It seemed clear to Russell that there was some unhappy episode connected with these two people and that she didn’t want to talk about it. Rather than ask any more questions, he sat down on the couch and moved his hand over the bright leather upholstery.
‘Comfortable. And pretty, too.’
‘My ex-boyfriend was an architect. He gave me a hand choosing the furniture and decorating the apartment.’
‘And where is he now?’
Vivien gave a self-deprecating half smile. ‘He’s a good architect – let’s say he went on to other projects.’
‘How about you?’
Vivien spread her arms. ‘My personal ad goes something like this: Young woman, interesting job, single, not lookingfor anybody.’
Once again, Russell didn’t ask any more questions. All the same, he couldn’t help feeling pleased to hear that Vivien didn’t have anyone in her life right now.
She finished her glass of water and put it in the sink. ‘I think I’ll take a shower. Make yourself comfortable, watch television, finish your beer. You can have the bathroom after me, if you want to take a shower.’
Russell could feel the dust of centuries on him. The idea of warm water running over his body, washing away all trace of that day, made him quiver with pleasure. ‘OK. I’ll wait here.’
Vivien disappeared into the bedroom and came out a couple of minutes later wearing a bathrobe. She slipped into the bathroom and almost immediately Russell heard the water running. He couldn’t help imagining Vivien’s strong, agile body naked under the shower. The beer suddenly didn’t seem cold enough to reduce the heat he could feel rising inside him.
He got up and went to the window with its view of part of the Hudson. The evening was clear but there were no stars.
On the way back from Harlem, he and Vivien had exchanged their impressions of the events they had just been involved in. When she had seen him disappear inside the big sedan, Vivien had immediately realized that something was wrong. And when the car had headed out she had started to follow it, discreetly, always keeping two other cars between them but managing not to lose sight of it. When she saw the car turn onto a dead-end street, she pulled up to the kerb and quickly got out, in time to see the sedan disappear through the entrance to the warehouse. She went closer and saw that the shutter hadn’t been pulled all the way down. There was enough of a gap between the shutter and the ground to let her enter without attracting attention. Following the direction of the voices, she cautiously peered around the corner. She saw LaMarr sitting at his desk and the gorilla standing next to Russell. From her vantage point on Park, she had lost visual contact a couple of times because of the passing cars, and had assumed the gorilla was also the driver, which was why she hadn’t suspected that there might be a third man.
Then Russell told her what had happened in the lobby when he’d arrived home. He didn’t mind her smiling over his disinherited state. In fact, he smiled, too. And then he told her about Zef’s kindness in lending him five hundred dollars.
‘What will you do now?’
‘Find a hotel.’
‘Is the money I gave you back all you have?’
‘Right now I’m afraid it is.’
‘If you want somewhere decent, that money’s only going to last you a couple of days, and that’s being optimistic. I don’t want to be in the same car as a guy who sleeps in the kind of place you can afford.’
Deep down, Russell could only agree with her disconcertingly clear summary of his situation. He was forced to come clean. ‘I don’t have any choice.’
Vivien made a vague gesture. ‘There’s a sofa bed in the living room of my apartment. I don’t think we’re going to get much sleep in the next few days. If you really want to follow this story, it’s best you stay with me. I don’t want to be forced to look all over town to find you. If you can live with it, it’s yours.’
Russell did not hesitate. ‘It’ll be like staying at the Plaza.’
Vivien burst out laughing, and Russell wasn’t sure why. She hastened to explain. ‘Do you know what we call the cell at the precinct house where they put you when they arrested you?’
‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. The Plaza, right?’
Vivien nodded.
Russell accepted the joke. ‘Seems I can’t help being indebted to you right now. Mind you, being in debt to other people is something I’ve always been good at.’
Now, thinking back on it, Russell found the memory of that conversation quite comforting.
It was as if a kind of bond had been formed between them in the car. A reaction of the heart, a brief refuge from the knowledge that they were pursuing a killer who had already killed a hundred people and was getting ready to do it again.
He left the window and opened one of the bags he had brought with him. In it were his laptop and his cameras, the only things he considered sacred. Before coming to Vivien’s apartment, they had swung by the precinct house to leave the captain the frame containing Mitch Sparrow’s hair, and then gone on to 29th Street, where Russell had packed his bag from the things abandoned in the storage closet of what was no longer his home.
He took out the laptop checked his mail. There wasn’t much, and all of it predictable. Time Warner Cable explaining why they were cutting off his service, an agency explaining why he would soon be getting a letter from its lawyer and Ivan Genasi, a very good photographer friend of his – and the only person he didn’t owe money to – asking what had become of him. The other messages were all about missed payments or loans that hadn’t been repaid. Russell felt ill at ease. He had the feeling, as he read these emails, that he was violating the privacy of someone he didn’t know, so distant did he feel right now from the man who had inspired these messages.
He closed down his email and opened a new Word document. He thought about it for a moment, then decided to call the file Vivien, He started by noting down some of the thoughts that had occurred to him since this whole thing had started. In the absence of a notebook, he had been making mental notes every time something significant had emerged. Before too long, the words started to flow uninterruptedly, as if there was a direct connection between his thoughts and his fingers on the keyboard. He didn’t know, and didn’t really care, whether it was the story taking him over or him taking over the story. All that mattered was that sense of total possession he had while writing. By the time Vivien’s voice surprised him, he had already written two pages.
‘Your turn, if you want it.’
He turned and saw her. She had put on a light sweatsuit and flip-flops. She looked the picture of freshness and innocence. Russell had seen her react to an attack by a man three times her size and render him harmless. He had seen her hold other men at bay with a gun. He had seen her treat a slimeball like LaMarr as the dirt he was.