by Gwen Davis
That it was becoming cold-blooded, premeditated, was something she excised from her mind. There were rats in the place where she lived. What she was doing was inventive, like omission of the truth with people who didn’t particularly want to hear it. Like a novel one might write pretending to be someone else, if one wrote well enough, and had a really good story.
Setting out the cereals in a neat little arrangement in the pantry, she felt more inspired than censurable. Wasn’t it your own comic darkness, really, that gave you dominion over things you couldn’t see, but were aware had the power to harm you? Resourcefulness was the key. Wit was the power. Dark humor was the salvation.
Hearing the shadowy rustle in the silence, being frightened by it, but finding a way to deal with it by discovering the cunning shadow in yourself, was the answer. Somehow managing both to take on the adversary, put him in his place (she knew what she would find in the morning in the freezer) and to find that part of you that, too, was capable of darkness. Somehow making it into a joke. That was the best part. Even unwitting wit would do.
Here she was now. What she had become. A cereal killer.
A Stalker’s Daisy Chain
Flight 2 for New York left LAX at nine in the morning. Tyler went directly to the gate, as he had no luggage but the small rucksack he was carrying. The attendant checked him in, and let him pre-board. Although he wasn’t traveling with small children, there was something so innocent about the young man. Big as he was, he seemed almost childlike, and the attendant wanted to take extra care of him.
So Tyler didn’t see Helen Manning stumble up to the gate, loaded down with hand luggage, all the things she had considered at the last moment she might need and didn’t want to lose in the event the plane went down. There were many who had offered to help her, from the driver of her car, to the porter at the curb, to those who checked her through security and marveled at what they saw in the X ray: hair blower and electric curlers, a cosmetics case filled to bursting with what appeared to be an arsenal of pills and medications, jewels enough for an auction at Sotheby’s. Helen had declined all offers of aid, although she had never gone on a trip when there hadn’t been at least two people to carry things for her, one of them usually a lover or a husband, the latter’s status determining how many people there were to carry things for him so he could carry things for her. But this was the first time in all her life that she was in pursuit, and as he was young, and strong, and doubtless idealistic, he would want her to pull her own weight. So she started with her hand luggage.
“Here, let me help you on board with that,” said three flight attendants simultaneously. Everybody laughed, including Helen, who’d been very close to tears because she’d never realized how much all that shit weighed.
They took it from her, and saw her to her seat. It was right behind his. Already she could recognize Tyler from the golden crest of his hair, a sign of infatuation she hadn’t experienced since her thirteenth year, when they were schooling her at the studio as part of her contract, and she’d gotten a crush on the back of her tutor’s neck.
“Do you mind sitting by the emergency door?” the flight attendant asked her, as he stuffed one of her bags, the one that wouldn’t fit in the overhead bin, under the seat in front of her. “We might need your help during an emergency procedure. Is that all right?”
“Actually, I’d like it,” Helen said, her mind going to the moment when the plane flipped down in the water and she had to be the one in charge of abandoning ship, opening the door, easing everyone past her. She would exchange a a meaningful look with him just before he slid down the chute. He would say, “I can’t leave you like this,” and pull her after him, so their bodies were entwined, pressed hotly together in that chilling moment before they hit the life raft.
She was already exhausted from the ordeal of packing, which always involved an oath not to take so much next time, and the carrying, and the settling into the seat, and the relief of seeing he was, in fact, on board, not to mention the fantasy of their being in a crash together. So as soon as she fastened her safety belt, she fell sound asleep.
Sarah Nash boarded the plane and saw who was sleeping beside her assigned place. “If you don’t mind,” she said to the flight attendant, “I think you’d better change my seat.”
“You object to having to deal with the door in the event of emergency?”
