Cold Night

Paine got up but didn't take a step. 'God, that old bastard set us up all right,' he said. He was staring at one corner of the dome, looking for something on the wall that wasn't there anymore, a picture of two boys and a man, all smiling.

'Come and take a look,' his brother said.

He walked to the long white tube and stood before the high end, putting his eyes to the slim tube plugging out. He covered his other eye with his hand, keeping the eye open. He saw nothing for a few seconds, and then his retina was filled with a blanket of bright pinpoints with a hard glowing core. It was like looking at a crown of perfect diamonds. It was Ml3, the Hercules cluster of stars, one of the most beautiful things in the sky. In a moment he was lost in it, floating into the spill of diamonds, his eyes drinking them in, his mind the mind of an eight-year-old, seeing this magnificent object for the first time.

He stood away from the telescope. 'It still works.'

'Why don't we close it up,' Tommy said.

They capped the telescope and closed the slit. Tom gathered all the charts into a pile and turned off the red light. 'I'll make coffee,' he said. They closed the door of the dome, latching it with a piece of wood, and Tommy led the way back through the woods to the house. He pulled open the back door and they entered the kitchen. There was a potbellied stove in one corner, giving off faint heat. Tommy threw a couple of small logs into it. Soon its grill gave off a steady orange glow and they sat at the kitchen table while a pan of water began to boil.

'It occurs to me,' Tommy said when the coffee was in their mugs, 'that something must have happened to you, something else, to get you up here.'

'Ginny's leaving me.'

'That's news?' his brother said, and then he said,

'Sorry. You mean really gone.'

'Yeah.'

'You want it to happen?'

'I don't know.'

'Want me to tell you something, Jack?'

'Haven't you told me enough already tonight?' A trace of a smile came across Paine's face.

'I'll tell you, anyway. She was always a shit.'

'I don't know about that.'

His brother shrugged, and they drank their coffee.

Through the windows, the night wore away, toward daybreak.

Tommy said, 'She never stood by you. Not when you really needed it. She just didn't have what it takes to really stand by you.'

'I don't know if I blame her for it.'

His brother shrugged again.

After a while Tommy said, 'I meant what I said about this place being yours when you want it. The key's in that hollowed stump we made when we were kids.'

Paine nodded, looking out the window at the pink of dawn. 'I've got to be leaving soon.'

'Could be a good day,' Tommy said quietly.

'Could be.'

EIGHT

He got back down to Yonkers just before noon. His stomach was starting to grumble so he pulled off the Saw Mill Parkway, drove awhile and found a diner he knew. If he followed the road it was on, and went south, he would, after two hundred blocks, find himself in the middle of Times Square.

He ate, then drove north again and made a few turns and then he pulled up in front of Bravura Enterprises. It was a stuccoed flat-fronted building, the kind that might have been anything before it was Bravura Enterprises-a bowling alley, chemical lab, furniture outlet. The sign looked a few years old, undented metal but pigeon-spotted in places and beginning to fade.

He was surprised to find how nice the offices inside were-whoever had gutted the building had done a good job. The reception area, except for the lack of windows, might have been on the fiftieth floor of any office building on Park Avenue. The secretary also looked New York City, not the usual polyester you found in the suburbs. She had red hair that looked real. Her brass nameplate said 'Mary Wagner.' She smiled and told him no, he couldn't see Mr. Paterna.

Paine, returning her smile, said, 'Tell Mr. Paterna that Gloria Fulman sent me.'

She turned and spoke into her intercom, then swiveled back with the same liquid smile and eyes.

'He'll see you in five minutes, Mr. Paine.'

After exactly five minutes he was ushered down a short, carpeted hallway into Les Paterna's office. This was nicely done also. There was some taste in evidence here, not the kind that you buy package-made from some cheesy interior decorator, but the kind that a man would execute after thinking for years and years about the way he'd really like to have things.

Paine sat down. Paterna sat down on the other side of his desk. He was a little older than his photo, early fifties. He made a steeple with his hands, a gesture which made Paine immediately dislike him.

'What can I do for you?'

Paine flipped the photo of Paterna across the desk at him, then took it back. He noticed that Paterna's nails were manicured.

'That's a picture of me,' Paterna said. 'It was taken about five years ago, at the Grumbach estate. So?'

Paine showed him the other two photographs. 'Know these people?'

'No, I don't,' Paterna said. 'Is there anything specific you want to know, Mr. Paine?'

'Will you tell me how long you knew Morris Grumbach?'

'We met at a party seven or eight years ago.'

'Remember whose party it was?'

'No, I don't.'

'Did you work for him long?'

'With him, Mr. Paine. Morris and I were partners. He needed some help, and I needed some help, so we decided to make a go of it together.'

'Why did you split?'

Paterna didn't blink. 'We stopped needing each other.'

'Was it amicable?'

'I'd have to admit that it was more my idea than Morris's. But he got over it. I'd say we were friends again by the end.'

'Friends?'

Paterna smiled. 'Friendly.'

Paine showed him the other three photographs. For the faintest moment he thought something registered on Paterna's face.

Paterna handed the photographs back. 'I don't know any of these people.'

'Do you remember anything about the two younger Grumbach girls?'

Paterna drew a cigarette case out, took a short cigarette from it, didn't offer Paine one. 'They were nice girls. I was over there a lot for a while. The youngest had emotional problems, but she was a nice girl.' He lit the cigarette. 'I was sorry to hear she killed herself.'

Paine asked, 'Did you call Gloria Fulman just before you let me in here?'

Paterna's eyes stared at him.

'I hope she spoke well of me,' Paine said.

Paterna replied, 'Is there anything else you wanted to know?'

'How's business?' Paine asked, getting up.