West 47th (6 page)

At this moment there was Ruder on the other end of the line trying to sound buddy-buddy, forcing it, flavoring his tone with what he hoped was coming across as amiable conspiracy. It made Mitch think that this Kalali case, for some reason, was personally crucial for Ruder. Perhaps too many such large losses had piled up in Ruder's corner; maybe he was feeling the cold of an early, less compensating retirement hot on his neck.

“I assume you want me to get on this Kalali loss,” Mitch said.

“I'd appreciate it.”

“By now these pieces may have gone first-class carry-on to London or anywhere.”

“Think so?”

Mitch really didn't but told Ruder: “Could be.”

“Well …” A resigned sigh from Ruder. “… I suppose there's only so much to hope for. Can't expect a miracle.”

“That's what it would take.”

“Nevertheless you might as well sniff around a bit.”

“What if I recover?”

“That would certainly be a blessing.”

Blessings and miracles, Mitch thought. “I mean what would be in it for me?”

“Your usual percentage, of course. Three percent.”

A hundred and eighty thousand. Fair enough, but out it came, pushed out by that old score that could probably never be settled by any amount: “I've raised my percentage to five.”

“Since when?”

“I notified you. Surely you received my letter.” There'd been no letter, but there would be.

Ruder reverted to type, got huffy. “Five is exorbitant.”

“Not when you consider …”

“Five is out of the question!”

The money would be from Columbia's deep pocket, not Ruder's. Mitch figured that would come to Ruder in about ten seconds.

It took twelve.

Chapter 4

“Do you see him, Billy?”

“No, Mrs. Laughton. Wonder what color suit he put on this morning.”

“It felt to me like one of his grays. Don't drive fast.”

“I'm crawling.”

“You are over on the left aren't you?”

“All the way.”

“He should be there. What time is it?”

“I've got ten of. The car says twelve of.”

“We're early. Go around.”

“I could wait near the corner with the motor running.”

“Do as you want but I'm not going to pay your damn tickets.”

“They're as much yours as mine, Mrs. Laughton.”

True enough, Maddie silently admitted. Billy got most of the tickets because he was so conscientious about waiting in no-standing zones for her.

They were now on Fifth Avenue in the black Lexus EL400. Only leftovers of the rush hour now. Lots of buses, though. One after another like elephants tusks to tails.

Despite the warm July night, Billy had on his uniform. Dove gray twill. Trousers and fitted, high-neck jacket, matching visored cap and gloves. His choice because he'd be doing some waiting out front of the St. Regis with other drivers. Otherwise he'd have worn regular slacks and shirt.

He committed the car to 46th Street and saw the way was clogged.

“Want some radio?” he asked.

She didn't want any radio.

He made conversation. “Which are you for, Mrs. Laughton, timber or owls?”

“Owls, of course.”

“That's because you're not in need of any timber just now.”

“Nor at the moment do I have occasion for an owl.” Then, in the same breath: “Bet he was there and we missed him.”

For her sake Billy held back saying he didn't think so. Billy knew when and when not to say things. He'd been Uncle Straw's driver for years.

Maddie made herself sit back. She measured her anticipation. Frequently at times like this she felt as though there was a sort of device in her, in her head or belly or pelvis, with which she was able to gauge how intensely she was looking forward to being with Mitch. It had been installed during their earliest time and now, after ten years of marriage, it was still there and she believed it always would be. Tonight it seemed to be on a cross circuit, arcing from her head to her pelvis, lingering at the latter.

Early. It would have pleased her if he'd been early, waiting on the corner of 47th and Fifth, his eagerness shifting him, making it impossible for him to stand still, his eyes searching up the avenue for her being brought to him. Him, her precious love, trying to hurry time, pacing, trying to bear the edge of his anticipation with pacing.

She adjusted her dark glasses. With a second finger reset them on the bridge of her nose. Gold wire-rimmed glasses with round magenta-tinted lenses. Chosen from her many pairs, an entire dresser-drawerful.

