JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home Read Online Free PDF

publicity that goes with it.”
    He reached into an inner pocket of his suit jacket.
    “A present for you,” he said. It was a small paperbound book with yellow covers. On a gray square on the front were the letters PLS in black capitals. “Pace-Loyette phone directory. I marked the names that might interest you.” I looked at Neary. He looked back.
    “You’re awfully helpful today,” I said. “And you know a lot of Pace-Loyette gossip, considering they’re not a client yet.” Neary smiled enigmatically and drank more coffee.
    “I like to look before I leap,” he said. Wheels within wheels.
    It was late afternoon by the time we picked our way across Union Square toward the subway station. The crowd was light at the farmers’ market in the square, and the vendors were restocking for the evening rush. The yeasty fragrance of baked goods, the scent of cut flowers, and the earthy smells of produce and potted plants masked the less appealing city odors. The sky was full of high thin clouds and pink light. We walked slowly, looking through the stalls as we passed. Neary’s wireless chimed a few times along the way, but he ignored it. We crossed 14th Street and stopped outside the station and shook hands.
    “You still seeing that neighbor of yours— what was her name?” Neary asked. The question took me by surprise.
    “Jane. Her name is Jane,” I said.
    He nodded. “You look … better.” His belt chimed again and almost simultaneously his cell phone trilled. He shook his head. “Fuck this,” he said, and disappeared into the subway.
    It was a short walk home, and I went back through the farmers’ market. I stopped at a flower stall for some tulips for Jane.

    Winter had taken hold early— well before Christmas— and it had held on tight till April Fools’. Nearly every week had brought a storm, and in between the blizzards and the frozen rain there had been long stretches of head-cracking cold and breathtaking wind. It seemed that I’d been running through ice and sleet and blackened city snow forever. So these last few weeks had been a gift.
    Overnight, the plow shavings and dirty rinds of ice had vanished from the curbsides and intersections, and a drenching rain three weeks ago— the day we’d changed the clocks— had sluiced away the sand and salt and flotsam that remained. Feathery blossoms had appeared on the trees, faintly at first, like tentative green sketch marks, and then with more color and conviction. Grass was coming in on the dirt patches in the parks. Even now, the sidewalks and buildings had a scrubbed, surprised look— like a drunk, waking up sober and in his own bed for the first time in a long time. I picked up my pace.
    I turned west on 20th Street, and ran between Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town. I headed south at First Avenue, and west again at 17th Street, past some Beth Israel Hospital buildings and over to Stuyvesant Square. I had five miles behind me. I checked my watch. It was after seven and there was still some light in the sky. I felt loose and limber, and my breathing was easy. I was good to go for another two. I dodged around a pair of dog walkers on Rutherford Place and went west on 15th Street. Thoughts jumped and skittered in my head as I ran, like a ball over a roulette wheel.
    Nina Sachs was an edgy, prickly woman, and she emanated a tension that seemed to permeate her household. It was there in her son— in the painful twist of his shoulders as he shrank from his mother’s touch and in his thin, angry voice. And it was there in Ines Icasa, too— in her quick movements about the apartment and in her face that was like a smooth dark-eyed mask.
    There was something about Nina’s story that didn’t sit quite right. Maybe it was her reluctance to call the police— and risk upsetting the ex-husband she so obviously disdained— that didn’t make sense. I’d seen enough of divorced couples, though, to know that sense only rarely entered into things—