“Of course.”
“Any other questions?”
“I expect I’ll have some soon.”
“Try Joan first, then me. Go see her, and she’ll get you settled. You’d be smart to take her to lunch one day soon.”
“I’ll do that.” Allison got up and left Stone’s office.
36
K elli Keane got out of a taxi a couple of doors down the street from Stone Barrington’s house, and stood opposite, stamping her feet in her boots and wrapping her long coat around her legs, trying to keep warm. It was seven a.m., and she was just going to wait until the kid went to school.
She was fortunate that Peter left the house only a few minutes later and walked up to Third Avenue, while Kelli kept pace with him on the opposite side of the street. He waited for a bus while she hailed a cab and got in. “Just wait here until the bus comes,” she told the driver, “and when it does, follow it and don’t get ahead of it.”
“Follow a bus?” the driver said. “Whatever happened to follow that car?”
“Times are hard,” Kelli replied. “More people are taking the bus.”
The bus arrived, Peter got aboard, and the two vehicles moved in tandem up Third Avenue. Finally Peter got off and walked toward Second Avenue, and Kelli told the driver to turn right and stop. She watched as Peter ran up the steps of a large building and disappeared inside.
“Go down to that building and stop,” she said to the driver, who did so. “What’s the name of this place?” she asked.
“Knickerbocker Hall,” the driver replied. “It’s chiseled in stone over the front door.”
“Oh, yeah.” She gave him the address of the Post.
“You work at the Post? I thought you were a private eye,” the driver said.
“You’re a romantic, aren’t you?”
“Sure; you want a demonstration?”
“Just drive.”
Peter walked upstairs in the nearly empty building. It was only seven-thirty. As he was about to turn into the film department, he heard piano music coming from the opposite direction. He turned right instead of left, into the music department, and the music got louder. Like a cross between Chopin and Rachmaninoff, he thought, if that was possible. He looked through a window in a door marked “Recital Hall” and saw a very pretty girl seated at a nine-foot grand piano, playing with enthusiasm and precision. He pushed open the door, tiptoed in, and took a seat at the rear of the little hall.
She finished the piece with a flourish and, without looking up from the keyboard, said, “Come on down front; you’re bothering me way back there.”
Peter walked down and took a seat in the front row, only a few feet from where she sat.
She began to play again, this time in a jazz-inflected style. Peter thought he heard the left hand of Errol Garner and, in the right hand, traces of Nat Cole. She finished, and he said, “I don’t recognize that.”
“I’m just improvising,” she said.
“The first piece, too?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen you here before. Who are you?”
“I’m Peter Barrington. I’m in the film school.”
“I’m Hattie Patrick,” she said, leaning over the lip of the little stage and offering her hand.
Peter thought she was even more beautiful close up.
“Are you new here?”
“Yes, I just started this term.”
“Where were you in school before?”
“In Virginia. I moved to New York just before Christmas. I live in Turtle Bay. Do you know it?”
“Yes. I once saw it from a tall building on Third Avenue. The interior garden looks very inviting,” she said.
“I’ll give you a tour of the gardens sometime.”
“I think we should wait until spring for that; everything’s dead now.”
“Do you compose or just improvise?”
“Composition is what I’m studying at Knickerbocker,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I’ve made a film, which is nearly finished, but I don’t have a score. Would you like to try writing it?”
“How old are you?” she asked.
“I’m eighteen,” he said. “How old are you?”
“I’ll be eighteen on Saturday,” she replied. “You talk like someone a lot older, no slang.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” Peter said. “So do you.”
She laughed. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, either.”
“If you’re interested, I’ll take you to a birthday lunch on Saturday and then screen the film for you.”
“Screen it where?”
“At my house. Don’t worry, my dad will be there to chaperone us.”
She looked at him. “I’m not worried,” she said. “I’d like that, but could I see the film before then? That way I might have some ideas about the score to talk about.”
Peter took the screenplay and DVD from his leather envelope and handed it to her. “It looks best on Blu-ray.”
“I’ve got Blu-ray in my room. I’ll watch it tonight. What’s it about?”
“You’ll know tonight. Where do you live?”
“At Park and Sixty-third Street.”
“Do you know the Brasserie restaurant in the basement of the Seagram Building, entrance on Fifty-third?”
“Yes, I’ve been there.”
“May we meet at the Brasserie at twelve-thirty on Saturday?”
“Yes, that will be fine. You said your dad will be at the house. How about your mother?”
“She’s back in Virginia for a couple of weeks,” Peter replied, “moving us into a new house.”
“Are you going to live there?”
“Only part-time. New York is home, now.”
“Welcome to the big city. How do you like it so far?”
“It’s everything I dreamed it would be,” Peter said.
“You dreamed about living here?”
“Everybody who doesn’t live in New York dreams about living here. I’m no exception. I can go to the movies as often as I like.”
“The movies are your thing, are they?”
“I like the theater, too, but I’m crazy about movies. If you’re not, I’ll probably bore you rigid.”
She laughed. “I like movies, and you don’t seem in the least boring.”
“That’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me in the big city,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “I have an appointment with some editing equipment. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see you on Saturday.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” she replied. She turned back to the piano and began to play again.
Peter left the recital hall and walked back to the film department, feeling a little light-headed. He felt some other things he hadn’t felt before, too.
37
Alan Ripley switched off the light in his office and, in the gathering dusk, walked across the campus at Herald Academy in tidewater Virginia, kicking at little piles of leaves the wind had gathered. Autumn came late here, but now there was a real nip in the air. He wrapped his muffler tighter.
He climbed the stairs to his small apartment in the faculty residence and switched on the lights, then he lit the already laid fire and backed up to the hearth as it caught. When his backside got too hot to handle he poured himself a small scotch, settled in a leather wing chair near the fire, and picked up the le Carre novel he had been reading. He had just opened the book when the phone rang. He closed the book and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”
“Alan?” A vaguely familiar voice.
“Yes, who’s that?”
“A voice from the past. It’s James Heald.”
Ripley was pleasantly surprised. “James? It’s good to hear from you. I haven’t heard that voice since we left Harvard.”
“Good to hear yours, too.”
“Where are you? What are you doing?”
“I’m teaching set design at the Yale School of Drama.”
“Good for you. I’d heard you were working on Broadway at some point.”
“Yes, but it was too fast a track for me, and the gaps between jobs were too long. I’ve been at Yale for nearly two years, now, and it suits me better.”