The woman shifted from foot to foot She adjusted the strap of her black leather bag on her shoulder.
“You’re that detective, aren’t you?” she asked him suddenly. “The one that was in People magazine. Gregory Demarkian.”
“Gregor,” Gregor said. It was automatic.
“Gregor. I’m sorry. But I remember that story. Or rather I remember you. You have a very unusual face.”
“Ummm,” Gregor said.
“And of course you’ll be coming up to look into what happened to Kayla Anson. That’s the only thing that makes any sense here, for you to be on this train. I wouldn’t be on it myself except that I was going to take a few days in the city and I didn’t want to bring my car. And now, of course, I simply can’t. Of course, of course, of course. I keep repeating myself. I’m glad I ran into you.”
“It’s very kind of you to say so.”
“I’m going to sit down now. This car is nothing to stand up in when it gets moving.”
Gregor watched her walk away, down the aisle, and take a seat in the middle of the car. Was it surprising that she knew that something had happened to Kayla Anson? Probably not. These were small towns up there. Everybody in them probably knew by now that something had happened to Kayla Anson, and if Gregor had been able to get to a television set he was sure he would find that CNN knew it, as well.
The train jolted and moved a few feet forward. Gregor looked down at the front page of the Times. There was a story about the still-evolving investigation of that mess the United States had gotten itself into in the Sudan. There was another about the upcoming elections and whether being known as a Friend of Bill would help candidates or hurt them in the coming races. Gregor finished off the rest of his coffee in a gulp and put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. The bud car was moving, but not very fast. It felt to Gregor as if he were being rocked to sleep in a cradle.
Then, what seemed like moments later, he felt himself being shaken hard. Someone was holding him by both shoulders and slamming him against the back of his seat. He opened his eyes in a squint and saw what looked like Bennis standing over him, although he was sure that had to be an illusion. Bennis was waiting for him in the train station in Waterbury. She was supposed to be bringing her car.
“Gregor,” Bennis said.
“It’s going to be an unbelievable mess,” Gregor told her.
Bennis shook him hard, again. Her thick black hair was coming lose from its pins. Wisps of it were floating around her face.
“Wake up, Gregor, for God’s sake. What’s wrong with you? This car is going to take off again any minute.”
Gregor sat forward and hunched over his knees. He felt sick to his stomach, but at least he no longer thought he was hallucinating. He felt sick enough to pass out. He had to do something about the not sleeping.
“Are you all right?”Bennis asked him.
He stood up and looked around the car. There were three people in it, but not the same three people who had been with him on the ride out from Bridgeport. These had to be people hoping to take the train into New York.
He made his way out into the aisle and looked around.
“Sorry,” he told Bennis. “I fell asleep.”
“I could see that. You looked white as a sheet. You scared me to death. Come on out and get into the car.”
“Right,” Gregor said.
He followed Bennis through the narrow door and out onto the platform. The train station in front of him was made of red stone and boarded up. The small city beyond it looked empty and down on its luck. All the buildings were both old and dirty, except for the big clock tower that rose almost exactly over his head.
“That’s the Waterbury Republican,” Bennis told him, as she threw his big suitcase into the space behind the backs of the seats in her little orange Mercedes. “It’s the local paper, more or less. Except that all the elite types get the Litchfield County Times. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” Gregor settled himself into his seat. “I need some rest. Have you seen anything of the news this morning?”
“I’ve seen all of it.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s a circus. What did you expect it would be like?”
Gregor sighed. Bennis pulled the car out on a dilapidated city street that was so full of potholes, Gregor had a momentary fear for the tires.
“It’s that I didn’t think about it at all, and I should have,” he told her. “Because the media climate matters.”
Three
1
Eve Wachinsky had a ritual for deciding when she could go to the doctor. First, she had to be sick enough so that she was sure she had no other choice. It didn’t make any sense to spend all that money just to be told that she didn’t need any medicine, that she would have been better off if she’d stayed at home and stayed in bed. Second, she had to call the doctor and find out exactly what it would cost—although that was not, really, entirely possible. Her doctor charged sixty-nine dollars for a standard office visit, and eighty-nine dollars for something longer. Eve always counted on the eighty-nine dollars. There were always tests, or blood work, or something else that needed to go to the lab, and that she would be required to pay for right up front. This was the bottom line with not having insurance. People who had it sailed in and out without ever being questioned. Even if their insurance ended up refusing to cover whatever it was they’d had done, even if they ran up a bill for thousands of dollars they ended up having to pay for themselves, nobody in the doctor’s office thought twice about it. People who did not have insurance had to have money, right away, or they would just be told to go home. Or Eve thought they would. She had never dared go into the. doctor’s office without at least thinking she had enough to pay her bill. On the one occasion when she had figured wrong and had been able to pay only part of it, she had had to listen to Moira Rackhorn lecture her on taking advantage of the doctor.