The Theft of
Gloria's Greatcoat
by Edward D. Hoch
Friends sometimes ask how I met Nick Velvet and how I could ever have fallen in love with a professional thief. The second part of that is easy, because for a good many years into our relationship I believed his stories about engaging in secret government work that called for frequent travels to distant cities. The occasional thefts I knew about were only incidental to this, I thought.
As for the first part, how we met, I suppose that's an interesting story. It happened more than thirty years ago, in November of 1965, when I was a girl in my early twenties named Gloria Proctor, just out of a community college in Ohio and determined to make my way in the big city. I'd arrived in New York shortly after graduation and by the fall I had a low-paying job in publishing and a nice apartment down in Stuyvesant Town.
It was a time of increased American involvement in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson was our president, and John Lindsay had just been elected mayor of New York. I was young and the city was an exciting place to be. Actually, I'd never planned a career in publishing, preferring the world of art. There was always a sketch pad handy, though I soon learned that I was best with caricatures. There was hardly a market for those unless one was a political cartoonist, an all-male world if there ever was one. So it was pub-Hshing for me, at least for the time being.
I decided I couldn't get through the winter season in Manhattan without a good overcoat, something I could wear to work that would also look good at holiday parties. On my budget I couldn't afford too much, but I went searching for something stylish and I  found it in a bargain shop on Seventh Avenue. The autumn of '65 was the beginning of a brief Russian craze in fashion, inspired by the film version of Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, which wasn't even opening until December. I bought a bright red greatcoat that reached to mid calf, accented by a long knit scarf of red and black stripes. The ornamental frogs on the front of the coat gave it a vaguely czarist look. I couldn't believe my good fortune in finding it at such a reasonable price until I wore it the first time, to the office and to lunch one blustery day. It was still the first week of November but the wind had turned uncommonly chilly. Winter coats were making an early appearance, and at lunch I saw the identical coat on another woman.
"You can't let things like that bother you," Samantha Rodgers told me. She was a friend and coworker, a brooding brunette a bit taller and ten years older than me, who'd been a friend since my first day at Neptune Books. We were lunching on the lower level of Rockefeller Plaza by the skating rink, about a block from the office. It was a place beyond my budget but Samantha was treating. "Actually, you should feel good about it. That other woman in your coat happens to be Mary Todd, wife of Sam Todd, the record producer. He's got this new British group, the Augers, who could be bigger than the Beatles." I shook my head sadly. "I'm not into rock music." "Neither am I, much, but there are certain people around town that you just have to recognize."
"I'm sure she paid a lot more for her coat than I did over at the Seventh Avenue Outlet." "Maybe not. Wealthy people like bargains too." That was on a Friday and I spent a quiet weekend around my apartment, enjoying a return of crisp but sunny weather. The parklike area of Stuyvesant Town was especially pleasant in the fall when we didn't have to worry about the lack of air conditioning in our apartments. If nothing else we could watch the antics of the rare black squirrels that made the area their home.
By coincidence, I saw Sam Todd on television Sunday night. He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, chatting with Ed and introducing the Augers to an American audience. Todd was a stocky man in his forties who seemed to be wearing a bad hairpiece. He had a slight accent that I couldn't quite identify, and he made much of the fact that by appearing on Sullivan the Augers were following in the footsteps of Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Though I often switched channels when a rock group came on, curiosity kept me watching. There were five Augers and they were lively enough, wearing tight pants and gyrating with their electric guitars. I decided they needed a drummer to carry the beat, but then no one was asking my opinion. When Ed called for an encore I switched to The F.B.I, on channel seven.
Monday morning was warm but cloudy and I wore my light raincoat to the office. It was a busy day at Neptune, with first proofs on two spring novels due from the typesetter. I was an editorial assistant to Max Rhinegold, one of their senior editors, a man of great knowledge and a fiery temper. Much as I admired him, I wondered how long I could continue working for him.
"Are the proofs in yet, Gloria?" he called out from his office that morning, shortly after I arrived.
"I don't see them. I'll check the mailroom."
The proofs weren't in, and within minutes he was on the phone to White Plains. I didn't enjoy listening to his familiar shouted vulgarities so I went down to Samantha's office until he'd finished. "You just have to ignore it," she told me. "He'll calm down." She spoke from experience. Of all the editors at Neptune, she worked most closely with him. Now she tried to cheer me up by saying, "I've got a couple of tickets to that new musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. It's supposed to be pretty good. They're for tomorrow night. If you're free we could have dinner after work and go to the theater."
