Evie's casket rested on a draped standsurrounded by flowers. At the center of a wreath of white roses was a blowup ofthe same flawless, sterile, professionally done portrait that she had allowedon Harry's desk. There would be no burial. The day her obituary appeared in theTimes, a Manhattan attorney had contacted Harry. Three weeks earlier, Evie had made out a new will amending a previous one. In it, she requestedcremation and changed the beneficiary of her jewels and artwork from Harry toher parents — another sign that she anticipated the demise of their marriage.Harry was left as beneficiary on a $250,000 insurance policy they had taken outjointly some years before, but that was all. Nowhere in the will was there amention of Caspar Sidonis.
Harry sat in the first row, between Juliaand Evie's parents. His brother Phil, Gail, and their three children were justto Julia's right. Doug Atwater sat directly behind him. Harry felt gratefulthat none of them could read his thoughts, which, at that moment, weredominated by the wish that this whole thing would just be over so that he couldreturn home. With the help of his associate Steve Josephson, Steve's wife, anda cleaning service, the apartment was pretty much back to normal, minus a fewshattered drawers and the missing valuables. Now, all he wanted was to spend anight or two sitting in on bass with the combo at C.C.'s Cellar, and then losehimself in his practice and patients.
The mass was dignified and reasonablybrief. Harry had been offered the option of speaking, but had declined. Thepriest, who had known Evie since childhood, did his best to make sense of herdeath, but Harry heard only snatches of what he said. He was preoccupied withtrying to make sense out of her life. His thoughts kept drifting toEvie's IV line and to the doctor or doctor-impostor who had somehow marched onto and off of the neurosurgical unit totally unseen by any of the staff. Now,further complicating the conundrum was another riddle: three keys on arabbit's-foot chain.
'You okay?' Julia whispered as the priestwas concluding his eulogy.
'Not really,' he responded. 'Listen,Julia, are you free for a drink tonight? There's some things going on I'd liketo talk to you about.'
Although he and Evie had occasionally spenta social evening with Julia and her husband, he had never been alone with her.She was several years older than Evie, slim, attractive, and sharplyintelligent. Her agency was one of the more successful in Manhattan. She wasworking on her third marriage.
Julia considered his request. Some minuteslater, during Holy Communion, she leaned over and whispered, 'Nine o'clock atAmbrosia's.'
He nodded. 'Thank you.'
Although Phil, Julia, and Doug Atwatereach offered to stay with him, Harry remained alone in the sanctuary until ithad emptied.
'Is there anything I can do?'
Father Francis Moore spoke softly, butHarry was startled nonetheless.
'No. No thanks, Father. I was justthinking.'
'I understand.'
Harry turned and headed out. The oldpriest walked alongside him, a Bible cradled in one hand.
'You will be going over to theDellaRosas?' he asked.
'Yes. For a while anyhow. I'm prettyworn-out.'
There was no way he could avoid going tohis in-laws, but he was determined to head back to the city as soon as possible.
'I understand,' Father Moore said again.'Although we haven't met before today, Dorothy and Carmine speak very highly ofyou. They say you're a very gentle, kind man.'
'Thank you,' Harry said.
They left the church with Harry a few feetahead of the priest. Several pockets of people were standing around somedistance away, talking or waiting for their rides. Harry had just reached thebottom of the stairs when Caspar Sidonis stalked over and confronted him.
'You killed her, you bastard,' he rasped,his whisper harsh and menacing. 'You know it and I know it. And pretty sooneveryone's going to know it. You couldn't stand to lose her so you killed her.'
It had been thirty-three years since Harryhad last thrown a punch at someone's face. That time he had barely grazed thecheek of the bully who had been baiting him. The larger boy's retribution hadbeen swift and memorable. This time, Harry's punch, thrown from a much betterangle and with much more anger and authority behind it, was more effective. Itconnected solidly with the side of Sidonis's nose, sending the surgeon spinningonto his back in some low, rain-soaked shrubbery. Blood instantly spurted fromboth his nostrils.
Shocked, Father Francis Moore dropped hisBible. Harry calmly picked it up, wiped it on his trousers, and handed it back.
'I guess I'm not so gentle after all,Father,' he said.
Ambrosia's was an eternally packed,upscale bistro on Lexington near Seventy-ninth. Harry spent an hour at theoffice reviewing patient lab reports and catching up on paperwork before takinga cab to the club. The drizzle that had dominated most of the day was gone, andthe dense overcast had begun to dissolve. The city seemed scrubbed and renewed.It was before nine, but Julia Ransome was already there, nursing a drink at oneof the tall, black acrylic tables opposite the bar. It was relatively early byManhattan standards, even for a Thursday, but the bar was already three deep.
Julia exchanged pecks on the cheek withhim. She was wearing a black silk blouse and an Indian print vest, and lookedvery much at home among the beautiful people.
'Who'd you have to pay off to get thistable?' Harry asked, sliding on to the stool opposite hers.
'Donny, the bartender over there, has beenwriting a novel for the last ten years or so,' she said, smiling. 'I promisedto read it when he finishes. In the meantime, I call ahead and he puts one ortwo of his pals on these stools until I get here. It's one of the perks ofbeing a book agent. My seamstress has a first novel in progress, too. So doesthe plumber I can get at ten minutes' notice anytime, day or night. The trickis being able to tell which people haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of everfinishing their book. Once in a while I'm wrong. When that happens I just haveto read it and then set about finding a new mechanic or dentist or whatever.'
'Well, I appreciate your meeting me likethis.'
'If you think for one moment that Iwouldn't have, I obviously haven't done a good job of letting you know you'reone of my favorite people.'
'Thanks.'
'I mean it, Harry.' Julia finished herdrink and motioned the waitress over with a minute shake of her head. 'Youdrinking tonight?'
'Bourbon neat. Might as well make it adouble.'
'Whoa. Double bourbon neat. Now there's aside of you I've never known.'
'Don't worry. If I actually finish itthey'll have to haul me out of here in a wheelbarrow.' He waited until thewaitress had returned with their drinks and left. 'Julia,' he said then,'please tell me about Evie.'
The agent studied her glass. 'What do youwant to know?'
'At this point, almost anything you chooseto share would probably be news to me. The surgeon I pointed out to you todayat the church — the one who claims Evie was in love with him — is convinced Igave her something, a drug, that caused her aneurysm to rupture. He's wrongabout it being me, but I'm not sure he's wrong about the rest of his theory..' Harry reviewed the nightmarish evening on Alexander 9, his conversation withthe anesthesiologist, and his conclusions. 'Julia,' he said, 'I had no ideaEvie was involved with another man, even though for a year or so she wasn'tparticularly involved with me. I just thought she might have shared some otherthings with you that. . that I didn't know about.'
In the silence that followed, Harry feltcertain Julia was going to deny any knowledge of what he was talking about.Suddenly, though, the woman looked up at him and nodded.
'You were outmatched from the beginning,Harry,' she said. 'You may have been able to handle the Vietcong' — she gavehim a quick, ironic smile — 'but you didn't have a chance against EvieDellaRosa. She and I have known each other since she lived with me one summerduring college. That's almost twenty years. She was an exciting, intriguing personin many ways, and God knows I'll miss her. But over all those years, I've neverknown her to be content. Whatever she had — whoever she had — she alwayswanted more. And she didn't particularly care what it took or, unfortunately,who got hurt in the process. That's the part of her — that seductive charisma — that always frightened me. It kept us from getting closer than we were. JohnCox was at the funeral today. Did you see him?'