‘Coffee smells done,’ she said gently to Connie, who nodded absently.
Jones left her to her thoughts, made her way to the machine, and poured steaming liquid into the two mugs Connie had prepared.
She raised a mug to her lips. The coffee was very hot and very strong. Just how she liked it. There was no milk, but she always drank coffee black. She could feel herself being jolted back to some semblance of life.
She passed Connie the second mug just as Dom returned, carrying a large brown paper bag.
‘Gee, that smells good,’ he said.
Jones found another mug.
Meanwhile Dom emptied out the contents of his paper bag onto the worktop, alongside the coffee machine.
‘Hot pastrami sandwiches, and red velvet cake, a Harlem speciality, just in case you two honkies don’t know it,’ he said. ‘The best cake you ever gonna eat.’
Connie ignored him and the food.
‘Do you have any news? Have you managed to find out anything about Marion? We know she’s alive—’
‘You do?’ Dom interrupted anxiously ‘How?’
‘It was on the TV news,’ said Jones. ‘They said her condition was critical.’
‘Did they identify her?’ Dom spoke sharply.
‘No. But I guess they know who she is already. The bulletin said that her identity was being withheld until her family could be contacted.’
Dom nodded, looking grim. Connie put down her coffee and moved swiftly and suddenly towards him. She grabbed one of his arms with both hands. Jones could see that her knuckles were white, and her fingertips were digging into the sleeve of Dom’s jacket.
‘So, Marion must be in hospital somewhere, we’ve got to find her, Dom. I have to know...’
Connie’s voice had turned slightly hysterical again.
‘Hey, Con, hey,’ said Dom, raising a big fleshy hand in what Jones presumed was supposed to be a calming gesture. ‘My girl’s on the case.’
‘Well, how’s she going to find anything out? They’ll only give information to family, won’t they? It’s not going to be easy...’
‘It won’t be too hard for my girl,’ said Dom. ‘I told you, she’s special.’
Jones wondered what the hell the big man was talking about. Connie looked as if she was going to interrupt again, then turned away, beaten, and slumped onto a chair.
‘Have some more coffee, Connie,’ said Jones, holding out the other woman’s abandoned mug. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’
Connie turned a jaundiced eye on her. Jones realized she must have sounded particularly trite.
‘Nothing will make me feel better,’ she responded sharply. ‘Except knowing that Marion is going to be all right.’
Nonetheless she took the coffee and raised it to her lips.
Dom picked up two packets of pastrami sandwiches, handing one to Connie and one to Jones.
‘So will food,’ he said. ‘And anyway, even if it don’t make you feel better, you gotta eat, Connie babe. We gotta keep functioning. All of us. People ain’t no different to machines. You, with all your fancy notions, Con, you ought to know that, girl. Gotta have fuel to keep going.’
He opened a packet of sandwiches himself and took a big bite out of one.
‘Seriously goddamned good,’ he said.
The smell of hot salted meat and mustard mingled with the aroma of the coffee. Once again, to her surprise, Jones’s felt her saliva buds react.
She removed a sandwich from the packet Dom had handed her. And once she started eating she couldn’t get the food into her mouth fast enough. Her nausea had evaporated. She found that she was absolutely ravenous. When she’d finished the sandwich she started on the red velvet cake. It was the colour of new brick and melted on her tongue like butter, every bit as fine as Dom had said it would be.
She was aware of Connie’s eyes on her.
‘It’s good grub,’ said Jones by way of encouragement.
Connie narrowed her gaze.
‘If I ate a mouthful I would be sick as a hog,’ she said.
The Dominator’s girlfriend arrived about an hour later. It had seemed much longer to Jones, and she suspected that to Connie it had probably seemed like a lifetime.
She was not at all what Jones had expected. She hadn’t realized she’d been expecting any particular kind of woman to be Dom’s girl, but she must have been. This one took her totally by surprise.
She was tall, blonde and elegant, with good strong features and intelligent eyes. Her mouth was wide and generous. She wore her long hair swept loosely back in a ponytail. She was well dressed in a stylish, navy-blue, pin-striped trouser suit, and when she spoke her voice had a musical ring to it.
‘Hi, I’m Gaynor,’ she said, smiling easily. Her teeth were perfect, her manner relaxed and confident.
She was clearly a class act.
Jones realized it had been not only patronizing of her to have rather different expectations of the big brash wrestler upon whom her entire survival now seemed to depend, but also quite probably racist. It hadn’t occurred to Jones that Dom’s girl would be anything other than a woman of colour.
Dom beamed with pride as soon as Gaynor entered the room.
‘Whaddya think of my babe, then?’ he enquired.
Connie clearly took the attitude that the question was rhetorical, if she considered it at all. Before Jones had time to think of an appropriate reply, Connie Pike began firing questions at the young woman.
‘What have you found out? Do you know where they’ve taken Marion? Is she going to pull through?’
Dom’s girl was unfazed. She walked across the room to Connie and took both her hands in hers.
‘Marion is at St Vincent’s Hospital,’ she said. ‘She’s very poorly, but they say she has a good fighting chance. She’s just come out of surgery and she’s in intensive care. I’ve been told the next few hours are critical. Then we’ll know for sure if she’s going to pull through.’
‘Is she conscious?’
‘Well, she’s still under anaesthetic. She was knocked out, but apparently her head wounds are not believed to be that serious.’
Jones realized that meant the truck could not have run over Marion’s head, after all. Relief washed over her.
‘Thank God,’ said Connie. ‘But what about her other injuries?’
The younger woman did not attempt to avoid eye contact. It was almost as if she and Connie had formed an instant bond which demanded that there be no bullshit.
‘She has four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and severe injuries to her legs,’ said Gaynor.
‘You said she’d just come out of surgery?’
‘Yes.’ Gaynor’s voice was calm and matter of fact. ‘Her right leg was virtually severed by the truck. The surgeons had to amputate what was left, above the knee.’
The line of Connie’s mouth was very thin. Her voice sounded strange when she spoke. Almost as if it wasn’t her voice at all.
‘And the other leg?’
‘They’re trying to save it. It’s broken in several places, and the ligaments are torn.’
‘Do they think they can save it?’
‘They don’t know yet.’
‘So what exactly are her chances of pulling through, with or without her remaining leg?’
Gaynor shrugged. ‘They don’t know that either.’
‘Fifty-fifty then?’
‘Thereabouts.’
‘Only thereabouts?’
Gaynor nodded. ‘Yes. I think that’s the best prognosis. A good fighting chance, that’s all they told me.’
‘I see.’
‘I need to go to her,’ Connie said, for the umpteenth time.
‘The hospital and the police know her identity,’ Gaynor replied with quiet authority. ‘That means that the people who made the hit on her, thinking she was you, Connie, probably now know you are still alive and well. And if they don’t, they will soon. Marion’s next of kin, her son in Princeton, has been informed of the incident and her identity will be released to the media shortly. Someone has tried to kill you twice, Connie. They’ll try again. They’ll be waiting for you...’