They were almost even now. The old man suddenly seemed to grow aware of her presence; he raised his head and lifted his arm to grasp his hat. He was actually going to tip his hat to her.
The hat came up, the arm obscuring everything except the eyes. They were remarkably bright and cold, and they seemed to be regarding her intently. Must be insomnia, she thought—despite the hour, this old fellow wasn’t sleepy at all.
“Good morning, miss,” said an old, creaky voice.
“Good morning,” she replied, trying to keep the surprise from her voice. Nobody ever said anything to you on the street. It was so un–New York. It charmed her.
As she passed him, she suddenly felt something whip around her neck with horrible speed.
She struggled and tried to cry out, but found her face covered with a cloth, damp and reeking with a sickly-sweet chemical smell. Instinctively, she tried to hold her breath. Her hand scrabbled in her purse and pulled out the bottle of pepper spray, but a terrible blow knocked it to the sidewalk. She twisted and thrashed, moaning in pain and fear, her lungs on fire; she gasped once; and then all swirled into oblivion.
FIVE
IN HIS MESSY CUBICLE ON THE FIFTH FLOOR OF THE TIMES BUILDING, Smithback examined with dissatisfaction the list he had handwritten in his notebook. At the top of the list, the phrase “Fairhaven’s employees” had been crossed out. He hadn’t been able to get back into the Moegen-Fairhaven Building—Fairhaven had seen to that. Likewise, “neighbors” had also been crossed out: he’d been given the bum’s rush at Fairhaven’s apartment building, despite all his best stratagems and tricks. He’d looked into Fairhaven’s past, to his early business associates, but they were either full of phony praise or simply refused comment.
Next, he’d checked out Fairhaven’s charities. The New York Museum was a dead loss—no one who knew Fairhaven would talk about him, for obvious reasons—but he had more success with one of Fairhaven’s other projects, the Little Arthur Clinic for Children. If success was the right word for it. The clinic was a small research hospital that cared for sick children with “orphaned” diseases: very rare illnesses that the big drug companies had no interest in finding cures for. Smithback had managed to get in posing as himself—a New York Times reporter interested in their work—without rousing suspicion. They had even given him an informal tour. But in the end that, too, had been a snow job: The doctors, nurses, parents, even the children sang hosannas for Fairhaven. It was enough to make you sick: turkeys at Thanksgiving, bonuses at Christmas, toys and books for the kids, trips to Yankee Stadium. Fairhaven had even attended a few funerals, which must have been tough. And yet, thought Smithback grumpily, all it proved was that Fairhaven carefully cultivated his public image.
The guy was a public relations pro from way back. Smithback had found nothing. Nothing.
That reminded him: he turned, grabbed a battered dictionary from a nearby shelf, flipped through the pages until he reached “n.” Nugatory: of no importance, trifling.
Smithback put back the dictionary.
What was needed here was some deeper digging. Before the time when Fairhaven had gone pro with his life. Back when he was just another pimply high school kid. So Fairhaven thought Smithback was just another run-of-the-mill reporter, doing nugatory work? Well, he’d wouldn’t be laughing so hard when he opened his Monday paper.
All it took was ten minutes on the Web to hit paydirt. Fairhaven’s class at P.S. 1984, up on Amsterdam Avenue, had recently celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of their graduation. They had created a Web page reproducing their yearbook. Fairhaven hadn’t shown up for the reunion, and he might not have even known of the Web page—but all the information about him from his old yearbook was posted, for all to see: photos, nicknames, clubs, interests, everything.
There he was: a clean-cut, all-around kid, smiling cockily out of a blurry graduation photograph. He was wearing a tennis sweater and a checked shirt—a typical well-heeled city boy. His father was in real estate, his mother a homemaker. Smithback quickly learned all kinds of things: that he was captain of the swim team; that he was born under the sign of Gemini; that he was head of the debating club; that his favorite rock group was the Eagles; that he played the guitar badly; that he wanted to be a doctor; that his favorite color was burgundy; and that he had been voted most likely to become a millionaire.