"Thanks, Samantha, but I'm getting together with one of my neighbors tomorrow. I appreciate your offer, though. I know they're charging $11.90 for those tickets."
She nodded. "It's a new Broadway high. They'll price themselves out of existence pretty soon."
I'd joined Samantha at a Broadway play once before. She'd told me then that her mysterious boyfriend had purchased the tickets but was unable to join her that night. If the same was true of these tickets I wondered if the boyfriend might be married. It wasn't a question I'd ever ask her, though.
Tuesday evening's engagement was with Helen Coin, a young woman about my own age who lived one floor up from me in our Stuyvesant Town building. She made jewelry in her spare time and she invited me up to see some of it, suggesting we might go out to a movie afterward. I suppose she hoped to sell me a piece or two, but it sounded like a pleasant enough evening and I'd told her I'd come around seven. On Tuesday afternoon, when Max Rhinegold decided to knock off early, I decided to do the same. "Early" at Neptune Books meant 4:30 at best, and that was the time I went out the door. I walked over to Lexington Avenue, enjoying the sunny autumn afternoon. The temperature was fifty-seven degrees according to one of those bank signs, about average for early November, but I knew it was due to turn cold again the following day. I caught the crowded subway down to 14th Street and walked the three blocks east to a corner of Stuyvesant Town. From there it was only minutes to my apartment, and I unlocked the door shortly after five o'clock.
The first thing I saw was the man's smile, because the growing darkness all but obscured his face. I switched on the living room light and asked angrily, "What are you doing here?"
He was by the open closet door, just a few feet away from me. He closed it and said coolly, "I might ask you the same thing. This is my apartment."
That made me hesitate for just an instant, feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland. Had I entered the wrong building by mistake? Was I in someone else's apartment? Then I saw the familiar furnishings, carefully gathered during my six months in the city. "Like hell it is!" I responded, my voice rising in a mixture of anger and fright. "Who are—?"
He took a quick step closer to me and clamped a gloved hand over my mouth. That was when I realized I was being robbed.
"Please be quiet," he said softly into my ear, "and you won't be hurt."
When he loosened the pressure on my mouth I mumbled, "You're a thief."
"Not exactly."
For the first time I took a moment to study his face, trying to remember it for the police. He was older than me, perhaps in his early thirties, well-dressed, with darkly handsome features, liquid brown eyes, a firm jaw, and a classic Roman nose. He might have been Italian-American but I couldn't be sure. Tall, just under six feet, and in good physical condition. His body was firm as he pressed against me, holding tight.
"Why don't you let me go?" I asked after a moment.
He grinned at me. "Maybe I like holding you." Our lips were very close together.
A shiver ran through me as I imagined myself being raped and possibly murdered. For the first time since entering my apartment I was terrified.
He must have felt my terror because he relaxed his grip a bit. For a moment I thought he was about to release me but then he pulled a roll of adhesive tape from his jacket pocket. He was going to tie me up!
I kicked out at him then, catching him on the shin, and broke free for an instant. But he shoved me off balance and I tumbled off the side of the sofa, ending up on the floor. "You have nice long legs," he said, ignoring my attempts to kick him again. He pulled a long piece of tape free from the roll.
That was when the lights went out.
I crawled free, out of his reach, seeking safety before the lights went back on. It was my apartment and I knew it like the back of my hand. I tried to crawl as quietly as I could toward the bedroom, knowing I could lock the door once I was inside. Everything was black as pitch and for the first time I realized there were no lights outside either. No Lights anywhere that I could see, except on passing cars.
I'd just reached the area of the bedroom door when a small beam of light suddenly targeted me. Of course! No self-respecting burglar would go on a job without a flashlight. "Ah, there you are!" he said.
"Here I am," I conceded. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know. What happened to the lights?"
"Beats me."
"They've been out several minutes, all over town from the looks of it. Do you have a transistor radio?"
"In my bedroom," I admitted.
"Let's turn it on."
'You're the damnedest burglar I ever heard of. Why didn't you just run away?'
"Get the radio," he commanded. "I want to know what's happening."
