“He says it’s about your sister.”
As I said, I like to keep everything at the agency within view—with one exception, to which Mr. Fox and I repair now.
He’s impressed, I believe, as most people are when they step inside the boardroom of the Hudson Modeling Agency. The room itself is nothing—just a big old committee table, the usual chairs of dubious comfort—but the view, my word. There’s this particular corner of the twenty-sixth floor that opens out unobstructed across the East River and all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge, if you don’t mind a kink in your neck, and that wall is made of nothing but glass, glass, glass, cleaned regularly by a well-trained team of daredevils. Now, Sumner Fox isn’t the kind of man who betrays anything so vulnerable as an emotion. （In this, we are equals.） But he does walk across the width of the room and smash his fists into the pockets of his trousers and sort of roll up and down on his big flipper feet as he stares upon that stupefying expanse of metropolis.
I take the opportunity to stare him up and down. As I said, he’s a large fellow, not exceptionally tall but built like an Angus steer, all shoulders, square rawboned head on which a bare half inch of extremely pale hair bristles up like a field of mowed hay. No residual tail, thank God, but the position of his fists in his pockets strains the back flap of his jacket upward just enough to reveal a fine muscular bottom, which pleases me. You don’t go into my line of business without some appreciation for the aesthetics of the human form. Now that I consider the matter, I wonder if he allows me to inspect him on purpose.
Whether he means to impress me or to warn me, I don’t pretend to guess.
I know enough about these sorts of encounters to allow the other person to introduce the conversation. After I’ve looked my fill, I fold my arms across my chest and wait for him to address me. Which he does, after a minute. Pivots in a military manner and says—gravelly midsouthern baritone—“Miss Macallister. I do appreciate your taking the time to meet me like this, without a prior appointment.”
“I’m just a secretary, Mr. Fox. You don’t need an appointment to meet with me.”
“Just a secretary?” He actually smiles, displaying a set of neat white teeth. “That’s not the word on the street.”
“Oh? Which street is that?”
“Why, the street that says you run the whole show. That poor old Mr. Hudson is what you might call a puppet, and you’re what might be called a puppeteer.”
“Now, that’s just slander,” I reply. “But as it happens, I am a busy woman, and I like a man who gets right to the point. You were saying something about my sister? Has she perhaps made her whereabouts known to the world at last?”
“That’s an excellent question, Miss Macallister. Maybe you could answer it for me.”
“Me? I don’t think you know the facts of the case. Do you smoke, Mr. Fox?”
He blinks his pale eyes. “No, thank you.”
“Then I hope I don’t offend you.” I stalk around the other side of the table to the console, where the agency keeps a selection of cigarettes for the refreshment of the august members of the board of directors. I light one with a match, old-fashioned damsel that I am. By the time I turn back to face Mr. Fox, I feel I have the situation in hand.
“I must confess, I’m mystified. Why come to me now, after all these years? I mean, I haven’t heard a word from the FBI, not since that first week after they disappeared.”
“And yet most families would be beating down our door, demanding an explanation, when a diplomat goes missing on a foreign posting with his wife and children.”
“Well, we aren’t most families.” I blow out a stream of smoke. “To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t seen or heard from my sister in years. Long before the State Department lost track of her.”
“How many years?”
I stare at the ceiling and count my fingers. “Twelve. Why, it’s June, isn’t it? That makes twelve years exactly. I ought to bake a cake or something.”
His frown is not a frown of disapproval or of sadness or anything subjective like that. I think he’s just pondering the meaning of it all—twin sisters estranged for a dozen years—what could possibly have caused such an unnatural divorce? He might also be disappointed. Clearly there’s not much you can learn about a woman from a sister who’s better acquainted with her dry cleaner.
“So you see,” I continue, hoping to shut down the entire conversation, “you’re barking up the wrong tree, if you want the lowdown on whatshername.”