by Robert Roper
No, no, correction. Karin, very jealous Karin, finds out about the wrong affair. Doesn’t go for Jad, goes for Samantha, brings her to Landau’s house, possibly at gunpoint, to shame her. Precipitates the coronary event. The nudity in bed, the vibrator—these were postmortem humiliations, conceived in the tormented spirit of the moment. Karin had done it—Karin in a jealous rage.
“So, that’s it, Professor? That’s what you wanted to share with me?”
“Yes, well, that’s about it. I hope it wasn’t a waste of your time.”
At the top of the path up from the lake, Landau opened his phone: “Deena. I want so badly to see you, Deena. But I can’t. I’m afraid, I’m terribly afraid.”
She picked up. “Where are you? What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m in the park, Deena. Amongst the trees and the breezes.”
“Why don’t you come over? I want to see you too.”
“I better not. Just talk to me, Deena. Let me hear your voice. Are you in the living room? Are you going shopping later?”
“No, I’m not home, I’m at work. Maybe later. Shopping later.”
“Okay.”
He pictured her office. She had a nice one, smack in the middle of the Berkeley campus, in a cube of a building made of white marble. Lots of other good buildings around, interesting buildings, all with tall windows, old-style casements.
“What else is happening, Deena, hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. You are on the news a lot. There is a conference coming, Singapore dialects, Hokkienese. I need to take my skirts to the cleaners. I will take Harold’s velour jacket in, also. You want me to take your stuff in?”
“No, I’m okay with that. But thank you. Thanks for asking.”
They had an excellent cleaner in common—Landau had discovered him.
“What are you wearing, sweetheart, can you tell me? It’s so warm, probably you just threw on some pretty summer frock.”
“Anthony, we don’t talk about my clothes anymore. Is off limits.”
“I know, but just this once. I like that floral-printed one with the square neck. It shows off your pretty throat, your collarbones.”
They talked about this and that, Landau cheekily asking if she were wearing pantyhose, as usual. He had used to take an interest in her apparel, maybe an excessive interest, which survived their remarkably brief tenure as actual lovers. Now she belonged to another, and so he must not ask.
“But why can’t I talk about such things, really—isn’t it that I’m an accused sex-torturer now? Isn’t that why I can’t ask about your undergarments?”
“What are you wearing today, Landau, a truss?”
He laughed. “Yes. And a jockstrap.”
After a moment he continued, “No, let me ask you something else. Do you think I did it?”
“Do I? No, of course not.”
“Not even just a little? Georges thinks so. It’s possible, he says—because he doesn’t know me in the full roundabout.”
“Georges doesn’t think that, he would never think that.”
“And sometimes, you know, I don’t know myself, Deena. Isn’t that funny? I wake up and I’m not quite in touch with the reality of it all. What if I did do it? What if I’m losing my grip, slipping mental gears? It happens.”
“Don’t talk that way. You have enough problems.”
She asked what he was so afraid of. So terribly, terribly afraid.
“Oh, just that things have befallen. Happened to people I like. I need to stay away from some people for a while. But that makes me lonely. I’ve been reading about other great personages in my situation—other suspected malefactors of the day. The one who sent the anthrax spores, for instance. They staked out his house for a year, named him a person of interest, without bothering to indict him. Wanting to screw up the pressure till he finally burst. The feeling is one of total separation from the human family, which is a family I’ve never been sure I actually wanted to belong to, you know?”
“What about your cat, Anthony? If they arrest you, who will take care of Freddy? I will do it, but you have to tell me.”
“Oh, poor Freddy, he’ll have to come visit me in lockup. Speak to me through the plastic window, the little phone thing they have. He has little enough to say to me in any case.”
