after I allegedly went over there and threatened him. I don't know that he ever actually occupied a room there. He registered under his own name, probably so he would have an address to use when his attorney applied for the order of protection.'
'You went there looking for him?'
'After I left Durkin. I don't know that you can really say I was looking for Motley at the Harding, because I knew I wouldn't find him there.' I thought for a moment. 'I don't even know that I wanted to find him. I found him last night and I didn't come out of it too well.'
'Poor baby,' she said.
We were in her apartment, in the bedroom. I was stripped to my shorts and lying facedown on the bed.
She had been giving me a massage, not working too deep, her hands gentle but insistent, working the muscles, taking some of the knots out, soothing some of the aches. She gave a lot of attention to my neck and shoulders, where much of the tension seemed to be centered. Her hands seemed to know just what to do.
'You're really good,' I said. 'What did you do, take a course?'
'You mean how did a nice girl like me get into this? No, I never studied. I've been getting massages once or twice a week for years. I just paid attention to what people did to me. I'd be better at it if I had more strength in my hands.'
I thought of Motley, and the strength in his hands. 'You're strong enough,' I said. 'And you've got a knack. You could do this professionally.'
She started to laugh. I asked her what was so funny.
She said, 'For God's sake don't tell anybody. If word gets out all my clients'll want this, and I'll never get laid anymore.'
Later we were in the living room. I stood at the window with a cup of coffee, watching traffic on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. A couple of tugs sported on the river, maneuvering a barge around. She was on the couch, her feet tucked under her, eating a quartered orange.
I sat on a chair across from her and put my cup down on the coffee table. The flowers were gone. She had tossed them shortly after I'd left Sunday, not long after his phone call. It seemed to me, though, that I could still feel their presence in the room.
I said, 'You won't leave town.'
'No.'
'You might be safer out of the country.'
'Maybe. I don't want to go.'
'If he can get into the building—'
'I told you, I spoke to them. They're keeping the service entrance bolted from inside. It's to be opened only when one of the porters or doormen is present, and it'll be refastened after each use.'
That was fine, if they stuck to it. But you couldn't count on it, and there were just too many ways to get into an apartment building, even a well-staffed one like hers.
She said, 'What about you, Matt?'
'What about me?'
'What are you going to do?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'I came pretty close to throwing a fit in Durkin's office. He as much as accused me of— well, I told you all that.'
'Yes.'
'I went there intending to accomplish two things. I was going to swear out a complaint against Motley.
The son of a bitch worked me over pretty good last night. That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? If you're a private citizen?
Somebody assaults you, you're supposed to go to the police and report it.'
'That's what they taught us in tenth-grade civics.'
'They told me the same thing. They didn't tell me how pointless it would turn out to be.'
I went to the bathroom and there was blood in my urine again, and my kidney throbbed as I returned to the living room. Something must have shown in my face, because she asked what was the matter.
'I was just thinking,' I said. 'The other thing I wanted from Durkin was for him to help me fill out an application for a pistol permit and rush it through. After the routine he gave me I didn't even bother mentioning it.' I shrugged. 'It probably wouldn't have done any good. They wouldn't issue me a carry permit, and I can't keep a loaded gun in my top dresser drawer and hope the bastard comes over for tea.'
'You're afraid, aren't you?'
'I suppose so. I don't feel it but it has to be there. The fear.'
'Uh-huh.'
'I fear for other people's safety. You, Anita, Jan. It stands to reason that I'm at least as much afraid of getting killed myself, but I'm not really aware of it. There's this book I've been trying to read, the private thoughts of a Roman emperor. One of the themes he keeps coming back to is that death is nothing to be afraid of. The point he makes is that since it's inevitable sooner or later, and since you're just as dead no matter how old you are when you die, then it doesn't really matter how long you live.'
'What does matter?'
