My bedroom felt warm, but the temperature rapidly changed. An icy breeze began swirling around me. I opened my eyes. My flowered curtains weren't moving. There was no breeze. No wind; not outside, anyway. Beyond the open window, the black branches of the hundred-year oak appeared still as the grave.
"Jack?" I whispered into the chilly darkness. "Is that you?"
Miss me, baby?
"Where were you?"
Where do you think? I was back here, waiting for you. I'm going to take you out on the town…
"I don't know what you mean… "
Yeah, you do, baby. We've done it before.
"But I want to discuss what happened earlier at the theater. What did you mean by Hedda being 'one accident-prone dame'?"
I'm going to show you. It's something I witnessed years ago, and I want you to see it, too. But you have to close your eyes.
Once more, I tried to argue, but a giant yawn stifled my words. I began to feel incredibly groggy. My eyelids drifted lower, and then everything went black…
"EVERYTHING'S SO BRIGHT!"
Hearing the giggly voice of a teenaged girl, I opened my eyes. People surrounded me, raucous noise, honking car horns, and lights-thousands of lights.
"Where am I?" I whispered.
"Lady, you've got to be kidding!" exclaimed that giggly teenaged girl. "You're in Times Square! Sheesh!"
The girl scampered off with a group of her friends. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but the bright mirage failed to fade. I was standing in New York 's Times Square-only this wasn't the Times Square I remembered. The surrounding buildings were much lower than during my time, the billboards more primitive, with flashing lightbulbs instead of digital images, and most of them were advertising products I'd never heard of… Kinsey Blended Whiskey? Rupert Beer?
The marquees and landmarks were all wrong, too, I realized. Automat? Hotel Astor Dining? Capitol Theater? Where was the Virgin Records Store? The Bertelsmann Building? The Toys 'R' Us, McDonald's, and towering Marriott?
Streetcars ran on tracks up and down Broadway. Cars the size of small army tanks spewed leaded gasoline fumes; and the men and women jostling me on the sidewalk were attired so formally-suits and fedoras, Sunday-best dresses, and white gloves. Not a pair of shorts, baggy jeans, or sneakers in sight. Not one miniskirt or belly-baring top.
I looked down at my own clothing and gasped. The evening gown I was wearing resembled nothing in my closet. The dress was a strapless, slinky number, a form-fitting golden yellow with black embroidery along the top edge of a shockingly low bodice. Opera gloves, dyed to match the gown, covered three-quarters of my arms, and black, peep-toe pumps with four-inch heels were on my feet.
"What in the name of Sam Hill am I wearing?!"
As a few passersby turned their heads, I felt a sharp tap on my bare shoulder.
"What's the matter, baby? Don't you like it?"
The deep, gravelly voice was one I knew well. It was the voice of Jack Shepard, now attached to the body he'd had in life. A gray fedora sat on his sandy hair; a double-breasted suit was attractively tailored to his broad shoulders and narrow waist; and despite his menacing iron jaw and the ominous dagger-shaped scar on his square, flat chin, he wore an openly bemused expression.
"Ava wore that little number in Singapore. I saw it last year at the Mayfair -or half of it anyway, before my mark took a powder."
"Ava Gardner?" I looked down at my gown again and frowned. "Did she have an acre of cleavage showing, too?"
"Yeah," said Jack. Then his granite-colored eyes took me in from my painted toenails to my upswept hair. With a single finger, he pushed back the front brim of his fedora and gave me a little smile. "But I prefer redheads."
I touched the back of my own shoulder-length auburn hair, now gathered into some kind of twist. I felt old-fashioned bobby pins holding it in place. I also realized that I wasn't wearing my black-framed glasses. I blinked, trying to discern whether my contacts were in. I didn't feel those, either, yet I could see just fine.
"What's this all about? I was trying to talk to you about Hedda Geist and what you implied about-"
"I know. Come on," he said, taking my elbow, none too gently, and hustling me along the sidewalk.
"Easy! Not so fast! I can hardly walk in these torture devices!"
Jack barely slowed. "They're part of the cover, doll. So suck it up and march. You're on a case with me, now, and I'm not putting up with bellyaching."
"Case? What case?!"
Jack didn't answer, just kept hustling me up the block then around the corner. He slowed as we approached a dark green awning. There was no writing on the fabric, no sign on the heavy door.
Jack stopped and glanced down at me. "Got your breath, baby?" Before I could answer he pulled open the door and stood aside. "After you."
"After me? Where am I going?" I peered into the darkness beyond the door. "What is this place?"
"You'll get all the answers you want if you just move your skirt inside."
I tentatively stepped forward, teetering on my ridiculously high pumps.
"Good evening, miss," a voice called from the abyss.
My eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and I realized I'd stepped into some sort of reception area.
"Do you have a reservation?" A middle-aged man in a tuxedo was addressing me from behind a wooden podium. "Are you meeting someone?"
"I… uh… "
"She's with me," said Jack, stepping up to the maitre d'.
"And do you have a reservation?" The tuxedo-clad man glanced at the large open ledger on his podium.
"We don't have a reservation," Jack replied smoothly, "because, you see, the lady didn't like the Broadway show. So we left early. We've had dinner already, so we'll just be wetting our whistles at the bar until our friends leave the theater across the street. That okay by you?"
Jack palmed the man a bill.
"Of course, sir," said the maitre d'. "Enjoy yourself."
Jack stepped up to me, and I expected him to grab me by the elbow again and hustle me inside. But he didn't. This time, he leaned toward me and offered his arm.
"Oh," I said with an undisguised smirk, "now you're going to act like a gentleman?"
"It's not a proposal of marriage, baby. I'm just trying to make it look good."
"Well, the way you manhandled me on the street, I'd rather not."
I tried taking a few bold strides all by myself, but I had zero practice carrying off four-inch heels beneath a slit-skirted gown, and I nearly fell on my face.
In a flash, Jack was there, propping me back up. "Take a break from Miss Prissland," he rasped in my ear, "and take my arm already."
I knew when I was licked. With a sigh, I wrapped my gloved arm around the gray fabric of his double-breasted jacket and let him escort me into the large dining room.
Two "M" words hit me the second I walked into that place: money and masculinity. The wainscoting and tables were dark, heavy wood. The walls and tablecloths were the forest green of a gentleman's club pool table. And the chandeliers and crystal decanters looked heavy, leaded, and very expensive.
Middle-aged waiters in bow ties, white shirts, and long white aprons moved silently around the buzzing room, serving craggy-faced men in three-piece suits, most of whom were smoking cigars and cutting up thick slabs of red meat with huge steak knives.
The leather booths around the edges of the room were occupied by couples. Almost every woman was young and beautiful; almost every man paunchy, graying, and clearly much older.
One particularly creepy May-December couple caught my eye. Not because of the man, but because of the woman-or, more precisely, the girl. She was very young: seventeen, maybe even sixteen. With the heavy makeup on, I doubted very much she was the man's daughter or niece. And when her fingers began stroking the back of her dinner companion's hand, I threw that theory right out the window-while simultaneously trying very hard not to throw up.