"I have to go to New York this afternoon," I explained in a tone that invited no questions. "It has to do with Beryl Madison's case, and I'll be out of the office at least through tomorrow."
I evaded her eyes. Though my secretary knew nothing about Mark, I feared that my motivation was as obvious as a billboard.
"Is there a number where you can be reached?" Rose asked.
"No."
Opening the calendar, she immediately began scanning for the appointments she would need to cancel as she informed me, "The Times called earlier, something about doing a features article, a profile of you."
"Forget it," I answered irritably. "They just want to corner me about Beryl Madison's case. It never fails. Whenever there's a particularly brutal case I refuse to discuss, suddenly every reporter in town wants to know where I went to college, if I have a dog or ambivalence about capital punishment, and what my favorite color, food, movie, and mode of death are."
"I'll decline," she muttered, reaching for the phone.
I left the office in time to make it home, throw a few things into a suit bag, and beat the rush-hour traffic. As Mark promised, my ticket was waiting for me at the airport. He had booked me in first class, and within the hour I was settled in a row all to myself. For the next hour I sipped Chivas on the rocks and tried to read as my thoughts shifted like the clouds in the darkening sky beyond my oval window.
I wanted to see Mark. I realized it wasn't professional necessity, but a weakness that I had believed I had completely overcome. I was alternately thrilled and disgusted with myself. I did not trust him, but I wanted to desperately. He's not the Mark you once knew, and even if he was, remember what he did to you. And no matter what my mind said, my emotions would not listen.
I went through twenty pages of a novel written by Beryl Madison as Adair Wilds and had no earthly idea what I had read. Historical romances are not my favorite, and this one, in truth, wouldn't win any prizes. Beryl wrote well, her prose sometimes breaking into song, but the story limped along on wooden feet. It was the sort of pulp that was written almost to formula, and I wondered if she might have succeeded at the literature she aspired to write had she lived.
The pilot's voice suddenly announced we would be landing in ten minutes. Below, the city was a dazzling circuit board with tiny lights moving along highways and tower lights winking red from the tops of skyscrapers.
Minutes later, I pulled my suit bag out of the storage compartment and passed through the boarding bridge into the madness of La Guardia. I turned, rather startled, at the pressure of a hand on my elbow. Mark was behind me, smiling.
"Thank God," I said with relief.
"What? You thought I was a purse snatcher?" he asked dryly.
"If you had been, you wouldn't be standing," I said.
"I don't doubt that."
He began steering me through the terminal. "Your only bag?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Out front, we got a cab piloted by a bearded Sikh in a maroon turban whose name was Munjar, according to the ID clamped to his visor. He and Mark shouted at each other until Munjar appeared to understand our destination.
"You haven't eaten, I hope," Mark said to me.
"Nothing but smoked almonds…" I fell against his shoulder as we screeched from lane to lane.
"There's a good steak house not far from the hotel," Mark said loudly. "Figured we'd just eat there since I don't know a damn thing about getting around in this city."
Just getting to the hotel would do, I thought, as Munjar began an unsolicited monologue about how he had come to this country to get married, and had a December wedding planned even though he had no prospects for a wife at the moment. He went on to inform us that he had been driving a cab for only three weeks, and had learned how to drive in the Punjab, where he had started driving a tractor at the age of seven.
The traffic was bumper to bumper, with yellow cabs whirling dervishes in the dark. When we arrived in mid-town we passed a steady flow of people in evening dress adding to the long line outside Carnegie Hall. The bright lights and people in furs and black ties stirred old memories. Mark and I used to love the theater, the symphony, the opera.
The cab stopped at the Omni Park Central, an impressive tower of lights near the theater district at the corner of Fifty-fifth and Seventh. Mark snatched up my bag and I followed him inside the elegant lobby, where he checked me in and had my bag sent up to my room. Minutes later we were walking through the sharp night air. I was grateful I had brought my overcoat. It felt cold enough to snow. In three blocks we were at Gallagher's, the nightmare of every cow and coronary artery and the fantasy of every red meat lover. The front window was a meat locker behind glass, an enormous display of every cut of meat imaginable. Inside was a shrine to celebrities, autographed photographs covering the walls.
The din was loud and the bartender mixed our drinks very strong. I lit a cigarette and took a quick survey. Tables were arranged close together, typical for New York restaurants. Two businessmen were engrossed in conversation to our left, the table to our right empty, the one beyond that occupied by a strikingly handsome young man working on the New York Times and a beer. I took a long look at Mark, trying to read his face. He was tight around the eyes and playing with his Scotch.
"Why am I really here, Mark?" I asked.
"Maybe I just wanted to take you out to dinner," he said.
"Seriously."
"I'm serious. You aren't enjoying yourself?"
"How can I enjoy myself when I'm waiting for a bomb to drop?" I said.
He unbuttoned his suit jacket. "We'll order first, then we'll talk."
He used to do this to me all the time. He would get me going only to make me wait. Maybe it was the lawyer in him. It used to drive me crazy. It still did.
"The prime rib comes highly recommended," he said as we looked over the menus. "That's what I'm going to have, and a spinach salad. Nothing fancy. But the steaks are supposed to be the best in town."
"You've never been here?" I asked.
"No. Sparacino has," he answered.
"He recommended this place? And the hotel, too, I presume?" I asked, my paranoia kicking in.
"Sure," he replied, interested in the wine list now. "It's SOP. Clients fly to town and stay in the Omni because it's convenient to the firm."
"And your clients eat here, too?"
"Sparacino's been here before, usually after the theater. That's how he knows about it," Mark said.
"What else does Sparacino know about?" I asked. "Did you tell him you were meeting me?"
He met my eyes and said, "No."
"How is that possible if your firm is putting me up and if Sparacino recommended the hotel and the restaurant?"
"He recommended the hotel to me, Kay. I have to stay somewhere. I have to eat. Sparacino invited me to go out with a couple of other lawyers tonight. I declined, said I needed to look over some paperwork and would probably just find a steak somewhere. What did he recommend? And so on."
It was beginning to dawn on me and I wasn't sure if I felt embarrassed or unnerved. Probably it was both. Orn-dorff amp; Berger wasn't paying for this trip. Mark was. His firm knew nothing about it.
The waiter was back and Mark placed the order. I was fast losing my appetite.
"I flew in last night," he resumed. "Sparacino got hold of me in Chicago yesterday morning, said he needed to see me right away. As you may have guessed, it's about Beryl Madison."
He looked uncomfortable.
"And?" I prodded him, my uneasiness increasing.
He took a deep breath and said, "Sparacino knows about my connection, uh, about you and me. Our past…"
My stare stopped him.
"Kay…"
"You bastard." I pushed back my chair and dropped my napkin on the table.
"Kay!"
Mark grabbed my arm, pulling me back into the seat. I angrily shook him off and sat rigidly in my chair, glaring at him. It was in a Georgetown restaurant many years ago that I had snatched off the heavy gold bracelet he had given me and dropped it into his clam chowder. It was a childish thing to do. It was one of the rare moments in my life when I had completely lost my composure and made a scene.