Chapter 14

I stood at the edge of the bar area, wondering where to sit. I wanted to somehow be both visible and isolated at the same time. A small group got up from one of the high-top tables just beyond the empty hostess stand, and I went and sat by myself. I was there for about twenty minutes before it was cleared and cleaned, and I ordered a ginger ale in a lowball glass on the rocks with a lime. I'd brought a book with me, a paperback copy of Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney.

When my drink arrived, I opened the book randomly, landing on the title poem. I thought maybe I'd read it before, since back at Mather College I'd taken a contemporary Irish poetry class. It didn't ring a bell, though, and I read it twice. It was a poem about that point when a child's interest in the natural world suddenly turns to disgust. I thought that maybe that had happened to me a little bit, way back when, but it was more that I'd discovered what humans were really like and found that disgusting. Animals and plants have no say in what they do. I tried to remember what my father thought of Seamus Heaney, and could somehow hear his voice saying something like, "That man knows all the nature words." I didn't know if it was something he had actually said, or just something I could imagine him saying.

I looked up from my book, the bar filling up, the voices combining into that unmelodious din. It was only about six p.m. but it was clear that all the sessions for the day were over and that the vast majority of conference attendees had converged on the bar. I scanned the room for someone who looked like Peralta but didn't see him.

"This seat taken?" It was a man about my age, still wearing his name badge, and carrying a light-colored beer.

"No," I said. "Please sit."

He settled onto the chair, his white shirt straining at the buttons as he sat. "Reading poetry at a math and science conference, I see?"

"How do you know I'm not here for the poultry breeders' convention?"

"Right, I forgot about that. You don't look like a poultry breeder, but I'm not sure you look like a teacher, either."

I gave him my spiel, all the while keeping an eye on the masses of people coming and going. He listened intently, peering over his wire-rim glasses. He had a well-trimmed beard, the skin of his neck pocked with razor burns. He told me he was a high school math teacher from Vermont, and I could instantly picture him in front of his classroom, disheveled and sweaty. He wore no wedding ring, but I thought I could see a faint line where he usually wore it. I wondered if he was recently divorced, or if he was married and looking to cheat. I asked him if he thought his students had changed over the years just so he'd talk for a while and I could scan the crowds.

"Oh my God, they have, don't you think?" he said, finishing his beer and glancing around for a server.

As he spoke, I watched the room. Peralta was tall, so I kept my sight lines high, scanning the tops of heads. A waitress idled by and the math teacher ordered another beer, offering to buy something for me. There were still two sips left in my glass of ginger ale, so I told him I was fine.

He was in the middle of a story about taking a student's phone away, when I saw Peralta at the bar. He'd just arrived there, trying to get the attention of a bartender. When he finally did, he pointed at one of the beer pulls. He paid in cash, then turned and leaned his back against the bar and sipped at his beer, surveying the crowd. I thought it was a possibility he might be looking for me and wondered if I should say something unforgivable to the math teacher so that he might go away. But as I watched, Peralta quickly finished his beer and put the empty glass back on the bar. He was wearing a collared white shirt like he'd been wearing earlier at his booth, but it was tucked into dark jeans instead of suit bottoms. It looked as though he was carrying a leather jacket, held under his left arm. He began to move with purpose across the expanse of the lobby, heading to either the elevators or the front entrance.

The math teacher had just asked me a question, and I said to him, "Sorry, I'm about to be very rude. I just saw someone I know leave and I'm going to track him down. Will you be here later?"

"First to the bar and last to leave," he said, puffing his chest, and laughing at his own joke.

By the time I was up and moving I spotted Peralta exiting the hotel, walking at a brisk pace. I sped up, pulling on my coat, and as I descended the wide carpeted stairs that led to the exit I was passed by a man walking even faster than I was, his shoulder brushing mine as he went past. He arrived at the revolving doors just before me and pushed his way through. I let a group of women through ahead of me, then passed through the revolving doors myself and out into the cool night. I turned right and about a block down the street I could see Peralta in his black leather jacket, now strolling, his hands in his pockets. I began to follow him, buttoning my own coat.

We were on a wide thoroughfare, lined with shops and restaurants, but the sidewalk was mostly clear, and I could keep an eye on him. Between us was the man who had nearly knocked me over on the stairs. He was tall as well, but wore a tan raincoat over a suit and carried an umbrella. Up ahead Peralta suddenly slowed down, bending over slightly to peer at something in the window next to an awninged entrance. He was probably reading menus. I slowed my pace, then stopped, pretending that I'd been distracted by the empty window of a defunct department store. When I looked up, Peralta was on the move again, and that was when I noticed that the man between us, the man from our same hotel in the tan raincoat, had stopped as well, bending down to tie his shoe.

