Free City Of Lies by R.J. Ellory Page A

unsolicited charity.
    Harper glanced at the clock on the table near the window. Ten after seven. Before the point of decision arrived the phone rang, right there on the nightstand beside the bed.
    Harper frowned; picked it up. ‘Hi,’ he said.
    ‘Hi.’ A woman’s voice.
    A moment as Harper put a name to it. ‘Miss Hollander.’
    She laughed. ‘Jesus, no-one calls me Miss Hollander except the police and the IRS.’
    Harper smiled. Sharp sense of humor.
    ‘You’re up,’ Cathy Hollander stated matter-of-factly.
    ‘I am,’ Harper replied. Remembered the way she looked, the way he’d felt the entire time he’d been with her. Strong feeling, like a dull ache after a hard smack.
    ‘I checked with room service that you’d called for breakfast . . . they told me you had so I figured you were up and about. How’re you feeling?’
    Harper didn’t say anything for a moment, then, ‘Tired maybe . . . a little confused. This has been some twenty-four hours.’
    ‘I can imagine,’ Cathy replied, but Harper – knowing nothing about her – figured that she couldn’t have known a great deal about how he felt. She was being polite: uttering such words of empathy was basic human nature.
    ‘The room—’ Harper started.
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she interjected. ‘Walt is taking care of everything.’
    ‘It’s in your name.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Cathy said. ‘Walt isn’t one to go writing his name down and signing things, you know what I mean?’
    ‘Sure I do,’ Harper said, and wondered if he actually had any real idea what she meant.
    ‘So what do you want to do now?’ she asked.
    ‘Was thinking to go to my aunt’s and get my bag, and then maybe go back to the hospital. After that . . . after that I figured I’d go home.’
    ‘I can come pick you up and drive you,’ she said, and there was something in her tone that told him she was ignoring his last statement.
    Harper smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s okay Miss . . . it’s okay Cathy, I can handle it.’
    Cathy laughed. ‘Walt says I’m to take care of you. I’ll come getyou in half an hour. I’ll take you over to your aunt’s and then I’ll drop you at St Vincent’s, okay?’
    Harper shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘As long as it’s no hassle for you.’
    ‘No hassle,’ she said. ‘See you in a half hour or so.’
    She hung up before Harper had a chance to respond. He stood there with the receiver in his hand, and then he set it in its cradle and sat on the edge of the bed. He wondered what the deal was between the Hollander woman and Uncle Walt, perhaps more relevantly the deal between her and his own father.
    His
own
father.
    Harper closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths. He couldn’t stretch his mind enough to make this thing fit inside. After a short while he stopped trying. He’d learned from times past that to push at such a thing only served to slide everything else out of whack.
    Cathy Hollander arrived before Harper had had a chance to collect himself together. When she knocked on the door it was a minute or so before he got to opening it.
    ‘You alright?’ was the first thing she asked.
    ‘Compared to what?’ he asked back, which perhaps wasn’t such a polite thing to say to a visitor.
    Cathy nodded her head like she understood something about what he was feeling, and for the first time – there in daylight – Harper noticed that she looked rough around the edges, like she herself had endured her own hardships. Nevertheless there was something. The same something as the night before. Perhaps nothing more than his own emptiness, the absence of any anchors, but she was beautiful. There was no denying that simple, honest fact.
    ‘Sit down,’ he told her. ‘I have to get some shoes on.’
    She took a chair, lit a cigarette, looked around for an ashtray.
    Harper wanted to ask her not to smoke, but he didn’t. She looked like she needed it as much as he did. He found it difficult not to stare at her,