She didn't scream. She didn't panic.

What the h.e.l.l's she doing? he thought. Standing! Watching! She drew me here for this!

Suddenly she bolted toward him, tearing open her purse.

He saw something flash in her hand, and he saw it was a blade.

Her hand went to his throat and the knife dug -not into his flesh, but behind him. The blade practically knicked his ear, and he could hear it bite at the steel door.

She slashed. Once. Twice. A third time and he was falling, awkwardly pinning an ankle beneath him.

He gasped and coughed violently. She'd cut the scarf, slashing him free. His throat felt as if it had been run over by a truck. Her hand was on his back, making sure he could breathe. Tears were on his cheeks. His eyes, which had felt as if they were going to explode out of his head, were flooding.

He could later remember his first thought. Not of fear, not of perverse exhilaration at having been nearly killed. It was fury.

Those two men. He wanted to grab her knife and charge after them, using the stairs to corner them on the floor above.

He tried to rise.

"Easy, easy," she said, holding him. He still tried to stand. But his legs were rubbery and he couldn't get up. He continued to cough, almost retching with each convulsion of his windpipe. She clicked the knife closed with one hand and shoved it into a coat pocket with remarkable dexterity. No one else had seen it.

No one, in fact, had seen anything.

"Yes" she said, almost in a whisper.

"You're all right Her voice was as soft as the hand on his shoulder.

"Let them go. They failed.

Don't go after them' He was still coughing. A horrified crowd was gathering, asking what had happened. A man in a dark suit, in charge of the floor, pushed his way through and asked if he could help.

Leslie explained.

"His scarf caught in the elevator," she said.

"It's all right now."

There were gasps, mostly from women.

"Careless" Thomas heard a man's voice mutter.

"Ought to be more careful." Thomas tried to rise. His legs were still unsteady and disobedient. He continued to cough violently and uncontrollably. And the one voice which he continued to hear was Leslie's, close by his ear, in a protective English whisper, repeating soothingly,

"It's all right now; take your time. Wait till you can breathe comfortably and for G.o.d's sake don't say anything."

He was happy he could still breathe. Talking could wait.

Chapter 17 They were at a corner table in the rear of a small dimly lit pub on Madison Avenue, a quiet, genteel watering hole frequented by the well-heeled clientele of the East Side neighborhood.

There was draft beer in mugs on their Table, accompanying half eaten steaks. Thomas's throat hurt when he swallowed, a nagging cough persisted, and he wondered whether or not he needed a doctor. Food was one thing he did need, he admitted, though the incident at the Ans.p.a.cher Gallery was not the sort that triggered hearty appet.i.tes.

He sipped the beer.

"How's it feel?" she asked, apparently sympathetic.

"The throat?"

She nodded, concern on her face.

"Awful," he said, his voice catching and irritating as he spoke.

"But at least it works. Air goes in and out. What more can I ask?"

"You were on the verge of asking many things," she reminded him.

"So I was."

She worked on her steak with a fork and knife, holding the utensils European style, and eating with what he took to be a great deal of calm-unlike himself, he noted. He was still shaken.

"It's rather shattering," he pondered aloud.

"Someone trying to kill you " "It is 'she said.

He studied her.

"Of course," he said.

"You'd know, wouldn't you?"

She nodded.

He glanced at the razor-thin scar across her neck, barely visible in the dim pub. He was conscious of the soft pop voice of Judy Collins from the jukebox.

"All in all, my throat got off better than yours " He paused.

"Who were they?"

"I don't know," she said definitively. Her voice was brisk and authoritative. Not the voice of the aspiring artist, but rather that of the woman who carried a knife in her purse.

"You must have an ideal" he said.

"None at all. You're closer to the answer than I am."

"Me?" He coughed.

"Why do you keep coming back to me?"

"Because that's where it begins," she insisted.