call was left blank.
'There's no number,' I said.
'She said you'd know it.'
'I don't even know who she is. Which cousin?'
He shook himself, straightened up in his chair. 'Sorry,' he said.
'Getting a little too relaxed here. I wrote her name on one of them slips.
I didn't write it each time. It was the same person over and over again.'
I sorted the slips. Actually he'd written it twice, on what seemed to be the first two slips. Please call your cousin Frances, I read. And, on the other: Call cousin Frances.
'Frances,' I said.
'That's it. That's the name.'
Except I couldn't recall a Cousin Frances. Had one of my male cousins married a woman namedFrances
? Or wasFrances some cousin's child, a new cousin whose name I'd never managed to learn?
'You're sure it was a woman?'
' 'Course I'm sure.'
'Because sometimes Francis is a man's name, and—'
'Oh, please. Don't you think I know that? It was a woman, said her name wasFrances . Don't you know your own cousin?'
Evidently I didn't. 'She asked for me by name?'
'Said Matthew Scudder.'
'And I was to call her as soon as I came in.'
'That's right. Last time or two she called, it was already late, and that was when she stressed it. No matter how late, call her right away.'
'And she didn't leave a number.'
'Said you knew it.'
I stood there, frowning, trying to think straight, and in a wink the years fell away and I was a cop, a detective attached to the Sixth Precinct. 'Call for you, Scudder,' someone was saying. 'It's your cousin Frances.'
'Oh, for God's sake,' I said now.
'Something?'
'It's all right,' I told Jacob. 'I suppose it would have to be her. It couldn't be anybody else.'
'She said—'
'I know what she said. It's all right, you got it straight. It just took me a minute, that's all.'
He nodded. 'Sometimes,' he said, 'it'll do that.'
I didn't know the number. I had known it, of course. I had known it well for many years, but I hadn't called it in a while and couldn't summon it up from my memory. It was in my address book, though. I had recopied my address books several times since I'd last had occasion to call that number, but I must have known I'd want to call it again, because each time I'd chosen to preserve it.
Elaine Mardell, I had written. And an address onEast Fifty-first Street . And a phone number that was familiar to me once I saw it.
I have a phone in my room, but I didn't go upstairs to use it.
Instead I crossed the lobby to the pay phone, dropped a quarter in the slot, and made the call.
An answering machine picked up on the second ring, and Elaine's recorded voice repeated the phone number's final four digits and advised me to leave a message at the sound of the tone. I waited for it and said,
'This is your cousin returning your call. I'm home now, and you have the number, so—'
'Matt? Let me turn this thing off. There. Thank God you called.'
'I was out late, I just got your message. And for a minute or two there I couldn't remember who my cousin Frances was supposed to be.'
'I guess it's been a while.'
'I guess it has.'
'I need to see you.'
'All right,' I said. 'I'm working tomorrow, but it's not something I can't find a free hour in. What's good
for you? Sometime in the morning?'
'Matt, I really need to see you now.'
'What's the problem, Elaine?'
'Come on over and I'll tell you.'
