Whether Chubb Coy and Dr. St. Croix were Wrong People or were compatriots of another kind, conspiring for their own purposes, the professor seemed to regard Norm’s with the disdain that Bibi imagined Terezin and his pals would hold toward any restaurant lacking white tablecloths and designer china. Before her stood only an untouched glass of water. Her expression was more sour than usual, and she sat with the shoulders-back rigidity and lifted chin of a stern advocate of temperance who found herself unaccountably in a tavern. Her apparent contempt was not directed at Coy, as he plowed through his pancakes, for the two of them were engaged in animated conversation that seemed to amuse rather than offend him.
Before they might take notice of her, Bibi turned away from them, sat down, and fished enough money out of her purse to pay the entire bill, which she left on the table with the tip. At the back of the room were double portholed doors to the kitchen, and she headed for them as though she had legitimate business with someone on the staff, her face averted from Chubb Coy and his date.
Cooks and other staffers looked up in surprise, less because she didn’t belong there than because she had slammed through the doors with the energy of someone bent on lodging a loud complaint. When she started to make her way through prep aisles, past the griddles and grills and ovens, someone asked what she wanted, and someone else tried to give her directions to the women’s restroom. She saw the distant back door and waved them away, saying, “Air, need some air,” as though the dining room behind her had abruptly become a vacuum.
In the parking lot, after she moved the Honda to have a clear view of the entrance to the restaurant, Bibi slouched behind the steering wheel and wished that she had a baseball cap. Twenty minutes later, Coy and the professor came outside and stood talking for a minute before shaking hands and parting. He went to his black Lexus, and she got into a Mercedes.
Starting the engine, Bibi figured she should follow one or the other, but then decided not to bother with either. Being a former cop, Chubb Coy would spot a tail in minutes. Wherever the professor was going, it was unlikely to be as revelatory as finding her here with this man. That they knew each other was enough to convince Bibi that they were in league against her and that she had been a topic—if not the topic—of their meeting. If later she needed to have a few words with Solange St. Croix, she knew where to find the bitch.
After the Lexus and the Mercedes were out of sight, Bibi sat for a while, thinking about coincidences. She didn’t believe in them. Could they have known where to find her? Could they have wanted to be seen? Could they be all-knowing masters of the universe in human form? “For God’s sake, Beebs,” she said, “you’re losing it.” Even if they knew what kind of car she was driving now, which they didn’t, they couldn’t have known she would be going to Norm’s until she got there. Anyway, she was certain she hadn’t been followed. But she still didn’t believe in coincidences.
From Norm’s, she went to three different branches of her bank and withdrew two hundred dollars from each ATM, bringing her supply of cash to $814. At a big-box store, she purchased a disposable cell phone and an electronic map with GPS. She also bought a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses in case she again needed to disguise herself a little.
In the parking lot, as she unlocked the Honda and put her purchases on the front passenger seat, she began to feel like a sly operator, slipping off the grid with the ease of a senior CIA agent.
Which was when someone behind her said, “Is that you, Bibi? Bibi Blair?”
Bibi swung around to confront a woman who was vaguely familiar, but no name came to mind. Maybe thirty. Lots of tumbling blond hair. Face as smooth and unlined as raw chicken flesh with the pebbly skin stripped off. Pert nose, porn-star lips. Teeth white enough to blind. A projecting bosom on which a line of crows could perch.
“Hope you haven’t gone too big-time literary to remember us little people, Gidget. It’s not even been six years.”
“Miss Hoffline,” Bibi said, not because she could confirm the woman’s identity from the visual clues, but because no one other than her eleventh-grade English teacher had ever called her Gidget.
“These days, it’s Marissa Hoffline-Vorshack. Married right at the top two years ago. His name’s Leopold. Real-estate development.”