'Maybe it is.'
Ruth felt her heart race. 'Might we have some coffee in the rain's aftermath?'
Now I'm talking like we're in a romantic novel.
Vlad grinned. 'I appreciate the invitation, Ruth. But we won't have to ride the subway. I can drive us to your place.'
Ruth tried to clear her mind. It was hard to keep ahead of this guy. 'I didn't exactly mean…'
'Oh? Now you're disinviting me?' He was smiling earnestly. He reached across the table and touched her hand.
She shook her head. 'Vlad-'
'I'm joking, of course. I wouldn't presume. But we can have some coffee, and then I'll drive you home so you won't have to take the subway.'
'I didn't notice you had a car.'
'It's parked up the street from where we met. I was running some errands, but nothing that can't wait. I'd rather drive you home anytime.'
Before she could say anything more, he summoned the waiter and ordered two coffees.
'There, it's settled,' he said when the waiter had gone.
Ruth didn't really want to argue with him. She debated with herself as to whether she should invite him in when they got to her apartment. The place was a mess, with dirty dishes in the sink and her bed unmade. Better to wait for some other time. Neaten up the place and make a good impression. But it would be nice to ride uptown and not battle the subway. It wasn't true that she enjoyed the subway. That had been only a convenient lie. She wondered if he'd told her any lies.
She valued honesty in a relationship, and this looked as if it might become a relationship. She hoped.
'Malpass,' she said.
'Pardon?'
'That's my name. Ruth Malpass.'
He raised his coffee cup in her direction. 'My great pleasure, Ruth Malpass.'
When they'd finished their coffees, Ruth was confident she could walk a straight line. In fact, she felt confident about everything right now.
Perhaps sensing some unsteadiness, Vlad took her arm as they left the restaurant. She didn't in the slightest resist. During the ten-minute walk to where his car was parked, she laughed at something he said and squeezed his arm, letting him know they'd reached the point in their brief relationship where casual touching was okay. Step by step. Something about him. He'd been around. She was sure he knew the ritual, and where it would lead.
He hadn't mentioned his car was a newer model black Chrysler with darkly tinted windows. Beaded raindrops glistened in the sun like fine crystal on its waxed roof and long hood.
'Very impressive wheels,' she said.
'It's a company car.'
She decided not to ask him what kind of company, what he did for a living, or where he worked. She'd find out eventually.
He unlocked the car with his key fob and held open the passenger-side door for Ruth. When she was seated, he closed the heavy door and hurried around the front of the car to get in on the driver's side.
He was already seated behind the steering wheel fastening his seat belt when Ruth heard a soft sound behind her, glanced over her shoulder, and gasped.
Because of the tinted windows, and her attention fixed on Vlad striding around the front of the car, she hadn't noticed the black-haired woman sitting on the wide backseat. She had a severe hairdo and penetrating dark eyes. She was grinning.
Vlad laughed and patted Ruth's knee.
'Sorry to startle you,' he said. 'I should have said something. This is my sister, Ivana. We have to drop her someplace; then we'll be on our way.'
44
She was a snap to follow. Fedderman stayed back about half a block behind the new Madeline, sometimes crossing to the other side of the street in case she might glance behind her. But she never did. It seemed not to have entered her mind that she might be followed. Either that or she was damned good at looking unsuspecting. Fedderman had seen it both ways. He thought she was simply unaware.
It had been twenty minutes since Fedderman had seen Pearl reverse direction and get off the new Madeline's tail, just after Quinn's phone call to her after Fedderman had talked to him. Fedderman didn't think Pearl had spotted him, either. That pleased him. He'd thought Florida might have spoiled him, that he might be out of practice at being invisible, but tailing, once learned, you didn't forget. It was like riding a bicycle but not like hitting a golf ball.
Fedderman was getting uncomfortably warm in the hot sticky air that followed the rain. Feeling the dampness under his arms, he took off his suit coat and slung it over his shoulder. It wasn't that he had to work hard to keep up with the woman in the white raincoat. She walked slowly, and she liked to window shop. Every now and then she'd enter one of the shops, but usually she didn't stay long. Fickle, Fedderman thought.
She turned the corner at West Eighty-fifth and walked a while, then went up the concrete steps of one of a row of three six-story brownstones that were in disrepair. The middle building looked vacant and had scaffolding along its front, but there was no sign of anyone working. The new Madeline entered through the oversized, green- enameled wood door of the third building.
Fedderman thought the way she'd taken the steps, kind of bounding up them, suggested she was a young woman, or in damned good condition.
He waited five minutes, then crossed the street, sidestepped around pigeon shit, and entered the building. He found himself in a small vestibule with yellow-stained green tile walls and a painted gray concrete floor. The place was stifling and smelled strongly of bleach overpowered by the acrid scent of urine. There were bits of tinfoil on the floor. They looked like Hershey's Kisses wrappers.
Fedderman glanced around and saw no sign of an elevator. The building was a walk-up. A TV was playing loudly in one of the units, tuned to the financial channel. He heard a man's voice proclaim that the bulls were in charge.
That'll be the day.
He stepped over to the row of six mailboxes that were painted the same yellowed green as the wall. The slot above one of the end boxes had a card in it on which M. Scott, 6A was printed in pencil. Top floor. Good thing the new Madeline is in shape. Fedderman was glad there was no reason why he should have to ascend the stairs and verify that indeed unit 6A was up there. It was too hot to climb the steep wooden steps. And a bad idea anyway to clomp up them and maybe alert the new Madeline that she might have been followed.
Fedderman pushed open the heavy wood street door and left the building, glad to get away from the heat and the stench of urine.
He walked half a block before he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Quinn.
They had the new Madeline's address. Progress.
Ten minutes after leaving Fedderman to take her place tailing the new Madeline, Pearl realized she was being followed. It was only an uneasy feeling on the edge of her consciousness, but one a longtime cop didn't ignore.
She began stealing glances behind her and caught just a glimpse of a figure quickly moving away on the periphery of her vision. After another block, she pretended to turn slightly and excuse herself for bumping into a man with a briefcase and saw the same sudden movement. This time whoever it was had ducked into a Duane Reade drugstore. A big one that Pearl knew had a downstairs, so it wouldn't do to enter it and try to find whoever was tailing her. There might be fifty customers inside. She and her tail would simply be playing cat and mouse up and down the aisles.
She told herself not to get excited. Her shadower might simply be some guy who liked short women with black hair and big boobs. Easy enough to understand. But she was curious.
