impression it was something of a collector’s item. For all I knew about cars it could well have been. For all Elly knew either. Either she had learned or someone had done her buying for her.
Inside I pulled on my seat belt. She waited for me to finish.
“So,” she said gaily, hands on the wheel. “Where do you want to go?”
“How about home?”
“Which one? I’m afraid you have a choice.” She made a face. “I’m sorry. I did try to warn you in the letter, but I probably didn’t put it right.”
I swallowed my surprise. “What are you offering?”
“An apartment in Manhattan or a house in Westchester.”
The mystery needed to be kept in scale. Neil Simon rather than Great Gatsby. “Manhattan, I think.”
“Good. I thought you would.”
From behind us, twenty yards down the concourse, came the shriek of a police whistle, followed by a bulky cop, waving his arms in exaggerated fury. Elly rolled down her window and gave him what might have passed for a West Point salute. We moved off in search of the city.
L ater, on the terrace, we sat and watched the night move. I had left English time behind, blasted it away in a jet-stream shower: the power of water pressure, as American as apple pie and long-range missiles. Out of the bathroom I wrapped myself in a robe, picked up the glass of bourbon waiting for me on the bedside table, and together, the liquor and I went in search of Elly.
We found her in a large canvas chair on the terrace, an urban lookout post fringed with window boxes filled with geraniums and facing out over a dark mass of trees. Central Park and exclusive real estate. New Yorkers pay for greenery like Arabs pay for water. I wondered what the Westchester house looked like. Behind us, through tall French windows, was a spacious sitting room lined with bookcases and the odd, exclusive Chinese print. On the floor, a huge rug on polished boards and four powerful speakers. Planned elegance. Hardly consistent with the Elly I once knew, full of chaos and good intentions.
The hum of the city moved up in hot airstreams toward us. We sat cloaked in heat, the night bringing scant relief. I poked my ice cubes down into the golden brown liquid and watched as the water and the liquor merged to form oily patterns on the surface.
I looked at her. In the darkness she was more like the Elly I remembered. Her new angularity was subdued, rubbed soft by night shadows. I stretched out my legs and felt again how large my body was in comparison with hers. The familiarity of the feeling gave me a strange pleasure. If the night had not been so charged with questions, it might almost have been two years ago. There was silence. It didn’t bother me. Patience is a virtue I am familiar with. She screwed up her face into a half smile, half grimace. It was a gesture I knew very well.
“I’m not sure I know where to begin,” she said at last. “It all seems so long ago.”
“How about Colombia, seventeen months ago? The last time I heard from you was a letter from an unpronounceable place somewhere near the Ecuador border. I had to look it up on a map to find it. You had just had your money and passport stolen, and you were going to Bogotá to get things sorted out.”
She looked at me hopefully, as if she thought I might continue, tell it for her. What was it that could be so hard to say?
I helped. “Come on, Elly Cameron. I just mortgaged my summer vacation on the promise of a good fairy tale. If you make it riveting enough, it might even conquer my jet lag.”
She stared down at her hands, then out into the night. Then she began.
three
W ell at first I was just freaked out. I’d already spent a month in Colombia, traveling with my valuables more or less sewn to my skin. Everywhere you went you heard horror stories. It seemed the whole national economy was based on the rip-off. Looking back on it, I think I’d been in a state of perpetual tension right from the moment I’d stepped off the plane in
Inside I pulled on my seat belt. She waited for me to finish.
“So,” she said gaily, hands on the wheel. “Where do you want to go?”
“How about home?”
“Which one? I’m afraid you have a choice.” She made a face. “I’m sorry. I did try to warn you in the letter, but I probably didn’t put it right.”
I swallowed my surprise. “What are you offering?”
“An apartment in Manhattan or a house in Westchester.”
The mystery needed to be kept in scale. Neil Simon rather than Great Gatsby. “Manhattan, I think.”
“Good. I thought you would.”
From behind us, twenty yards down the concourse, came the shriek of a police whistle, followed by a bulky cop, waving his arms in exaggerated fury. Elly rolled down her window and gave him what might have passed for a West Point salute. We moved off in search of the city.
L ater, on the terrace, we sat and watched the night move. I had left English time behind, blasted it away in a jet-stream shower: the power of water pressure, as American as apple pie and long-range missiles. Out of the bathroom I wrapped myself in a robe, picked up the glass of bourbon waiting for me on the bedside table, and together, the liquor and I went in search of Elly.
We found her in a large canvas chair on the terrace, an urban lookout post fringed with window boxes filled with geraniums and facing out over a dark mass of trees. Central Park and exclusive real estate. New Yorkers pay for greenery like Arabs pay for water. I wondered what the Westchester house looked like. Behind us, through tall French windows, was a spacious sitting room lined with bookcases and the odd, exclusive Chinese print. On the floor, a huge rug on polished boards and four powerful speakers. Planned elegance. Hardly consistent with the Elly I once knew, full of chaos and good intentions.
The hum of the city moved up in hot airstreams toward us. We sat cloaked in heat, the night bringing scant relief. I poked my ice cubes down into the golden brown liquid and watched as the water and the liquor merged to form oily patterns on the surface.
I looked at her. In the darkness she was more like the Elly I remembered. Her new angularity was subdued, rubbed soft by night shadows. I stretched out my legs and felt again how large my body was in comparison with hers. The familiarity of the feeling gave me a strange pleasure. If the night had not been so charged with questions, it might almost have been two years ago. There was silence. It didn’t bother me. Patience is a virtue I am familiar with. She screwed up her face into a half smile, half grimace. It was a gesture I knew very well.
“I’m not sure I know where to begin,” she said at last. “It all seems so long ago.”
“How about Colombia, seventeen months ago? The last time I heard from you was a letter from an unpronounceable place somewhere near the Ecuador border. I had to look it up on a map to find it. You had just had your money and passport stolen, and you were going to Bogotá to get things sorted out.”
She looked at me hopefully, as if she thought I might continue, tell it for her. What was it that could be so hard to say?
I helped. “Come on, Elly Cameron. I just mortgaged my summer vacation on the promise of a good fairy tale. If you make it riveting enough, it might even conquer my jet lag.”
She stared down at her hands, then out into the night. Then she began.
three
W ell at first I was just freaked out. I’d already spent a month in Colombia, traveling with my valuables more or less sewn to my skin. Everywhere you went you heard horror stories. It seemed the whole national economy was based on the rip-off. Looking back on it, I think I’d been in a state of perpetual tension right from the moment I’d stepped off the plane in
Similar Books
The Blackham Mansion Haunting (The Downwinders Book 4)
Michael Richan
Carola Dunn
The Actressand the Rake
A Textbook Case
Jeffery Deaver
The Protector of Esparia (The Annals of Esparia Book 1)
Lisa M. Wilson
The Green Mile
Stephen King
Unintentional Virgin
A.J. Bennett
Celtic Moon
Jan DeLima
Afternoon Delight
Kayla Perrin