Ransome had a woman on his mind. Not unusual; his life and career were dedicated to capturing the essence of a very few uniquely stunning creatures. But this was someone he’d never seen or heard of until approximately eight o’clock the night before. And the few photos he’d seen, taken with a phone cam, hadn’t revealed nearly enough of Echo Halloran to register her so strongly on his imagination.
Anyway, it was too soon, he told himself. Better just to forget this one, the potential he’d glimpsed. His new show, the first in four years, was being mounted at his gallery. Five paintings only, his usual output after as much as eighteen painful months of work.
He wouldn’t be ready to pick up a brush for at least that length of time. If ever again.
And half the world’s population was women. More or less. A small but dependable percentage of them physically ravishing.
But this one was a painter herself, which intrigued him more than the one good shot of her he’d seen, taken on the train, Echo sitting back in her seat with her eyes closed, unaware that she was being photographed.
Ransome wondered if she had promise as a painter. But he could easily find out.
He lingered on the terrace until the first big drops of rain fell. He went inside, closing the doors, walked down a marble hall to the room in which Taja, wearing black silk lounging pajamas, was watching Singin’
in the Rain on DVD. Another insomniac. She saw his reflection on the plasma screen and looked around.
There was a hint of a contrite wince in his smile.
“I’ll want more photos,” he said. “Complete background check, of course. And order a car for tomorrow.
I’d like to observe her myself.”
Taja nodded, drew on a cigarette and returned her attention to the movie. Donald O’Connor falling over a sofa. She didn’t smile. Taja never smiled at anything.
THREE
It rained all day Thursday; by six-thirty the clouds over Manhattan were parting for last glimpses of washed-out blue; canyon walls of geometric glass gave back the brassy sunset. Echo was able to walk the four blocks from her Life Studies class to the 14th Street subway without an umbrella. She was carrying her portfolio in addition to a shoulder tote and computer, having gone directly from her office at Gilbard’s to class.
The uptown express platform was jammed, the atmosphere underground thick and fetid. Obviously there hadn’t been a train for a while. There were unintelligible explanations or announcements on the PA. Someone played a violin with heroic zeal. Echo edged her way up the platform to find breathing room where the first car would stop when the train got there.
Half a dozen Hispanic boys were scuffling, cutting up; a couple of the older ones gave her the eye. One of them, whom she took in at a glance, looked like trouble. Tats and piercings. Full of himself.
A child of the urban jungle, Echo was skilled at minding her own business, building walls around herself when she was forced to linger in potentially bad company.
She pinned her bulky portfolio between her knees while she retrieved a half-full bottle of water from her tote. She was jostled from behind by a fat woman laden with shopping bags and almost lost her balance.
The zipper on her portfolio had been broken for a while. A few drawings spilled out. Echo grimaced, nodded at the woman’s brusque apology and tried to gather up her life studies before someone else stepped on them.
One of the younger Hispanic kids, wearing a do-rag and a Knicks jersey, came over lo give her a hand.
He picked up a charcoal sketch half-soaked in a puddle of water. Echo’s problem had attracted the attention of all the boys.
The one she’d had misgivings about snatched the drawing from the hand of the Knicks fan and looked it over. A male nude. He showed it around, grinning. Then backed off when Echo held out a hand, silently asking for the return of her drawing. She heard the uptown express coming.
The boy looked at her. He wore his cholo shirt unbuttoned to his navel.
“Who’s this guy? Your boyfriend?”
“Give me a break, will you? I’ve had a long day, I’m tired, and I don’t want to miss my train.”
The boy pointed to the drawing and said, “Man, I seen a bigger tool on a gerbil.”
They all laughed as they gathered around, reinforcing him.
“No,” Echo said. “My boyfriend is on the cops, and I can arrange for you to meet him.”
That provoked whistles, snorts, and jeers. Echo looked around at the slowing express train, and back at the boy who was hanging onto her drawing. Pretending to be an art critic.
“Hey, you’re good, you know that?”
“Yes, I know.”
‘You want to do me, I can arrange the time.” He grinned around at his buddies, one of whom said,
“Draw you.”
‘Yeah, man. That’s what I said.” He feigned confusion. “That ain’t what I said?” He looked at Echo and shrugged magnanimously. “So first you draw me, then you can do me.”
Echo said, “Listen, you fucking little idiot, I want my drawing now, or you’ll be in shit up to your bull ring.”
The express screeched to a stop behind her. A local was also approaching on the inside track. The boy made a show of being astonished by her threat. As if he were trembling in fright, his hands jerked and the drawing tore nearly in half.
“Oh, sorry, man. Now I guess you need to get yourself another naked guy.” He finished ripping her drawing.
Echo, losing it, dropped her computer case and hooked a left at his jaw. She was quick on her feet; it just missed. The cholo danced away with the halves of the drawing in each hand, and bumped into a woman walking the yellow platform line of the local track as if she were a ballet dancer. The headlight of the train behind her winked on the slim blade of a knife in her right hand.
With her left hand she took hold of the boy by his bunchy testicles and lifted him up on his toes until they were at eye level.
The Woman in Black stared at him, and the point of the knife was between two of his exposed ribs.
Echo’s throat dried up. She had no doubt the woman would cut him if he didn’t behave. The boy’s mouth was open, but he could have screamed without being heard as the train thundered by a couple of feet away from them.
The woman cast a long look at Echo, then nodded curtly toward the express.
The kid in the Knicks jersey picked up Echo’s computer and shoved it at her as if he suspected that she too might have a blade. The doors of the local opened and there was a surge of humanity across the platform to the parked express. Echo let herself be carried along with it, looking back once as she boarded.
Another glimpse of the Woman in Black, still holding the cholo helpless, getting a few looks but no interference. Echo’s pulses throbbed. The woman was like a walking superstition, with a temperament as dark and lurking as paranoia.
Who was she? And why, Echo wondered as the doors closed, does she keep showing up in my life?
She rode standing up to 86th in the jam of commuters, her face expressionless, presenting a calm front but inside just a blur, like a traumatized bird trying to escape through a sealed window.
Echo didn’t say anything to Peter about the Woman in Black until Friday evening, when they were slogging along in oppressive traffic on the 495 eastbound, on their way to Matti-tuck and the cozy weekend they’d planned at the summer house of Frank Ringer’s uncle.
“No idea who she is?” Peter said. ‘You’re sure you don’t know her from somewhere?”
“Listen, she’s the kind, see her once, you never forget her. I’m talking spooky.”
“She pulled a knife in the subway? Switchblade?”
“Maybe. I don’t know much about knives. It was the look in her eyes, man. That cholo must’ve went in his pants.” Echo smiled slightly, then her expression turned glum. “So, the first couple times, okay.
Coincidence. A third time in the same week, uh-uh, I don’t buy it. She must’ve been following me around.”
Echo shrugged again, and her shoulders stayed tight. “I didn’t sleep so good last night, Pete.”
‘You ever see her again, make it your business to call me right away.”
“I wonder if maybe I should—”
“No. Stay away from her. Don’t try to talk to her.”
‘You’re thinking she could be some sort of psycho?”
“That’s New York. Ten people go by in the street, one or two out of the ten, something’s gonna be seriously wrong with them mentally.”