be safe!”
“I like what you do with your lips when you say that, dear. Saaafe! And of course, you’re absolutely right. On a serious note, you are right.”
“We’re supposed to be a country with equal opportunity and equal responsibilities, no matter what color we are or where we came from or any of that stuff. The city’s giving show business people a free pass when it comes to jury duty. Until the Justice Killer is caught, they should give everyone a free pass. Everyone in New York who’s legible for jury duty is an American!”
“If they leave out people whose handwriting you can’t read, that’d include a lot of us.”
Adelaide appeared puzzled and upset. “You know what I mean. We’re all in the same boat, with the same rights as oars, and we can’t sink together, and it’s an American boat!” She rose to her full meager height and thrust out her breasts. “Maybe you’re not supposed to stand up in a row boat, but I am! For myself and everyone else out there! In or out of show business!”
The applause was loud enough to make Beam ease back on the volume. The camera played over a standing ovation before returning to the set.
Black was on his feet, hands clapping. “Take it to ’em, dear!”
“We demand a moratorium!” Adelaide said. She bent over to smooth her skirt, flashing more cleavage, then began pumping her tiny right fist in the air as she had outside City Hall. “Moratorium! Moratorium!” The studio audience, still on its feet, joined in. Volume built. Larger fists pumped the air in unison, faster and faster.
Matt Black slumped down in his chair with an exaggerated look of wonder and helplessness. Never had he seen anything like this.
After letting the place cool down only slightly, Black pumped his own fist in the air. “Commercial! Commercial!” He grinned. “We’ll be right back. Don’t go away. Why would you go away?” Then, as the camera zoomed in for a close up, an aside to the TV audience: “Somehow I don’t think she’ll be moving to France.”
Suddenly a sincere man in a leather jacket was trying to sell Beam a wristwatch that was an exact replica of the one worn by B-17 bomber crews in World War Two, only this one kept time with a battery and a chunk of quartz.
Beam’s phone rang, the land line this time. He sat forward in his desk chair and lifted the receiver.
“Nell again, Beam,” came the voice from across town. “Did you see it?”
“Saw it.”
“Whaddya think?”
“Two things. I think she’s way ahead of da Vinci. And I think I’m going to pour myself another two fingers of scotch.”
“I just poured some bourbon in a glass.”
“Raise your glass.”
“’Kay.”
“Up?”
“Yeah.”
“Mine, too. A toast. To Adelaide.”
“Adelaide,” Nell said on the phone. “And France.”
This morning Jack Selig was wearing gray flannel slacks, a navy blazer with big shiny brass buttons, and a white shirt open at the neck to reveal a red ascot. Nell thought he looked exactly like what he was-a rich guy who owned a yacht.
They were having breakfast in the grill of the Marimont Hotel in Midtown. The place was all red carpeting, red drapes, white tablecloths with folded red napkins, polished oak paneling, and subtle touches of gleaming brass. The china looked as if it might be rimmed with real gold. Nell was impressed, as she was sure Selig wanted her to be. The softening up period. Nell had seen and heard it all before and knew how it worked. But, damn, this guy was handsome despite his burden of years. And there was that yacht.
And there was Terry.
“Rough night?” Selig asked.
Mind reader. “Why?” Nell asked. “Do I look it?”
Selig smiled. “Instead of stunningly beautiful, you look stunningly beautiful and tired.”
“It’s this case.”
“The investigation into the Justice Killer murders?”
“Yeah. The pressure to find this creep never lets up. I know when we’re finished here”-she glanced at her watch-“which better be within an hour, I’ve gotta go join the battle again. And it’s a hard one.”
“It doesn’t have to be your battle, Nell. You never have to go in to work again if you don’t want to.”
“Yes,” Nell said, “I do. You need to understand that I do.”
He looked puzzled behind his quiche. “But, why?”
“I suppose because we all have our roles to play in life. The ones we chose. I’m a cop. You’re a…”
“What?”
“Wildly rich and successful.”
“I wasn’t always, and you weren’t always a cop. Fate doesn’t have to rule our lives. We choose, and we can unchoose. We can change roles when we get the opportunity, when we have the courage.”
“That wasn’t fair, Jack.”
He smiled and dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “You’re right, it wasn’t. I apologize. Lord knows, I wouldn’t question your courage.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Nell could see outside a window, a double-decker bus full of tourists slowly driving past in the bright sunlight. New York pretending to be London.
“The point is, this killer doesn’t have to be your personal responsibility,” Selig said.
“He does, Jack. He is.”
“What about your boss? Detective Beam? Seems to me the investigation is his responsibility.”
“Not his alone. We’re a team.”
“Almost everyone’s on some kind of team.”
“Not where people are dying.”
Selig forked in a bite of quiche, chewed, swallowed. “I wasn’t thinking of it that way. You’re right, of course.”
“Not of course, but I’m right.”
He smiled. “You getting your dander up, Nell?”
She made herself calm down. “No. Dander down.”
But it wasn’t. Not entirely.
Selig was looking at her as if she were something infinitely precious and available that was rapidly slipping away. “Is there someone else, Nell?”
Bastard! “Yes. No. Jesus! Yes, there is!”
He looked so injured she had to fight the instinct to reach across the table and squeeze his hands and apologize. He looked suddenly older. Helpless.
What have I done?
“Another, younger, man…” He said it as if he’d expected it to happen all along. Maybe he had. “Are you sure about him?”
“Oh, God, I’m not sure of anything, Jack! Honestly!”
“That’s your problem, Nell, you can’t be anything but honest.”
Jack, if you only knew.
“Don’t make a final decision until you’re absolutely sure. That’s all I ask of you. Okay?”
“Okay, Jack.” She had to sip coffee and look away, afraid she’d goddamn start to cry!
She felt his cool fingers touch the back of her left hand then softly massage her ring finger. “You all right, Nell?”
She nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah, fine.” She sat up straighter. “Let’s have some more coffee, then I’ve gotta get to work.”
Right now the red carpet, the red drapes, the red napkins, reminded her of blood.
Melanie stood on the sidewalk outside the entrance to Richard Simms’s apartment building. The doorman
