Melbourne seemed about to say something more, then plunked his cigar back in his mouth as if it might prevent him from speaking imprudently.
“Sure you don’t want a drink, Lou?”
Melbourne stood up. “No, thanks. This excellent Cuban cigar’s more’n enough.” He moved close to the desk and looked down at Repetto. “Listen, you’re probably right. You deserve a rest. Have a good retirement. Food, shows, booze, travel. Enjoy, old friend. I mean that.” He offered his hand.
Repetto shook with him, standing up to show him out. He propped his cigar in an ashtray and walked around the desk.
“Still raining,” Repetto said, when he opened the door to the street. “Take an umbrella. You can keep it as long as you want.”
“No, thanks. Listen, I sincerely gotta advise you, if you don’t want a troubled conscience, better avoid reading the papers or watching TV news. This sicko’s deeply dedicated to his calling.”
“Forget the umbrella offer,” Repetto said.
“Kidding,” Melbourne said with a smile. “Don’t rot.” At the base of the steps, the rain already spotting his jacket, he looked back and up at Repetto. “Really. Don’t rot.”
“That didn’t sound at all sincere,” Repetto said.
He stood at the open door, watching Melbourne until he’d crossed the street and lowered himself into his car.
Then he remembered the open den door, sniffed the air, and went back to extinguish his cigar propped in the ashtray.
3
“You said no?” Lora asked, after Repetto told her about Melbourne’s visit.
“Sure I did.”
She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips, then, after sniffing his breath, looked up at him with mock seriousness. Well, not completely mock. “Cigar?”
“Half of one. With Melbourne. Being a good host.”
“Ah.” She walked over to the window and stared outside. Repetto studied her. The beige dress she was wearing complemented her long, honey-blond hair. Lora was trim not from exercise, other than her daily walks, but from genetic good fortune.
He thought she might say something else about Melbourne’s visit, but when she turned around to face him she smiled. It was what had first attracted Repetto, that smile. It changed her cool, blue-eyed impassive features into a warm and engaging signal to the world: I’m approachable and up for adventure. Repetto had learned it wasn’t a sexual invitation, but occasionally men took it for such. Lora was used to that response and knew how to fend them off without making enemies.
“It’s still raining,” she said. “How ’bout I make us some tea?”
“Fine.” The Melbourne matter was closed. If a maniac was murdering people one after another and might soon be terrorizing the city, that wasn’t Repetto’s problem. He was off the force for good. And it felt good.
Lora must have guessed what he was thinking. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Meaning what you said to Melbourne.”
She went into the kitchen to brew the tea. Repetto walked over and stared through the rain-distorted window out at the street. New York. The city he’d spent his life protecting. His city. A young couple who’d moved in last month exited the building across the street, laughing. The woman, a skinny brunette, ducked her head at the first raindrop, while her bulky, bearded husband squinted up at the sky and opened an umbrella. Watching them, Repetto remembered when he and Lora had moved here almost twenty years ago. It was odd, how the street didn’t change but the people did, generations playing out their lives on the same stage.
It occurred to him that Lora, who was six years younger than Repetto and not carrying a partially collapsed lung, would almost certainly outlive him. Would she remain here? Wouldn’t she be lonely in this house that was too large for one person? Might she be afraid without him, a single woman living at street level in Manhattan? Their daughter and only child, Amelia, who was in law school and lived on the Upper West Side, might move in with her. Though probably not. Amelia was fiercely independent. Maybe Amelia would marry. Repetto and Lora had their ideas about whom they’d like as a son-in-law. Repetto smiled.
The woman beneath the shelter of the umbrella glanced over and saw him, and Repetto raised a hand in an understated wave so she’d know he wasn’t spying on the couple, simply happened to be at his window when they were going out.
He stood awhile longer looking out at the drizzle and lowering light. A lamp came on behind him, and he saw Lora’s reflection on the windowpane and turned.
She’d placed a tray with a tea set on the heavy table by the sofa. Repetto watched as she poured cream in her cup, part of the set that was Bavarian china, antique but not particularly expensive. They’d bought it together ten years ago at a shop in SoHo. She added a lump of sugar and stirred. He walked over, added a dollop of cream to his tea, then sat down on the sofa and sipped. The tea wasn’t quite hot enough to burn his tongue.
Lora remained standing. She’d put on her old blue cardigan sweater over her dress and looked an odd combination of sophisticate and homebody that Repetto found strangely appealing.
She sipped her tea appraisingly and smiled. “The critics like the new play at the Westside,
“Internet or newspaper critics?”
“Both. Not rave reviews, but uniformly good. It’s about expatriates in Paris in the twenties, then later when they return to the U.S.”
“Sounds political.”
“It’s not. George Kearn plays the old Hemingway.” Kearn was one of their favorites. And the Westside Theatre, off Broadway but not far off, was also one of their favorites.
“Sounds okay,” Repetto said. “You working tomorrow?”
“Meeting a client for breakfast, then a display house tour.”
“Maybe I’ll see if I can pick us up some tickets.”
She took another sip of tea, then leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. Her lips were still warm from the tea. “I love you,” she said simply.
He knew why she was saying it now. Because he’d refused Melbourne. He lifted her free hand and kissed it. He didn’t tell her he loved her, too. It didn’t seem quite the time, but he knew he should tell her more often and promised himself he’d do exactly that in his retirement.
He watched her walk to the window with her tea. She sat down at an angle on the window seat so she could look out through the glass at the rainy street. She appeared comfortable and contented. Repetto was sure that if she were a cat, she’d curl up in the window and go to sleep.
If she were a cat, he’d pamper her.
The next morning, after Lora had left to meet her client, Repetto walked to the Bonaire Diner on Fourteenth Street and had eggs and a grilled corn muffin for breakfast. He liked the Bonaire for more than its food. It was brightly decorated, with red-vinyl-upholstered booths and stools, and a dark counter made out of the kind of granite that sparked silver when the light hit it just right. A lot of the customers were from the neighborhood, or were people who worked nearby. Regulars. Business drones, artists, tradesmen, along with tourists, and mothers with their kids.
Carrie the waitress cleared away the dishes, then poured Repetto a second cup of coffee.
He settled in to scan the
There was another favorable review of