“Why are we stopped?” she asked.

“Garbage truck.”

She pictured it and thought it wouldn't be difficult for her mind to go from a garbage truck to blank. But her mind wouldn't mind. It went from the garbage truck to the Manalo Blahnik navy satin pumps she had on, which still felt somewhat tight and made her wonder if her feet were getting fat, and from that to whether or not she'd remembered to close the door of her aviary, to wondering what Elise and Marian might be doing that moment in Spain where it was now midnight or later. The last she'd heard from Elise they'd wanted to move from Marbella back to Barcelona. Oddly that desire had arrived by letter rather than the usual phone call. To make sure Mitch was in on it, Maddie thought. “New stationery,” Mitch had remarked before reading it aloud. Very fine, lined stationery from Armorial the Graveur on Fauborg St. Honoré. The letter said (its only purpose, really) that Marian had located a darling apartment in Barcelona's better district, expensive but darling, not all that large but sumptuous, more for intimacy than for entertaining. Why was it Elise couldn't communicate without using words or phrases that were certain to conjure up sexual images? Was it her intention to boast? It seemed so to Maddie.

“Phone him,” she told Billy.

“I did, just now. No answer.”

He's down on the street waiting, she told herself and then mentally told Mitch,
I didn't want you to have to wait tonight
. Fucking garbage truck.

As though her cursing was what had been needed to dispel the impediment the way was suddenly clear and Billy went ahead and left and left and left around the block and pulled over for Mitch.

Maddie felt the air disturbed by his climbing in. She inhaled the distinctive scent of him and leaned toward its source with her face up to receive his lips briefly on her cheek.

“You weren't early,” she accused.

“Would have been but I needed to freshen up.”

“You didn't reshave.”

“Maybe later.”

“Maybe,” she arched.

“Look at you! Thought you said no makeup.”

“Changed my mind.” She removed her dark glasses to expose her eyes.

Mitch knew how long it had taken her to get them so right. Both eyes equally and perfectly outlined and shadowed, lashes thickened.

Care had also been taken in what she'd decided to wear. Mitch imagined her standing before their bedroom mirror imagining how she looked. Her dress was an Isaac Mizrahi she'd recently bought at Bergdorf and shown to him on a hanger, telling him what it was. Large white polka dots on navy blue ground. The bodice of silk crepe de chine, the short, ample skirt of filmy silk chiffon. At the time he'd said he liked it with just adequate heart. Now he set that straight, told her enthusiastically, “You look smashing!”

“Think so?” She soaked that up and hoped for another helping and he didn't disappoint, told her: “Being with you tonight is going to be dangerous.”

Instead of thank you she paused and extended her lips for him to bring his to. She was feeling extremely feminine. Her arms like wings, her thighs full of blossoms. She re-crossed her legs and the chiffon obediently floated and lightly settled upon and around her. “Navy is a helpful color for me, don't you think, for my hair and all?”

Mitch thought so, said so. Her heavy healthy hair was naturally blonde, naturally variegated. Plenty of shine but no brass. She had it styled fairly short and in such a simple way it practically disciplined itself, required only a vigorous swish or two and a combing with her fingers here and there to look right.

Billy brought the Lexus to the curb.

Mitch got out, extended his hand back in to Maddie.

She expected it, got it, used it as she aimed her left foot and found the sidewalk, placed her weight on that foot, kept her head down and then she too was out and up.

Stumble, as always, was her enemy. At such times as this her audacity challenged it. So far so good. She paused momentarily to gather her poise, glanced off as though to survey East 55th, then returned her attention to the direction that her highly honed senses told her was the entrance to the restaurant.

Mitch grasped her elbow firmly, started her.

She didn't shuffle or feel ahead with her feet. Took assured paces of a natural length, five to the held-open entrance door and twenty from it to where there were six steps up that she managed without so much as a toe bumping a riser. Mitch halted her while he dealt with the maître d'.

