She jumped as a hand squeezed her left buttock through her coat. She whirled and glared into the press of people around her but couldn't tell who'd done it.
God, she hated New York.
▼
Detective Third Grade Rob Harris leaned against the wall in Bellevue's lobby, smoking a cigarette and listening to the couple over by the phones. Amazing. Somebody was in the middle of pulling a variation on the old Spanish handkerchief scam in the middle of a hospital. He'd become suspicious when he saw the pencil case, so he'd sidled over to listen.
"You got da money? Da fi' thousan'? Lemme see. Good! Here. Put it in this pencil case."
"Why?" the woman said. Sheathed in a shapeless old coat, she was chunky, fiftyish, with mocha skin.
"For safekeeping. No one wants a pencil case. An' you hoi' onto it. I don' wan' even touch it."
The^ woman shoved the bills inside the case and then clutched it between her ample breasts with both hands.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait for Chico to call and say it's okay for you to go down to da main Lotto office and collect my money."
Rob shook his head in wonder. The gullibility of people never ceased to amaze him. This grifter was using the latest wrinkle on the Spanish handkerchief—a phony lottery ticket. It worked like this: The grifter has a state lottery ticket dated for, say, January 3 that has the correct lottery numbers for that date. Except that it's a ticket from January 31 with the "1" scraped off. The scam artist poses as an illegal alien who can't cash the ticket for fear of deportation. He corners some poor sucker, usually of similar roots, and pleads for help, promising to share the prize if the mark can prove that he or she is "a person of substance" whom the grifter can trust with his "winning" ticket. The mark checks with a local Lotto stand and confirms that, yes, the ticket does indeed have all the winning numbers. To prove her 'substance,' this particular mark had withdrawn five thousand in cash and shown it to the grifter. It was now in the pencil case.
Rob was sure that when "Chico" called, the scam artist would have to go meet him immediately due to some unexpected development. But to show his good faith, the grifter would offer to leave his lucky lottery ticket with the mark. He'd stick it in the pencil pouch with the cash. That was when the switch would be made, leaving the mark holding an identical pencil case stuffed with dollar-sized strips of newspaper.
Rob ambled over the phone where the pair hovered and reached for the receiver. The man knocked his hand away.
"We're waitin' for a call, man. Use dat phone over dere."
"Oh, okay," Rob said, smiling shyly. "Sure."
Rob moved four phones away and dropped a quarter into the slot. The encounter seconds before had enabled him to read the number on the other phone. He punched it in.
Down the line to his right, the phone rang.
"Tha' mus' be Chico," the grifter said, and lifted the receiver. "Si? Chico?"
"Heeeyyyy, man! Que pasa?" Rob said in his best imitation of Cheech Marin. "Like what's happenin', man?"
"Chico?"
"Chico's dead, asshole," he said in his own voice. "And you'll wish you were too if you don't hang up the phone and walk your ass out of here pronto. And don't try to take that pencil case along because I'll be all over you like flies on shit before you reach the door. Vamoose, dirt bag!"
Rob had pulled his badge from his pocket and now he held it up over the sound baffle of his booth. He noticed that the grifter's face was pale as he hung up his receiver. The guy scanned the lobby and froze as his eyes fixed on the gold detective badge. He locked eyes with Rob for a second, then, without a word, hurried from the lobby. Rob strolled over to the confused mark.
"The money still in there, ma'am?"
She looked at him in bewilderment, then unzipped the case. A sheaf of hundred dollar bills sat cozily within.
"Good. Put it back in the bank and leave it there. And next time don't be so trusting."
Rob lit another cigarette and returned to his station by the front entrance. He checked his watch. Kara was late. Normally he didn't mind waiting. He was used to it. Waiting was an integral part of the job for a NYPD detective. He'd spent entire shifts and more sitting in a cold, cramped car with his eyes trained on a single doorway. This morning he was warm and comfortable. Why should he be antsy?
She fooled him. Rob had expected her to arrive by cab, so he hadn't been paying much attention to the sidewalk. He was surprised when he spotted her half a block away, walking down from Thirty-first. He picked up the blond hair first, then the easy, long-legged gait. Kara had never learned to walk like a New Yorker.
He studied her as she neared, feeling a strange tingle spread across his chest and arms as more details of her appearance came into view. Her hair was blond as ever, longer than before, chin length now, curved slightly inward, with bangs in front. She was wearing a long, dark red cloth coat, with matching stockings, and matching shoes with a low heel; beneath the coat she appeared to be as slim as ever. She still looked painfully young. Her skin was still fair and smooth, her eyes were as clear and blue as before, her lips were still a perfect bow. As she came up the front steps, he noticed that she wore little make-up. She'd never needed much. He searched her face for wrinkles, crows feet, worry lines. Not a one. Her face was leaner, and slightly drawn, but that could be explained by grief. Otherwise, she looked trim and fit, as if she'd aged maybe five years in the ten since she'd left.
Could that be disappointment he was feeling? Had he been hoping that she'd have gone to seed since she left him? So he could tell himself it was probably for the best that they'd broken up? Or was he looking for proof that she wasn't as self-sufficient as she thought she was? That she really needed him and couldn't get along well without him?
Maybe.
From the look of things, though, Kara Wade was doing just fine.
As she reached the top of the steps, Rob stubbed out his cigarette and moved toward the glass doors. After their brief conversation last night, he'd been anticipating this reunion with both eagerness and dread. Well, the wait was over. When he determined which door she was heading for, he reached it first and pushed on the bar to open it. She glanced up at him.
"Thank—" she began, then looked at him more closely. "Rob! It's you!"
They embraced briefly. He was surprised how good it was to hold her again, even if only for a few seconds. They backed off to arm's length. His mouth was dry and his heart was thumping. After all these years?
"Yeah. It's me. I told you I'd meet you here."
"Yes, but I didn't expect you to open the door for me. Where's your uniform?"
"I made detective. Midtown North."
"Congratulations."
"It never hurts to have an old man who's an ex-cop."
"He retired?"
For an instant he was surprised she didn't know. But then, how could she?
"He had a couple of heart attacks. He gets chest pains walking across the living room, but he won't agree to a bypass."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Sorry. Here they were talking about his father when Kelly…
"And I'm sorry about Kelly. It's… it's tragic."
Rob watched her throat work as she nodded.
"Yes." It was barely a whisper. "Which way is…?"
"I'll take you."
He guided her toward the elevators. He could feel the tension in her, could almost feel her body trying to run away. He'd told her yesterday that this trip was unnecessary, but she'd insisted. Same old Kara. Stubborn as ever. He looked at her grim, frightened face and decided he had to give her one more chance to back out of this. As they stepped out of the elevator into the hallway of the bottom floor, the City Morgue floor, he took her arm.