The nice thing about two o’clock in the morning is you’re not subject to the aggravation of New York traffic. We skim down Fifth Avenue, pausing only when some light turns red before us. I don’t speak, and neither does Fox. Like me, he’s looking out the window, contemplating the blur of facades. Only they aren’t a blur to him, I’ll bet. Sumner Fox likely drank nothing stronger than ginger ale, certainly not while on duty. He probably sees each building as an individual edifice—notices all the fine architectural details—will remember them tomorrow.
“So why’d you quit football?” I hear myself ask.
“There was a war on.”
“Are those your real teeth?”
He laughs—actually laughs, for the first time—and turns to me. “Fellow named Greenwald knocked the two front ones out of me at the Dartmouth game.”
“Was he sorry?”
“He was sorry afterward. Offered to pay for the dental work.”
“I’ll bet you scored your goal anyway.”
“Touchdown,” he says.
The taxi slows and turns left on Fifty-Ninth Street to make its way east. Across Fox’s face, the city lights roll and flash. He stares right back, cold sober, which is about the most terrifying thing you can imagine. I don’t flinch, however. Maybe I’m too drunk to focus, maybe I’m too drunk to care. The air is fresh for June, as clean as you can possibly hope for at the beginning of a Manhattan summer, and the windows are cranked down to allow this miraculous breeze inside.
“Let’s stop here and walk,” I say. “I could use the air.”
Fox leans forward to the driver and says something. The taxi pulls to the curb at the corner of Lexington Avenue. My palms are damp around my pocketbook. Fox pays the driver and jumps out to swing around the bumper and open my door. For once, I don’t beat the gentleman to it—not that I don’t appreciate niceties, you understand. I’m just too impatient under ordinary circumstances, too eager to get on with wherever it is we’re going. Tonight there’s no rush, and I need the help. I need a steady arm to draw me from the taxi and set me on my feet on the good solid New York sidewalk.
We don’t say an awful lot. Sumner Fox doesn’t seem to talk much, as a rule. Nor does he touch me, except when I stumble, stepping off the curb at First Avenue. We turn down Sutton Place to the sound of the traffic whisking along the East River Drive, the horns and distant shouts and nighttime music.
“How do you like the city?” I ask.
“It’s all right. It’s like they say, it never sleeps.”
“You strike me as a country boy, that’s why I asked.”
“I guess I like the country most. But I can appreciate what the city has to offer.”
“I remember VE Day. That was something, Mr. Fox. Every stranger you met was your new best friend. Never kissed so many men in my life. I remember thinking when I went to bed the next day, there was no place I’d rather be on a day like that, celebrating a thing like that.” I pause. “Of course, you were out in the Pacific, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
I don’t often curse myself, but I curse myself then. A Japanese prison camp, that’s what Uncle Charlie said, though not even Ruth Macallister dares ask him for certain. I find myself wondering, out of the blue, where Iris was on VE Day. She must have been in Europe itself, some embassy or another. I suppose they celebrated, all right. She and Sasha.
A handkerchief appears before me. “Here,” says Fox, and it’s only then that I realize I’m crying.
“I’m so sorry. I’m afraid I’ve had a little too much to drink.”
“I figured.”
We walk on to my apartment building, another block down on the corner of East Fifty-Sixth Street. The doorman doesn’t look at all surprised to see me. He trades a glance with Fox that looks like a question, and Fox makes the absolute briefest negative shake of his head.
I proffer the handkerchief. “Thanks for the loan.”
“Keep it.”
“I couldn’t possibly.”
He takes back the handkerchief, and in that instant I regret insisting. It seems so pointlessly rude.
“Why were you tailing me?” I ask.
“It’s my job.”
“To make sure I’m not in secret communication with my sister, maybe?”
“Something like that. But also to demonstrate, if I can, that you don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m on your side. I’m on hers. She’s not in any trouble with us, not if I can help it.”