The Manhattan Puzzle (17 page)

Isabel was half-hoping he’d come after her, offer to try to get her in. She stood near the door for a moment, looked at her phone. No calls. She went out into the street. Timmy waved at her as she passed the window, as if they were friends. She didn’t wave back.

Asshole.

She decided to walk around the BXH building, to see if she could see anyone else waiting to go to the press conference. It was a long shot, but better than just going back to her hotel.

A seagull swooped in front of her on huge wings. It made a cackling noise as it picked up some scrap, as if warning her off its territory. She crossed the street and walked alongside the old Grand Central Post Office building, heading up towards 45th. The BXH building loomed above her like a presence, something from an old movie with Fred Astaire, set in the thirties when the elite arrived at restaurants in tuxedos, while ordinary people in rags watched from across the street.

A bum was coming towards her. He was wearing what looked like ten coats, all too big for him. He had newspapers wrapped around his feet, or maybe around his shoes. She couldn’t exactly see which.

Instinctively, she moved away from the wall of the bank. He looked harmless, but she’d heard too many warnings every time she came to Manhattan. A bus swayed past. The bum veered towards her. What the hell was he playing at? Spook the lady?

‘Spare a dollar?’

He was still a few paces away. Then he stepped into her path. She saw his eyes. They were bloodshot, purple-rimmed. His hands came up, as if he was going to reach out, grab her.

She sidestepped back towards the bank building. She’d be past him in a second.

His right hand reached out. She could smell sweat and some sour fragrance, urine.

His hand brushed her arm as she lengthened her stride.

She was past him.

He grunted, loudly. She glanced back. He’d fallen down onto his side, and was holding his head.

‘I’m gonna sue you, lady. That was a goddamned assault,’ he shouted. He shook a grubby fist at her.

She kept walking. This was one of those tricks they use to get you to stop. There was a rushing in her veins. Her stride lengthened again as if someone was pushing at her back. His shouts were diminishing far too slowly. Was he going to come after her? A taxi beeped its horn, then slowed as it came towards her. She put her hand up.

‘The Grand Hyatt.’ It was time to get out of here. She could come back later.

She settled back in the seat. The heat in the cab was stifling. Seconds later sweat was prickling out all over her forehead, then down her back. They’d stopped at a traffic lights. She looked back. The bum was still on the ground. He was pointing towards her, as if she was a criminal getting away. That was some act he had.

‘How you doin?’ said the driver.

‘You got some crazies in this city,’ she said.

‘He ain’t nothin’,’ said the driver. ‘Wait’ll you see the mob that’s gonna turn up back there in a couple’a hours. The kooks are gonna be out tonight.’

‘A mob?’

‘Don’t you read the papers, lady?’ He looked at her in the rear-view mirror. His eyes were huge, as if he was forcing them open out of tiredness.

‘Not today.’

‘You know that BXH bank back there, where I picked you up, they got a lot of people’s savings in those vaults, and now they say some commies are gonna come and take it all over. Now that ain’t right. No sir-ee.’

‘There’s gonna be a demonstration?’

‘Yeah, damn right there is. They’re gonna rename BXH, the First Commie Bank of the USA. We ain’t got that in New York yet.’ He waved a hand in front of him.

He kept talking until she got out.

In the hotel she headed for the elevators. She needed a shower. She needed to get clean. She needed to think. After that she could work out what to do next. It didn’t look like she had too many choices. As the elevator doors started to close a British couple stepped in. She could tell where they were from the moment they opened their mouths.

‘Which floor, darling?’

‘Twenty-two,’ he said. He put his arm around the woman, hugged her.

Envy rose fast inside her. She and Sean should have been in that amazing hotel in Paris right now, heading for their room arm in arm, just like these two. She had to look away.

Why hadn’t he contacted her?

She let the water in the shower run over her for ages. The hot water felt good sluicing over her skin. She let it wash away her tiredness. She should go back to the bank, try to get into the press conference, whatever happened. She’d put on her black trousers and her black silk shirt and tie her hair back this time. It was her stand-back-I’m-coming look, Sean used to say.

