When she was through with him, she’d retrieved the gun, wrapped his hand around it, put the barrel in his mouth, and squeezed off a shot. They could call it a suicide, even as they could call the wrestler a heart attack, if they didn’t look too closely. Or they could call all three of them murders without ever suspecting they were all the work of the same person.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt her to move. Find another place to live before people started to notice her on the streets and in the bars. She liked it here, in Clinton or Hell’s Kitchen, whatever you wanted to call it. It was a nice place to live, whatever it may have been in years past. But, as she and Jim had agreed, the whole of Manhattan was a nice place to live. There weren’t any bad neighborhoods left, not really.
Wherever she went, she was pretty sure she’d feel safe.
THREE
She woke up abruptly—
She felt the cotton sheet under her, smooth. A good hand, a high thread count. Her host, then, wasn’t a pauper, and had the good taste to equip himself with decent bed linen. She didn’t feel a top sheet, felt only the air on her bare skin. Cool, dry air, air-conditioned air.
Whisper-quiet, too. Probably central air-conditioning, because she couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t hear much, really. A certain amount of city noise, through windows that were no doubt shut to let the central air do its work. But less of it than she’d have heard in her own Manhattan apartment.
And the energy level here was more muted than you would encounter in Manhattan. Hard to say what sense provided this information, and she supposed it was probably some combination of them all, some unconscious synthesis of taste and touch and smell and hearing, that let you know you were in one of the outer boroughs.
Memory filled in the rest. She’d taken the 1 train clear to the end of the line, following Broadway up into the Bronx, and she’d gone to a couple of bars in Riverdale, both of them nice preppy places where the bartenders didn’t look puzzled when you ordered a Dog’s Breakfast or a Sunday Best. And then…
Well, that’s where it got a little fuzzy.
She still had taste and smell to consult. Taste, well, the taste in her mouth was the taste of morning, and all it did was make her want to brush her teeth. Smell was more complicated. There would have been more to smell without air conditioning, more to smell if the humidity were higher, but nevertheless there was a good deal of information available. She noted perspiration, male and female, and sex smells.
He was right there, she realized. In the bed beside her. If she reached out a hand she could touch him.
For a moment, though, she let her hand stay where it was, resting on her hip. Eyes still closed, she tried to bring his image into focus, even as she tried to embrace her memory of the later portion of the evening. She didn’t know where she was, not really. She’d managed to figure out that she was in a relatively new apartment building, and she figured it was probably in Riverdale. But she couldn’t be sure of that. He might have had a car, and he might have brought her almost anywhere. Westchester County, say.
Bits and pieces of memory hovered at the edge of thought. Shreds of small talk, but how could she know what was from last night and what was bubbling up from past evenings? Sense impressions: a male voice, a male touch on her upper arm.
She’d recognize him if she opened her eyes. She couldn’t picture him, not quite, but she’d know him when her eyes had a chance to refresh her memory.
Not yet.
She reached out a hand, touched him.
She had just registered the warmth of his skin when he spoke.
“Sleeping beauty,” he said.
Her eyes snapped open, wide open, and her pulse raced.
“Easy,” he said. “My God, you’re terrified, aren’t you? Don’t be. Everything’s all right.”
He was lying on his side facing her. And yes, she recognized him. Dark hair, arresting blue eyes under arched brows, a full-lipped mouth, a strong jawline. His nose had been broken once and imperfectly reset, and that saved him from being male-model handsome.
Early thirties, maybe eight or ten years her senior. A good body. A little chest hair, but not too much. Broad shoulders. A stomach flat enough to show a six-pack of abs.
No wonder she’d left the bar with him.
And she remembered leaving the bar. They’d walked, so she was probably in Riverdale. Unless they’d walked to his car. Could she remember any more?
“You don’t remember, do you?”
Reading her mind. And how was she supposed to answer that one?
She tried for an ironic smile. “I’m a little fuzzy,” she said.
“I’m not surprised.”
“Oh?”
“You were hitting the Cosmos pretty good. I had the feeling, you know, that you might be in a blackout.”
“Really? What did I do?”
“Nothing they’d throw you in jail for.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“You didn’t stagger or slur your words, and you were able to form complete sentences. Grammatical ones, too.”
“The nuns would be proud of me.”
“I’m sure they would. Except…”
“Except they wouldn’t like to see me waking up in a strange bed.”
“I’m not sure how liberal they’re getting these days,” he said. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t know where you were, did you? When you opened your eyes.”
“Not right away.”
“Do you know now?”
“Well, sure,” she said. “I’m here. With you.”
“Do you know where ‘here’ is? Or who I am?”
Should she make something up? Or would the truth be easier?
“I don’t remember getting in a car,” she said, “and I do remember walking, so my guess is we’re in Riverdale.”
“But it’s a guess.”
“Well, couldn’t we call it an educated guess? Or at least an informed one?”
“Either way,” he said, “it’s right. We walked here, and we’re in Riverdale.”
“So I got that one right. But why wouldn’t the nuns be proud of me?”
“Forget the nuns, okay?”
“They’re forgotten.”
“Look, I don’t want to get preachy. And it’s none of my business. But if you’re drinking enough to leave big gaps in your memory, well, how do you know who you’re going home with?”
She said, “It worked out all right, didn’t it? I mean, you’re an okay guy. So I guess my judgment was in good enough shape when we hooked up.”
“Or you were lucky.”
