9
The room telephone rang. Megan said, “Hello,” after switching the
speakerphone on.
“Miz
Kenner?” It was the desk clerk.
“Speaking.”
“There’s
a Mister Rad... Tom here to see you.”
“Please
ask him to come up to my room,” Megan said and hung up.
“This
should be interesting,” Betty said. Sam was still in her lap, quiet for the
moment. Megan, walking back to the sofa from the nightstand that held the
telephone, seemed restless. She sat down next to Betty and laughed
nervously. She reached her right index
finger out to Sam, who took it in his mouth. This time Betty laughed. “What do
you think?” she asked.
“My
gut tells me to stay, as it has all along.”
There
was a knock on the door, and Megan got up to open it.
Tom Radnovich
came into the room warily, as though he didn’t mean to disturb anyone who might
be sleeping, but relaxed when he saw Sam, awake, in Betty’s lap.
He was
tall, though not as tall as Greg Berman, but unlike Betty’s thin father-in-law
he was solidly built. He reminded her of the actor who played Mr. Big on Sex
and the City, not only because they resembled each other in build (though
Tom was slimmer) and in the chiseled facial features (though Tom’s were
sharper), but also because some years earlier she had seen the same actor – Chris
Noth, that was his name – playing a New York detective on Law & Order.
Sam
began sniveling again. Tom approached him and said “Hi, Sam,” and then, looking
at Betty, “you must be Betty.”
“Hi,
Tom,” Betty said. “Say ‘Hi, Tom,’” she said to Sam. But Sam wouldn’t say
anything of the sort. “Mommy,” he said instead and reached out to Megan.
“I’m
afraid this isn’t going to work out tonight,” Megan said to Tom. “But Betty is
interested in visiting that bar in the Bronx where... And you two might as well
get acquainted.”
“
I would like that
very much,” Tom said. “But maybe another time,” he added to Megan, “like
perhaps tomorrow...”
“Perhaps,”
Megan said. She took Sam from Betty and hugged him tightly. “You and me are
staying home tonight,” she said to him, “while Auntie Betty goes out. Okay?”
“’Tie
Betty out,” Sam said.
Betty
gave Sam a good-night kiss before getting up. She slipped into her sandals,
buckled their straps, and put on a denim jacket that matched her jeans.
“Good-night, Sam,” she said, “Good-night, Megan.”
“Have
a good time, you two,” Megan said, “or at least an interesting time.”
“Or
both,” Tom said with a laugh as he led Betty out of the room.
They
did not speak in the elevator. Tom seemed to be adjusting as well as he could
to the change in circumstances of his date. Betty also felt unsure, but a sense
of adventure began to fill her once they were in the lobby. She checked the
pocket of her jacket to make sure that the key card was there. It was.
“This
is very nice of you,” she said to Tom.
“It’s
a pleasure. And I hope to learn more about your late brother from you.”
“And
vice versa,” Betty said with a little laugh.
“So
you really want to go to that bar?” Tom asked her as they stepped out of the
lobby onto the sidewalk. “You may find it a little unsavory, you know.” The
evening air, though still breezy, actually felt warmer than the afternoon’s had
been. Betty felt quite comfortable in her short-sleeved blouse and kept her
jacket over her arm.
“I’ll
be with you, won’t I?” Betty said with a smile.
“Oh,
yes, you don’t have to worry about your safety. Let’s see if we can find a cab
to take us there.”
“Can’t
we go by subway? I already took it earlier, and I enjoyed it. In Montreal I
always take the metro.”
“Sure.
From the Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station we’ve got a direct train.”
As
Betty was telling Tom about her impressions of New York, they retraced the path
she had taken in the afternoon, to Chatham Square, but continued westward – the
setting sun between the Twin Towers made them somehow less menacing – along an
avenue with two names: Park Row and Avenue of the Finest. “The
finest what?” Betty asked as she pointed at the sign.
Tom
laughed. “That’s us, the NYPD. They call us New York’s finest. Don’t they do
that in Canada?”
“Only sarcastically. At least in Montreal.
Probably not in Toronto. There the metro is called the
subway, just like here,” she said with a giggle.
“Well,
lots of movies that are supposed to take place in New York get shot in Toronto.
Like Car 54, Where Are You. Did you see that?”
“No.”
