David Azaria took a sip of his drink and continued to stare at her.
“How old were you when all this happened?” he said finally.
“Eleven,” said Molly, wiping her eyes which had become moist somewhere along the line.
“How old are you now?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Seventeen years for going to the movies. Pretty rough sentence for a kid. I'll bet the guy who did it got less time.”
“They never caught anybody.”
“Sounds familiar. Professionally speaking I'd say you've paid in full for whatever blame is rightly yours for what happened to your sister.”
“My life isn't some kind of punishment, Mr. Azaria,” said Molly. “I love my sister. I'm the only real family she has. Somebody has to take care of her.”
“Call me David,” said David Azaria. “And it looks to me like your sister can take care of herself.”
Molly followed his eyes to the dance floor, where a handful of people were executing wild and intricate dance sequences. A radiant Nell was matching the Broadway gypsies step for step. Where had she learned to dance like that, Molly wondered. When had she become so beautiful?
“You don't understand,” whispered Molly. “She needs me.”
“Can she dress herself?”
“Of course, she can dress herself.”
“Can she feed herself?”
“She's a wonderful cook, but that doesn'tâ”
“Can she read and write?”
“Yes, butâ”
“Maybe it's you that need her,” said David, “not the other way around.”
“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” sputtered Molly. “How could she make a living? Nellie can't even talk. And she gets terribly frightened sometimes, she has these ⦠these fits. I don't know what would happen to her if she were alone.”
“Well, she's never going to find out if you keep treating her like some little baby, is she? Plenty of people who can't talk or hear or even see make lives for themselves. If she had to, maybe your sister would do just fine on her own.”
He fixed Molly with his huge, coal-black eyes. She met his gaze for a second, then looked away.
“You're crazy,” she said. “And it's none of your business.”
“How about going out with me sometime?” he replied.
“If you ever get to Pelletreau, North Carolina, you can give me a call.”
“How long are you staying in New York?”
“We'll probably leave tomorrow.”
“Then how about tomorrow morning? We can have breakfast. I cook. I'll make you French toast.”
“Forget it,” said Molly. “You're not my type. Maybe you could fix us up with Mitch Wanders.”
“Us?”
“Nell liked him, too.”
“Be my pleasure, only I don't think Mitch would be interested in either of you.”
“Why not?” said Molly, defensively.
“He's gay as a goose.”
“That's a miserable thing to say,” exclaimed Molly. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“It's not a miserable thing,” said David in a quiet voice. “It's just who he is. I don't think you'd like him either. Mitch is a stuckup, obnoxious little shit who uses people like toilet paper. He's out
with a different man every night of the week. He broke poor Tuck's heart.”
“Tuck? I can't believe ⦔
“You can't believe that Tuck is gay? You really are living in a dream world, aren't you?”
“I'm not. It's just ⦠I didn't know ⦠.”
“Tuck had been chasing Mitch since the show opened,” said David. “He finally caught him one night a few months ago. I don't know what happened except that Mitch is a shit. Tuck spent the next week in tears. He's a lot more sensitive than he pretends to be, and he's terrified of getting old. Say, you didn't really think that we were really the people you saw on stage did you?”
“No, of course not ⦠I mean ⦔
“You did, didn't you? Is that why you think you don't like me? Because I'm the bastard who nailed poor Dr. Lewis?”
“That's not it at all,” said Molly, feeling more naive, more out of place than ever.
“Then what is it?”
Before she could think of an answer, Tuck mercifully returned to the table, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
“It's all arranged,” he chortled. “To keep busy in his retirement Bobby Prince has taken some kind of office job with Alexander Marinov, the producer, and I must say I am impressed. Marinov must be richer than Andrew Lloyd Webber by now. Every year, another hit musical. You see, my darling, the theater takes care of its own. Bobby says you can come out and see him tomorrow at work.”
“That's wonderful,” said Molly.
“Well, it's the least I could do for Margaret's granddaughters,” said Tuck, bowing his head with theatrical modesty. “Bobby did seem a little put out that I'd awakened him, but still he promised to exert his influence with Marinov on my behalf. Every year
I audition, and every year I am cruelly rejected. I told Bobby if it happens once again I shall kill myself.”