I found it on my bedside table and turned it on. "... the entire Northeast and parts of Canada. We're still trying to learn the cause of this massive blackout which has brought subways and elevators to a halt all over the city and may have trapped thousands of rush-hour travelers. Only an emergency generator is keeping us on the air."
"You'd better get out of here," I told him.
"On the contrary, I think I'd better stay."
"What?"
"The police are going to be roaming around, looking for possible looters. I might be stopped and questioned."
"That's nonsense! There are lots of people on the streets." I could see the movement of car lights from the bedroom window.
Our conversation was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. I stared into the flashlight beam, waiting for his reaction. "Answer it," he ordered, "but be careful what you say."
I picked it up and heard the voice of my upstairs neighbor, Helen Coin. "Gloria, are your lights out?'
"They're out all over the Northeast, Helen. It's a massive power
blackout." "Then I guess the movie is out for tonight."
"I'm afraid so."
"Want to come up anyway and I'll open a bottle of wine?"
His head was close to mine, listening to the conversation. At her suggestion he shook his head. "I guess not, Helen. The elevators aren't running and I'd probably trip on the stairs in the dark. We'd both better stay put."
I hung up and faced my burglar again. Somehow the phone call had renewed my confidence that I could handle the situation. "If you insist on staying, why don't I get us something to eat? I'm hungry even if you're not."
He was silent for a few seconds, considering my offer. "What
have you got?" "Without my electric stove, it's pretty much sandwiches. Ham or
chicken."
"Ham is fine. How about a beer?"
"I can do that. Let me light a few candles."
To this day I don't know what it was that instantly made us trust one another. It certainly wasn't love at first sight when you're trapped in a darkened apartment with a burglar. The glow of the candles, which could have been eerie under the circumstances, was cheerful instead. I made the sandwiches, slicing the bread in half. "Sorry I can't toast it."
He smiled at me. "That's all right."
"Ah, my name is Gloria, by the way."
"I know."
"Yeah, I guess it's on the door." But then I remembered only my last name was in the little slot over the bell. "What's yours?"
He smiled at me, his brown eyes reflecting the candlelight, as he seemed to weigh a decision. "Nick," he answered finally.
"Do you do this sort of thing for a living, Nick?'
"It's not what it seems. I work for the government."
I don't think I ever really believed the big lie, even at the beginning, but just then it was to my advantage to go along with it. He seemed to be using it as a way out, to keep me from calling the police. "Then you must have gotten into the wrong apartment," I said, turning back to my sandwich preparation.
"I guess so."
"How did you open the door?'
Another smile. "I have a way with locks."
We had our sandwiches and beer by candlelight, looking out at the darkened city. Police and emergency vehicles passed frequently on First Avenue, and after a time a giant searchlight lit the sky a mile or so away. "What's that, Nicky?' I asked.
"One of those lights they bring in for movie premieres and store openings. It uses a gasoline engine to generate its own electricity." Presently another appeared in the sky, up toward midtown.
He seemed to like hearing me talk, and I did a lot of it over the next few hours, telling him about growing up back in Ohio. All I got in return were a few vague stories about his Italian-American parents and a boyhood in Greenwich Village. Finally, before I knew it, the time was close to midnight. We'd turned on the radio again and learned that power had been restored to Coney Island. Elsewhere in the city things were going slowly. The federal government was lending what assistance it could, while investigating the remote possibility the outage had been caused by sabotage. It seemed to have begun somewhere in Canada or along the Niagara frontier in western New York.
"Well," I told Nick finally, "it looks like the power will be off most of the night. I'm going to bed. You can leave or sleep on the couch."
"How do I know you won't call the police?' he asked.
"You don't. That's why I'd suggest you leave."
He came closer in the flickering candlehght. "What a night this is. I'll bet nine months from today a million women will have babies."
"Not this one," I said, walking into the bedroom.
I closed the door but didn't lock it. Pulling back the bedspread I removed my shoes and slid under the covers fully clothed. I glanced at the phone, knowing I was an idiot not to call the police. Before long I heard a familiar squeak from the living room. I walked to the door and opened it. "Did you open the window?"
"I stuck my head out to see if there are any lights uptown. I can see another searchlight but that's all."
"Close it. There's no screen on that window."
"The bugs have all gone south for the winter."
"I really think you'd better go with them."
