SWF Seeks Same

Chapter 19

“ALL kinds of scuzzballs in New York,” Hedra said when she’d returned home from work and listened to Allie. She’d brought with her the scents of outside: exhaust fumes, tobacco smoke. “This guy must have got you mixed up with somebody who looks a lot like you, huh?”

Allie was sitting in the wing chair in the living room, legs drawn up, chin resting on her knees. She’d been in that position for hours. Her chin ached dully and there were white spots on the insides of both knees where it had dug into the flesh. She hadn’t eaten anything, and had drunk only half the Diet Pepsi Hedra brought her. She said, “No, he called me by name.”

Hedra shrugged. “That one I can’t explain.” She walked to the window and gazed outside. There was something about her walk. It wasn’t the slump-shouldered, tentative shuffle that had been Hedra’s when she’d first moved into the apartment. Yet it was oddly familiar. Disturbing. Maybe it was simply the dress; she was wearing Allie’s yellow dress—or a duplicate—with the pleated skirt. Allie’s shoes that she’d borrowed, though they had to be half a size too large. Did she wad Kleenexes in the toes?

Then it struck Allie and she shivered. It wasn’t the dress or shoes, but the way Hedra was standing with hand on hip. The lean of her body. Even the tilt of her head. Allie saw familiarity in Hedra because of her, Allie’s, own characteristics. Oh, she knew this person in front of her. A composite. A thousand flat images in countless mirrors, a thousand glances into reflecting display windows as she walked past; it was as if they’d all come to life in Hedra.

Hedra, envying Allie. Mimicking her.

Allie, understanding at last, said, “Hedra, you don’t really want to be me.”

And Hedra turned. Allie almost expected to see her own face. Hedra’s features were twisted in self-pity and guilt and fear. The breeze sifting in through the window had toyed with her hair and given her childish bangs. She seemed to shrink inside the dress, a small girl caught playing grown-up with Mommy’s clothes.

Allie was incredulous. She knew the meaning of Hedra’s reaction. “You’ve been impersonating me… !”

Hedra took two unsteady steps toward her, then stopped cold, as if she might fall down if she continued. “God, no! Nothing like that … ”

“What, then? Who was that man? Who’s been calling me?”

“I don’t know. Honest! It was because of the coat, I guess.”

“Coat?”

“When I was at a singles bar down in the Village I had on your coat—the blue one with the white collar and big white buttons. I mean, there aren’t a lot of coats like that. You must have been wearing it today when that creep came up to you on the street.”

Allie had been wearing the blue coat. Fascinated, she lowered her legs and placed her bare feet flat on the floor. She sat and waited for Hedra to continue, wanting to hear it but afraid of what Hedra might reveal. There was something here she didn’t understand. Something elusive and primal that skittered across the back of her mind on a thousand delicate legs and left her frightened.

“Anyway,” Hedra went on, “this real cute guy came up to me at the bar and we started to talk. Then we had a few dances. I mean, there was some real chemistry there, but I didn’t wanna lead him on too much, wanted to take it slow. I guess, tell you the truth, I was a little scared. It’s just the way I’ve always been around men. So when he asked me my name, it took me by surprise, and I didn’t wanna use my real name so I just blurted out the first one that popped into mind, and it was yours. I didn’t figure it’d hurt anything.”

“What did this guy look like?” Allie asked.

“Tall, with black hair going a little thin on top, but with a kind face and a terrific build. Really great shoulders. Like an athlete. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one.”

Not the scrawny, sandy-haired animal who’d accosted Allie. Allie said, “So who was the kink I talked to today?”

“I don’t know. Me and Brad—that was this guy’s name—were joined by some of his friends and he introduced me. It was too late to back out then; I had to keep on being Allie Jones. We went to another place, and another. More of Brad’s friends joined us. I didn’t like them, hardly any of them, especially the women. And some of the men were absolutely scary. You know, the extreme kinky kind you run into every once in a while at clubs and singles bars.”

Allie knew, from her early days in Manhattan. She never wanted to revisit that scene. But now, thanks to Hedra, it had left its dim and boozy confines and visited her on a sunny street, bringing with it its own sleeziness and darkness.

“Anyway,” Hedra said, “we went to this one guy’s apartment and drank and talked, and one of the geeky women suggested group sex. Just got up and took off her blouse, danced around, and said something about us all doing some dope and having some real fun.”

“And what’d you do?”

“Well, for God’s sake, Allie, I got outa there! Soon as I saw that, I was history.”

“What about Brad?”

Hedra frowned and bit her lip. “He stayed.” Anger reddened her cheeks, brought out pinched white patches around her nose and the corners of her lips. “I never want to see him again, Allie! No matter what he does. He’s not anything like he pretended to be.”

Wolves in sheep’s clothing, Allie thought, monsters in people’s flesh. Terror shot through her. “It might have been more than coincidence that I was approached by that weirdo so close to the Cody. Did you tell any of these people your—my address?”

“I didn’t think so, but I might have. I don’t remember a lot of that night clearly; I was … I’d drunk more’n I should have.”

“Had you been taking pills?”

“No, no, not pills or any other kinda dope. ’Cept for liquor. And only mixed drinks, that’s all. But a crowd like that, maybe somebody put something in one of my drinks. Maybe somebody’d doctored the drinks of the girl who started dancing topless. She wasn’t acting quite normal. Her eyes were funny. I dunno, bunch of sickos get together that way …”

Allie described the man who’d approached her on Amsterdam and West 74th, then she asked Hedra if he’d been one of the group of Brad’s friends.

“Yeah, I think so. I remember him because he was so thin, and he had this nasty kinda leer and kooky eyes. He kept looking at me like he could see through my clothes.”

My clothes, Allie thought. But what difference did that make? “Remember his name?”

“Carl something, I think. I’m not sure. It’s hazy.” Hedra suddenly looked horrified. “Allie, you do believe me, don’t you?”

Allie wanted to believe, and did believe at least enough to feel the relief of having some explanation about her encounter with the pervert on the street corner, who for Christ’s sake had known her name. It was easier to believe than to doubt, and what Allie was hearing was damning enough, so there was no reason for Hedra to lie. Besides, Hedra had this Calvinistic compulsion to confess, to purify herself. Truth in her would work to the surface like a splinter in a festering wound. Allie was so tired, so worn down. God, all she wanted to do now was sleep, secure in her understanding of what had happened.

Softly, she said, “Of course I believe you.”

Hedra approached and laid her trembling hand on Allie’s shoulder. No, not Hedra trembling. Allie realized she was trembling; Hedra’s hand was steady. Hedra, wearing a sapphire ring given to Allie by an old boyfriend in college. “I’ll stay away from that place and those kinda people, Allie.”

“I know you will.”

“There’ll be no more encounters like today, no more nasty phone calls. Not if I can help it.”

“Why, that’s right,” Allie said. “That explains the obscene phone calls, too.”

“Sure it does.” Hedra’s hand caressed and petted. “Everything’s gonna turn out okay, Allie, believe me. We’ll go out for breakfast tomorrow morning before I leave for work. At that deli down the street. All right?”

Hedra comforting Allie, calling the shots.

“All right,” Allie heard herself say. Through her weariness she realized that things weren’t the same. An important balance had shifted.

Somehow, inexorably, Allie had become weaker and it was Hedra who’d come to dominate their relationship. Mimicking Allie. Dressing like her. Sometimes even wearing Allie’s clothes. Becoming Allie Jones. A strong Allie Jones.

Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, Allie had often heard. But this was, in some strange way, more than mere imitation. It made her think of that old science-fiction movie The Body Snatchers.

Allie didn’t care. Not right now. Maybe in the morning.

Maybe.

Now, tonight, she was tired and wanted only the sweet oblivion of sleep. The bliss of total surrender.

Hedra said, “I think you should go to your room and lie down, Allie.”

Allie went.

Chapter 20

ALLIE slept deeply until the next morning. The dock radio blared and yanked her awake at eight o’clock. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones blasting about spending just another night with somebody. Somehow the volume of the radio had been turned up. The Stones might as well have been wailing and gyrating right alongside the bed, Mick jackknifed at the waist to lean insolently over Allie and scream in her ear.

Allie suddenly remembered one of the few responses to the resumés she’d sent out. She had an appointment for a job interview this morning. Not a very promising appointment, but nonetheless a straw to grasp.

She scooted over, reached out, and slapped the plastic button on the side of the clock radio. In the buzzing silence that followed, she lay motionless and let herself gradually wake up.

Her mind reached complete wakefulness before her body. Did she really want to get dressed and be interviewed for a job she most likely wouldn’t get? Of course she did, she tried to convince herself. After all, wasn’t that the reason she’d sent out resumés? Her legs were ignoring this internal debate; they felt too heavy and comfortable to move. The rectangle of sunlight lying over them seemed to have the warmth and solidity of a lead-lined blanket. Another fifteen minutes of rest won’t matter, urged a deep, persistent part of her brain.

Her mind drifted, went blank.

An explosion of sound caused her body to levitate off the mattress.

But almost immediately her pounding heartbeat slowed. She’d pressed the snooze button by mistake and the Stones were back in the bedroom. That got her up in a hurry and she switched off the clock radio. She was a Stones fan, but she wanted no truck with them at eight A.M.

She noticed a sheet of yellow paper, a Post-it, stuck to the top of the radio. At first she thought it was her own handwriting, a reminder she’d left for herself. Then she squinted and read:

Sorry, I didn’t have time for breakfast—had to leave for work.0 Decided you needed sleep anyway.

Love,

Hedra

Allie peeled the note off the radio, wadded it, and tossed it aside. She’d allowed herself plenty of time to make her ten o’clock appointment. After taking a shower, then blow-drying and combing her hair, she stood in front of her closet and chose a subdued blue skirt, navy-blue high heels, and a white blouse to wear for the interview.

When she was dressed, she glanced out the window at the gray morning and saw that it was raining. Not heavily, but with a gloomy regularity that suggested it might rain for the next twenty years, and certainly it was coming down hard enough to make a wreck of her hair. She clattered to the entry hall in her high heels and checked to see if there was an umbrella there.

No umbrella. And her blue coat she’d intended to wear—the one Hedra favored—was gone.

Maybe coat and umbrella were in Hedra’s closet.

Allie went to Hedra’s bedroom door and knocked lightly, to be sure the unpredictable Hedra hadn’t returned.

No sound. No sign of life inside.

She eased the door open and saw that the bed was made. Its white spread was smooth and pristine as layered icing on a great rectangular cake. She turned away, walked down the hall, and peered again into the living room.

She noticed that the lamp near the sofa was glowing feebly in the morning light. Had Hedra left before daybreak, or had she simply forgotten the lamp last night? Maybe she’d stayed up all night, hadn’t slept. Well, she was a big girl, and what she did with her time was none of Allie’s business.

Allie still didn’t want her hairdo destroyed.

She tap-tap-tapped on her high heels back into Hedra’s bedroom and stared at the smooth expanse of bedspread. She’d never seen a bed that looked so unslept in, as if it were a display in a department store window.

Allie opened Hedra’s closet door and there were the familiar clothes that Hedra, and not Allie, had worn lately. A sachet gave the closet a fresh scent of sun and flowers despite the rain outside.

The blue coat wasn’t there. Neither was an umbrella.

Allie’s attention snagged on something else, though. There were three cardboard shoeboxes on the closet shelf. She told herself that one of them might hold a collapsible umbrella, but she knew she really was simply curious about what the boxes contained.

She got them down from the shelf one by one and opened them, moving slowly and methodically, listening; she knew it wasn’t unusual for Hedra to come home unexpectedly any time of day or night.

The first box contained only a few pieces of inexpensive jewelry. It looked familiar to Allie, and she realized the pieces were near or exact duplicates of jewelry she herself owned. Some of it, she was sure, was her jewelry, such as the gold chain Sam had given her for her last birthday. It had a very distinctive link pattern; Allie was sure Hedra wouldn’t have been able to find a duplicate.

The second box held nothing but folded tissue paper, and beneath it some old newspaper clippings. Allie glanced at the top clipping. It was a recipe for blueberry cobbler. That struck her as odd; she hadn’t figured Hedra for someone who liked to spend time in the kitchen. The clipping slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. When she picked it up she noticed that on the back of the recipe was a grisly news item about the discovery of a dismembered murder victim.

When she opened the third box, Allie stood staring at what was inside.

A blond wig. Exactly the shade of her hair. She gingerly drew it from the box and held it up. Then she moved over so she was in front of the mirror. She raised the wig slightly so it was at the level of her head. The wig was tangled and needed to be combed out, but it was cut precisely in the style in which she wore her hair. Something about seeing it reflected next to her own hair made her shiver.

She sat down on the edge of the mattress. She glanced at Hedra’s dresser. The cosmetics lined before the mirror were almost exact duplicates of those on Allie’s dresser. Lying near an eyebrow pencil that was her shade were either Allie’s purple-tinted sunglasses or glasses just like them.

“Jesus!” Allie said softly. Her own voice startled her.

She got up, reached for the end shoebox, and placed the wig inside. She stared at the mass of blond hair again. Looking at it caused something icy to wriggle up her spine. It was so much like a part of her image in the mirror, like a part of her. This was too much, too much!

Then Allie saw the time on the clock radio that was like hers. Nine-fifteen. She had to hurry if she was going to be on time for her interview.

She looked again at the wig in the box and put the lid on gently, as if there were a fragile creature inside that she feared injuring. Then she placed the box next to the other two again on the shelf, in precisely the position it had been in when she’d first discovered it.

Disregarding the rain, she hurried from the Cody Arms and managed to hail a cab at the corner.

As she stepped over an oily dark puddle to enter the cab, she decided it was time to ask Hedra to move out of the apartment.

Sam could move back in. He was due back from L.A. on the red-eye flight, which had probably already landed, and he wasn’t working today. He’d cab in from LaGuardia and soon be in his room at the Atherton. When she finished with her interview, she’d go to the hotel and talk to him.

Chapter 21

ALLIE walked away from the interview without any special feeling that the job was hers. They would call and let her know, Mrs. Quinette, an assistant administrator, had told her. Don’t call us. Allie figured the odds were long that she’d be given a chance, especially after they checked her references and came across whatever poison Mike Mayfair had spread. There was no hiding in the world of computers. But at least she’d tried, taken some control of her life again. It was a partial revival of the spirit. A start.

As was her decision to tell Hedra she must move out.

The rain had stopped and patterns of sunlight lay in stark planes and angles on the buildings. Allie felt so good she rode the subway beyond Times Square and walked several blocks to the Atherton to see Sam.

Sam stood before the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door and adjusted his sport coat so it hung evenly on his thin frame. Posing at a slight angle, he glanced quickly at himself, as if he might catch his reflection by surprise with a button undone or a shoelace untied. No chance. He’d been surprised too often lately not to be on guard, surprised even by himself and his emotions.

He turned from the mirror and looked around the new, smaller suite he’d been given at the Atherton. It was hardly more than a large room with an anteroom and extra closet. But the paint was fresh, the gray carpet was new, and it was an inside, quiet room away from the street. The only sound now was that of a TV or radio, constant patter seeping faintly through the old thick wall from the next room. It sounded like a game show, but the voices were so indistinct he couldn’t even be sure of that.

Sam had done brokerage business with one of the suppliers of the Atherton, Bram Bolton, for years, and a little special treatment on commodity information for Bolton had prompted the man to put in a word for Sam. Shortly thereafter, Sam had been told he could move out of his ninth-floor room, which needed decorating, and into this one, at a rate reduced to the point where it was cheaper than rent for an apartment. He was the conduit for what Bolton and Mellers, the Atherton’s assistant manager, thought to be inside market information, so it was an arrangement that worked beautifully. A phone call here and there concerning news as soon as it came over the broad tape, and all three parties were happy. Nothing there for the SEC to complain about, either; if Bolton and Mellers assumed they were getting inside information, that was their business.

For an uncomfortable moment Sam thought about Ivan Boesky, the convicted Wall Street manipulator who’d placed profit before ethics. But this was quite different, Sam thought. There was nothing illegal here, and it was very small-time. The motive was a better hotel room in a city where living space was precious, but this wasn’t exactly the Helmsley Palace.

There was a knock on the door. He had to leave soon for a lunch date, and he didn’t want to get mixed up in a long conversation with Mellers. He considered not going to the door, then decided that was silly. Mellers might see him leave the hotel later.

He crossed the room and opened the door.

Allie. She was dressed up, wearing a blue dress and high heels. He thought she looked especially beautiful in blue.

She stepped into his embrace and clung to him, then kissed him on the lips. He bent her backward with the strength of his arms, then removed his mouth from hers. He gently massaged the nape of her neck.

She said, “Surprised to see me?”

He grinned. “A bit, but it’s a pleasant surprise.” He stepped back and made room for her to come in.

“Miss me?” she asked.

“Do bears miss honey?”

She stood in the center of the room and looked around. “They told me down at the desk you’d switched rooms.” She peered over his shoulder. “This one looks better. Not that it matters.”

He studied her. There was something new in her eyes. A bright pinpoint of light he didn’t understand. “Why doesn’t it matter?”

She drew a deep breath and said, “I’m going to tell Hedra she has to move out.”

Sam was surprised. “Why?”

“The other day a man mistook me for her on the street. He stopped me and came on sexually, then got mad when I didn’t respond.”

“He propositioned you?”

“No, he reminded me of a conversation we were supposed to have had about a proposed … sexual experience. Kinky sex, suggested by me.”

“And you think it was actually Hedra who talked to him?”

“Sam, I know it was.”

Sam couldn’t conceal his confusion. “Well, Hedra’s allowed a social life.”

“Some social life. It turns out she’s mixed up with this wild crowd down in the Village, doing drugs, I’m sure. And she’s been using my identity. Even wearing some of my clothes. Being me in a way that scares the hell out of me.”

He went to her and held her close, liking the warm length of her body pressing against his own. “It can’t be as bad as all that,” he told her.

“I looked in her closet today, trying to find some of my clothes. She’s got a wig in a box on the top shelf. It looks exactly like my hair, Sam. When I say she’s using my identity, it’s more than simply using my name. It’s … like she’s stolen my life.”

“You went to the police about the obscene calls,” Sam said. “Have you told them about this?”

“No, I don’t see how it’s a police matter, even though it does explain the phone calls. I really don’t care what Hedra does as long as she stops being me. That’s why I’m going to tell her our living arrangement’s over. I want to make her life none of my business, and mine none of hers.”

“She’ll think you’re doing it so I can move in,” Sam said.

Allie smiled. “I suppose that might even be part of it, but so what?”

He stepped back and cupped her face in his long hands. “Your mind’s made up?”

“Uh-huh. And I won’t change it.”

“Okay, but I think we better wait a few days before I move in. I made a commitment on this suite that’s more than a deal with a hotel. The manager’s a client of mine, heavily into blue-chip stocks. I’ve gotta take this one slow.”

She looked puzzled for a moment. Disappointed. Then she said, “All right, Sam.”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, somewhat ashamed of his influence on her. “It’s only a couple of days. You understand, don’t you?”

“Sure.” She gave him an up-and-down look. “You look nice. On your way somewhere?”