“Let’s just say that’s it,” Sarah said, not wanting to go into an explanation about what might happen if Helen awoke and saw who she was sitting next to. She had not been one of the most pilloried—nothing in Sarah’s book being worse than what Kitty Kelley might have revealed, and probably had. But with various friends, Helen had joined in an entente less than cordiale not to have anything to do with Sarah. So waking up next to her might have caused a scene, and Sarah wasn’t up for it.
“I’ll be glad to change seats with you,” said a fiftyish man, a look of renewal in his eyes, unconcealed joy at his good fortune.
“You’re very kind,” said Sarah, pleasantly, waiting till she was in the other seat and buckled to add, under her breath, “and optimistic.”
* * *
Behind them, in business class, Arthur Finster regretted now that he had not traveled first. His life was filled with little economies, most of them at the expense of other people. There were writers who, in their desperation, waived royalties for a quick advance, and saw their books become mass market bestsellers, the profits all going to Arthur. There were the subjects of the tawdry publications, who had also signed away all future claims in exchange for airfare and someplace to hide. And not least, there were the physical publishers, the printers, with their Central American presses, compared to whose factories sweatshops would have seemed Carnival cruises.
But this was the first time, since he had money, that he had stinted on himself. And seeing who was up there in first, he was sorry not to have flown the same. All the more so since it would have been tax deductible.
He was on his way to New York to do a TV show and find a lawyer. Any attorney with stature, anyone decent in L.A., was refusing to take him as a client. Not that he would have minded someone without integrity, a no-holds-barred sleazeball, like (he was nothing if not honest) himself. But as the world now understood, what the law was about was not justice, but lawyers. Juries voted not on the issue or the evidence, but according to which lawyer they liked better.
So he was sorry not to have flown first class, less so when the plane hit terrible turbulence and his primary concern became not who you spent time with socially, but who you died with. Jesus Christ. Helen Manning, of course, would get the headline. Sarah Nash coming in second. If the L.A. Times front-paged it, which they certainly would, he might not get any more than a mention one column down. “Also lost in the crash was Arthur Finster, the controversial publisher,” it would probably say. “The despised publisher,” perhaps. He didn’t mind. As long as he was remembered.
But after a good, or bad, half hour of flingings and stomach-churning downdrafts, the plane resettled on its normal course. And all Arthur had to worry about was the show, and where to start to look for a shyster who seemed like a good guy.
* * *
In spite of the fact that he had no reason to wait for his luggage, since he was carrying all he needed, Tyler stood by the baggage carousel watching Sarah Nash wait for hers. She bit her lips with a nervous continuity, so that at moments she seemed to have no lower lip at all. In the part of his heart that was not on the job for Norman Jessup, he felt genuinely sorry for her. Pity was judgmental, and made the one feeling it think he was above and apart from the other person. So Tyler tried very hard to integrate what he was experiencing into his own being, and feel compassion. But it was difficult to identify with someone who had gone out of her way to be unkind. And she had matching luggage, embroidered, tapestry, so she was really into the externals, the bullshit that had probably trapped her into becoming vicious.
* * *
Helen Manning
was relieved to see that Tyler was not dashing off as she feared he might, with the jauntiness that came from having only one thing to carry, not to mention youth. Her limousine driver had relieved her of her hand luggage, and was waiting for her rest of her things. So she was free to saunter over to where Tyler was leaning, although sauntering was not easy with the height of her heels. She regretted not having worn the sneakers she’d bought for her foray into Norman’s office.
“Oh, hi,” she said, like it was a surprise, finding him there. “Aren’t you that friend of Norman Jessup’s?”
“Which friend is that?” Tyler said, his eyes still someplace else.
It moved her that he had the self-possession to look past her, at the same time giving her clear access to all that was inside him. From her vantage point, she saw depth, intelligence, sensitivity, and, almost more important, eyes that were more dazzling than her own. What would Bunyan call these, if hers were phoenix eyes? Tyler’s were an intense blue, but pale, paler than blue topaz. Nor was there more than the slightest hint of green, so they weren’t aquamarine. Really what they were was crystal blue, not precious enough to describe them, not rare enough. She wished she had Bunyan’s gift for imagery and a knowledge of stones that were not semiprecious, other than diamonds, which wouldn’t have done it at all.
