The Steel Kiss

“On my way,” Rhyme said and left the parlor, instructing the controller to shut out the lights as he did so. He wondered if the voice-controlled lighting system in the town house happened to be embedded with a DataWise5000.

CHAPTER 37

Just a fast one.”

“Honey, no.”

Her husband persisted, “Twenty minutes. Arnie said he’s got a new scotch. From the Isle of Skye. Never heard of it before.”

If there was a scotch that Henry was unfamiliar with it must’ve been something.

They’d finished dinner, Ginnie surprised that he’d actually complimented her on the chicken fricassee (though there had been: “Good fix over last time, dear”), and she was rinsing dishes.

“You go,” Ginnie told him.

“Carole wanted you to come too. They’re starting to think you don’t like them.”

I don’t, Ginnie thought. While she and Henry were transplants to the Upper East Side, Arnie and Carole were natural products of the effete neighborhood. She found these neighbors up the hall arrogant and pretentious.

“I really don’t want to. I’ve got to clean up here. There’s that project for work.”

“Just thirty, forty-five minutes.”

Double what it had been a moment ago.

Of course there was more to this than a neighborly visit. Arnie was head of a small tech start-up and Henry wanted him as a client for his law firm. Her husband didn’t admit it but this was obvious to her. She knew too that he liked to have Ginnie accompany him as he tried to win over people like Arnie—and not because she smart and funny, but because of what she’d overheard him say once to a fellow attorney, when he didn’t know she was nearby: “Let’s face it, a potential client’s on the borderline, who’s he going to sign with? The partner with the wife he can fantasize about fucking.”

The absolute last thing that Ginnie wanted to do, go have drinks with the Bassetts. He’d probably make her try the scotch, which however expensive all tasted like dish soap to her.

“But we just got Trudy down.” The two-year-old could be a fitful sleeper and sometimes impossible to get to fall asleep at a reasonable hour. Tonight, the 7 p.m. target had been a bull’s-eye.

“We’ve got the Nanny.”

“But still, you know I don’t like leaving her.”

“Forty-five minutes, an hour. Just to say hi. Sip a little whisky. Did you know about the spelling. Whiskey with an ‘e’ is bourbon. Irish too. Without it is scotch. Who thought that up?”

Henry was oh-so good at deflecting.

“Really, can’t we take a pass, honey?”

“No,” Henry said, grit to his voice. “I told them yes. So. Go scoot and throw something on.”

“It’s just drinks,” Ginnie said. Glancing at her jeans and sweatshirt. Then realizing she’d caved.

Henry turned his handsome face toward her (yeah, yeah, they were the perfect-looking couple). “Ah, for me, honey? Please. That little blue thing.”

Gaultier. Thing.

He gave her a seductive wink. “You know I like it.”

Ginnie went into the bedroom and changed, peeked at their daughter, still asleep, an angel with golden ringlets of hair, and then walked silently to the window, which faced a quiet side street, one flight below. Made sure the window was locked—though she’d checked it earlier—and drew the shades. Curiously Trudy might wake up at the sound of a cooing pigeon on the sill but would sleep through a fire engine siren and blaring intersection horn. She wanted to kiss the girl or touch her cheek, cradled by blond curls. But that might wake her and disrupt the impromptu get-together. Henry wouldn’t be happy.

Of course, if the child were to wake, that would be an excuse for Ginnie not to go.

Yes, no?

But she couldn’t do it, use her daughter as a ploy against her husband. Still, she smiled to herself, thinking: It had been a good plan.

Five minutes later they were up the dimly lit hall, ringing the Bassetts’ doorbell. The door opened. Cheeks were bussed, hands gripped, pleasantries exchanged.

Carole Bassett was in jeans and T-shirt. Ginnie’s eyes dipped to the outfit then to Henry but he missed the telling glance and accompanying grimace of her thin glossy lips. The men veered to the bar, where the magic potion sat, and—thank goodness—Carole apparently remembered that Ginnie drank wine exclusively and thrust a Pinot Gris into her hand. They clinked, sipped and headed into the living room, which offered a partial view of Central Park. (Henry was resentful that the Bassetts, new to the building, had happened to decide to move to the neighborhood just as that particular unit became vacant. Henry’s and Ginnie’s faced 81st Street.)

The men rejoined their mates.

“Ginnie, you want to try some?”

“Sure, she will. She loves scotch.”

And Palmolive is my favorite brand. Right next to Duz. “Already have wine. Don’t want to spoil the experience.”

“You’re sure?” Arnie said. “Cost eight hundred a bottle. And that’s because my guy got me a deal. And I mean deal.”

Carole said in a low voice, eyes wide, “He got us a Pétrus for a thousand.”

Henry barked a laugh. “You are shitting me?”

“Cross my heart.”