Ginny shook hands politely with Dan Bloom and the other two men, and then turned around. She stood at the table and put a hand on the back of an empty chair that was positioned directly opposite where I was sitting.
The young man and Van Loon were talking now, and laughing, and although I found it hard not to look at Ginny, I kept glancing over at them. The young man was wearing a hooded zip-front thing, a black crew-neck T-shirt and jeans. He had dark hair and a little goatee beard. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I recognized him. At any rate, there was something about him, something around him that I recognized. He and Van Loon seemed to know each other quite well.
I looked back at Ginny. She pulled out the chair and sat down. She placed her clutch bag on the table and joined her hands together, as though she were about to conduct an interview.
‘So, gentlemen, what are we talking about?’
‘The future,’ said Atwood.
‘The future? Well, you know what Einstein had to say about that?’
‘No, what?’
‘He said I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.’ She looked at me directly, and added, ‘I tend to agree with him.’
‘Hank.’
Suddenly, Van Loon was waving an arm in our direction, and indicating for Atwood to come over.
‘Excuse me, my dear,’ he said, and made a strained face as he got up. He walked around the table, and it occurred to me then who the young man was – Ray Tyner. As movie stars reportedly often do, he looked a little different in real life. I’d read about him in the previous day’s paper. He’d just come back from shooting a movie in Venice.
‘So,’ Ginny said, looking around, ‘this is where the cabal meets, the secret movers and shakers, the smoke-filled back-room.’
I smiled. ‘I thought we were in your dining-room.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Yeah, but I ain’t never had dinner in here. I eat in the kitchen. This is the control centre.’
I nodded over at Ray Tyner. Atwood and Bloom and the others had all gathered around him now, and he seemed to be telling a story.
‘So, who’s running the control centre now?’
She turned around in her chair for a moment to look over at him. I stared intently at her profile, at the curve of her neck, at her bare shoulders.
‘Oh, Ray’s not like that,’ she said turning back, ‘he’s sweet.’
‘Are you two an item?’
She pulled her head back, a little surprised at my question.
‘What are you, moonlighting for Page Six now?’
‘No, I’m just curious. For future reference.’
‘Like I said, Mr Spinola, I don’t think of the future.’
‘Is he why you wouldn’t go for a drink with me?’
She paused. Then she said, ‘I don’t understand you.’
I was puzzled at this.
‘What don’t you understand?’ I said.
‘I don’t know…’ Her face changed, as she tried to think of the words. ‘I’m sorry – it must be an instinctive thing – but I get the feeling that when you look at me, you’re seeing someone else.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared uncomfortably at my brandy glass. Was it that obvious? Ginny resembled Melissa, it was true, but until that moment I hadn’t realized what a deep impression the likeness they shared had made on me.
There was a sudden burst of laughter from the other side of the room, and the group started to break up.
I looked at her again.
‘I don’t think of the past,’ I said, trying to be clever.
‘And the present?’
‘I don’t think of that either.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ she said, and then laughed. ‘It goes soon enough.’
‘Something like that.’
Ray Tyner had come up behind her now. She turned slightly and twisted her arm up to reach him. He took her hand and she got out of the chair.
‘Ray, this is Eddie Spinola, a friend of mine. Eddie, Ray Tyner.’
I reached over and we shook hands.
I was inordinately pleased that she had described me as a friend of hers.
Up close, Ray Tyner was almost preternaturally good-looking. He had amazing eyes and the kind of smile that meant he could probably work a room without even bothering to open his mouth.
Maybe I’d ask him to be my running mate.
I got back to the Celestial just after twelve. It was to be my first night in the new apartment, but I didn’t have anything to sleep on. In fact, I didn’t have any furniture at all, no bed, or sofa, or bookshelves, nothing. I had ordered some stuff, but none of it had been delivered yet.
I wasn’t going to be doing much sleeping in any case, so it didn’t really matter. Instead, I wandered from room to room, through the huge, empty apartment – trying to convince myself that I wasn’t upset or jealous or in any way put out at all. Ginny Van Loon and Ray Tyner made a fabulous-looking couple – and next to a bunch of old business farts smoking cigars and talking percentages, they looked even better.
What was there to be upset about?
After a while I got my computer out of its box and put it on a wooden crate. I went online and tried to catch up with the day’s financial news.
25
I WAS BACK IN FORTY-EIGHTH STREET the next morning at around seven-thirty, drafting speeches and making some final changes to the press release. Given that the announcement was only a couple of hours away and that secrecy was no longer an issue, Van Loon had been able to call some of his regular people in to get the PR machinery up and running. Although this was a great help, the place was now busier than Grand Central Station.
Before leaving the apartment, I had taken my usual dose of five pills – three MDT and two Dexeron – but then at the last minute I had gone back and rummaged in the holdall bag and taken two more, one of each. As a result, I was operating at full tilt, but I found that my accelerated work-rate was intimidating some of these Van Loon regulars – people who probably had a lot more experience than I had. To avoid any friction, therefore, I set up a makeshift office in one of the boardrooms and got some work done on my own.
At around ten-thirty, Kenny Sanchez called me on my cellphone. I was sitting at a large oval table with a laptop computer and dozens of pages spread out in front of me when he rang.
‘I have some bad news, Eddie.’
I got a sharp, sinking feeling in my stomach.
‘What?’
‘Well, a couple of things. I’ve located Todd Ellis, but I’m afraid he’s dead.’
Shit.
‘What happened?’
‘Hit-and-run accident, about a week ago. Around where he lived, in Brooklyn.’
Fuck.
This flooded in on me now – without Todd Ellis, what chance did I have? Where did I go? Where did I even begin?
I noticed that Kenny Sanchez was silent.
‘You mentioned there were a couple of things,’ I said. ‘What else?’
‘I’ve been re-assigned.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been re-assigned, given another case to work on. I don’t know why. I kicked up shit, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s a big agency. This is my job.’
‘So… who’s looking after it now?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe no one.’
‘Is this normal – I mean, interference like this?’
‘No.’
He sounded very pissed off.
‘I worked the phones all yesterday afternoon when I left you, and even late into the evening. Then this morning I get called in to make a report and they tell me I’m needed on another case and to hand over all my paper-work.’
I thought about it for a second, but what could I say? Then I just said, ‘What else did you manage to find out?’