“I do have to say you were missed. But not to worry. I covered for you. I used your old quip about that group of nuns you’ve been expecting. I said they’d come to town for a bowling convention, and you’d stepped out to welcome them.”

“Who was asking for me?”

“Laurie for one,” Chet said. “In fact, I was just writing you a note.” Chet tore off the top page of his tablet and balled up the paper. Holding the ball between thumb and index finger, he arced it cleanly into the communal wastebasket.

“What was the message?” Jack demanded.

“I was to tell you that tonight’s dinner is at Elio’s on Second Avenue at eight-thirty.”

“Eight-thirty!” Jack commented irritably. “Why so late?”

“She didn’t say. But eight-thirty doesn’t sound late to me.”

“It’s later than she likes to eat,” Jack commented. He shook his head. The mystery kept deepening. He remembered her making the comment that morning about whether she’d be still on her feet that evening, suggesting she anticipated being tired. Why then would she make plans to meet late?

“Well, she didn’t seem at all concerned,” Chet said. “In fact, she was in a rare, spunky mood if you ask me.”

“Really?” Jack asked.

“I’d even have to say ebullient.”

“She was the same way this morning.”

“She was so ‘up’I mentioned the possible plan for Thursday evening,” Chet said.

“You mean about the four of us going to the Monet exhibit?”

Chet nodded. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“What was her response?”

“She said she was very appreciative of our thinking of her, but she said she already had plans.”

“She actually used the word ‘appreciative’?”

“A direct quote,” Chet said. “I questioned it, too. It seemed so uncharacteristically formal.”

“Who else was looking for me?” Jack asked. He wanted to get away from talking about Laurie. It was making him even more curious—and anxious.

“Calvin stopped in,” Chet said. “I think he’d been to histology and just stopped in because he was on the floor.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to remind you that Jefferson’s case has to be signed out by Thursday.”

Jack made a gesture of dismissal with his hand. “That’s going to be up to the lab, not me.”

“Well, I’m on my way,” Chet said. He stood up, stretched, and then retrieved his coat from behind the door.

“Let me ask you a question,” Jack said. “You’ve lived in New York longer than I. What’s the story with yellow cabs vis-a-vis radio calls?”

“Yellow cabs thrive on people hailing them,” Chet explained. “They generally don’t do radio calls. Among the drivers the expression is, you cruise or you lose. They don’t want to sit around and wait or drive someplace empty. They have to hustle or they lose money.”