“Nope.”
“Want any?”
“Maybe. I’m forty. But I’m not there yet. How about you?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“We don’t have to decide tonight,” Brady said.
“Okay,” Yuki said, laughing. This guy was funny. She liked him. A lot.
The waiter brought the buttermilk-fried chicken, a side of sautéed greens, and creamy-looking yams, and Yuki felt herself on the verge of coming back to life. She hadn’t eaten all day.
Brady picked up his fork, paused with it in the air, and said, “I was going to tell you about Liz.”
“I know.”
“I was. And I want to ask you something.”
Yuki had a forkful of chicken in her mouth. She was getting high from the chicken. She turned her eyes on Brady.
“Mmm-hmm?”
“Will you come home with me tonight?” Brady said.
Chapter 97
RAIN WAS IN THE FORECAST, but it came down only when Cindy was leaving her office for the day. She stood at the curb under her red umbrella, cold rain blowing up the skirt of her raincoat and soaking her new shoes.
She pulled a wad of tissues out of her pocket and caught the long, high-pitched, trumpeting ahh-chooooooooo-ahh, a sneeze that just about took off the top of her head.
It looked like every damn cab in the city was taken or off duty. Cindy phoned All-City, the cab company she used regularly, and after listening to background music and ads, she was told, “Sorry, please call back later.”
Cindy sneezed again, damm it. Not only was she fighting a cold, she was also
half starving and now late for dinner at Susie’s. She visualized the back room at Susie’s, that haven of warmth — and the name Quick Express leapt into her mind.
She pictured the cab company she’d visited earlier in the week when she was working on the drug-and-rape story. Since then, there had been no reports of the serial rapist, and the story had taken a dive off the front page.
That was the good news and the bad.
Good that she’d scared off that psycho by turning the brights on him with her three-part, above-the-fold story.
Bad because he’d gone underground — and that meant he might never be caught.
Meanwhile, she had a connection in the taxi business. It was just before six. With luck, the dispatcher she’d met, Al Wysocki, would still be on duty. Maybe he’d do her a favor.
Cindy pulled the number up from her phone list and pressed call. The phone rang and a voice she recognized answered, “Quick Express Taxi and Limo.”
“Al Wysocki?”
“This is Al.”
“Al, it’s Cindy Thomas from the Chronicle. I met you a few days ago while I was working on my story.”
“Yep, I remember you. Blonde.”
“That’s me, Al, and I’ve got a problem. Could you send a cab to the Chronicle? I’m soaked to my skin and I’m late for dinner.”