As she squeezed shampoo on her hair, she heard a faint trill. Was that her phone? She half slipped on the floor of the bathroom, knocking her knee against the door as she scrambled out, naked, wet, looking for it.

It was taking too long to find it.

She was sure the phone would have stopped trilling by the time she picked it up.

But it hadn’t.

‘Hi,’ she said, when she finally got it to her ear.

She held her breath as she waited to hear who was on the other end or if the caller had gone. It might be Sean. The next few seconds were empty of sound, a vacuum dying to be filled.

‘Isabel, hi. I’m Laura Jenkins. My old buddy Frank tells me you need some help.’

Thank God for Frank. Thank God for a friendly voice.

‘Hi, Laura.’

‘Where are you, girl?’

‘I’m at the Hyatt, at Grand Central.’ Cooling water was dripping from her. Shampoo was congealing in her hair. She didn’t care.

‘Wicked, great little hotel. You wanna go to this press conference, yeah?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well, I’m gonna be up there at BXH in five minutes I reckon. And I’m allowed to bring a photographer. So if you can get up there in five, maybe ten, I’ll be in the lobby waiting for ya.’

‘I thought it was starting at seven?’ What was she supposed to do, race out of her room naked?

‘Yeah, me too. But then I got an email saying they’re gonna start early. They wanna try and have it over by seven. So if there is a big demo firing up they’ll miss all the action.’

‘They’re scared of a demonstration?’

‘Yeah, sure. BXH is attracting nut jobs like flies on a dead dog. That’s what happens when there’s a smell, ain’t it? See ya. Gotta go.’

The line went dead.

She was sure there was still shampoo in her hair as the yellow cab dropped her off at BXH. This time there were people in the lobby. Outside the building there were people too, all muffled up, most of them directly across the street from the main entrance on 45th, hanging out, it looked like. Except it was too cold for hanging out. A few of them stared at her as she headed for the entrance to the bank.

Some well-heeled types were queuing at the reception desk. MSM journalists no doubt. How would she recognise Laura?

She needn’t have worried. A tall woman, whose black hair fell in a curtain to the small of her back, came striding towards her. She was wearing tight black trousers and a long black jacket with a Mandarin collar and purple buttons.

‘I knew it was you. Frank told me all about your big hazel eyes.’

She held her hand out. Isabel shook it. Her grip lasted less than a second. Then she passed her a camera bag, as if they’d shook hands just so she’d be able to slip it to her.

‘You do know how to press a shutter button?’ she said.

Isabel nodded.

‘Okay, that’s the induction training over. Let’s get up there. I wouldn’t want the dicks from the
Wall Street Journal
to get all the best seats.’ She nodded towards the four corporate types in pinstripe suits, both the men and the women, who’d already passed security and were waiting at the elevators.

As the guards viewed Laura’s press pass and invitation, they only glanced at Isabel. There wasn’t even a flicker of recognition that they’d seen her earlier. They ticked twice on a list, then let them through. It felt as if she was crashing an upmarket private party. Was that it? Was she in? It certainly looked like it. And it felt good.

She was going to surprise Sean’s ass. Maybe she’d blow him a kiss. Maybe she’d throw a goddamned shoe at him.

They went up alone in the elevator, an elegant pink marble box with a silver handrail, heading up to the fiftieth floor. She’d thought that they’d have time to talk for a few minutes before going into the press conference. But everything was moving very fast.

‘What do you think of the merger?’ she asked, leaning towards Laura.

Laura put a finger to her lips, shook her head violently, as if Isabel had offered to moon the security men.

The lobby on the fiftieth floor was like the one downstairs, only smaller. It too had a black reception desk, torch style lights and a pink marble floor.

In front of glossy black doors on the far side of the lobby a couple of tables with badges on them had been set up. In front of the tables there was a short queue, consisting of the
Wall Street Journal
people they’d seen downstairs and a few others who must have come up before them.

There were two security guards behind the table and a rope cutting off access to a set of doors. One of the guards was a slim black guy. The other one was a big white guy with a shiny bald head. The black guy was tapping at a handheld device, slowly and deliberately, as everyone waited in front of him.

Laura held her arm as they joined the queue.

‘Your husband’s disappeared. That’s so bad,’ she whispered.

