The Girl with the Phony Name by Charles Mathes Page A

straight up on the bed, her depression not even a memory. She read the letter again with growing excitement.
    After losing her computer she had tried to forget about MacAlpins altogether. Wouldn’t it be something if a MacAlpin solved the puzzle now, after all these years?
    â€œCan I ask for another day off this week or is that too much?” she asked the remains of the sandwich.
    The sandwich didn’t answer. Lucy took another bite.
    â€œAll right,” she said with her mouth full. “But there’s no reason I can’t meet with Robert MacAlpin on Saturday, is there?”
    What could the sandwich say?

    Still, there was something about this that bothered Lucy, something that seemed out of place, out of joint, though what it was she could not say.

TWELVE
    L ucy walked into Trump Tower stifling the impulse to giggle at the doorman. He was decked out in red military splendor like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace, his awesome height and jet-black face topped off by what looked like a gigantic black rabbit’s foot on his head.
    Inside, the lobby was done in veined red marble—floors, walls, and ceiling—giving Lucy the distinct feeling of being in a huge and ostentatious bathroom. In the center of the concourse a man in a tuxedo was playing Cole Porter on a grand piano. Behind him the space opened to a ten-story atrium with a waterfall cascading down one marble wall. Weekend shoppers nibbled cream puffs in the café, a floor below ground level. Gawking tourists admired their reflections in the polished brass. Crudely accented conversation swirled all around.
    â€œAin’t it the most beauty–ful thing you ever seen?”
    â€œCan you imagine what they paid for all this?”
    A goggle-eyed fellow in a baseball cap and T-shirt strained what he used for a neck. “Now this is the kind of place I should live in,” he said to the creature in a lavender pantsuit by his side.
    Lucy made her way up the escalator. She couldn’t resist taking a spin around the second floor, a subway tunnel of red marble. She passed several tiny stores featuring merchandise like $600 belts and $1,500 purses before coming out where she started. Each of the next six floors had similar shopping
tunnels, but Lucy wasn’t interested in shopping. At least not at these prices.
    She rode the escalator to the top level of the atrium and walked down the marble hall. This floor followed the same plan as those beneath, but at the back instead of another store there was a miniature restaurant with tables set with white linen and gleaming crystal. A man at one of the tables—there were only eight and all were against windows—stood and waved her in.
    â€œMr. MacAlpin?” asked Lucy nervously.
    â€œI am. An’ you moost be Lucy Trelaine. Pleased to make your acquaintance at last.”
    MacAlpin held out the chair as she sat down. He was a wiry man of average height with soft gray eyes. There were still some flecks of brown in his graying hair. He was wearing an elegant charcoal gray suit with a faint pinstripe. His shoes shone like mirrors.
    â€œThis is quite a place,” said Lucy, bursting with excitement, exhilarated by the view down Fifth Avenue.
    â€œIndeed it is,” he grinned. “We hae castles in Scotland, but naught the likes of this.”
    A white–jacketed waiter swooped over Lucy’s shoulder and handed her a menu.
    â€œThe fish is very good here,” said MacAlpin, studying her with a kind face. “An’ I’ve ordered a wee bottle, if tha’s all right with you.”
    â€œSure,” said Lucy.
    As if on cue, another waiter brought over an ice bucket and unobtrusively opened a bottle of Pouilly–Fuissé, then passed MacAlpin the cork. MacAlpin absently rolled it between his fingers and nodded. The waiter filled Lucy’s glass, then MacAlpin’s, and departed. Lucy took a sip of her wine.
    â€œIt’s