by Frank Deford
No, Nina wasn’t really scared yet. No real danger. Lots of people around. And, after all, it was only a woman who seemed to be following her. Still, when she whirled south again, moving briskly toward 77th, past her all-time favorite East Side Nineties block—two bakeries, a bank, and two jewelry stores—when she paused there and snuck a peek back, the first genuine fear struck her. From the light of a well-lit store, Nina could make out the identity of the person following her. And:
It was that tall, gray-haired woman in a hat.
Now—now Nina remembered her. That day at the museum. And earlier tonight, across from her office. How long had she been tracking her? Days? Weeks? So now, curiosity blurred into fright, and Nina quickened her pace, crossing 76th, stepping as fast as she could. At 75th, to be absolutely certain that this strange woman was after her, Nina took an abrupt right, doubling back toward Fifth. And sure enough, the last she could see before the building on the northwest corner blocked her view, was that the woman had reached the Carlyle Hotel in the midblock between 77th and 76th, and was now rushing out of the sidewalk shadows, cutting across Madison, nimbly negotiating the traffic.
That was enough. No more cat-and-mouse. Nina hailed the first cab and jumped in. “Make the light at Fifth—quick!” she cried, and he fired the taxi ahead, cutting under the last of the yellow light, swinging downtown onto Fifth. Nina looked back just in time to see the tall lady bend herself into another cab. There was no doubt now. “Go through the park!” Nina cried out.
“I can’t do that till 66th, lady.”
“All right, all right. Just step on it.” (Step on it, Nina thought. Nobody says step on it in real life, and I just have.)
“You being followed, lady?”
“No, no, it’s just a prank.” Nina glanced back again, but of course, all the cabs were yellow, so that was pointless. Anyway, the turn to the West Side came, and the driver began to traverse the park.
“Okay, lady, now where to?”
Nina gave him directions to circle back, to take her to her apartment on the East Side. He stopped asking questions. And he made good time. Even then, though, Nina made sure to have the right fare and tip ready for him, so she wouldn’t have to wait for any change. She dashed into her building.
“Jaime,” Nina said to the doorman, “I’m having some difficulty with a, uh, former patient. Tall woman. Gray hair. Probably wearing a hat. She may be coming here. I am not at home.”
“Of course, Doctor.” Jaime liked this little intrigue. The Soviet Union had had its consulate just down the block, and there’d always been rumors that the CIA had monitored the Commies out of this very building. Why, Jaime hadn’t enjoyed this sort of mystery since the Cold War ended.
Nina rushed into the elevator, and she could hear her house phone ringing in her apartment even before she could unlock the door. She grabbed for the receiver. “Jaime downstairs, Doctor. Your patient was here.”
“She asked for me?”
“No, she just got out of a taxi, looked in—you know, saw me. So, I started to walk right at her, and when she saw that, she turned and hurried away, down toward Lex.”
“Thank you, Jaime,” Nina said, but it was cold comfort. This was getting serious. The woman knows where I live. Nina wanted a drink. But she had already had two drinks. Two martinis, for God’s sake. Instead, she decided to compose herself by going into her bedroom and lighting a votive candle. She would hypnotize herself. She’d learned how to do that years before, when she was training to hypnotize patients.
Nina stared at the candle, breathing deeply, talking to herself—softly now, in cadence. But, right away, she knew it wasn’t flying. She couldn’t block the tall woman out of her mind. And the scream. Bucky’s scream. The woman. The scream. No use. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been unable to hypnotize herself. Well yes, then, she could remember: it was after that evening when she’d first cheated on her husband, when she’d made love to Hugh.
But on that occasion, there’d been an alternative. That time, anyway, she could go to church and pray for the forgiveness of her sins. Which she did. But what could Nina do now? She turned on the light and blew out the candle.
That was when the phone rang. She stared at it, the ringing. The tall lady, of course. She’d obviously been the hang-up at the office. But Nina was mad now. She wanted to talk to her, to confront her. Another ring, and Nina pounced on the phone. “Hello,” she said—the word more interrogation than salutation. But there was only silence on the other end. “Come on,” Nina snapped. “Come on.”
The woman’s voice responded to that. “Put Bucky on…please”—the last word more command than courtesy.
Nina snapped back. “You followed me. You know Bucky’s not here.”
The caller pondered this. Then, after a few moments, she said, “Yeah, my foot.” And then the click, gone.
Nina couldn’t help but stare at the phone. My foot. It was almost a little-girl thing to say. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d heard anybody say “my foot.” It made everything weird even weirder. My foot. Shaking—literally shaking—Nina reached for the telephone again.
12
“I’m really sorry,” she said, when Hugh answered. “I’ll never do this again.”
He was cross. “Damn it, Nina. We agreed.”
“I know, Hugh. But I just had to talk to someone. I’m scared.”
That restored his sympathy—and then he could also hear her voice cracking, hear the muffled sound that tears on the verge make, as Nina told him about being followed, about the woman in the hat, her calling her up. She had to talk to him, had to listen to him.
