His hands began to wander.
"Honey…" she said, something of a protest. But let herself be pulled over to him.
They kissed. She pulled off the violet Victoria's Secret teddy he'd bought for her several months ago, offering the box shyly, as if he was worried she'd be offended.
The familiar routine began. He kissed her long, on her mouth, her chin, working downward. He lingered at her neck, taking her S-link chain in his mouth. He often did this and she wondered if the gold had a taste that he liked. Then his lips found her collarbone and he moved down toward her breasts and, slowly, slowly, to her contracted nipples.
When they made love Keith was energetic, simple, effective.
Meg was ready for him. Although from time to time she let her hands explore herself when she was taking a shower she hadn't done so since the last time they'd made love, a week ago. So now, even though it was morning, even though she wanted to bathe first, to brush her teeth, even though she didn't feel beautiful, even though she had to wake Sam in the next few minutes to get him moving in time for his schoolbus-despite all that, she felt the low kick inside her.
Meg smiled, kissed his chest and nipples, rolled him over on his back. She stroked him then moved down his belly. She felt her own passion swell when he began to grow inside her mouth.
This is what their romantic life had become-usually mornings, usually spontaneous. And Meg Torrens had no real complaints about it. True, they weren't youthfully passionate. But who is, after ten years of marriage? The compensation was that neither of them demanded too much from the other. Sex was comfortable, like browsing through antique stores or trying out new recipes. Diverting pleasures. Silent and a little anonymous. They'd learned not to intrude on each other's fantasies.
He nearly came and he held her head still. Then he sat up, rolled her over and kissed her breasts again, moved down. Licked her navel. He moved further down her trim body.
After five minutes she shuddered violently under the clever effort of his tongue and fingers. She lay gasping and smiling in the near darkness, trying to cement the moment.
Keith waited a gallant minute or two before mounting her. She held him fiercely and she moaned the way she knew he liked but was too shy to ask her for. She bit his ear. She dug nails into his back. She pressed her face against his soft, gray hair, through which a residue of sweat was building.
She curled her legs around him, she moaned again. Then, suddenly, her eyes snapped open.
The intrusion was like a slap. A spray of cold water.
No!
The memory of the sound wouldn't go away.
Bzzzzt.
She couldn't place it, but it intruded unrelentingly. It was spoiling the entire moment. She hated it.
No, no, go away, please.
Then, she remembered. At the same instant Keith gripped her furiously and squeezed the air from her lungs. She felt the contractions and the fierce tensing of his hips.
That was the intrusion-a sound.
Playing in her mind, over and over, was the satisfying whir of the film as it shot out of the man's Polaroid camera. She pictured his narrow face, she heard his voice. She saw the glossy dark scar. A machine gun. An Oldsmobile. You've lived here how long?
Keith rolled off. She pressed her legs together tightly and stretched. They lay together for five minutes. (Nothing, nothing, think about nothing!) Then slowly Meg sat up. A local? she thought angrily. He thought I was a local?
Who'd lived here ten years?
"Love you," Keith said.
"Me too."
She sat for a moment then saw her face in the mirror. A confused, frightened look in her eyes. She smiled at her husband and forced all thoughts of the location scout out of her mind. She swung out of bed and walked into the hall.
The bathroom was carpeted in black shag. The shower curtain was black with red roses on it and the walls were pink. (Meg couldn't decide whether the decor was eighteenth-century country or Victorian bordello.) She shook her head and tossed her light blonde hair with her fingers. It stuck out wildly in all directions from yesterday's spray and the electric curlers she set it with. It would take half an hour of diligent work to turn herself into a blond, bouffanted, real estate agent.
She fixated on the mirror. Her lips had always bothered her. They were nearly flat planes and she used two subtly different shades of lipstick to give them dimension. And, when she remembered, she would keep the bottom lip curled forward slightly. This tended to make her look more pouty than sensuous, but, in her experience, men liked pouting women as much as sexy ones.
