home again.
Well, let it go. I'm tired and I still have a lot to tell, so that's best. I feel a moral tract itching to get out, but we'll just save it for another day, shall we?
I told the cab driver to take me to 490, then changed my mind and had him drop me at Park and Twenty-ninth, instead. I wanted to scout a little bit, I suppose. Get the lay of the land and creep up on the blind side. It's important to make one thing clear: the range of the telepathy generated from the plant, while wider, is still limited to the vicinity of the building... unless the situation is extreme, as it was during the death-struggle between Hecksler and the Mad Florist.
I don't know if I expected police, SWAT teams, or fire trucks, but all I saw was Sandra Jackson, pacing up and down in front of the building, looking half-distracted with worry and indecision. She didn't see me. I don't think she would have seen Robert Redford if he'd strolled by stark naked. As I walked toward her, she went to the building's door, hands cupped to the sides of her face, then seemed to come to a decision. She spun on her heels and started toward the street, clearly meaning to cross to the uptown side.
"Sandra!" I called, breaking into a trot. "Sandra, hold on!"
She turned, first startled, then relieved. I saw she was wearing a big pink button on her coat which read I LUV CONY ISLAND! She started running toward me, and I realized it was the first time I had ever seen her in a pair of sneakers. She threw herself into my arms so hard she almost knocked me onto the sidewalk.
"Riddley, Riddley, thank God you came back early," she babbled. "I took a cab all the way from Cony Island... cost a fortune... my niece thinks I'm either crazy or in love... I... what are you doing here?"
"Just think of me as the cavalry in a John Wayne movie," I said, and set her back on her feet. That much was easy. Getting her to let go, I thought, might not be. She clung like a barnacle.
"Tell me you've got your office keys," she said, and I could smell something sweet on her breath - cotton candy, maybe.
Chapter CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"I've got them," I said, "but I can't get them unless you let go of me, honey child." I called her that with no irony whatsoever. It's what Mama always called us when we came in with scraped knees, or upset from being teased.
She let go and looked up at me solemnly, as big-eyed as a waif in one of those velvet paintings. "Something's different about you, Riddley. What is it?"
I shrugged and shook my head. "Don't know. Maybe we can discuss it at another time."
"John's enemy is dead. So is Herb's. I think they killed each other."
That wasn't what she thought, not exactly, but I took her by the arm and lead her back toward the door. The only thing I wanted right then was to get her off the street. People were looking at us strangely, and not because she's white and I'm black. And people who see a crying woman on a sunny Saturday afternoon are apt to remember her, even in a city where instant amnesia is the rule rather than the exception.
"The rest of them are up there," she said, "but I forgot my damned keys. I'd just decided to go across to Smiler's and try calling them when you showed up. Thank God you did."
"Thank God I did," I agreed, and used my keys to let us into the lobby.
We smelled it as soon as we got off on Five, and in the Zenith House reception area, it was strong enough to knock you down. A spicy aroma. And green. Sandra was clutching my hand hard enough to hurt.
"Hello?" I called. "Is anyone here?"
Nothing for a moment. Then I heard Wade say, "It's Riddley." To which Porter replied, "Don't be an ass." To which Gelb replied, "Yes. It is."
"Are you guys all right?" Sandra asked. She still had me by my hand and was dragging me toward the hall. At first I didn't want to go... and then I did.
We got around LaShonda's desk and there they were. At first I hardly noticed them, though. The only thing I had eyes for was the plant. No more tired, bedraggled little ivy in a pot.