“Lunch with a bond client who’s big on tax-free mutual funds.” He glanced at his watch. “He’s supposed to meet me here any minute, in fact.”

She took the hint. Moved close to him and kissed him lightly on the lips. He ran the backs of his knuckles lightly down her cheek. He said, “Call me tonight and let me know how things work out.”

“Will you come over later?”

“I can’t. Dinner with the same client. He and his wife are in town from Omaha. They’re going back tomorrow morning, so there won’t be any other opportunity to wine and dine them seriously for Elcane-Smith.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Business. I’m sorry, Allie. Really.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for us,” she said. She kissed him on the lips and went out, giving him a backward glance full of promise. The apartment would be their own exclusive playpen again. Like a couple of teenagers alone in Mom and Dad’s house. Allie, Allie.

As she stepped off the elevator into the Atherton lobby, Allie stopped and stood still for a second.

A sweet, familiar scent, but one she couldn’t quite place, floated on the air like a memory.

Then she realized it was a perfume she often wore. Someone wearing the same scent had just passed, or stepped into the other elevator to go up.

She walked on through the narrow lobby and exited on West 44th Street.

Chapter 22

HEDRA had taken the news of her eviction with surprising calm. A tremor of her lower lip, a brief and oddly different cast to her eyes. That was all.

She’d told Allie she understood and she’d move out the next day, which astounded Allie. How could Hedra have someplace to go on such short notice? In New York?

The next morning the phone woke Allie. She lay for a few seconds, listening. Between rings she could hear Hedra moving around in the apartment, gathering her possessions.

The phone was relentless, sending chilling, vibrating knives into her brain. She groaned and shot a painful glance at the clock; God, there was sand under her eyelids! A few minutes till nine. Allie wrapped the pillow around her head to deaden the shrillness of the persistent phone. She waited. Wasn’t Hedra going to answer it?

Finally she realized Hedra was going to ignore the phone; she was moving out, after all, and she received very few calls anyway.

Allie released the pillow, scooted to the cold side of the bed, and dragged the receiver over to her. Each ring of the phone was like an electric shock; she didn’t want a headache this morning.

For a panicky moment she suspected another obscene call. Then she realized the odds were against it at nine in the morning. There was a time for everything under the heavens—even sexual perverts. Nine A.M. wasn’t it. She blinked at the brilliant slanting light and said, “Hello,” in a strained, husky voice.

“Miss Allison Jones?”

Allie cleared her throat. She said yes, she was.

“Detective Kennedy here. Remember me?”

She sat up straighter in bed, her back against the pillow and headboard, and tried to focus her sleep-fogged mind. She felt a wary elation. “You found the credit cards?”

Kennedy laughed gently. “No, I’m afraid not. It’s not actually the missing cards I’m calling about. I wondered if you’d received any more obscene phone calls.”

“Since I’ve talked to you, not really.” There was no point in stirring up the law; Hedra was the reason for the calls, and she was moving out. Allie briefly considered telling Kennedy about the man accosting her on the street, but there was an explanation for that, too. Hedra. Allie didn’t want to get Hedra in serious trouble; that would only prolong the mingling of their lives. It was hardly wise to make any of this police business.

“Good,” Kennedy said. “I thought we might need to put a tap on your line, find out who the weirdo is. But if he’s not bothering you anymore, I guess that won’t be necessary.”

“Guess not,” Allie agreed.

After a pause, Kennedy said, “You okay, Miss Jones?”

“Uh, sure. Why?”

“You sound … I dunno, different from when you were here at the station. A little depressed or something. You want me to come over there and we can talk?”

God, I must sound terrible, Allie thought. Or maybe Kennedy was simply doing his job and following up on a complaint, serving the public. She said, “It’s because I just woke up.”

“Ah. The phone wake you?”

“Yeah, but that’s okay. I’m glad you called. Glad you cared enough to take the trouble.”

“Like I said, usually an obscene phone call doesn’t develop into any worse problem. On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt to take precautions. You did the right thing in coming to the police, dear.”

“I know I did. Thanks.”

“You sure you’re all right?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Any more calls like before, though, and you contact me personally. That a deal?”

“It’s a deal.”

“Sorry I woke you.”

“That’s okay, I had to get up anyway. You were my alarm clock.” She tried to put some airy brightness in her voice, like a TV game-show contestant, to show Kennedy she was just fine. “Bye, Sergeant. Thanks again for calling.” It was fun even though I lost.

He told her good-bye and hung up. The broken connection crackled in her hear.

Allie stretched out her arm and replaced the receiver.

After lying there motionless for about fifteen minutes, listening to Hedra scraping and thunking things around in the apartment, she got up, put on her robe, and left the bedroom. The floor was ice against her bare feet.

In the living room, Hedra had just set down a cardboard box of paperback novels by the door. Dust was stirring in the air from her activity; it tickled Allie’s nose and almost made her sneeze. Hedra glanced at her and didn’t change expressions. She said, “A cab’s on the way. I’ll have everything outta here by tonight.”

Allie was suddenly ill at ease. She didn’t know what to say to Hedra. She felt guilty and hated herself for it. Finally she decided to make small talk to hold back the silence. “You had breakfast?”

“Coffee and a couple of Danish,” Hedra said. “I went out and brought it back from the deli. There’s some left in the kitchen, if you want it.”

“Thanks.”

Hedra didn’t answer. She walked back to her bedroom and returned with an armload of clothes from the closet. Then she draped them over the arm of a chair. Allie couldn’t help thinking the pile of clothes looked as if they were from her closet. Clothes aren’t really as personal as we think, or as distinctive or recognizable. Thousands of this, thousands of that, often tens of thousands, sewn on assembly lines. Unless you were into Paris originals, everyone’s basic black dress was like someone else’s.

Allie said, “You still working at that place over on Fifth Avenue?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there awhile longer,” Hedra said. Allie wasn’t sure she believed her, but Hedra was getting money from somewhere. Maybe she dealt dope; Allie wouldn’t be surprised. Not anymore.

Hedra put down her clock radio on the pile of clothes and looked at Allie. “If you don’t mind my asking, how do you plan on making the rent here alone?”

“I won’t be alone,” Allie told her. “Sam’s going to move back in.”

Hedra nodded. “I kinda thought so.”

There were three firm knocks on the door.

Hedra and Allie exchanged glances. Hedra said, “I’ll stand over where I can’t be seen. No point in giving ourselves away as roommates this late in the game.”

Allie thanked her again. She waited until Hedra had stepped around a corner. Then she yanked the sash of her robe tighter around her waist, walked to the door, and opened it.

Graham Knox stood in the hall.

He had on impossibly baggy pleated black slacks, and his woolly gray sweater with the leather elbow patches. He was so thin he looked lost as a child inside his clothes. His unruly hair was damp and combed more neatly than usual, and he was sporting his lopsided grin. Graham was so obviously glad to see Allie that she felt cheered just looking at him.

She moved in close to the partly opened door and stood so he couldn’t see Hedra’s possessions piled nearby.

He said, “I thought I better drop by and explain about the tickets.”

“Tickets?”

His face sagged like a sad clown’s, then lifted again to hide his hurt. “You know, my play …”

Allie had forgotten he’d promised her free tickets. To … what was it, “Dance” something? “Of course,” she said. “I’ve been waiting, wondering.”

She was sure she hadn’t fooled him, but he obviously appreciated her effort and forgave her. He held out two tickets he’d been squeezing in his right hand. Allie accepted them. They were damp from his perspiration and faintly warm. They felt good between her fingers; a friend’s gift that meant something and required nothing in return other than her presence.

“They’re center orchestra seats for the third performance. By then most of the kinks should be ironed out and the play should go smoothly. I want you and Hedra to see it at its best.”

Without thinking about it, Allie tilted forward on her toes and gave him a peck on the cheek. It surprised him and surprised her. “Thanks, Graham. Really. I’ll be there. I doubt if Hedra can make it, though.”

He was grinning almost maniacally. “If you have to come alone, that’s okay. Maybe we can go out for some coffee or something after the performance.”

“Maybe,” Allie said. He’d read something into that innocent kiss on the cheek. Too bad. “I’ll be there either way, Graham.”

Inside his baggy clothes, he shifted his weight awkwardly from one leg to the other; he wasn’t a graceful man like Sam. Dear Sam. “I better go down to Goya’s,” Graham said.

“Okay. See you.”

“Drop in sometime when things slow down after the lunch rush. We can talk.”

“I’ll do that. Bye, Graham.” She eased the door closed and heard his faint, retreating footsteps outside in the hall.

When she turned from the door, she found that Hedra had moved back into the living room and was glaring at her. There was an irrational kind of fierceness in her stare that frightened Allie. Hedra had gone into the kitchen and was holding half of a cheese Danish that had become mush in her clenched fist. “He mentioned my name.”

Allie said, “He lives upstairs. He knows we share—shared—the apartment.”

“You told him?”

“No, he saw us together and overheard us talking in the hall one day. He guessed.”

Hedra suddenly noticed she’d mutilated the rest of the Danish. She went into the kitchen to throw it away. Water ran in the sink as she rinsed off her fingers. When she returned she seemed calmer. “So who is this guy?”

“His name’s Graham Knox. He’s a playwright. That was what he wanted to see me about, to give us two free tickets to the off-Broadway production of his play. I told him some time back that I’d go.”

“You meet him often at Goya’s?” What about Sam? was in Hedra’s eyes.

“He’s a waiter there, Hedra. For God’s sake, he’s just a casual acquaintance.”

“But he knows about me being here.”

“He won’t tell anyone. He’s promised. Besides, what difference does it make now?”

“None, I suppose. But do you believe him? I mean, his promise?”

“Yes, I do. Besides, he’s got no reason to inform on us. He’s no friend of the Cody’s management.”

“But what if he tells someone else? I mean, like one of the other tenants?”

Allie couldn’t understand this. “Hedra, why do you care? You’re moving out.”

“I care because I don’t wanna be tracked down by Haller-Davis and told I owe back rent.”

“I doubt if they’d do that.” But Allie wasn’t sure.

“They might, if this Graham guy tells the wrong person.”

“He won’t. He’s promised about that, too. He told me he might need a roommate himself one of these days.” Allie was getting irritated with Hedra’s intense concern over Graham when it wasn’t necessary. “Playwrights and part-time waiters aren’t exactly high-income bracket; he understands the arrangement we had and he approves of it.”

Hedra seemed to think about that. Finally she nodded. “Yeah, I guess I’m getting excited over nothing.” She smoothed her skirt and walked to the window, then gazed down into the street. “Anyway, it’s not life or death.”

Her body straightened and she turned away from the window, starkly silhouetted for a moment in the morning light. “My cab just pulled up downstairs.”

“Want me to throw on some clothes and help you carry this stuff down?” Allie asked.

“Why not?” Hedra said.

Allie made three trips with her and loaded the backseat and the trunk of the cab. Hedra said she’d be back that afternoon for the rest of her things, then slid into the taxi’s front seat alongside the driver. “Good luck, Allie.”

Allie suddenly felt as if she were betraying the trust of a helpless puppy; she told herself Hedra knew how to pull people’s strings, change their perceptions of her almost minute to minute. “Luck to you too, Hedra. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“It did for a while,” Hedra said with a flicker of a smile. She closed the door and waited for Allie to move away before telling the driver her destination. As the cab pulled away, she didn’t look back.

When the cab had been swallowed in traffic, Allie went back upstairs to the apartment.

She ate the Danish Hedra had left and drank a cup of coffee. Then she used the TV’s remote to tune in Donahue and curled up on the sofa. The program was about unreasonable ordinances in the suburbs, laws that said you couldn’t leave your trash can at the curb overnight. Or kiss in public. Or let your cat go outside without a leash and collar. That kind of thing. Donahue was outraged, stalking through the audience with his microphone and wobbling his head. Seeking soul mates or conflict.

It didn’t interest or concern Allie in the slightest, but she watched it anyway. It was something on which to fix vague attention while she blotted out what was happening in the suburbs of her mind.

Chapter 23

TWO days later Sam was living in the apartment. Their world within the four walls fell into place as if time hadn’t passed and Hedra hadn’t moved through Allie’s life. The first night seemed to Allie a fresh start almost from before the nighttime phone call that had prompted their first argument and Sam’s leaving. The crushing, painful call that had caused her to place the classified ad that had drawn Hedra to her.

Sam was across the breakfast table from her again, hurriedly dressed for work and spooning diet yogurt into the mouth that she loved, that had been on her last night.

Allie had found part-time work as a computer programmer for a small camera store on Sixth Avenue. She was busy during the day setting up a program that would keep a running inventory on thousands of lenses, filters, and accessories. She hadn’t realized there were so many ways for a professional photographer to change and shape what appeared in the viewfinder, so many ways to bend reality to a purpose.

She’d finished her coffee and was about to leave with Sam. An old sensation was back; it gave her a secret thrill, the way they were lovers inside the apartment but had to act like strangers the minute they stepped out into the hall. Was that the sort of emotion that might disappear with marriage?

He’d stood up and was shrugging into his suit coat. He scooped up his attaché case. Prince of commerce in a hurry. She smiled and placed a hand on his chest to stop him, then kissed him on the lips. She didn’t mind the taste of yogurt.

“What brought that on?” he asked.

“I love you. I’m happy. I want you to know.”

He gave her a quick hug. “I’m happy, too, Allie, but neither of us’ll be quite as happy if I’m unemployed.”

“You leave first,” she said.

He nodded, then opened the door to the hall and glanced in both directions. He blew her a kiss and stepped outside and closed the door, all in one nimble, graceful motion.

Allie counted to fifty, listening to the humming silence of the apartment, then followed.

By the time she reached the lobby, he was nowhere in sight.

A shipment of Nikon accessories hadn’t arrived at the camera shop that morning as scheduled, and the shop’s owners, two implacable brothers of Iranian descent, gave Allie the afternoon off rather than pay her for doing drone work.

The weather was glorious, so she walked up to Central Park, past the lineup of bored and patient horses waiting to pull tourists in carriages along the congested streets. She entered the park and sat in quiet coolness on a hard concrete bench near the lake. Beyond the trees she could see the reach of skyscrapers, the newer ones with squared-off tops that seemed to flatten against the sky, the older ones piercing the blue like needles, or curving gracefully in Art Deco elegance. A trio of young men pedaled past on the new, thick-tired bicycles known as mountain bikes. Chains clinked against metal guards, and gears ticked and whirred in the quiet afternoon. On the grassy slope near the lake, a man and a woman lay on a blanket with their heads close together, talking. The woman had red hair and was rather stout. The man looked younger and was wearing a white shirt and red tie. A business type, like Sam. Every once in a while the woman would laugh and grab the tie and flick it in his face. The musical sound of her laughter floated on the bright, clear air. Allie watched them for a while, thinking about Sam and the way the fragments of their shattered lives had so seamlessly fit back together.

The breeze picked up and carried exhaust fumes from nearby Central Park South into the park, reminding Allie that she’d been sitting for almost an hour and her world waited just beyond the trees.

She surrendered the park to pigeons, dope dealers, the homeless, cyclists, joggers, and lovers, and got up and walked back to the street. Vital and diverse New York, she decided, maybe wasn’t such a heartless place after all.

If she and Sam were frugal, money should be no problem. She rode a subway instead of a cab back to West 74th. As she walked past Goya’s toward the Cody Arms, she peered in the window but didn’t see Graham Knox.

When she entered the apartment, the living room window was open and a cool breeze was sluicing through. Allie didn’t remember leaving the window raised but was glad that she had. She slipped off her high-heeled shoes, sat down in the wing chair, and massaged her feet. Concrete against flesh, separated only by a thin slice of leather, could take its toll. She was getting a blister on the bottom of her left big toe. A bandage wouldn’t be a bad idea.

She stood up and padded barefoot toward the bathroom, limping slightly and carrying her shoes.

She was five feet from her closed bedroom door when she heard a noise. A soft creaking sound. Then another.

Another.

A rhythm old as time.

Her heart expanded painfully in her chest. Her throat tried to close, and she was having difficulty breathing.

Silently, she edged forward.

She heard a soft, regular moaning. What she’d known in the back of her mind leaped like something uncaged to the front. She stepped forward and pushed open the door.

They were on the still-made bed, both of them nude. Hedra was straddling Sam, her hands propped on her hips. Only Allie didn’t know at first that it was Hedra.

It was the wig. Hedra was wearing the blond Allie wig.

She and Sam were both perspiring and Hedra was grinning down at him with an intense expression though her eyes were half-closed. So preoccupied were they that they didn’t notice Allie at first.

Then Hedra sensed something. She stopped grinning, stopped the rising and falling contortions of her glistening body, and turned toward her.

A needle of fear penetrated Allie’s shock and rage. Hedra stared insolently at her as if Allie didn’t belong there. As if Allie were trespassing in her own apartment.

Sam had seen Allie now and was staring at her dumbstruck with his mouth hanging open.

Hedra glanced down at him, then back at Allie. She was grinning again. She said, “Oh, hi, Allie.”

When they were both gone, Allie sat paralyzed on the sofa. The breeze crept in through the open window and rippled coolly around her bare feet like chilled water. Hedra and Sam. Sam and Hedra. Oh, Jesus! She knew she shouldn’t be surprised. Some far corner of her consciousness had known but hadn’t admitted the possibility that her lover and former roommate were deceiving her. If Hedra—sick, conspiring Hedra—envied everything else about Allie, why wouldn’t she want Sam? It was logical, insofar as logic could be applied to Hedra, but Allie simply hadn’t wanted to believe it.

This … abomination, this unfairness, was sinking in, altering her world forever. The hum of traffic from outside grew louder and became a continuous roar, blotting out all rational thought. A beast devouring her mind.

Hedra had everything she wanted from Allie now. The rape and destruction were complete.

Oh, hi, Allie.

Allie dug her fingertips into her temples, harder and harder, wishing she could penetrate her skull and her mind and rip from them like raw matter the pain of what had happened to her.

The telephone rang.

She sat listened to it for a long time, then lifted the receiver and touched the hard, cool plastic to her ear. She didn’t say anything.

A man’s voice said, “Allie? Allie? Hey, Sweet Buns, it’s me. Remember? Hey, I know you’re there.”

She lowered the receiver slowly, letting it clatter back into its cradle. She sat staring at the wall, wondering who she was, and what she had done.

Chapter 24

THAT night, Sam described Allie’s visit at the Atherton. It seemed the only way he could stop thinking about it; share it so it was halved. He knew that, with Allie, the final corner had been turned.

All the while he was talking, Hedra lay beside him in his bed in the Atherton suite. They’d made love. The room was totally dark and still smelled from their coupling. Hedra was smoking a cigarette, invisible to Sam except for the glowing red ember that now and then brightened like a beacon aimed his way, a warning to ships on a dark sea.

Hedra said, “Allie’s imagination must have been rolling in high gear. Actually, I did use her name, but it was no big deal. It came to mind when some guy was getting too friendly and I didn’t wanna give him my own name. He caught me off guard or I’d have given him the name of my third-grade teacher or somebody like that. The drug stuff is pure imagination. Unless …”

“Unless what?”

