The October List (22 page)

Perhaps it would be,
probably
would, since the restaurant was in the heart of Wall Street and it was Friday. And the place overlooked picturesque New York Harbor, offering a view of boats and endless waves, rising and falling like a metronome. This was just the spot for traders and brokers, who’d toyed with millions of other people’s dollars in the last eight hours, to celebrate their good decisions, to forget the bad.

But now, late afternoon, the bar was half empty. Those business folks who’d arrive later were still at their desks or writing up tickets on the floors of the closed exchanges or at health clubs and on jogs through Battery Park.

Here particularly, near the water, you could smell autumn in the air.

Gabriela wove through the brass- and oak-accented room, returning from the toilet and sat in the high chair at the bar, which she’d occupied for the past half hour. She slipped her black-and-white-checked jacket off, hung it over the back of the stool. A white silk blouse was tucked primly into a knee-length pleated gray skirt. She wore black hose and mottled burgundy-and-black high heels; she would change into her black flats – her walking-to-work shoes – later; that comfy pair were on the floor, in the faded Tiffany bag she used for footwear transport.

She resumed editing documents she’d been poring over since she’d arrived. The top one was headed
Open Items for Accountant
. Several entries she crossed through completely. Others she marked with precise asterisks, each line of the sunburst an equal length. Beneath these were a half-dozen sheets headed with the names of companies and below that
Balance Sheet and P & L.
There wasn’t a single sheet that listed assets below $250 million. Another said,
CP Personal Accounts
.

She then turned to another contract, headed
Short-term Commercial Lease.
But there was nothing brief about the contents. Twenty pages of dense type. She sighed and started through it again, pausing once to note herself in the mirror. Her hair was pulled back severely and pinned, which made the auburn shade lighter, for some reason.

She edited the lease some then looked out the tall windows, sipped wine and caught a glimpse of City Pier A. The structure wasn’t as large as other piers farther north, in Greenwich Village and in Midtown, but this one had more history. The Professor had been particularly interested in the sagas of Downtown Manhattan and would spend hours reeling off stories to her. Built in the 1880s for the Department of Docks and the Harbor Police, Pier A had been witness to the relentless expansion of the city. She noted the seven-story clock tower, which had been built in 1919. The elaborate timepiece was a memorial to the U.S. soldiers killed in the First World War. This was particularly poignant, considering that the original pier had been built by the son of a famous Union general in the Civil War.

She could listen to the Professor for hours.

As Gabriela returned to the lease, the man beside her set his drink down and continued to speak into his mobile phone.

Gabriela stiffened and blurted, ‘Oh. Hey.’ When he didn’t respond she spoke more forcefully. ‘Excuse me.’

He finally realized that he was the object of the comment. He turned, frowning.

She was displaying her sleeve, which was stained brown. ‘Look.’

His square handsome face, eerily resembling that of a well-known actor, beneath close-cropped, black hair, studied the sleeve and then her face. His eyes followed hers to his glass of scotch. His brows rose. ‘Oh, hell.’ Into the phone, ‘I’ll call you back, Andrew.’ He disconnected. ‘Did I do that? I’m sorry.’

Gabriela said, ‘When you put your glass down, yeah. Just now. On the phone, you were talking, and you turned. It spilled.’

‘Sorry,’ he repeated. It sounded genuine, not defensive.

His eyes migrated from the stain to her white blouse, all of the blouse, beneath which a trace of bra was visible. It was pale blue. Then his gaze settled back on the stain. ‘Silk?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I know what to do,’ he explained. And took charge, summoning the bartender, a young man who seemed to be covering tats on his neck with makeup; this was a Wall Street, not an East Village, bar.

‘Soda water and a towel, no, not the green one. The white one. The white towel. And salt.’

‘Salt?’

‘Salt.’

The remedies arrived. He didn’t apply the water and seasoning himself but let her do it. She’d heard the trick too – from her mother, as he had from his grandmother, he told her.

‘Careful with the salt,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how well it works on silk. You might hurt the cloth if you rub too hard.’

The magic trick did a pretty good job. Just the faintest discoloration remained.

She examined him with eyes beneath furrowed brows, then: ‘Why don’t you drink Martinis like everybody else here?’

‘I don’t like Martinis. I’d probably have a strawberry Cosmo, and if that was the case, the stain would
never
come out. I’ll pay for the cleaning.’

‘If I were a man would you make that offer?’

‘I don’t make
any
offers to a man wearing a silk blouse.’

She kept a straight face for a moment then laughed. ‘No, thanks. It’d have to go to the laundry anyway.’

‘Well, I apologize again.’

She lifted her palms. ‘Accepted.’

With détente achieved, she returned to the lease and he to his mobile. But when the last page of the document was marked up and when his call disconnected, the silence prodded them to glance toward each other – in the mirror at first – and conversation resumed.

‘I’m sending you back home stinking of whisky. What’s your husband going to say?’

‘He probably won’t find out. Since he lives thirty miles away from me.’

‘Ah, you’re in that club too. I’m Daniel Reardon.’

‘Gabriela McKenzie.’

They shook hands.

Conversation meandered for a bit, both of them testing the waters, and then found true north, which included the question you can never avoid in New York: What do you do for a living?

Daniel worked as a venture capitalist, private equity, he told her. ‘The Norwalk Fund.’ He nodded. ‘We’re a few blocks from here. On Broad.’

Gabriela glanced at the documents. ‘I’m office manager for a financial adviser. Prescott Investments.’

‘Don’t think I know them.’ He glanced down at the documents before her, then away quickly, as if looking at confidential client details was tantamount to glancing through an inadvertently left-open bathroom door.

‘It’s a small outfit. He was with Merrill years ago but opened his own shop. He’s a lot happier.’

‘Your office is near here?’

