8.

“I’M JUST GOING out for a short walk,” Hazel said, opening a dark blue ruffled parasol, and she brushed aside the enormous sunflowers and stepped off the parapet of the terrace they were standing on.

“Wait ... no, you can’t,” Wetzon shrieked, reaching for her, catching Hazel’s beautiful white hair, which came off in her hand. Terrified, holding the white curly wig, she watched Hazel float calmly away like Mary Poppins and disappear beyond the gleaming gold tower of the Chrysler Building.

Wetzon awoke panicked, drenched in sweat, her hand clutching the fuzzy blue mohair throw that she used as an extra blanket. She was trembling. It was still dark. And cold. The little white digital box that was her radio alarm said five-fifteen.

She lay there, eyes closed again, thinking about Hazel, gradually untensing. The radiator in the kitchen coughed. She turned off the alarm and put on the light.

The red cover of A Perfect Spy, at the top of a huge stack of books on the painted American country washstand she used as a night table, caught her eye. She was about a third of the way through it, and it was hard work. John le Carré was not Danielle Steel, Smith’s current favorite writer. But Wetzon was a snob about literature and preferred the intellectual rewards that came from meeting a good writer halfway.

It was funny about what people read. Silvestri read biographies, autobiographies, war stories—any war—and Westerns. Carlos read show business biographies and autobiographies and mysteries.

She read about ten pages in A Perfect Spy, moving with Magnus and Rick and Mary and Jack, full of respect for how le Carré was peeling away the layers. Then, reluctantly, she marked the page.

Nothing is what it appears, she thought, inhaling the steam of the hot shower, not in le Carré, not in this world.

She towel-dried her long hair, leaving it loose, slipped on her sweats, and checked the time. Six o’clock. She had an hour or maybe a bit more if she could be sure of getting a cab to Rockefeller Center.

After getting the coffee started, she did a simple workout at the barre, running slowly through the positions, and ended feeling tall and lean. Lean was real, but tall was the impossible dream. Smith always laughed at her, but Wetzon’s self-image was tall until she got caught in an elevator surrounded by men, who towered over her, stepped on her as if she weren’t there.

She unlocked her door and bent to get the morning papers from the doormat. Next to the Times and the Wall Street Journal was a yellow rose wrapped loosely in cellophane, tied with a yellow ribbon. She picked it up. It was probably just a promotion from the newspaper delivery service, but it made her feel good, so it succeeded in whatever they were trying to do.

The yellow rose went into a bud vase, which Wetzon carried into the bedroom and put on the painted chest of drawers, where she could see it while she dressed in her pinstriped uniform of the day. It was too early to call Hazel. That would have to wait until after her breakfast interview with Tormenkov.

At her kitchen counter, a mug of hot coffee in front of her, she scanned the newspaper headlines. Nothing unusual. The latest insider-trading scandal, the dollar had fallen against the yen and the deutsche mark, the trade protectionists were insisting on more sanctions against the Japanese, Texaco was rumored to have received a buy-out offer, and another Wall Street guru was predicting doom and gloom and advising the purchase of gold. She moved quickly from page to page, scanning.

In the “Obituaries” section of the Times she found what she had been looking for:

EVELYN M. CUNNINGHAM, 72,

DIES IN TWENTY-STORY FALL

Evelyn Morton Cunningham, socialite and widow of the late S. Alden Cunningham, attorney and presidential adviser, died in a fall Thursday from the terrace of her twentieth-floor apartment at 999 Fifth Avenue. She was 72 years old and had been in poor health.

Authorities say they believe Mrs. Cunningham’s fall was an accident or suicide. She had been under a doctor’s care for depression and Alzheimer’s disease. She was fully clothed in a dark blue dress and high-heeled bedroom slippers and may have lost her balance while trying to close the doors to her terrace.

Sgt. E. D. O’Melvany of Manhattan North said that the French doors leading from Mrs. Cunningham’s bedroom to her terrace had been open and the railing of the parapet was low. He said it was possible that a gust of wind could have knocked her over the edge.

Investigators are seeking to question a woman named Ida, described as Russian, about five feet five inches tall, blonde hair, about 35-40 years old, who was acting as a nurse or nurse’s aide for the deceased. They are also seeking information about two women who visited Mrs. Cunningham shortly before her death, a Ms. Osborn and a Ms. Whitman.

Wetzon put the paper down. Her hands left wet patches on the paper. She stared at the coffee mug. “High-heeled bedroom slippers?”

“Hazel,” she said out loud, putting the mug down hard. Hot coffee sloshed over on the counter and her hand. Abstractedly, she put her hand under cold water and wiped up the spilled coffee from the counter. What to do? It was quarter to seven. She had to get going.

In the bathroom she rolled her hair up into a dancer’s knot on top of her head and put gray shadow on her eyelids. A touch of lipstick and her diamond stud earrings. Her movements picked up speed.

After folding the newspaper into her carryall, she wrapped herself in the long black coat and the leopard-patterned scarf, pulled the lavender beret down over her ears, and was set to brave the elements.

Frowning, she stopped at the door, thought for a minute, then turned and went back to her bedroom. She took the small dark blue Gucci walking shoe off the television set and put it in her carryall, slipping it into the fold of her newspaper.

“Morning, Ms. Wetzon.” Larry, her doorman, was sitting near the radiator, smoking. Ashes flecked his uniform jacket. “Your ride is waiting.”

“Ride? What ride?” Wetzon squinted into the dim morning. Everything outside, in fact, looked deeply gray. Bits of snow floated and flurried in the small gusts of wind.

Silvestri, wearing a red down jacket and a wool watch cap, leaned against his car, which was double-parked in front of her building. He was blowing into his gloved hands.

“What are you doing here at this hour?” she said, staggering toward him as a sudden gust of wind caught her.

“You told me not to call.” He was grinning at her boyishly. “But I left you a message anyway.”

“I didn’t get a message” she said, checking him out. He looked tired and had a dark stubble of beard. But his eyes, which were slate when he was impersonal and on the job, and turquoise when he let his feelings show, were now the deepest of turquoise. “You never write notes, you never call. You just show up.”

“Oh stop grumbling,” he said, opening the door for her. “What was on your doormat besides the goddam newspapers this morning?”

The yellow rose. Of course.

“You constantly surprise me, Silvestri,” she said truthfully.

He put his hands on her shoulders, and she felt the familiar little shock she always felt when he touched her, even through all the masses of clothing she was wearing. She pressed her face against the soft cold of his jacket and hugged him.

“Good morning, Les,” he said.