Chapter XX
The season was early in New York. It was cool and there was a nasty wind. The taxi had left me outside Lines’s offices. It was 10 in the morning. On the way from the airport I had stopped in front of Norma's building and rung the doorbell, but no one had answered me. Despite my publisher’s reassurances on the phone, once again I did not feel tranquil: couldn’t she call me even once, from Atlantic City or where on earth she was?
As I got into the elevator at Mark's, a thought had struck me: ... and if Marradi, that Tartaglia Fioretti had called paranoid and vindictive beyond imagination, had wanted to punish me for having defended the financier by taking revenge on Norma? What if he had killed her? I had entered without saying hello and had just mumbled: "Ranieri Velli... I hav
