Living Witness(25)

“For God’s sake, Leda, how can you get to your age without knowing how to unlock a door?”

Then they heard the front door pop open, and a moment and a half later the women were there, short but magnificent, both of them carrying armloads of tote bags containing God-only-knew-what.

It was at that moment that Gregor remembered what he’d heard earlier, about the swans and the buffet.

Then Leda planted herself in the middle of the kitchen and said, “We’ve talked to Tibor, and we aren’t going to let him get away with it.”





TWO





1




Gregor had taken a cab, and it began to rain as he got out. The day was no longer just cold, it was dismal. The rain felt as if it had hard edges, which didn’t bode well. It wasn’t unheard of for there to be a snowstorm this late in March, although Philadelphia was less bothered by snow than the rest of the state. Gregor understood the impulse of so many older people to move south, where they never had to worry about snow at all. The last time he had been stuck in the snow it had been in Massachusetts, and there had been nothing like a winter wonderland about it.

He went into the building and the lobby was empty and clear. The floor was so highly polished he could see his face in it. John Jackman liked a clean office, but good old what’s-her-name was a cleanliness Nazi. Maybe she came down and followed the janitorial staff around at night. Gregor stopped at the desk and gave his name. Then he admitted to himself that he was not going to remember what’s-her-name’s name before he was face to face with her.

This was not going to go well.

The guard waved him to the elevators and got on the phone, probably calling old what’s-her-name to tell him Gregor was coming. The elevator doors closed and Gregor felt himself moving upward. He kept pounding at his memory. It wasn’t a hard name. It was a simple one. That was the trouble. If it had been a hard name, it would have been easy to remember.

The doors opened at the floor that held John Jackman’s office, and Gregor was faced not with old what’s-her-name, but with a small, dirty-blond woman in a twin set. She looked very nervous.

“Mr. Demarkian?”

“Ah,” Gregor said. “I’m sorry. We haven’t met. I was expecting—”

“Ms. Hall,” the little woman said.

Hall. Gregor tried to force it into his mind in a way that would make it impossible for him to forget again, but he knew it wasn’t going to work. Not only was “Hall” not a difficult name, but there was something about just how angry Ms. Hall could get that made him forget everything about her except the fire in her eyes.

“Ms. Hall is in conference,” the little woman said. “I’m Linda Brandowski. I hope you don’t mind. The Mayor said you wouldn’t mind, but the Mayor is an optimist, isn’t he? I do like an optimist. I’ve always been an optimist myself, but it gets harder and harder the older I get. I don’t know what’s happening to the world. I really don’t.”

They were moving down hallways. Every once in a while, they would come to a slightly more open space with desks in it. Gregor didn’t know if they were supposed to be reception areas or something else. It suddenly occurred to him that the last time he had seen these offices had been the day after John had been inaugurated, and they’d only been partially up and running then. At least, they hadn’t been this full of people.

Ms. Brandowski stopped at a door that said OFFICE OF THE MAYOR and knocked on it. Something muffled came from inside, and she opened it. What she opened on was not John’s office per se, but the front room of what appeared to be a large suite. There were half a dozen desks in the front room, all but one staffed by young women at computers. The odd one out was staffed by a young man at a computer, and Gregor thought that he recognized the young man.

“Right through here,” Ms. Brandowski said, but as soon as she said it the door at the very back of the suite opened, and John Jackman stuck his head out. It was then that Gregor noticed the glass-paneled door to the side, with the words CYNTHIA HALL stenciled into the midlevel crossbar. Hell, even John didn’t get his own name on his door. His door just said OFFICE OF THE MAYOR.

John pushed the door back farther and gestured strenuously for Gregor to come in. “Come on, come on,” he said. “I want you to meet this guy. What’s the matter with you?”

“I was expecting, uh,” Gregor’s mind went blank, “you know.”

“Cynthia,” John said sympathetically. “She’s in conference.”

“How can she be in conference?”

“Obviously, you don’t know Cynthia,” John said.