Landau found his bike, and on the breezy ride down Euclid Avenue, the hems of his sport coat planing out to either side, he was free for a moment, with his hair blowing straight back. He passed two police cars headed uphill. Such was his mood of persecution that he assumed they were looking for him—suspect spotted speeding downhill, he could hear the police scanner say, looks like Tweedledum in a herringbone jacket, bring him in. Some animal high spirits returned with this image—it was the feeling that he cut an absurd figure, combined with the feeling of going too fast, flirting with loss of control. He was but a human body enmatrixed in mortal reality, just like everybody else in the world. He might have a spill, bust his fool head open. Then it would all be over.
As he turned up Hopwood Lane the tiresome spectacle unfolded itself ahead of him. Several press vans again, strangers milling before his house, sandwich wrappers blowing across the yard. Don’t they ever tire of this, the press folks? I know they’re on salary, but how many hours of nothing will their editors underwrite, in this age of the collapse of journalism? There was the civilian crowd, too—my groupies, as Landau had begun to think of some of them. Yes, I recognize faces now, I have my own cohort of tricoteuses, the women who knitted in front of the guillotine. You’d think that in Berkeley they’d be organizing an anti-GMO march or something, but I’m more captivating than that, the sheer angrifying awfulness of me provokes them. Wait a minute, here was an actual placard: “PREDATOR FREE ZONE.” Isn’t that wrong, isn’t there a confusion of messages? Shouldn’t it read, “NOT PREDATOR FREE ZONE”?
Got off his bike. The usual hubbub of insults and questions, bodies giving way grudgingly as he pushed on, head down, toward the front steps. Out of the shoal of newsfolk and good citizens bearing witness, everyone moving sideways across his flagstoned walk, some of them jogging, others walking slowly backwards, Landau with his game face on, a small woman appeared, was suddenly right there, screaming at him in bad Spanish, spitting at him or splashing him with holy water, because he could feel his cheek all wet. Then other people were taking hold of her, pulling back on her, and there was a mad writhing there in front of him, on the ground.
“My God! Jesus!”
“He’s hurt! He’s hurt!”
Busty little white woman. Youngish. He knew her—it was Dorothea, Dolores’ girlfriend, lover, wife, widow. Landau put his hand to his face; of course she would want to spit on him, heartbroken person that she was, and why should he deny her that satisfaction? But wait, his hand came away full of blood. No one came near for an instant. Then several people were taking hold, had appeared out of the crowd, carrying him up toward his house, his feet just skimming the path. I say, unhand me. But they did not unhand him, they hurried him swiftly on. No pain but a feeling of wet weight at his cheek. Someone fell down before him, another shrieker, and they carried him over her, then Officer Ng was at his side, Frisbee-playing Officer Ng, and a wail of distress was rising on all sides, filling the peaceful glen of Hopwood Lane right up to the treetops.
Landau’s hands were both bloody now, so one of the carriers fished his house keys out of his pocket. He found the right one, and once inside the house, they slammed and bolted the door.
“You’ll be all right, sir. Is there a bathroom on this floor?”
“Yes, at the end of the hall.”
“Okay. Very good.”
Hustling him along, urgently hustling. “Keep the pressure on, sir, there, that’s good. You’re going to be all right. You’re going to be fine.”
chapter 12
What had she said, and why s
creaming it in Spanish? She was from Bend, Oregon, not Mexico or Argentina or anywhere like that, a Methodist who worked for a title company. She didn’t speak Spanish, or maybe she spoke a little, that was their language of love, the lingo Dolores had taught her. The one they used in private, in the boudoir. If he could have understood her he might have prevented this bloody insanity, might have fobbed her off with a condolence or two, but now he was past all that, in that velvet space conjured by expert sedation, just this side of full-on anesthesia, just an inch or two this side. Feeling no pain, in other words. Feeling marvelous.
One hundred ninety-four stitches, tiny plastic surgery stitches. And afterward they were all in a good mood, the docs and nurses, slapping themselves on the back—with a wound like that, well, you don’t fool around, do you? You get the best people for the job, not some ER cowboy who stitches you up with fishing line, leaves you looking like a soccer ball. Now don’t get it wet for forty-eight hours, and read these pages on wound care. Read them carefully.
