Flowering Judas(17)

Gregor took the coffee cup and went back through the living room and down the hall again, to the bathroom and the bedroom. Bennis was just coming out of the bath, wrapped in an enormous bathrobe, her wet hair falling down over her shoulders. The bathrobe was Gregor’s bathrobe. Bennis had a dozen bathrobes of her own, including ones from special stores where everything cost as much as a small car, but she didn’t wear them.

“Hey,” she said, pushing the door to the bedroom open. “Are you okay? I left a note about your appointment on the refrigerator.”

“I saw it. The kitchen table is full of—stuff.”

“I know it’s a pain, Gregor, but it’s only for a little while. We should be into the new house by Thanksgiving. Or maybe Christmas. Anyway, it will be worth it when it’s done. You’ll see.”

“I don’t think I can go without sitting at my kitchen table for four months.”

“I don’t see why. It’s not like we ever eat here. I mean, really eat. We go to the Ararat. You’re going there now. There’s something we can do in the new house. Or I can do. I can cook.”

“Do you cook?”

“Well enough when I was living on my own,” Bennis said. “I could get Donna to teach me. It’s going to be a really spectacular kitchen.”

“I’m going to go downstairs and see if old George wants to pick up Tibor with me,” Gregor said. “I wish you’d made more notes about that appointment. Don’t you think it’s odd, this guy coming out on a holiday?”

Bennis was putting clothes out on the bed. All the underwear matched. Bennis’s underwear always matched. That was something odd to know about her.

“He’s the chief of police in wherever this is,” Bennis said. “Maybe this was the only time he could get away. And it’s not really all that far from here. It’s just New York. Maybe two hours or so north? Can’t be much more than that. I forgot the name of the town. It’s an Indian name.”

“All right. I’d still feel better if you or I remembered exactly what it was he wanted to talk to me about.”

Bennis had the hairbrush in her hand. She put it down on the bed. “It’s a cold case—a missing persons cold case, except just a little while ago the guy turned up dead. And there were complications, but I don’t remember those, because there are always complications. If there weren’t complications, they wouldn’t come to you.”

“All right.”

“Don’t get all sigh-y on me, Gregor. I’m renovating an antique house and I’ve got a book due at the end of the month. Which is going to be late. And besides, I don’t know. It’s one of those things. It’s been on television.”

“The case?”

“Yes. Really, you’ve got to remember this. I told you. It was on one of those shows. Disappeared, that kind of thing. Or maybe it was only going to be on one. I’m sorry. The thing sounded garbled as hell to me when I took the call, and he said he’d come today, so I figured he’d tell you about it. He will tell you about it.”

“He will,” Gregor agreed. “I really am going to go down and see about old George. Are you coming out for breakfast?”

“Yes, and no,” Bennis said. “I’m meeting Donna. I keep telling her I don’t like wallpaper, I really much prefer paint, but she has some samples for me to see. She’s going to bring them and then if I hate them she’ll bring them back. I’ll probably hate them.”

“We don’t have room in this apartment for wallpaper samples,” Gregor said.

“Go see about old George. I don’t like the way he’s been looking lately. He looks like kindergarten paste.”

“What?”

“Go,” Bennis said.

Gregor went.

2

Outside on the landing, Grace’s playing was clear, not exercises now, but a recognizable piece. Gregor thought she had to have her door open up there. She did that sometimes when she was sure everybody in the building was awake. Gregor didn’t mind. Bennis didn’t mind. Old George was too far away to be bothered by it if he didn’t want to be.

Gregor thought about going upstairs for a minute and asking her what she was playing. Then he decided that would be rude. Grace was always rehearsing for something, and besides, she might think he was actually bothered by her playing and being polite about it. It never ceased to amaze him how complicated people were, in their relationships with each other. Here they were, empowered by speech, and they were always looking for clues and hints and signs and omens. Maybe that was why so many people loved things like The Da Vinci Code.