Getting Old Is to Die for (26 page)

I can't help it; I'm beaming at him--and yes, there's a glimmer in his eye.

"I won't tell you what my family put me through with their innuendos."

"I can guess. Lisa called me at dawn to babble about last night."

"Dawn, really?"

"Well, it seemed like it."

The waiter brings us scrambled eggs and bagels. We dig in. I'm starved. I could hardly eat a bite last night.

"What's your choice, dear Glad? Business or pleasure first?"

I pause. This is a trick question. "Care to describe either?"

"No." He slathers cream cheese on his onion bagel. He's having a good time.

"Too much cholesterol," I say to stall.

"Yes, I know," as he smears even more on. "All right, a clue. Both will be very intense. Bad intense and good intense."

I sigh. And laugh ironically to myself. Since I have a good idea of what he's up to, I don't know which terrifies me more.

I answer him: "Perhaps the business first. Then the pleasure can be like...dessert?"

He reaches over and takes my hand. "You need to be brave about both."

I manage a smile. "Brave? That's what I'm afraid of."

"Business first, then. We'll get through it, together."

I brace myself and he begins.

"I was just about to go back to Florida when I heard you were coming. I was ready to give up my quest to find Patty Dennison. I got close, but I failed. It's truly remarkable in this technological age that she is off the radar. There is no information to be had about her anywhere. When I met her cousin, Barbara, I was sure I would get her to tell me where she is. But she kept insisting Patty was dead. I almost believed her at that point. Then she ran away from me. At first I thought it was because I scared her and she didn't want to deal with the past. But maybe she ran because she was lying and she was afraid I could break her down. I'm not so sure either way. Regardless, I can't stand the idea that I failed you."

Now I'm the one reaching for his hands to comfort him. "Why don't we try again?"

"We?"

"Yes, we."

"Can you handle it?"

"I don't know but I guess I've always needed to learn the truth."

We stare into one another's eyes. I feel his strength. He is trying to judge mine.

The waiter brings us more coffee.

"I've called Barbara so many times, but she never answers the phone; I get the damn machine. We could go up to Fair Lawn, but she can get a restraining order and I don't put it past her."

"Funny you should say that, because the girls and I just finished a case where a woman refused to take our calls. We finally got her to answer."

He smiles. "Leave it to you and the girls. What did you do, nag her until she went nuts?"

"Pretty close. We just kept calling and told her we would not stop."

With that, Jack whips out his cell phone and hits a number. Jack listens. He shrugs. "Here comes the answering machine."

His tone gets stronger as he leaves her a message. "Barbara. This is Jack Langford. I am still waiting for your call. I will continue calling until you answer. I will call you at the factory as well and make things unpleasant for you there. I intend to come back to your town. You cannot avoid me forever." He leaves his number and hangs up.

"Well done," I say.

"Like spitting in the wind," he says, apparently not convinced this will work. He dials again. This time the Nabisco plant. "The operator is paging her," Jack tells me. "No answer. I'm sure she told them I'm some stalker."

"I doubt it," I say. "She wouldn't want police involved."

"Maybe she's still away. She took off with her kids like a shot after I confronted her."

The waiter brings us the check. Jack takes out his wallet.

"I'm guessing she's back. She needs her job. Probably she came back after she was sure you were gone."

"Now we wait."

"I have an idea. Let me call."

Jack looks alarmed. "I thought of that, but I didn't want to ask you."

"Jack, dear, from now on we're in this together."

"What will you say?"

"I'll say Gladdy Gold is calling and I insist on meeting with her cousin, Patty Dennison, immediately."

He hands me the phone.

41

SCENE OF THE CRIME

J
ack and I stand in the middle of the street outside the coffee shop. The air feels good. The weather is starting to cool down. Indian summer is about to change into fall. People seem to be walking at a quicker, lighter pace. We glance at one another. I know what he is thinking. I know where he wants us to go. I want what he wants. His hotel is just up at the corner. But not yet. Something is making me hesitate.

"Up for a walk?" he asks, sensing my uncertainty. "We could window-shop along Fifth Avenue? Let's see if Rizzoli's bookstore is still there."

It hits me. "Jack, you'll think this is mad but I want to take you to my old neighborhood. Where it happened. Don't ask me why, but I need you to see it." I stare into his blue eyes. Like looking into pools of hot liquid. "The scene of the crime."

He checks my face to see if I really mean this. "Are you sure?"

"No. But something makes me want to do this. Maybe it's because I haven't been back there since I moved away two months after it happened. Maybe it's because we're doing what you came to do and this is part of it. Most of all, I can deal with it because I'll be with you."

He hugs me and then hails a cab.