And his smell was quite wonderful. Slightly toasty. Fresh from the shower that morning, clean, warmed in its own juice during the flight. Very much his own scent, inoffensive but male, reassuring. It reached someplace deeper than her nostrils.
“The one who was with him and Carina at Morton’s,” she said. “It must have been a Monday.”
“Must? Because you, like everyone else there, are a victim of the ‘shoulds’?” he asked, smiling.
“Victim?” she said, bristling, although she didn’t know why, since she didn’t really understand him. “Shoulds?”
“Monday nights,” he said, and looked straight at her, the merriment undisguised, a tiny dimple appearing to the left of his generous mouth. “We should go to Morton’s. The categorical imperative of a society with no philosophy.”
“I was invited,” she said, trying not to sound petulant.
“It wasn’t an attack,” he said gently.
“Well, I don’t know if I’m glad or sorry. At least if someone attacks you, you know you’re having an effect on them.”
He looked straight into her eyes. She felt absolutely giddy.
“You have an effect on everybody,” he said. “You don’t need to have one on me.”
She looked away, actually feeling herself blush. Blushing, for God’s sake. Even when she’d been an ingenue, she hadn’t been an ingenue.
“I gotta go,” he said, and started to move past her.
She could feel his warmth, even without touching. “Can I give you a lift into town? I have a limousine.”
“So do I. Thanks anyway.”
“I could use a ride,” said Arthur Finster, who was standing an eavesdrop away.
“Take a cab,” Helen said, signaling to her driver.
* * *
Sarah Nash had called ahead to Tel Aviv taxi. It was a comedown, of course, from the days of the curbside limo, but a cut above a regular cab. And they always sent a good car for her now, with a woman driver, Carmen, a Cuban who also sold jewelry. All the way into town Sarah would try on rings and pretend that her hands were really lovely, instead of square and stubby-fingered. She would flash the jewels at herself, and try not to despise the men who had never given her any, reaffirm that she was completely independent, wanted no man in her life anymore, even one who would bejewel her.
“Where we going?” Felicia asked her.
“The Carlyle.” She sat back and watched the sparkle in the darkness, the sparkle on her hands, the sparkle across the bridge, the pileup of lights that blinked and beckoned more seductively than stars. People still shook their fist at that city, figured they could beat it. For all its toughness, New York seemed to Sarah more innocent than L.A., because if you connected big enough, it forgave you. Welcomed you to its concrete bosom, asked you to all the best parties, gave parties for you, where the guest list was what passed for a meritocracy. A culture where achievement was honored, especially when you scapegoated another city. She would have moved there if it hadn’t been so wind chill–factored in the winter.
Fortunately, it was spring now. As young men’s fancies turned to thoughts of love, hers returned to revenge. It was just after six. Too late to set up any investigatory appointments for this evening. Maybe she would just have a quiet dinner in her room, telephone Chuck and make him nervous, and start her uncovering tomorrow.
* * *
The Tel Aviv taxi crossed the 59th Street Bridge with a limousine behind it and a limousine after that. The unintentional caravan at last reached its destination. Tyler went in the Madison Avenue entrance to the Carlyle. Sarah Nash had her luggage unloaded at the side, where the doorman was, and the welcome that made it worth not getting a break on the price of the room.
* * *
Now that she knew where Tyler was staying, Helen had her driver circle the block a few times, so she could phone from the car and make a reservation. They were fully booked, but after a weep to the manager, explaining she’d come to the city for the funeral of her father, he managed to make a place for her, giving up the suite he was holding for his dearest friend.
Being himself one of the few great gentlemanly toffs left on the planet, as nattily clad as he was jolly, the manager of the Carlyle, after dealing with the crisis on the phone, stepped behind the reception desk and saw Tyler. He tried not to react to the deliberately worn-through-the-knees jeans. But he did have a bad moment.