He came up close to me. "I've enjoyed the evening, Gloria. I didn't expect you to be here but I'm glad you were. Maybe we can get together some night when the lights are on."
He leaned over and kissed me lightly. I was so startled I drew back as if his lips had been a red-hot poker. Then he was gone out the door.
I locked up and went back to bed, sleeping restlessly for the remainder of the night. Somewhere around four o'clock I became aware that the power had been restored and the living room light was on, but I fell back to sleep without getting up.
I awakened around seven as I usually did, and ate breakfast watching television reports of the blackout. The day was cooler, as they'd predicted, and I went to the closet for my raincoat. That was when I noticed something missing.
The bastard had stolen my new Russian greatcoat! 

For much of the morning I debated what I should do. Calling the police eighteen hours after I'd discovered Nick in my apartment might take some explaining, and to give a true account of what happened was out of the question. I'd spent half the night chatting with a burglar in the dark, serving him beer and sandwiches which we ate by candlelight. He'd even kissed me as he left. No, he hadn't been carrying the coat at the time.
In fact, I could think of only two ways he might have stolen it. Either he'd taken it earlier in the day, returning to my apartment for more loot—which was highly unlikely—or he'd dropped the coat out my window in the middle of the night, retrieving it in the dark after he left the apartment. This seemed more likely, but didn't I have anything more valuable than an inexpensive knock-off of a stylish winter coat? Why would anybody steal it in the first place?
Finally, after much soul-searching, I decided to forget calling the police. I called my insurance company instead, and promptly learned that a police report had to be filed first. In the depths; of my frustration Samantha stopped by my cubicle. "Glad to see you survived the blackout," she said.
"Just barely. How was the play?"
"It was canceled."
"Of course! I don't have my wits about me this morning."
"I can turn in the tickets for another performance, but it'll have to be after my vacation."
I remembered she was driving to Virginia Beach with her boyfriend. "When do you leave?"
"After work on Friday. I'll be away all next week. I hope we don't get that cold weather they're predicting."
I decided to tell her about the coat. Not about Nick, just the coat. "You know, I think someone broke into my apartment yesterday. My new winter coat is gone."
"Not that red one! Did they take anything else?"
"Apparently not. I'm going over on my lunch hour to see if I can get another coat in my size."
"I hope you can. It looked good on you that one day you wore it."
"I need a winter coat of some sort."
"How did you survive the blackout?" Samantha asked.
"Fine. The neighbors all got together."
I skipped lunch and went back to the bargain shop on Seventh Avenue. The garment district streets were crowded on this sunny day and I felt certain no one but me would be worrying about a winter coat. I was wrong. When I told the clerk what I wanted she shook her head sadly. "Every one of those coats was gone by Friday. We couldn't keep them in stock. A couple of them turned up on the TV news last week and everybody wanted one. We're expecting more before Christmas, but not at that price."
"Do any other stores carry them?"
"Saks had a more expensive version but I understand they're sold out too."
I phoned Saks from the office and they confirmed that the red czarist greatcoats had been sold out for a week. The clerk suggested a different garment district shop and I called there with the same results. It seemed as if I would have to settle for something else, thanks to that thieving Nick.
The good weather held through the weekend and Samantha went off on her vacation. I thought of her that evening when I heard on TV that the new Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel had been closed by an accident most of the day. On Monday Max was still a bit grumpy about late proofs, but I was used to that. On Tuesday night, one week late, I finally got together with my neighbor Helen Coin to look at her handmade jewelry.
Helen was a short blond woman with a perky attitude and lots of talent. "I hope there's not another blackout this week," I told her.
"Next time I'll invite everyone in and make a party out of it," she said, laying out some of her recent pieces that I hadn't seen. Later we went out for dinner and then caught the Beatles' new film Help! The theater had shown a preview of Doctor Zhivago. Helen leaned over and whispered something about my new coat, which I'd shown her the day I bought it. After the movie I decided I should tell her about the robbery.
"That's terrible, Gloria! I thought our building was more secure than that!"
"It happened during the blackout," I murmured.
"Did you actually see this burglar?'
"I might have caught a glimpse of him."
Helen shook her head, unable to grasp it. "This isn't exactly the high-rent district. Why would anyone break in just to steal a winter coat?'
"I don't know," I admitted. It was a question that had puzzled me too. If Nick had simply wanted something of mine he could have taken a much smaller object. I was beginning to think he'd entered my apartment simply to steal the coat, but that didn't make any sense. What would a supposed government agent want with my coat?
