Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

hand to her face and felt crusts, like scabs. Her hands were free. No purse. Had she left it in the room? Where was she going to get money? Helpless tears. She groped in the deep pockets of the big coat. No tissues, bills. A lot of them. She shook one loose, drew it out, and uncrumpled it. A twenty.
    The driver handed her a punched ticket and change without taking his eyes from the treacherous road. She stuffed everything back in the pocket.
    The bus was crowded, hot, stinking of perspiration and wet wool. Light dim. Still, she felt herself examined with more curiosity than she wanted. No seats. She kept moving. In the next to last row, an empty window seat. Not empty. A dog, a golden retriever, sat up and yawned.
    In the same instant, a man said, “Do you want to sit here? Come, Nora. Let’s let the lady sit down.”
    The golden Nora—was a seeing eye dog. With her owner’s help, Nora climbed down to the aisle and shook herself, giving off a spray of moisture, as if she, too, had been out running in the snow. Instead of settling in, the dog began to nuzzle and sniff under the voluminous coat.
    “Nora, stop, down,” the man said. The dog lay down, chastened. “Here, let me help you.”
    The man was younger than she’d thought at first, although his hair was gray.
    She closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat. The lingering smell of the dog was somehow comforting.
    “Are you all right?” the man said.
    Could he sense she wasn’t? “Yes, thank you.” She could barely whisper it. What she needed was sleep. She turned her back to the man and began emptying the pocket with the bills, drawing out bill after bill: twenties, fifties, hundreds. She folded them and put them back in the pocket. Why did she have so much money?
    She curled up in the seat. She felt as if she was sitting on stones. The coat was voluminous, black, cashmere. Not hers. Not a woman’s coat. Why was she wearing it? She straightened and slipped her hand deep into the other pocket. Stones. Real stones. A pocketful of loose stones. What the hell—? She pulled out a small handful and opened her palm.
    “Miss?” The blind man was staring at her again.
    “I’m okay. Please.” She closed her fist around the stones and peered out the window. The gray Mercedes was riding even with bus in the second lane. Her cringe was involuntary. They’d seen her get on and were following her.
    The man next to her shifted in his seat.
    She turned her attention back to the stones in her hand. The beam over her seat caught the glitter. The stones in her coat pocket were diamonds.

2
    W HAT WAS that song—a pocketful of something or other—she had a pocketful of it. Right. Miracles. She hunkered down inside the coat. A magic coat that produced money and diamonds. She bowed her head and covered her eyes. Two men with guns in a gray Mercedes were trying to kill her. The trembling came again and she couldn’t stop it.
    “Maybe I can help.” It was the blind man again, voice muted. “You’re in some kind of trouble.”
    She thought, you’re not just whistling Dixie. How could a blind man help me? What I need is Superman.
    “I’m a good listener,” he said.
    “You can’t help me.” Her voice came out scrappy, as if she had not used it in years.
    Wiry salt and pepper threads sprouted from under a wool tweed cap. “I would say I can feel your pain, which I can, but that remark seems to have become a joke.”
    “Please.” She turned away.
    “I was in law enforcement,” he said. “Until this—” His hand went to his eyes. “Macular degeneration. When we can’t see, our other senses become sharper.”
    “Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m going to be. You can’t know and you can’t understand—so please, let me be.”
    The dog whimpered and licked her master’s hand. “It’s all right, Nora,” he said.
    Why did she have to go and feel guilty now? It was her life. Yes. Or her death. One of them would be waiting for her in the Port Authority, the other in the car. How could a blind man protect her?
    “Two men with guns in a gray Mercedes are trying to kill me.” The man said nothing and she wondered if he’d heard her. He was a big man with huge shoulders and thighs like hams. When he’d had his sight, he must have been formidable.
    “Why?”
    Why, she thought. The big question. Why? “I don’t know. But I’m sure one of them will be waiting for me to get off the bus at the Port Authority, and the other will be in the