Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

makeup kit—his own—on another stool and stood aside to watch her.
    Her hands did the job; they knew how. The white mask.
    “The mime,” he said, “works from the outside in, kinetically. We use both sense and physical memory.”
    She drew on large, red cupie doll lips and puckered up for David, who laughed. “Very good,” he said. “Remember, the face is a cartoon.”
    The last step, dark eyebrows, eyes and lips outlined in black.
    “You’re a pro, T.J.,” he reflected. “Someone in the biz would know that you’re not Mary Lou Salinger or ... that you are.”
    She shook her head at him emphatically and held her palms up in front of her. She did not have to wonder what biz meant. He meant show business.
    “But you don’t want to know. Not yet.” He took a long black coat from one of the hooks. “Wear this.” The coat came down to her ankles. “And this.” He tucked her hair under a black and red jester’s cap. The bells tinkled.
    They walked toward Astor Place and the Lexington Avenue subway, T.J. bouncing beside David. She didn’t have to get with the program, she was the program. And David was pleased, at ease. A few people turned to watch her, smiling, but it was New York and didn’t everyone look like T.J. from time to time?
    As they crossed the Bowery, David suddenly grabbed her arm and began tugging her. “Faster,” he said, till they were almost running. He raced her down the subway stairs and it was all she could do not to fall over the coat tails.
    A train was coming into the station. He had to use his MetroCard twice because hers was in her jacket in his loft.
    They just made it onto the train. She raised her arms and brows at him. Why?
    He watched the platform. The doors closed, the train began to move. He let out a breath. She followed his gaze.
    The mournful cop Metzger was on the platform running alongside the train looking in the cars. When the train entered the tunnel, he was left behind.

18
    S HE WAS no longer hidden. Now, in mime makeup, the whole world saw her. She couldn’t disappear in a crowd, that was for sure. When they switched to the N train, the car filled with a group of preschoolers who clustered around T.J., giggling and chattering. It took her mind from the cop following her. She stood up and pretended she was Marcel Marceau. The kids loved it. It was as if she’d been born to it.
    David was a watcher, eyes, body language assessing her. Much to the children’s excitement, they all got off the train at the same stop: Fifth Avenue and Sixtieth Street. The earthy smell of animal waste hung in the air. She played Pied Piper as they trailed her through the entrance to the Central Park Zoo.
    “Bid them adieu,” David said, sotto voce.
    She turned and faced them, made a sweeping bow, and followed the fast-moving David.
    The sun was brilliant, glistening off the melting snow, the winter landscape disappearing into near spring. It was March, she realized. The storm had been winter’s final slashing blow.
    David stopped in front of another entrance and counted out seven dollars for two tickets. Beyond the turnstile a closed door announced the RAIN FOREST. He knew where he was going. She was along for the ride, or so it seemed.
    A warm mist enveloped them. The smell was animal and it was rich.
    “Give me your coat,” David said. Once off, he slung it over his shoulder. She was not incognito. Everyone saw her. Children pointed, adults whispered.
    They walked on wooden ramps lined with lush greenery on one side, glass enclosed exhibits on the other. Up a flight of stairs, through vertical strips of canvas, and lo, the monkeys.
    David’s voice in her ear: “Watch their movements, watch how they react to you.”
    COLOBUS, the card said. They had black faces, flowing coats in black and white, their tails luxurious. They scrambled on rocks and trees paying no attention whatever to the children and adults watching. No attention, that is, until one of them spotted T.J. and stared, looping closer to the window that separated animals from humans.
    T.J. cocked her head and made eye contact with the creature. She forgot about David and everyone else. At once the other Colobus swung their way to their cohort and began a kind of showing off for T.J., as T.J. mimicked their antic movements.
    Outside again, on the rocks beyond a heated pool, they found the pink faced, cuddly snow monkeys and once again, they were attracted to T.J.
    “It’s the face and the movement that are