THE NAME OF the Cuban restaurant on Broadway and Ninety-Sixth was El Malecon. As I approached, I saw that the last four letters of the red neon sign above the entrance had burned out, leaving it just “El Mal”—the bad.
I hoped that wasn’t an omen.
I was a few minutes early. While I waited outside for Penny, I studied the menu posted on El Mal’s smoked-glass front window and tried to remember my high school Spanish. I was still in Aperitivos and had gotten as far as Camarones al Ajillo $5.95, when Penny Cavanaugh’s cab pulled up and she got out. She looked great in a brown wool pants suit with a soft beige sweater and a necklace of amber beads the color of wild honey. Next to her, my black leather motorcycle-chic jacket and baggy pants made me feel like a hoodlum.
She gave my outfit a discreet glance.
“You look . . . trendy,” she said.
“I was going for dangerous.”
“Mission accomplished,” she said.
Inside the restaurant, we saw that El Malecon was about two-thirds full. The decor was no-frills cozy: red shades on the wall lights, sawdust on the floor, tables set with red plastic cloths and white paper napkins. Enticing odors were coming from the kitchen. We were greeted by a smiling young man wearing tight pants, two-inch lifts in his shoes and too much styling gel in his hair. He showed us to a table by the window and pulled the chairs out for us.
“I am Miguel, your host. I will return,” he promised.
Penny put her handbag down between her chair and the wall and looked out at Broadway’s passing parade. There wasn’t much to satisfy her curiosity. Only a few of society’s mobile misfits were on the street, and vehicle traffic was relatively light. Miguel returned with a large pitcher of red wine with chunks of fresh fruit cut up in it.
“We didn’t order anything yet,” I said.
“Sangria, for the ladies’ first visit. From us.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s so nice,” Penny said, giving him a smile.
Miguel reeled off the specials. We chose the two entrees he seemed most enthusiastic about. He grinned with pleasure. “Now, you ladies, we start with Camarones—shrimps in garlic over mashed plantains. One order for two is enough. It will make you happy.”
He hurried away to make us happy.
Penny edged her seat closer to the table and leaned in toward me. She lowered her voice and said, “There’s something I’ve been dying to ask you, Morgan. If you don’t mind.”
“You can ask me anything.”
“On Love of My Life—do those people in the story know what’s going to happen? In the story?”
“No. We’re very careful not to let the actors know the future for their characters. Each new turn of events is a surprise to them.”
She gave a sigh of relief. “That’s just like life,” she said. She sat back in her chair, relaxed again.
“We try to make the story lines more exciting than life,” I said. “I read an interview with Elmore Leonard where somebody asked him why he thought the books he wrote were so popular. He said, ‘It’s because I leave out the parts that people skip.’ That’s what we try to do—leave out the parts that people skip.”
Miguel returned with our Aperitivos, which he divided onto two plates. He beamed as we tasted the dish and expressed our approval. Glowing with pride, he bounced away to greet two new customers who had just come in the door.
When we were alone again, Penny said, “I heard Matt talking to G.G.—that’s his partner.”
“Yes, I’ve met Detective Flynn,” I said. My tone made it clear I had not been charmed by the encounter.
“Oh,” she said with a reassuring smile, “he’s actually a lot nicer than he seems the first nine or ten times you’re with him. And he has a terrific wife. I’m sure you’ll meet her. Anyway, Matt and G.G. were talking about you. People at your company have been telling them things you said about that dead man. Before he died, I mean. They’re saying you didn’t like him very much.”
“I didn’t like him at all, Penny.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so honest about that. G.G. thinks you killed him.”
“What does Detective Phoenix think?” I restrained myself from telling her the negative feelings I was having at this moment about her nephew.
“He wouldn’t tell me. He didn’t like it that I was listening. All he said was they were investigating other people, too.”
Too. Other people, too. “That’s a dose of reality,” I said.
“I hope I didn’t upset you.” She sounded concerned.
“It was good that you told me, Penny. I’ve been working so hard I guess I haven’t been taking the spot I’m in seriously enough.”
“I know how to perk you up. Come to the shop tomorrow and I’ll give you a complimentary deluxe European facial.”
“Facial?”
“I give facials at Natasha’s on Madison.”
I’d never been there, but I’d heard about Natasha’s. It’s an expensive day spa where the working rich and the idle rich go to have their troubles steamed, exfoliated and massaged away.
“We have a lot of celebrity clients,” Penny said. “We do some of the actresses on All My Children and One Life to Live. And your Jillian, and Mrs. Lowell, and Kira from Love of My Life—and that movie star who has the talk show on your station. She’s one of my favorite regulars.”
“Kitty Leigh?”
