19 Purchase Street Read Free Page B

the situation warranted her eyes could be so steady it seemed they might never blink. The pupils of her eyes were an extraordinary green, with black outlining circumferences. Her hair was dark brown, healthy, heavy hair that was naturally straight. She often wore it pulled back taut without a part, playing right into the impression of composure.
    The drink in her hand felt colder than it should have. Rivulets of condensation ran down to her fingers. Using the back of the newest issue of Geo magazine for a coaster, she placed the glass on the table and took up the phone. All day it had been on her mind to call Drew but she hadn’t wanted to call from Number 19. She suspected every phone conversation to or from there was somehow recorded, and although anything said to Drew would be personal, who knew what might be made of it. Her own phone was swept weekly by the Number 19 people. A requirement rather than a favor.
    She dialed Drew’s number.
    After four rings his service answered. Norma knew that didn’t necessarily mean Drew wasn’t home. She left word she’d called, no other message.
    Might as well pack.
    She got two bags from the spare bedroom closet. An overnighter and another of medium size. Both matched the larger bag, the thirty-incher she’d brought down from Harrison. The thirty-incher looked as though it had endured equal travel. Norma wondered how they achieved that. Actually it got only half the wear, because two years ago when she’d bought this set of luggage she’d done as instructed, as she knew to do from times previous: bought an extra bag in the thirty-inch size. That allowed alternately one bag to be left at Number 19 and made ready while its counterpart was away being carried.
    Norma wasn’t the least indecisive about what to pack, nor did she strew things about. It seemed as though she was merely filling the bags, giving them proper weight and believable content, the way she removed things several at a time from drawers and didn’t sort through. In twenty minutes she was done. She zipped, buckled and locked both bags and placed them in the foyer along with the thirty-incher. There was only one visible difference other than size. The thirty-incher had a red and white, rather than a brown, leather identification tag attached to its handle.
    She tried Drew’s number again.
    His service was still answering and he hadn’t called in for messages. She decided to trust her intuition. Quickly she changed into what she’d wear on the flight. She left the luggage in the foyer, went out and took a taxi uptown to Second Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street.
    There was the Roosevelt Island tramway, all orange and blue and advertising itself thirty feet above street level. A tram car was about to depart. Nevertheless, Norma, on impulse, took the time to go into one of the small shops in the mall at the base of the tram station, a place that sold only candy. She bought all the Necco wafers the store had, five packs, three chocolate, two assorted. Because recently Drew had remarked that while Godivas and Teuschers were fine, they weren’t any better to his taste than Neccos had been twenty-some years ago.
    Norma ran up the steps. In contradiction to the usual city behavior, the tram’s departure was delayed especially for her, the time it took her to purchase her ticket and get aboard. Her heart was pounding from rushing. She thanked the other eight passengers and the tram operator and then they were underway, suspended from a cable, proceeding above the city, going against the taxi yellow grain of the avenues: Second, First, York. And FDR Drive, the traffic headed home in both directions, the various car colors attractive from that high vantage. Actually, everything appeared cleaner from up there, the city’s deterioration not nearly so apparent. The East River was almost as calm as a creek and closer alongside on the right the Queensboro Bridge was, as usual, being