One Coffee With

dancing in chiffon until dawn. Had it been Duckett or Lyles, the two who most resented her presence in the department, she would have looked for the insult buried in the gibe. But McKinnon? No matter how she looked at that last exchange, there was only one conclusion: the captain had felt fatherly toward her. It was a novel idea. And strangely warming. She could never remember getting that sort of reaction from a man. Her father's uncles had offered a kindly solicitude that arose more from duty than from choice. Looking back on it, Sigrid didn't blame them. All had possessed grandchildren of their own, and she knew-regretfully but objectively-that she had not been a lovable child. In formal greeting or departure she had given the ritual kisses that the family expected, but never had she hugged one of them impulsively. Too, on those long-ago Sunday afternoons she had been eclipsed whenever Cousin Hilda came over from her house just down the street. Cousin Hilda had been plump and winsome with silver blond curls and delft-blue eyes, and she had always elbowed Sigrid aside to hold Great-uncle Lar's hand on those walks to the zoo. Carelessly, lavishly, she bestowed kisses at the slightest provocation. The family pet. And the more demonstrative Hilda had been, the more touch-me-not Sigrid must have seemed.

Hilda had grown into a blithe young matron, still as plump and merry as in childhood. Married to an insurance broker or a C.P.A.-Sigrid could never remember which-she now lived in Port Jefferson out on Long Island with a family of plump and merry children. Four of them, the last time Sigrid heard.

While I've grown into a dried-up old maid, she told herself. She peered through the windshield, momentarily distracted from her thoughts by a dilemma familiar to all drivers: the misty night air had deposited enough moisture on the glass to bead up soot and grime and to make seeing difficult, but was it really misting enough to wash all the dirt away if she turned on the wipers? The windshield was now so obscured that further debate became academic. She pushed the washer button and wipers simultaneously, and one feeble stream of water jetted up. Just enough to make a complete smear when the blades swished back and forth.

I remember to get gas, she told herself savagely, I remember to check the oil and the transmission fluid, so why the hell can't I remember to keep the washer bottle filled?

And no, dammit, it was not misting enough to clean the glass. Briefly she wondered if Cousin Hilda ever had these mundane automotive aggravations, or did acquiring a C.P.A. husband free you from that?

Which brought a rueful smile to her lips, because however much she might wish she were less stiff in social situations, no way did she envy Cousin Hilda's life. She was chagrined by the circuitous path her thoughts had taken, all because Captain McKinnon had given her a couple of casual fatherly words in passing. The mist thickened into a slow drizzle, and now the wipers managed to clear the windshield, she enjoyed driving through the streets at night. Especially in mid-town when she was in no hurry to get home. Traffic begun to pick up as movies and theaters emptied out onto the sidewalks. There were more cabs, buses and private cars and knots of people descending into the subway. Few people cared to go down alone at night anymore, which was a shame.

Violence or the fear of violence kept so many from utilizing fully the only sensible way of getting around the five boroughs; but violence was a fact of life, and it was futile to feel that spasm of anger.

'Do what you can and don't let the rest eat on you.' All rookies got that lecture. Good advice. If you could follow it during your shift, pass everything along when you left and keep your eyes averted when you were off duty, there would be fewer policemen nursing ulcers. As it was, every precinct house in the city could furnish enough antacid remedies to stock a small drugstore.

A smell compounded of gasoline fumes, buttered popcorn and wet pavement slid in through her slightly opened window as she stopped for a red light at Times Square. The drizzle was starting to take itself seriously; might almost be called true rain; yet the boy and girl who passed dreamily in front of her car were oblivious to it, to the changed lights, to everything except each other.

Sigrid drove on automatically, her mind only half-aware of the mechanics of driving. Without noticing where her thoughts had drifted, she found herself going over the earlier part of the evening as she contrasted Captain McKinnon's kindly air of solidity with Oscar Nauman's brusqueness.

Nauman was older than McKinnon as calendars run; but there was a curiously youthful, unfinished quality about the artist. He was a mature man, no little-boy-not-grown-up, yet he had retained an indefinable youthful quality. As if he were still in a state of becoming. As if the world still held new surprises, new possibilities, after all these years.

Probably the artistic temperament, Sigrid thought scornfully; but a sudden impulse made her head the car crosstown toward her mother's apartment.

She told herself it was time to anyhow. Whenever Anne was out of town, Sigrid stopped by to pick up mail and to make sure everything was okay. It was her duty, she told herself firmly, and curiosity about what Oscar Nauman had looked like fifteen years ago had nothing to do with it.

10

HER mother's current apartment was in one of the newer high rises overlooking the Hudson River. Some women shift furniture; Anne Harald kept all the same pieces of furniture in approximately the same positions and restlessly shifted apartments instead. Her friends had long since learned to enter her new telephone and street numbers in their address books in light, easily erased pencil. Anne had inhabited Manhattan Island from the Battery to Harlem. She'd even crossed the East River once and tried Brooklyn Heights, but that was a short-lived experiment. Shorter still had been a sojourn in Connecticut. The U-Haul rental truck had deposited Anne and her chattels in a picturesquely rustic cottage on a Tuesday afternoon. An identical truck had carted everything back to Manhattan the following Friday morning.

These frequent moves had been so much part of Sigrid's childhood that she no longer recalled that they had begun immediately after Leif's funeral. By now it was just another quirk of Anne's personality; easier to shrug one's shoulders and accept it than to try to understand.

This year's building was all glass and steel, its ground floor as impersonal as a bank and quite bare except for the slight softening effect of low fern-filled planters along the front walls, a colorful mosaic floor and a few backless leather benches clumped together in the center of the lobby. At the rear were elevators and banked mailboxes. The whole place was as brightly lit as an all-night diner and even less inviting, but it was virtually mugger proof. To compensate for the lack of doorman, tenants could inspect everything behind those floor-to-ceiling glass walls before unlocking the street door and letting themselves in, and there were no shadowy culs-de-sac where a rapist could lurk undetected..

Closed-circuit televisions on the main door and in the elevator videotaped everyone coming or going, and it was useless to tell her mother that the tapes probably weren't checked unless a tenant actually got mugged. Anne was convinced that a watchman or somebody monitored them, and unless she were in a tearing hurry, she always blew kisses to the cameras or thumbed her nose or modeled a new dress.

'They must get so bored just watching people galumph in and out as if they're going to their own funerals,' she would say.

Whenever her mother was brightening up a hypothetical watchman's day, Sigrid would stand to the far side of the elevator and pretend not to know her.

It was raining briskly when Sigrid slipped inside the lobby and paused long enough to empty Anne's mailbox. Some of the letters had been forwarded through five or six addresses. She took a self-service elevator to the eighteenth floor and let herself into a front apartment.

Anne Harald's image stood just inside the vestibule with arms outstretched. A fellow photographer had cleverly matched front and back views, blown them up, then laminated them together into a rigid sheet of acrylic to form a life-sized cutout doll who welcomed her visitors the way Anne welcomed life-with open arms; dimples flashing; short hair an exuberance of dark curls; her slender body still petite and shapely at fifty.

Anne herself used the thing as a hat stand, draping it in scarves, light meters and paraphernalia cases, but it was too lifelike for Sigrid's taste. She always hurried past it when making her tours of inspection.

Things were normal that evening. Nothing dramatic like burst water pipes or signs of forced entry, although a stranger might have had difficulty distinguishing between a burglar's ransacking and Anne's normal going-away clutter. Every drawer was slightly ajar, and every surface overflowed. Film cartridges were jumbled in with sliding