Out of the shower, drying her thin legs and waist, Meg stepped on the scale automatically, though she'd never weighed a pound over 105 since a month after Sam was born. She combed her hair straight, pulled on her robe.
She called down the hall, "Sam, let's go, honey."
In the bedroom Keith was still in bed. He seemed asleep. As she passed he groped playfully for her butt. She slapped his hand gently then tugged at his arm. "Up, up!" she called. "The world awaits."
He groaned.
Meg walked down the stairs. She didn't put on her slippers until she stepped into the kitchen. She liked the touch of the carpet on her feet in the morning.
Fifteen minutes later, rolls were warm, coffee was hot. Meg was sipping from a heavy mug and wondering where they got the crazy names for kids' breakfast cereal when Sam came thumping down the stairs. He was his father's son in many ways. In the morning he was groggy, puffy faced, his sandy hair going at odd angles. But unlike Keith (a pudgy boy forty years ago, a pudgy man now), Sam was lean and tall.
And brilliant. This gift was from his father. If Meg had said prayers, she would have thanked the generic all-powerful spirit she nearly believed in that Sam had received the gene for Keith's brains, not hers.
Meg Torrens, with two years' community college, was going to be the mother of Samuel K. Torrens, Ph.D., cum laude.
Keith came down the stairs slowly, wearing knife-crease gray slacks, a white dress shirt, a green-and-black striped tie.
She poured coffee. He said, "Thanks, darling," and started working on a sweetroll.
They paid the premium for the New York Times but Keith preferred the Cleary Leader, which if you read it regularly would really scare the hell out of you, and make you think that Dutchess County was filled with nothing but murderers, child molesters and the mournful classmates of teenagers who'd driven the family car into trains while tanked up on their father's vodka. Today was Tuesday, publication day, and he read the thin paper hungrily, boning up on local gossip.
"Hey, Mom," Sam said, sitting forward on his chair, making valleys in his cereal. "What happens when a duck flies upside down?"
Meg knew that success as a mother, just like success as a politician, is largely dependent on cheerful insincerity. She turned to him, thought a moment, then frowned. "I have no idea. What?"
"He quacks up!" He laughed. Meg did too and wiped a bit of Smurf off his cheek. Keith grunted a laugh and ruffled the boy's hair.
Sam dodged away and shook his hair back into place. "Dad!"
Keith looked at him for a moment, an affectionate gaze, then turned back to the paper. There was a shyness about Keith, even with his wife and son, and he didn't look up as he said, "If I don't have to work, how about going to the game on Saturday?" It was as though he was afraid they'd turn him down. He added, "They're playing…" He looked at Meg. "Who're they playing?"
The high school team's standing and upcoming opponents were pretty much common knowledge in Cleary. Meg said, "No game this weekend, remember? It's the festival. If you're taking time off we can all go."
"Yeah!" said Sam, his voice breaking.
"Sounds good."
Meg said, "Maybe I should enter my apple butter."
Keith said slowly, "Well, sure. You could."
He and Sam looked at each other.
She said, "It wasn't that bad."
"It like tasted good, Mom. It really did
."
"Maybe," Keith said delicately, "next time, just some food color."
"Critics." Meg turned to the Times classified real estate section and added up the commissions she would have made last year if she were selling houses in Scarsdale or Greenwich instead of Cleary.
At seven-thirty: the bus arrived and Meg pitched Sam his pro-wrestling lunch box. He hugged her then disappeared out the front door.
Keith said, "That guy ever call the insurance company?"
Meg asked, "What guy?"
"Your accident? That guy with the movie company."
Bzzzt.
"Oh, him. I'd forgotten about him. I don't know. I'll call Jim. Find out."
Keith looked at his watch, muttered, "Damn," and walked quickly up the stairs. He returned ten minutes later; he'd added spit-shined shoes and a navy blazer to his uniform of the day.
They brushed cheeks and he walked out the screen door. She called, "Bye, honey."
Keith said something to her and lifted his hand but she missed his words. They were obscured by a sound that started running through her head again, the whir of the Polaroid, which this time, try though she might, she could not force out of her thoughts.
