Desert Places (Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series 1)

When I closed the book, the crowd applauded. Adrienne Phelps, the proprietor of 9th Street Books, rose from her seat in the front row. “It’s nine o’clock,” she mouthed, tapping her watch. I stepped back from the lectern as the small, thin-lipped woman with short jet black hair and a sweetly menacing face pulled the microphone down to her mouth.

“Unfortunately, we’re out of time,” she told the crowd. “There’s a display up front with Mr. Thomas’s books, and he’s been kind enough to autograph fifty copies of The Scorcher, so those are on sale, too. Let’s give him a big hand.” Turning to me and smiling, she began to clap. The crowd joined in, and for ten seconds the staccato applause filled the old store, the last stop on my twelve-city book tour of the States.

As the crowd dispersed from the store and out onto the street, my literary agent, Cynthia Mathis, left her chair and came across the worn hardwood floor toward me. I dodged an autograph-hungry fan and reached her.

“You outdid yourself tonight, Andy,” she said as we embraced. Wearing a perfume that suggested lilac, Cynthia embodied every quality an elegant, successful New York woman might be thought to possess. At fifty, she hardly looked forty. Her hair, frosting into a misty gray, was long, but she wore it wrapped tightly against the nape of her neck in a chignon. A hint of blush glowed beneath her smooth cheeks, in striking contrast to her black suit.

“It’s so good to see you,” I said as we pulled away. I hadn’t seen Cynthia since before I’d started The Scorcher, and it felt strange to speak to her in person again.

“I got us reservations at Il Piazza,” she said.

“Thank God, I’m starving.” But at least fifty people surrounded us, waiting for a personalized autograph and a few seconds of chitchat. The doors of the bookstore, which led to my supper, seemed miles away, but I reminded myself that this was what I loved, what I’d worked so hard for. So I taped a courteous smile to my face, took a breath, and walked into the waiting crowd, hoping their interest would be short-lived.

The tall Italian sommelier handed me a ruby-stained cork, and I felt for dampness on the end as he poured a little wine into my glass. I swirled it around, took a sip, and when I nodded again, he filled both glasses with a dark amber Latour that had waited fourteen years for this moment.

When the wine steward left, our waiter came and described several dishes in intricate detail. Then he left us with two burgundy menus. Stumbling through the Italian, I sipped the velvety wine and thought of purple grapes ripening in the French countryside, and then subterranean cellars.

Lights from downtown created the calm, glittering ambience of Il Piazza. On the thirty-fifth floor of the Parker-Lewis Building, the restaurant occupied a corner of the skyscraper, so the best tables were positioned along the two walls of windows that peered out upon the city. We sat at one of these candlelit tables, and I stared down at the waters of the East River far below, gliding beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. My eyes followed the lights of a barge drifting upriver against the black current.

“You look tired,” Cynthia said.

I looked up. “I used to love the readings, but they wear on me now. I wanna be home.”

“Andy,” she said, and I could predict by the gravity in her voice what was coming. I knew Cynthia well, and my disappearance in May had shaken her faith in me. “Look, I’ve tried to talk with you about what happened, but you always blow it off as—”

“Cynthia—”

“Andy, if you’ll let me get this off my chest, we can put it aside.” When I didn’t speak, she continued. “You understand what bothered me about you just taking off for the South Pacific?”

“Yes,” I said, stroking the glass stem with my thumb and forefinger.

“If you just up and leave without telling me in the midst of writing a book, I don’t care. I’m not your mother. But you were gone when your book came out. I don’t have to tell you how important it is for you to be around that first week. You’re a visible writer, Andy. It’s the interviews and readings you do then that help create buzz. Initial sales were down from what Blue Murder sold. For a while, it looked like it might flop.”

“Cynthia, I—”

“All I’m saying is, don’t pull that shit again. Aside from the bookstore appearances your publisher canceled, I had to call a lot of media people and tell them why you weren’t coming. I didn’t have a clue. Don’t put me in that position again.” The waiter was walking toward us, but Cynthia waved him off. “God, Andy, you didn’t even call to tell me you were leaving,” she whispered fiercely, her brow furrowed, arms thrown forward in agitation. “How hard is it to pick up a goddamn phone?”

I leaned forward and said calmly, “I was burned-out. I needed a break, and I didn’t feel like calling to ask permission. Now, that was my reasoning then, it was wrong, and I’m sorry. It won’t ever happen again.” She took a long sip of wine. I finished my glass and felt the glow of warmth in my cheeks. Reaching out, I touched her hand. Her eyes gasped.

“Cynthia. I’m sorry, okay? Will you forgive me?”

“You better smooth things with your editor, too.”

“Will you forgive me?”

A faint smile overspread her lips. “Yes, Andy.”

“Good. Let’s order.”

Cynthia had ordered the braised lamb shank with red-pepper sauce, and as the waiter set her plate down, her glassy eyes lit up. Then I watched with pleasure as my main course—mostaccioli, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and seared bay scallops—was placed before me. Beneath the bed of pasta shimmered a vodka pink sauce. Before leaving, our waiter uncorked a second bottle of Bordeaux and refilled our wineglasses.

The scallops had taken on the flavor of the sweet tomatoes, and as one melted across my tongue, a grain of sand crunched between my molars. I sipped the wine—glimmers of plum, meat, and tobacco. It went down like silk. Experiencing the perfect balance of hunger and its satisfaction, I wanted to linger there as long as possible.

As the night wore on, I became preoccupied with the city. Drinking exceptional wine in one of New York’s finer restaurants, and watching a multitude of lights shining from the skyscrapers and boroughs, is one hell of a way to spend an evening. In the center of the constant twinkling, I knew that millions of people surrounded me, and in this way, the city became inhospitable to the lonely fear that threatened me.