‘No, Midtown, east. Turtle Bay.’ She sighed. ‘My boss – he’s a great guy – but he dumped this in my lap this morning. He wants to lease a warehouse on Bankers’ Square – near Wall Street – and the deal fell through. I got elected to check out some new space… and go over a forty page lease. We need to sign it up in two weeks.’

‘Two
weeks
?’

‘Yep. And you know Banker’s Square? It took hours even to get inside and look the place over. All that construction.’

‘Oh, the new stock market annex. Supposed to finished by now.’

‘Anyway, I came here to jot some notes and unwind.’

‘And get a drink spilled on you.’

‘It sounded like you were working too, a business call.’ She nodded at the two mobiles that sat in front of him. An iPhone and a Motorola Droid.

‘I was doing a project with a partnership in Aruba. It just closed today. I’ve been banging out the details since nine.’

‘Congratulations. And my sympathies.’

‘Thanks.’ Daniel laughed and sipped the scotch. ‘I went for a swim at my health club and came over here … to unwind.’

She smiled at the echo.

The talk veered slowly from the professional. Personal stats were recited. They both lived in Manhattan. He told her that he had two sons, living with his ex in Nyack.

‘My husband and I have joint custody.’ Gabriela tugged her phone from her Coach purse. She scrolled and displayed a picture. ‘This’s Sarah. She’s six.’

‘Adorable.’

‘She’s into ballet and gymnastics. But she just discovered horses. Oh, does she want a horse.’

‘Where are you in the city?’

‘Upper West. Two bedroom, a thousand square feet. We could probably fit a horse in, but I don’t think they do well in elevators.’

‘And Sarah’s dad?’

She said, ‘No. He’s okay in elevators.’

‘You’re pretty funny.’ Spoken as if Daniel didn’t date women who were.

‘Tim lives on Long Island,’ Gabriela continued. ‘But not in the horse stabling neighborhood.’

Daniel gestured to the bartender, who responded immediately. ‘Another for me. And the same for her.’

‘No, really,’ Gabriela protested.

‘Cheaper than buying you a new Neiman Marcus blouse.’

‘It’s Macy’s. But I didn’t mean no to the drink. I mean no to
what
I’m drinking. I’ll upgrade to the Merry Edwards pinot noir. Since he’s buying.’

Daniel lifted an eyebrow, impressed at her choice.

A moment later the drinks appeared. She wondered what tats the bartender was hiding with the makeup.

Occupy! Down with the One Percent!

Or maybe something simple:
Fuck Capitalism.

She thought about saying this to Daniel but, while he’d probably laugh, she decided not to.

When the new glasses arrived, they tapped and talked about the agony and ecstasy of living in the city. About Ground Zero, which was visible from Limoncello’s. The Trade Towers would forever cast indelible shadows over the city.

Then a dozen subjects arose in easy conversation: restaurants, traveling, parents, politics – the last in a safely glancing fashion, though their views seemed similar.

When they were close to finishing their drinks, Daniel looked at his watch. Didn’t sneak a glance, just lifted the heavy Rolex and noted the time.

She nodded. ‘Dinner plans, sure.’

‘Actually, no. I have a meeting.’ Daniel’s eyes circled, her hair, her face, her eyes. ‘You have to get back to your daughter?’

She sniffed subtext. ‘I’ll pick her up tomorrow. She’s at her father’s tonight.’

‘Don’t know if you’re interested, but that meeting? You have any interest in helping me out?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Actually, I’m meeting an interior designer to pick out upholstery.’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not a good come-on line.’

‘I’m having new leather installed in my speedboat.’

‘That’s a better one.’

He opened the backpack he used for a briefcase and took out a booklet of leather samples. She flipped through the pages, which were organized by color. Her favorites were the rich oranges, the sort she imagined as the color of seats in brash sports cars. The names were words like ‘carrot,’ ‘pumpkin,’ ‘amber,’ ‘tomato.’

But her favorite was called ‘Princeton,’ presumably after the school colors of the New Jersey university. It was the boldest offered by the company.

‘I do have a preference,’ Gabriela said slowly. ‘But how can I say for sure without seeing the boat?’

‘We can fix that.’

CHAPTER
4

1:30 p.m., Friday
3 hours, 30 minutes earlier

The Prius, tinted in Toyota’s wan, innocuous light blue, eased through the winding streets of Bronxville, New York, past mansions nestled in spacious yards of yellowing grass, waning gardens, banks of damp September leaves.

Accustomed to driving his Maserati, Daniel Reardon didn’t much care for the car, though he hadn’t expected power. It was mostly the quiet of the engine he objected to. He’d heard there were some cars that now added sound sexy engine noises through speakers. This was a cheat and he thought it ridiculous. Daniel liked authenticity, for good or bad. The Maserati’s Tubi exhausts, for instance, resonated at a high pitch that could, in the upper gear ranges, threaten to pierce your eardrums.

He loved that.

Faint classical music was on the radio but it dimmed when an incoming call announced itself. Daniel answered and spoke to his client in the awkward language of business that is at the same time vague and precise. Finally, some technical legal and financial decisions made, he offered a pleasant farewell to the man who’d earned The Norwalk Fund close to two hundred thousand dollars last year. He disconnected. The classical music rose once more. Mozart. The clarinet concerto. An odd instrument and very difficult, he knew, to play well. He’d dated a girl once who’d been a cellist in a symphony orchestra. She’d explained that the reeds had taken her the most time to master. ‘You’ve got to negotiate the sound from them.’

Daniel had liked that expression quite a lot, which was why he remembered the sentence, while the image of the girl had all but vanished years ago.

In his gray Canali suit, Daniel was certainly dressed for this area. He seemed like any other businessman returning home early from his White Plains law firm or investment bank.