"Everywhere That Mary Went" - читать интересную книгу автора (Scottoline Lisa)

10

“I’m Nathaniel Waters. You may know that I manage this firm.”

“Oh. Yes.” Not the plaintiff’s father,Ned’s father!

“I’ve seen us grow from one hundred lawyers, to one-fifty, to the full complement. I oversaw the opening of our London office. Now we’re going to be the first Philadelphia firm in Moscow. Masterson maintains a tradition of excellence, Miss DiNunzio, and of unimpeachable ethics. I’m sure Stalling does the same.” He peers at me directly, a menacing version of Ned’s green-eyed gaze.

“Of course.” No matter what he says, I know he’s kicked the Nicks of the world under the table. You don’t get where he is without some very pointy shoes. Even if they are made in England.

“Then we’re in agreement. I shan’t keep you further. It was fine to have met you. Give my regards to Ned, will you. Carry on.” He turns on his heel and strides stiffly out the door.

Maher relaxes visibly, and our eyes meet. For a brief moment, we’re cubs in the same pack. We become enemies again when Maher takes his seat and the questions begin. “Nick, let me make the question so clear even your lawyer will understand it. The first time you saw Ms. Reilly, did you form an impression of her wearing apparel?”

“Yes.”

“What was your impression?”

“I thought she dressed like a slob.”

Good for you, Nicky. I almost cheer. For the rest of the deposition, which stretches until the end of the day, I channel the anxiety created by Ned’s father into constant objections. Nick cues off me and we work as a team, with him telling his side of the story forcefully and credibly. By the end of the dep, Maher may think that Nick is a stickler about clothes, but he’ll be hard pressed to prove he discriminates against women. As we leave Masterson, I congratulate Nick, who tells me I did “a man’s job.”

I stop short. “Nick, you want some free legal advice?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t say stuff like that. You got away with it this time, but you might not the next. You know what I mean, Nick? What goes around, comes around.”

A hurt look crosses his neat features. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, Mary.”

“Good.”

We part company, awkwardly. I thread my way through the crowded street, slightly dazed, wondering why I’ve just insulted a major client.

It’s about time, says the voice, then disappears.

People pour out of office buildings-women with melting makeup, men with unlit cigarettes. They jolt me aside to join the human traffic on the narrow sidewalks, which flows around street vendors like corpuscles through a hardened artery. It’s the end of the workday in this weary city, and it occurs to me that I’d better let the rush-hour crowds carry me home before it gets dark, and the car appears.

I mix into the throng for safety but still find myself glancing over my shoulder a lot. I pause before the window of an electronics store and spot an answering machine. Mike hated answering machines, so we never bought one. But some creep is calling me, and Mike is gone. I go in and lay down some plastic for the lady behind the counter.

When I leave with the slim machine in a plastic bag, I expect to feel better, as if I’m doing what I can to protect myself. But I feel exactly the opposite. The purchase makes the threat all too real. I feel scared.

I walk through the square quickly, looking around at the office workers walking tiredly home. At this hour, relatively early for the super-professional crowd, we’re talking paralegals, not lawyers. Secretaries, not bosses. Almost all of them are women, the vast underclass of pink-collar workers who keep America word-processed, executive-summaried, and support-staffed. I fall in step with one of the older women. She has a sweet, rounded face and wears a hand-knit sweater. A saleswoman, I think, or a librarian’s assistant. We stop together at the edge of the square in front of the Dorchester, waiting for the traffic to give us an even break.

“There should be a light here,” she says, slightly annoyed. “Or at least a stop sign.”

I scan the cars whizzing by. “I agree.”

“They’ll kill you to get home five minutes faster.”

A Cadillac driver waves us across the street. I lose the saleswoman on Twentieth Street, after the high-rises that demarcate the residential west end of town. I look behind me. The people on the sidewalk look normal. I check back again half a block later, and only two are left. One is a teenage girl with a backpack slung over her shoulder and the other is a flashy woman with lots of shiny shopping bags.

Something catches my eye at the corner of Spruce and Twenty-first. Not the people, the cars. Two white cars are stopped at a light, and after them is a brown one. A brown Cadillac, an older model, somewhat beat-up. An Eldorado or Toronado, one of those.

I squint at the car. Is it the same Cadillac that let me go by in front of the Dorchester?

I can’t remember, but try not to leap to conclusions. There are a million Cadillacs in the world, I tell myself, moving quickly to cross.

I turn onto Delancey and can’t help but glance back over my shoulder. The Cadillac is coming toward Delancey, cruising slowly. Close up, it looks like the same car.

Chill, as Judy would say. So what if it’s the same car? Maybe it’s someone looking for a parking space. I used to do it all the time, driving pointlessly around and around the same block. Now I pay a fortune to park in a garage nearby. It’s worth every penny.

I stride down Delancey Street, remembering the magazine articles I’ve read about crime. Don’t look like a victim or you’ll be one. Stand tall, walk fast. I hoist the plastic bag up and barrel ahead. As I do, I hear the smooth acceleration of a powerful engine coming down the street behind me. I pick up my pace for the half block that’s left and check over my shoulder at the corner.

