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?