She smiled and made an assenting gesture with her head.
'No, probably you wouldn't be. But I have contact with a vast range of rich and important people. If this man, who might be named Rugar, is truly expensive, my clientele would be his market.'
'Can you ask around without being too direct?'
She gave me a look as flat and impenetrable as Rosie's.
'Of course you can,' I said.
She smiled.
'Where are you staying?' she said.
'Days Inn on the West Side.'
She wrinkled her nose. 'Really?'
'I'm on my own time,' I said, 'and Susan's not with me.'
'Don't you yourself deserve to go first class?' she said.
'I probably deserve whatever I can get,' I said. 'But all I need is a room and a bath. Days Inn will do fine.'
She nodded as if she weren't really listening to me.
'I'll get in touch with you there,' she said.
I stood. Rosie sprang from the couch and dashed over to me and did a quick spin.
'She wants you to pick her up,' Patricia Utley said.
I did. She weighed more than I would have thought.
'Dog's built like a Humvee,' I said.
'But much cuter,' Patricia Utley said.
'And her nose is longer,' I said.
Rosie lapped me slurpily under the chin as I walked toward the door carrying her. Patricia Utley walked with me. Steven appeared in the hall. I had noticed over the years, both on Thirty-seventh Street and now here, that the front door never opened unless Steven was present. He opened it.
I handed Rosie to him and leaned over and kissed Patricia Utley on the cheek and went down the steps and turned west on Sixty-fifth Street. West Fifty-seventh Street was only about ten blocks away, but it was a lot farther than that from where Patricia Utley lived.
Chapter 46
I HAD DINNER with Paul Giacomon that night in one of those SoHo restaurants where the wait staff all look like members of a yuppie motorcycle gang.
'What do you think?' Paul said as we studied the menu which the head biker had slapped down in front of us before returning to her real job, intimidating tourists.
'Interesting,' I said.
'Does that mean it really is interesting, or is it the kind of interesting like when you see a Jackson Pollock painting and you haven't got a clue and somebody says how do you like it?'
'The latter,' I said.
Paul grinned.
'But it's very downtown,' he said.
'I think maybe I'm more a midtown guy,' I said.
'Food's good,' Paul said.
And it was. We had a bottle of wine with it. And we talked. It was fascinating to me to see how at home in this environment Paul was.
'You look good,' he said. 'Susan told me after you got shot you were down to like 170 pounds.'
'I was slim,' I said, 'but I was slow and clumsy.'
'You okay now?'
'Good as new,' I said.
'Susan says you and Hawk worked like slaves for almost a year.'
'If I'm to pursue my chosen profession,' I said, 'I can't be slim, slow, and clumsy.'
'I suppose you wouldn't pursue it for very long,' Paul said, 'if you were.'
'How's your love life?' I said.
'More like a sex life at the moment,' Paul said.
'Nothing wrong with a sex life,' I said.
Paul grinned at me again.