“I offered Allie some tranquilizers once. She was almost bonkers after losing her job. Maybe that put the idea of me and drugs in her mind.” Hedra drew on the cigarette, making its ember flare angry red in the darkness. “‘Nother thing. A couple of times I dissolved tranquilizers in her coffee or hot chocolate without her knowing it.”

“You what?”

“Nothing strong, Sam, just some old prescription medicine. Now, don’t get so excited. I did it for her own good. And tell you the truth, so I could live with the crazy bi—no, I shouldn’t say that. She’s under a strain. She’s got this hands-off thing about any kind of drug, and I just wanted to help her through the rough times, till she could feel better on her own.” Sam heard Hedra shift her body so she was lying on her side, facing him. He felt the mattress depress. She was still perspiring; he could feel the heat emanating from her. “I did it because I’m her friend, Sam.”

A tangle of thoughts spun through his mind. He couldn’t help asking, “Is that why you’re here with me? Because of Allie?”

She was silent for a moment. He saw her cigarette flare. Heard her exhale and smelled the smoke. “I don’t think so. What about you? Is it Allie you’re really sleeping with?”

He was silent. He couldn’t see her in the darkness, but he knew she was wearing the wig. God! What kind of twisted creature have I become?

“Never mind,” she said. “Some things it’s better not to think about, and we don’t have to think about them, do we?”

“No,” he said, “we don’t. But it’s eerie, what’s happened. Sometimes the way you talk even when we’re not in bed, the way you dress, or motion with your hand or tilt your head, it’s … well, so damned strange.”

“Face it, the real thing turned out not to be the real thing. You regret this, Sam? Me and you?”

“Not at all.” Was that a lie? he wondered. Maybe so, but what was the point of regretting what you couldn’t change or resist? What was the use of hating a weakness in yourself if you knew you couldn’t overcome it?

“Listen, I don’t have to be here if you don’t want me.”

He thought about her not being with him and didn’t like the idea. When he and Hedra were in the same room, it was as if each of them had swallowed half of a powerful magnet. He had to be near her, to touch her. Once he’d allowed their affair to start, he was caught up in a force ponderous and irresistible. Whatever he still felt for Allie was dwarfed and crushed before it.

The real thing turned out not to be the real thing.

“Believe it,” he said, “I want you here.”

He felt her hand glide down to his pubic hair and caress his penis. She did something quick and rhythmic with her fingers and immediately, almost against his will, he had an erection. He was struck again by the contrast between the Hedra he’d first met and this woman. In the dark, she was somebody else. Somebody else …

He heard a fizzing, sputtering sound, as with her other hand she dropped her cigarette in her glass with melted ice in it by the bed.

In an amused voice she said, “Another dead soldier,” and climbed on top of him.

Allie almost lacked the willpower to climb out of bed in the morning. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to “take to her bed and die” like the heart-stricken Victorian women in romantic novels. Self-pity, something she’d always despised in others, had attached to her like a parasite and wouldn’t be dislodged by reason.

She had dreamed of Sam and Hedra, of them making love in her bed, where she and Sam had lain together. She heard their groans, the rocking and banging of the headboard. The keening of the bedsprings mingled with their own subdued moans. In the dream she tried to block it from her hearing, drifting to the window and staring out at the universe beyond the glass. She pretended what was going on in the bedroom wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. But the relentless rhythm of their lovemaking was persistent, and she couldn’t deny the extent to which Hedra had taken over her life, as the sounds coming from the bedroom crashed into her tortured mind. My bed! Bed! Bed! Bed!

When she awoke she thought she heard Sam singing in the shower, as he often did. Water gushed through the plumbing in the old walls, nearly drowning out his voice. “I’m takin’ the A-Train,” he was singing, giving it an exaggerated jazzy glide. For an instant there was nothing wrong in Allie’s life and her dream had been a cruel fluke that had nothing to do with reality.

For an instant. Before she was entirely awake.

Then her depression wrapped itself around her. She had to use all her will to struggle out of bed, even though she had to relieve herself so badly she couldn’t lie still. She commanded each leg to move as she plodded into the bathroom.

She didn’t bother eating breakfast, opting instead for a cup of instant coffee, and it was an effort to spoon the dark granules into a cup of water heated in the microwave.

As she settled into the sofa to hold her cup with both hands and sip at the hot coffee, she was surprised to hear a knock at the door.

Even more surprised when she’d trudged to the door, opened it, and found the hall empty.

Then she glanced down and saw on the mat a long-stemmed flower on a folded sheet of white tissue paper. She stooped and picked it up. It was a dark orchid with petals the consistency of flesh. A small white card was Scotch-taped to the paper. In black felt-tip pen it read, “Thanks, Sweet Buns. Until next time.”

Allie touched the thick, fleshlike petals and revulsion welled up in her. She flung the orchid on the hall floor. Then she backed into the apartment and slammed and locked the door.

Chapter 25

ALLIE didn’t leave the apartment for days. She ignored her temporary job at the camera store. The Iranian brothers must have called, she was sure, but she didn’t bother answering her phone. By now they’d probably replaced her and not thought much about it. People did strange things in New York. People came and went for their own reasons, and life continued its raucous, zigzagging slide toward eternity.

She didn’t call Sergeant Kennedy about the orchid and note she’d found by her door; the thought of more contact with the police repelled her. She wanted only to escape from unpleasant reality.

It scared her finally, the possibility that she was withdrawing completely from everything human, so she began to go out and take long walks, for the exercise, she told herself. But she knew it was really for the tenuous contact with people. In one way the press of Manhattan’s humanity made her feel less alien, but in another it made her feel more lonely. Often she had the sensation she was invisible. Locked inside herself and invisible.

During one afternoon walk, on impulse, she stopped in at Goya’s for lunch. It would help to talk to Graham; he at least thought she was real. She sat at her usual table. The restaurant was crowded with a mixture of neighborhood people, office workers on their lunch hours, and a few tourists who’d stopped to eat after wandering around the Upper West Side. The mingled, spicy scent of a kitchen going full tilt added to appetites. A grayish haze from the smoking section hovered close to the high ceiling, swirling ever so gently with the lazy rhythm of the two large and slowly rotating paddle fans. Goya’s employees in black slacks and red shirts glided swiftly and efficiently among the tables, holding trays level above their heads and out of harm’s way; the nonchalant balancing act of waiters and waitresses everywhere.

Allie expected Graham to appear any second, dodging tables and diners with his lanky sideways shuffle, wearing his lopsided grin and exchanging comments with regular customers. Her glance kept darting reflexively to the kitchen’s swinging doors, like a reformed smoker’s hand edging toward an empty pocket.

But a tall girl with wet-look red lipstick and dark hair in a frazzled French braid took Allie’s order. The plastic tag pinned crookedly to her blouse said her name was Lucy. She was tentative and seemed new to the job.

“Is Graham Knox working today?” Allie asked.

“I don’t think so,” the girl said. “I mean, I just started and don’t know everybody yet, but the guy I think is Graham isn’t in today.”

Allie thanked her and watched her walk away.

Since Goya’s was crowded, about twenty minutes passed before Allie’s food arrived. Lucy smiled with only her glossy lips and said she was real sorry about the delay. As she placed the white plate on the table, Allie noticed her fingernails were long and painted to match her lipstick. About half the bright red nail polish had been chipped or chewed away.

Allie fell into a somber mood as she sat munching her pastrami-on-rye and sipping Diet Pepsi. A different waitress, this one middle-aged with hair going to gray, asked if she wanted her glass refilled, but Allie declined. She left immediately after finishing her sandwich.

For a long time she walked the crowded, noisy streets of the city, until her feet were sore and the spring was gone from her legs. Around her, steam rose from the sidewalk grates; the monster breathing. She sat for a while on a bench in Riverside Park before smelling rain in the air and starting for home.

The phone was ringing when she let herself into the apartment. She hadn’t been using her answering machine because she dreaded having to deal with the kind of messages that might be left, so the phone kept ringing. She ignored it.

The ringing continued as she slipped off her blue blazer and draped it over the sofa arm. She sat down in the wing chair and stared at the ringing phone. She didn’t move.

Finally it stopped ringing.

Allie walked into the kitchen and got a glass of water, then sat again in the wing chair and stared at the dusk closing in outside the window. The noise of the city was beginning to lessen with the advent of night and the threat of rain.

The phone began ringing again. Shrill and insistent.

It rang twenty-one times before it stopped. Someone wanted very much to talk to Allie.

Whoever it was, they kept calling back. Finally, on the third ring of the fifth call, she lifted the receiver and held it to her ear.

Hedra’s voice said, “I know you’re there, Allie.”

“Yes, I’m here,” Allie said. She wasn’t even curious about why Hedra had called. Nothing about Hedra could surprise her now.

“Sam’s going to be mine forever,” Hedra said. “I’ve seen to that.” Her voice sounded odd, flatter than usual yet with an undercurrent of excitement.

Allie almost laughed. “Don’t try to tell me the relationship has only just been consummated.”

“I wouldn’t tell you that,” Hedra said. “Anyway, I never liked that word ‘consummated’ when it was used to describe people. It sounds too much like soup, don’t you think?”

Allie held her silence.

Hedra said, “Okay, crabby appleton, I know you’re still on the line.” A little girl’s voice. Taunting. But still flat. “Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt you, Allie.”

“Then why did you?”

Instead of answering, Hedra said, “Are you lonely, Allie?”

“Yes,” Allie said, “I’m lonely.”

Hedra said, “I’m not.”

“You have Sam,” Allie said. “You deserve each other. You’re both contemptible.”

“He’s contemptible. Otherwise he wouldn’t have put his hands on both of us. He wouldn’t have done what he did to us.”

“He didn’t do it alone, Hedra.”

“He didn’t have to do it at all, did he? What if I promised he’d never do it again?”

“I don’t want your promises,” Allie said. “I don’t care anymore about either of you. Can’t you understand that? There’s no reason for us to have anything to do with each other.”

“I hope you’re right, Allie.”

“Don’t call me again, Hedra.”

“I won’t.”

The connection broke with a click, and the empty line sighed in Allie’s ear until the dial tone buzzed.

She hung up the phone and sat for a while thinking about the call, watching a large bluebottle fly, later along in life than it thought, drone and bounce off the window, trying to escape into the drab, cool evening. The sky was darkening quickly now; it was getting dark noticeably earlier each day. Seasons changing.

What was Hedra trying to do? Why had she virtually taken over Allie’s life, sapped Allie of herself and somehow become another Allie? She’d lived in Allie’s apartment. Wore duplicate clothes, jewelry, and perfume. Sometimes wore Allie’s clothes and jewelry. Used Allie’s identity. Even some of her gestures and speech habits. Slept with Sam.

Envied Allie.

Had no identity of her own.

“She’s ill,” Allie said to the bluebottle fly. Hedra had mentioned being hospitalized as a young girl. Possibly she’d been kept in a mental institution, and she was still very, very sick. So gradually had the situation made itself evident that the seriousness of Hedra’s problem had never registered on the unsuspecting Allie. Allie had misjudged the intensity of Hedra’s inner fire and envy. It was clear now why she’d wanted Sam so desperately, and why she flaunted the affair in front of Allie. It was as if she were letting Allie know that now she, Hedra, had finally supplanted Allie, and Allie no longer was quite real. Allie had become the inhabitant of an empty life, the shadowy subleasing roommate in her own existence.

The terrible part was that Allie felt that way. She’d bought it. She’d been so involved with other problems in her life that she hadn’t noticed danger creeping up from an unexpected quarter. And then it was too late.

It was Hedra, Allie realized, who must have stolen her credit cards and driver’s license, so she could be Hedra outside the apartment as well as inside. Hedra, the thief who stole so much more than property.

Why had Hedra called tonight? What had she meant about making Sam hers forever? And why the strange tone of her voice? There’d been an odd, deranged quality to the way she’d sounded. On the other hand, why shouldn’t there be? She’d certainly been behaving that way.

Allie remembered the blueberry cobbler recipe she’d found in the shoe box in Hedra’s closet, and the murder news item on its reverse side. There had been other newspaper clippings in the box, but she hadn’t looked at them, assuming they were other recipes or cooking columns. But maybe the grisly homicide story on the back of the recipe didn’t simply happen to be there. Maybe it was the recipe that happened to be on the back of the news item. Maybe the other clippings were about murders.

No, Allie told herself, don’t let your imagination make a fool of you again.

But the longer she sat there, the more a kind of pressure built in her. Things Hedra had said and done over the months seemed to click into a pattern and became meaningful. Ominous. Imagination? Maybe.

Only maybe.

Allie walked to her purse and dug in it until she found the card Sergeant Kennedy had given her. Then she untangled and stretched the phone cord so she could rest the phone in her lap while she sat in the wing chair.

Listening to her own harsh breathing, she punched out the number on the card. She waited while the phone on the other end of the line rang, unconsciously twirling a lock of her hair around her left forefinger. It was a nervous habit she’d had as a teenager, and she wondered why she was doing it now. God, was she regressing? She jerked her hand away so abruptly she pulled her hair. Then she hung up the phone.

She had to give this some careful consideration before talking to Kennedy. For all she knew, her call would result not in a quelling of her fears, but in a uniformed officer knocking on her door within minutes, then a ride to the precinct house, where events would be dictated by emotionless procedure. One phone call, and the blue genie of police power would be out of the bottle and out of control. The police would want something more substantial than the anger and dread of a spurned lover. And that was how they’d see Allie. Even Kennedy would see her that way.

Allie thought again of the news item on the back of the recipe clipped from the paper.

Right now, whether she liked it or not, she cared a great deal about Sam.

She shouldn’t care, but she did. And if Sam knew what she knew about Hedra, he’d feel differently—not only about Hedra, but about Allie. He’d have to feel differently.

She phoned the Atherton Hotel and asked the desk to ring Sam’s room. Then she waited while the phone rang eight, ten times, until she was positive it wasn’t going to be answered.

Allie hung up and glanced at the clock. It was quarter past eight, but sometimes Sam worked late. She remembered the number of Elcane-Smith Brokerage and pecked it out with her finger so violently she bent a nail.

Someone answered at Elcane-Smith, a harried-sounding man who told her Sam had left at five o’clock.

So where was Sam? Possibly on his way to meet Hedra for dinner. Or in his room and not answering his phone. Maybe because Hedra was with him and they were making love.

Reason left Allie. Only fear for Sam remained. Sam, who was in her blood forever.

What she really wanted most was to have him back. She didn’t like knowing that about herself, so she shoved that sticky bit of knowledge to a dim corner of her mind where she could let it lie for a while before coming to terms with it. She heard again Hedra’s little-girl taunt on the phone, and she understood the great truth: What we wanted, whom we needed, was wound and set like clockwork in us when we were children, infants perhaps, and after a while there could be no denial.

If Sam wasn’t in his room, she’d find him no matter where he was and convince him Hedra was sick. Maybe dangerous. A woman who had no self, and who might be the collector of news stories about gruesome murders. The police would be interested. She and Sam could go to the police together and substantiate each other’s stories, and Kennedy would listen. Together she and Sam could awaken from the nightmare.

She wanted to be real again. To be the only Allie Jones. She was sure she wasn’t imagining things.

She strode to the hall closet to get her blue coat.

It wasn’t there. Wearing only the blazer over her jeans and blouse, she rushed out into the cool night, risking rain.

Chapter 26

IN the Atherton Hotel’s long, narrow lobby were a white sofa and chair in front of a large mirror and an arrangement of potted plants. Beyond them, the desk and the entrance to the adjoining coffee shop were on the left, the elevators on the right. A middle-aged Hispanic woman sat low and almost unnoticeable at the switchboard, idly plucking at a hangnail. Behind the long marble-topped desk, a tall gray-haired man was busy registering a young couple whose only luggage seemed to be the overstuffed backpacks lying at their feet in a tangle of canvas strapping, like parachutes in case of fire.

One of the elevators was at lobby level. Its doors slid open immediately when Allie punched the Up button. She stepped in and pressed the button for the tenth floor.

On Five, the elevator stopped and an overweight blond bellhop got in and smiled at Allie. He was carrying a clipboard under his arm and had a yellow pencil wedged behind his right ear. At Seven, he got off the elevator, and Allie was alone when it arrived at Ten.

She walked down the narrow, dimly lighted hall toward Sam’s room. The carpet soaked up the sound of her steps. A TV was playing too loud in one of the rooms; the inane chatter of a game show seeped through the door as Allie passed, then was left behind in an outbreak of enthusiastic but diminishing applause. Somebody had won big. The humidity outside had inundated the hotel; the hall was cool and had a mildewed smell about it. The air was almost thick enough to feel.

The next room was 1027, Sam’s room. Allie stood for a moment close to the white-enameled door. No sound came from inside.

She knocked.

No answer. Nothing.

She turned the knob and found the door was unlocked. In fact, it hadn’t been closed quite all the way. Wasn’t even latched.

Maybe Sam hadn’t pulled it tight when he’d left to go out. He could be careless that way. Or maybe he was in the shower. Or sleeping so deeply her knocking hadn’t awakened him. She prayed it was something like that, that the reason he hadn’t come to the door was something innocent and explainable.

She swallowed, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped inside.

The smell that struck her was familiar, yet she couldn’t quite place it. The lights were out in the room. The only illumination was from the picture rolling soundlessly on the TV near the foot of the bed; a car chase racing vertically as well as horizontally. The TV game show next door was barely audible through the wall. Sam’s double bed was unmade, sheets and spread in a wild tangle.

She could see into the suite’s adjoining room. It was also dark. The bathroom door was closed, but no crack of light showed beneath it.

Allie said, “Sam?”

The only answer was the muted, constant roar of traffic ten stories below, the background rush of noise that was always there and was itself a part of the city’s silence and existence. A vital sign of life; steel blood coursing through concrete arteries.

Allie saw something on the floor near the television, at the foot of the bed. The flickering light from the screen had a strobelike effect and she couldn’t make out what the object was.

She moved forward a few steps.

Stopped and gasped.

She wasn’t seeing what she thought! It was a trick, a magician’s prop!

It was a fake! Please!

But as she edged closer she knew she was looking at a hand that had been severed at the wrist.

Shaking uncontrollably, she lurched away and steadied herself on a small desk with a lamp on it. She switched on the lamp, but carefully avoided looking again at the severed hand.

She saw Sam’s ankle and his black wing-tip shoe protruding from behind the bed and walked over there, staying near the wall, away from the hand. She tried not to think of the hand, lying there so still like some kind of pale, lifeless sea creature that had somehow worked its way onto land and then died.

She didn’t want to look at Sam, either, but she knew she must. She’d come this far and there was no choice.

He was on the floor between the bed and the wall. Lying on his back with his eyes wide open and horrified, his arms bent out of sight beneath his body. His other hand was resting on one of the pillows on the bed, centered as if it were on display in a museum. His jockey shorts and pants were bunched down around his knees. Things had been done to him with a knife.

Something in the room was hissing loudly. Steam escaping under pressure? Then she realized it was her breathing.

