From Potter`s Field

Eugenio had gotten up to see about our food.

'Benton,' I said as my blood roared. 'I let Lucy use that card last fall.'

'When she began her internship with us?' He frowned.

'Yes. I gave it to her after she left UVA and was on her way to the Academy. I knew she'd be back and forth to visit me. She'd be flying to Miami for the holidays and so on. I gave her my American Express card to use mostly for plane and Amtrak tickets.'

'And you haven't seen it since then?' He looked dubious.

'I haven't thought about it, to tell you the truth. I generally use MasterCard or Visa, and it seems to me that the Amex card expires this February. So I must have figured Lucy could have it until then.'

'You'd better call her.'

'I will.'

'Because if she doesn't have it, Kay, then I'm going to suspect Gault stole it when the Engineering Research Facility was broken into last October.'

This was what I feared.

'What about your bills?' he asked. 'Have you noticed any strange charges over recent months?'

'No,' I said. 'I don't recall there being any charges at all during October or November, 'I paused. 'Should we cancel the card or use it to track him?'

'Tracking him with it may be a problem.'

'Because of money.'

Wesley hesitated. I'll see what I can do,'

Eugenio returned with our pasta. He said he was trying to remember if there might be anything else.

'I think his last time here was Thursday night,' He counted his fingers. 'Four days ago. He likes the bistecca, the carpaccio. Uhhh, let me see. He got funghi e carciofi one time and cappellini plain. No sauce. Just a little butter. We invite him to the party. Every year we do this to show appreciation to friends and special customers,'

'Did he smoke?' Wesley asked.

'Yes, he did,'

'Do you remember what?'

'Yes, brown cigarettes. Nat Shermans,'

'What about drinking?'

'He like expensive Scotch and nice wine. Only he was' - he lifted his nose - 'snobbish. He think only the French make wine,' Eugenio laughed. 'So he usually got Chateau Carbonnieux or Chateau Olivier, and the vintage could be no earlier than 1989.'

'He only got white wine?' I said.

'No red, none. He would not touch red. I send him glass on the house once and he send it back,'

Eugenio and Wesley exchanged cards and other information, then our maitre d' returned his attention to his party, which by now was going strong.

'Kay,' Wesley said, 'can you think of any other explanation for what we've just learned?'

'No,' I said. 'The description of the man sounds like Gault. Everything sounds like Gault. Why is he doing this to me?' My fear was turning to fury.

Wesley's gaze was steady. 'Think. Is there anything else of late that you should tell me about? Weird phone calls, weird mail, hang ups?'

'No weird phone calls or hang ups. I get some strange mail, but that's fairly routine in my business.'

'Nothing else? What about your burglar alarm? Has that gone off more than usual?'

I slowly shook my head. 'It's gone off a couple times this month, but there was no sign of anything out of order. And I really don't think Gault has been spending time in Richmond,'

'You've got to be very careful,' he said almost irritably, as if I had not been careful.

'I'm always very careful,' I said.

6

The next day, the city was at work again, and I took Marino to lunch at Tatou because I thought both of us needed an uplifting atmosphere before we went to Brooklyn Heights to meet Commander Penn.

A young man was playing the harp, and most tables were occupied by attractive, well-dressed men and women who probably knew little about life beyond the publishing houses and high-rise businesses that consumed their days.

I was struck by my sense of alienation. I felt lonely as I looked across the table at Marino's cheap tie and green corduroy jacket, at the nicotine stains on his broad furrowed nails. Although I was glad for his company, I could not share my deeper thoughts with him. He would not understand.

'Looks to me like you could use a glass of wine with lunch, Doc,' Marino said, eyeing me closely. 'Go ahead. I'm driving.'

'No, you're not. We're taking a taxi.'

'Point is, you're not driving so you may as well relax.'

'What you're really saying is that you'd like a glass of wine.'

'Don't mind if I do,' he said as the waitress appeared. 'What you got by the glass that's worth drinking?' he asked her.

She did a good job of not looking offended as she went through an impressive list that left Marino lost. I suggested he try a Beringer reserve cabernet that I knew was good, and then we ordered cups of lentil soup and spaghetti bolognese.

"This dead lady's driving me crazy,' Marino said after the waitress was gone.

I leaned closer to the table's edge and encouraged him to lower his voice.

He leaned closer, too, adding, 'There's a reason he picked her.'

'He probably picked her because she was there,' I said, pricked by anger. 'His victims are nothing to him.'

'Yeah, well, I think there's more to it than that. And I'd also like to know what brought his ass here to New York City. You think he met up with her in the museum?'

'He might have,' I said. 'Maybe we'll know more when we get there.'

'Don't it cost money to go in there?'

'If you look at the exhibits it does.'

'She may have a lot of gold in her mouth, but it don't look to me like she had much money when she died.'

'I would be surprised if she did. But she and Gault got in the museum somehow. They were seen leaving.'

'So maybe he met her earlier, took her there and paid her way.'

'I'm hoping it will be helpful when we look at what he was looking at,' I said.

'I know what the squirrel was looking at. Sharks.'

The food was wonderful, and it would have been easy to sit for hours. I was tired beyond explanation, as I sometimes got. My disposition was built upon many layers of pain and sadness that had started with my own when I was young. Then over the years, I had added. Every so often I got in moods that were dark, and I was in one now.

I paid the check because when Marino and I were together, if I picked the restaurant, I picked up the bill. Marino really could not afford Tatou. He really could not afford New York. Looking at my MasterCard made me think of my American Express card, and my mood got worse.

To get to the shark exhibit in the Museum of Natural History, we had to pay five dollars each and go up to the third floor. Marino climbed stairs more slowly than I and tried to disguise his labored breathing.

'Damn, you would think they got an elevator in this joint,' he complained.

'They do,' I said. 'But stairs are good for you. Today this may be the only exercise we get.'

We entered the exhibit of reptiles and amphibians, passing a fourteen-foot American crocodile killed a hundred years ago in the Biscayne Bay. Marino couldn't help but linger at each display, and I got an eyeful of lizards, snakes, iguanas and Gila monsters.

'Come on,' I whispered.

'Look at the size of this thing,' Marino marveled before the twenty-three-foot reticulated python remains. 'Can you imagine stepping on that in the jungle?'

Museums always made me cold no matter how much I loved them. I blamed the phenomenon on hard marble floors and high ceilings. But I hated snakes and their pit organs. I despised spitting cobras, frilled lizards and alligators with bared teeth. A guide was giving a tour to a group of young people who were enthralled before a showcase populated with Komodo reptiles of Indonesia and leatherback sea turtles who would never traverse sand or water again.

'I beg of you, when you're at the beach and have plastic, shove it in the trash, because these fellows don't have Ph.D.'s,' the guide was saying with the passion of an evangelist. 'They think it's jellyfish…'

'Marino, let's move on.' I tugged his sleeve.

'You know, I haven't been to a museum since I was a kid. Wait a minute.' He looked surprised. That's not true. Well, I'll be damned. Doris took me here once. I thought this joint looked familiar.'