“Mister Amsterdam, was it?”
“Holland. Henry Holland. The man cannot keep his hands to himself.”
“Yep, I noticed.”
Jack sipped at his coffee, when in actual fact he wanted to try one of the cigarettes. The iconic character on the packet — some joker in an admiral’s hat — was gazing at him from the table. Jack wasn’t sure. Perhaps this rule against smoking applied only to Capes?
“So,” Miss Starkwell mused, the cigarette gently held between teeth before she snatched it away with her fingers, “are you really interested in art, Jack? Or was there some other reason for inviting me here? I’d hate to find out you’re casing the bank.”
This was a surprise. The longer the evening wore on, the wilder the girl became — and they hadn’t yet got to any alcohol. He began to wonder if she could break those rules as well.
“No, no, I’m not really the bank robbing sort. Bad with guns. Never touched one, actually. I did want to talk art, which I do dig — though I haven’t brushed up before against this Picolino fellow. I’m into a painter called Roy Lichtenstein.”
“The pop artist?”
Jack froze mid-sup. “You know him?”
“Sure. Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl is famous — snatched, as it is, from a twelve-cent girls’ comicbook.”
Louise did a quick sketch of the painting on a paper napkin; it took her less than a minute, but she skipped the added-extra ukiyo-e waves and dialogue bubble.
“See?”
Jack felt gobsmacked. This particular Christmas decoration had her art history down pat. “How do you know this stuff?”
“This ‘stuff’ is not exactly a state secret. Why are you so surprised?”
“I’m not sure.”
Louise caught the waiter’s attention and silently ordered two coffees from afar. “I hope you don’t object to another round?”
“Anytime.”
“Watch how you say that in proximity to me — I’m notorious for my caffeine intake.” The girl slid over a sham-crystal ashtray he hadn’t noticed before and butted out the cigarette. Then she blew one last puff toward the ceiling.
She looked edgy, and he doubted caffeine was the culprit.
No way this girl was a Blando — she had too much going on in her headspace. Surely she was a Cape too. Memory loss?
Then it came to him.
Amnesia.
Happened all the time in comics, old soapies and dodgy romance novels. Sure, it was a rare occurrence in the real world — but they weren’t there anymore and didn’t need to play by its rules. Maybe she’d banged her skull, or had the memories plundered by some diabolical Rotter?
“Getting back to your boss,” Jack said, while he contemplated this theory, “why do you stay at the bank if he’s such a sleazy bastard?”
“I don’t know. By the middle of the afternoon I’m fed up, and every evening I resolve to quit — but by the time I wake up in the morning, I’ve forgotten most of what happened the previous day, I’m over the crankiness, and ready to begin afresh. Starting the cycle all over again. I wonder if I have some kind of illness.”
She exhaled loudly.
“I know I paint Mister Holland out to be a jerk, but he’s not. Not completely. Every morning he also starts off charming and gentlemanly, like he’s turned over a new leaf, but whenever two o’clock comes round, he starts pawing me again.”
Jack remembered the first time he went to the bank was just after lunch. One-thirty.
After both left the diner, the Equalizer was surprised to find he was so wired on caffeine that he decided to walk Louise all the way home, through quiet city streets. It took half an hour to get there and they arrived before midnight.
Louise lived in an apartment in a four-storey brownstone facing a main road — the nearby sign said East 71st Street — though there wasn’t much traffic that time of night. It was a neoclassical building, with Grecian architectural features, number 169.
She pointed out a divided-frame window on the second storey, over a darkened shop called Brooklyn Antiques that took up the entire ground floor. “There’s my room.”
The two of them walked up a short set of steps to the double front door, under an arch beside the closed shop, and paused while the girl rifled through her purse to fetch keys. Before unlocking the door she smiled, removed her glasses, and leaned Jack’s way.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” she teased. “It’s okay, I don’t taste like an ashtray anymore — I sneaked a few breath fresheners on the way home.”
Jack couldn’t move a muscle, so she did the kissing. She tasted of peppermint, smelled gloriously of citrus fruit.