Allie backed away, stepped on something soft—the hand on the floor—and whimpered. Leaped to the side and froze like a startled, terrified animal. She stared at the stained sheets and recognized the smell in the room as blood. Bile surged bitterly at the back of her throat, a burning column of acid. Her stomach contorted so that she actually felt it roll against her belt. She retched and ran bent over to the bathroom, flung open the door, and automatically switched on the light.

More blood!

On the tiles. The white toilet seat. The white porcelain tank. A smeared red handprint on the curved edge of the bathtub. Allie saw that a trail of blood led from the bathroom toward the bed. Her jogging shoes were stained red.

The stench in the bathroom was overwhelming. She gagged, sank down on her knees before the toilet bowl, and vomited when she saw feces and a pudding of clotted blood in the water. Sam must have been attacked while he was sitting there, during a bowel movement. That was how it appeared, anyway. So violently did she vomit that some of what was already in the porcelain bowl splashed up in her face.

Trembling, moaning, she scrambled to her feet and twisted the faucet handles of the wash basin. She scooped handfuls of cold water over her face, listening to the cool, pure sound of it falling back into the basin. She kept scooping water until, with great effort, she made herself stop. Then she washed her hands thoroughly with the small white bar of hotel soap, though they were unsoiled. She staggered from the bathroom, noticing that the carpet was soggy and gave beneath her soles. Her heart slamming against her ribs, she ran to the door.

She didn’t remember dashing down the hall to the elevator.

Riding the elevator down to the lobby.

The Hispanic woman at the switchboard stared at her and frowned with black, unplucked brows. She was peering into Allie’s eyes as if there were something disturbing behind them that she’d never seen before. The tall gray-haired desk clerk stopped what he was doing with some crinkled yellow forms at the far end of the desk and glided toward her, his features aging with each step and with his growing apprehension. He’d been around a long time and knew trouble when he saw it.

He said, “Miss…?”

Allie leaned with both hands on the desk, her head bowed. She gave the desk clerk a from-down-under look and said, “Room Ten twenty-seven. Dead.” Didn’t sound like her voice. Someone high, floating, imitating her.

The switchboard operator had stood up and was crowding the desk clerk, as if she might want to hide behind him. Didn’t seem much taller standing. She said, “What? What’d you say, hon?”

Allie tried to speak again but couldn’t. Her throat was constricted. She heard herself croak unintelligibly.

“Somebody dead in Ten twenty-seven?” the desk clerk asked in a distant, amazingly calm voice. As if dead guests were part of hotel-biz; one or two every night.

Allie nodded.

“You sure?”

She could manage only another nod.

He stared at her like a stern, impossible father about to ask an important question, warning her in advance that he wanted the truth but he didn’t want to hear anything unpleasant. “You mean he died of a heart attack? Something like that? Right?”

“Murdered,” Allie made herself say. “Cut up in pieces.”

The switchboard operator said, “Madre de Dios!”

The desk clerk straightened up so he was standing as tall as possible and, still with his calm gaze fixed on Allie, called, “Will!”

An elderly black bellhop appeared. The old desk clerk casually reached into a side pocket and tossed him a key. It must have been a pass key. Its metal tag clinked against it as the bellhop caught it with one gnarled hand.

“Run on up to Ten twenty-seven,” the desk clerk said. “See what there is to see and then phone down.”

The bellhop glanced at Allie. He had sad, very kind eyes. He said, “Got somethin’ all over your shoes.”

Allie heard herself say, “Huh? Oh, that’s blood.”

The bellhop’s face got hard with fear and a kind of resolve. Or was it resignation? “Seen that before,” he said, and walked over and got in the elevator she’d just ridden down. “Seen you before, too,” he said as the door slid shut.

But he hadn’t, she was sure.

It took Allie a few seconds to realize what he’d meant.

And its significance.

It was Hedra he’d seen. Hedra wearing her Allie wig. Wearing her Allie clothes. Inside Allie’s blue coat. Walking her Allie walk.

Not Allie! Hedra!

Within a couple of minutes the switchboard buzzed urgently and a tiny red light began blinking. An insistent code: Murder! Murder! Murder!

The Hispanic woman drifted toward it. Her eyes were brown pools of fear. The desk clerk shuffled over to stand by her. He leaned over with his gray hair near her dark hair, as if he wanted to hear firsthand what was being said on the receiver pressed to the woman’s ear.

While they were standing facing away from her, Allie fled from the lobby and into the street.

Chapter 27

SHE didn’t realize until she was inside and had shut the apartment door that this wasn’t shelter. She’d been stupid to come here. Sam might have something on him that would tell the police where she lived. Hedra might have seen to that.

Hedra! Would Hedra have returned here?

A few feet inside the door, Allie stood in darkness, listening. The apartment was silent.

Even if the police learned her identity and address, she was sure she had some time. She walked into the living room and switched on a lamp.

There was her empty cup where she’d left it on the folded Village Voice on the table. The remote control for the TV rested where she remembered, on the arm of the sofa. The phone sat on the floor next to the wing chair. Where she’d left it.

Everything seemed to be exactly as it was when she’d hurried out of the apartment.

She switched on more lights and moved toward the hall to the bedrooms. In the glow cast from so many sources, a dozen dim shadows moved with her. Her legs felt rubbery but she wasn’t tired. There was an engine in her chest; she was running on adrenaline.

She glanced in the bathroom and felt a sudden nausea, remembering the bathroom at the Atherton Hotel.

At the door to Hedra’s old bedroom she stopped. She reached around the doorjamb, into the room, and groped across rough plaster for the plastic wall switch, found it, and flicked it upward.

The overhead fixture winked on.

Allie almost expected to find something hideous inside. Some further manifestation of Hedra’s madness. But this room, too, was as she’d left it. There was, in fact, a special kind of blankness about it, as if, like Hedra, it yearned to be imprinted with personality.

Knowing her time inside the apartment was limited, Allie decided to pack some of her clothes in her carry-on and then get out fast. She’d fetch her red-and-white TWA bag down from her closet shelf and quickly stuff it with whatever seemed appropriate. She wanted only to get clear of the Cody Arms before the police arrived, to run and hide somewhere so she could take time and try to think this nightmare through, figure a way out.

Allie was having difficulty breathing, as if she were being crushed in a vise. She knew there was nothing of Hedra anywhere in the apartment. She felt like screaming, but she covered her mouth with her hand and willed herself to be silent. Slumped on the mattress, she sat with her elbows on her knees, meshing her fingers so tightly they ached. She sat paralyzed, still trying to fully comprehend what had happened, what it meant. On the opposite wall she saw a spider racing diagonally toward the molding up near the ceiling, seeking shelter in shadow.

Then something deep in her stirred to life. A quiet rage and a primal determination to survive. Ancient voices speaking.

She got up and located the canvas carry-on, crumpled and shoved to the back of her closet shelf, behind her folded sweaters. She grabbed a few clothes from the closet and stuffed them inside, ignoring the hangers that dropped to the floor. Zipped the bag closed, tearing a fingernail. She’d tend to that later.

Careful not to get Sam’s blood on her hands, she untied her jogging shoes and worked them off her feet. The blood, russet-colored now, hadn’t soaked through; her socks weren’t stained. She put on her pair of almost new Nikes, then she slung her purse and the carry-on by their straps over her right shoulder.

After a brief detour to the kitchen to poke several granola bars into the carry-on, she hurried to the front door and let herself out into the hall. She kept straining to hear approaching sirens, but there were only the normal sounds of traffic. Once, sparking a moment of panic, she heard a distant siren that was obviously moving away and quickly faded.

She was ten feet from the elevator doors when she heard the thrum of cables and the oiled metallic grinding of an elevator arriving. Fear grabbed her again.

Hoping none of her neighbors would open an apartment door and see her, she ran down the hall toward the rear fire stairs, staying up on the balls of her feet so she’d make as little noise as possible.

As she was rounding the corner, she paused despite herself and glanced back, saw the elevator doors slide open. Four men filed out of the elevator. Two of them wore drab gray suits. The other two wore the old-fashioned blue uniforms of the New York City Police Department. None of them was smiling; they had somber, anxious expressions and moved almost with the precision of a drill team. They turned right, away from Allie, and didn’t see her.

She decided against the fire stairs and rode the service elevator down instead. Didn’t the police always have someone watching fire escapes? Waiting in the shadows?

The lobby was deserted, but she could see a patrol car parked directly in front of the building. A uniformed officer was sitting behind the steering wheel, and a pulsating haze of exhaust rose from beneath the rear bumper, like life escaping.

Allie’s heart was double-pumping and her mouth was dry. Back way! Back way! Keeping an eye on the police car, she sidestepped to the oversized freight door, about twenty feet from the service elevator. She rotated the knob and pushed on the heavy door.

It opened only a few inches. She could see a glint of steel, a heavy hasp and padlock on the outside. No escape that way.

She stood there for a moment, lightheaded, then ran down the hall to a room where she knew cleaning equipment was stored.

She’d intended to hide there until the police left, but as soon as she was inside she saw a small, high window with steel mesh over it.

Standing on a square can of cleaning fluid that popped and twanged under her weight, she forced the old wooden window open. The steel mesh was ancient and rusted, but it looked strong. Allie inserted her fingers through it, gripped hard, and worked it back and forth, at first very slightly, then an inch or two each way.

It was installed to resist pressure from the outside, not designed to keep people in. The top of it gave. Then one side. Ignoring the pain in her fingers, she bent the mesh back against the window frame, then forward in wider and wider arcs.

And suddenly it broke free and dropped into the gangway alongside the building.

Allie got down from the can she’d been standing on and placed it on top of an upside down metal bucket. Stood on the can again, carefully balancing herself, and managed to squeeze her head and shoulders through the window into cool outside air. Freedom.

She thrashed around with her right leg, found leverage with her foot, and pushed herself through the window to drop and lie on the concrete pavement. Ouch! Her elbow was on the sharp steel mesh she’d broken from the frame. There was a clanging noise as the bucket and can tipped over inside the storage room.

She struggled to her feet in a hurry, brushed rust and dirt off her clothes, and made her way along the gangway to West 74th. She emerged at the corner of the building, behind the parked police car with its motor idling.

Unless the cop behind the steering wheel happened to be looking in his rearview mirror, he wouldn’t see her.

When he seemed to move his head to glance in the opposite direction, she put on a casual air, did a sharp turn out of the gangway, and walked quickly away.

Realizing she’d left her purse and the carry-on in the storage room.

Chapter 28

ALLIE had no idea what she might do. Where she might go. There was no one to ask for help. None of this seemed real to her. Even she was beginning to doubt Hedra had ever existed. She had to keep reminding herself that her world had changed. She was a fugitive. Wanted for Sam’s murder. Sam! Poor Sam. The fool she’d loved and still loved, still needed. They had both been seduced and victimized. Irony twisted her inside; now, after his death, she could better understand and forgive him.

She spent the next several hours wandering aimlessly around the Upper West Side, then walked down Central Park West and over to Fifth Avenue. A fine mist formed in the air; hardly enough to get her wet. Then the mist changed to flecks of snow that fell and disappeared magically on the wet sidewalk in front of her. She seemed to be walking toward a void that would eventually consume her, as if she were ephemeral as a snowflake. And maybe she was.

It finally occurred to her that she was cold and shivering. She stopped walking and was about to enter a small Chinese restaurant, then realized she hadn’t any money. Through the steamed-over window she could glimpse people eating in a booth. Two men and a woman, well-dressed, talking animatedly between bites. The woman, young and with a swirl of dark hair piled high on her head, smiled and broke open a fortune cookie. Allie had intended going into the restaurant to get warm; now she realized she was hungry as well as cold. There was nothing she could do about hunger. Not right now.

For a moment she considered going down into a subway stop to keep warm, but there was danger there for a woman alone. She’d read in the newspapers about robbery, rape, and killing in the subways, seen tragic tape on TV news. And all the time she’d been living with the woman who’d … done those things to Sam.

The woman who wore her clothes.

Who had become her.

Allie realized she was near Grand Central Station. It would be warmer there. But would the police be watching for her, expecting her to try to catch a train out of the city? Scenes from a hundred movie and TV shows tumbled through her mind, bureaucratic authority figures instructing their underlings to “cover the airport and train station!”

But she knew there were too many murders in New York for the police to be constantly on the alert in all the stations, terminals, and airports that provided means of escape. Besides, they still might not even know what she looked like, and almost certainly hadn’t had time to circulate her photograph. She should be safe at Grand Central for at least tonight.

Jamming her fists deep into the pockets of her blazer, she hunched her shoulders and started walking. The flecks of snow were getting larger. Heavier. She felt one settle and melt on her eyelash, another dissolve coldly on her lower lip.

She entered Grand Central from 42nd Street and took the ramp down into the cavernous main area. The place was busy but looked oddly deserted because of its vastness.

Allie ignored the stares of people who passed her. They seemed to be staring at her, anyway, as if there were something about her that marked her as different and desperate. Could they sense her terror? See it on her?

She found a clean spot on the floor, sat down, and leaned back against the wall. Letting out a long breath, she waited for the warmth to penetrate her clothes.

Nearby, a shabbily dressed woman with a torn Bloomingdale’s bag sat and stared at her. A street person, Allie was sure, with no address, no hope, no perceived future beyond the hour. The woman seemed disturbed that she couldn’t categorize Allie, who obviously was not waiting for a train, but was dressed rather well to be one of the army that walked the streets of Manhattan and sought places like this for shelter.

After a few minutes the woman seemed to lose interest. She settled back with her chin tucked into the folds of flesh at the base of her neck, lowered her puffy eyelids and appeared to nod off to sleep. One of her withered hands slid from her lap onto the floor, where it lay palm-up.

Like Sam’s hands.

Allie looked away. Shook the vision. She’d read about people who virtually lived in Grand Central, moving around so the police never got a fix on them as vagrants. She decided she should be able to spend the night here, getting up and changing locations once or twice. She’d have to doze sitting up, like the old woman across from her, but that would be better than roaming the cold and dangerous streets.

A bearded man in a scuffed leather jacket hurried past, late for his train. He was munching a hamburger in a McDonald’s wrapper. Allie caught the savory scent of the fried beef and onion. About twenty feet beyond her, he absently wadded the wrapper around the hamburger and dropped it into a trash receptacle. He picked up his pace and began to run, licking his fingers as if they were just-discovered popsicles.

Allie sat staring at the refuse can. No one seemed to be paying attention to her. The old woman with the Bloomingdale’s bag was still asleep. The scent of the hamburger lingered, or might Allie only be imagining that? Hunger could make the mind play pranks.

Allie thought, Oh, Jesus! I’m really going to do this. She slowly stood up and ambled over to the trash container, as if she were going to throw something away.

Instead she reached inside, as if it were the sort of thing she and everyone else did every day, and her exploring hand sought the crumpled paper wrapper with the still-warm hamburger inside. It was like a live thing hiding from her, but at last her fingers closed on its vital warmth. She drew the aromatic prize out quickly, unable to keep her eyes from darting around to make sure what she’d done had gone unnoticed. But there was no way to be positive. Walking too fast, she returned to her spot on the floor.

She sat for a moment with her heart pounding. Then she told herself that for all anyone passing her knew, she’d bought the hamburger and was finishing eating it. She might be sitting here waiting for a train departure, or for a friend coming into the city to visit her. Might live on goddamn Park Avenue, for all anyone could guess. Not that it was any of their business, was it?

Bastards! she said to herself, hating them because she did care what they thought.

With exaggerated casualness, she peeled the wrapper away from the hamburger. She started to tear off the portion of bun marred by the man’s tooth marks, then thought better of it.

Took a deep breath and bit into the hamburger.

There was cheese on it, along with onion and pickles. She’d never tasted anything that brought such sensation to the taste buds. She could almost see and feel the word “delicious.”

Too soon, she finished the hamburger and was licking her fingers, as the man who’d thrown it away had licked his, only with more obvious greed and enjoyment. When she glanced to the side, the old woman still had her chin resting in the folds of her neck, but her slanted, rheumy eyes were open. A look passed between her and Allie, for only a second, a spark of understanding that was like a lightning bolt to Allie. The woman had placed her at last in the hierarchy of humanity. They were one and the same, the look said. Outcasts and comrades in agony.

Allie quickly averted her eyes and wiped her hands on her jeans.

Hunger still clawed at her.

She’d never been so lonely.

In the morning she awoke to the shuffle and humming of the busy station. A Godlike, echoing voice was making unintelligible pronouncements over the PA system: “NOWREEING PRESSTO STAMFOR ONTRAREEE-SAAAN!” No one was paying the slightest attention to Allie where she lay curled on the floor. Now and then an eye would glance her way and then quickly be averted, as if denying her existence. There was some charity in the world, however; a crumpled dollar bill and some change lay on the floor near her hand. Only the thousands of passing potential witnesses had prevented it from being stolen.

Allie sat up and tucked the money into a pocket. She worked her mouth to remove some of the sour taste that had accumulated during the night. A hint of onion from the hamburger still lingered. She was thinking more clearly now. Graham! He was someone—the only one now—who could corroborate Allie’s claim that Hedra had shared the apartment.

If the police would listen to Graham and believe him. Allie had read about how the law hated and resisted evidence to the contrary in what, to them, was a murder with a known perpetrator. The prosecuting attorney was probably salivating while waiting for Allie to be arrested.

She braced her back against the smooth wall and used numbed legs to lever herself to her feet. Then she glanced around and saw a bank of public phones. Gripping the coins she’d scooped from the floor, she walked stiffly toward them.

Graham didn’t answer his phone.

Allie called Goya’s next, and was told that he wasn’t working today, they had no idea where he might be reached.

Her heart fell as she hung up. She couldn’t risk going back to the Cody Arms, or to Goya’s. She’d have to wait and try to get in touch with Graham later.

She found that it was warmer outside. There was no accumulation of snow but the streets were still wet. People wearing raincoats and carrying folded umbrellas scurried along the sidewalks, on their way to work. Exhaust fumes hovered thick and noxious in the air. Stalled traffic on East 42nd was like a freeze-frame on TV, but with shouted curses and the frantic blaring of horns. Allie wondered why New Yorkers seemed to think that leaning on a horn might help clear a traffic jam. Many of them thrived on noise, she supposed. Maybe some people adapted to noise and then craved it.

Near the sidewalk a cabbie was leaning with his head and bare arm out his taxi window, chewing out a bicycle rider who’d gotten too close and scraped the cab with a handlebar. The cyclist was wearing a shirt that had KING MESSENGER SERVICE lettered across the back. “Both wheels up your ass… !” the driver was yelling, so angry he was spraying spittle. The messenger, a scrawny kid who looked about fourteen, was chomping a huge wad of gum or tobacco. He looked blissfully unconcerned.

Allie walked on. A few seconds later the messenger flashed past on his bike, whipping the vehicle from side to side between his legs, wove with breathtaking elegance between a car and a bus, and disappeared. Nonchalant survivor.

Allie knew where she was going now. She’d thought of it last night, slumped on the hard floor in Grand Central Station. Sleep had come to her only in snatches until almost three A.M. Seconds after closing her eyes, the dream would begin. Sam lying on his back with the stumps of his wrists at his sides. Sam staring at his hotel room ceiling with those wide and terrified eyes. Sam and the blood. Hedra and the blood. Sam, already dead, gazing at Hedra. Saying, “Allie …” The blood, blood, blood.