“Thanks, Tuck,” said Molly.
“I've written down the address for you,” said Tuck, presenting a marked-up napkin. “It's in some place in Queens called Long Island City. Bobby said Marinov needs a huge amount of space for their operation and apparently it would cost too much in Manhattan, even for him.”
“Where is this Long Island City? How do we get there?”
“Well, I'm not sure exactly,” said Tuck. “Anywhere beyond the East River is a foreign country as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps you can engage a limo.”
“Long Island City is way the hell out there,” said David Azaria, after trying to find one last sip in his empty glass. “Plus the neighborhoods can get dicey if you don't know where you're going. Hey, I'm not doing anything tomorrow. Why don't I take you?”
“I don't thinkâ” began Molly, but Tuck cut her off.
“That's a splendid idea, David. Most generous. Everyone should have such a gallant and handsome bodyguard to help them survive the unknown wilds. I'd be tempted to journey there myself if I could find someone like you to take me.”
Tuck batted his long lashes at David and sighed, theatrically.
“You're not my type,” said David.
“Oh? Then who is, pray tell?”
“She is,” he said, pointing with his ridiculous chin at Molly. “And if I'm lucky she'll give her sister the day off, so the two of us can enjoy a romantic subway ride to Queens alone.”
Molly sat in an uncomfortable armchair in the lobby of the Gotham Arms the next morning, trying to sort out why she was feeling so anxious.
Part of it was Taffy, of course. Molly had been calling the shop since eight o'clock this morning, and there had been no answer. Taffy hadn't even bothered to turn on the answering machine before deserting ship. Was she just out for breakfast for three hours? Could she still be asleep? Molly knew she hadn't gone home because there was no answer there, either. If Taffy had been off playing hooky when the Nicholsons had shown up to pick up their chest of drawers, Molly was going to kill her.
But Taffy being Taffy wasn't enough to tie Molly's stomach in knots like this. Nor was it lack of sleepâthey hadn't gotten back to the hotel last night until after two o'clock.
That left David Azaria.
He was already half an hour late for their date this morning, and tardiness was one thing that drove Molly crazy. Not that this
was a date, of course. David was just being a guide, that was all. Someone who could get them out to this remote Long Island City area. Though why shouldn't he ask her out on a date? It wasn't like she had two heads or anything, Molly thought, glancing at Nell, who smiled back dreamily. At least one of them had been able to sleep soundly last night.
Molly glanced at her watch again, which was working for a change. Eleven oâclock. That should give them more than enough time to find out what this Bobby Prince could tell them and still make the seven o'clock bus back to Pelletreau tonight. Molly had given the hotel bell captain two dollars to hold their suitcase. They would pick it up on their way to the station. There was no point in spending another night in New York. There was nothing else they could learn here.
Where was David? Molly wondered again, feeling the irritation welling up inside her. One half of her fully intended to tell him what an inconsiderate, arrogant jerk he was and that there wasn't a chance in hell that she was going to let him take them anywhere. The other half of her was looking forward to seeing him.
At that very moment David Azaria walked through the revolving lobby doors, looking gangly, menacing, and smug. He wore khaki slacks and a navy blue polo shirt. He hadn't shaved, which made his chin seem even squarer and the cleft in its center even deeper, like it had been created with a hatchet. Nell, a big smile on her face, popped out of her chair to meet him. Molly sat right where she was.
“I thought your sister was going to give you the day off,” said David, kissing Nell lightly on the cheek. She blushed innocently and grinned. She liked him for some reason that Molly didn't understand, but then Nell's taste in people was hardly the most discriminating. After all, she liked Taffy, too.
David produced the single white rose, which he had been hiding behind his back, and handed it to Molly.
“What's this for?” she said, startled.
“Because it's Thursday.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means I'm a romantic.”
“Thanks,” said Molly, feeling a good portion of her irritation abate, only to be replaced by something she had never felt before, a strange kind of nervous uncertainty. “Look, David, this was very nice of you and I'm touched, but I don't want you think ⦔
“Don't worry. I'm a realistic romantic. That's why I had the florist leave the thorns on your rose. Be careful.”
