William Brown - The Undertaker

“I saw you on TV a couple of days ago.”

“What a monstrous waste of time. Well, if you watched, you'll know I am fat and jolly, completely bald, and I'm never without a big smile or a couple of large bodyguards. So don't get any peculiar ideas, Mr. Talbott, or try to do anything but talk.”

“Me? I'm a pussy cat, Mister Billingham.”

“That's not what the Boston Globe said about you this morning, or the Chicago Tribune the day before. And I guess the Columbus papers the day before that, but who's counting, eh?”

“None of that stuff is true.”

“Of course not. I'm a defense attorney, remember? That's what all my clients tell me,” he chuckled. “But if you really are part of the innocent, tiny minority, that's all the more reason for you to be careful. 5:00 PM is a long time from now and like most pussy cats, you've already used up most of your nine lives… and “ciao,” Mr. Talbott.”

Two doors down from the Starbucks was a bookstore. We ducked inside and I bought a copy of the Boston Globe, curious about the story Billingham mentioned. I opened it and groaned. This time we had made page one. They had my photo again, with the headline, “Torture Slaying in Back Bay, Midwest Cop Killers Believed in Boston,” and they had enough of the details and the twisted background to convince me it was more of Ralph Tinkerton's handiwork. This time, they had Sandy's photograph too. Mine was the same old California driver's license mug shot they used in Chicago, but Sandy's was even worse. Her black hair looked dirty and uncombed, not stylishly “messy,” her skin was pale and fleshy, and she wore black lip-gloss and eyeliner. With a pair of dull, dead eyes and dark bags underneath, she must have been in her Goth phase. I turned the paper and showed her.

“Which was it?” I asked. “A horrible hangover or Halloween?”

She stared at the picture without saying a word and I could see the tears start to form.

“Hey, I'm sorry,” I said. “I was only kidding.”

“You should keep that,” she pointed at it and managed a whisper. “You can pull it out any time I get moody or piss you off, or you don't think I appreciate you enough. That was me, about a year ago, after I hit bottom. Like I said, you need to keep it.”

“Well, one good thing,” I said, as I gave her a hug. “That sure isn't you anymore.”

The ride down to New York's Pennsylvania Station at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue in Midtown took about three hours. When we crossed into Connecticut, I began to relax. With all the local crime in New York, the newspapers in the Big Apple would have more than enough of their own news without needing Boston or Chicago stories for filler. By the time we reached central Connecticut, the sky had turned gray as fresh showers came up the Atlantic coast to meet us.

The station is underground, and Sandy and I joined the flow of bodies heading for the narrow escalators. The old, granite, neo-classical train station had been torn down and replaced by the Madison Square Garden sports arena. The railroad waiting room and ticket windows were in the basement, complete with the usual array of homeless, Hari Krishnas, panhandlers, bag ladies, and three-card Monte dealers. In the middle, we found a large, confusing map that showed the complex array of bus, train, and subway routes that overlaid the five boroughs.

“Looks like the wiring diagram for the space shuttle,” I mumbled, trying to orient myself to the big map.

She stared at the map for a second, as if she was taking it all in, then her finger shot out and touched a spot on the map. “There's Washington Square at the lower end of Fifth Avenue. Isn't that where we're going?”

I stared at her, wondering how she did that.

“And those little dots? Aren't those the subway stops around it? If we took this line here.” Her finger traced a thin green line across the map. “But we aren't really going to take the subway again, are we?” She wrinkled up her nose. “Yuk.”

“We can walk if you'd like,” I glanced at my watch and saw it was only 2:45. “Our meeting with Billingham isn't until 5:00,” I said.

“Good. My butt is tired of sitting.”

“It's probably raining out there, you know.”

“Talbott, when you're in love, you can walk right between the drops.” She wrapped herself around my arm and pulled me away. “Let's get out of here before I figure out a better use of that extra two hours.”

We took the escalator up to the street. Standing under the canopy at 34th and 7th Avenue, we looked out on a sea of umbrellas bobbing past in the misty summer rain. On the corner, I spotted one of the ubiquitous New York street vendors selling cheap umbrellas for $10.00. Yesterday they were probably $5.00 and he was mostly selling knock-off Oakley sunglasses, but yesterday the sun was shining.

“Love's great,” I told her as a raindrop dripped off my nose. “But even Gene Kelly used an umbrella.”

“Just buy one. If you buy two, you'll make me cry.”

As we walked down 7th Avenue, Washington Square lay ahead of us in the gray mist about three miles away, but it was an easy walk huddled under the umbrella. The rain was only a light drizzle and the extra time would give us a chance to check out the meeting site. Sandy was wrapped around my arm as we walked south and I realized how comfortable that felt now. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turned, and pulled her to me. Our lips met and we stood, arms entwined, kissing, mouths open, tongues probing, for a good two minutes. In any other city, we would get comments, odd looks, or even a few loud grumbles, but not in New York. You can get away with anything for five minutes on a New York sidewalk.

“Not too shabby,” she said as I finally put her down. “Was there some particular reason for that?” she asked, smacking her lips to get the circulation back.

“None at all, I just felt like doing it.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“Just like that.”

“Then that's the best reason of all.” She beamed. “But if you do that again, I'm going to drag you into another hotel for a long, tawdry afternoon of debauchery.”

Arm in arm again, we turned south and resumed our stroll. We passed a corner newspaper stand. The latest editions of the New York Post covered its entire sidewall. Not that New York newspapers were known for understatement, but the headlines screamed at us in huge black letters “GOV SAYS NO”. The story had something to do with the state budget, but I guess it was an off news day in the Big Apple, because below the fold, I saw, “NEW ENGLAND MANHUNT CONTINUES FOR COP KILLERS.” They had our photographs again, both of them, but I didn't bother to read the story.

“Let's get out of here,” I whispered as I pulled her away.

“Peter,” she laughed. “This is New York City. King Kong could walk down Fifth Avenue and no one would notice. Even if they did, they wouldn't care so long as he didn't step on one of them.”

At 11th Street, we turned east to Fifth Avenue and walked south to Washington Square, where Fifth dead-ended at the big arch. Cuddled up under the umbrella, we walked south through the park, out the other side, and down to Bleeker Street, slowly checking it all out. Billingham knew we were coming around 5:00, but he didn't know where we'd be coming from. Walking down Fifth from the north would have been the obvious approach, but I intended to circle the park and come in from the south or east where we might blend in with the younger NYU crowd.

It was only 3:45, so we found a small, nearly empty Italian restaurant on Bleeker Street. Located four steps below the street, the restaurant was dark, with bushy plants and old Chianti bottles hanging in the windows. We ordered some pasta and the waiter gave me a look of utter scorn when I told him I would like a bottle of Joseph Phelps Cabernet from Napa, but what do Italians know about good wine?