down here this late … certainly not now when there’s a guy who might be looking for you. Did you see his face?”
“God, don’t you start too. Everyone acts like I’m the only living witness to an ax murder. No, I didn’t see his face. And I certainly cannot spend the rest of my life hiding from this guy. Who is probably long gone by now.” She watched his breath making little balloons of steam before him. He smiled grudgingly, sighed and pulled her away from the rail, set off walking again.
“Oh, Lew—I don’t mean to bite your head off. It’s only because I know you’re right, I should be more careful. Stupid bravado. I hate admitting I’m scared; it makes it worse. Whistling past the graveyard. I’m very lucky you were there. Who knows what that guy would have done if you hadn’t come running—”
“Oh, I think he was mainly interested in getting away. Really.” But he squeezed her arm through his, as if he really was her hero.
She asked him what he’d been up to and he said he was still doing his act with the couch and the photograph of Freud. At her house he stopped and gave her the leash.
“Listen, you’d better go right to bed. Fainting really does take a lot out of you. It’s surprising. Are you sure you feel okay? Well, I guess I’ll head for home, Nat—”
She laughed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lewis, we’re not a couple of strangers. Come on in and have a coffee or a Scotch. Let me tell you the kind of night I’ve had—before I went out for Sir’s walk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, I’m not going to beg.” She opened the door and Dr. Goldstein followed her inside.
An hour later she’d told him about the burglary and the discovery of the gun on the construction site. She rattled on and he listened, nodding, seldom taking his eyes from her face. Finally she said, “You poor guy, you may not be my analyst, but you still seem to have to do all the listening.” She bit her lip and frowned. “I seem to be on some kind of ghastly roll. … Oh, and Julie—I didn’t tell you what happened to Julie at Scandals. …”
That story left him shaking his head. “It’s sort of strange,” he said, pouring himself another cup of coffee, “but I don’t think men generally have any idea of the weird experiences women—particularly working women in these big labor-intensive urban areas—have on an amazingly frequent schedule. Most sort of moderate, vaguely normal—I know, what’s normal?—vaguely normal men, who don’t do a lot of coming on to women they don’t know, don’t have a clue about this other world that women are prey to. I hear things from patients all day long, and a lot of this social activity I can’t even begin to relate to. …” His voice trailed away and he looked into his coffee cup.
“Well,” Natalie said slowly, “one of the more surprising things that happened to me ever since I saw the man with the gun—” She heard herself stop speaking as a series of images, psychic flashbacks, suddenly imprinted themselves on her mind: the man darting between cabs in the rain, the cement-encrusted gun on her desk, MacPherson capping his fountain pen, the white teeth gleaming like polished bones in the darkness above her. …
> “Yes? Go on—” He was watching her closely again, as if she might be showing symptoms of something.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “I’m feeling a little scattered, after all.” She closed her eyes, blinked them open to confront his. “You’re right, Lewis. I am bushed all of a sudden.” She felt as if the room, the sound of her own droning voice, Lew’s steady gaze—she felt as if they were all closing in on her. She got up from the stool at the tiny kitchen counter and went into the living room, put on a Villa-Lobos tape and sat on the end of the couch. She told him he should sit down and finish his coffee.
“See how cleverly my plan has worked? I came over here to talk to you over coffee, and by God I’m doing it.”
“Fairly circuitous route,” she said.
He settled back in his chair, looking around. “Look, exactly how scattered are you feeling? You’re pale—”
“Really, just tired but … I’m not looking forward to your leaving me alone with my thoughts. Ever since all this started, things have been sort of piling up around me … oh, hell, Lew! No point in babbling to you—”
“On the contrary,” he said. “But for now I want you to get right to bed. And I’m going to call you tomorrow. I want to know just what it is that’s been piling up.”
“Oh, please don’t worry, Lewis!”
“What, me worry?” He grinned, boyish, like the old days.
She got up and followed him up the stairway to the front door.
He stood there looking at her.
She smiled up at him.
He punched her softly on the arm. “I’ll call you, Natalie. Tomorrow.”
Once he was gone, once she was standing at the sink brushing her teeth, she thought how lucky she was that he’d remembered where Sir liked to walk. Way to go, Lew. She took a sleeping pill to blot out the images that haunted her and went to sleep with the radio playing softly. And Sir curled against her legs. He began to snore just before she went under.
Chapter Nine
AT THE OFFICE IN the morning there was a handwritten letter from Rory Linehan, the novelist whose first book she had recently placed. He was delighted with the news of his advance. He and his wife hoped she could join them for dinner at their place the next evening to celebrate. She was hugely pleased, couldn’t stop beaming to herself. Her optimism about Linehan’s career was really limitless, if only he had the determination and stability to keep learning, working, disciplining his gifts. She called their number and spoke briefly to his wife, accepting the invitation.
She had lunch with Jay, a fortnightly ritual enabling them to speak of business away from the endless telephone discussions that kept them apart within the office. They had a drink in the tiny bar inside the front door at Lutece, then dined more elegantly than her appetite required in the airy, green and white barnlike dining room. Danmeier was in full cry, running the tab to well over a hundred dollars. Natalie just smiled at his discourse on the wine. He was more wrapped up in his toys than any other man she’d ever known. Still, why not? He seemed to have life so much his own way. Which was doubtless why his inability to forge a personal relationship—a more personal relationship, in any case—with Natalie seemed to bother him so. Any resistance seemed to throw him off his game, and Natalie wondered if just maybe she was testing him and his professed interest in her.
“By the way,” he said, enjoying what she took for a gooseberry tart with his coffee, “Clive Morrison’s over from London. We’re having dinner tomorrow night and he specifically asked me to have you join us. Good sign, Nat. He’s a distinguished publisher, and we’re doing an increasing amount of business with him, as you know if you’re paying attention to the contracts file, and he’s being touted for the queens next honors’ list. Should be ‘Sir Clive’ the next time he’s over here. Why in God’s name are you looking at me that way?”