Caught a ride home with a Berkeley policewoman. I like the police, Landau decided, male or female—they aren’t the enemy, no, I was wrong about that. They’ve been watching out for me, waiting on the edges of the crowd, to intervene if necessary. Is Byrum Johnson behind that? Organizing my protection? Hard to tell.
Empty house, blissfully. He expected some maniac to emerge from a closet but no one did. They got tired after a while, even the maniacs—went home for supper.
Feeling a bit woozy now. Percocet for the pain, four capsules, washed down with white wine. Landau looked at himself in his bathroom mirror—a four-inch scar, someone had said, cheekbone to corner of mouth. It might even be attractive, like a dueling scar.
No, not so quick there. Don’t be gratified to have been cut, carved up like one of the dead girls. No one deserves a public slashing, and she almost took out your eye, the stupid idiot. If you were Dr. One-Eye now, you wouldn’t be so philosophical.
Goddamn her, then. Her and her box cutter. The fellow in the café had had a box cutter on his belt, and what was the meaning of that, if any? All weapons have a subtext they tell us, and a bullet to the brain is different from a cleaver to the side of the neck. Landau threw up suddenly in the bathroom sink. Big brisk unloading, hadn’t felt it coming at all. Sickened by the violence to his person, the remembered feel of the knife. Took two more Percocet, to be on the safe side. Box cutters made him think of Lorena Bobbitt, but Lorena had used a common kitchen knife, it was said. His own story would include such details when properly told; it would take its place among the tabloid sagas of the past thirty years, many of which it resembled. And will I be a real American then? Will I finally be a citizen?
His kitchen, one of his favorite rooms in the world, now lopsided, disturbed. No one would maid for him, so he had to wield the mop himself. Mail piled up on all the counters, yards of it. You became a world celebrity yet still got credit card offerings, ACLU donation requests, home mortgage statements. Here was a kindly note from Citibank, to which he still owed a vast sum. Would he like to borrow more? The sky was the limit.
With a powerful swelling of his heart he recognized a tentative tchh-tchh sound at the door to his deck. The cat, the famous cat! Okay, be cool now, don’t go all effusive on him. He’s come to feed, that’s all, and you’re his undependable provider. Freddy entered trotting most businesslike toward a feed bowl across the floor, where a chunk of some meaty stuff had dried to a brownish curd. Sniffed it, tail held out straight, then flopped on his haunch and began licking his former balls. Insouciant fellow, free spirit! Landau cleaned the bowl for him and opened another can of food, then went the extra mile, laid down a fresh sheet of newsprint. All right, ready to go.
Two pieces of real mail. A note from Melody, the physical therapist person. She was opening an office on Gilman Street, in partnership with an acupuncturist and a sports medicine physician, calling it the Westbrae Integrative Bodywork Center, hmm, not so catchy a handle. There was to be a feng shui ceremony cum reception, but the date was already past. She had written something else on the back of the card:
I don’t know if you’ll remember, but you mentioned your lumbar spine to me, that it’s been bothering you. Why don’t you bring it in to my new office? I saw Georges at the pool but forgot to ask his permission to work on you…I can only imagine what you’re going through, but if I can be of any help, please get in touch. Times of stress express themselves in the body. I know, I’m required to say something like that, but it might even be true.
She had a nice hand, shapely, feminine. And here was her phone number, her private number, in fetching lavender ink. Well, well.
Feeling truly Percocetish now, cotton-wadded in the brain. Fell to petting the cat, good way to get himself scratched, since Freddy was still feeding. Another letter had a handwritten address, but upon closer inspection it was just ink-jetted on:
deer killer doctor I ben drinking the blood of little girls for 300 years when I get hungry is when the moon is out their will be seventeen ded girls on a plate when the moon is out look for a pretty one under your feet look for a fat one under the bed look for a dirty one what was it like to fuck the dead girl I saw you saw you under your house
Hmm. Hmm. It was a piece of thin cardboard, cut from a cereal box, apparently. The advert side showed the words “Honey Roaste—” against a yellow-brown background. Wait, a signature: “El Chueco,” it said.
