Fitz said, "That's two for Rob and his girl, two for me and Colleen, and I was thinkin'— you remember Mary Mahan, don't you?"
Peter said ungraciously, "I don't feel like goin' to the Rangers, and you don't need to be fixin' me up, Fitz." His bow tie was hanging limp and there was fire on his forehead and cheekbones. A drop of sweat fell unnoticed from his chin into his glass. He raised the glass again.
Rob Flaherty said with a grin, 'You remind me of a lovesick camel, Petey. What you're needin' is a mercy hump."
Peter grimaced hostilely. "What I need is another drink."
"Mary's had a thing for you, how long?"
"She's my mom's godchild, asshole."
Fitz let the belligerence slide. "Well, you know. It don't exactly count as a mortal sin.''
"Leave it, Fitz."
"Sure. Okay. But that is exceptional pussy you're givin' your back to. I can testify."
Rob said impatiently, "Ah, let him sit here and get squashed. Echo must've tied a knot in his dick before she left town with her artist friend."
Peter was out of his chair with a cocked fist before Fitz could step between them. Rob had reach on Peter and jabbed him just hard enough in the mouth to send him backwards, falling against another of the tables ringing the dance floor, scarcely disturbing a mute couple like goggle-eyed blowfish, drunk on senescence.
Pete's mom saw the altercation taking shape and left her partner on the dance floor. She took Peter gently by an elbow, smiled at the other boys, telling them with a motion of her elegantly coiffed head to move along. She dumped ice out of a glass onto a napkin.
"Dance with your old ma, Peter."
Somewhat shamefaced, he allowed himself to be led to the dance floor, holding ice knotted in the napkin to his lower lip.
"It's twice already this month I see you too much in drink."
"It's a wedding, Ma." He put the napkin in a pocket of his tux jacket.
"I'm thinking it's time you get a grip on yourself," Kate said as they danced to a slow beat. "You don't hear from Echo?"
"Sure. Every day."
"Well, then? She's doing okay?"
"She says she is." Peter drew a couple of troubled breaths. "But it's e-mail. Not like actually—you know, hearin' her voice. People are all the time sayin' what they can't put into words, you just have to have an ear for it."
"So—maybe there's things she wants you to know, but can't talk about?"
"I don't know. We've never been apart more than a couple days since we met. Maybe Echo's found out—it wasn't such a great bargain after all." He had a tight grip on his mother's hand.
"Easy now. If you trust Echo, then you'll hold on. Any man can do that, Petey, for the woman he loves."
"I'll always love her," Peter said, his voice tight. He looked into Kate's eyes, a fine simmer of emotion in his own eyes. "But I don't trust a man nobody knows much about. He's got walls around him you wouldn't believe."
"A man who values his privacy. That kind of money, it's not surprising." Kate hesitated. "You been digging for something? Unofficially, I mean."
'Yeah."
"No beefs?"
"No beefs. The man's practically invisible where public records are concerned."
"Then let it alone."
"If I could see Echo, just for a little while. I'm half nuts all the time."
"God love you, Peter. Long as you have Sunday off, why don't the two of us go to visit Rosemay, take her for an outing? Been a while since I last saw her."
"I don't think I can, Ma. I, uh—need to go up to Westchester, talk to somebody."
"Police business, is it?"
Peter shook his head.
"Her name's Van Lier. She posed for John Ransome once."
SEVEN
The Van Lier residence was a copy—an exact copy, according to a Web site devoted to descriptions of Westchester County's most spectacular homes—of a sixteenth-century English manor house. All Peter saw of the inside was a glimpse of slate floor and dark wainscotting through a partly opened front door.
He said to the houseman who had answered his ring, "I'd like to see Mrs. Van Lier."
The houseman was an elderly Negro with age spots on his caramel-colored face like the spots on a leopard.
"There's no Mrs. Van Lier at this residence."
Peter handed him his card.
"Anne Van Lier. I'm with the New York police department."
The houseman looked him over patiently, perhaps hoping if his appraisal took long enough Peter would simply vanish from their doorstep and he could go back to his nap.
"What is your business about, Detective? Miss Anne don't hardly care to see nobody."
"I'd like to ask her a few questions."
They played the waiting game until the houseman reluctantly took a Motorola Talk-about from a pocket of the apron he wore over his Sunday suit and tried to raise her on a couple of different channels. He frowned.
"Reckon she's laid hers down and forgot about it," he said. "Well, likely you'll find Miss Anne in the greenhouse this time of the day. But I don't expect she'll talk to you, police or no police."
"Where's the greenhouse?"
"Go 'round the back and walk toward the pond, you can't hardly miss it. When you see her, tell Miss Anne I did my best to raise her first, so she don't throw a fit my way."
Peter approached the greenhouse through a squall of copper beech leaves on a windy afternoon. The slant roofs of the long greenhouse reflected scudding clouds. Inside a woman he assumed was Anne Van Lier was visible through a mist from some overhead pipes. She wore gloves that covered half of her forearms and a gardening hat with a floppy brim that, along with the mist floating above troughs of exotic plants, obscured most of her face. She was working at a potting bench in the diffused glimmer of sunlight.
"Miss Van Lier?"
She stiffened at the sound of an unfamiliar voice but didn't look around. She was slight-boned in dowdy tan coveralls.
'Yes? Who is it?" Her tone said that she didn't care to know. 'You're trespassing."
"My name is Peter O'Neill. New York City police department."
Peter walked a few steps down a gravel path toward her. With a quick motion of her head she took him in and said, "Stay where you are. Police?"
"I'd like to show you some identification."
"What is this about?"
He held up his shield. "John Leland Ransome."
She dropped a three-pronged tool from her right hand onto the bench and leaned against it as if suddenly at a loss for breath. Her back was to Peter. A dry scuttle of leaves on the overhead glass cast a kaleidoscope of shadow in the greenhouse. He wiped mist from his forehead and continued toward her.
'You posed for Ransome."
"What of it? Who told you that?"
"He did."
She'd been rigidly still; now Anne Van Lier seemed pleasurably agitated.
'You know John? You've seen him?"
'Yes."
"When?"
"A couple of months ago." Peter had closed the distance between them. Anne darted another look his way, a gloved hand covering her profile as if she were a bashful child; but she no longer appeared to be concerned about him.
"How is John?" Her voice was suddenly rich with emotion. "Did he—mention me?"
"That he did," Peter said reassuringly, and dared to ask, "Are you still in love with Ransome?"
She shuddered, protecting herself with the glove as if he'd thrown a stone, seeming to cower.
"What did John say about me? Please."
Knowing he'd touched a nerve, Peter said soothingly, "Told me the year he spent with you was one of the happiest of his life."
Still it bothered him when, after a few moments, she began softly to weep. He moved closer to Anne, put a hand on her arm.