“I can’t go, I’m afraid. I already have a dinner engagement, Jay—”
“For God’s sake, Natalie, if it’s not with Ernest Hemingway, break the date. Perhaps you missed it, but this is Clive Morrison! He asked for you, he knows about you—it’s business, my dear. Not just old Jay hanging around waiting to be turned down as usual.” The bitterness in his voice frustrated her: the last thing she needed …
“It’s just one of those things,” she said, knowing already that she was wrong and Jay was right, that she could quite easily beg off the Linehans and make another date for their dinner. She knew it but something was flaring inside her. She wasn’t going to change her plans. “If it makes you feel any better, my engagement is business, as well.”
“With whom, may I ask?” He sounded very cold. As if he were yet again bearing up under a personal insult.
“Linehan and his wife,” she said.
“Linehan.” He repeated the name with distaste. “I do wish you’d never heard of dear old Linehan. You can tell from his bloody overwrought book that he’s the kind of Irishman who enjoys blowing people to smithereens. I mean, have you read the book?”
“Of course.”
“One pussy and cock symbol after another—the man’s a raving degenerate. Can’t say what he means. D. H. Lawrence might just as well never have existed—”
“Jay, people are looking at you—”
“Good. I like to be looked at. Linehan.” He sighed with massive disgust. “I don’t suppose I can actually order you to come meet Morrison?”
“You can do whatever you like. But I shan’t come.”
He finished his gooseberry tart. “Natalie, we’ve got to have a good long talk. About the agency. About your role in it—you aren’t by any chance …” He shook his head. “No, I guess not.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Are you thinking of leaving? Raiding the client list and going off on your own?” His face was reddening. She realized the effort the question had cost him.
“Oh, Jay,” she said. She tentatively brushed the sleeve of his immaculate blue pinstripe. His vulnerability, coming as it did out of the blue, touched her. “Jay, really … of course I’m not thinking of any such thing. I like what I do. I like where I do it. And I certainly don’t want the administrative headache of setting up my own shop—even if I could.”
He nodded, recovering. “But you know you could. You could take your share of clients. Very loyal to you. Well, I’ll give your apologies to Clive.”
They lingered briefly, hostilities ended, and she took his arm on the walk back to the office.
The patching-up process was not, however, wholly successful. Natalie was aware of the tension between her and Jay through the afternoon, though they never actually had occasion to speak. The looks—or lack of them—were enough. He was just going to have a pout and there wasn’t much she was inclined to do about it.
And then Tony called. “Your ex,” Lisa said, sticking her head around the corner, “on two. You here?”
Lisa was very protective, but yes, Natalie was there. Listening to Tony’s voice from the wilds of Staten Island, she was reminded of the fact that she’d not spoken to him since he’d blabbed to Garfein. She felt herself flushing at the memory: anger like a tiny explosion somewhere in her brain. He said he was just heading into town and wanted her to meet him at the Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle. He said it was important. She told him she’d try to be there by six. “I hate it when you sound so mysterious,” she said, but he only laughed. His voice was a little on the high-pitched side and she’d never been crazy about his laugh. He was better in person than on the telephone. The Clint Eastwood syndrome, high voice but sort of gaunt and sexy otherwise. God, poor screwed-up Tony, hammering away at his porn novels and his soldier-of-fortune novels and his treasury-agent novels. …
She left the office early and took a taxi home. The insurance man was waiting for her on the front steps. He was a shy young man who made a list, checked it twice, told her that she had been very wise to photograph her valuable possessions and file the photos with the insurance company. He
told her he’d get back to her. She fed Sir several Bonz and went to pick up the mail.
A note had been dropped through the outside slot and lay atop the pile of bills and circulars.
Tried to deliver flowers at 4:30. Nobody home. Call 866-9851 for delivery.
Who could be sending flowers?
She looked at her watch and punched out the number while slipping out of the day’s clothes, flinging them across the bed.
“Dante’s Flowers,” the man said.
“You’ve got a delivery for me. Last name Rader, over on—”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it right here. You weren’t home.” His voice brimmed over with impatience, as if she’d set out to frustrate Dante’s Flowers’ daily schedule.
“I’m home now,” she said, “if you can step on it.”
“Wait a minute.” He yelled at someone on his end, “Can you deliver Rader, Harry? Hey, way to go, man. Okay, Miss Rader, how’s twenty minutes?”
“Fine,” she said, wriggled out of her pantyhose and ducked under a cold shower, clenched her teeth and waited for it to get hot and steamy.
She was half-dressed in something new and turquoise, drying her hair, when the buzzer sounded. She straightened the skirt and looked out the peephole at the man on the stoop. He was holding a box of flowers and smoking a cigar.
She spoke into the intercom: “Who is it?”
“The flowers, lady, the flowers you just called about.”
She buzzed him in and opened her door. It was a very cheap cigar that smelled like candy. He looked like a character in a movie, short, muscular, beetle-browed, holding the box of flowers like a bat against his shoulder.
“Hi, toots,” he said, without even looking at her. “It’s your lucky day. Here, just sign on the back of this sheet.” He wheezed on the smoke, blew a stream past her face.
She signed. “Is there a card?”
“Look, I only deliver ’em, y’know? Card should be in the box.”
She took the box. There was an ashtray full of change and a few bills on the table by the door. She handed him a dollar. He folded it, tucked it into his shirt pocket. “I’ll buy myself a decent smoke. Thanks, ma’am.” He touched the shiny black plastic visor of his hat. “Have a nice night, toots.” He was gone.
Woman in the Window Page 6