They were at a corner table in the rear of a small dimly lit pub on Madison Avenue, a quiet, genteel watering hole frequented by the well-heeled clientele of the East Side neighborhood.
There was draft beer in mugs on their Table, accompanying half eaten steaks. Thomas's throat hurt when he swallowed, a nagging cough persisted, and he wondered whether or not he needed a doctor. Food was one thing he did need, he admitted, though the incident at the Anspacher Gallery was not the sort that triggered hearty appetites.
He sipped the beer.
'How's it feel?' she asked, apparently sympathetic.
'The throat?'
She nodded, concern on her face.
'Awful,' he said, his voice catching and irritating as he spoke.
'But at least it works. Air goes in and out. What more can I ask?'
'You were on the verge of asking many things,' she reminded him.
'So I was.'
She worked on her steak with a fork and knife, holding the utensils European style, and eating with what he took to be a great deal of calm-unlike himself, he noted. He was still shaken.
'It's rather shattering,' he pondered aloud.
'Someone trying to kill you ' 'It is 'she said.
He studied her.
'Of course,' he said.
'You'd know, wouldn't you?'
She nodded.
He glanced at the razor-thin scar across her neck, barely visible in the dim pub. He was conscious of the soft pop voice of Judy Collins from the jukebox.
'All in all, my throat got off better than yours ' He paused.
'Who were they?'
'I don't know,' she said definitively. Her voice was brisk and authoritative. Not the voice of the aspiring artist, but rather that of the woman who carried a knife in her purse.
'You must have an ideal' he said.
'None at all. You're closer to the answer than I am.'
'Me?' He coughed.
'Why do you keep coming back to me?'
'Because that's where it begins,' she insisted.
'It's not just my father. It's Arthur Sandler's connection to William Ward Daniels.'
'Lawyer and client' he answered.
She was shaking her head before he was finished.
'More than that' she insisted, eyes flashing.
'Much more.'
'How can you be so certain?'
'Very easily. My aunt dies, bringing the family to an apparent end.
Her death means a will, a search for heirs. That means that the family's dirty laundry will have to be public. Old files opened, examined. What files burn? Yours. Your father's, more specifically.'
She motioned at the air with both hands, palms open.
'Something was in those files. More than a will. Maybe the key to where my father is. Or who he is. Or maybe there's some indication that I exist ' 'But it's twenty years after the fact' he said, perplexed.
'Who'd care now?'
'My father,' she offered quickly.
'How do you even know he's alive?'
'Maybe this proves it'' she said.
'You know as well as I do that the scarf around your neck was no accident. Maybe you know something,' she pressed adamantly.
'Maybe something crucial which might not seem so important to you, but which-' He was shaking his head, every bit as insistent as she.
'Nothing' he said.
'I know absolutely nothing about the Sandlers. Only what you tell me.
And what's public record.'
She fell silent, looking down at her plate in thought.
'Whom did you go see?' she asked.
'When you were away?'
He weighed the question and knew it was one he didn't yet want to answer.
'No one important' he said.
'Zenger again?'
'No one important' he said. Only people who insisted she was an imposter. No way he was delving into that yet. Someone in a well tailored female form existed. He knew because she'd just saved his life. When she'd come through in a moment like that, how much else could he hold against her?
'All right, don't tell me' she said sourly and with evident disappointment.
'But someone you've seen has betrayed you. Someone thinks you know too much already.'
'Me?' he posed.
'Why not you?'
'They wanted to kill you first,' she said. And she smiled with gloriously sweet sarcasm, letting her point rest.
'True,' he admitted.
A waitress cleared the table and brought coffee. He was silent as he tried to put events in order and find the pattern. He glanced at her and felt helpless. There was no pattern.
Damn her, he thought, she was perfectly calm. She was asking better questions than he, and for that matter was running a damned fine interrogation. Maybe she should have gone to law school in his place, he thought. He'd learn how to paint.
He sipped the coffee. Its warmth soothed his throat slightly. He broke the silence, seeking to change the drift of the conversation at the same time.
'You know quite a bit aboutart' he said.
'Very little, actually.'
'What about forgeries?'
Her coffee cup hesitated between the saucer and her mouth, then returned to the saucer untouched by her lips.
'Forgeries?' she asked, as if seeking a further elaboration of the word.
He nodded, his turn to be calm.
'Art forgeries?' she asked. He nodded again.
'I know they exist' she said.
'Usually a counterfeit is made of a painting that actually exists. Then a transfer is made, gulling people into believing that the bogus one is the original She frowned.
'Why?' Her voice was suspicious.
'Think that could be done with people?' he asked, leaning back slightly. Damn it, he had to cough slightly.
'Counterfeit people?' she asked.
He nodded as they considered it.
'An imposter for the original? Is that the question?' She was pensive and his impression was that she was not acting. But he couldn't be certain.
'I suppose it could be done,' she said.
'Why?'