When she finally did fall asleep, it was into a red ocean where dead things swam.

A floor was a poor substitute for a bed. She still had an incredibly stiff neck. And she’d been mortified to find the money near her on the floor. Mortified but grateful to the stranger who’d mistaken her for one of the dispossessed and homeless.

Mistaken, hell! She was one of the homeless.

She’d conserved her change for the phone and used the dollar to buy a doughnut in a coffee shop in Grand Central. She’d made herself eat it methodically, so the counterman wouldn’t realize she was starving, then washed it down with a glass of water. Half a hamburger for supper and a doughnut and water for breakfast. Surprisingly, as she’d hurried out of the station she felt satisfied. And she walked now with a sense of purpose.

She knew where Mike Mayfair lived, all by himself in his loft apartment in SoHo. He’d be in his office at Fortune Fashions by now, leaning back behind his desk and making life hell for his secretary. Or sitting in his car in stalled traffic. Either way, there’d be no one in his apartment.

Allie had become a beggar. Now it was time to be a thief.

Chapter 29

MAYFAIR’S apartment building was a drab gray structure that housed a flower shop and a book shop in its ground floor. Allie walked around to the side of the building, where there was a narrow gangway that smelled of garbage and stale urine. She glanced up and down the street, then sidled around the corner and walked to the black iron fire escape that stair-stepped jaggedly down the side of the building.

She leaped up and grabbed at the gravity ladder that would lever down to street level, but her grasping fingers missed it by six inches. “Damn!” she said, so loudly she was shocked by the volume. But there were only a few low, dirt-caked windows on the sides of the buildings that flanked her; no one had heard.

Allie moved down the side of the building to a steel dumpster overflowing with trash. She stood on her toes and peered inside, hoping to find a piece of rope or twine she might weight and toss up to snag the gravity ladder and pull it down. The sweet garbage stench of the dumpster nauseated her, and all she saw were stained cardboard boxes, empty cans and bottles, and black and green plastic trash bags.

Backing away from the horrid smell, she noticed that the dumpster rested on small steel wheels. She studied it. Though it had to be heavy, especially laden as it was with trash, she told herself it wasn’t all that large. Only about the size of a Volkswagen.

Holding her breath against the sickening stench, she got behind the dumpster. She turned and rested her back against hard steel, and pushed with her legs.

The wheels squealed and the dumpster moved a few inches over the rough pavement.

She took a deep breath, smell or no smell, and pushed harder, felt the steel at her back move again. More than a foot this time.

And she knew she could do it.

Slowly, so the wheels would make as little noise as possible, she shoved the dumpster beneath the fire escape. Then she closed its steel lid and climbed up on it.

She easily reached the counterweighted fire escape ladder and pulled it down to her. It squealed, too, but in a lower octave and not as loud as the dumpster wheels.

Though SoHo had become gentrified and quite expansive, it was still the kind of neighborhood where no one would pay a great deal of attention to someone ascending a fire escape in broad daylight. And most New Yorkers, if they did see Allie, would shrug and go on their way. It didn’t pay to get involved with strangers climbing fire escapes. Besides, they would conveniently reason, she probably lived or worked in the building and had forgotten her key.

She was careful at each window, but most of the shades were pulled, or the glass looked in on empty offices or apartments being readied for refurbishing.

When she reached the top floor, she found the window to Mayfair’s loft apartment locked.

She removed a shoe, then she looked around and gave the glass pane a tap with its soft heel. Nothing happened. She struck again, harder, and the upper-left corner of the glass fell neatly into the apartment and shattered on the kitchen floor.

Cautiously, she angled her arm in and found the window lock. It didn’t move easily, but she managed to twist it until it wasn’t clasped. She hastily slipped her shoe back on, then she slid open the window and ducked inside.

The glass on the tile floor crunched beneath her feet.

She stood poised to scramble back out the window, but Mayfair’s apartment felt empty. The air was still. Traffic sounds were barely audible. A tension in Allie eased.

All the kitchen appliances were white and new-looking. The table had a glass top and white metal legs. The chairs were white metal with padded gray seats. The walls were white. Faucets and stove hardware gleamed silver. There was not a sign of a dish or a pot or pan or kitchen utensil; everything was in the neat white cabinets. Allie thought the kitchen looked like the kind of place where autopsies were performed.

She left the kitchen and found that the rest of the apartment was one large room with a sleeping area set off by a folding screen. One wall was mirrored floor to ceiling, and modern sculpture rested here and there on glass-topped, sharply angled tables with stainless-steel legs. The wall behind the low-slung, green leather sofa held a vast unframed canvas coated with thick white oil paint except for an olive-drab square near the upper-left corner. Allie doubted if Mayfair was a collector; probably he’d hired a decorator. Probably he’d attempted to seduce her before paying her. If he ever had paid her. The asshole!

Allie moved forward slowly, her jogging shoes sinking into the deep-piled carpet that covered most of the apartment. What did he have beneath the stuff—a water mattress? To her left was a small dining area with a bleached pine table and chairs, a matching hutch, and a grotesque and angular silver chandelier that was itself like a piece of bad sculpture. Some taste, Allie thought; maybe the decorator deserved to get screwed.

A ribbon of sound from the sleeping area made her stop in midstride. She felt a chill and her heart began banging as if trying to break through her ribs.

Music was seeping from behind the folding screen.

She forced herself to move forward, careful not to make the slightest noise. If it weren’t for the deep, sound-muffling carpet, she’d have turned and run from the apartment.

She edged closer, leaned forward, and peered around the screen.

Mayfair’s sleeping area was unoccupied. The round bed was unmade, its floral-print spread lying in a heap on the floor. On a shelf behind it a stereo system was glowing like the control panel of an airliner. A homogenized version of the old Doors hit “Light My Fire” was oozing softly from the speakers. Wadded white underwear and a pair of black socks also lay on the floor. A glass with an amber residue at the bottom was on the nightstand, alongside an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and ashes. A book by Jackie Collins lay open on the bed. Christ! Allie thought.

She remembered seeing a door that must lead to the bathroom, and wondered if Mayfair might be in there.

She went to it and cautiously looked inside. She could see into a blue-tiled shower stall. A large white towel was wadded on the floor near the toilet bowl. She moved in close. A white bar of soap lay near the drain on the floor of the stall, its corners worn smooth; the brand name engraved on its blanched surface reminded Allie of carving on a tombstone.

Apparently Mayfair had simply gone to work and neglected to turn off his stereo. Or maybe he’d left it on to discourage burglars, make them think someone was in the apartment. Allie smiled at that one, as she stood wondering what the stereo might be worth if she took it to a pawnshop down in the Village.

Then it occurred to her that she might attract a lot of attention leaving the building with a stereo system.

She went back to the sleeping area and Mayfair’s dresser. There were a crumpled dollar bill and sixty-five cents in change on top, among a stack of papers that turned out to be nothing but laundry tickets and some charge receipts for clothes and a stay at a motel in New Jersey. An empty condom wrapper with some kind of lubricant on it lay near the dollar bill. Yuk! What a life this scuzzball led. She began searching through the dresser drawers. The top ones contained folded underwear, shirts, and socks. The bottom drawer was filled with an extensive collection of pornography.

Allie opened the huge bleached pine wardrobe to an array of exclusive-label suits and sport coats. Not a place for polyester. A rack on the door held dozens of ties. One side of the wardrobe consisted of narrow drawers, which she examined.

Ah, this was better. The shallow top drawer held Mayfair’s jewelry. An expensive Movado dress watch, three heavy gold chains, and a man’s gold-link bracelet with Mayfair’s initials engraved on it. Three rings, one of them set with a diamond. Some onyx and gold cuff links. An aged and cracked photograph of a young blond woman in a Twenties-style feathered hat; the photo was in a beautiful and obviously expensive silver filigreed frame. Allie studied the woman in the photo and wondered if she was Mayfair’s mother. She felt a stab of guilt, then she had to smile. She was wanted for murder and was feeling uneasy about stealing.

Then she remembered how Mayfair had manipulated her, and she stuffed the jewelry into her pockets. She left the photograph, frame and all, in the drawer, out of deference to the might-be-mom. That made no sense, she realized, but what in her life had made sense lately? What truth hadn’t fallen in fragments?

She walked from the sleeping area and noticed another door on the other side of the apartment. At first she thought it might lead to a hall, but when she opened it she found it was to Mayfair’s home office. More goodies? She stepped inside. The office contained a wide cherrywood desk, a table with a copy machine, and several file cabinets. A large glossy photograph of a nude woman reclining on the hood of a red sports car was framed and hung on the wall. The line of her hip and thigh was exactly the same as the line of the front fender. This one probably wasn’t Mayfair’s mother.

On the desk was a Zenith portable computer, a lap-top job with a backlighted screen and plenty of storage capacity. Allie was familiar with the model and knew what it was worth. She knew also that it folded into a neat and compact carrying case that would attract little attention. She smiled and stepped over to the desk.

She decided to leave Mayfair’s apartment the way she’d entered. In the kitchen, she noticed for the first time a used coffee cup in the sink. On one of the kitchen chairs was a folded New York Post.

Allie felt strangely secure in the apartment, and for a moment considered sitting down at the table and reading the newspaper. An interlude of normalcy.

Then she reminded herself that Mayfair might have a cleaning lady due to arrive. Or for that matter a friend, or Mayfair himself, might walk in the door any second. This would be more than mere embarrassment. After all, she was trespassing. Burglarizing.

And wanted for murder.

She got a block of cheese and an apple from the refrigerator and poked them into her blouse with some of the stolen jewelry.

Carrying the computer case in her right hand, the newspaper tucked beneath her arm, she climbed back out onto the fire escape and made her way down.

On a bench in Washington Square she ate the cheese and apple while she read the paper.

It had been folded out of order on the table in the apartment. When she straightened it out, she found that Sam’s murder was front-page news in the Post because of its sensational nature. “Grisly Sex-Slaying at Midtown Hotel,” shouted the headline. There was an accompanying photograph of police cars and an ambulance in front of the Atherton. The desk clerk at the hotel remembered a blond woman in a blue coat with a white collar, whom he’d seen often with the victim. The woman had hurried from the hotel the afternoon of the murder, and the desk clerk and a bellhop remembered several large red stains on the coat but hadn’t thought much about it. That evening, when the woman returned, spent time upstairs, and then came downstairs and reported that the victim was dead, she hadn’t been wearing the coat, but she still had on bloodstained shoes. There was speculation that she’d returned to the scene of the crime to retrieve something she’d left in the victim’s room, or perhaps to pretend to discover the body and divert suspicion from herself.

From items found in the dead man’s room, authorities soon identified the woman as Allison Jones of 172 West 74th Street. A quiet woman, neighbors said. Kept to herself. Didn’t they all? The ones who exploded into violence?

She’d disappeared after the murder and was now being sought by the police.

The news story didn’t say where the bloodstained blue coat was, but Allie knew. She remembered it draped over a hook in her closet. Where Hedra had put it after killing Sam, then phoning her and watching her leave the Cody Arms. And she’d played into Hedra’s hands by being dumb enough, and upset enough, to leave the bloodstained shoes behind in the apartment before fleeing from the police.

Of course, the news account didn’t mention Hedra. Hedra the elusive, who had moved through Allie’s life like an evil illusion, a trick of the light that had left no trace.

As Allie set the newspaper aside, she was astounded to see Graham’s photograph. She snatched the paper back up, smoothed the fold hard against her thigh, and stared. Graham was sitting in what looked like an untidy office, looking directly into the camera, his lopsided smile so radiant it seemed to jump from the black-and-white photograph in three dimensions. But this couldn’t be Graham Knox! Not the Graham Knox she knew! Because the caption beneath the photo read “Playwright Struck and Killed by Taxi.” This couldn’t connect to her or Graham’s life. There’d been some sort of mixup; why should she even be interested in this?

But she sat forward, hunched over the paper, and read about the other Graham’s death. On the successful opening night of his play, Dance Through Life, he’d been standing outside the theater in a crowd and tragically slipped from the curb and been struck by a taxi that was unable to stop in time on the wet street. There was a quote from a Voice critic, comparing Graham’s work with that of the young Tennessee Williams.

By the time Allie finished reading, it was the Graham she knew. Had known. The one who lived upstairs and who sneaked her free Diet Pepsi’s at Goya’s, the lanky, friendly terrier.

And suddenly Allie realized what Graham’s death meant. Now no one could corroborate her claim that Hedra had shared her apartment. A slab of ice seemed to form in her stomach, and she shivered and wondered if Graham’s death really had been an accident. Was it possible Hedra had murdered him as she had Sam?

Either way, Allie now had no way of proving Hedra had ever existed. Sometimes even she doubted if there’d ever really been a Hedra Carlson.

Allie had tried to learn about Hedra before choosing her as a roommate. Afterward, Hedra must have thoroughly researched Allie, probing for information and answers, learning that she had no surviving family, no one she would have confided in. No one to help her now by at least believing in Hedra’s existence. The only way to prove Hedra existed, Allie knew, was to find her.

But find her how?

Allie hurled the apple core away, frightening half a dozen pigeons into frantic, flapping flight, and stared at the ground between her feet. The grass was worn away by the feet of people who’d sat there; the earth was dry and cracked, half-concealing the curled pull tab from a can of soda or beer. She was aware of people walking past her, nearby, but she didn’t look up.

After a while she remembered something. The man who’d accosted her on the street, mistaking her for Hedra, had mentioned a place called Wild Red’s where, supposedly, they’d seen each other and talked. Perhaps made some kind of sexual covenant.

Leaving the newspaper on the bench, Allie left the park and walked until she found an office building with a public phone and directory.

Wild Red’s was listed, with an address on Waverly Place in the Village.

The Village. Well, she was in the Village already; she wouldn’t have to spend Mayfair’s money on subway fare. And the Village was where she wanted to sell Mayfair’s computer no-questions-asked.

She dug in her pocket for the change she’d stolen from Mayfair’s apartment and shook it so it jingled in her hand. It felt good rattling against her palm.

You never could tell about men. All it had taken was a little breaking and entering, and Mike Mayfair was turning out to be her best friend.

Chapter 30

Allie sold Mayfair’s lap-top computer at a place that repaired and sold used electronic equipment down on Houston Street. A narrow shop with a door below street level and a blue canvas awning that had been torn by wind or malicious hands.

She got only eight hundred dollars for the computer, though she knew that even second hand it was worth twice as much. The smiling old man behind the counter had suspected it was stolen, she was sure. She’d probably confirmed that suspicion by accepting such a low price, but she didn’t care. Within days the computer would probably be sold again for less than the going rate, also to somebody who knew it was stolen, and it would be in no one’s best interest to inform the police.

The police.

After leaving the shop, Allie found a phone booth on the street. It wasn’t a booth really, but it did have a curved Plexiglas shield to deflect traffic noise. She remembered how in the movies the police often reasoned out where a call had come from by the background sounds. Before dialing, she stood for a moment and listened to make sure there were only the usual Manhattan noises: roar of traffic, rush of thousands of soles on concrete, echoing car horns and distant emergency vehicle sirens, millions of hearts and hopes breaking.

She nestled into the booth as close as possible to the phone and fed coins into the slot, then held her cupped hand next to the receiver’s mouthpiece to make sure she could be heard.

Allie was told by a desk sergeant that Detective Kennedy had been on vacation but was due in this afternoon around three o’clock. He asked her who was calling and could anyone else help her. She hung up.

She stood on the sidewalk in bright sunlight, her fists propped on her hips.

With money in her pocket she felt different. She’d regained her status as a human being, at least in the eyes of those who passed her on the street. She was a little ashamed by how much difference a wad of hundred-dollar bills could make in the way she and the world saw each other. Something was wrong here. How must it be to live month after month penniless on the streets, as so many did? The invisible people of the city, the ones most of us didn’t like to see because the vision and what it suggested made us vaguely uncomfortable. But only vaguely; that was the true horror of it. Allie knew she’d never be blind to the dispossessed again; she’d learned how it felt to be without tooth and fang in the jungle.

She bought a pair of dark-tinted sunglasses from a sidewalk vendor. Not much of a disguise, really, though they did change the way she looked, with their uptilted black frames. She thought they gave her a devilish yet somehow sad expression. Wearing the glasses, she walked idly back up to Washington Park.

The benches and open spaces were lined with winos and the drug-wasted, as well as neighborhood people and tourists. A uniformed cop strolled on a course perpendicular to Allie’s but paid no attention to her, nodding to a couple of kids on bikes who veered onto the grass to avoid him. Her blood beat a drum in her ears and she was ready to run if he even glanced her way.

He paused, stretched his arms, and ambled off toward the street, his nightstick, walkie-talkie, and holstered revolver jouncing on his hips and causing him to swing his arms wide, lending him the swagger of cops everywhere.

Watching him, it struck Allie that there was probably no better city in the country in which to be a fugitive. So ponderous and hectic was the press of people, and so infrequent was eye contact, that the likelihood of someone in New York happening to see and recognize anyone accidentally was extremely slim.

But not impossible, she reminded herself.

Near the pigeon-fouled statue of Garibaldi, she stopped and watched a squirrel take a circuitous route up a tree and disappear among the branches. A yellow Frisbee sailed near her, and a Hispanic girl about twelve ran and retrieved it from where it was lodged like yellow fall fruit in some bushes. The squirrel ventured halfway down the tree to see what was going on, switching its tail in anger or alarm.

Allie was tempted to spend hours in the park, but she knew that would accomplish nothing. And it might not be as safe here as she assumed.

Next, she decided, she’d find a place to stay. She smiled. Why not a plush hotel? One of those bordering Central Park? Maybe the Ritz Carlton. Why not a mint on the pillow, and room-service meals? First class made the most sense for those who didn’t intend to pay.

The idea gave her delicious satisfaction, until she realized that without identification or credit cards, she’d have to pay in advance. Plastic was needed to establish reputableness and pave the way for cash. She hadn’t quite regained her full measure of Manhattan humanity.

She rode the subway to 42nd Street. Then she walked around the Times Square area and theater district until she found a hotel that looked seedy enough to be cheap and anonymous, but was still bearable.

The Willmont, on West Forty-eighth, wasn’t the Ritz Carlton. The entrance was an ancient, wood-framed revolving door, just inside of which the doorman, if that’s what he was, dozed in a metal folding chair with a newspaper in his lap. The lobby was small and dim, with dusty potted palms, peeling floor tile, and two old men slumped in threadbare armchairs and gazing speculatively at Allie. She told herself they probably stared at everyone who came in. On the wall near the desk was a vast, time-darkened print of Custer’s Last Stand. Custer stood tall in the middle of the melee, aiming his pistol at an Indian, like a man about to die. Taped beneath the faded gold-leafed frame was less ambitious artwork, a sign declaring the elevators were out of order. Its corners were curled and it looked as if it had been there a long time.

The desk clerk was a girl about twenty with a purple and orange punk hairdo and a nose that appeared to have been broken one more time than it had been set. She told Allie yes, there was a vacancy, and the rate was forty-six dollars a night. Ridiculously cheap by New York standards. Allie registered as Audrey James from Minneapolis and paid in advance for a week. The girl didn’t even ask if she had luggage or needed a bellhop, merely handed her a brass key on a plastic tag and said, “Two-twenty, up at the top of them stairs.”

