Her knees failed her and she sagged to the floor. Seemingly with a will of its own, her hand reached for what Arthur had called his lucky piece.
“Hey, lady. What do you think you’re doing?” A policeman took her by the arm. “You have something to do with this?”
“I’m a doctor.” Peta used all of her courage to stem her emotions. “The…victim…isa friend of mine. Dr. Arthur Marryshow.”
“I’m sorry about your loss, ma’am, but there’s nothing much you can do for him now.” The cop took her arm and helped her to her feet. “Come on.”
The torrent from the sprinklers had been shut off. The police officer led Peta across the wet floor to a chair at the far side of the bar. “I hate to intrude, ma’am, but I need to ask you a few questions.” He took out his notebook. “What did you say your name was?”
“Whyte.” Automatically, she spelled it.
He wrote it down. “Dr. Whyte. And you said the deceased was named Marryshow?”
“Yes. I…” Her voice trailed off into silence. George appeared at her side with a glass of scotch, which she downed in a single motion.
“No offense, Officer, but I really don’t think she’s in any condition to answer your questions right now.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. Is there somewhere we can get in touch with you, Doctor?”
Mechanically, she pulled a card out of her purse and handed it to the officer. “I’d like the piece that matches this.” She held up the pendant she was wearing. “It’s in there with…with—”
“If it’s with the…it’s evidence, ma’am. When we’re done with the investigation we’ll get in touch.” He glanced at the card. “Grenada,” he said, mispronouncing it Gre-nah-da.
“Hey, John,” a fellow policeman called out. “We need you over here.”
“We’ll be in touch, Doctor.” The cop named John turned to the maitre d’. “Get her out of here. Now.”
9
Numb with shock, Peta found herself relegated to the street outside the restaurant. She stood there unmoving. Rooted to the concrete.
“Peta! Peta, are you okay?” The familiar face of Ray Arno forced itself through her stupor. “I was on my way to the apartment. What happened in there?” He stared at the flood of gawkers and the half dozen camera crews that had been drawn away from the New Year’s Eve action in Times Square. “Where’s Arthur?”
“Ray!” Peta leaned against the man she’d known for seventeen years, since together they’d saved Arthur’s life. “There was an explosion. Arthur’s…he’s dead, Ray.”
Ray looked stunned. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Peta at last let go. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she described what she had seen.
Ray gripped her shoulder. “I’ll find out who did this to him. I swear I will.”
“Did this tohim ?” Peta repeated. “You think someone was out to murder Arthur?” Somewhere at the back of her presently fuzzy mind she remembered Arthur telling her about his mission to the Middle East. Was this a directed act, connected to the trouble in Israel he had mentioned, rather than a random act of violence?
“He was into a lot of dangerous stuff. You know that.” Ray paused. “I’ll miss him too,” he said, more gently. “He was one of my oldest and dearest friends, Peta.” His eyes filled with tears, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked middle-aged.
“Look, I don’t mean to sound callous but there’s nothing we can do for Arthur. Not right now. It’s not going to be easy to get through the crowds, but I have to be at the meeting by midnight. So do you.” He put his arm around her. “Arthur said he wanted you to take his place if something…permanent…ever happened to him. There has to be a vote and it has to be unanimous, but—”
Peta shook off his arm. She was stunned. Angry that Ray could even consider such a thing right after Arthur’s death. “You’re still going to have the meeting? After this?”
“Yes.” He buttoned up her coat, took off his scarf and wrapped it around her neck. Then he put his arm back around her. “Listen,” he said. “Before we go, there’s something I should warn you about. No matter how much we loved Arthur, you won’t see us mourning his death, not in any conventional way. It’s an agreement we made after our first member died. The meetings go on and we grieve privately, each in our own way.”
Peta felt her temper rise, but pragmatism and emotional exhaustion won out. Therewas nothing else she could do right now. She allowed Ray to lead her through the drunk and rowdy New Year’s Eve celebrants to Arthur’s Manhattan penthouse, a one-bedroom apartment that sat squarely in the middle of the flat roof of the Time Hotel.
The prewar hotel was on West Forty-ninth, half a block from Broadway in the heart of the theater district. At the Ambassador Theater next door, a performance was just letting out. Peta didn’t see the people, didn’t notice anything but her sorrow. She couldn’t think beyond Arthur: his mentoring and friendship; their first visit to New York; their first lovemaking, on her twenty-second birthday, and the evolution of that night into an abiding, all-encompassing love.
She was oblivious to the greetings of the doorman, who knew her from her annual visits and waved them inside, seeing in her mind’s eye the pieces of Arthur’s tortured and scarred body. She followed Ray into a small, antiquated elevator. On the ride up to the sixteenth floor, she remembered the first time she’d used this elevator, the first time she’d stayed overnight with Arthur, their pillow talk about his dangerous work as an undercover plastic surgeon for a small outcropping of the CIA that sent its people onMission: Impossible jaunts into the firing line—including surgeries on the famous and the infamous.
The elevator opened into Arthur’s apartment. Frik stood on the rooftop, his back to her, staring down at the city. Three more men waited inside. She recognized them as acquaintances of Arthur’s.
Stone-faced, Ray poured brandy into two glasses and handed one of them to her. “Drink it,” he said. He downed most of the contents of his own glass. Then he turned toward the others and told them that Arthur would not be at the meeting that night, or ever again.
Each of the men reacted in his own way. One stood up and began to pace. Another, whom she’d known for some time, had tears in his eyes. He put his face in his hands, as if he did not want the others to see his weakness. The third man yelled out “No!” His cry brought Frik to the doorway.
“What’s happened?” he asked, standing in the half shadows.
“It’s Arthur,” Ray said quietly. “He’s dead.”
Frik stared at Ray. “Here,” he said, reverting to his native Afrikaans. “God.” After a moment he asked, “How did it happen?”
As Ray began his recounting, Peta felt on the edge of hysteria. In emotional self-defense, she fell into the habit born of years of training. She looked at the members of the Daredevils Club and cataloged what she knew about them and their activities.
While he’d kept the details a secret, Arthur had told her small things, nonspecific things. She knew that they gathered every New Year’s Eve to exchange tales of the past year’s most daring and death-defying adventures, that they were all people who, by inclination or profession, risked their lives on a regular basis. They sought out trouble, took on jobs that nobody fully sane would do, and put their lives on the line at every opportunity. The playground for their adventures was the world—be it in military installations, deep undersea trenches, or just on the mean streets of New York. They risked their lives for the thrill, the glory, or the money, and they came together to share their adventures because half the fun was telling the tale.