'You want to kick her?'
'Sure,' Rick said.
He kicked very hard.
Blood started pouring from her nose.
'Man,' Adam said, 'you really gave it to her.'
Coming down the stairs now, six blocks from a fashionable area of restaurants, Adam thought back to that night two years ago and shook his head. He enjoyed taking risks, but within reason.
But Rick, when he got down or depressed, or angry with something that Adam had done
Adam stood for a moment on the corner taking in the fresh night air. Well, as fresh as you were going to get in New York City, anyway.
The lighted phone booth reminded him of a million films noirs he'd seen over the years. How he loved them. Bogart. Robert Ryan. Lawrence Tierney (who maybe had the greatest noir face of all)…
Hearing his footsteps echo in the night, turning up the collar of his trench coat, tilting his head against the bitter wind… he felt like a character in a film noir himself.
When he got to the phone booth, Adam took out his wallet and his Ma Bell credit card and went to work.
Four minutes later their phone was ringing back in Chicago.
Ringing and ringing and
Adam got a bad feeling.
He could see Rick being so upset about the latest of Adam's dalliances (well, the latest till he'd arrived here in New York) that his mate went out tonight and did something stupid.
Rick was always a wild card.
Always.
Adam replaced the receiver.
Then he was out of the booth and walking again, a character in a black-and-white film circa 1948, one with a lot of blue and lonely sax music…
CHAPTER 39
'Excuse me.'
Jill had been in the middle of buttering a piece of wheatbread she'd bought fresh from the bakery earlier that day, and exchanging some choice gossip with Kate, when her phone rang.
She picked it up. 'Hello?'
'Hi. It's me, Mitch.'
She glanced at Kate, feeling guilty, the way she had when her older brother always smirked about her boyfriends calling the house.
Kate seemed to know immediately who it was.
'I'm sort of busy right now, Mitch. Kate's here.'
'This is business. Jill.'
'Business?'
'Yes. You heard about Eric Brooks?'
'Yes.'
'Well, my boss is going to question you, probably later tonight.'
'Isn't that normal? I mean, I was up there, seeing Eric.'
'Anything noteworthy take place?'
'Not really. Excuse me a second.' She covered the yellow receiver, the yellow matching the walls of the kitchen, and said to Kate, 'The police are going to question me.'
Kate frowned. 'Boy, that's all you need. Publicity again.'
To Mitch, Jill said, 'This is all routine, right?'
'I hope so.'
'You don't sound sure.'
'My Lieutenant iswell, I don't know if you remember me talking about him, but Lieutenant Sievers isn't exactly a criminology genius. He's very old-school. And he tends to pursue the first person who looks like a good suspect.'
She thought of tabloid journalists hiding in wait wherever she went. Could it all happen again?
'Eric was alive and well when I left there.'
'I'm sure he was.'
'Do you have any advice?'
'Don't let him rile you. The Lieutenant, I mean. He's very good at making people feel guilty, even when they're not.'
'God, I'm not looking forward to this.'
'Maybe…' He paused. 'Maybe I could come over and give you a little moral support.'
She glanced at Kate, still feeling embarrassed about talking to Mitch in front of her, probably because she knew that Kate still disliked Mitch for what he'd done to Jill.
She did not want to say what she said next. But somehow the words came, symbols of all the loneliness and tenderness and emptiness she'd known since Mitch had so abruptly left her life. 'I'd like that.'
'I'll be there in twenty minutes.'
She hung up and said to Kate, 'I guess I'm going to have company a little later.'
Kate looked at her levelly. 'You sure you want him coming around again, Jill?'
Jill smiled sardonically. ''That's the funny thing. I do want him coming around again.'
CHAPTER 40
Doris spent an hour on the phone talking to a college classmate who'd called a few weeks earlier. Doris hadn't gotten a chance to return the call till now, which gave her the perfect opportunity to be in the second den, the smaller one, that her mother used as an office.
As Doris and her friend Amy went through the latest on divorces, births, re-marriages and promotions, Doris carefully examined everything on the green felt desk pad, and then began working her way through the desk drawers.
She wanted to find something with the man's name on it. Runyon.
'And did you hear about Sally Wasserman?'
'No,' Doris said, trying to stay alert as she talked and searched. 'But she's such a decent person, I hope it's good news.'
'New breasts.'
'Sally Wasserman? That must be just a rumor.'
'No rumor. I've seen them with my own eyes.'
'Maybe she's just wearing padded bras.'
Amy chuckled. 'No bra's this padded, believe me. Plus, they sit straight out.'
'Maybe I should look into it myself.'
'You? You've got great charlies, Doris.'
''Charlies?'' Doris laughed. 'God, where did you hear that?'
'That's what my ten-year-old calls them when he thinks I'm not listening to him talk to his totally sexist little friends. I think we're raising a generation of male chauvinist pigs.'
'Well, is there anybody we haven't worked over?' Much as Doris had always liked Amy, she always felt slightly degraded after talking to the woman. They had a tendency to make uncharitable remarks about other