“It
came out about five years ago, a comedy about cops in New York, but you can
actually see TTC on the subway cars.” Betty laughed. “How
about Moonstruck?” Tom went on. “That was more of a romance.”
“When
did that come out?”
“Ten, twelve years ago.”
“That’s
before my time,” Betty said, laughing. “I didn’t start going to grownup movies,
and I don’t mean adult movies,” she interjected with yet another laugh,
“till I was sixteen, and started going out with Paul. Not like Daniel – he was
a major film buff by the time he was thirteen. That’s how he got in touch with
our father’s first wife, who was a big German movie star. At McGill there were
some German students who asked me if I was related to Brigitte Wilner, and I
had to explain it to them.” She giggled. “Daniel got pretty close to her, but
I’ve never met her.”
“Does
she know what happened to him?” Tom asked in a professional-sounding tone.
“God,
I don’t know! I wouldn’t even know how to get in touch with her!”
“Well,
we can go through his e-mail address book.”
“I
don’t know about that,” Betty said. “I think they corresponded by postcard.”
They
had reached the subway station. Tom fished a token out of the change pocket of
his jeans and handed it to Betty. For himself he pulled a magnetic ticket like
the one used in Montreal; this was probably what the African man had meant by a
MetroCard. As they came down the stairs and passed through the turnstiles a
rumble could be heard below. “That’s the train we want,” Tom said, “the uptown
express.” They got to the platform just as the train arrived. Tom directed
Betty into a relatively uncrowded, brand-new-looking car as a female voice was
announcing, “This is a Bronx-bound four express train. The next stop is
Fourteenth Street.” He led her to a free seat while he stood protectively in
front of her. After a male voice intoned “Stand clear of the closing doors,
please,” with a strange rise on the first syllable of closing, the doors
closed and the train began to move, gradually gaining speed.
Betty
thought that Tom would sit down beside her if one of her neighbors decided to
leave, but when the black woman on her right rose in order to get off at 14th
Street, he let another woman, this one East Asian, take the seat. It was just
as well, Betty thought; the noise was much louder than either the Montreal
metro’s or the Toronto subway’s, and conversation
would be difficult. She looked up at him and found that she had to shout in
order to ask him at which station they were to get off. “A hundred
forty-ninth!” he replied.
Sam was asleep at last. Megan looked at the front page of the paper. The
banner headline read CRISIS IN THE BALKANS: THE OVERVIEW; NATO TROOPS ROLL
INTO KOSOVO; CONFUSION OVER RUSSIAN MOVE. And as she turned the pages she
found at least half a dozen articles under the CRISIS IN THE BALKANS
rubric.
She
didn’t want to know any more about Kosovo; she had heard enough from Daniel.
She looked for something entertaining to read, and found an article with the
headline Two Women's Claims to Be New Age Guru's Widow Complicate a
Complicated Case. This, she thought, would be fun to read. And it was.
The
guru in question, a popular author and lecturer, had killed himself in 1998 and
left a will saying that he intended to leave everything to the Audubon Society
or to a foundation promoting his quasi-Buddhist ideas. The executor (who
hurriedly set up such a foundation shortly after the suicide) and the Audubon
Society had already been arguing over who should get the estate of $18 million,
but then two women showed up. One said that she was his widow and claimed a
third of the fortune, according to New York State law. The other said that they
had lived as husband and wife from 1988 until his suicide and claimed a
common-law marriage under Colorado law.
It was
a legal soap opera. There was even a mention of the New York Surrogate’s Court,
the very place where Megan was to be the next morning.
The
telephone rang. Megan instinctively looked at Sam and saw that the ring had
made his face twitch but did not wake him up. “Hello,” she said into the
receiver.
“Hi,
Megan, it’s Cary.”
“Hi, Cary. You’re not calling to tell me that there are
complications with the will, are you?”
“Complications? No.”
“It’s
just that I’ve been reading in the New York Times...”
“Here
we just call it The Times,” Cary said.
“Really? Then what do you call The Times, the one in
London?”
“We call it the London Times, of course. Anyway,
you were reading...”
“About
this guru...”
“Oh,
yeah, I know that case. It’s a riot. No, there are no complications. The only
potential complications that Daniel ever worried about were from his sister’s
fiancé, Paul Berman, which is why we’ve kept him out of the loop.”
“They’re
married now.”
