Fran said, 'Don't you do anything dangerous either, okay?'
'I won't.'
'Will you call me?'
'I don't know. I need some time, is all.'
She nodded. 'I love you, Waldo.'
His eyes met hers and for a moment she thought he might stay, take her in his arms. But then he was gone.
– -
Colin had asked Annie to meet him at seven-thirty at the Anchor Inn on the water. He'd blamed his failure to pick her up on having to work late, and she accepted what he said without question. As he drove to the restaurant he reviewed his two conversations with Mark. One on Friday, the other only a few minutes ago. Friday's conversation had been unsettling at best.
'She probably has her period or something,' Mark said about Babe.
'Come on, Mark, that's absurd. Are you living in the Dark Ages?'
He shrugged. 'Sarah always gets weird around her period.'
'Believe me, Babe's behavior has nothing to do with anything but her goddamn twisted ambition.'
'Don't you think you're being a little hard on her?'
Colin was stunned. 'No. No, I don't. Are you sure you understood what I told you? She wants my job or else she's going to give the story about me to
'I heard you, okay? I just don't think she'll do it. She knows I'd fire her if she did.'
'Would you?'
'Of course.' He looked surprised that Colin would think anything else.
'Even so I'd rather not wait and see what she does, Mark. I wish you'd tell her that now.'
'Why borrow trouble, pal?'
Colin was losing his patience. 'I'm not borrowing trouble. I'm telling you what the woman is going to do, and I believe she will unless you talk to her.'
'Okay. I'll talk to her.'
'When?'
'When I see her.'
'When will that be?'
'She'll be in on Monday.'
'Christ, Mark, she's given me until tomorrow. What the hell is wrong with you?'
'I'm sorry, I've got things on my mind.'
'Don't we all.'
He laid his hand on Colin's shoulder. 'No, listen, I really do. Amy's-'
'Mark, this is important. Babe is going to blow my cover. I'll have to leave Seaville if this thing gets into the papers.'
'You don't think this thing with Amy is important? My marriage, my whole life might go down the tubes, pal, and you don't think it's important? Fuck that.' He put his head in his hands.
'Mark,' he said softly, trying to pacify him. 'I'm sorry. I know this thing with Amy is important, but there's not much you can do about it right now, is there?'
No answer.
'So what I'm asking you to do is to concentrate on my problem for a few minutes and-'
'Mike Rosler called you. What's up?'
'What?'
'Rosler returned your fucking call.'
'I didn't see a slip about it.'
'I didn't write a slip. I'm telling you instead. I got the call by accident. How come you called him?' His bottom lip protruded like a sulky baby's.
'I had an idea I wanted to check with him.'
Suspicion clouded Mark's eyes. 'What idea?'
'It's not important.'
'Important enough to call a big shot New York Times reporter.'
Colin quickly weighed the pros and cons of telling Mark, decided if he wanted him to take action on the Babe thing it would be smarter to let him in on his idea. 'I thought Mike could tell me something about cult markings, symbols, stuff like that. I had an idea there might be some connection with the A's the killer was cutting on his victims.'
'What's Rosler know about that?'
'Maybe nothing. I just thought I'd give it a shot. Mark, are you going to talk to Babe or not?'
'Yeah, sure. I'll call her.'
'When?'
He looked at his watch. 'She's doing a story in Riverhead now. I'll catch her later. Okay?'
He'd agreed but it hadn't felt okay at all. Then, today, Mark had been impossible to find. He'd finally reached him ten minutes before he'd left to meet Annie.
'Did you speak to Babe?' he'd asked.
'Yeah. She quit.'
'What?'
'She quit the fucking paper, Colin. Now who the hell am I going to get to do the soft stuff?'
Colin wanted to ram his fist through the phone. He'd never realized how self-involved Mark was. 'What about the story she was going to write?'
'She wouldn't talk about it, just said she was quitting.'
And that was it. Nobody had to tell Colin that Babe was going to carry through on her threat. She probably had a job at
Colin pulled into the parking lot of the Anchor Inn. Annie had said the place was very popular, the food better than most restaurants on the Fork. But by the few cars in the lot he wondered if it were really true. Annie's car was already there.
The sun, like a red beach ball, was slowly slipping below the horizon. Colin stopped for a moment and breathed in the salt air coming off the Sound. In the distance he spotted two sailboats moving across the water toward shore. Despite the murders, there was a certain sense of peace here he'd never felt elsewhere. He would hate to have to leave this place. Crossing the lot he tried to shake his gloomy mood.
The Anchor Inn had a predictably nautical theme-life preservers on the walls, surrounded by fishnets; ship's wheels for chandeliers; varnished hatch-cover tables.
She was sitting by a window, her profile to him, looking at the Sound. He thought she was lovely. Her blond hair shimmered in the last light of the day. She was wearing a red cotton dress, scooped at the neck, with three-quarter sleeves.
As he started toward her she turned, signaled him with a wave of her hand, her face breaking into a gorgeous smile. He felt giddy.
'Am I late?' He knew he wasn't.
'I was early.'
He thought her blue eyes were the color of cornflowers he'd seen as a boy. Or was it a sky somewhere? 'Would you like a drink?'
'I've ordered one. Isn't it a beautiful sunset?' she asked.
'Do you always arrange for them to be like this?'
She smiled. 'I try.'
The waitress brought her a daiquiri. He ordered a whiskey sour.
'We've practically got this place to ourselves,' Colin remarked, looking around.
Only a handful of tables were occupied. 'It's still early in the season,' she concluded.