Allie accepted the key and walked toward a steep flight of stairs covered with moldy blue carpet. The old men were still staring. An equally old black man with a broom and one of those dustpans with a long handle nodded to her and smiled wide and warm as she went past. There was graffiti on the stairwell walls, but it had been crossed out with black paint and was unintelligible except for where the word FUCK had been crudely altered to read BOOK. BOOK YOU. Fooled no one, Allie thought, trudging up the creaking steps.

Was she fooling anyone?

The hall at the top of the stairs was a littered horror, but the room was better than she’d imagined. The walls were pale green and needed paint. The maple furniture was old but in good shape. Might even support her weight. The drapes were a mottled gray to match the carpet. Near the foot of the bed was a TV bolted to a steel shelf that was bolted to the wall. Allie saw only one roach, but a big one, scurrying for darkness on the wall behind the dresser. The room smelled like Pine Sol disinfectant, which was probably better than the alternative odor.

A toilet flushed somewhere and water gurgled in a pipe buried in the wall. A man was yelling, very faintly, possibly from the room next door or directly above, “Get ’em off, get ’em off!” Allie wasn’t sure what he meant and didn’t want to find out. Thanks to the thick walls, he wasn’t making enough noise to disturb her.

She walked to the bathroom and found that it, too, was clean, though the fixtures were old and yellowed porcelain. The tub had claw feet, and a crack in its side that had somehow been repaired and painted over with white enamel so that it resembled a surgery scar. There was a makeshift shower with a plastic curtain. The curtain was green with a white daisy design, and looked old and brittle enough to break at a touch. Green tile ran from the floor halfway to the ceiling; a few of the squares were missing to reveal ancient gray ridges of cement. There was a single small window, open about three inches and caked with layers of paint so that it would remain open about three inches today and tomorrow and far into eternity. A plank of cool air pushed in through the window, but the pine disinfectant smell was even stronger in the bathroom.

Allie locked the door and lay down on the bed, which was soft enough to aggravate any spine problem. She saw that the ceiling was cracked and waterstained. There was another roach up there, not moving and probably dead. She stared hard at it, thought it might have moved slightly, but she couldn’t be positive. Vision itself wavered. The eyes played games with the mind.

She forgot about the roach and laid her plans.

Wearing her sunglasses, she’d go out and get some lunch, then buy some junk food to bring back to the hotel. Then she’d buy some new clothes—jeans, a blouse, a windbreaker, some socks and underwear—and return to her room and treat herself to a long, hot shower. Maybe take a nap, if she could sleep. She didn’t feel completely secure here at the Willmont, and it wasn’t only the police she feared.

This evening she’d phone Kennedy again from a booth, then go to the Village. To Wild Red’s, and see if anybody there remembered Hedra.

Springs twanged as she got up from the bed. She walked into the bathroom and moaned when she looked at herself in the medicine cabinet mirror. Her hair was greasy and plastered close to her head. Her face was pale. Her eyes, haunted and wide, stared back at her like those of a creature that had just sensed it was merely a link in the food chain, wild and cornered and resigned to death.

Hedra had done this to her. Turned her into this.

She washed her face and used her fingertips to do what she could with her hair. A comb and makeup; something else she needed to get while she was out.

After about ten minutes she again studied herself in the mirror. She was satisfied. Her reflection looked older, with eyes still haunted, but it wouldn’t frighten children.

Most children.

Though she was exhausted, sleep was impossible. Allie climbed out of bed at six o’clock that evening and discovered she was hungry. After relieving herself in the bathroom that smelled like the Canadian woods, she unwrapped and ate one of the cheese Danishes she’d bought earlier that day, washing it down with a can of fizzy, warm Pepsi. Later, maybe, she’d take time to eat a more traditional supper.

After dressing in her new jeans and blue sweater, she slipped into her black windbreaker and went downstairs. It buoyed her spirit, wearing new clothes, even if the ensemble’s style had turned out to be Paris-punk.

The two old men in the lobby had been joined by a third. They all stopped talking and stared at her as she walked out to the street. What am I doing? she wondered. Swinging my ass? Sending out vibes? Are they expecting me to return with a man? She didn’t much care if they thought she was an innocent prostitute and not someone wanted for murder.

She walked for a while on Seventh Avenue, lost among the thronging tourists taking advantage of a clear night. Then she used a phone in a Brew Burger at 52nd Street to call Kennedy.

“I’m afraid you’re in some trouble, dear,” he said when she’d identified herself and been put through to him.

Allie was soothed by his gentle, amiable voice. She pictured the bulky detective leaning back in his chair with his big feet propped up on his cluttered desk, a row of cigars protruding from his shirt pocket. She searched for words, then said simply, “I didn’t do it.” That sounded hollow even to her.

“ ‘Course not, dear.”

“It was something done to me. Something I let happen. It won’t be easy to believe; I know that.”

“Ah! I’m listening, though.”

And in a rush of words she told him about Hedra and Sam, and about Graham, and what had actually occurred at the Atherton Hotel.

Kennedy waited until she was finished and said, “Your neighbors at the Cody Arms told us you lived alone. They never saw this Hedra.”

“But that was the idea!” Allie said in exasperation. “Her being there was a violation of the lease. I had to pretend I lived alone.”

“Well, it’s a big and impersonal kind of place, all right, so what you say’s surely possible. Tell me, dear, is there no one who could verify that you had this roommate?”

“No, there isn’t. The only two people who could are dead. That’s why she killed Sam! And maybe she even murdered Graham.”

“So she could impersonate you without interference?”

“Yes. I think she planned to kill me, but then it wasn’t necessary. She just blamed Sam’s murder on me and saved herself the risk and trouble. She thought I’d be arrested and out of her way. I think she’s spent time in a mental hospital. Maybe she’s done it before, killed other women she’s lived with.”

“What makes you think she’s killed other roommates?”

“There are all those newspaper clippings about murders.”

“But didn’t you just tell me you saw only one such clipping, on the back of a recipe?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then you’re not really sure about the others.”

“No. Yes! God, I don’t know. If you’ll look for her we can find out.”

“But why would she want to impersonate you?”

“She didn’t just want to impersonate me—she wanted to be me! Psychiatrists probably have a word for it, like they do everything else. It was as if she didn’t have a personality or an identity of her own, so she needed mine to fill the vacuum. She’s mentally ill. Twisted. Do you understand?”

“I’m trying to, dear. Be patient with me. And you really think she killed this Graham Knox, too?”

“I don’t know. I—” Allie suddenly drew in her breath. “You’re trying to keep me talking so this call can be traced.”

“Don’t be so romantic and excitable, dear. That kind of thing happens mostly in movies and mystery novels.”

“Don’t call me ‘dear’ again!”

“All right, if you don’t like it. What would it be, then—Miss Jones? Allie?”

“You! You’re just a cop, like the rest of them.”

“I’m a cop, dear. I never pretended to be otherwise. You must admit that. Some problems are too big to shoulder alone. I think you should come here so we can talk in person. I promise you—”

Allie slammed down the receiver and walked quickly away from the phone, out of the restaurant onto 52nd Street. The cacophony of nighttime Manhattan rushed over her in a deafening wave, intimidating her. She felt like hurling her troubles to the pavement and running as fast as she could away from them.

But she knew that wouldn’t work.

Across the street several cabs were queued up to collect passengers at the Sheraton Centre Hotel. She waved to one of the drivers, and the cab eased out of the line and waited for her, blocking traffic. Horns blared, but the driver, unconcerned, slung his arm over the seat back and waited for Allie.

She climbed in and gave him the address of Wild Red’s in the Village.

Chapter 31

MUSIC was pulsing from inside, and when she opened the heavy wood door it was deafening. Raw sound tumbled out onto the sidewalk, as if it had weight and substance and might envelope her.

Wild Red’s was long and low-ceilinged, with a polished mahogany bar that ran the length of one wall and disappeared in dimness and a haze of smoke as if into another dimension. The place was decorated in a motorcycle motif, with wall posters of leather-clad riders slouched on sleek mechanical chargers. One of the riders was a smiling young woman, nude except for black leather boots with high heels, and with incredibly tattooed breasts. The front end of what looked like a real motorcycle was mounted on the wall behind the bar, as if it were a moose head. A plaque beneath it read “Harley-Davidson” in flowing chrome letters. Allie stood just inside the door and waited for the pungent smell of marijuana to hit her, but the only scent was a mingling of stale liquor and ordinary tobacco smoke.

The music was blasting from large box speakers mounted at precarious angles high on the walls, aimed sharply downward like weapons for maximum volume. The song was one Allie didn’t recognize, but it featured a strong steel guitar and a driving background beat.

Half a dozen people sat at the bar, two women and four men. One man was wearing a business suit, the other three had on leather jackets and boots. One wore leather pants to go with his outfit, and a long white scarf draped around his neck, as if he were a Kamakazi pilot living it up before his brief flight to oblivion. Maybe that was what it was all about, Allie thought.

The two women seemed to be together. The nearer of them was a hefty redhead and had on a tan windbreaker and jeans. Her thighs were so thick and muscular they visibly strained the jeans’ stitches. On her jacket was a gold pin, a miniature set of handcuffs. Her companion was a petite brunette with squared bangs and a face like a leprechaun, wearing a studded Levi’s jacket and baggy camouflaged fatigue pants. The pants were tucked into what appeared to be highly polished army boots. She looked like a tough orphan who’d been drafted by mistake.

There were a couple of people slouched at tables along the wall opposite the bar, mostly dressed in leather. They were drinking and talking softly. A man wearing what looked like a World War I flying suit, complete with leather helmet and dangling goggles, was dancing swing with a woman in a tight blue jumpsuit with BEYOND BITCH lettered on the back. The impact of their boots on the hard plank floor could be heard as an echoing beat under the music. Whatever the uniform at Wild Red’s, boots seemed to be in fashion.

Without moving their bodies a millimeter, the three men at the bar turned their heads and stared at Allie. She ignored them and walked over to the bar and sat perched on the end stool, near the door. There was an empty glass in front of the stool next to hers, and a wadded white paper napkin with lipstick on it. A similar red-smeared napkin lay on the floor.

The bartender was a wiry young guy with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard. Moving lightly, as if he had much more energy than weight, he came over and said, “Yes, ma’am?”

Allie told him she wanted a Scotch and water on the rocks.

When he brought the drink, he said, “Been a while.”

“From when?” Allie asked.

He looked puzzled. Then he put on a smiling but vacuous expression. Instant department-store mannequin. “Sorry. Thought you were somebody else. A regular.”

“Who would that be?”

“Well, I couldn’t really say. You know how it is, something struck a note in my mind.”

Allie said, “Has Allie Jones been in lately?”

The bartender smiled. “I don’t know many customers by name. What’s she look like?”

“Something like me, they say.”

He grinned, genuinely this time, crinkling the flesh around his eyes and making him look handsomer but ten years older. “Which explains why you looked familiar, I guess. Now I think I know the woman you got in mind. Not that you look a lot like her in the face; it’s more the way you carry yourself or something. Just … something, but strong. Your gestures and all. But like I said, it’s been a while, even if we’re talking about the same person.”

“Know anybody who could tell me where to find her?”

“Don’t know anybody who would, even if they could. This isn’t the kind of place that acts as a referral service, you know?”

“Sure.” Allie sipped her Scotch. It was surprisingly potent, or maybe she was lightheaded from all that had happened to her. The bartender wandered off to see if anyone needed a fresh drink. Glad to get away from her, she thought.

She sat there awhile, watching, waiting. The other drinkers were studiously ignoring her, she was sure. They had the instincts of herd animals. There was something about her not setting quite right with them, throwing the night slightly out of sync. Danger at the waterhole.

The blaring music stopped and a softer, slower song came over the speakers, a number by Sade with a hypnotic Latin rhythm. The two guys in leather swiveled down off their stools and started to dance. They were good. What they were doing looked like a slow, grinding cha-cha in perfect time to the syncopated beat. The gamine brunette in the fatigue pants and studded jacket stared openly at Allie, grinned, and stuck out her tongue and wriggled it. The guy in the business suit said, “Stop that, Laverne.” Laverne said, “Fuck you, Cal!” but not as if she were mad. They were friends, Laverne and Cal.

Allie got up and carried her drink over to where Cal sat with his elbows propped on the bar. He was slightly overweight, in his forties, and had very blond unruly hair and a pleasant moon face. Like a grown-up Huck Finn, Allie thought. Though it was unlikely Twain had ever imagined Huck frequenting a leather bar. Where was Becky Thatcher?

Settling onto the stool next to him, Allie said, “I’m looking for Allie Jones. Know her?”

Cal smiled. A beautific smile despite crooked teeth. “Not as I can recall. Wanna dance?”

“No, thanks. You ever heard the name before?”

“Allie Jones? Yeah, I think so, but I couldn’t be sure where. Hey, whoa! Aren’t the police looking for an Allison Jones?” Tumblers in his mind had obviously clicked into place. Without waiting for her to answer, he said, “Yeah …” Looked apprehensive. Then his open, pale features went as blank as if a lamp inside him had been switched off.

At first Allie was afraid her photo might have been in the papers or on TV and he’d recognized her. For a crazy instant she considered running for the door.

Then she realized he probably thought she was an undercover cop, searching for … herself. Well, that would make a kind of sense from his point of view.

She thought, the best defense … Said, “Still like to dance?”

“Uh-uh. Sorry, gotta go.” He turned away from her and dropped a folded five-dollar bill on the bar, then got down off his stool and walked outside, moving fast but trying not to hurry.

The two leather freaks on the dance floor had been snorting something from a white handkerchief while they swiveled their hips to the beat. Probably butyl nitrate. One of them had been watching what went on at the bar. He blew his nose in the handkerchief and stuffed it in one of his jacket’s many pockets. Innocent guy with a cold, that’s all he was. Sure.

Allie decided hanging around Wild Red’s any longer was useless. She paid for her drink and got down off her stool.

As she was walking past the two women at the bar, the redhead in the tan windbreaker said, “C’mon back sometime when you’re not lookin’ for that dumb cunt Allie. You don’t really wanna find her anyways; girl’s sicker’n sick.”

Laverne said, “Speakin’ of dumb cunts, shut the one under your nose.”

The redheaded woman smiled and shrugged. Allie nodded to her and went outside, wondering if the stares she felt would leave holes in the back of her jacket.

She was glad to be on the sidewalk. Breathing fresh night air.

She’d taken only a few steps when a man’s voice said, “Hey, Allie, you in the deepest shit, girl!”

She turned and was facing a husky black man with a full beard and a dangling gold earring. He’d been hurrying toward her, but now he stopped in midstride. A surprised, suspicious look washed over his blunt features. He frowned, calculating. There was something wrong with his face, a puckered scar beneath his left eye, almost like another, squinting eye.

He said, “Sorry, Miss, had you wrong,” and turned to walk across the street.

“Wait a minute!” Allie said, starting after him.

He shook his head without looking back. “Ain’t got a minute.”

He obviously knew Allie was wanted for murder, and thought it more than coincidence that a woman who so much resembled her—Hedra—had emerged from Wild Red’s. He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t know her and didn’t want her to link him in any way to the Allie Jones he did know.

“Dammit! Need to talk!” Allie called, as he picked up too much speed for walking and started to jog.

She began chasing him, and he glanced back and broke into a flat-out run, crossing Waverly diagonally. He’d decided she was trouble he could outdistance.

He was bigger, faster. But Allie was desperate. Damn him! She lengthened her stride, feeling the strain in her thighs. Tried to breathe evenly through her nose, the way she’d been taught in gym class in high school, so she could regulate the flow of oxygen to her lungs and wouldn’t get winded too soon.

The man ahead of her could run; he had an easy, athletic stride despite his bulk. His arms swung loosely and rhythmically and his shoulder muscles rippled beneath his tight brown jacket. He gave the impression he had strength in reserve.

He cut around a comer, using some of that strength to run faster. Allie tripped over a raised section of sidewalk and almost fell. She stumbled forward half a dozen lurching steps before regaining her balance.

By the time she’d rounded the corner, he was well ahead of her. Pulling away. She was sure she was going to lose him.

But at the next corner a cluster of pedestrians waiting to cross the street slowed him down.

He glanced over his shoulder, saw Allie gaining ground, and elbowed people aside. Tires screeched and a horn blared at him as he interrupted the flow of traffic.

By the time she reached the intersection, the light had instructed the waiting throng to walk. She crossed the street at a run, bouncing off a heavyset woman who cursed at her. A female voice said, “Rude bitch!” Somebody laughed. Allie didn’t apologize or break stride, only ran faster.

She’d lost sight of the man, but she held her speed for the next block. Ahead she glimpsed a dark figure swinging around an iron railing and diving down the steps of what appeared to be the entrance to a basement apartment. Like a hunted animal going to ground.

Allie sucked in a harsh, rasping breath that seared her lungs and ran hard for the iron railing. A throbbing ache flared in her right side, threatening to buckle her body and make her slow to a bent-over walk. Keep running! Push!

She swung around the corner rail, as she’d seen her quarry do, cutting her hand on a sharp spur of wrought iron. She lunged down two of the concrete steps and then stopped, gasping for air.

A Hispanic boy about fourteen was standing hunched in the shadowy corner of the entranceway. He had his narrow back to her, but his head was twisted around so he could see her, the glow from the street catching his smooth features. Allie could hear the spattering of his urine on concrete; she breathed in the ammonia stench of it. He continued to gaze insolently over his shoulder, light from above causing the white of one eye to glitter. “What the fuck you want, lady?”

She didn’t answer.

He turned his body toward her and stood with his feet spread wide, zipping up his pants. Grinned.

Allie bolted and ran across the street, then walked back the way she’d come. She looked behind her several times to make sure the boy wasn’t following.

After a few blocks, her breathing evened out and the pain in her side faded away. But her thighs still ached and her knees felt weak. She walked slowly, trying to collect her thoughts.

At least she’d met people who’d seen Hedra pretending to be her. Hedra using her name and clothes and mannerisms. Not the sort of people who’d talk to the police, though, even if they might be believed. Even if the police could locate most of them.

But what did it all actually prove? The police would think it had been Allie herself who’d frequented Wild Red’s, dressed and made up for picking up men, then, in less extreme clothes and makeup tonight, she hadn’t been recognized. Certainly that’s what a prosecutor would maintain in court.

And it sounded plausible, she had to admit. More plausible than her story.

Again, Allie found herself wondering if Hedra really existed.

Chapter 32

THE next morning, in her room at the Willmont, Allie counted her money. She still had enough to meet her needs for a while, but even living as she was, Manhattan proved expensive. It was a city where money talked, growled, and laughed, and would step over you for dead. Even the air was expensive; a doctor would tell you that. Trading the computer for cash had been no problem; deal enough with computers and computer people, and you learn where hard and software might be bought and sold cheap and without questions. But stolen jewelry was another matter. She had no idea where to exchange it for cash.