“All the more reason. But listen, we’ve been talking on the
phone for months and months, but we’ve never met, and we’re supposed to be in
court together in the morning. How about we have breakfast together, say, at
eight-thirty?”
“But
I’ve got Sam with me.”
“Bring
him! Who’s gonna babysit him while we’re in court?”
“Betty,
Daniel’s sister, is here with me!”
“Even better! Let’s all meet at Harry’s in the Woolworth
Building, that’s on Broadway, across the street from City Hall Park. You can’t
miss it. I’ll reserve a table for us, so when you come in, just ask for Cary
Seligman’s table.”
“Okay,
Cary, see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow
it is!”
Tom felt self-conscious as he walked into Old Nick’s in the company of a
beautiful young woman, just two nights after he had walked out of there in the
company of the not-so-beautiful and not-so-young Julia Lusha. He made a point
of avoiding even accidental physical contact with Betty.
“Welcome
back, Detective Radnovich,” Steve greeted him from behind the bar as they came
in. “And the lovely lady,” he added with a smile. It was early, and the place
was almost empty.
“Hi,
Steve,” Tom said. “This is Daniel Wilner’s sister.”
Steve’s
smile instantly gave way to a somber expression. “I am so sorry about your
brother,” he said.
“I’m
Betty,” she said, reaching out her hand, which Steve took and kissed. Phony
European bastard, Tom thought.
“Julia’s
not here tonight?” Tom asked.
“My cousin Julia?” Steve asked, his
smile back in place. “No, not tonight. She
work tomorrow.”
“Where
does she work?”
“She work in
bank,” Steve said, but seemed to know that
Detective Radnovich would want a more detailed answer. “Chase,
Third Avenue and Fifty-first.” After a pause he asked, “May I offer Miss
Betty a drink?”
“Thank
you,” Betty said. “Some white wine, please.”
“Sure, Miss Betty. How about Albanian white wine?
Cannot buy in store.”
“That
sounds interesting.”
“Good.
And for you, my friend?”
“I’ll
also try some Albanian white wine,” Tom said, pulling his wallet out of his
pocket.
“Please,
my friend, on the house. You are off duty, right?”
“Right,”
Tom said. He took the two glasses from Steve and said to Betty, “Let’s sit down
over there,” pointing to a remote table with no occupied tables within a
ten-foot radius.
“So
this is the place,” Betty said as they sat down and Tom placed the glasses on
the table. “It just doesn’t seem like Daniel’s kind of place,” she added as she
took a sip of the wine. “Mmm, an interesting flavor.”
“Not
bad,” Tom said after his first sip. He realized that they hadn’t clinked or
said anything ceremonious on taking their first sips. But then this wasn’t a
date but an informative outing. “Anyway, I don’t think he came here to
socialize but to get information. Although I did see an old
girlfriend of his when I was here a couple of nights ago.”
“Who
was that?”
“Her
name is Claire Chen. She’s a computer scientist, or something like that, who
made a lot of money on some software that she developed.”
“I
remember something about a Chinese girlfriend when he was... what do you call it...
a junior. It was when I was first seeing my... the guy who is now my husband,”
Betty said, laughing. Tom found her laugh a little too girly-giggly for a woman
of twenty-five. She suddenly turned serious. “So how did it happen?”
“Well,
he was sitting at that table” – he pointed to one that was about halfway
between theirs and the bar – “by himself, drinking a beer, in all likelihood
waiting for an informant. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to find any clue,
from his cell-phone call log or his e-mail account, who
that informant might have been. We believe that this place is the main hangout”
– he lowered his voice – “of an Albanian drug-running gang, and our friendly
host Steve is suspected as its leader, though we haven’t been able to pin
anything on him yet. Suddenly a bunch of other Albanians, from Kosovo, whom we
believe to belong to another gang, came in, talking very loud. Some heated
words were exchanged, in Albanian of course, between the two groups. Some
gunshots were fired – no two witnesses agree on how many and from where, though
five cartridges were found. Your brother seems to have been right in the line
of fire, and he got hit by one bullet from each direction. His cell phone was in
his hand, and he had just received a call – maybe from the person he was
expecting – and didn’t notice what was going on, so he didn’t get a chance to
duck. They got rid of the guns ASAP, and we could never find any evidence to
tie anyone to the shooting. Except that now we’re starting to believe that that
whole thing was a setup.”