‘He’s probably going to be here. That’s why I want to get in.’

‘You do know over a million people are reported missing in America every year?’ She peered at Isabel as if she was a slow student, and she was her teacher.

Isabel shook her head. ‘A million people?’

‘Yeah, most of the ones who don’t come home after twenty-four hours have psychiatric problems or addiction problems or both. That covers ninety-five per cent of everyone who’s still missing after the first day. Amazing, huh?’ She looked at Isabel with a condescending expression.

‘Sean doesn’t have psychiatric or addiction problems.’ Isabel shook her head. ‘But maybe he will have after I talk to him.’

Laura looked her up and down, as if appraising her for a date for a friend.

‘Were you two getting on, you know what I mean?’

Isabel nodded, but not too vigorously. She was asking the right questions. To get a high heel stabbed into her toe.

Laura put her mouth close to Isabel’s ear. ‘I’ll do the talking when we get up to the front.’

The people ahead of them had moved on.

They were at the table.

‘Name?’

‘Laura Jenkins from the
State Street Times
.’ Laura pointed to her. ‘This is my photographer.’

The guard looked at Isabel as if she might be a terrorist Laura was trying to smuggle in.

‘I gotta check the photographer.’ He tapped at his screen. ‘We ain’t got her ID on our system.’

‘You got ID on you?’ he said to Isabel.

She gave him her passport. He looked at it, raised his eyebrows, perhaps because it was British, but said nothing. He tapped at his screen again. Then he held the passport open in front of his device for a few seconds before giving it back to her.

He started tapping again.

Isabel’s temples were throbbing. A sinking sensation was pulling at her. She was imagining she was going to be sent back down. And she’d come so close. She looked around.

Maybe Sean was here. One of the corporate types behind them, a brown haired six-foot athletic guy smiled at her.

She turned away, pulled her jacket zip up. She looked at the guard holding the hand-sized screen.

‘You can go ahead, ma’am,’ he said to her.

Laura tugged at her arm. ‘Let’s go.’

She stared at the guard, suddenly remembering something. ‘Where are the rest rooms?’

He pointed at the opposite corner of the hall. Then his gaze moved to the people behind them.

‘Jeez, you’d think this was Fort Knox we were trying to get into,’ said Laura, as they walked away.

‘I gotta go. I’ll find you in there.’ Isabel nodded towards the doors the other people had gone through.

‘You okay?’ A look of concern flitted across Laura’s face.

‘Sure. No problem. See you in there.’

The toilets were almost all marble too. Even the taps were marble. And there were chunky iron radiators painted pink along one wall. The air in the room was stifling hot. She needed to think.

She went into one of the cubicles. Everything was building up inside her, tiredness, anxiety and the anger that had driven her here from London.

She massaged her forehead slowly in small circles. She thought about what she should say to him if she did see him. Could she accept this kind of shit from him, from anyone?

And if Sean didn’t show, maybe she should get the high and mighty Mr Vaughann to answer a few questions, tell her what had happened on Thursday night, and exactly where Sean was when he’d last seen him. She held her breath. The throbbing in her forehead was easing.

She heard the door to the lobby swing, the tap-tap-tap of high heels on the marble floor.

The tapping stopped. Then it started again.

Someone was pacing up and down. She heard a voice.

‘Are you sure the National Guard’s outside?’

It sounded like Mrs Vaughann’s voice.

She heard the door to the lobby creaking. She opened her cubicle door just in time to see a straight back, a snow-blonde head of hair and a pair of pink high heels, Manolos they looked like, exiting the toilet.

It was Mrs Vaughann.

What was she doing here?

The leather sofa in Lord Bidoner’s apartment extended all the way along the back wall of the main room. It was deep enough and long enough that a couple could sleep there, easily.

Xena was stretched out on it, naked, except for a belt made of brass rings positioned high on her hips. She stretched her long, thin arms out, as if their recent exertions had pleased her.

She looked sated, though Lord Bidoner knew that that was probably an act. He turned his back on her as he did up his shirt buttons and stared out at the flurries of snow smashing against the glass windows. The slight swaying of the building told him the snowstorm was intensifying outside. It had turned north, but with luck their guest would touch down before it reached La Guardia.