"Our first taxi ride together in our first time in New York together," Jack says loudly as we make our way to the Upper West Side. Thank goodness we have a driver who's only playing hard rock on an ear-splitting wavelength. It could be worse. What really gets me is each time I've been in a New York City cab, the driver is talking on a cell phone at the same time. This one is, too. Madness.

I smile at Jack. How sweet. "Are you collecting anniversaries?" I shout.

We move very close together so we can hear one another, which is nice. "Sure. Why not?"

Bless him, he sees me tensing up the nearer I get to my old neighborhood and he's trying to ease it.

I try to concentrate on the nice things I remember of those earlier years. Being so near the Hudson River where I used to wheel baby Emily. I'd sit on a bench and I'd enjoy the water views or read books as she slept in her carriage. And later, older, playing in Morningside Park. We pass the old markets where I shopped. Most of them have changed. And I remember how near Columbia University is to where we were. How much my Jack used to enjoy walking to work.

This Jack now takes my hand in his.

And we are here. In front of my old apartment building on 124th Street.

We get out. Everything seems to look the same. I notice the building now has a doorman. I lead Jack around the corner where our apartment faced the side street. I point to the window where I looked out and watched my husband every night when he came home from the university. Where Emily and I used to wave to him. The coffee shop on the corner is now a Starbucks. I slowly walk Jack down the alley. I haven't spoken a word, but it isn't necessary. His policeman eyes dart every which way, taking everything in. He sees what I see in my heart and soul.

Such a nondescript place for a man to die.

I bend down and touch the spot where so much of my husband's blood was shed. I think I can still see traces, but maybe it is just the accumulation of nearly fifty years of traffic. It all seems so benign in the bright sunlight.

We stand there for a while. I turn, slowly absorbing my old world. I hear birdsong, but I don't know which birds are singing. It reminds me of when a robin built her nest on our fire escape. Emily excitedly watched for hours, waiting for the babies to peek out of their eggs. There is the tinkle of a bell and a woman comes out of Starbucks sipping her drink. A couple of teens ride by on bicycles. I smell the cooking of many different cultures emanating from open windows above me. Of course my old curtains are long gone from my windows. Now there are drawn venetian blinds. Did the people who bought that apartment (I assume it is a co-op now) know of that tragic death on a New Year's Eve so long ago?

A wind suddenly whips around the block blowing leaves and bits of paper in miniature tornados. It always was a windy corner.

Or is it ghosts?

Jack stares at me with such kindness and understanding, I can hardly bear it.

"Enough?" he asks.

"Enough," I say.

42

THE DARTFORD HOTEL

A
s we are about to enter the lobby of the hotel that Jack is staying in, he says, "It's really old and shabby. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"How can I, Jack, dear, since you've already warned me at least ten times?" I give him a peck on the cheek. "I don't care."

In a panic, he starts to pull me away from the revolving door. "Let's go to the Carlisle or the Sheraton. There are a dozen hotels around here. Anything will be better than this."

"And what makes you think they'll have a room, last minute? And with no luggage? Can you imagine what they'll think? And what they'll charge?"

"I can't take you into this dump."

"Jack. Enough already. Let's go inside. I promise you I won't judge you by how dismal your hovel is." I smile sweetly, teasing him.

He gives in and we walk through the lobby. Walking is not quite accurate; he's dragging me to the elevator. He doesn't want to give me time to inspect its shabbiness. We hop in just before the door closes. There's another couple already inside. Typical tourists: three cameras around his neck, too many suitcases, still wearing shorts though the weather's changed, looking very small-town; harried. I smile at them. They smile back.

"First time in New York?" I ask.

They nod. They press the button for the twelfth floor, Jack presses the ten.

Just as we pass the ninth floor, I snuggle up to Jack, pretend to chew gum, and say in a Brooklyn accent, "I still don't know why they charged us full price if we're only using the room for an hour."

By the time everyone has had a chance to react and Jack turns beet red, the elevator doors open and I pull him out. "Welcome to the Big Apple," I call back to the shocked faces receding in the closing door.

I giggle. I can't believe the lightness I feel. Ever since we left my old neighborhood, something's changed in me. Something wonderful. I'll have to think about this later.

Jack is still stunned for a moment, and then he begins to laugh. "Gladdy Gold. I can't believe you did that."

"Hurry up," I say, "get me inside that cheap room, fast, before our time is up."

He pulls me along, shaking his head in amazement. "I'm shocked."

"Yeah, sure," I say, a huge smile still on my face. "I wish I could read the postcard they're gonna write from the big, bad city."

We get to the room. He pauses with the key in his hand. "I have something else to warn you about."

"Not another word. Just open it."

Jack opens the door and I enter.