The door closed and Rune and Courtney were left looking at their mirrored images for the few seconds it took for the driver to get back inside and speed the limo away from the curb.
"--for dinner."
chapter 16
LONDON WAS THE PROBLEM.
Ever since she'd read Lord of the Rings (the first of four times) Rune'd wanted to go to the United Kingdom--the country of pubs and hedgerows and shires and hobbits and dragons. Whoa, and Loch Ness too--
She'd thought about it for a couple of hours and decided that any sane person in the world would accept Piper Sutton's offer in ten seconds flat.
So Rune was a bit curious why she found herself shoving the offer to the back of her mind, dropping Courtney at one of her loyal, expensive baby-sitters and then giving the cabdriver an address on the Upper East Side.
He took her to an old apartment building, dark brick with lion bas-reliefs in dirty limestone trim. She walked into the immaculate lobby, hit the intercom and announced herself. The door opened. She took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. When she stepped into a tiny corridor, she realized there were only four apartments on the whole floor.
Lee Maisel opened the door to one, waved and let her into a rambling, dark-paneled apartment. He didn't shake her hand; he was dripping wet.
She followed, noticing an elephant's foot in the corner; inside were a half-dozen umbrellas and canes. Several of them ended in carved faces: a lion, an old man (Rune thought he was a wizard), some kind of bird.
Maisel had been doing dishes. He was wearing a blue denim apron, water-stained with Rorschach patterns and taut over his belly.
"When I called ... Well, I hope I didn't interrupt anything."
"I'd have told you if I didn't want to be interrupted." Maisel returned to the cumulonimbus of suds. "The bar's over there." He nodded. "Food?"
"Uhm, I just ate."
Maisel dove into the dishwater again. Surrounded by implements--scrapers, sponges, metallic scrubbers like tiny steel wigs. A typhoon crashed over the granite countertop. A pan surfaced and beached itself on the Rubber-maid and he examined it carefully. His face was pure contentment. She envied him; cooking and cleaning were loves that Rune knew she would never cultivate.
In the living room, a projection TV set was showing an old movie, the sound low. Bette Davis. Who was the dude? Tyrone Power maybe. What a name, what a face! Men sure looked good back then. She could watch him for hours.
Finally Maisel wiped his hands and said, "Come on."
They walked into the living room.
Rune paused, looking at a framed newspaper article on the wall. From the Times. The headline was: "TV Correspondent Wins Pulitzer."
"Excellent," Rune said. "What was it for?"
"A story in Beirut a few years ago."
She asked, "A Current Events segment?"
"No. It was before we developed the show." He looked at the article slowly. "What a beautiful city that used to be. That's one of the crimes of the century, what happened there."
Rune skimmed the article. "It says you got an exclusive."
But he was troubled. "It was a mixed victory," he said. "We did what journalists should do--we looked under the surface and reported the truth But some people died because of that."
Rune recalled the incident from the information Bradford had brought her. Remembered too that Lance Hopper had stood up to the criticism and defended his news team.
"Come here," Maisel said, his face brightening. He led Rune down a long corridor, lit by overhead spotlights. It was like an art gallery.
"Hey, this is pretty cool."
There were dozens of framed maps, most of them antique. Maisel paused at each one, told her where he'd found it, how he'd dickered with the booksellers and vendors--and how he'd been taken by some and gypped others. She liked the New York maps best. Maisel pointed to a couple of them, describing what buildings were now on the spots that the maps showed as empty fields or hills.
Her favorite was a map of Greenwich Village in the 1700s. "That is fantastic. I love old New York. Doesn't it just do something to you? Okay, you're out on the street eating a Nedick's with onions--I really love those pickled onions--and you suddenly think, Wow, maybe I'm standing right on the very spot where they rubbed out a gangster or where two hundred years ago there was an Indian war or something."