Molly studied the flower in her hand, not knowing what to say. David reached into his pocket, unwrapped a bill from his money clip and held it out to Nell.
“Here's twenty bucks, kid,” he said in a conspiratorial stage whisper. “Go play in Times Square.”
Nell, beaming, took the proffered twenty and put it in her pocket, but made no move to leave.
“What? You want more?”
Nell nodded enthusiastically. David peeled off another twenty, which Nell also snatched, but still didn't budge.
“You know, you'd make a pretty good lawyer,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Can we get going?” said Molly, finding her voice and rising from the chair. “Or are you going to go through your whole net worth to prove the old saying about a fool and his money?”
“What's your hurry?”
“We have to be back in time to catch our bus. We're leaving for Pelletreau tonight.”
“Don't worry, you'll probably make it. Unless we succumb
to the forces of darkness somewhere down there in the bowels of the subway system.”
David turned to Nell.
“Did anyone ever tell your sister that she's quite a piece of strudel?”
Nell giggled soundlessly. Molly felt the blood rush to her face.
“I didn't think so,” said David. “Probably you guys don't know from strudel, down there in the deep South, huh?”
Nell giggled again, then she entwined her arm in David's and playfully pulled him toward the door, leaving Molly to bring up the rear. They headed for a dark stairwell in the sidewalk two blocks away.
This was the first time Molly had experienced the New York City subway, and she was expecting something pretty frightening. She was surprised, therefore, to find a well-lit modern station neatly appointed in glazed red brick.
David passed something that looked like a credit card through a stainless steel turnstile three times to admit them. Normallooking people bustled to and fro, without apparent trepidation. When a train arrived after a few minutes, the cars were sleek, aluminum-skinned and air-conditionedânothing like the graffiti-covered horrors you always saw in the movies.
David showed Nell how to grab for support onto the metal rails attached to the ceiling, but Molly wasn't tall enough to hang comfortably from these. Instead, she wrapped herself around a metal pole in the center of the crowded car as the train lurched forward. When Molly stole a look at David she found to her discomfort that he was staring at her with the same intense inscrutable expression he had worn at the restaurant last night.
Molly quickly turned away and looked out the window, then
down at the rose he had given her. It was lovely, but already she had scratched herself on one of the thorns.
They passed through a few more stations that seemed as well maintained as the first. None of the other passengers seemed to notice the rose Molly was holding. They didn't even glance in her direction, though she couldn't help noticing themâbusinessmen and middle-class shoppers; a weary African American man with a lunchbox; a loud group of teenagers, all wearing the same expensive sneakers and turned-around baseball caps; a pregnant young woman who looked to be about Molly's age surrounded by three dirty-faced kids plus a baby in a battered stroller.
Suddenly the train broke out of underground darkness and began climbing into a huge metal structure, like some giant Erector set. Graffiti were everywhere here, like multicolored ivy gone wild. The tracks quickly leveled off in the upper reaches of the 59th Street Bridge, for this is what the structure was. As they reached land on the other side of the East River, Molly could see automobiles parked in the trash-strewn spaces between the supports far below, as well as the gleaming towers of Manhattan behind them.
The train slowed to a halt. The next thing Molly knew David was directing her and Nell out onto the dingy platform of a much older station than the ones they'd seen before. This one did look like a set from
Serpico
or
The French Connection,
with unwashed windows further opaqued with graffiti. It seemed like they had been traveling only a few minutes.
“Where are we?” asked Molly, blinking her eyes against the unexpected daylight.
“Long Island City,” said David.
“I thought you said it was so far away!”
“Figuratively speaking, it is.”
As he led them down a staircase, then across an open platform
and down another ancient decaying staircase to the street, Molly saw what he meant.
The buildings here were as squat and dirty as Manhattan's were soaring and noble. The people were fewer, more ethnic and poorly dressedâworlds away from the high-energy pedestrians who swarmed the streets of Manhattan. Windows displayed signs in Spanish, Russian, and Hebrew. The tarry sidewalks steamed with summer heat. Above Molly's head loomed the steel structure of the enormous bridge, blocking the sun and plunging into gloom the traffic that inched along beneath its supports.
