Chapter 6
ABBY AND I WALKED HOME IN TOTAL silence and as fast as we possibly could. The blood on our knees, shins, and shoes had dried, but the crusty streaks were still very much in evidence-both to the people on the street and to our own horrified senses. We couldn’t wait to shower and change our clothes.
“Come over as soon as you’re finished,” Abby said, as we each opened the door to our own apartment and stepped inside. “We’ll go get something to eat.”
“Okay,” I said, quickly shutting my door and locking it, hoping to keep the demons at bay. It was a wasted effort. The demons crawled in under the door, followed me upstairs to the bathroom, and sat on the edge of the bathtub while I tore off my gory, sweaty clothes and dropped them in a pile on the floor. Then the nasty little devils got into the shower with me and haunted me with horrible visions as I scrubbed Gray’s blood off my legs and watched it swirl in a bright red whirlpool down the drain.
Poor Gray, poor Gray, poor Gray, I repeated to myself like a mantra. Poor, poor Gray. Last night he was on top of the world; today he’s gone from the world altogether. Is there any more fickle fate, I wondered, than to be dealt the lowest blow at the moment of your highest glory?
After I finished my shower and dried myself off, I put on another pair of capris, a different halter top, and my white ballerina flats. Then I gathered up the clothes on the bathroom floor and carried them downstairs, thinking I’d throw them in the garbage. I never wanted to see them-much less wear them-again.
But as I was about to toss the clothes in the trash, I changed my mind and stuffed them into a brown paper shopping bag instead. Then I set the bag on the floor of my coat closet and kicked it deep into the darkest corner. Maybe some of the blood on my sandals and capris had been shed by the killer instead of Gray. (There had, after all, been a whole lot of slashing going on!) Maybe Flannagan would want to run tests on the bloodstains. If two different blood types were discovered-either at the scene or on Abby’s or my clothes-then the police would have at least one true, indisputable clue to the killer’s identity. I decided I would take the bag of bloody clothes to Flannagan tomorrow.
Feeling much more alert and responsible than I’d felt all morning, I closed the closet door, grabbed my white leather clutch bag off the kitchen table, and hurried next door to Abby’s.
“Let’s go!” she said, lunging out onto the tiny landing between our apartments before I’d even had a chance to knock. “I’m so hungry I could eat a moose. Do they serve moose at Chock Full?”
“Sure,” I said, chuckling. “They make a great moose-burger. But you won’t be having one today since that’s not where we’re going.”
“Oh, really?” she said, leading the way down the stairs to the street, long black ponytail swaying with every step. “Then where are we going? To Twenty-One? El Morocco? The Copa?” She was trying to act gay and chipper, but I could tell from the catch in her voice she was still feeling as sad and shaky as I was.
“None of the above,” I said, as we exited the building and came together on the sidewalk. “We’re going to Stewart’s Cafeteria, on Christopher near Seventh. We passed it twice today. Looked like a nice place to eat.” I turned and began walking down Bleecker toward Seventh Avenue.
Abby caught up with me and followed alongside, face screwed up in a crabby frown. “Why the hell do you want to go there?!” she squawked. “The food is lousy. Mostly steam-table stuff. And you have to stand in line and get it yourself.”
“How do you know? Have you been there before?”
“Sure. Lots of times.”
“But if the food’s so bad, why did you go so often?”
“I didn’t go there to eat, silly. I was just looking for models.”
“What?!” Now I was the one who was squawking. (Just when you think you know everything there is to know about her, Abby pulls another squirming rabbit out of her hat.) “Looking for models?!” I cried, tossing my hands up in wild confusion. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Enough with the dramatics, Paige. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.” We came to a stop at Seventh Avenue and stood waiting for the light to change. “I’ll explain everything when we get there,” she said. “It’s too hot to talk while we’re walking. And the cafeteria’s right across the street.”
As rabidly curious as I was, I didn’t try to argue with her. When Abby set her mind to something, it was carved in stone. And besides-it really was too hot to walk and talk at the same time.
THE LIGHT CHANGED AND WE CROSSED over Seventh to Christopher. Stewart’s was right around the corner and the double entry doors were propped wide open. My heart sank at the sight. The gaping portal could mean only one thing: no air-conditioning. And if Abby was right about the steam tables, it was probably hotter inside the restaurant than out.
Yep. The indoor temperature was at least five degrees higher. And the air was so moist and heavy you could barely breathe-which turned out to be a good thing since the sickening smell of fried fish was overpowering. The ceiling fans were going full speed, but their only effect was to move the hot, greasy air from one spot to another. As a result, the place was practically empty. Except for a skinny middle-aged man sitting at a table near the windows, and the hairy, husky man behind the food counter, and two sweaty young busboys in wilted white uniforms, Abby and I were the only ones there.
Abby headed straight for the food service area and grabbed a brown plastic tray from the stack at the end of the counter. Then she began to move down the food line, asking the husky server for a slab of this, and two scoops of that, and a heap of that stuff over there. You’d have thought she was a starving longshoreman, the way she was piling it on. When she finished making her selections, the mound of grub on her plate was as high as the Matterhorn.
The sights and smells at the food counter-particularly the slimy display of boiled beef and the repulsive odor rising from a pan of steamed trout-were making me nauseous. I took a small roll, a puny portion of the fruit salad Jell-O mold, and a glass of iced tea.
“Okay, out with it,” I said, as soon as we were seated at a front table near the row of large windows and the open doors. “Whatever gave you the yo-yo idea to come here looking for models? Are they running an agency in the kitchen?”
“No, silly,” Abby said, digging into her meatloaf and mashed. “Ith juth tha a lop of goop loofing ghys ang hout ear and-”
“Stop! I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Can’t you swallow before you speak?!” My patience was wearing a little thin.
Abby gulped and gave me a goofy grin. “Sorry, babe, but my mooseloaf is calling.” She took another bite and gobbled it down. Then she looked up and said, “What I was trying to tell you was that a lot of really good-looking guys hang out here at Stewart’s, and some of them are only too happy to do a little modeling for me. Sometimes they’ll even do it for free. And that’s a whole lot less than the twenty-five bucks an hour the agency charges. And that’s why I come here looking for models. Get what I mean, Jean?” She shoveled a fresh load of mashed potatoes into her mouth.
“No! I don’t get it at all. What’s so special about this crummy place? Why do good-looking guys like to hang out here?”
Abby swallowed her spuds and widened her eyes in surprise. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?” I urged.
“About Stewart’s,” she said.
“What about Stewart’s?” I begged.