Of course, isn’t this the way it had started the first time—six, seven years ago? Then, Nina wasn’t frightened. She was simply upset and unsure. Lindsay had left home, and she and Kingsley were alone, and that was different—not necessarily bad or good, you understand…just different. But for some reason, Nina had lost some professional confidence. She had started taking every patient’s trauma and travails home with her, questioning everything she had said, everything she had suggested, all day long.
She knew she had to see somebody. Psychoanalysts have to themselves be psychoanalyzed before they can even begin to psychoanalyze other people. Why shouldn’t Nina see another psychiatrist? But that seemed so insular to Nina; she decided she’d rather talk to her priest. Besides, there was a certain attractive perversity to that, too, inasmuch as psychiatrists were supposed to be so godless. Only, Nina couldn’t stand her old parish priest, because he represented to her all the hidebound, anti-female stuff that she despised in the Catholic Church.
That was when one of her best friends, Diane, suggested that Nina talk to her minister, who was, Diane proclaimed, absolutely the most sensitive—and charming—man in the world. Diane was a Lutheran, ergo her minister, Hugh Venable, was a Lutheran, and that all seemed too much of a reach for Nina—and for Hugh. But Diane was persuasive. So, strictly as a courtesy to their mutual friend, the two of them—the Catholic communicant and the Lutheran minister—agreed to meet. Both, in their own minds, figured they’d go through the motions for about fifteen minutes. Only Nina and Hugh fell in love with each other in the first five. So, he became her counselor.
After their fourth counseling session, as a way (she said) of thanking him for all his guidance, Nina asked Hugh out to dinner. It was totally transparent. He made sure to wear his clerical collar, so that if anybody saw him dining with this attractive woman, they would assume that it was church business. She picked a restaurant with bright lights. After dinner, on a pretense, she had their cab drop her back at her office, and on a further pretense, he came inside for a moment. Both of them, by the way, perfectly understood these pretenses.
Feigning to look for something, Nina opened the top drawer of her very reliable desk in her very reliable office, which was neutra
l and non-threatening to all who might enter. But there, staring up at her—and him—was the detail from the Sistine Chapel, God touching man. Hugh was quite astounded. “Why?” he asked.
“Before I meet with every patient, I always open this drawer and look into it. It reminds me that no matter how dead-end somebody’s problem might seem to me, there’s still another answer for that person.”
“You’re quite amazing, Nina. You don’t need my help.”
“Yes, I do,” she said.
Fifteen minutes later they were making love. He still had on his clerical collar, and it was upon her psychiatrist’s couch where they consummated their passion. Neither of them had to dwell on the symbolism. Besides, it was all so glorious. Bliss was the word that occurred to Nina—a word that she had thought was previously only to be found in silly romance novels for silly woman.
Soon enough, too, Nina regained control of her confidence in her work. But, of course, she and Hugh had created quite another, larger problem for themselves, which Hugh would finally solve (well, after a fashion) simply by running away. He stopped seeing Nina, and ashamed of himself, of his sin, he divorced his wife and resigned as a pastor to take up being a teacher at Union Theological Seminary.
Now, all these years later, here was Nina again, seeking his help and his love. But then, as she talked to him over the phone, Nina heard the buzzer in the background at Hugh’s apartment and heard him say, “Just a second, Nina, it’s someone at the door.”
Nina looked down at her watch. It was nine o’clock. Only very special people came to the door at nine o’clock—and invariably, when very special people come to the door at nine o’clock, they tend to stay once the door behind them closes. Nina especially arrived at this conclusion after she heard a woman’s voice coo, “Hi!” and she heard Hugh say, “Wow, you’re stunning.”
Stunning—that had been the word he had always used for her. Why had Nina ever thought it was just her word? Now, she understood: every dime-a-dozen bitch was stunning.
In any event, Nina didn’t hear anymore because Hugh had then cupped his hand over the phone as he told his girlfriend, Marilyn, “Oh, it’s just one of my old parishioners.” And then he uncupped the phone and said to Nina, “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry, Hugh. I didn’t know you had company.”
He let that go. “Look,” he said instead, “your door is locked and bolted, and the doorman won’t let anyone up under any circumstances?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re safe.”
“Well, yeah, I guess.” So he reassured her that she was fine, but to please call him tomorrow if she were really still worried. Take two aspirin, my dear, and call my office if the fever doesn’t go down. The cursory sonuvabitch. Nina thanked him and hung up.
God, but she still loved that man.
God, but she was still scared.
Nina took some Excedrin PM and fell asleep. Hardly two hours later, however, and she came wide awake, the martinis and the confusion roiling her system. And then the phone rang. She waited in the dark. It had to be the lady of the hats. And this time, she wouldn’t bite. She let it ring. And then her message came on. And then a response. “Hello, Dr. Winston…” But it wasn’t the woman. It wasn’t any woman. The man’s voice said, “I’m sorry to be calling so late, but this is Officer Raftery, nineteenth precinct, NYPD, and—”
Nina grabbed for the phone. “Yes, yes. This is Dr. Winston.”