6
"Mr. Pellam."
Pellam smiled and shook the man's hand, glancing around him.
The scene was something out of a really bad movie-one that Alan Lefkowitz wouldn't have come close to. He was in a little, close-smelling town-government office. A lumber yard calendar on the wall, a dead plant in a drought-struck flower pot, a few yellowing files, a map dated 1964. The smell of bitter old coffee, papers, musty cardboard.
And at the desk: a local pol-looking just like Oral Roberts-with a tight grin he no way in the world meant.
"You're the mayor, that correct?"
"Hank Moorhouse." Silver hair, baby-blue suit, shiny pale green shirt and striped brown and yellow tie. Jowls and chicken skin. His eyes were bloodshot. "Mayor and town magistrate. First, let me say how sorry we are about what happened to your friend. Is there anything I can do?"
Pellam discreetly studied Moorhouse's Sunday-go-to-meeting outfit. "I'd like to see the coroner's report on my friend's death. The deputy-"
And damn if the man wasn't nodding and looking over his desk. He pulled a file out from underneath a stack of papers. "Sure thing, sir. Here you go."
Pellam opened it. On top of the report were pictures of Marty's body-taken at the scene of the fire and during the autopsy. It was like a jolt of electricity seeing those photos. He closed his eyes for a moment then glanced at Moorhouse's impassive face and shuffled the glossy pictures to the back. He read the short, badly typed report.
The cause of death was shock and loss of blood due to massive burns. There was evidence of some alcohol in the blood stream but no drugs.
"How do you figure he was killed doing drugs if the coroner didn't find any in his system?"
Moorhouse sniffed a cautious laugh. "Oh, well, that's easy. Pretty clear he was killed before he had a chance to smoke anything."
Pellam handed the file back. "I'd like to see the police report, if it's possible."
"Sorry. That's not public-"
"-record material."
Moorhouse said, "Nosir. That's correct."
"Did you consider the possibility he was murdered?"
"That's not my job, sir. The sheriff and the coroner make that determination. Tom-he's the sheriff-he's out of town for a day or so. And as for the coroner, well, what does that tell you?" Moorhouse tapped the file. "County doc seemed to think it was pretty straightforward."
Pellam asked, "What about the permits?"
Moorhouse swivelled back in his green leatherette chair. "Don't need to see me about that. Town clerk can issue them."
"He can?"
"Yep. Deer'll cost you twenty-five. Bear's protected. Geese-"
Pellam smiled. "I understand you decided not to issue obstruction permits to my movie company."
"Oh, that. True."
"Why?"
Moorhouse pulled an inch of Scotch Magic tape off a dispenser, rolled it up and began chewing it. "Your friend, if he'd got himself killed in a car crash or racing out into the street to rescue a little girl we'd put banners up and welcome your outfit to town. But the boy was smoking crack-"
"He wasn't smoking crack. He never did crack. I traveled with him for months."
"Well, we found crack vials-pot there too."
"I doubt it was his."
"Somebody walked up and dropped a foil-wrapped package full of hash in a burning car?"
"If the police found it there then, yes, that's exactly what happened."
"What'd you be suggesting, sir?"
This man, like the town deputies, was getting some serious mileage out of "sir." The word seemed to have a different meaning every time he said it.
"He couldn't have had any with him."
"And why would you be so sure?"
"I just am."
"Yessir, well, doesn't really matter. It's in our discretion to issue permits or not. We chose not to. Nothing more needs to be said. We're a self-sufficient community."
Pellam blinked, wondering what on earth that meant.
"I'm saying we don't need your movie here, sir. We don't need your Hollywood money."
"I'm not suggesting you do."
Moorhouse held his hands up. "So. That's it. There's nothing more to be said."
"I guess not."
Moorhouse's wattles stretched as he broke into a shallow smile. He opened his desk. "Now, we've got a ticket for you… Ha, that'd be an airline ticket. Not parking."