I feel my stomach tighten.

It’s the Cadillac, blocked by a station wagon that’s trying to wedge itself into a parking space. I catch my breath. I feel like bolting across the street, but there’s too much traffic. A limo rolls by, then a clunker and an endless parade of Hondas. I’m only a block from home.

I look back. The Cadillac has freed itself. It’s moving forward, speeding to the corner without effort.

I feel panic begin to rise in my throat. “Come on, come on,” I say to the traffic. I spot an opening in front of an empty school bus and run for it, my briefcase banging against my thigh. The bus driver protests with a startlingly loudhaaaannk. I almost drop the briefcase but make it to the other side of the street, breathless.

Run, says the Mike-voice, softly.Run.

I glance backward at the top of my street. The traffic screens most of Delancey from view, but glinting at me from between the moving cars is the shimmer of a battered chrome grill. The Cadillac’s still there. My heart begins to race. I can’t see the driver. The windshield reflects a cloudy sky.

Run. Run. Run for your life.

So I do, a dead run, without looking back. Instantly, I hear the Cadillac gun its engine as it crosses onto my street. I speed up. The Cadillac speeds up. It’s almost at my heels as I tear down the street like a madwoman.

Run, run.

The Cadillac’s right behind me.

I hear someone screaming and it’s me. “No! No! Help!” I keep running until I reach my front door.

Christ! My keys! The answering machine clatters to the sidewalk as I rummage furiously in my bag. Where are my fucking keys?

The Cadillac screeches to a stop behind me, right in front of my door.

“No!” I turn and scream at the car. My back is plastered against the front door, my breast heaving. “You fucking asshole, leave me alone!”

In my fear and panic, I see the driver.

A woman, dark-haired, Hispanic. The Cadillac is loaded with kids. The oldest one, a boy in the back seat, is in hysterics.

I can’t quite believe it. I blink at the sight.

A mother and children. She looks upset, but I don’t know why, since I’m the one having the coronary. Like my grandfather used to say, my heart attacked me.

The mother leans over an infant in a plastic car seat. “Ah, I scare you,” she says, in highly flavored English. “I so sorry. I scare you, poor lady. I no mean.”

I almost cry with relief. My briefcase falls to the ground with a leathery slap.

The mother turns to the boy in the back, who’s still laughing, and says something to him I can’t hear. He leans out of the open window with a smirk. The trace of a mustache covers a prominent lip.

“My mutha says she’s sorry she scared you. We’re lost. We got off the expressway too soon. She shoulda stayed on. I told her to stay on, but she wouldn’t listen.” He laughs again. “I told her not to keep after you too, but she wanted to tell you not to be scared. She don’t listen to nobody.” He points at his temple, and his mother cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. “Get offa me!” he shouts at her,muy macho.

They just wanted directions. Christ. I try to recover as they talk again.

The boy leans out of the car. “She wants to know if you’re awright, you want to go to the hospital. I told her you don’t go to the hospital for this, but she don’t listen.”

“Tell her thank you for me, will you? I’m fine. Tell her it’s okay. It’s not her fault.”

They talk again, but the mother looks doubtful.

“It’s not your fault!” I yell into the car, but she gets distracted by the little girls in the back, fighting over a troll doll. She snatches the troll from them and they begin to wail, identically. They look to be the same age. “Are they twins?”

The mother cups her ear.

“Twins? I’m a twin, too. I have a twin sister.”

The mother chatters excitedly to the son and pushes him toward the window. He wrests his arm away and sticks his head out of the car. His expression is pained. “My mutha says that twins are a special blessing from God. You are a special person.” Then he rolls his eyes.

I feel my eyes moisten, like an idiot. I want to hug his mother. “Tell her I said thank you. She is a special person, too.”

He examines a set of filthy nails. “Great, we’re all special. So, you know how to get to the South Street exit?”

“Tell your mother how special she is.”

He looks up at me, a wry challenge. “Are you for real?”

I straighten my blazer and pick up my briefcase. “The realest.”

He turns from me and shouts at his twin sisters, who are still whimpering. Then he says something to his mother, and she smiles at me happily. He leans back out of the window. “Awright?”

“Thank you. Take a right at the top of the street, then go left on Spruce. Take another right and follow it to Lombard. It’ll go right into South Street.”

“Got it, babe.” He leans back into the car and says something to his mother. The mother waves good-bye. As the Cadillac pulls away, the kid flips me the finger.

I laugh, unaccountably elated. I pick up the answering machine, wondering whether it broke when it fell, but it looks fine. I tuck it under my arm and dig, calmly now, in the bottom of my purse for my keys. I feel giddy, reminded of my father’s old joke. Why are your keys always in the last place you look? To which Angie and I would moan, in stereo: Because once you find them, you don’t look anymore.

I find my keys and let myself in. I pick up my mail. My heart is even lighter when I find there are no anonymous notes in the mail. I feel like I’ve gotten a reprieve as I climb the stairs to my door.

But halfway up the staircase, as I thumb through the key ring for my apartment key, I notice that something about the stairwell looks different.

Then I see why.

At the top of the darkening stairway, my apartment door is open.

Wide open.