Sachs looked skeptical. “He’d be so pissed-”
“Assuming he’s in a position to be.” She squinted at me. “I want you to think about the police, Nina,” I said.
“No fucking way. I told you, I’d never hear the end of it.”
“Nina, his employers are worried, the closest thing to a friend of his that I’ve been able to find is worried, even I’m worried- and I’ve never met the guy. You should be worried too.”
She looked at me and sucked on her cigarette and shook her head slowly. “Okay, okay, talk to Sovitch- but be discreet, for chrissakes. Give me some time to think about the cops.” I wasn’t sure how much discretion was possible, but I had nodded anyway and left.
The grade eased as I neared the top of Great Hill, and I backed off my pace a little. My heart was pounding and my breathing was fast and shallow. I lengthened my stride and inhaled slowly and deeply. A well-muscled woman in Rollerblades, spandex, and a helmet like a shark fin passed me going in the opposite direction. She was pushing off smoothly, her face lit with anticipation of the downhill glide.
By the time I reached the Loch and the 100th Street entrance, I no longer felt as if my heart would explode. The North Meadow was to my left. They were laying sod there, and I could smell the mulch and the wet earth and the grass. The sky was lighter now, and sunlight touched the crenellated line of buildings along Central Park West.
I passed the 97th Street transverse and wondered if Irene Pratt was awake yet. She’d been only slightly wobbly when I’d dropped her at her door last night, but she’d been awash in an anxious silence. Today she would have a bad case of regrets.
My heart rate was steady as I came to the Reservoir. I shook out my arms and breathed deeply, and my thoughts shifted again- this time to Jane.
It was near midnight when I’d gotten back from Brooklyn, and my head had been full of Nina and Billy and Ines. There’d been lights in Jane’s windows, but I hadn’t gone to her apartment. I went to mine, instead, and poured a glass of water and stood in the kitchen. There was a travel magazine on the counter, open to an article about Venice. I turned the pages as I drank and looked at pictures of the Piazza San Marco and the Ponte di Rialto and the exquisite windows of exquisite shops near the Ponte dell’Accademia. I wondered what it would be like to go there with Jane, and walk with her on the bridges, and sit with her in the cafA©s into the wee hours. And then- from nowhere- I thought of my Proustian moment on Columbus Avenue, and my wondering turned to how long we might stay in Venice, and whether it was a runner’s town, and how I would get in my miles with all that water and all those crowds. A surge of annoyance rushed up my spine and I pushed the magazine away.
I went into the living room and pulled a book from the shelf and sat with it in my lap and didn’t read. I listened for half an hour to Jane’s kickboxing workout- the thump-thump-whump of her beating crap out of the heavy bag that hangs in a corner of her loft- and when the pummeling stopped I listened to my telephone ring. I sat for a while after it went quiet, and then I peeled off my clothes and got into bed. I lay there, watching the play of lights across the ceiling, listening to the rain, until about four-thirty, when I’d pulled on my running clothes.
I still didn’t know why I hadn’t called her or answered her call, or why it had taken so long for my irritation to subside, or why there was a trace of fear in its wake. I didn’t know why I couldn’t sleep.
I was covered in a skin of sweat, and my joints were loose and springy now. A lot of oxygen was bubbling around in my brain. The Museum of Natural History was on my right, bathed in yellow light. I shortened my stride and picked up the pace.
It was nearly six when I got home, and nearly seven by the time I’d stretched and showered and shaved. I came out of the bedroom and there was a note under the front door. The stationery was heavy ivory-colored stock and the printing was angular and precise, like an architect’s. It was from Jane.
Dinner? Call me.
I put the card on the kitchen counter, by the tulips that were shedding their petals. I flicked the coffee machine on and spooned yogurt into a bowl with a sliced apple and some granola. And then I thought about how I might get in touch with Linda Sovitch.
Sovitch was a star of sorts, the most recognizable of BNN’s talking heads and the host of its most successful show. As such, she would be attended by a cadre of PAs, flacks, and other assorted minders, wrapped around her like the skin of an onion and paid to keep riffraff like me at arm’s length. If I wanted to wait a few days, I could root around for some friend of a friend of a friend who might know one of Sovitch’s gatekeepers and might arrange a proper introduction. But I didn’t want to wait a few days. I wanted to talk to Sovitch soon, and that required something more direct. I called Tom Neary.
“You know anybody who deals in celebrity cell numbers?” I asked.
“And hello to you too. Somebody have a little too much coffee today?”
“Somebody hasn’t had nearly enough. Surely a fancy outfit like Brill must have a few gray-market contacts for stuff like this.”
“Surely we do. And they’re so useful we don’t waste them on free agents like you.”
“I’m not asking you to waste anything, I just want a number.”
“Whose?”
“Linda Sovitch’s.”
“From TV?”
“Is there another?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Neary said. “I hear you had a nice visit with Dennis Turpin, by the way.”
“It had a certain entertainment value,” I said, “but I’m not sure how useful it was. I did have an interesting chat with Danes’s doorman, though.” I told Neary about it, and he was quiet for a while, thinking.
“Not cops,” he said finally.
“And not Turpin’s people, either- at least, not according to him. And I assume you’d tell me if they were yours.”
“They’re not mine,” he said.
“Then whose are they?”
“I don’t know,” Neary said. “Not without more coffee, anyway. I’ll call if I get a brainstorm, or if I can find Sovitch’s number.”
While I waited, I read through Geoffrey Tyne’s CV, in anticipation of interviewing him that afternoon. As I’d gathered from his name, Tyne was a Brit, though he’d spent much of his twenty-five-year career overseas. His background was in the right ballpark: university, some military service, a stint with a big UK security consulting firm, doing “personal security”- bodyguard- work before graduating to the corporate side of the shop. And then came a succession of jobs abroad, mainly with banks, in capacities of branch or country or regional security director. But he hadn’t stayed at any of the companies longer than a few years, and he’d never managed to secure a top spot. I was wondering why when the phone rang.
It wasn’t Neary. It was Gregory Danes’s lawyer, Toby Kahn, returning my call. He was on a cell phone, on his way to court. His voice was deep and local, and his rushed words were half swallowed by a bad connection.
“You’re who?” he asked, and I explained it to him again.
“I get paid to handle securities cases for Greg, and that’s it,” Kahn said. “I’m not qualified to do family law, and I get no brownie points for mixing it up with his ex-wife or her hired hand- which I guess is what you are. I got to go inside now- sorry I can’t…” His words grew fainter and the static grew louder, and then the line was dead. I put the phone down.
When it rang again, Neary was on the other end. He had no ideas about who else might be looking for Danes, but he did have a telephone number for me.
“It’s supposed to be her supersecret, private, family-and-close-friends-only number, so use it wisely.”
Linda Sovitch’s supersecret, private, family-and-close-friends-only number was answered by her supersecret, private, family-and-close-friends-only personal assistant, a single-minded young man named Brent.