clerk said. Just the place to hide for a night or two. He asked about my luggage and I said I had none. 'Late meeting at the office,' I lied. 'And a very early one tomorrow.' He met this statement with a shrug. A few minutes later I stood at the window, watching the traffic. After my lunch with Dan Tuthill the option of going to the police about the destruction of my apartment seemed even less advisable. If he caught wind of it, Dan would rescind his job offer immediately. Lawyers breaking laws end up not practicing. No, I needed to surf and wriggle and duck my way through the problem. They'd found Poppy. Martha Hallock was coming into the city tomorrow. I'd meet her and take her to the steakhouse, try to talk to Allison again. As for Jay, I pulled out my cell phone and called. Nothing. The machine picked up the call, beeped with no message. I left my number. He could be anywhere. He could be with Allison, I realized. Maybe he was in the oxygen chamber and couldn't hear the call. Aside from his daily medications, though, he seemed to have no schedule, no routine I could anticipate, just circling around Sally Cowles. I recalled his fragment of a letter to her father about the cartilage in his own ear. Did he have a hearing problem? Did Sally? Not if she practiced the piano, not if I knew where I'd find Jay.
Eight
I tried Jay's phone fifty times over the next twelve hours, and if that sounds like harassment or stalking that's because it was. I was due to start a new job in a mere two days, and, standing at the window in my hotel room listening to the phone ring endlessly, I was keenly aware that if I could lay down several decent years in Dan Tuthill's new shop- and there was no reason to think I couldn't- then I'd have levered myself back into the game. With the gyrations in the economy, firms had shrunk and grown, splintered and recombined; no one would care what had happened to me a couple of years back. People forget, after all. (They forget that George W. Bush was once a dry-well oilman with a drinking problem, that Hillary Clinton once had a brown afro and snaggleteeth.) A few good years, that's all I needed. I could eat mountains of paper, I could clock monster hours. And maybe the firm would do well as a whole. Dan had private financing from his father-in-law if he needed it. And if he was walking the straight and narrow, he'd throw himself into the enterprise. So, my boat had come in and I needed to make sure I climbed aboard- not get caught in the riptide of Jay Rainey's strange life.
I called Allison, too, wondering where we stood, and reached her at the steakhouse.
'Well, look who it is,' she said. 'The man who called back.'
'Of course I called back.'
'They don't always, you know.'
'About what happened-'
'I want you to know that, contrary to expectation and all previous behavior patterns, I am issuing an apology.'
'You are?'
'I think I was a bit brittle the other morning.'
'Well-'
'I had a headache.'
I didn't ask why. 'You're in a good mood now.'
'Yes, I am.'
'I was expecting crankiness and accusation.'
'And until yesterday, you would have gotten it, too.'
'What happened?'
'There was an arrival, a somewhat unexpected arrival.'
'Who?' Had Jay shown up?
'Not a who, but a what.'
'Fish?'
'Fish. It puts me in a good mood.'
'You addicted to this stuff, Allison?'
'Only psychologically. Now then, are you coming to see me?'
'Yes, but I'm bringing a date.'
'What?' came her shrill response.
'An older woman.'
'How much older?'
'About fifty years.'
'Who is it?'
'The woman who sold Jay's farm.'
'This is still tangled up? There's still a problem?'
'Yes. Want to hear about it?'
'No, I don't. I want to dream about my fish.'
I collected Martha Hallock at the corner of Forty-third and Third Avenue, which is where the luxury bus into Manhattan drops people from Long Island's North Fork, and in the low light of a winter's day, she stepped down with her cane, looking more tired than I remembered. This was a great effort for her; I doubted she could walk without the cane. But she'd gone to the trouble, so something was at stake. I helped her into the hired car I'd arranged through the hotel and we drifted downtown.
'Things have changed.' She looked out the window. 'I came to the city so much when I was younger.'
'See a lot of shoes?'
'Yes.' She smiled, pleased that I remembered her terminology. The wrinkles around her eyes collapsed in upon themselves. 'Many shoes, Mr. Wyeth. Big ones, small ones. Nice ones, rough ones. The city was good for that. I could come in and have an adventure and then disappear out into the country, and no one at home would know. Once met a man standing in line at the movies. He didn't know which movie to see and I told him to see the one I was watching.'
'What was the movie?'
'Oh, for goodness' sake, I have no idea. I doubt I saw five minutes of it.' She settled her purse in her lap. 'I was like that. Some girls are, and most people condemn them for it.'
We pulled up to the steakhouse a few minutes later and I helped her out of her door and down the steps, into the vault of mahogany and oil paintings. The door to the Havana Room, I noted, was closed.
'Wonderful!' Martha Hallock cried. 'Still.'
'Excuse me?'
'I ate here years and years ago!' she said, throwing her gaze toward the back of the room, then letting it come forward, over the white tablecloths and silverware, the pitchers of water sweating in the corners. 'They used to say Frank Sinatra owned the place. It looks the same.'
'Well, we probably changed the carpeting,' said Allison, gliding up to us, carrying her clipboard. 'Hi, I'm the manager.'
Martha Hallock took Allison in. 'What do you manage?'
'I manage people's expectations.'
'She does more than that,' I added.
Martha nodded skeptically. Allison showed us to Table 17.
'Need anything?' she asked. 'A pillow, anything at all?'
'A drink. I'll take that.'
'Bill?' said Allison. 'What may I get for you today?'
'Nothing. I can wait for the waitress.'
'Oh, there must be something you'd like?'
Martha Hallock looked up at Allison. 'He's taken right now, honey. Sorry, all mine.'
'Then I'll have to wait,' she said. 'Very nice to meet you.' She met my eyes. 'Hope you find your meal delicious, sir.'
Martha watched Allison move away. 'I'd say that you know her.'
