later than every other schedule.
“Beautiful night out there,” Hector said as Tom carefully finished his name, autograph-style, in the log book.
“I think I might walk home.”
“Where you live, Mr. Perini, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
“I don’t, Hector. Uptown, 87th and Madison.”
“That’s a nice walk.”
“Thirty blocks or so. Some days it’s the only exercise I get.”
D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S
Tom started toward the revolving door.
“Hey, Mr. Perini,” Hector called.
“What’s up, Hector?”
“Look, I don’t want to bother you. But that guy’s still hangin’
around.”
“Our buddy from Mexico?”
“Right across the avenue. See him?”
“You mean the guy in the shiny suit?”
“That’s my man.”
The dark, birdlike man was standing on the sidewalk at the 9
foot of the Citicorp Building across the avenue. Behind him was the cluttered window of a closed discount drugstore. Reflected in that window was the pink-stone and glass surface of the building in which Tom worked. The man wore a double-breasted suit, cut in European style. He carried a black briefcase. He had a thin Latin American moustache.
“Sometimes,” Hector said, “he runs across the street and asks guys comin’ outta here if they’re you.”
“He doesn’t look like my type.”
“Hey,” Hector said, “do me a favor. Let me get you a cab.
Walk some other night. This guy’s sure as shit’s gonna be a pain in the ass, I know it. He’s a fuckin’ nuisance.”
“Thanks, Hector. I’ll let you do that.”
Hector swept through the revolving door and flagged down a taxi for Tom in about five seconds. The car sped north on Third Avenue. Three blocks from the building, Tom turned in the backseat and saw the black-tailored man still staring across Third Avenue, still waiting. But now he was speaking into a cell phone.
* * *
The apartment at 87th and Madison was on the eighteenth floor of a pre-war, twenty-one story building. Julie and Tom had loved it from the day they first saw it. The view swept over the lower, staid buildings on the block between Fifth and Madison. Season after season, Tom and Julie had wide views of P A U L B A T I S T A
the northern expanse of Central Park, including the broad, sky-reflecting surface of the reservoir. Even after that deep blue September day years earlier when they had stared at the white wall of smoke and dust streaming eastward from the collapsed World Trade Center, they often told each other they’d live there forever.
When she heard the familiar sound of the front door opening and closing, Julie walked briskly from the kitchen to the hallway.
She slipped her arms under Tom’s suit jacket and around his waist. He was six-two and still weighed two hundred and fifteen 10
pounds. His agent had tried several times to persuade him to appear in a centerfold spread for Playgirl . He turned the idea down but, years later, when he first met Julie, he mentioned it to her. “Playgirl,” she sometimes still called him, teasing. “Come here, playgirl,” she’d say.
Julie was six inches shorter than Tom. This afternoon her gleaming black hair was pulled away from her face and tied at the back of her head. She raised her face and sweet mouth to kiss him. Since Kim’s birth, she had worked, part-time, as a news writer for NBC. Before she met Tom, she’d never seen a football game. But, addicted to news since the time when she was a lonely twelve-year-old in Oxnard, California, she recognized his name.
But for what? It was only after a Google search that she realized the Tom Perini she had met—a youngish, incredibly good-looking lawyer working at the time in the federal prosecutor’s office—was once one of the most famous college and professional football players in the country.
“Guess what? I’m not working this weekend. The judge didn’t ask for any briefs, letters, anything. She just said, ‘Enjoy the weekend.’”
“See, I told you women
“Beautiful night out there,” Hector said as Tom carefully finished his name, autograph-style, in the log book.
“I think I might walk home.”
“Where you live, Mr. Perini, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
“I don’t, Hector. Uptown, 87th and Madison.”
“That’s a nice walk.”
“Thirty blocks or so. Some days it’s the only exercise I get.”
D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S
Tom started toward the revolving door.
“Hey, Mr. Perini,” Hector called.
“What’s up, Hector?”
“Look, I don’t want to bother you. But that guy’s still hangin’
around.”
“Our buddy from Mexico?”
“Right across the avenue. See him?”
“You mean the guy in the shiny suit?”
“That’s my man.”
The dark, birdlike man was standing on the sidewalk at the 9
foot of the Citicorp Building across the avenue. Behind him was the cluttered window of a closed discount drugstore. Reflected in that window was the pink-stone and glass surface of the building in which Tom worked. The man wore a double-breasted suit, cut in European style. He carried a black briefcase. He had a thin Latin American moustache.
“Sometimes,” Hector said, “he runs across the street and asks guys comin’ outta here if they’re you.”
“He doesn’t look like my type.”
“Hey,” Hector said, “do me a favor. Let me get you a cab.
Walk some other night. This guy’s sure as shit’s gonna be a pain in the ass, I know it. He’s a fuckin’ nuisance.”
“Thanks, Hector. I’ll let you do that.”
Hector swept through the revolving door and flagged down a taxi for Tom in about five seconds. The car sped north on Third Avenue. Three blocks from the building, Tom turned in the backseat and saw the black-tailored man still staring across Third Avenue, still waiting. But now he was speaking into a cell phone.
* * *
The apartment at 87th and Madison was on the eighteenth floor of a pre-war, twenty-one story building. Julie and Tom had loved it from the day they first saw it. The view swept over the lower, staid buildings on the block between Fifth and Madison. Season after season, Tom and Julie had wide views of P A U L B A T I S T A
the northern expanse of Central Park, including the broad, sky-reflecting surface of the reservoir. Even after that deep blue September day years earlier when they had stared at the white wall of smoke and dust streaming eastward from the collapsed World Trade Center, they often told each other they’d live there forever.
When she heard the familiar sound of the front door opening and closing, Julie walked briskly from the kitchen to the hallway.
She slipped her arms under Tom’s suit jacket and around his waist. He was six-two and still weighed two hundred and fifteen 10
pounds. His agent had tried several times to persuade him to appear in a centerfold spread for Playgirl . He turned the idea down but, years later, when he first met Julie, he mentioned it to her. “Playgirl,” she sometimes still called him, teasing. “Come here, playgirl,” she’d say.
Julie was six inches shorter than Tom. This afternoon her gleaming black hair was pulled away from her face and tied at the back of her head. She raised her face and sweet mouth to kiss him. Since Kim’s birth, she had worked, part-time, as a news writer for NBC. Before she met Tom, she’d never seen a football game. But, addicted to news since the time when she was a lonely twelve-year-old in Oxnard, California, she recognized his name.
But for what? It was only after a Google search that she realized the Tom Perini she had met—a youngish, incredibly good-looking lawyer working at the time in the federal prosecutor’s office—was once one of the most famous college and professional football players in the country.
“Guess what? I’m not working this weekend. The judge didn’t ask for any briefs, letters, anything. She just said, ‘Enjoy the weekend.’”
“See, I told you women
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