“Are you still lighting the candles, Kathy?”
Mallory hung up the phone.
She emptied the tote bag on the coffee table, and spread the files and notebooks-not here. The last time she had seen the cellular phone it was in this bag, wasn’t it? No, wait. She remembered sliding it into the pocket of her blazer last night. She reached out for the desk phone, ignored the pulsing light of the messages waiting, and pushed the buttons for the number of her cellular phone.
“Hello?”
The voice was Andrew’s. So she had left it behind on the roof. “Hello, Andrew. How are you?”
“Oh, Mallory. I was hoping you might call. Shall I give you your messages?”
“Sure.”
“You have one from Jack Coffey. He says the chief’s boys are after you with orders to bring you in. Oh, and J. L. Quinn called and asked for you. But he didn’t leave a message.”
“Did Quinn say anything?”
“Well, we did have a lovely chat. But there’s no message. He said he’d probably catch up with you later in the day.”
“Thank you, Andrew.”
Picking up a spare phone from her office was next on her list of things to do. It was shaping up to be a busy day. She pulled out her notebook and ticked off what she would need from her apartment.
The doorman called on the house phone to announce J. L. Quinn. She should tell Frank to turn the man away. Time was precious, and she had already stayed here too long. What could Quinn want now? Perhaps his long chat with Andrew had raised a few questions.
“Send him up, Frank.”
When she admitted Quinn to her apartment, he was wearing his courtesy smile. She was learning to categorize his facial expressions, discovering small variations in the mask. He casually examined the surroundings, as if he were looking for something.
She remained standing and folded her arms to let him know he would not be staying long. When he turned to face her, his smile was unaltered, but his eyebrows were raised, and she knew he was going to apologize.
“Sorry to drop by without calling first, but if you recall, the only number you gave me was for the cellular phone, and it seems that Andrew Bliss has that.”
He glanced at the long leather couch, probably waiting for an invitation to sit down. She ignored the subtlety.
“So, Quinn, I understand you had a long talk with Andrew.”
“Yes, he told me he made a confession to a green-eyed angel. I was surprised you hadn’t arrested him.”
“Andrew’s idea of confession is my idea of a rambling drunk. I think we got as far as the sins of puberty. What do you want, Quinn?”
He was staring at the walls, bare but for the single clock, a piece of minimal design with dots in place of numerals. The furnishings of her apartment were expensive, and stark. There should be nothing here to give away any shading of her personality. But by the faint nod of his head, she knew these environs were what he had expected to find; that much was in his face when he turned back to her.
“Mallory, I wonder if you’d have dinner with me tomorrow night. And perhaps the theater.”
She turned away from him and covertly scanned her front room as though for the first time. What did Quinn see in this place? Perhaps it was what he did not see: no personal items to connect her to another human being, no dust, nothing out of place, and no wall hanging to indicate an interest in anything but time. The large clock dominated the space. The furniture was arranged in precision symmetry.
And now she understood.
This extreme order had not created the intended false front of a guarded personality-the real effect was all too personal, next to naked exposure. It was an effort to shake off the feeling of violation.
“I’m free tomorrow,” she said. “Would you like to do something a little more exciting than dinner and the theater?”
“Name it and it’s yours.” One splayed hand indicated that his offer included the whole earth. “Anything.”
“A fencing match.”
His smile was back, but only for a moment. “So Charles told you about the scar.” He walked over to the couch and ran his hand over the back of it, approving the quality of the leather, and perhaps wondering how she had managed it on a cop’s salary. “A fencing match. Well, that does sound more diverting.”
She sat down in a chair and gestured to the couch. “Do you still keep your hand in? You have a membership at a fencing club?”
“Yes, on both counts.” He settled into the plush leather cushions and crossed his legs. “What’s your background, Mallory?”
“One semester of fencing classes at school, but I think I can take you.”
It was predictable that he would not smile at this. He would never be rude enough to suggest that she was blowing smoke.
“The agility of youth goes a long way, but it won’t take you all the way. Don’t count on an easy win.”
“I can beat you. I’m willing to place a bet on it.”
He shook his head. “I won’t do money with you.”
“Not money. I was thinking along the lines of anything I want, against anything you want.”
“Those are outrageously high stakes, Mallory. I won’t take advantage of you. No bet.”
How predictable.
“You shouldn’t be afraid to bet-unless you’re afraid to lose.” She looked at the clock. She must leave soon.
“You can’t possibly win, not with your limited experience. It’s not a fair wager.”
“I’m not worried. If you do win, I know you’ll pick a forfeit I can easily make.” She had to do this quickly.
“You know that for a fact?”
I know you.
“It’s your character, Quinn. Charles tells me you’re the quintessential gentleman-I know the breed.”
“You’re right. I would never ask a forfeit you couldn’t afford. So I’ll concede that you know me very well.” He stood up and turned to face the clock. “But no one knows very much about you, Mallory-not even the people who knew you best.”
He moved to the window and spoke to the glass. “Your origins are a complete mystery. You wouldn’t give the necessary information to the Markowitzes so they could formalize your adoption. Child Welfare made an exhaustive search, but they could never trace your family. Juvenile Hall records show two brief incarcerations at ages eight and nine, but no success in learning your right name. And they were never able to hold on to you for more than a few days each time. There’s a note in a folder with your photograph. It says, ‘Brilliant child.’ ”
He turned around to see what effect his words had on her. He seemed pleased with the result. “My own investigators are very thorough. They’re the best in the world, and they have no idea where you came from. Suppose your forfeit was to tell me everything I wanted to know about you, your history, everything. Could you afford that?”
She had underestimated him.
“I keep them in here.” Charles stood aside to let her pass through the door. Mallory had never been in his bedroom before. She did not seem overly excited by the seventeenth-century dower chest at the end of his hand-carved bedstead. She probably thought if she had seen one precious antique, she had seen them all. What captured her attention was the glass case mounted on the wall over the chest. It contained a pair of crossed swords.
“Charles, they’re wonderful. These are nothing like the sabers we used at school.”
“You trained with a blunt saber, right?” He opened the closet and took out a long brown leather bag and unzipped it. He carefully lifted out a pair of swords. Holding one in his right hand, he sliced the air with its tapered rod. “Now this is what you’ll be using with Quinn. It’s a competition saber. It’s wired so you can be scored on a machine that-”
She wasn’t listening. She put one knee on the carved chest and reached up to the case, looking to him for permission. He nodded. She opened the case and removed one saber from the rack. She eased off the chest and stood at the center of the large room, hefting the sword in her right hand. Now, with utter disregard for the weight of the steel and its sharp edge, she easily slung the handle through the air from one hand to the other. She held the edge up to examine it. She smiled to say, Now this is a weapon.