Chapter Nineteen
Elle
He looks like a cross between Clint Eastwood and a serial killer,’ Stephen commented dryly when we met up at a bar halfway between Little Italy and Gramercy Park.
I’d just showed him the poster and he’d stared at it for a full minute, face giving nothing away apart from a subtle downturn at the corner of his pretty lips.
‘Small wonder half the calls I’ve received have been from people concerned as to whether he’s on a register of some kind. ’
‘Oh come on, he doesn’t look that bad and it’s totally obvious that’s not the reason we’re looking for him. Why don’t people read things anymore?’ I rolled my eyes and dragged the poster back across the sticky bar.
It was Friday night and I was painfully aware that a full week had passed since I’d last been in a bar with him and I’d received my edit letter.
One week down on my deadline and even though I had felt it for the first time the other day – the wispy strand of a solution to my plot problems, floating around like a hair caught on my eyelashes – I still wasn’t in the right place to grab at it.
If I didn’t get work underway, I was definitely going to need an extension on my deadline.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind asking for that, but with my first draft being such a flop and the fact that I wasn’t signed up for another contract, I was worried it would be another black mark in the column against re-signing me.
I’d been really happy with my editor and publisher and over the years I’d come to realise that was not something to take for granted in my industry.
I’d spent some time looking up small towns in the Midwest since I’d had the idea to change the mystery to something in Charmaine’s past and therefore would need to send her back to her hometown – an area I was realising I’d neglected nailing down sufficiently in previous books.
Settings are very important in cosy crime; they create constrictions and therefore conflict but all my energy had gone into where she was in the present, not where she’d come from.
Anyway, despite doing this very important work, it was frustrating how many times I could accidentally open social media apps and fall down a wormhole of nonsense, pinging silly dance routines back and forth with Daisy and listening to songs that Beth was sharing with me on Spotify to help me build an inspirational playlist for the book I should be writing.
Stephen scoffed. ‘They’ve had no issues reading the number on the poster. I’m considering getting another phone so I can switch it to voicemail; it’s not terribly convenient trying to field these calls while I’m working. I’m not certain why we needed to have my number on it at all.’
‘Are you suggesting it should be my number on there?’ I asked coolly, because he probably thought I had nothing better to do during the day than act like his secretary.
‘Absolutely not. I’d remove every poster if you did that.’ He shrugged out of his jacket. ‘You can’t have strangers getting hold of your personal number.’
I tilted my head as I looked at him. I was definitely just trying to figure his personality out and not at all watching the way his broad shoulders moved underneath his crisp light pink shirt.
‘I can’t work out if you’re being passive-aggressively sarcastic to make a point or you’re being genuine,’ I admitted.
‘I’m not being sarcastic.’ He shook his head, looking around for somewhere to rest his suit jacket.
It was a struggle; everywhere looked sticky or grimy.
This bar was a far cry from the one on Fifth Avenue.
‘What I meant was, why do we have to have a number on it at all? An email address would be preferable. Or, better yet, not bother with the poster.’
‘I used a cell number because a lot of older people prefer to talk to someone. And if you think putting an email on the poster instead would save us from weirdos you’ve clearly never heard of the phenomena that is dick pics.
’ I gave a little shudder. ‘Why do you want to quit with the poster, already? It’s got us this lead hasn’t it? ’
‘Hmm.’ He settled for draping the jacket over his thigh. ‘If you can call this a lead. Surely if he had any useful information he was inclined to share, he’d have told me over the phone?’
‘Depends. If he knows Trevor, maybe he’s checking us out for him? I mean, if I found out someone was looking for me, I’d want to know who they were before I got in contact with them.’
‘I suppose.’ Stephen raised his hand to catch the attention of the burly barman, who loomed over us. ‘Could I get a bourbon, neat, please and…?’ He looked to me again.
‘Half a Guinness, thanks.’
We were grunted at and I took a deep breath and another glance around.
As fellow New Yorker, Peter Parker, might have said, my spidey-sense was tingling.
It was dark inside the bar; despite the fact it was only six o’clock in the evening and the sun was still shining brightly outside.