Two days later, one week before Thanksgiving, the weather turned chilly again. I almost froze in my thin raincoat walking to work from the subway. Max Rhinegold saw me as I walked in the door. "Don't you have a winter coat for this weather, Gloria?' he asked.
"Somebody stole it," I told him. "The red one. I wore it a couple of weeks ago."
"Sure, I remember. It didn't get stolen in the office, did it?"
"No, in my apartment."
"That's a shame." He seemed to have already lost interest.
My phone was ringing as I walked in the door that evening after work. It was Helen Coin, upstairs. "Your coat's on TV," she said. "Channel Four."
I hung up and turned on the TV. A blond woman in my red coat was being helped into a police car, and I suddenly realized I'd seen her before. In a voice-over, the news anchorman was saying, "Mary Todd, the victim's wife, found her husband's body when she returned from a luncheon meeting. Police are baffled as to how the killer gained entrance to the building, which has a doorman on duty at all times."
They went into a commercial and I flipped channels. On Two I caught a file tape of Sam Todd being presented with an award. "Todd, a leading record producer with a string of hit albums to his credit, was believed to have been killed by a burglar. His wife Mary was near collapse after discovering the body. Todd had been working at home recently, completing a book on the current music scene."
I sat staring at the TV screen, trying to fathom what it all meant. Mary Todd had been wearing the coat again, on the first cold day since I'd seen her at lunch in Rockefeller Plaza. And her husband had been murdered. My coat, a virtual duplicate, had been stolen nine days earlier. It might mean something, but I didn't know what.

The late news that evening had more details, devoting the first ten minutes of air time to the story. One of the Channel Four anchors was shown interviewing the doorman at Todd's Park Avenue apartment building. The white-haired man, named Samuels, insisted he'd been sitting inside the front door reading the morning paper until he was relieved for his lunch break. "Mrs. Todd and a few other tenants went out but no one came in." The younger man who'd relieved him, a former city police officer named Moscowitz, was equally positive. When Mary Todd had returned from lunch with some packages around three o'clock, Samuels had asked Moscowitz to carry them up to her apartment. He'd been there when she unlocked the door and found her husband dead on the floor.
Police officials were saying very little this early in the investigation, though one source confirmed that the position of the body indicated Todd had been shot upon opening his door. That hardly sounded like a burglar to me. Even if he'd heard someone tampering with the lock and surprised a would-be burglar, it was unlikely the man would have had a gun ready to kill him. If no orie else had entered the building that morning, might it have been a neighbor who fired the fatal shot?
I puzzled about it as I dropped off to sleep that night. On Friday I picked up one of New York's tabloids on the way to the office and read some of the speculation about the killing. Sam Todd had long been rumored to be a ladies' man, actively courting young female singers in the recording business. Some wondered if a jealous boyfriend or husband might have shot him. The tabloid contained thinly veiled speculation about Mary Todd herself, reporting one rumor that Todd had been about to divorce his wife for another woman, but another report stated that he'd recently broken off the affair and returned to his wife. In the tabloid business they seemed to report every bizarre rumor they heard, letting the reader choose from among them.
Surprisingly, Max was in a grouchy mood about the Todd killing. Going over the schedules with me over coffee that morning, he confided that Neptune had been about to sign Todd to a book contract, a personal overview of the current rock scene. With the success of the Beatles and other groups he was certain it would have been a bestseller.
"I didn't know about that," I told him.
He shrugged. "We'd been working with him for months on an outline, but it was too soon for a formal announcement. Now it doesn't matter."
"Do you know his wife?"
Max Rhinegold shook his head. "I think I was introduced once, but I don't really know her."
"Who do you think killed him?" I couldn't help asking. The possibility that I or my coat was somehow involved had made it extremely important.
"If the police say a burglar, that's good enough for me."
"A burglar," I repeated, and suddenly I knew why the question was so important. The only burglar I knew was Nick and I didn't want it to be him. 

That night Sam Todd's murder was still the top story on the TV news. He was one of those semi-celebrities whose real fame had come with the manner of his death. I watched the news until I couldn't take any more, then turned it off and poured myself a drink. I heard a knock at the door and guessed it would be Helen, come down to talk about the murder and my stolen coat. I opened the door without checking the peephole and Nick was standing there.
