Chapter 60

He let four days go by before he called her. She was genuinely glad to hear from him and delighted to accept his invitation to dinner. He made no explanation for his silence, and she didn’t ask for one. Chalk up another point for Mary, he thought. Most women would have been petulant about his neglect or, at the least, inquisitive. But he was concerned about her safety. He did not want to endanger her life, so he needed to be very careful with his moves.

She always acted strangely. And he loved that. That gave him a chance to concentrate on other more important things on hand.

He did not take her to an elegant restaurant that night. On the contrary, he walked her four blocks down Third Avenue to James’s, a noisy, crowded steakhouse not conducive, with its unglamorous surroundings, to another romantic build-up. He wondered whether he was testing her, whether she’d seem as alluring across a cheap checkered tablecloth as she did in the expensive, flower-filled, quiet ambianc