'For God's sake' she chided, 'we've been in bed together. You're allowed to kiss me He leaned forward and did kiss her. And against his better judgment-or against any kind of judgment at all-he felt himself drawn protectively toward her. Never get involved personally with a client, his father used to tell him. Never. Oh well, he thought, a lot of good the old man's advice had done for him so far.
She looked away from him for a moment, taking his hand and removing her dark glasses. Her gaze was on the bulwark of the building across the street. Her blue eyes were appraising, almost scheming and plotting.
He, too, glanced to the house. He thought of those fortress walls and the secrets they surrounded. Within, doddering old Victoria too frightened of water to even bathe -had entertained her succession of dogs named Andy, had interred them, and had doted with equal fanaticism upon dollar bills. Similarly, this had been the very house from which Adolph Zenger had emerged in 1955 changed and shattered, a shell of the man he'd once been.
'A different man'' as William Ward Daniels had described it to his son.
'How can we get in there she asked.
'In the Sandler house?'
'Is there any other house under discussion?' she asked impatiently. Her mercurial smile was already gone and the affectionate greeting had given way to a businesslike sense of priorities.
'With burglar tools' he said.
'Fine.' 'What?' he asked.
'I said fine she persisted.
'I'm afraid I wasn't serious Thomas said.
'I'm afraid I am She withdrew her hand.
'That house is sealed by law.' He saw her grimace distastefully as he spoke. He could practically feel her disapproval.
'The state closes an estate upon the death of its owner. It would take a court order for us to get in. The fact is, I could file a motion for-' 'You disappoint me,' she said softly.
'I disappoint a lot of people He shrugged.
'But I won't break the law to win a case. I warned u already. I'm a lousy lawyer. Maybe that's the reason.' She glanced back to the mansion, then to him, dark eyes probing.
Then the tension on her face melted. She took his arm and said, 'I'm sorry. Let's walk down Madison Avenue ' They turned the corner, putting the Sandler mansion at their backs. The icy wind swept uptown toward them and blasted them head-on. With one arm she held her coat close to her and with the other held his. He could feel her warmth contrasting with the cold in the air. He wondered again who that warmth was and what she wanted.
'Tell me where you've been' she said, as casually as an old friend might.
'You've been away. Was it for me?'
'Partly,' he lied. He told a fabricated story of interviewing old contacts and associates.
'But did you discover anything important?' she asked.
'About my father? Or yours?'
'No,' he said.
She shrugged.
'An honest answer, at least' she said. He glanced sideways at her and saw not the slightest hint of sarcasm on her lips.
Only a sudden smile as she looked ahead.
'Look at this' she said, 'an art gallery.'
'Madison is loaded with them ' 'I never knew that'' she said. She stood before a large plate-glass window in which the Anspacher Gallery announced a showing by an American impressionist named Gerald Detweiler.
A smile crossed her face now. She was like a small girl beholding a toy store two weeks before Christmas. Her grin was impish, girlish, and excited, and she turned to him warmly now and asked as a child might ask a parent,
'Can we go in?'
'It's a free ' country,' he said.
'Come on, she said, sprightly, her clipped British accent slightly more not noticable.
'I never tire of other people's artwork.' She pulled him along and they entered the crowded gallery. It was opening day of the exhibit.
The gallery, which occupied the lower three floors of a converted brownstone, was packed. She seemed to feed emotionally on the enthusiastic bustle of the gallery, as if it excited her and allowed her for a few minutes to put Arthur Sandler out of her mind.
She led him from one canvas to the next, canvases which rendered impressionistic interpretations to northeastern-American landscapes.
Factories by the sides of rivers, crowded beaches bordering empty oceans, dry-docked pleasure boats tied up beside foreboding dark lakes.
'Always man bordering nature' Leslie observed, moving from painting to painting.
'Bordering by confrontation. A standoff, really,' she said.
'Do you go to galleries often?'
'I've never had much time for it' he admitted, wondering why she perceived so much on canvases where he saw so little.
'A shame,' she said.
'You should make a point to go more often.'
He vaguely resented her tone of voice, as if she were gently talking down to him.
'Maybe we should talk more about your father,' he suggested.
'I have some questions.'
She either didn't hear the question or chose not to hear it. She stepped close to a canvas, examining closely the texture of a Maine landscape dominated by pastel blues, greens, and yellows.
'Look at those brush strokes,' she said.
'Detweiler studied Monet. You can tell. Sorry?'
'Your father,' he said. He was slightly jostled by a stout dark man with a cigar pushing to get past, accompanied by a hard-faced woman with silver-blond hair.
Leslie's face twisted into a slight frown. She had forgotten about Sandler. Thomas had reminded her.
'What about him?' she asked, sounding as if the subject were an intrusion here. He began to sense an evasion, an unwillingness to discuss the very topic that had initially brought her to him. Why had she brought him into an art gallery, he wondered. To divert his attention?
'I'm trying to discover as much about him as possible,' he said.
Her eyes glimmered and she gave him a smile.
'That's good. But you probably know more than I do already.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Why- as if it were self-evident' you knew one man who knew him very well. Your own father.'
Strange, he thought, how she constantly turned each question, putting him back on the defensive. He would have expected it from another attorney or an investigator of some sort. But not from a scholar and aspiring artist.
'My father never talked to me about Arthur Sandler,' Thomas answered, jostled again from behind by a large balding man jockeying for position near the painting. Thomas took Leslie's arm and led her to a less crowded section.
'Never at all?' Her eyes were sharply probing.
He considered it briefly and seriously.
'No' he said, searching his memory.
'Other clients from time to time. But never Arthur Sandler.'
'I see' she said thoughtfully, as if his words had been meaningful.
They'began to examine other paintings, more absorbed in their discussion now than in what they viewed. He tried a different line of questioning. Every once in a while he would look at her, want to believe her, and see the tombstone in the London churchyard.
'What about the British government?' he asked casually.