“Doctor, I’m sorry to bother you, but someone has broken into your office again.” Nina sighed. “We came as soon as the alarm went off, but whoever it was managed to get away. Very professional.”
Nina asked, “Can you tell if anything—”
“He broke in that same casement window, but nothing else appears to be disturbed. And he played the alarm like a violin.”
Suddenly, even in the dark of her bedroom, Nina could see her office before her. And she knew. She knew absolutely. So, very calmly, she said, “Officer, what phone are you on now—where in the office?”
“I am, you know—your secretary’s desk.”
“Okay, here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to go into my office—to my desk. You can see it from where you are, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Right on top there, there should be a coffee table art book with Venus on the cover.”
“Venus? Will I know Venus?”
“Officer, it’s a fat, naked Venus, but, you know: Venus.”
“Okay, gotcha.”
“And right next to the book, there should be some handwritten notes and a tape.”
“Video tape?”
“No, just a regular old tape—audio tape. Would you go in there now and see if they’re still there?”
It was all for effect, she knew. They were gone—stolen. But, anyway, she sat up in the dark waiting for Officer Raftery to return. Well, she was going to have to get bars on the windows. Much as she hated the idea, that was settled. She heard steps coming back, the phone being picked up. Officer Raftery said, “I found the Venus book right where you said.”
“But no tape.”
“No, ma’am.”
“And no notes.”
“Well, there’s the one—to you.”
“To me?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s addressed to you. Very neat-written, almost artistic, you could say.”
“And what does it say?”
“It says: ‘Dr. Winston—Sorry I have to borrow this, but it may be our Rosetta Stone.’”
Nina had him repeat the message, but it remained hopelessly meaningless. “Well, is it signed?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess so, maybe.”
“So, what’s the signature?”
“That’s what I mean, Doctor. I can’t tell you that. You know that lettering that’s almost like ours, but not quite? Like Russian, I think.”
“You mean Cyrillic?”
“Yeah, I think that’s it. You know, like some of the letters are exactly like ours, like O and B and C. But, then, some look all crazy.”
“And that’s the signature—in Cyrillic?”
“Doctor, I guess it’s a signature. You know, it’s at the bottom.”
“Do you have any idea what it says?”
“Not really.” This is what Officer Raftery was puzzling over:
Raftery did make a couple of stabs at explaining what the various letters were, but, of course, he couldn’t even venture a guess about how to describe the s and the s. Anyway, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. Nina didn’t know Cyrillic any better than she did earned runs averages or how to find Orion’s Belt.
“Thank you, Officer,” she said. “I think I’m just supposed to say: dust the note for prints and test the handwriting. That’s the person who broke in.”
“Don’t worry, Doctor. We’ll get an expert to find out what those Russky letters mean, and we’ll let you know.”
So, she thanked him, hung up, and tried to think of something else, something nice. Invariably, that something else, something nice she thought of was Hugh. And it was now, too.
Of course, certainly Nina would not have thought about Hugh if she had known, that right now, at his apartment, he was lying next to Marilyn. She was nestled in the crook of his arm. But Hugh was only staring up, worrying about Nina and thinking how he could never again, in good faith, make love to Marilyn. Or to any woman but Nina Winston. Just one martini with her, a couple of phone calls, and he was completely, madly back in love with her. That is what he was thinking about, in the specific, as Nina was thinking about him in general.
Only, Hugh thought: how? It was Nina who had scarred his faith, ended his marriage. How could he ever allow himself to go back to her? Oh, why did Nina Winston have to be so damned stunning
?
13
Monday, as soon as Nina was finished with her last patient before lunch, Roseann came into her office. She had two things to relate to the doctor. First, somebody from the 19th Precinct had just called. There were no fingerprints on the note, but they had shown it to a Russian expert. The words in Cyrillic read: Double Ones.
“Double one?” Nina asked. “You mean like eleven?”
“No, the officer specifically told me that the Russian lady said ‘Double Ones’—plural. And it’s pronounced, uh”—Roseann ventured the phonetic spelling—“Odin Dvoynoy.”
Nina shook her head. “What could that possibly mean? Double Ones?”
Roseann said it beat her.
“Okay, what else is up?”
“There’s someone here who’d like to see you.”
“A referral? Appointment?”
Roseann frowned. “No. She just now walked in and says she wants to see you about…Mr. Buckingham.”
Nina brightened. She’d always had some feeling that, even as the woman of the hats trailed her and broke into her office, she would also, soon enough, reveal herself. Somehow, Nina had a sense that the mystery woman was her companion of sorts in the saga of Bucky. “Of course I’ll see her,” she told Roseann.
Immediately, though, as soon as the stranger came through the door, it was obvious to Nina that this woman wasn’t that woman. But just as quickly, and even before she introduced herself, Nina was sure she knew who this was—standing there before her, tall and lithe and stylish, in her Donna Karan black pants suit and a gray Isaac Mazrahi sweater. The woman fidgeted, brutally unsmiling.