From the brown envelope she’d stuck behind the bottom dresser drawer, she got out one of Mayfair’s gold chains, a thick, eighteen-inch one lettered 14 KARATE on the clasp. There was also an M engraved there; Allie assumed that was merchandise or manufacturing coding and not Mayfair’s monogram. And even if it was a monogram, so what? Plenty of people whose last names began with M. She hefted the tangled chain in her hand, closing her eyes as if that would heighten her sensitivity. It was surprisingly heavy and should be worth more than the others.

She returned the envelope to its hiding place behind the drawer. Then she slipped into her jacket, dropped the chain in a pocket, and left the hotel. Eyes in the lobby followed her, as if the chain were visible and everyone knew it wasn’t hers. She almost laughed. A murderer worried about being branded a thief.

Selling the gold chain was easier than she’d imagined. She’d walked down Forty-seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth, the diamond district. Here, during the day, millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in all kinds of settings were displayed like mere baubles.

Halfway down the block, Allie had gone into a small shopping arcade lined with tiny shops, chosen the smallest, and told the man behind the counter she wanted to sell her husband’s gold chain. He was a tiny man with a black beard and had a skullcap perched on the back of his head like a dark bald spot. He studied Allie for a few seconds, then examined the chain briefly with the jeweler’s loop that was dangling from a red string around his neck. He held the chain up to the light, then let it coil gently down into the small metal cradle of a scale.

In a thick Yiddish accent he said, “I can give you five hundred dollars, no more.”

Allie didn’t want to seem eager. “Can’t you make it seven hundred?”

The man shrugged. “So I’ll make it five-fifty. And I mean no more. Really. Final. Finis. Check the price of gold, figure my profit margin, you’ll see that’s more than fair.”

“Cash?”

The man played the chain like liquid through his fingers, thinking about that. Though he was small, he had long, elegant fingers. “Sure, cash,” he said. He handed the chain back to Allie, said, “Wait here,” and disappeared beyond a thick hanging curtain that soaked up light like velvet.

He came back a few minutes later with eleven fifty-dollar bills. No receipt was offered or requested. There was no paperwork. This was a simple transaction between buyer and seller, what had made the world work for centuries.

“If you’re in possession of any other such items, bring them in,” he said, smiling. He’d chosen his words carefully, hadn’t said “If you own” or “If you have.” “If you’re in possession of,” was what he’d told her. As if it didn’t matter whether she was the legal owner. She wondered if anyone in the world was actually honest.

Allie smiled back, nodded, and left the shop.

Sunday morning she heard about a theft in the Willmont; an old man’s cash from his Social Security check had been stolen when he was out of his room. She wondered if she should keep the rest of Mayfair’s jewelry where it was hidden behind the drawer.

She decided the smart thing would be to sell all of it as soon as possible where she’d sold the gold chain, then keep the money with her.

She was there a few minutes after the shop opened Monday morning. The same man, wearing his yarmulke skullcap, was behind the counter, methodically setting out velvet-lined display cases glittering with diamonds.

Allie smiled at him. “Remember me?”

He tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. “Ah, sure, the gold chain. l trust you spent the money well.”

“I did, but I could use more to spend just as well. I brought some other jewelry. Will you look at it? Make an offer?”

“Of course. That’s my business. Just let me finish setting out these displays.”

While Allie waited, he made several more trips to the room behind the curtain and emerged with diamond jewelry on display trays.

He held up a long forefinger, as if to say “One more” and spent several minutes behind the curtain.

Allie thought he might have forgotten her, but finally he emerged with another black velvet case and placed it in the display window. He stepped back and brushed his hands together briskly, as if slapping dust from them after hard physical work. Maybe he’d been doing heavy construction behind the curtain.

“Now,” he said, smiling, “let’s have a look at what you’ve brought me.”

Allie scooped the jewelry from her windbreaker pocket and laid it on the glass-topped counter. All of it. More gold chains, the rings, gold-link bracelet, wrist-watch. All tangled together from being jostled in her pocket as she walked.

“Ah,” the jewelry merchant said. He studied the rings and set them aside, then he sorted through the twists and kinks of the remaining intertwined jewelry. “Interesting. The watch runs?”

“My husband says it keeps perfect time.”

“Of course. Or you wouldn’t be selling it.” He slowly and carefully lifted and examined each piece, then set it gently in the scale’s basket, made notations on a folded sheet of white paper. The last piece, the gold bracelet, he lifted and then placed back on the counter. He said, “I’m sorry, miss.”

Allie was confused. “Sorry? You don’t want to buy?” Then she saw the man’s sad dark gaze focus over her right shoulder.

“I’m sorry, too,” a deep and gentle voice said.

She whirled and was looking at Sergeant Kennedy. A somber but alert uniformed patrolman stood next to him. Two more blue uniforms were just outside the shop’s door. Two more serious, apprehensive faces, peering in through the glass at her like ritual masks. And they really were part of a ritual—the one that had been in her nightmares since the night Sam was killed.

In a rush she realized it must have been the gold chain with Mayfair’s initial that had raised suspicion and drawn them here, probably photographs of her the police had circulated among shops like this. The police worked in ways that mystified civilians. And now they were actually arresting her, thinking she was Hedra. Or did they think Hedra was Allie? Did it really matter anymore? Hedra, Allie … The two personalities were finally and irrevocably linked. Merged. She was ready to accept that she was the weaker and less fortunate of the two components and would soon fade and no longer matter. Like a Siamese twin doomed from the moment of conception. The way Hedra had planned it.

Allie was under arrest for murder. This was how it felt.

But what was she felling? She couldn’t be sure. Was this actually happening? Was it?

She heard the shrill Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! of a siren in the distance, forging through congested traffic. It sounded like an exhilarated beast closing in for the kill. She was having difficulty breathing. Standing. Her legs began an uncontrollable trembling and she feared she might wet herself.

“Just relax now,” Kennedy told her soothingly, smiling. “I’m going to read you your rights, dear.”

Chapter 33

LAWRENCE gathered up the breakfast dishes while Hedra read the Times. She was absently chewing on a piece of toast with strawberry jam on it, smiling.

So the police had arrested Allie. Charged her with murder. The story was no longer front-page news in the Times, but Hedra had been following the case in the papers and on TV and was waiting and watching for this inevitable development. She was sure the coverage in the Post would be more detailed, and probably on the front page, complete with photographs and a rehash of the murder. After breakfast, she’d go out and buy several papers and learn all she could. She used a forefinger to wipe jam from a corner of her mouth and licked the finger.

There was a clanking roar behind her: Lawrence running the garbage disposal. The roar became a growl and then ceased abruptly.

Lawrence said, “Shit! Fucker’s stopped up again.”

Hedra swiveled in her chair and watched while he probed the disposal with a wood-handled ice pick. Stabbing at whatever was caught there as if he were chipping ice. Something in the disposal smelled like rotten eggs; she wished he’d get the thing unclogged as soon as possible. Phew! It was getting stronger.

Lawrence was a twentyish black man with the face of an aesthete and the body of a twelve-year-old boy. He was wearing only his white Jockey shorts, and he looked ridiculous standing there playing plumber.

He bent to reach beneath the sink, punched the red reset button, and the disposal rattled and roared again. He turned on the tap water to wash the mechanism free and beamed at Hedra as if he’d accomplished something important.

She said, “Well, aren’t you some pumpkin?”

He looked unsure about how to take her remark. Instead of answering, he busied himself again with the breakfast dishes, rinsing and scraping them before propping them in the dishwasher. Now and then the knife he was scraping with screeched against the surface of a plate, like a creature in pain.

After a few minutes he glanced over his shoulder and said, “You sure we got enough stash laid in?”

Focusing her attention again on the paper, Hedra said, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Gotta worry. Stuff’s gettin’ impossible to steal at the hospital. Locks, record sheets, sign in, sign out. You wouldn’t believe the shit they make everybody go through so nobody can walk out with a thing. I mean not even a fuckin’ tongue depressor leaves that place.”

“You don’t need it from there anymore,” Hedra reminded him. “Don’t need a bit of it from there.”

“Good fuckin’ thing,” Lawrence said, clinking knives and forks into the dishwasher’s flatware basket.

She’d lived with Lawrence Leacock in his tiny apartment in the days since Sam’s death, seldom going out. She hadn’t even been inside a church since the incident at St. Ambrose’s. She’d waited until after mass and attended confession, not out of guilt but as a plea for understanding. She should have known better. She could still hear the gasp of the priest on the other side of the confessional screen before she’d fled. She was sure he hadn’t gotten a good look at her. She’d been careful about that, even while entering the confessional, perhaps anticipating his reaction.

Lawrence, a kinky lab technician and coke addict she’d let pick her up in a bar up near Harlem, was only too glad to take care of her. After all, she took care of him, and almost every night. A girl had to do what a girl had to do.

Hedra flicked a glance at Lawrence and then continued to read. The Times speculated that, given the nature of the crime, it was possible Allie might plead insanity. That irritated Hedra. She knew Sam’s killer wasn’t insane. Allie’d had to kill him, as well as that obnoxious snooping playwright. Sometimes Fate took control, grabbed people by the short hairs and dragged them, leaving no real choice of direction or destination.

“You want another cup of coffee, Allison?” Lawrence asked.

Hedra shook her head no, not looking at him. You could take only so much of a kitehead like Lawrence. She continued staring at the paper, now only pretending to read it. Thinking.

No, she wasn’t insane. Not anymore. If she’d ever been. They’d never really made up their minds about her anyway. Their own minds that circled like pale vultures so high above hers, so far above suspicion. One of the white-coated fools had even suggested she might be a multiple personality. As if everyone didn’t have more than one side. Hedra had overheard them talking about her overwhelming and formative need to escape reality, as if that, too, were unique. Tell me about it, she thought. Explain how I’m different from the millions of people who use drugs and alcohol regularly to escape from this shitty world for a while. Explain why I shouldn’t want to forget the past, after what my father did to create that kind of past. Night after night in my bed, putting his hands on me again and again. Dream after dream that was real. “She wants desperately to be someone else,” they’d whispered, trying to keep it a secret, but she’d heard it through the walls. “Poor child never really developed a center,” her mother, poor mother, had said, quoting another white coat. “Doesn’t have a sense of self-worth or identity. Wants to be someone else, anyone but who she is. My fault, my fault. Wants to be someone else.”

Not anymore, Hedra thought, spreading strawberry jam on her third piece of toast.

Now I know who I am.

Lawrence had picked up the long-bladed knife he’d used to slice bacon and was placing it in the dishwasher. Hedra thought about asking him to bring it to her, then she changed her mind. She couldn’t imagine why the thought had occurred to her.

Chapter 34

HEDRA had watched and waited, and when the time was right she met a Haller-Davis rental agent at the Cody Arms, a woman named Myra Klinger who was blocky as a soccer player and wore a pin-striped blue business suit complete with a yellow power tie and cuffed pants. Unexpectedly, Myra had a martyred nun’s face with brown, injured eyes.

As she unlocked the door to apartment 3H, she looked oddly at Hedra. Hedra had dyed her hair red and styled it in a graceful backsweep, and with her altered makeup and deliberately added weight she had no fear of being recognized by any of the tenants. And even if she were recognized, it would merely be as someone they’d seen before in the building; they wouldn’t connect her with Allie, whose own presence they’d only vaguely acknowledged. New York anonymity was a curse for some, for others a proper blessing.

Myra said, “Strange, you being named Jones. The woman who lived here last was named Jones.”

Hedra smiled. “Common name. That’s why my parents named me Eilla. Eilla Jones.”

Myra swept open the door and stepped aside so Hedra could enter. It was all one smooth and expectant motion, like someone introducing a celebrity to an audience.

The apartment looked shockingly bare, and the traffic noises from outside seemed louder and more echoing than Hedra remembered. The scatter rugs were of course gone; there wasn’t the slightest clutter in the place, and that changed its character entirely. But it could be furnished almost exactly the way it had been the day Hedra moved in. Standing and staring, Hedra could see it, all the furniture in place, the television playing and a book lying on the sofa, and there was a cup of hot chocolate resting on the fat sofa arm.

Home, she thought. I live here. I’m who I am, so there’s nowhere else I should be, nowhere else I could be.

The air stirred by the opening door had settled back down; the atmosphere in the apartment was hot and close, thick enough for Hedra to feel lying smooth and heavy as the softest velvet on her bare skin.

She knew she was expected to react to the apartment, to say something, so she said, “Spacious, but it could be cozy, too.” She walked down the hall, glanced into the bathroom as if looking at it for the first time. She nodded with approval. Nice touch, that. She peeked into the bedrooms and smiled.

“The place’ll be painted,” Myra assured her.

Hedra faced Myra Klinger and said, “No, I love it exactly the way it is. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“You sure? It can be painted the same colors.”

“I’m sure. And I can pay you three months’ rent in advance. I’m promised a good job here, have been for months and now it’s been confirmed, so money’s no problem.” Hedra told her about a job as a computer programmer. She gave Lawrence’s phone number as the company number, in case Haller-Davis decided to check. She didn’t think they’d bother, with a three-month advance plus a security desposit. And it was such a convincing story; she was so good at manipulating people like Myra Klinger, at sizing them up and then using them. It was, after all, their hearts’ desire.

Myra was thinking hard about the situation.

“To tell you the truth,” Hedra said, “this is the last apartment on the list a rental service company gave me. If I don’t get this one, I’m not sure what’ll happen; I don’t have any more apartments to look at.”

“You could get a new list.”

“The way property is in Manhattan, I doubt if that’d help.”

Myra shook her broad head and frowned. “Yeah, it’s a hell of a world sometimes. Hell of a city, anyway.”

“Sure is.”

“People get trapped in all kinds of ways.”

“Don’t they, though?”

“Even caring, affectionate people whose only real crime is being human.”

“Or different,” Hedra said.

“That, too.”

Hedra locked gazes with Myra until she felt the subtle arc of current she’d expected. “Different people in particular get fucked over in this city, so they’ve gotta stick together, don’t you think?”

Myra’s breasts were rising and falling. “Are you positive you want this apartment, Eilla?”

“I especially want it,” Hedra said. “And I’ll do anything to get it.”

Myra smiled. “Maybe there won’t be any problem. I might recommend you get the apartment.”

“Oh, God! Thanks, Mrs. Klinger!”

Myra looked as if her feelings had been stepped on. She said, “It’s Ms. And remember I said ‘might.’”

“Oh, sure. Sorry. There’s one thing more, Ms. Klinger.”

“It can be Myra.”

Hedra grinned. She just bet it could be “Myra.” “Fine. What I mean is, is there a storage area in the basement?”

“Why, yes, there is.”

“Would it be okay if I took a look at it? I’ve got some stuff to store—boxes of books and a bicycle.”

“I don’t see why you can’t have a look,” Myra said.

Hedra rode to the basement with Myra in the service elevator. It was the sub-basement, actually, as the basement itself had long ago been converted to apartments.

In the time she’d lived at the Cody Arms, Hedra had been to the basement only once. She remembered being surprised by its dim vastness, as she was again now. Though it was warm beneath the octopus tangle of heating ducts and with the boilers nearby, there was a cold feel to the basement, as if it were a cave. And in a way, Hedra thought, it was a man-made cave. Far below street level.

The south end of the basement was partitioned into what might be described as stalls. Square, equal areas divided by thick slat fencing that ran from floor to ceiling. There were spaces of about two inches between the slats. Each stall had a section of slats that swung open to provide access. These were the “storage lockers” of the apartments above. The ones that had items stored inside—about a third of them—were equipped with heavy padlocks. There was a number stenciled on each locker, corresponding with an apartment number.

Myra knew her way around down here. She reached up with a stocky arm and yanked a pull cord, and a low-wattage bare bulb winked on and lessened the dimness in a limited area. She gripped Hedra’s elbow tenderly and led the way down the corridor between rows of storage lockers, reaching up two more times to work a pull cord and shed light as they walked. From somewhere in the basement came a steady electrical buzzing, perhaps a transformer. The sound faded behind them.

Allie’s locker was about halfway down the row. It was empty. Hedra was disappointed. She’d thought maybe some of Allie’s things might still be down here, overlooked when Allie’s possessions had been moved out. Directly across from Allie’s storage space was the locker for 4H, Graham Knox’s apartment. Hedra saw that it still contained what was left of Graham’s possessions. In the shadows she could make out a dented file cabinet, and on top of it an old typewriter gathering dust. Probably the junk was tied up in probate court, Hedra thought, or maybe simply waiting to be hauled away.

“Damn,” Myra said, fumbling with a large ring of keys. “I don’t think I have anything that fits this lock, or I could open the door and you could get a better idea of how much space there is.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Hedra said. She ran a hand across the slats. “I can estimate pretty well from here. What I got’ll fit right in there.”

“I’ll get the key to you later, I promise.”

“You don’t strike me as the type that’d break a promise,” Hedra said. A large roach ventured into the light, then turned and scurried along the base of a storage locker and back into darkness. “Or go back on a bargain.”

“I’m not,” Myra said in a strained voice. She rested a hand on Hedra’s shoulder, near the base of her neck. “Are you?”

“No,” Hedra said, smiling into the brown, agonized eyes. Not unlike Lawrence’s eyes, only older. More resigned.

The two women left the dim basement and went back upstairs to the apartment.

Chapter 35

HEDRA hadn’t said good-bye to Lawrence. Well, he hadn’t known they were parting, so what did it matter? She’d given him some coke that was like none he’d ever snorted or smoked. The ultimate and final high. He lay curled in a corner of the bathroom while she’d methodically removed every trace of herself from his life.

Before leaving she’d looked in on him, and he hadn’t moved. He’d probably never move again under his own power. “Lucky Lawrence,” she’d said softly before walking out. “You got what you wanted.”

Hedra moved into the Cody Arms and began buying furniture. She’d taken the largest bedroom; it had a better view and more closet space.

Her first night back in the apartment she’d sat on the bare floor where the sofa used to be, sipping hot chocolate, watching a mixture of sleet and rain smear the dark window and cause her reflection to waver. She was wearing her dark slacks and favorite yellow blouse, her brown sandals that were slightly too large for her but comfortable. She studied her other self in the flat and undulating window pane and she and her Other exchanged smiles.

Sitting in the dim warmth of the apartment, listening to the splatter of rain dripping from the gutters onto the gargoyle stonework, she felt a contentment she hadn’t known since rare moments as a child. She was in a secret place, a place to hide, and in a way she could carry it with her wherever she went and it gave her an unshakable peace and confidence. It was her most precious possession.

The next morning she took a cab to a beauty salon on lower Broadway and had her hair dyed blond and trimmed in the old Allie fashion. It was also the first day of her diet.

No one in the Cody Arms seemed to pay much attention to her. If the pleasantly plump woman who’d just moved in on the third floor looked remotely familiar, it wasn’t mentioned. At least not to Hedra’s knowledge. And if it was noticed, the fact that she was rumored to be the previous tenant’s sister accounted for any resemblance of clothing or gesture. Hedra and the other tenants played the New York game of studiously avoiding eye contact and stayed out of each other’s lives. Random collisions of fate could cause problems.

When Hedra went out at night, she seldom drifted in the direction of the Village. In a city the size of New York there were countless places to go, countless men cruising for companionship. Looking for someone like Hedra.