Other than us, there were two groups of men.
One bunch sitting in the deepest corner of the room, receiving table service, clearly regulars, and the others; younger – around college age – playing pool on the opposite side.
They were being very loud, laughing and jeering at each other over the clack of the balls, which told me they were either drunk or nervous themselves at being in this claustrophobic dive bar…
or both. I was the only woman and I was glad I’d dressed down.
‘In fact…’ I folded my arms on the edge of the bar, ignoring the way my skin stuck to whatever lingered on its surface, and leaned closer to Stephen, dropping my voice. ‘My gut feeling is, he’s already here, watching us. He might not tell us he’s here at all.’
‘Oh joy. This sounds like a fantastic use of time.’ Stephen shook his head and handed the bartender some money to cover our drinks, telling him to keep the change before returning to our conversation. ‘That was sarcasm, in case you were wondering.’
‘Are you always this grumpy after work or is this a special mood for my benefit?’
He gave me a look from the corner of his eye and took a drink from his glass.
I guessed that answered that. I pulled a clip out of my bag so I could put my hair up and stop watching the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in the strong column of his throat as he swallowed.
I was uncomfortably aware of the way he was able to sit on the bar stool and still have his feet touch the floor, in comparison to how I was perched up high, balancing on it like a toddler.
And the way his suit pants hugged his thighs because of the angle of his long legs.
Conversation evaporated between us as we sat side by side in the muggy bar.
A solitary fan, which the bartender spent most of his time blocking with his barrel chest, occasionally moved the air near me as I sipped at my stout.
I hated tense silences, especially when I couldn’t figure out why it was so tense.
Was it all because of the phone calls and the poster?
Was it because he felt on edge in this dodgy bar?
Or was it because he was doing what I asked by not flirting and without that repertoire he was basically uninterested in talking to women?
My cell rang and I almost cheered with delight. It was Tim. Which was odd as he never really called me. We tended to communicate through funny memes and videos on WhatsApp and saved actual conversations for family gatherings.
‘Everything OK?’ I answered.
‘Yeah, great,’ Tim all but yelled over the noise in the background. I tried to turn the volume down a little so no one else could hear him.
‘You at a bar?’
‘Yeah. Work drinks. Listen. This new guy started at my firm and he said he’s up for meeting you.’
‘Huh?’
‘The blind date, like we talked about.’
‘Tim. No. I did not say I wanted you to set me up on a blind date,’ I whispered furiously down the phone at him.
‘Why not? Honestly, he seems solid. And he’s got all his teeth.’
‘I don’t care. I can get my own dates.’ I could feel Stephen watching me and it was torture. I needed to get Tim off the phone immediately.
‘Lemme just ask him your questions. If he gets them right will you go out with him?’
‘No, don’t do that.’
‘C’mon. Send them over to me and I’ll vet him, if that’s what you need.’
‘Are you coming to Daisy’s softball thing on Sunday?’ I asked him.
‘No, I gotta go with Delia to visit her family.’
‘Right, I’ll see you back home the following weekend for the barbecue, then.’
‘But—’
I hung up on him. I wasn’t proud of it, but it sounded like he was drunk anyhow. I reached for my own drink and risked a glance at Stephen. He was still watching me, with a little smirk on his face.
‘Do you have a checklist for people you’re considering dating?’ he asked. ‘How does the interviewing process work? Do you answer the questions for them based on your first impressions or do your prospective dates get an opportunity to answer for themselves?’
I took a couple of sips of my half-pint and licked the froth from my lips, trying to summon up the same blasé attitude I used to deflect teasing from my siblings.
‘Everybody has a checklist. They may not admit it, but we all have criteria when we’re deciding who it’s worth spending our time with.’
‘I can’t recall ever using a checklist to make that kind of judgement about a woman.’
‘Why bother waste the time when you could be jumping straight into bed with whoever is willing?’ I crossed my legs. ‘I meant everyone who’s looking for a meaningful relationship rather than a one-night stand assesses the other person’s viability.’