We all kept walking, the three of us. After five minutes Peralta took a right onto a side street, and so did the man between us. I was now a hundred percent sure I wasn't the only one following Peralta. A flutter of nervous excitement went through me. Why was someone else interested in Peralta? Was it a plainclothes police detective? Maybe he was a lover, another married man, the two of them headed to a bar to meet.

The street we'd turned onto was tree-lined and clustered with smaller, more interesting-looking bars and restaurants and shops. Peralta slowed his pace, and so did the man following him. I crossed over to the opposite sidewalk, figuring I could watch them both from a better vantage point. I sped up a little to try to get a good look at the stranger from the hotel, but all I could really see was that he had short dark blond hair and wide shoulders. He had to keep slowing down, since it was now clear that Peralta was looking for a restaurant, stopping often to read menus. Eventually Peralta selected a winner, a barbecue restaurant called Red's, its crowded interior visible behind a large plate-glass window. He pushed through its front door, and then the stranger walked past the restaurant, glancing through the window, pausing a little. I thought he might follow his quarry inside, but instead he ambled toward a crosswalk and made his way to my side of the street.

I was in front of a closed clothing boutique and there was a bench on the sidewalk, probably situated so that husbands could wait while their vacationing wives shopped. I took a seat and pulled out my phone and studied it, the stranger doubling back toward me, walking slowly, and it was the first time I saw his walk from the front. Only his long legs moved, his hips barely swiveling, his arms swinging in small arcs. He moved with immense confidence, something catlike about him. As he got closer, passing below a streetlamp that had just turned on, I got a good look. His hair was different, a little darker, and he was wearing glasses, but the face was the same. Wide jaw and high cheekbones. A little more wrinkled than I remembered, but still startlingly handsome.

Ethan Saltz.

He passed by me, not looking in my direction, and ducked into a bar called Lost and Found. I was frozen to my bench, my mind spinning out possibilities. Why was Martha's ex-boyfriend from graduate school following Alan Peralta? It couldn't possibly be a coincidence, could it? I slid my phone back into my jacket pocket and tried to think. Yes, he had been following Peralta. I was sure of it. And now he'd ducked into a place across the street, probably to eat a quick dinner while Peralta dined nearby.

In the middle of these thoughts, the door to the bar that Ethan Saltz had entered swung open again and he emerged back onto the sidewalk. I had turned at the sound and we looked directly at each other.

"I thought you looked familiar," he said, walking toward me.

"You're familiar to me, too," I said.

"Did you go to Birkbeck College, about a hundred years ago?" He smiled as he said it, like he was delivering a pre-rehearsed line.

"I did." He nodded slowly, and I said, "Do you live here?"

There was the slightest flicker in his eyes, his mind calculating what to tell me. "I don't, actually, but I like to visit. What about you?"

For a moment I thought of telling the truth, simply saying, "Oh, I'm here to follow Martha's husband, Alan Peralta. We think he might be a killer, but you know something about that, don't you? You were following him as well."

Instead, I said, "I'm a teacher now and I'm sort of attending a conference here. I'm looking for a job."

"That's interesting," he said, his wide wolfish grin making it clear he didn't believe me. We both stared at each other quietly on the sidewalk in the dusk for a moment. I knew he was lying, and guessed he must have known I was lying as well. And maybe because our situation wasn't quite absurd enough, the door to Red's barbecue swung open and Alan Peralta stepped onto the sidewalk across from us, apparently only having had a drink at the bar and nothing more. We both looked across at Alan and then we looked at one another, and Ethan laughed.

"Something funny?" I said.

"Are you telling me you don't know who that is over there?"

"The guy across the street who looks like J. D. Salinger?" I said.

He laughed again, clearly enjoying himself. "That fucker does look like J. D. Salinger. You know, I obviously picked the wrong student to pursue when I was at Birkbeck. You're coming back to me now. I remember that you meddled in my relationship with Martha Ratliff."

"There was a reason I did that," I said. "I'm sure you don't need me to remind you of that."

"I think you're meddling now, too."

The wind changed direction and a dusting of rain moved across the two of us. Neither of us flinched, though, and Ethan's umbrella stayed down by his side.

"Honestly, I have no idea what you mean."

"What's your name again?" he said.

"Why would I tell you that?"

"Because I can find out anyway. I think I know why you're really here, and all I'm going to say to you is that you should mind your own business." He made a sudden move, raising his umbrella, and for a moment I thought he was going to strike me, but a yellow taxicab pulled up to the curb next to us. "Can I offer you a ride somewhere?" he said, as he opened the door.

"No, I'm good right here," I said.

"Nice seeing you again, Lily. You haven't changed at all." He said this just before his taxi knifed away from the curb.