Read Online JM03 - Red Cat by Peter Spiegelman - Free Book Online Page B

to her.”

    The guy, I knew from Greer’s note, was Gene Werner. He was dark-haired and ponytailed, clean-shaven except for a short, neat beard that covered his square chin. There was a rope braid around his wrist, a small gold ring in his left ear, and a handsome smile on his lips as he looked at Holly. I stirred my drink and swallowed some and picked up the photo.

    “You think?”

    “It’s in the body language,” Clare said, and she was right. Werner was turned toward Holly, one arm along the back of the booth, trying to encircle her, the other on the table, a barrier against the rest of the group. His eyes were fixed on Holly’s face and there was worry and uncertainty in his smile. Holly was leaning away from his hopeful arm, and her eyes were in another zip code.

    Clare played with the lime wedge in her drink. “She must be used to the attention,” she said, “wanted or otherwise.”

    “How so?”

    “That whole Renaissance sex-kitten thing she’s got going— it’s hot.” I looked more closely at the photos, at Holly’s pale skin and slender fingers and wide, sad mouth. Clare had a point.

    “You’re looking for her?” she said. I nodded. “What for?” I smiled and shook my head. Clare held up a hand. “Forget I asked.” She took another sip of her vodka tonic and opened her Warhol biography.

    I carried my drink, the noodles, and the pictures to the table, where my laptop and notepad waited. My notes were nearly up to date: I’d covered my conversation with Greer, and the photographs, and I’d summarized all I’d learned about Holly Cade. It took a page and a half but as I reread it, I wondered if it was what David had in mind.

    I want you to find this Wren, for chrissakes— to find out who she is and where she lives— to find out as much about her as she has about me.

    I’d done well enough on the first two items, though I needed David’s ID to be certain; it was the third I had doubts about. Assuming Wren and Holly were one and the same, how much did I really know about her beyond her name and address? The strained family ties, the forays into writing and acting and video, and the decidedly mixed results, the striking looks and the self-absorption— what did they add up to? What had she been doing since the Gimlets had folded and her video show had gone nowhere? Who was Babyface, and who was he to her? Why was she trolling the web for a guy like David? And, having found him, what the hell did she want from him?

    8

    Clare and I drove to Orient Point on Saturday morning, at the far end of the North Fork of Long Island. It didn’t go well. We were back in the city before dinner and she didn’t take her coat off in my apartment. She disappeared into the bedroom and reappeared a moment later with her overnight bag on her shoulder. She paused on her way to the door, and her voice was more tired than angry.

    “You know, you have a real knack for fucking up a good thing,” she said.

    Her footsteps receded down the hallway and echoed in the stairwell. I shut the door and turned on the lights.

    * * *

    The Long Island Expressway had been ugly but empty that morning, and my head had been full of Holly Cade and David as I drove. Of Holly I knew only bits and pieces, not enough yet to understand— or even expect to understand— her actions. But David was a different story; he was my brother and I was supposed to know him. Or something like that.

    I’d wondered about his serial infidelity, and wondered why. I thought about other cheating-husband cases I’d worked, and about the rationalizations I’d heard before: “I have needs”; “She doesn’t understand me”; “It’s just sex”; “It has nothing to do with her”; “Out of town doesn’t count”— all the usual suspects, and all so ordinary. It was hard to imagine David subscribing to any of them. Of course, it was hard to imagine him doing anything so dangerous— so potentially self-destructive— as these