? ? ?
THE TRAFFIC LANES that fed onto the bridge from either side were still blocked off, and more than that, the terminal doors were closed. A sour-faced patrolman stood at the top of the stairs scanning the street as if he expected an invasion, but Jack never hesitated; he tipped his chin up at the patrolman—it seemed that this was the way police officers of all kinds acknowledged each other—and then he opened the door for Anna and they walked past him and into the terminal to the sound of hammers and saws.
Even on a Saturday after seven in the evening there were carpenters and painters and electricians working in the waning light. None of them took note of two strangers walking through the terminal, but two roundsmen called out to Jack, gesturing him over. Anna supposed it was inevitable; he couldn’t simply walk past a colleague without at least a short conversation. But she was so eager to be on the bridge that she found herself bouncing on the balls of her feet like a schoolgirl.
The conversation had to do with boxing. She tried to fix her face in a politely uninterested way, and realized that she was failing when Jack took her hand and tucked it into his coat pocket, where he squeezed it twice. Be patient, was the message. She pinched him, hard.
One of the roundsmen was looking at her. A grandfatherly type with a great waterfall of gray mustache and a complexion so weather-roughened it looked more like tweed than skin. But he had a kind smile.
“You are looking forward to the bridge?”
He had a German accent which followed from the fact that Jack had called him Franz, but his shield bore the name Hannigan. It was not out of the ordinary in New York to have one Irish and one German parent or two parents from opposite sides of the world, for that matter.
Anna smiled back at him. “Very much.”
“Lua,” murmured his partner. “Wie die Grüable kriagt wenns lachat. Was globst, Franz, git’s da n Ehering undr a Handshua?” And he winked at Jack, who spoke no German. Or better said, Swiss, because that was what they were speaking, oddly enough. She looked at Jack and was relieved to see him looking back at her, waiting for a translation.
Before Anna could tell the man that there was not, in fact, a wedding ring under her glove, Officer Hannigan put the question to Jack in a more subtle way.
“And is this young lady a relative?”
Jack raised a brow and shot her a grin. “Not yet.”
After a startled silence that seemed to last an hour, Anna pulled away from him. “Na ja,” she said to the roundsmen in a voice nothing like her own. “Das werden wir mal sehen.” We’ll just see about that.
? ? ?
A SHORT FLIGHT of stairs led down to the pedestrian walkway that stretched out before them, still cluttered with machinery, piles of wooden planks, wheels of wiring, and a dozen other things Anna couldn’t put a name to. The first lampposts had been installed, but Anna could see that it would be a good while before the bridge could be lit at night.
Below them laborers were still busy on the train and omnibus tracks, but on the promenade they were alone in a cathedral of cables aligned with such precision that Anna was reminded of the inner workings of a piano. She looked up at the pointed arches of the nearer tower and thought again of climbing it. She could see the ladder bolted to the stonework from where they stood.
“So,” Jack said. “What did they say?”
“Who?”
He made a face at her.
Irritated, she sidestepped again. “Said about what?”
“They said something about you in German.”
“No, they didn’t. They were speaking Swiss.”
“So you didn’t understand.”
“They liked my dimples,” Anna said.
Jack made a sound in his throat. “I’m sure there was something more to it than that. And what did you say to make them laugh like that?”
Anna shrugged, both unable and unwilling to open up the conversation. Instead she ran ahead, pulling off her hat to feel the breeze on her face and neck. And she needed a moment to think.
Not yet.
Jack teased; it was his nature. He enjoyed seeing her flustered, but he was never cruel or thoughtless. Or had never been. Not yet.
She stopped suddenly and turned to watch him walking toward her in long strides. He had left his hat in the terminal and the wind ruffled his hair. For that moment he looked more like a boy of twenty than a man of thirty-five.
As he got closer she said, “I don’t want to talk about what you said to them. Not until I’ve told you some things you should know. You might well change your mind about me. And,” she added briskly, “I haven’t made up my mind about you.”
He stopped so close to her that their shoes touched, and smiled down at her. “Liar.”