“You
mean, someone wanted Daniel dead, and staged the whole thing?” Betty said. Tom
nodded. “But who?” Betty asked. “Why
Daniel? He wasn’t the only journalist covering the Kosovo war, was he?”
“I
guess not.” Tom suddenly felt a surge of emotion. “I promise you, Betty,” he
said as he took her hand, “we’ll get to the bottom of this, whatever it takes.
I plan to reinvestigate everything.” The emotion, just as suddenly, gave way to
thought. “By the way,” he asked, “what ever happened with Daniel’s co-op?”
“His what?”
“You
know, the apartment that he owned.”
“Oh,
that. You didn’t know? That’s the reason, or the main reason, that Megan’s
here. He left his entire estate to his son, Sam, to be administered by Megan
till Sam’s eighteen. Almost all the assets are in Canada, and Megan’s lawyer in
Toronto handled the transfer without a hitch. But in New York there had to be
probate, and the final hearing is tomorrow morning.”
“She
told me that it was on personal business, and that her business was downtown. I
should have guessed. Surrogate’s Court, Thirty-One Chambers Street. So the
apartment’s been tied up in probate all this time! I assume no one’s been
living there.”
“Not that I know of. But Megan already has an offer, and the
sale should go through right away. Daniel’s lawyer in New York is handling the
whole business.”
“Well,
I’d like to pay another visit to that apartment. Do you know what time the
hearing is?”
“Ten
o’clock.”
Since
there would be no arraignment to attend, he might as well go to the probate
hearing and arrange with Megan and the lawyer to look at the apartment.
He
realized that throughout the conversation about the apartment he had been
holding Betty’s hand. He was about to let go, but found that Betty was holding
on.
“Let’s
get out of here,” Betty said.
He led
her out the door, thanking Steve for the wine just before leaving but not
waiting for Steve’s reply.
He
took her back to the subway station on a more roundabout route, passing
El Rinconcito. It was a bar that he
knew, and the sound of Latin music was spilling out from behind its open doors.
He noticed that Betty was involuntarily swaying to the music. Some nattily
dressed young men and women were loitering outside, smoking and laughing. “What
kind of place is that?” she asked.
“It’s
a salsa joint,” Tom replied. “My partner is a Latina, Detective Claudia
Quintero, and she’s taken me there.”
“Dancing?”
“Yeah. Do you dance?”
“Well,
Paul doesn’t, so I don’t, except when we’re alone at home. But Daniel liked
salsa dancing. He once had a Puerto Rican girlfriend.”
“Yeah,
those Latin women, they can really make a guy move.” Tom laughed. “Claudia and
I were dating for a while, before we became partners.” After they had passed
the bar they were silent for a while. But Betty’s swaying would not stop.
“I’d
like to try salsa dancing,” she said. “Would I have to dress up for it? Those
girls out there look pretty dressed up.”
Tom
laughed again. “They dress up just because they like to,” he said, “but this
place is pretty casual. Tonight there probably isn’t even a band, just
recordings. Would you like to try it now?”
“Why not?”
“Vamos
a bailar,” he said as he took her hand and swung her around in order to
reverse direction. He dropped her hand when they got to the door, paid the
three-dollar cover charge (women were free) and put his hand on her shoulder in
order to guide her to a table. “On a Sunday night it isn’t very crowded,” he
said.
After
she sat down and draped her jacket on the chair he asked what she wanted to
drink. “I don’t think they serve wine here,” he added.
“I’ll
have something stronger,” she said, “as long as it’s sweet.”
“Okay,”
he said and went off to the bar. He brought her a tequila sunrise and a plain
brandy and water for himself.”
The
music that was coming out of the speakers was standard New York salsa, with
lots of brass. He preferred the subtler Cuban kind, which the band had been
playing when Claudia brought him there some two years earlier.
Tom
and Betty took swigs of their drinks, and a big smile came to Betty’s face. She
was really beautiful, he thought, but couldn’t help wishing that Megan were
there in her place. “Let’s dance,” he said. She got up with another giggly
laugh.
Either
she had already danced salsa, he thought, or she was remarkably good at picking
up the moves. She responded precisely to every one of his, time after time.
