It didn’t take Faith long to get to Rockefeller Center.
Strange to think it had been open pastureland until the early 1800s. Now herds still gathered, but human herds intent on snaring tickets for a Letterman taping, the sight of the tree, a blowout at the Rainbow Room, or some very expensive shopping. She pushed her way through the crowds gathered around the Channel Gardens, those huge raised beds running from Fifth to the ice-skating rink. Tourists were posing for pictures next to the wire angels sounding their horns, poised in the masses of greenery. This whole business with Emma is definitely putting a damper on my Yuletide spirit, Faith thought sadly. Normally, it was her favorite time of the year. She looked straight ahead at the towering seventy-foot Norway spruce rising toward the winter sky, the GE Building behind it. Oddly, the tree seemed to grow smaller as she moved down the promenade and the view widened to include the incongruous forest of skyscrapers to either side, the rink below. Garlands of lights hung from the tree’s boughs, tossing flickering colors over the skaters and Manship’s huge statue of Prometheus, the gold leaf thinning in places, the fountain beneath stilled until spring. She turned to go down the stairs to the American Festival Cafe, still gazing at the tree. The ultimate Christmas tree, befit-ting the city that was, in Faith’s opinion, the planet’s shiniest ornament at any time of year.
Despite the urgency of the situation, she couldn’t 50
stop herself from watching the skaters for a minute. As usual, they were all ages, all shapes, all sizes. Stumbling, laughing beginners, ankles wobbling. Serene-faced experts gracefully gliding in perfect time to the
“Skater’s Waltz.” Around and around they went. If she hadn’t been meeting Emma, Faith would have joined them.
But she was meeting Emma, and surprisingly, Emma was inside already, a pot of steaming tea and two cups on the table in front of her.
“They’re bringing some scones and tea sandwiches.
I thought you might be hungry.”
Emma was paler than Faith had ever seen her. The faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose had emerged and her hair was more red than gold, in con-trast to the flat white of her skin.
Faith took off her coat, hat, and gloves, then sat down, extending her hand across the table. “Let me see the card.”
Emma had it ready in her lap and silently gave it to Faith. Once more Faith had a vague feeling that she shouldn’t be touching it. That it should be dusted for prints. She shook her head. The whole situation was insane, and the way Emma and Faith herself were handling it was even crazier. What did they know about crime?
It was another card from the same pack, a Currier & Ives snow-covered barn this time, and like the first missive, it got right to the point. But this one was scarier. Much scarier.
You see we know where you live. We’re getting closer.
We have very expensive tastes and we’ll be needing some more cash. Don’t worry. W
.
e’ll be in touch
51
“When is Michael getting back?” It was abundantly clear why Emma didn’t want to stay in the apartment alone now. There was no mistaking the threat implied by underlining the word touch.
“Tonight. He just has time to change before we have to go to some fund-raiser.”
The waiter came with the rest of the order and fussed about with the scones and sandwiches. The delay was maddening. Finally, he left, but not until both women had thanked him profusely and falsely.
“You do see that they’ll just keep upping the ante.
Blackmailers don’t stop, especially when they get what they want. This could go on for the rest of your life—
or until you run out of money. And how did you come up with that much cash so fast?”
Emma looked down at her untouched plate. “Well, I do have rather a lot.” She sounded apologetic. If giving into these demands was some sort of perverse rich girl’s guilt over her assets, Faith could think of any number of better recipients for her largesse. “Poppy was worried that Jason would figure out a way to cut me off without her finding out, so she set up a trust for me out of her own money. It’s supposed to be a secret.” Emma looked even more mortified, if that was possible.
“Don’t worry. I’m not sure I would even recognize your stepfather if I saw him, let alone tell him anything at all. You know that.”
Emma nodded absently, smiling slightly. “Then when I was twenty-one, I came into the money left by my grandparents. A good bit of it is real estate. They thought Poppy had enough—and so did she—so everything went to Lucy and me.”
Real estate. Nothing like putting your money into 52
land. Especially on the island of Manhattan. Faith dimly recalled hearing from her own mother, who could tell you the owner and price of virtually every building in the city, that Poppy had been born not with a silver spoon in her mouth, but a platinum one. By the time her two daughters were shoveling in the Pablum, the utensil had apparently become encrusted with dia-monds.
But back to the issue at hand. It was nice for Emma that she had such bushel baskets of money, yet there was no reason for her to watch it all get dumped out.
“Even so, you can’t keep paying,” Faith said firmly.
“And what about your safety? They were able to get into your building, past the doormen, and up to your floor!”
Tears came into Emma’s eyes and she poured the tea with an unsteady hand. “Yes, I’m scared. Terribly frightened, in fact, but I’d rather die than betray my husband, and that’s what it amounts to.” She offered Faith the cup.
Faith took it, noting that Emma had been worrying the cuticles on her thumbs. Reflexively, she began to pick at her own, then stopped in annoyance. There was really nothing she could say after Emma’s impassioned declaration, but Faith gave it a try. “You can’t live like this. It’s only going to get worse. Think about it! You have got to do something! ” Emma poured herself some tea, peered into the cup, and, despite the lack of tea leaves, announced her decision. “I’ll tell Michael everything when things calm down. After he’s elected next fall.” The matter dis-missed, she moved on. “You’ve seen the papers?” Faith had. She’d been buying all of them, even and especially the tabloids, since Thursday. Fox’s murder 53
was still all over the front pages and the press had been pulling up file photos from Nate’s radical salad days.
In one of today’s papers, there had been a large blowup of Fox leading chanting demonstrators in front of the Federal Building. A young woman linked to his arm, someone who could have been Emma’s twin, was obviously Poppy Morris. So far, however, there hadn’t been a word connecting either Poppy or Emma to Fox.
“I’m learning all sorts of things about my father from the articles,” Emma said wistfully. “Mother would never talk about him. But I’ve read all his books.”
If ever anyone wanted proof of filial devotion, here it was. Faith well knew that Emma’s favorite book had always been Charlotte’s Web, and even in adulthood, her reading, other than periodicals, tended toward idyl-lic—and usually bucolic—fiction. Family sagas with happy endings.
Faith had been learning things from the papers, too.
She’d wondered how Fox had gotten his books published without either revealing his whereabouts or im-plicating his publisher. An extensive interview in Sunday’s Times with Arthur Quinn, his longtime agent, had provided the answer. Quinn claimed not to have seen or talked with Fox since his disappearance. The manuscripts and various instructions would arrive in the mail with postmarks from several different South American countries and no return address. Quinn might get one a year, then nothing for two or three. As per Fox’s wishes, all the royalties went to charities that he would update from time to time.