I couldn’t have agreed more. My first glass-full was already giving me a pleasant buzz. I remembered that on my time-clock it was now about half past two in the morning. I hadn’t yet got anywhere to sleep the night — I didn’t want to go near the Intercontinental apartment and I had been counting on staying with Sumpy.
As interest in the mugging subsided I brought the topic of conversation around to the purpose of my visit here: Sumpy. I was careful to remember to call her by her proper name, Mary-Ellen. Both parents were mystified by her sudden move. They were on good terms; they usually saw her about once a fortnight and spoke on the telephone every few days. They’d been away on holiday themselves for the past month and had only got back last night. Mrs Joffe had rung round all Sumpy’s friends since my call but none of them knew that she had moved, and all were surprised by the fact; not even the famous lunchtime Lynn could throw any light on the mystery.
‘I’m going to call the police,’ said Mrs Joffe. She appeared to have a grossly misinformed opinion of the New York police force’s interests and capabilities.
‘Can you shed any light on it?’ Henry Joffe stared pointedly at me.
‘No, none,’ I lied through my teeth; if I went a shade or two paler and shook a little more, they didn’t notice. ‘She knew I was going to be out of town for a few days and I’d told her I’d call her as soon as I got back.’
‘Did you try Werner?’ asked Mrs Joffe.
‘No good. I spoke to him this afternoon; she’s working on a project for him but he doesn’t expect to hear anything from her for a couple of weeks.’
‘There’s probably a very simple explanation,’ said Henry.
I could have told him how right I feared he was; but I didn’t.
‘What kind of simple explanation is it when a girl sells up her apartment and disappears without telling her parents and her best friends?’ said her mother.
‘When did you last speak to her?’ I asked.
‘Before we went off on holiday. She was fine; she told us she was going out with an Englishman working in computers, I guess that must be you, and that she was having a good time. She sounded very happy. I only hope she didn’t discover some major art forgery and get… you know, it can be a pretty ruthless business.’
‘She’s been in it long enough to know the ropes, I would think.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Joffe emphatically. ‘She hasn’t been in it that long; she never used to be the least bit interested in art.’
That shook me.
‘Not in the least. When she was at school she couldn’t tell an oil painting from a print. She became interested at university.’
‘She went to university?’
‘Sure — didn’t she ever tell you? She got a first at Princeton in sociology.’
‘A first? No, she never told me.’
‘Then she suddenly took a passionate interest in Impressionist paintings; she went to UCLA, studied fine arts and got another first. She joined Sotheby Parke Bernet here in New York, did a year with them, then left to become a freelance valuer.’
‘Been a bright girl,’ interrupted her father. ‘Got me that on the wall.’ He pointed to a small but brilliant Van Gogh. ‘Forty-five bucks. It was framed facing inwards, with an oil of the Hudson river on the back.’
All this information about Sumpy was a shock to me. I knew she was no idiot but if she really was as bright as I had just been informed, and I had no reason to doubt her parents, then she had certainly done a good job of keeping it from me.
We talked on for a while but I gleaned nothing further of relevant interest, and as we talked and the effects of the Scotch sank deeper into my bloodstream I could feel myself becoming increasingly drowsy; words began to drift over my head, and it became a battle for me to concentrate on what was being said.
‘You’re staying here tonight,’ Mrs Joffe suddenly informed me and the words jolted me wide awake.
‘No, it’s all right, thank you — I must be going.’
‘You’re not going anywhere; you’re staying right here tonight. Rosita’s made up the spare bedroom and you’ll get a good night’s sleep; we’ve spare wash things and everything. We’re not having you going out and getting mugged again tonight.’
I didn’t put up much resistance and besides I didn’t have anywhere else to go; I didn’t fancy traipsing around trying to get a hotel room looking the way I did.
Within half an hour I was between soft white sheets in a huge soft bed. I felt warm and comfortable and I fell into a much-needed and deep sleep.
In the morning I was given a massive breakfast and loaned a set of Mr Joffe’s clothes that fitted me quite well. He’d already gone to the office, and I sat and talked to Mrs Joffe. She was extremely worried, but rational, and I felt sorry for her.
‘Mary-Ellen’s a very independent girl,’ she said. ‘It could well be she’s fine and there’s a reason for all this that’s very simple.’
‘It’s very likely,’ I agreed.
She asked where she could get hold of me; I told her I had to go out of town again for a couple of days but I would call her that evening to see if there was any news. I persuaded her that there was no point in going to the police just yet; they wouldn’t be interested: selling an apartment isn’t a crime and a few days’ absence doesn’t constitute a disappearance.
I left Mrs Joffe just before ten, with a busy morning in front of me. My first visit was to a hairdressing salon, where I bought a straw-coloured moustache and a bushy beard to match.
‘You’ll have to have your hair dyed — look terrible otherwise,’ said the hairdresser.
‘It’s all right, thank you, these are for a friend.’
He gave me the peculiar look I no doubt deserved.
My next call was to a drugstore to acquire brown dye and a bottle of peroxide. I hoped the peroxide would bring my dark brown hair down closer to the colour of the beard and moustache; I hadn’t let the hairdresser do it, because I didn’t want any witnesses to the disguise I was planning to adopt. From the drugstore I went and bought a coat, a tweed hat and a pair of silk-lined fabric gloves; silk-lined to keep my hands warm; fabric so that I could use my fingers accurately. I also acquired a pair of sunglasses.
I went to a bank and cashed 2,500 dollars in traveller’s cheques, then I set about looking for a suitably uninspired hotel; it didn’t take long: it was called the Madison Park East. If you ever need somewhere cheap and nasty to stay the night, New York’s the place to go; it does indeed have some of the best, but it specialises in having most of the worst.
The man behind the desk gave the impression that he had been sitting there long before the hotel had been built around him; he sat staring rigidly at a wall, an unlit, half-smoked cigarette gripped between his lips. He didn’t look at me, nor move his torso one inch throughout the entire dialogue we exchanged; not that it was a particularly lengthy dialogue.
‘Do you have a room?’
‘Twenty-five bucks with shower, 30 with bath, 2 bucks a floor.’
‘Two bucks a floor?’
‘Each floor up, 2 bucks more.’
‘Why?’
‘For the view.’
I took the second floor. I looked out onto the second floor of another building across a short alley. I did a quick calculation: the building I was in was only fifteen storeys high; the building across the alley was at least forty; it didn’t take me long to figure out that I hadn’t missed much of a view.
The room was basic and frugal, and the management had laid on a couple of cockroaches on the bathroom floor to greet me. I wasn’t too bothered; I’d paid in advance for a week but I didn’t plan on spending much of that time there.