Page 17 (2/2)

The door, Miss Tra?"

"No thanks, Paul" I rocked onto the rounded heels of "

He smiled "It's cooled down from this afternoon Should be nice"

"I've been told I should enjoy the June weather before it gets wicked hot"

"Very good advice, Miss Tramell"

Stepping out fro that sohbors, I enjoyed the relative quiet of my tree-lined street before I reached the bustle and flow of traffic on Broadway One day soon, I hoped to blend right in, but for now I still felt like a fraudulent New Yorker I had the address and the job, but I was still wary of the subway and had trouble hailing cabs I tried not to walk around wide-eyed and distracted, but it was hard There was just so much to see and experience

The sensory input was astonishing - the smell of vehicle exhaust mixed with food from vendor carts, the shouts of hawkers blended with e of faces and styles and accents, the gorgeous architectural wondersAnd the cars Jesus Christ The frenetic flow of tightly packed cars was unlike anything I'd ever seen anywhere

There was always an a to part the flood of yellow taxis with the electronic wail of ear-splitting sirens I was in awe of the luated tiny one-way streets and the package delivery drivers who braved the buid deadlines

Real New Yorkers cruised right through it all, their love for the city as comfortable and familiar as a favorite pair of shoes They didn't view the stea froht and they didn't blink an eye when the ground vibrated beneath their feet as the subway roared by belohile I grinned like an idiot and flexed my toes New York was a brand new love affair for me I was starry-eyed and it showed

So I had to really work at playing it cool as IAs far as ottenbased onthe next , I would be the assistant to Mark Garrity at Waters Field & Leaencies in the US My stepfather, a-financier Richard Stanton, had been annoyed when I took the job, pointing out that if I'd been less prideful I could've worked for a friend of his instead and reaped the benefits of that connection

"You're as stubborn as your father," he'd said "It'll take him forever to pay off your student loans on a cop's salary"

That had been ato back down "Hell if another hter's education," Victor Reyes had said when Stanton made the offer I respected that I suspected Stanton did, too, although he would never adht to pay off the loans myselfand lost It was a point of pride for my father My mother had refused to marry him, but he'd never wavered from his determination to be my dad in every way possible