Read Manhattan Lullaby for Free Online Page A

know,” said Solly, “originally I had thought of having Rachel freeze-dried.”
    Maxine swallowed a lump of fish and, unable to hide the incredulous tone in her voice, said the obvious. “You mean like coffee?”
    â€œMore or less.” Solly smiled. “I knew you would understand.” He shrugged. “But they wouldn’t let me do it. It was too experimental at the time. They didn’t know how long she would last.”
    â€œShe’s doing pretty well as it is,” said Maxine, who couldn’t stop herself at this point.
    But Solly, whose mind was busy roaming around in the past, didn’t hear what she said. “So I prepared Rachel’s body myself, right here on this very table. It was such a moving experience. I can’t tell you how much closer it brought me to her, to share that last act of intimacy with her.”
    Maxine sat for a moment, a morsel of sole poised halfway to her mouth, fumes of lemon and specters of death assaulting her. She waited for the implications to sink in. They did. And suddenly all that dry sherry began to feel very wet in her throat.
    Her fork clattered to the plate. “Will you excuse me, please,” she said and dashed out into the hallway in search of a bathroom, or failing that, a large potted plant.
    An hour later she was home, in bed, her address book clutched firmly in one hand and a red marker in the other. She drew a double line through “Berman, Dr. Solly S.” And next to the name she added one word—“Psycho.”

Chapter Four
    Luba, whose name had been Marianne when she had lived in Albany, wore Reeboks and cheered on her high-school football team, had hit Bloomingdale’s first, then Barney’s, Macy’s and finally a couple of counter-culture shops in the Village. The Bête Boîte and Deva Station, which sold army surplus, vintage clothing and discounted Norma Kamali, though not necessarily in that order. By the time she reached Tribeca, another trendy toponym for the wedge of land in the Triangle Below Canal Street, it was dark. But she walked along, happily swinging her shopping bags, impervious to the solitary thunk-thunk of the heels of her army boots on the sidewalk or the desultory and deserted state of the streets.
    A block later, when she turned the corner onto Thomas Street, between the black huddle of buildings that was her destination, she caught a glimpse of a narrow rectangle of sky. The new moon was rising, lounging on its back in the navy blue night like a piece of celestial costume jewelry with a broken pin. Luba reached into her pocket. She had no money, but she turned over the American Express card and made a wish, although it was a little redundant because her wish had already been granted earlier that afternoon. Then she went inside to tell Paulie the good news.
    In New York, there are lofts and then there are lofts . Paulie’s loft occupied the entire second floor of the building at number 8 Thomas Street and was more like a luxury uptown co-op than a downtown alternative living space. Even though it was tucked away from prying eyes inside the deceptively rundown warehouse, it had all the amenities money could buy and then some, including an intercom system outside the front door of the building.
    Luba leaned close to the speaker and called out. “It’s me, Paulie. Let me in. I forgot my key.”
    A second later the buzzer sounded and Luba left the dirt and grime of the outer world for the pristine marble magnificence of a vestibule that signaled to anyone who was allowed to get this far that the resident of this particular loft was loaded. And Paulie was loaded indeed. In fact, she was so well-heeled that the only word that described her appropriately was “heiress”.
    Pauline McCormick, the slender thirty-six-year-old owner of this and two other buildings on the street, was the only child of the man who had started Buddy’s Bakeries, later to