Glass Houses(6)

“Krekor,” Tibor said again.

Gregor looked up. Standing next to their table was a woman he had not seen before. She was tallish, and very, very thin, and he hated her on sight.





3


Gregor Demarkian was not a man who jumped to conclusions, especially about people. If he had been, he would not have been as effective as he was when he was still in the FBI, and he certainly wouldn’t have been as effective as he had been in the years since, when all people hired him for was his ability to think through a problem without prejudice. He was also not someone who took instant likings and dislikings to people he didn’t know. He was far too aware of how often first impressions were the basis for a trust that benefitted only conmen, and of how too many very good people were messes and losers on first sight.

The woman standing next to their table was not a mess or a loser. Gregor was willing to bet she’d never been a mess in her life. She was dressed up as if she were going to work at a law firm—or, better yet, as if she were going to work at a law firm on a television program—and she was holding an unlit cigarette in her left hand. Gregor wasn’t put off by the cigarette. Bennis had smoked for years, and all the very old men who had come from Armenia smoked foul Turkish weed nearly nonstop. There was something wrong with the way this woman held hers though. He had no idea what it was.

Tibor had gotten to his feet. Gregor now got to his, feeling somehow put out that he’d been shocked into forgetting how to behave. You could tell this woman noticed things like that and interpreted them, not always kindly.

“Krekor,” Tibor said. “This is Miss Lydgate.”

“That’s right,” Phillipa Lydgate said. “I’m Phillipa Lydgate. You must be Gregor Demarkian. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“How do you do,” Gregor said. It was the kind of thing Bennis would say, when she was trying to put somebody off. He even sounded like Bennis doing it.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” Phillipa said. She waited just a split second before Tibor sat down again and then slid onto the booth bench next to him. “I’m sorry to interrupt your breakfast, and I won’t be long; but this looks like the only chance I’ll have to get most of the people around here in a face-to-face. Is this a usual thing in this part of America, going out to restaurants for breakfast rather than eating at home?”

Gregor sat down again, carefully. They had had a rule when he was still in the FBI. When you were talking to reporters, you had always to assume you were on the record. “I don’t know what’s usual,” he said finally. “On this street it’s something of a tradition.”

“And everybody on this street is of Armenian ethnicity.”

It was a statement, not a question. “Of course not,” Gregor said. “Bennis lives on this street, and she’s about as Armenian as pumpkin pie.”

“It is not only Bennis,” Tibor rushed in. “There is Grace.” He gestured to the middle of the room. “She is there. She plays the harpsichord. And there is Dmitri who runs the newsstand. He is from Russia.”

“Where is this Grace from?” Phillipa asked.

“Connecticut,” Gregor said blandly.

Tibor gestured wildly at the wider restaurant. “Grace Fineman. Her family came from Germany, I think, but many generations ago.”

“And she’s Jewish,” Gregor said.

Linda Melajian was suddenly there, carrying the coffeepot and a cup and saucer. She put them down on the table in front of Phillipa, reached into the pocket of her apron and came out with a handful of foilwrapped Stash tea bags.

“I can get you some hot water if you’d rather have tea,” Linda said. “And I can get you some breakfast if you want it. Not that you have to have it. People come in here and drink coffee in the mornings all the time. There’s no obligation. Tea or coffee?”

“Coffee will be fine,” Phillipa said.

Linda poured coffee into the plain white stoneware cup and blushed. Then she took off again. Phillipa Lydgate watched her go.

“She’s very accommodating,” she said. “Is that usual? Is there a reason for her to feel so anxious? Is she afraid of losing her job?”

“Hardly,” Gregor said. “Linda’s family owns this restaurant. Her father started it.”

“Does he beat her? There must be some reason for the way she behaves.”

“Vartan Melajian couldn’t bring himself to beat carpets,” Gregor said, “and there’s really no mystery about the way she behaves. She’s naturally accommodating, and she especially wants to accommodate you.”