Mitch and Maddie had settled on this system years ago, his using her forearm like a tiller. By now they'd pretty much perfected it. She knew what each pressure of his hand meant, which signified to go left, which to right and to what degree each of those directions. Those for stop and start were easiest. Simply a restraining or slight forward shove. A little downward tug told her she'd reached the point where she could confidently sit. There were refinements, little squeezes of a certain number conveyed certain impending things. Stairs, for example.

Of course, their system wasn't infallible. Old enemy stumble often had its way and there'd been numerous collisions. One day, when attempting lunch at La Goulue, Maddie had misinterpreted a signal as the
sit
signal and taken an inelegant flop.

This night, however, no mishaps. She managed the zigzag course of tables and chairs and waiters without even a brush, and soon she was conspicuously seated on a banquette with the stem of a crystal wine goblet between her fingers, acclimating, actually sort of parsing, as she usually did, the sounds in the large, high-ceilinged room. The polyphony of conversations punctuated by trills of laughter and the effects of the waiters serving. She enjoyed Lespinasse, had been there numerous times for either lunch or dinner, and was acquainted well enough with the layout of the place to make a solo trip to the ladies' room.

“The stunning brunette two tables over,” she said out of nowhere.

“Who?”

“The one who's hitting on you. Sneakily but nonetheless hitting.”

“Two tables over?”

“Yeah.”

“No brunette, just three paunchy businessmen at that table.”

A waiter brought rolls and butter. Maddie told him: “That attractive lady, at the second table from here, the dark-haired one …”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“See the one I mean?”

“With a diamond clip in her hair, yes ma'am.”

“Never mind,” she said as though having a second thought. The waiter went about his business.

“You're tricky,” Mitch said, wolfing a hunk of roll.

“You're a fibber,” Maddie contended.

“Anyway, the brunette in question hasn't looked this way even once.”

“Now how would you know that?”

Mitch retreated to the safety of silence.

Maddie went along with that for a short while, then let him off the hook by finding his hand and giving it three consoling pats. “Don't despair, precious,” she said, “I was just guessing and happened to be right.”

Again
, Mitch came close to saying aloud.

Over the years there'd been numerous such instances, some so accurate it seemed she was able to recover her sight at will. She always claimed they were guesses; however they were too right and too frequent for Mitch to accept that. He thought a more likely explanation for these coincidental observations, as he called them, was she had developed an extraordinary ability that sometimes compensated for her blindness.

But wasn't that just as far-fetched as off-and-on seeing? Mitch's pragmatic side told him it was.

He'd gotten the first indication of this faculty of hers shortly after they'd met. He and Uncle Straw were out on the terrace of the Sherry Netherland apartment playing gin rummy for a penny a point. Maddie was sort of neutrally kibitzing, not commenting, just hovering around. Mitch drew the nine of diamonds. Discarded it. Maddie moaned, she moaned before Uncle Straw picked up the nine. How could Maddie have known the nine was Uncle Straw's gin card, Mitch wondered. Uncle Straw evidently thought nothing of it, just gave himself points and gathered up the deck to shuffle for the next hand.

Mitch didn't puzzle over the incident. But neither could he dismiss it. He tried to mentally re-create it, the sequence of it, and became less certain it had happened as he recalled.

Still, he found himself on the lookout for such occurrences.

For example, the three sapphires. Mitch had purchased them as part of an estate. Three oval cuts, each about six carats. Maddie's birthday was a couple of weeks off, her first birthday since they'd been married, and he wanted to have one of the sapphires repolished and mounted into a ring for her. He brought the three sapphires home, told her what he intended to do and explained the differences between the three.

One had a distinctive lavender cast, threw pink and cornflower blue scintillations.

Another was a typical Burma tone, dark blue, inky.

The other was a bright Ceylon that just missed because it was ever so slightly zoned, that is, it was a lighter blue in one area.

“Which do you think is most me?” Maddie asked, pleased by his thoughtfulness.

“The Burma is the more precious,” he told her, “worth more and will always be, but the lavender is far prettier.”