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AS I LEFT the restaurant, I caught the whiff of a familiar scent. I twisted a full three hundred and sixty degrees, but the scent was lost the moment I’d noticed it.
It was a familiar smell, though. The smell of a person whom I’d been quite familiar with, mingled with a sweet perfume.
I just couldn’t place it.
That was the second time this morning something was lingering on the periphery of mind, teasing me, yet staying out of reach.
From across the street a horn quickly blurted to get my attention. It was a blue Lexus. The driver was a short, cute Chinese woman, waving at me.
I smiled at her. It was Anne Lee, Mack’s assistant. She must have dropped him off for the meeting and been driving around, ready to swing by and pick him up.
It must have been her scent I’d caught. I couldn’t smell her now though. She and her car were downwind from me.
“Hi, Anne,” I called across the traffic.
She grinned, an amused smile, and shook her head before trying to negotiate getting the car across the street for her rendezvous with Mack.
I looked down at what I was wearing, shrugged, waved goodbye and continued on my way.
Anne was a decent woman with the patience of a saint. Her relationship to Mack always reminded me of the relationship between Mister Burns and Smithers on The Simpsons. Whatever Mack desired, Anne was there running the errand with that cute closed-lipped smile on her face.
I didn’t have far to walk from the restaurant to the Algonquin. It was just around the block. I headed up Sixth Avenue and within a few minutes I was strolling past the people lined up outside the Red Flame on West Forty-Fourth Street and in to the Algonquin lobby.
The doorman, Paul, grinned at me, and, like Anne, shook his head. “G’morning Mister Andrews,” Paul said, opening the door to let me in. “Out for another early morning stroll?”
Paul’s shift started at seven in the morning. Since he hadn’t seen me leaving, he’d assumed I’d left before his shift started. God knows, he was used to seeing me coming back on a regular basis like this.
He being a fledgling writer, we’d chatted a few times about writing, and different techniques I used. I’d passed along one of the things I liked to do with my characters, a tip first shared with me by Brooklyn writer Denis Hamill, a columnist and successful thriller author. The concept was taking the time to just go for a walk through a neighborhood with a character, listen to how he describes it, watch what he pays attention to, appreciate it in the way that only he could.
Paul appreciated that advice, because while I have used that technique, getting wonderful results from it, Paul had told me on more than one occasion how useful it had been for him too.
Paul also told me the one thing he felt really good about was his character development. His job allowed him an opportunity rich with raw material for creating all kinds of different people. He was right too; I’d read several of his short stories, he did display a solid talent for characters.
“Walkin’ with a character this morning?” he asked. He considered the way I was dressed once again with a crooked smile on his face. “A homeless guy, perhaps?”
“No, not this time, Paul. I just can’t get enough of these New York August mornings.”
He smiled and closed the door as I entered the opulent lobby.
That’s when the female scent hit me again, and I closed my eyes, breathing it in. Now I knew that it definitely wasn’t Anne Lee. So who was it?
Something darted out in front of my feet at floor level, breaking me from my pondering.
I reacted quickly enough not to trip over it, but still stumbled. And I didn’t have to glance down to know that it was Matilda, the Algonquin’s house cat. Though she mostly moved around like she owned the place and didn’t bother much with the staff or clientele of the hotel, she and I had a unique relationship. I could tell that she understood my animal nature, and so she liked to play with me, her fun little game of predator vs. predator.
I smiled at her, let out a low playful growl, to which she purred back softly before turning and casually wandering over to her lounge couch, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.
The concierge wasn’t at the desk. I could tell by the scent of her lingering perfume that it was Linda, and that she’d just moved into the office. Of course, I didn’t have to be a werewolf to be able to detect her perfume – she virtually bathed in it.
As I stepped into the elevator, I began to wonder about that other werewolf who was likely still somewhere in the city. I needed to put it all aside and just focus on getting five thousand words in the next Maxwell Bronte novel out for early this afternoon.
Once I finished the writing, would I have time to go hunting for him? And where would I start? There were certainly enough parks and green space in the city for him to hang out by. And why hadn’t I ever encountered him before?
I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t at first realize I was picking up the familiar alluring female scent I’d noted earlier until I was standing in front of the door to my suite.
Being distracted and not focusing on identifying the scent brought her identify to me immediately.
Gail.
My ex-girlfriend.
And she was inside my apartment.