Then he looked at the name on the register, at the same time noting the great beauty of the boy, and remembered that Norman Jessup was paying the bill. So he thought, Oh, well. As Tyler himself often thought or said Oh, well, releasing it to the universe. First class hotel managers were every bit in their way as attuned to the mysteries as metaphysicians.
* * *
“I hate all this spying and sneaking around,” Tyler said to Norman on the phone.
“Hate isn’t in your vocabulary,” said Norman. “I thought it was all about love and light.”
“It can’t be when you’re being devious and manipulative. Let her go, Norman. The only way Sarah can really beat you is if you empower her, give her power over you. Let her go.”
“Find out first what she’s doing, and where she’s going, and when I know, I’ll let her go.”
“I wish I could believe you,” Tyler said.
“Visualize it happening,” said Norman. “Affirm it. Claim it. Isn’t that how it works?”
“Only if you’re not making fun of it,” said Tyler.
* * *
The ballet company at City Center was in rehearsal all during the day, the stage empty, the scenery for the evening performance of another ballet carefully pushed out of the way. Alexander Winsett, the choreographer, had a lot on his mind, more than enough, what with dancers leaving and dancers dying, and the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center with its best program in years, and there not being the appetite or vast audience for dance there had been once. On top of all his other concerns, he was having to parry the intrusive thrusts of this Hollywood harridan.
He tried to take mental sanctuary in the sense of community and safety the group provided, as the dancers did, the balletic version of the spiritual sanga. But the dancers were on a break, and this woman was continuing to grill him as she had most of the afternoon, waiting for the moments when he stopped to think, in order to interrupt the flow of his thinking. Right now he didn’t have the dancers’ physical presence to fortify him, with the exception of one eager girl from Michigan, who continued practicing fouettés, a kind of virtuoso whipping pirouette, around the stage.
Winsett and Sarah were sitting in one of the empty rows. He was two seats away from her. But he still had the suffocated feeling she was on top o
f him.
“And you brought Paulo up from Brazil?” Sarah Nash was saying, holding her tape recorder out like a gun.
She had asked his permission to record their conversation. Assaulted by her persistence, the overwhelming number of phone calls he had received from her the night before, he had assented, thinking it might be for his own protection as well as hers.
“He brought himself up from Brazil,” Winsett said. “Or rather, his company brought him. Capoeiras de Bahia. An inspired group.” He had a towel around his muscular shoulders, soaking up the sweat he could work up even in his head as he directed the company’s movements. They were rehearsing Midsummer Night’s Dream, part Balanchine, part Winsett himself, a mélange that had set the purists screaming in advance. But he wasn’t afraid of critics or the ballet community and its advocates, having lost so many friends in the past few years he knew not to be fearful of words or opinions. Still, this woman frightened him, with her scarlet Mohawk with its shaven sides, and her relentlessness.
“How old was he?”
“Fourteen.”
“You really start them young,” she said.
He tried to read her for facetiousness. “A dancer’s life is limited,” he said. “The knees usually go by forty.”
“And you persuaded him to stay in New York?”
“That was his original hope in coming here. That an American ballet company would want him.”
“Or an American ballet master?”
“I have accepted the fact that you are tenacious, Miss Nash. I won’t abide your being rude.” He started to get up.
“Please,” she said, and reached with a hand to his arm, a gesture she supposed would comfort him. “Forgive me. I didn’t sleep very well. I didn’t mean to be discourteous. I’d much rather talk to you than to people who talk about you.”
“Is that an apology, or a threat?” he asked.
“Both,” she said, and smiled.
He sat back down.
“You did become lovers?” When he didn’t answer, she softened her voice. “Look … besides being politically correct now, so you have nothing to be uncomfortable about, I have this enterprising assistant who spoke to a bunch of dancers, and they all said—”