Always she introduced herself as Allie Jones. The name had long ago faded from the news and caused no flicker of recognition and required no explanation. Allie Jones, one of the many on the make and available to be made.

At Apple of My Eye, a lounge on East 21st Street, she was picked up by a handsome young stockbroker. The Manhattan single girl’s dream. He’d peered at her through the haze of tobacco smoke and the flashing, multicolored strobe lights and, talking loud to be heard above the music, said his name was Andy. She told him she was Allison but he should call her Allie. First names only. That was the protocol for places like this. They’d stay on a first-name basis while they explored each other and decided how far the relationship might travel.

Andy was tall and angular, with sharp and sensitive features and thick black hair that was parted with geometric precision and seemed never to get mussed. He dressed well, though a little too trendy; shoulders a shade too padded, pleated pants too tight at the cuffs. Narrow black shoes with built-up heels, made more for dancing than walking, added half an inch to his height, though he didn’t need it. He must have bought the shoes for style. Or maybe he was some kind of dance buff. There were plenty of them around. Young Fred Astaires.

That first night at Apple he’d asked Hedra to dance, then guided her through a complex series of steps she didn’t know. But she had no difficulty following his strong lead. She knew he was making them both look good. Fred and Ginger. The man could damn well move.

“You dance great,” he’d told her.

“Hah! Anyway, I enjoy the challenge.”

He raised his left hand, nudged her beneath the shoulder, and guided her into an underarm turn. Ballroom stuff, as if to demonstrate that he had class. That he thought she had class. When she came out of the turn, he was right there to pick up the beat. Maneuvered her toward the edge of the wide dance floor and began a lazy, circling step so they could talk.

He said, “It’s tell-me-about-yourself time, Allie. You from New York?”

“Not originally. From Illinois. But I haven’t been back there in years. Don’t wanna go back ever.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, no solid reason. Just a collection of slightly unpleasant memories, all connected with the Midwest.” She felt a thrust of fury at the base of her mind. “They don’t understand there that the different apple in the barrel isn’t necessarily the rotten one.”

“Hey, I know what you mean. You live in the Village, I’ll bet.”

“Nope. Upper West Side. You?”

“I’m from New Jersey. Teaneck. Too expensive to live in Manhattan for some of us.” He led her through a neat turn to avoid a couple who’d danced too close, then resumed his rhythmic, hypnotic circling step. “How long you lived in your apartment?”

“‘Bout three years. Did I say I lived in an apartment?”

“I dunno.” He smiled. “Doesn’t everyone in New York live in an apartment?”

“No, sometimes a condo or co-op.”

“Same thing. You go in a door and down a hall before you get to your door.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Bet you have a nice place. Maybe I could see it sometime.”

A quick hint of a smile. “Definitely. Sometime.”

“Where’d you live before Manhattan?”

She moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder. A tingle of alarm played up the nape of her neck, like the very tip of a soft feather drawn over flesh. What was going on here? “How ‘bout you? Where’d you live before New Jersey?”

He told her, but she barely listened. Someplace in Connecticut. Not that it mattered. No way to know if it was the truth. A thousand voices in Hedra were screaming for her to be careful. She’d heard those warnings before and ignored them, and regretted it later. Alcoholics and gamblers must hear those same unheeded voices.

She and Andy danced until closing time and agreed to meet there the next evening. He kissed her lightly on the forehead as they parted. Nothing pushy, but a promise. Subtle foreplay.

And the next evening she went. She couldn’t stay away.

She waited until almost midnight and he didn’t show up.

After turning down her tenth offer of a drink or a dance, she decided to leave. She threaded her way across the crowded dance floor and past a line of people waiting to get into the main room. A short man with a gray beard and a gold-flecked silk jacket turned away from the woman on his arm and winked at Hedra. She said, “Nice coat, but that’s about it, asshole,” and walked past him and out the door.

Zinging the bearded man had given her a great deal of pleasure, but she wasn’t sure why. Maybe she’d made him a substitute for Andy. He was the same sex; that was close enough.

Midnight was too late for a woman alone to ride safely on the subway.

Alone. Not what she’d planned.

It wasn’t unusual to be stood up, she assured herself, as she hailed a cab to take her back to the Cody Arms. That was how it went in the singles scene in Manhattan, a cruel and devious game, each partner playing with the softest part of the other. Hadn’t she always known it?

Still, she’d liked Andy a lot. She’d wanted desperately for the voices to be wrong, for him to be who he said he was.

But was anybody who they said they were? Really?

During the cab ride through the dark and rain-slick streets, snow began to fall.

At the Cody Arms, she paid the driver and climbed out of the taxi, feeling a few cold flakes on the back of her neck as she bent down and slammed the rear door. The cab pulled away and left a swirling turmoil of blue-gray exhaust that held the glow from the street light, then drifted low and disappeared in darkness.

She turned up the collar of her new blue raincoat and hurried across West 74th Street, listening to the clack! clack! clack! of her high heels spiking the pavement. She wanted to be warm. Safe. Home. Soon as possible.

There was no one in the lobby or the elevator. She rode up to the third floor, waited patiently for the elevator to go through its yo-yo act to minimize the step up. As the sliding doors hissed open, she strode out into the hall, already fishing in her purse for her key.

As soon as she closed the apartment door behind her, she felt much better. Calmer. And she realized she was very tired. Being stood up was a strain. The hell with you, Andy, you inconsiderate bastard. She’d have a cup of hot chocolate and then read herself to sleep.

She didn’t notice them at first. Not until she’d hung her coat in the closet by the door and taken three steps into the living room.

Then her breath became a cold vacuum and she stopped and stood still. Mother of God!

What was going on here? Were they real, sitting so calmly and unmoving on her sofa? Staring at her?

Not real, she decided.

Not possibly real.

An illusion.

She dug her fingers into her palms and laughed nervously, startling herself with the high-pitched rasp that exploded from her constricted throat. When she inhaled she found the air thin and dizzying and felt as if she might suffocate.

The large, tweedy man holding the brown package and the dead cigar said, “Nasty out there, isn’t it, dear?” And she knew he was real.

Real, too, was the figure next to him on the sofa.

Sitting in Hedra’s place.

Allie Jones.

Chapter 36

HEDRA knew she was in a trap but had little idea of its tightness or dimensions. She had to feel this one out. Move carefully.

What could they know about her?

Actually know?

That she’d moved into the apartment under false pretenses. That she wasn’t using her real name.

That was all, really; they couldn’t possibly prove she’d lived here before. They knew nothing about her actions during that time.

They can’t prove anything, she told herself. She’d obscured every track and neatly snipped every loose end. Just like in the mystery novels she read so avidly. They can know but they can’t prove. Don’t let them bluff you.

With an immense effort of will, she calmed herself. The fluttering in her stomach slowed and almost ceased. She managed to stare at Allie questioningly. Who are you? She said, “Whoever you people are, I think you have the wrong apartment. You damn well better have a believable explanation.”

Allie parted her lips to say something, then she decided against it and remained silent. There she sat in the streaming lamplight, staring at Hedra accusingly and as if she couldn’t quite understand her. But it was Hedra who didn’t understand. What was Allie doing here? Why wasn’t she behind bars awaiting trial?

The big man absently holding the snubbed-out cigar uncrossed his weighty legs, then extended them and crossed them again at the ankles. I’m not going anywhere, his actions told her. He was wearing huge wing-tip shoes, scuffed as if he’d been kicking rocks. Sighing like an asthmatic, he reached into a suitcoat pocket and dragged out a small leather case and flipped it open. He made a show of extending it toward her. “I’m Detective Sergeant Will Kennedy,” he said, “N.Y.P.D. This is Miss Allison Jones. She used to live here, in this apartment.”

Hedra didn’t bother examining the identification, as if she were uninterested. She wished Allie would stop staring at her and say something. Wished the bitch would stop regarding her with that mixture of cold anger and puzzlement. And something else: pity. Hedra said, “I read in the papers Allison Jones was in jail.”

Sergeant Kennedy smiled with a strange sadness. “And so she was. Miss Jones here persisted in telling us an interesting story. One nobody believed.”

“Was it one she could prove?” Hedra asked.

Kennedy ignored the question. He sighed again. “She said a woman named Hedra Carlson had been her secret roommate and had … well, gradually taken over her life in a very real sense.”

“Taken over her life? What’s that mean?”

“Become her, you might say.”

The acrid smell of his dead cigar drifted to Hedra and nauseated her. “Well, I’m Hedra Carlson, but I just moved into this apartment a few weeks ago. I never saw it till the rental agent opened the door.”

“But you’re using the name Eilla Jones. We wouldn’t have noticed that on the computer printouts, except for the address. That made it kinda jump off the page at us. It was Miss Jones here who convinced us to get computer printouts on all rental units in Manhattan occupied since the date of her friend’s murder.” Kennedy shook his head in wonder. “All that kinda information’s available these days almost at the press of a button. Amazing, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know anything about her friend’s murder, but I admit I used guile to get this apartment. Of that I plead guilty, Sergeant, but I’m not sorry. You have any idea how difficult it is to get an apartment in New York?”

“Everything’s difficult in New York,” he said, as if commiserating with her.

“I’d read about this woman in the papers”—a glance at Allie—“just after she killed that poor man in the hotel. One of the news items mentioned her address. The Upper West Side was exactly the area I wanted. I knew that, unless she was tried and acquitted in record time, her apartment would be available as soon as her rent wasn’t paid, so I kept an eye on the place and was first to apply. I was prepared to wait. Justice seldom moves swiftly, does it, Sergeant?”

“No, but it moves.”

For an instant he reminded Hedra of Justice itself, a force as inexorable as the swing of planets. She reassured herself he was nothing more than a very human, overweight cop. Nothing for her to fear if only she kept her head. Did he know how she’d convinced Myra Klinger to accept her for the apartment? Aging, ugly Myra, so grateful for someone like Hedra. “I did what was necessary in order to get the lease, Sergeant. I took advantage of Allison Jones’s predicament. That kind of thing’s done all the time to get an apartment in this city. One person’s misfortune is another’s good luck.” She stood very straight. “I’m not ashamed.”

He studied his snubbed-out cigar intently, as if at any second it might be the beneficiary of spontaneous combustion. “No, I expect you’re not.”

“I’ve never before laid eyes on Allison Jones.”

“Well, I can’t agree with that,” he said in a level, amiable tone, as if he were differing with her about the Mets’ chances to make the playoffs. “She’s here to positively identify you, which she’s done. And she says you and she lived here together for several months. That little by little you stole her life, her lover, her identity. That only two other people knew about you. One was murdered. The other died, maybe in an accident, though I suspect not. And you disappeared, leaving behind a mutilated corpse and a murder charge that appeared to belong to her.”

Hedra didn’t bother feigning surprise. “And now I’ve come back here?”

“You thought the real Allie Jones was in prison, possibly for life. No murder had been committed in the apartment. No one suspected a woman fitting your general description ever lived here. So it figured you’d return. There was no reason for you not to, this time. You’d almost have to, wouldn’t you, if you were Allie Jones?”

“This time’?”

“You’ve assumed other identities, other personalities, before Allie Jones.”

“But I told you, I only did what was needed to get the apartment. I never told anyone I was Allie Jones. I’m not Allie Jones.”

He rolled the cigar between his fingers. “Aren’t you?”

It was time for positions to be made clear. Hedra said, “This is all very serious. For you, if you can’t prove any of it. Which you can’t, because it isn’t true. If this woman says it is, I think you better have her sanity tested. Or maybe she’s sane as they come and she’s cooked up a story to give her the best possible deal in court. And anyone who can corroborate it, or prove to you it isn’t true, is conveniently dead. Doesn’t that make sense? If she’s under indictment for murder, what’s she got to lose?”

“The indictment’s been dropped,” Kennedy said. “Her story’s been corroborated.”

Hedra felt her heartbeat quicken, the blood pulse in her temples. She should have anticipated this. Don’t let them bluff you. “You said the only two people who could corroborate it were dead.”

“And they are.” Kennedy leisurely unwrapped the plain brown package he was holding. Peeled away the thick paper with maddening slowness, crinkling it noisily. He had fingers the size of sausages, with blunt, tobacco-yellowed tips and almost nonexistent nails. Allie sat quietly with her eyes fixed on Hedra. She was even thinner than before. There was a worn resignation in the limpness of her hands resting palms-up in her lap, the slope of her shoulders. But her eyes were bright, almost as if glowing with fever.

Inside the brown wrapping paper was a thin cardboard box that had contained typewriter paper. Kennedy set the crumpled wrapping aside and lifted the lid slowly, as if something alive were inside.

He said, “Miss Jones was convincing enough for me to do what you might call some exploratory police work. A woman was killed and mutilated with a knife six months ago in her apartment on the Lower East Side. Her name was Meredith Hedra Carlson. That prompted us to look a bit further into what Miss Jones had told us. It turns out the Times does have a record of Allison Jones placing a classified ad in their ‘Apartment to Share’ section. So we examined Graham Knox’s possessions and found this.” He nodded toward the box. “It contained notes, an outline, and the first several scenes of what was to be Knox’s next play, based on material he acquired by listening through the ductwork at his vent in the apartment above this one. He titled it SWF Seeks Same. It’s about a Manhattan apartment dweller and her secret roommate.”

He set the box on the sofa arm and shifted his bulk so he could lever himself to stand. “You must be somebody, dear. Who are you?”

Hedra wasn’t aware of making a decision. No more than a trapped animal consciously decides on a final, desperate burst for freedom. An effort of nerve and heart and muscle that allows for thought later, in sweet and silent safety.

She was at the door, flinging it open, hurling herself into the hall.

In the corner of her vision she saw fat Sergeant Kennedy struggling ponderously up out of the sofa, knocking the box and its contents to the floor. Heard him say, “Dammit, come back here! You trying to kill me, too?”

Chapter 37

ALLIE sprang to her feet as she saw Hedra bolt out the door. Not again! Hedra was real! Here! Now! Allie couldn’t bear the thought of her disappearing again. Ceasing to exist.

Kennedy was flailing away, trying to get to his feet; he posed no threat to the swift and panicked Hedra. Allie ran for the open door, banged her hand on the knob as she raced through, and wheeled, almost falling, to dash after Hedra.

As she rounded the final corner in the hall, there was Hedra standing inside the elevator. Her back was pressed to the metal wall and she was watching with strange and dreamy detachment as Allie ran toward her. Fear had rushed her from reality.

When Allie was fifty feet from the elevator, Hedra’s eyes widened in mild alarm.

At twenty feet, the elevator doors began to slide closed. Hedra might have smiled.

Allie dived at the elevator like a ballplayer sliding headfirst into a base. She felt the carpet burning her elbows, her chin, her stomach where her blouse had twisted.

She managed to thrust an arm between the closing doors. Her wrist was clamped by hard steel beneath soft rubber. An animal caught in a spring trap.

She struggled to a kneeling position. Something smashed loudly against the inside of the elevator doors. Hedra kicking at the intrusive wrist and hand. Allie could feel the vibrations of each blow. A bolt of pain shot up her arm as Hedra’s foot mashed the back of her hand. Her wrist felt sprained.

Writhing to a crouch, she’d managed to work her other hand into the crack between the doors and was prying them open. Hedra gripped a finger and bent it back. Pain! Oh, God! Through her agony Allie could hear Hedra’s breath hissing fiercely inside the elevator.

Gradually, then all at once, the doors slid open. Allie flung herself inside.

She grabbed Hedra in a wild, brutal hug, feeling an incredible satisfaction.

Hedra was real, all right. Solid and reeking of terror and in her grasp at last. Hissing, “Let go, Allie. Goddamn you, let me go!”

Allie was aware of Kennedy chugging down the hall, running with a bearlike wobble. The blackened dead cigar jutting from his mouth, his thick legs pumping and his arms swinging wide.

The elevator doors were sliding shut.

He’d never make it.

Would he?

When he was ten feet away the doors met and the elevator lurched into its descent. Pain jolted through the right side of Allie’s head as Hedra sank her teeth into her earlobe, whimpering in the ear like a lover in desperate ecstasy.

Allie tried to push her away and Hedra punched her in the stomach. Allie almost doubled over in pain and heard the breath whoosh out of her. She raised her right foot and stamped down hard on Hedra’s instep. Again! The teeth loosened their grip on her burning ear.

Finding strength where she thought there was none, Allie shoved away the feverish, rigid body pressed against hers. Hedra slammed into the corner. Allie grabbed her hair, her blond hair like Allie’s own, and slammed her head against the wall.

Slammed it again and again until Hedra went limp and slumped to the floor.

Hedra curled her arms over her head for protection, drew up her knees and began to sob.

Allie leaned back against the opposite wall, drained of rage. She stood surprised and awed by the sense of profound pity she felt. This must be what a twin feels when its sibling’s in pain.

The elevator jounced to a stop, and Allie dizzily placed her hands flat against the wall to keep her balance.

Hedra was quiet now. Unmoving.

When the elevator doors opened on the lobby, two plainclothes detectives and two uniformed officers were waiting. In the background hovered the mesmerized pale faces of onlookers, silent, watching intently, their expressions unreadable, their thoughts and fears too deep to reach the surface.

Kennedy appeared, breathing hard and looking angry and concerned. He must have ridden down in the other elevator. He’d lost his cigar, and black ash was peppered over his white shirt front. “You okay?” he asked Allie.

“Okay,” she said, pressing her trembling palm to her ear, aware of a trickle of blood snaking down her arm.

One of the plainclothes detectives, a tall handsome man with neatly parted dark hair, entered the elevator and helped Hedra to her feet.

She glared at him, an accusation of unspeakable betrayal in her eyes. Her lips quivered. Parted. “You’re not Andy. You pretended.”

He gave her a fading, lazy smile as he gripped her elbow and ushered her from the elevator, almost as if escorting her onto a dance floor.

He said, “What’s in a name?”

Epilogue

ALLIE moved out of the Cody Arms the next month. Out of the city. She’d been offered a job in the actuarial department of a large insurance company in Rockport, Illinois. The company’s real-estate division found her an affordable place to live, a small house on an acre of wooded land just outside of town.

It was always quiet there. Her mail was delivered to a rural box on a cedar post at the end of her driveway. Her nearest neighbors, a retired carpenter and his wife, waved to her whenever they saw her in her yard. Cars passed only occasionally.

Her old apartment in the Cody Arms was leased and occupied within days after she’d gone. To a pair of single women who said they were sisters.

About the Author

John Lutz is the prolific author of over 30 novels and 200 short stories. He is perhaps best known for his 1990 novel SWF Seeks Same, which was made into the film Single White Female starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Lutz has also created two popular ongoing detective series. The first, beginning with 1976’s Buyer Beware, follows the detective Alo Nudger and has a comic, quirky tone. A second, more serious sequence of novels beginning with Tropical Heat (1986) follows the adventures of the detective Fred Carver. Lutz has published four collections of short stories, Better Mousetraps (1988), Shadows Everywhere (1994), Until You are Dead (1998) and The Nudger Dilemmas (2001). His short stories have won numerous awards including a Shamus in 1982 and an Edgar in 1985.