When
the DJ played a bolero for slow dancing, Betty surprised Tom by uninhibitedly
pressing her body into his. The two tequila sunrises seemed to have had their
effect on her, and her full, firm breasts had their effect on him. He struggled
to keep his pelvis from too much contact with her hips. But during the moments
when contact couldn’t be avoided she did not react in any way.
Close
to midnight she said simply, “Let’s go.” They walked back to the subway station
in silence, until they were going down the stairs. “That was fun,” she said,
and briefly took his hand.
Megan woke up exactly at midnight. Sam was making sleep noises, but
seemed calm. She looked at Betty’s bed. It was empty.
Betty
was obviously spending a long time with Tom Radnovich. That was supposed to
be me, Megan said to herself, but she felt no rancor. It was good for Betty
to be out with a guy who was probably – nay, certainly – more fun than Paul
Berman.
It was
not only Megan who was mystified by Betty’s choice of Paul as the man in her
life. Daniel couldn’t understand it either. And, he had told Megan, within a
couple of years after taking up with Paul Betty had changed from his lively,
fun-loving, almost frivolous kid sister to the serious student spouting
profound verities about her field of study but not interested in much outside
it.
But
the Betty who had spent the last four days with her and Sam was the lively,
fun-loving Betty of Daniel’s memory. It was sad that Daniel didn’t get a chance
to see his sister come back to her true self.
And
could the time that Betty was spending with Tom mean that she was ready to go
beyond her vaunted monogamy? Megan liked to think of herself as a student of
female lust, and she now thought that she had picked up some subtle hints of
such readiness, if only in the intonation that Betty had given her mentions of
Paul.
Betty
and Tom in bed! Megan found the idea amusing, and surprised herself by feeling
no pangs of jealousy. On the contrary, she felt quite comfortable lying alone
in her bed, listening to her son’s gentle, rhythmic breathing. She found her
own breathing matching Sam’s, breath by breath...
This time there was plenty of room in the subway car, and they sat side
by side. “At this time of night the trip will be slower,” Tom said after the closing
doors warning, “because it makes all the stops.”
“Just
like the local?”
“That’s
right. I normally take a local, because my stop is Ninety-Sixth.”
“Is
that were you live?”
“Near
there, yeah.”
The
train wasn’t quite as loud at the reduced speed, but Betty didn’t feel like
chatting. But the stop at 103rd Street was a little longer than ordinary. “Your
stop is the next one, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’d
like to go to your place.”
“Are
you sure?” Tom asked after a pause.
“Positive.
In eight years I haven’t been with another man besides Paul. I think it’s time.
But... you will take me back to the hotel, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
As
soon as the doors closed and the train began to move, Betty got up and walked
toward the nearest door. Tom followed her slowly.
They
did not speak or touch during the five-minute walk to the brownstone where Tom lived
or while they climbed the two flights to his apartment. He unlocked the door,
let her walk inside, and followed her.
“I
have no experience with this, you know,” she said in the hallway while he was
helping her off with her jacket after closing the door. She turned to face him
and saw that he was taking his boots off. “I don’t even know how to start,” she
added.
“Well,
the usual way to start is by kissing,” he said with a smile. They were standing
face to face, well within kissing distance.
“I’m
sorry, I... I just can’t imagine myself kissing someone I don’t love.”
“You
could try it.”
She
walked away from him and entered the living room while he turned on the light,
keeping it very dim. She saw the sofa and sat down, slipping her sandals off.
“I
have another idea,” she said as he sat down beside her. “I’d like it if you
unbuttoned my blouse and kissed my breasts.” She was aware that, unlike her
mother in 1970, she was wearing a bra, but it was of the demi-cup variety that
exposed more than enough potentially kissable mammary skin. She had liked such
undergarments ever since, at the age of twelve and a half, she began wearing
some of her mother’s bras – before outgrowing them soon thereafter – though she
was never to acquire a taste for the low-cut tops and dresses that they were
meant for.
“That
sounds absolutely lovely,” Tom said. Before busying himself with Betty’s blouse
he pulled open the snap closures of his shirt with a single tug. The cascading
sound of the unsnapping sent something like an electric jolt through her body. I’m
being like Samantha, she told herself with satisfaction. And she felt, more
in her loins than in her head, a pang of curiosity: was Tom circumcised or not?
Was he like Paul or like Gérard?
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