Penny leaned in close to me again and lowered her voice. “We’re not supposed to talk about our clients—and I’d never say anything bad—but oh, what an awful life she’s had.” Her eyes were large and dark with sympathy for Kitty. “She told me about that disgusting old man at the movie studio when she was a little girl who used to . . . you know . . . do things to her. And about her first husband who got her hooked on drugs, and her second husband who stole all her money and the agent who ruined her movie career. And about the famous married author who broke her heart. And she’s had to go through most of that on the front pages of the supermarket papers. Last week she said that my facials are keeping her sane now that she’s in television . . .”
IT WAS AFTER ten-thirty and we were full of good Cuban food, Sangria and wine-soaked fruit when I paid the check. Penny tried to pay half, but I reminded her that dinner was my treat. Miguel hurried to open the door for us, and said he hoped we would come again. I told him we would. There wasn’t much traffic and only a few pedestrians were on Broadway when we stepped out into the chilly night. A panhandler whose heart didn’t seem to be in his work sat on the sidewalk, leaning back against the outside wall of El Mal, drinking designer coffee out of a tall plastic personal mug. When he spotted Penny coming out of the restaurant, he started to get up, but I met his eyes with an uninviting scowl and he slumped back down again.
Nearby, two thin young men with matching leather jackets and matching platinum blond hair were walking a pair of identical white standard poodles. Across the street a middle-aged couple was in a heated argument as they bought an armload of magazines at the newsstand. Penny had been watching the two blond men with the poodles and said to me, “It doesn’t look like a dangerous neighborhood, but I don’t think you should walk home alone. I’ll drop you off.” Nodding agreement, I stepped into the street, scanning Broadway for an empty cab. Half a block away one was coming toward us. I waved my hand at it, but I was too late.
A chubby man had darted into the street, flapping one arm frantically and jumping up and down. The cab stopped for him. Because the man was carrying a doctor’s medical bag, I didn’t mind losing the cab to him. I wanted to think he was on his way to save a life. Penny joined me in the street. Neither of us saw another vacant cab. I turned away from Penny, assessing our chances of catching one on this spot. They weren’t good.
“Let’s walk down a couple of blocks,” I said. “I think we’ll have—”
Suddenly Penny screamed.
Simultaneously, I heard the roar of an accelerating engine. I whirled around and was momentarily blinded by the high beams of a car that was rocketing toward us! The primal instinct for self-preservation took over. My body went into action faster than my mind processed thought. I shoved Penny into the narrow space between two parked cars, and hurled myself after her.
Penny stumbled into the curb and fell backward onto the sidewalk.
I landed hard against the fender of a parked car.
The speeding car roared over the spot where only seconds ago I’d been standing, and I felt a powerful whoosh of air in my face as it tore a five-foot gash along the side of the vehicle parked in front of me. My heart was thumping, my pulse was racing and somewhere in my mind I knew I was going to have one huge purple bruise on my hip, but adrenaline was pumping through my veins so fast I couldn’t feel any pain. I turned to check on Penny and saw that the panhandler was helping her to her feet. She was able to stand up, but she was shaky, and her eyes were dilated with fear. She was gripping her purse with both hands, her knuckles white, her fingers welded to the leather. I took a deep breath, trying to force my pulse to slow as I asked her if she was okay.
She nodded her head. “What about you?” she asked. Color was coming back into her face.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Penny brushed off her derriere, which was covered with dirt where she’d landed on the sidewalk. “I split my slacks in the back. It’s just in the seam, I can fix it,” she said. Then, joking, she added. “I dented my dignity.”
The panhandler indicated Penny and said to me, “I spilled my coffee helping her up.”
“Thank you,” I said. I reached into my handbag, grabbed a bill and pushed it into his hand. I thought I gave him a five, but from his wide-eyed reaction and effusive mumbles of appreciation, it might have been a twenty. I didn’t care. He hurried away and Penny was looking at me with an expression of concern. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m indestructible,” I said. Pure bravado. Or wishful thinking.
“Could you see the license plate?” Penny asked.
“No, the car was going too fast.”
That was the truth, but only part of it. I had caught a glimpse of the driver. Whoever it was had been wearing a mask. Our nearly being run over had been a deliberate act.
“There’s a cab,” Penny said.
She wrenched one hand away from the iron grip she had on her purse and signaled. The cab swerved to a stop for us and we got in. Penny collapsed in relief against the back seat.
“Central Park West and Seventy-Second Street,” I told the driver, “and then through the park to East Sixty-Eighth.”
We didn’t talk on the way to the Dakota; we were both still too shaken for idle conversation. I used the time to try to make some sense out of what had happened there in the street in front of El Mal. It was unlikely anyone would try to kill Penny Cavanaugh, cosmetologist to the stars.
That meant the intended target had to be me.
But why? Who could possibly want me dead?
The cab stopped at the corner of Seventy-Second and Central Park West, and I said good night to Penny. “I’ll call you tomorrow about the facial,” she said. “You’ll love it. It’ll take all your cares away.”
I doubted that.