"Oh, I'm not leaving."
"You're not…"
"Leaving."
"Uh-huh. I see."
Pellam said, "Real pretty around here. The leaves and everything."
"We do get tourists rrom around the world."
Pellam said, "I can understand why."
"So, you're just going to look at some leaves for a while?"
"Well, see without those permits I'm out of a job. So may as well take a bit of a vacation."
"Vacation." The Scotch tape got chewed and the eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch closer. "That's wonderful. I'm glad our little burg made an impression on you. Uhm, one thing I'd mention, for your benefit. You've got that camper of yours. Which you can't park on the town streets two to six a.m. You'll get yourself a ticket, you do." The grin tightened. "That's parking. Not airline. Ha."
"And I'll bet that's enforced pretty well."
"Tom and his boys do their best."
Pellam walked to the door. He stopped. "The car?"
"Car, sir?"
Damn, gotta learn how to say that. Sir, sir, sir, sir … It seemed very Zen. Like a mantra.
"The car Marty was in. The one that burned. You still have it in custody, don't you?"
"Believe it's been sold."
"In two days?"
"Sold for scrap."
"But how?"
"Selling a car's easy, sir."
"I mean, there'll be lawsuits, won't there? There'll be some kind of investigation."
"The police investigation ended with the coroner's report. You curious, you'll have to ask the rental place."
"Obliged for your help…" Pellam opened the door. He turned back and nodded. "Sir."
Meg Torrens listened to the familiar squeak of her chair as she sat back. It was the oldest chair in an old office, a teacher's dark oak chair with an elaborate spring mechanism underneath a carved seat that matched no posterior she'd ever seen.
"Wex," Meg said, "I can promise you, they aren't going to go with less than R-1. This is Cleary P &Z you're talking about."
Wexell Ambler sat across from her and looked unhappily at the survey in front of him.
The midmorning lull was in full swing at Dutchess County Realty. In residential real estate evenings and Saturdays were the hectic times though that was an adjective Meg doubted could ever legitimately describe business in Cleary (No, Mr
Pellam, you are one hundred percent on point there: people aren't busy in Cleary. Never have been, never will be). The small office, littered with three desks and unmatched chairs, scarred bookcases, an eclectic assortment of lamps, which were always illuminated because the window awning had been frozen in the down position for a year. The room was decorated with one yellowing ficus tree, some primitive paintings of houses one broker's daughter had done in grade school and a huge roll-up map of Cleary and environs, which made the town look more impressive than it ever could in person.
Ambler twisted the survey several ways and studied it. None of the positions cheered him up.
Wex Ambler was a tall man-six four. Lean. In his early fifties. He was thin on top, with a few renegade tufts of fine hair going in different directions. He had a long face and he continually reminded himself to keep his chin high; otherwise his neck flesh became a small wattle. He played golf, he jogged two miles a day and was a member of the town council. He believed (one of the few things he had in common with most of the rest of the local population) that he was the wealthiest man in Cleary. He owned Foxwood, the one apartment complex in town, and was the most successful real estate developer in this part of the county. (Real estate and death of a rich relative being the only ways people in Cleary could come by real money.)
Meg's co-broker of the day, a horsy, blond woman named Doris, was ticking off items on her to-do list with a tiny flick of a mechanical pencil. "Ah, huh," she said with each accomplishment. Meg fired a look of irritation at the self-congratulations-Doris missed it completely-and she turned back to Ambler.
"They're not…" Ambler searched for a word. "Progressive."
Meg laughed, her expression saying: You just figured that out about Cleary?
She knew that Ambler had told a number of people-his ex-wife, his associates, even virtual strangers-that his life goal was not to amass a huge reservoir of money. What he loved was the entrepreneurial process itself. It didn't matter what he did, as long as the challenge was there. The process held more intrigue and excitement than the capital gains did.
Still, he told her now, "The difference to me between three-quarter acre lots and two acres…" He looked up, calculated. "… is about eight million dollars. Total. For all lots."
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