‘I don’t only have one-night stands, you know.’
‘Do you have meaningful relationships, though? That mean something to you as well; not just to the poor woman.’
He swilled his bourbon around in the glass, his brow knitted as he watched the liquid moving.
‘You’re sounding awfully sexist, Noelle.
Why do you assume the women I date aren’t capable of wanting the same arrangement as me?
Most of the people I see have busy careers of their own and aren’t interested in settling down either.
I never lead women on. They always know what they can expect from me. ’
It was the first time he’d as good as admitted that he never engaged in anything more than casual flings and, even though I’d been aware of it, the bare-faced facts made me disappointed in a way I didn’t care to examine.
And annoyed. He’d made a good point about thinking of it only from my perspective.
Not that I wanted to date him. But I had assumed the women who did were looking for the same long-term deal as me, and that wasn’t necessarily the case.
‘OK, I admit, women are more than capable of wanting nothing other than a physical relationship and I shouldn’t have assumed you were leaving a trail of broken hearts behind you.
’ Although Beth had mentioned at least one devastated woman.
‘But you’ve only backed up my argument about the checklist. Even the commitment-phobic such as yourself have criteria.
1) Woman must not expect or desire any long-term prospects.
2) No meeting family. 3) No obligations.
4) Toothbrushes will be taken home again after use. Am I right?’
He lifted his glass to me with a half-smile. ‘You’ve got me completely sussed, haven’t you? Go on then, what are your questions?’
‘None of your business. You shouldn’t eavesdrop.’
‘I could hardly avoid it but fine.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘How long are we prepared to wait for this lead to arrive?’
I exhaled slowly and decided to take action. Anything rather than sit and think about the humiliation of my brother inadvertently announcing I was desperate to Stephen. I flagged the bartender down. ‘Do you have a guy called Eric come in here regularly?’
‘Who wants to know?’
I bit back my smart retort that it was obviously me who wanted to know. This guy was about six feet five and wider than most doorways. ‘He asked us to meet him here.’
‘Then I guess he’ll meet you here.’ He ambled off with a disinterested shrug but after he collected a drink, he went straight over to the table in the corner, crowded with men who looked like him. Enormous, bushy bearded and hostile.
‘I think he’s over there,’ I murmured to Stephen.
‘Why?’ He started to look over and I caught his arm.
‘No, don’t look.’
‘Why not? What’s going on in that head of yours?’
‘They look like bikers; this is most likely their bar because the bartender only grows a personality when he goes over to give them table service. He’s there now, as if he needs to collect their glasses but he’s most likely telling Eric about us asking after him.
Giving him a heads up that we’re getting impatient or something. ’
He raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Your imagination is very vivid. Do you spend all your time trying to figure people out?’
‘These are my skills. Some people are good at tennis or crochet, I’m good at—’
‘Jumping to conclusions?’
‘Hey, I thought you wanted my help with this.’
‘I do. But if he’s over there, what say we use your method from last weekend and simply ask? I don’t feel inclined to stay in this bar any longer than I have to.’
I tried not to feel insulted about the fact he couldn’t wait to get away. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
He got up from his bar stool, forcing me to let go of his arm so he could fold his jacket over it. ‘You’d prefer to sit here and wait while he decides what to do with us?’
‘This is their domain.’
‘All the more reason to go on the offensive. It’ll show them we’re not intimidated,’ he said, stepping closer to lower his voice, his breath sweet with bourbon and cool from mint.
‘If you’re nervous, you can wait for me outside.
’ And for just a moment I fancied I could see softness in his dark eyes, concern that made me feel a little safer.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not abandoning you to them.’
‘I can handle myself.’
‘This is New York, Stephen, and it looks like we’ve been lured to a biker bar. They’ll eat you alive. They’ve probably figured out you’re loaded by the cut of your fine Italian suit.’
‘It’s a Thom Sweeney,’ he pointed out mildly. ‘I’m going over.’
‘Dammit. OK.’
We approached the dingy corner and the four men watched us the entire time. I couldn’t help but feel like a dopey zebra stumbling into a pride of lions.