Theaella

18

He reached for it and peeled it off.

At the sound, Melanie turned, and they faced each other in the narrow hall. Close enough that he could feel her breath on his neck. He had to remind himself not to look at her lips. Instead he held up the tag, and Melanie said, “s**t. Thanks. Now that I’m downtown, I’m in court so much I had to rush-order some new outfits.” She gave a half turn. “I think this color’s wrong. Does it make my hips look wider?”

Matthew said, “Yes.”

Her mood, which he’d interpreted as mildly flirtatious, immedi ately shifted, lost behind a glower. But then a laugh seemed to catch her off guard. “You don’t know anything about women, do you?”

Shaking her head, she turned away and continued down the hall, veering through a doorway at the end.

Matthew stepped in after her.

Ida rested against a fan of pillows. Geriatric bruising mottled her right eye and cheek, the papery skin the color of eggplant. Orange pill bottles crowded her nightstand, penguins jockeying for position above shark-infested waters. A sterling hairbrush held a place of prominence on the old-fashioned vanity beside a peacock burst of framed photographs.

The largest, an eight-by-ten with a color palette that suggested the seventies, captured husband and wife side by side on the prow of a cruise ship. A short, stubby man with a dignified bearing, Herb wore a gray flannel suit and tortoiseshell eyeglasses. They’d been a matching set, he and Ida, in the way of couples of a certain era. Same height, same build, same aura of fortitude. Ida’s hair, gray even then, was taken up in loose curls. Resting over the buttons of her shirtwaist dress was the purloined necklace, marcasite and amethyst gleaming in the pelagic sunlight. Tucked in the Tiffany picture frame was a cruise-ship ID card in Herb’s name.

A sense of trespassing gripped Matthew. The bedroom hadn’t likely seen a visitor for a decade and change, and here he was amid the terrible intimacy of the mundane, disturbing the air, gawking at personal possessions. A faint whiff of dried sweat reached him from the pillow—the smell of aging, of death, of the inevitable future.

Ida raised a hand self-consciously to cover her bruised face. “What do you want?”

He said, “To see that you’re okay.”

“Do I look okay?”

“Actually, yes, ma’am.”

She scowled. “I don’t need any help.”

“I’m sure you don’t. You never have before.”

At this her lips pressed together with satisfaction, maybe even delight.

“Since I’m here anyway,” Melanie cut in, “why don’t I get another cold compress for you?”

Ida said, “Fine.”

Melanie padded out, leaving them in awkward silence.

Matthew said, “What did he look like? The guy who attacked you?”

Ida said, “He wasn’t a black, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“That’s not what I’m implying.”

“He had one of those hooded sweatshirts that the kids all wear. The hood was pulled up. I couldn’t see his face. Just this dark oval, and then…” Her lips trembled, and she turned away.

Matthew took the opportunity to orient back toward the vanity. Holding his RoamZone low at his waist, he zoomed in on her necklace in the photograph and clicked a picture. He’d just pocketed the phone when Melanie reentered with a soaked washcloth.

She moved to set it on Ida’s face, but Ida took it from her roughly. She dabbed at her swollen temple. Then her free hand clutched at the sheets by her side and a dry, graceless sound escaped her.

It took Matthew a moment to realize that it was a sob.

“Herb would be so embarrassed by me,” Ida said. “Swanning around with that necklace like I was something special.”

Melanie was taken aback, literally on her heels.

Matthew crouched and took Ida’s arthritic hand. He said, “You are something special.”

“No,” Ida said, using the pretense of the washcloth to keep her eyes covered. “I’m an eighty-seven-year-old widow. That’s about as unspecial as you can be. And that young man today … That young man proved it.”

“I don’t see it like that,” Matthew said.

She took a few wet breaths. “No?”

“You get through each day by your own strength. You live according to your principles. And you do it alone. The guy who assaulted you is nothing in the face of that.”

Ida’s diminutive chest rose and fell, rose and fell. “Nonsense,” she said, but her tone was softer. And she didn’t let go of his hand.

He could sense Melanie’s gaze on the side of his face. Intense, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

Ida dropped the washcloth and lowered her hand beneath her neck, touching the place where the necklace would have been. “I just wanted to feel close to him again,” she said, her voice cracking.

He stayed at her bedside. She clutched his hand a bit tighter.

He let her.

In the Vault, Matthew plugged his RoamZone into one of his computer towers and uploaded the close-up he’d taken of Ida’s necklace. Seconds later an enlarged version appeared on the OLED screens mounted on the wall in front of him.

He isolated the piece, removing the background, and then crisped up the pixelation with a digital enhancer.

He dragged the image into a visual search engine and set the parameters. If the item appeared online for sale, he would receive an alert.

He glanced over at the wall to his left, where the Google Earth view of the abandoned TV station waited. The headquarters of Vincent’s quartet.

Matthew had plenty of time to get over to Hollywood and scout the surrounding area. And the area around that. The Third Commandment: Master your surroundings.

At nightfall they’d be expecting Papazian.

They’d get the Nowhere Man instead.