New York Dead

you are, or will be, in some sort of jeopardy, resulting from your connection with Sasha.”
    “Jeopardy? How?”
    “I don’t know. I only know that you are at risk, and, if you are not very careful indeed, this thing with Sasha could destroy you.”
    “Some would say it already has,” Stone said. “At least with regard to my career as a police officer.” He was near to confiding in her, now, and it surprised him.
    “I mean destroy you entirely — mortally. In fact, I have the very strong feeling that your chances of surviving this crisis are poor — certainly, you will not come through without help, and you may not get it.” Stone pushed away the chill that threatened to run through him. “Edith,” he managed to say, “I appreciate your concern for me, but please don’t worry too much. It’s my intention to stay just as far away as I can from the Nijinsky case or anything to do with it.” “You won’t be able to do that,” Bonner said. She looked away from him. “I’m sorry.”

Chapter
30

    Stone was awakened in the best possible way. “You’re going to kill me,” he said.
    “Mmmmmmm,” she replied, concentrating her efforts. “It’s only fair; you nearly killed me last night.”
    “I couldn’t think of anything else to do,” he gasped.
    Sunlight streamed into the room, and his blurring vision made the sparsely furnished chamber seem somehow heavenly. A moment later, everything came into sharp focus, and he closed his eyes and yelled.
    “You’re noisy,” she said.
    “It’s your fault. You made me.”
    “I want some breakfast.”
    “You just had breakfast, and I’m not sure I can walk.”
    She got up and went into the bathroom. Stone heard the water running, and he had nearly dozed off when she came back. She crawled into bed, and, suddenly, there was something icy on his belly.
    He yelled again and leapt out of bed. “Jesus Christ, was that your hands?”
    “New York City tap water gets very cold in the wintertime,” she said. “As long as you’re up, could I have an English muffin, marmalade, orange juice, and coffee?”
    “I suppose if I get back into bed you’ll just attack me with the iceberg hands again.”
    “Right. But they’ll warm up while you’re fixing breakfast.”
    Defeated, Stone got into a bathrobe and went downstairs to the kitchen. He stuck the muffins into the toaster oven, got coffee started, and went to the front door. He peeked up and down the street, then tiptoed out onto the frosty stoop and retrieved the Sunday
Times
. He was back inside before he registered all that he had taken in. He cracked the door again and looked up the block. A plain green, four-door sedan was parked on the other side of the street, and two men inside it were sipping coffee from paper cups. He didn’t know them, but he knew who they were.
    He went back to the kitchen, got the breakfast together, loaded it onto a cart, and wheeled it into the old elevator, which made the usual creaking noises on the way up.
    Cary was asleep, sprawled across the bed, the sunlight streaming across her naked body. He stopped and looked at her for a moment, that length of delicious woman, the flat belly, the swelling breasts with their small, red nipples, the dark hair strewn across the pillow. Slowly, quietly, he sneaked onto the bed and carefully set a glass of chilled orange juice onto a nipple.
    “Oooooo,” she said without moving. “What a nice way to wake up. Could I have something on the other one, please?”
    “You’re unsurprisable,” he said, setting the orange juice on her belly and returning for the rest of the breakfast. He put the tray on the bed between them while she struggled into a sitting position and fluffed up the pillows.
    “I like the sun in the morning,” she said. “It’s better than blankets.”
    He drank his juice and reached for the
Times
.
    “I get the front page,” she said, snatching it away.
    He settled for the book review and munched on a muffin.
    “Oh, shit,” she said suddenly.
    “What is it?”
    She clutched the front page to her breast. “You aren’t at fault here,” she said. “You have to get that through your head. This is not your fault.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” He tugged at the newspaper, and she gave it up reluctantly.

    SUSPECT IN NIJINSKY CASE IS APPARENT SUICIDE
Henrietta Morgan, a makeup artist for the Continental Network who police sources say was implicated in the fall of television anchorwoman Sasha