Chueco. Chueca. That was the name of a district in Madrid, full of gay bars, good restaurants, narrow twisty streets. He knew it fairly well.
Chueco had another meaning, too, and the fickle memory bird almost swooped down, to touch his addled brain. In the end he ambled off to his den, where his dictionaries were kept. An adjective meaning “twisted,” the dictionary said. Oh, too clever, that. That was a fanboy’s name, a piggybacker’s, if he didn’t miss his guess. Why did people think that serial killers couldn’t spell? That they wrote in naïve stream of consciousness? If he had been a serial killer, he would have written in perfect declarative lines, radioactive with threat. The Unabomber, now, there was a real killer-writer for you. Wrote a good sentence, whatever else you might say of him.
A surging sort of calm now filled his being. Maybe back off on the pills, no, just one more. His pornography section like a mouth of missing teeth. The police had been through at least three times already, on the night of Samantha, during the Buenos Aires weeks, after Dolores. Remarkable that anything remained. Out on his side deck, for a breath of air, he thought about the raccoon alcove just below his feet, wasn’t bothered by that now, the pills took care of that. From his deck could be seen five dwellings, three cozily lit among the brooding trees. The Shteyngarts the closest, but it was unthinkable that they or either of their two perfect daughters could have ever written “what was it like to fuck the dead girl.” Farther down the block, a family named Bamberg that he knew little. They had a teenaged son, gawky, big Adam’s apple, Tony Perkins-like. Wouldn’t look you in the eye.
He took off down Hopwood Lane. As he mounted the Bambergs’ porch, littered with broken lawn furniture, a dog began to bark inside the house. He heard scurrying and then an abrupt end, as if someone had grabbed the animal’s muzzle.
He knocked at the door. Someone opened it a bit. “Yes?”
“Hello, I’m Anthony Landau. I’m your neighbor,” he said. “I live in that tall house up there.”
“I know,” said the woman at the door.
She was slight, middle-aged. Flat hair. Had opened her door but two inches, stood holding a cell phone to her ear, a forefinger poised above the keypad.
“Is this a bad time?”
“Yes, well, we’re all tucked in for the night.”
“Sorry. Just wanted to ask you something. Wondered if your son, I forget his name, if he housesits. Would he possibly agree to feed a cat. Put out a can of food once a day, in the morning, sometimes a bowl of water,
that’s all.”
“My son?”
“Yes. Would he feed my cat.”
An old black dog poked its nose out the door. A slight side-to-side movement of its nose suggested a tail wagging out of view.
“I may be going away soon. I would pay him seven dollars a day, and take no trouble with the litter box—Freddy is trained for the outdoors.”
Drowning eyes. That was what the woman had, the drowning eyes spoken of in novels. Was he going to kill her, cut her throat right here on her porch? Why then had she opened the door? Was it some dictate of conscience, the immemorial injunction against denying the neighbor?
“I mean you no harm, ma’am,” he asserted, unable to suppress a Percocet-flavored smirk. “All this talk of me as a savage killer is sheer nonsense. I would like to talk to your son, that’s all. See if we could reach an arrangement.”
“He’s not home now. He doesn’t housesit, anyway. He’s not very dependable.”
“Oh, I see.”
Impasse. The old dog wormed its way out the front door, stuck its nose into Landau’s crotch. Rooted there a bit.
“I’ll ask him, though. He likes cats pretty much.”
“Oh, does he? That’s good to hear.”
“We had three of them, but the coyotes got them. One by one. There was nothing you could do.”
“Coyotes? Had your cats been declawed, by any chance?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“The vets insist on it don’t they? Declaw them all—tear those evil little claws right out. That leaves them defenseless, though. Coyotes can kill them, bunny rabbits too, probably. There’s the songbird angle, of course. A healthy housecat can kill three hundred a year, the bird fanatics say, but does that ever really happen? Cats like to laze around, I’ve noticed. My cat certainly does.”