"Oh!"
"Hello, Gloria."
I stood aside to let him enter. "Hello, Nicky."
He smiled. "Nobody calls me Nicky."
"I do."
He gave me a look through veiled eyes. "Are you going to call the police?"
"I haven't called them yet. I guess I won't start now."
"You know that I stole your coat?"
I nodded. "You dropped it out the window, didn't you? And picked it up outside."
"I swear to God I didn't know it was going to involve murder."
He was confirming my worst fears. "What kind of government agent are you, Nicky?'
"The worst kind, I'm afraid." He slipped his arms easily around me, and I didn't resist.
"Who killed Sam Todd?" I asked. "And why? And what did my coat have to do with it?"
"I can't tell you any of that. It would be dangerous for you to know."
I broke away from him. "But you know."
"I was paid to steal your coat, and I know who paid me."
"The government—"
"Forget the government for now. This was a private individual. People hear about me and they occasionally hire me. So long as the theft is nothing of value, I'll take it on."
I stared into his eyes. "When they want this service, who do they ask for?"
"What do you mean?"
I sighed in exasperation. "What's your name, damn it! Besides Nicky."
"Velvet," he said softly. "Nick Velvet. It used to be something longer but I shortened it."
"Do you live here in the city?"
"Just north of the Bronx, in Westchester. I have a modest house in a working-class neighborhood, and if you offered me a beer right now I'd take it."
Somehow we weren't talking about the murder of Sam Todd any longer. This man Nick Velvet had risked arrest to return to me with a sort of apology. I thought that was important to both of us.
I opened two beers. 

*  *  *

Samantha Rodgers returned to work on Monday morning. It was a short week because of the long Thanksgiving holiday, and we were both so loaded with work I hardly had time to ask her about Virginia Beach. "Did you have any trouble getting there?" I asked quickly between phone calls.
"No, we went straight down the Jersey Turnpike to Route Thirteen. That's the fastest way."
I told her we'd talk later. She waved and went back to her office. I'd arranged to take a late lunch hour that day, walking over to Park Avenue, to the apartment building where Sam Todd and his wife had lived. I wanted to see the doorman, Samuels, and I recognized him at once from his brief interview on TV. He was seated behind a desk with a telephone to announce visitors, his face buried in a newspaper.
"Mr. Samuels?' I said.
He lifted his face from the paper. "That's me. Who are you visiting?'
"No one. I just wanted to ask you about last week."
"Look, lady, I've talked to the police and the press about last week. I got nothing more to say."
"It's not about the people. It's about the coat."
"Huh?'
"I had a red coat stolen a few days before the killing. It's very similar to the one Mrs. Todd was wearing in the TV reports of this tragedy. I wondered if I should go to the police about it."
"I sure can't tell you that, lady." He wrinkled his newspaper impatiently.
"I just want you to answer one question. Are you sure it was Mrs. Todd who was wearing that coat?'
"Who else would it have been? We talked about the weather turning colder. Too cold, really, for the middle of November. Look, nobody gets by me unless I know them. Otherwise I announce 'em on the phone. It was Mrs. Todd both times."
Those were the words I'd been hoping for. "Both times?'
"She went out and came back in about a minute later. Just sailed past me, mumbling something about forgetting her shopping list. She left again about five minutes after that."
"Did you get a good look at her face?'
He folded the paper and put it down on the desk. "I was reading, you know, but I saw the red coat and her blond hair. That long scarf was wrapped around her mouth and cheeks. The wind was cold that day."
"Thank you, Mr. Samuels. You've been a great help."
Back at the office I took a sketch pad from my filing cabinet. Working from a newspaper photograph of Mary Todd, I did a quick sketch of her face, then drew another one alongside it. I sketched in the scarf on the second figure, then left the pad there when Max called me into his office.
I worked late that night, and when I finally left the office around seven I was surprised to see Samantha just leaving too. "It's hell the first day back from vacation," she muttered. "Want to stop for a drink?'
"I'd better get home, Samantha."
"I'll walk you to the subway."
I laughed. "You live uptown, remember?'
She crowded close to me as a couple of businessmen hurried by, headed for Grand Central. "I saw those sketches on your pad," she said into my ear. I felt a chill down to my toes.
"I thought you would. That's why I left it on top of the desk."