From the doorway of a restaurant that offered Hispanic-Chinese food a towering black man with dreadlocks and no shirt eyed them with an exceedingly unpleasant look in his yellowish eyes. For the first time Molly was glad that David was with them. At least she was glad until David smiled at the man and spoke.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, walking over and taking a napkin out of his pocket. “Do you have any idea where this is?”
It was the napkin on which Tuck had scrawled the address where they were supposed to go.
Molly feared for a moment that the man was going to spit in David's face, judging from his startled look. Instead he merely studied the address on the napkin and in soft, strangely accented English gave polite directions.
David thanked him and steered Molly and Nell down the street and around the corner. Within a few blocks the area changed from the relatively congested clamor of the subway station to a desolate section of lonely warehousesânot what Molly had been expecting at all for the offices of a big producer.
“This is it,” said David abruptly, comparing the numbers on the napkin with the address on the metal door of a massive, four-story warehouse building with barred windows along one side.
It looked deserted, but name tags next to a row of buzzers suggested otherwise. There was no tag for the first floor but the second floor was occupied by the Flower Petal Dress Company. Next to the third buzzer was printed in small block letters, A. MARINOV STOCK & AMATEUR. The top floor's tenant was labeled only in Chinese.
David pressed the Marinov buzzer long and hard. When nothing happened, he opened the metal door. Inside was a dimly lit hallway full of litter and smelling of urine, beyond which a battleship gray stairwell led up into inky blackness. There was a sudden scratching sound that made Molly jump back, then silence.
“Probably mice,” said David optimistically, closing the door. “Let's see if we can get someone to come down to meet us.”
David pressed the doorbell again. After a few moments there was a sharp, faraway clank, followed by a mechanical grinding sound that went on for ten or twenty seconds. Then there was another clank that seemed to have come from close by.
David led them around the side of the building to a gaping, oil-stained loading bay. He stood pensively for a moment staring at the enormous upper and lower gray-painted doors that met inside the bay like a giant set of teeth. Then he jumped up on the landing, yanked open a metal handle that held the doors together, and with both hands pulled on a thick leather strap that protruded from within. The bay doors retracted into the floor and ceiling, revealing an open-sided elevator car large enough to accommodate an automobile.
“Come on,” said David, holding out a hand to Nell and hoisting her up.
Molly stood where she was.
“Come on,” repeated David, offering his hand to Molly. “They wouldn't have sent the elevator down for us if they didn't want to see us.”
Feeling more than a little uncertain, Molly reached out her hands. Smiling broadly, David pulled her to the landing as if she weighed no more than the rose she was still holding.
As they got into the open carrier Molly looked up and could see a dirty skylight at the top of the elevator shaft. David studied the four unmarked buttons on the wall for a moment, then pushed the third one from the bottom. The elevator lurched up. Nell watched with fascination as the cinderblock walls of the open shaft passed leisurely by. Molly held her breath.
There was another lurch and a clank. The elevator had come to rest. David pulled down on the strap of another pair of upper and lower metal doors, and they walked out into an open area with an age-stained concrete floor. Light streamed into the room from floor-to-ceiling chicken-wired windows that looked like they hadn't been washed in decades.
At the right side of the room three men in jeans, T-shirts and no particular hurry were unpacking an enormous mound of cardboard boxes that were stacked directly in front of the elevator. Each box seemed to contain nothing but large books with sturdy brown covers. Behind the men, rows of steel shelving filled with the same kind of books stretched back as far as the eye could see.
By the grimy windows to the left was a bald man seated at a long table piled high with the volumes. He wore a long white lab technician's coat over his plaid shirt and black slacks. He seemed to be writing in one of the books with some kind of strange pen the size and shape of a bottle of Worcestershire sauce.
“We're here to see Bobby Prince,” said David loudly in the direction of the box unpackers, his voice echoing faintly against the cinderblock walls.