We'd reached the corner of Park Avenue, where the southbound traffic was moving fast. "How did you know it was me?' she asked.
"I was hoping with all my heart that it wasn't."
She tried to shove me then, into the lane of speeding traffic. I don't know what happened next. I closed my eyes and heard her scream. Sometimes even now I still hear that scream.
And then from out of nowhere Nick Velvet was holding me, pulling me away from the curb, letting the gathering crowd wall us out from the scene in the street. 

Back at my apartment, he held me for a long time. Once I asked him, "What happened back there?'
"She slipped off the curb. That's all you need to know."
"Samantha." I still couldn't believe what had happened. "She was one of my closest friends here."
He got a couple of beers from the refrigerator. "How did you know? I was very careful not to tell you who hired me."
Instead of answering immediately, I asked, "Why were you following me?'
"I was waiting for you outside the office. When I saw Samantha with you I followed along to make sure you were safe. She tried to push you in front of a taxi."
"Did you---?'
He hushed my lips with his fingers. "It doesn't matter what I did. You're alive and unharmed, and that's what matters. Now tell me how you knew."
"Well, you more or less confirmed that the killer had worn my coat, and that you'd been hired to steal it. That told me the killer must have seen my coat, and I started counting the people who qualified. It told me also that the killer was most likely a woman. What woman? A clerk in the store where I'd bought the coat? No, because they could have gotten their own off the rack. Someone in my apartment building? My friend Helen Coin saw the coat and she's blond like Mary Todd, but she's also short. A coat that long on her would have dragged on the floor. Women on the street or in the Rockefeller Plaza restaurant where I had lunch with Saman-tha wouldn't have known my name or where I lived. You knew both of those things. It narrowed down in my mind to someone at my office. I knew Samantha had seen the coat because we lunched together that day. In fact, I told her the store where I'd bought it. She not only saw me in the coat but she saw Mary Todd in her virtually identical coat at the same time. She saw both coats together and that was what gave her the idea. She must have discovered the stores were sold out of the coat and she had to hire you—"
"That part isn't important," he insisted. "Go on."
"How much did she pay you for this?'
"A small amount. I should have charged her much more."
I could see he was uncomfortable with the subject and I went on. "I knew she had a boyfriend she was pretty secretive about. Sometimes he'd buy them show tickets and have to cancel their date. That's when I got to go in his place. She had tickets she'd probably bought herself for the night you robbed me, and she suggested dinner first. You were surprised when I walked in and caught you, just before the blackout, because she was supposed to keep me occupied. As it was, I came home early and caught you in the act."
"How could Samantha even know Sam Todd?'
"That's easy. My boss, Max Rhinegold, told me he was close to signing Todd for a book on the rock music scene. Such a book was mentioned on one of the TV reports. Max told me 'we'd' been working with Todd on an outline for some months. When he said 'we' it could only have meant Samantha and him. She worked most closely with Max. Samantha met Todd on the book project and they had an affair. It probably meant nothing to Todd, but when he broke it off Samantha wanted to kill him. And she did. She hired you to steal my coat and pretended to go on vacation to Virginia Beach. Only the tunnel-bridge across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay was closed by an accident that day and she knew nothing about it. She told me they'd driven down that way, on Route Thirteen, which had to be a lie. She stayed in the city that whole week, waiting for the predicted cold weather, for a day cold enough to bring out Mary Todd's red coat again. Finally it came, as she knew it would. Otherwise, I imagine she'd have stretched her vacation by calling in sick."
"She was a bit taller than you, and a brunette, not a blonde like Mary Todd."
"The difference in coat length wouldn't be noticed, and a wig would fix the hair color. She was waiting nearby in my red coat and scarf, watching the building until she saw Mary leave. The doorman barely looked up from his paper when she dashed in and then went out again. She shot Todd as soon as he opened the door, perhaps muffling the sound with my wool scarf."
"And this afternoon?'
"I made some sketches of their two faces side by side on my pad, then left it on my desk. I knew she'd see it because she was always in my office. I didn't know she'd try to kill me, though."
We talked and drank beer for a long time after that. The next morning he asked me to move in with him, to share a crazy life in which he'd often be away. I said no, not yet.
For Christmas Nicky bought me a new red coat and took me to see Doctor Zhivago. I moved in with him two days later.