by Ed McBain
“All right then, why don’t you do your studying, and I’ll go to sleep.”
“All right, Arthur,” she says, and hangs up.
I turn out the light and pull the covers to my throat. I lie there silently with my eyes open. Then I put on the light again, and dial Sara’s number.
“Yes?” she says.
“Sara, what the hell do you want from me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to come here, or don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why did you ask Seth to invite me to his party?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look,” I say, “why don’t you come over here and stop this nonsense?”
“It isn’t nonsense. I love Roger.”
“The hell with Roger.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Sara, you are an exasperating person.”
“So are you.”
“I’d like you to come here.”
“No. You come here.”
“I’m undressed and in bed.”
“So get out of bed and get dressed.”
“I don’t know where you live.”
“I’ll tell you where I live.”
“I have a very bad sense of direction.”
“If you want to see me so much,” Sara says, “you’ll come here.”
“I thought you had studying to do.”
“I do. If you want to come here and watch me study, you can.”
“That sounds exciting as hell.”
“If you don’t want to come, then don’t.”
“What about Gwen?”
“She won’t be home tonight.”
“When will she be home?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“It’s tomorrow morning already.”
“It’s later than you think,” she says, and I cannot tell whether or not she is smiling.
I hesitate a moment longer. Then I sigh and say, “Where do you live, Sara?”
She has given me explicit directions, but I am still uneasy. It is close to three o’clock and the streets are deserted. I am not fearful of being mugged or rolled; this is not New York City. But it is a university town, with a great many young girls living alone in apartments, and a middle-aged man abroad in the empty hours of the night might reasonably attract the attention of a cruising police car. I am to walk through the small park west of Chatham Hall, and I will then come face to face with Jaeger, the engineering building. I am then to make a right turn and walk the short block to Delaney, making a left there. Sara’s building is the third house on the right-hand side of the street.
It is a two-story structure, white clapboard, architecturally reminiscent of Seth’s place, but without a picture window facing the street. Instead, there are symmetrically spaced sash-hung windows on both stories and running around the side of the house. Sara’s apartment is in the rear. I walk past the first door at the back of the house (which leads, Sara has told me, to an apartment inhabited by five medical students) and then to the second door, wooden bottom panel, four panes of glass forming the upper portion. I try the knob, but the door is locked. I put my face close to one of the panes and look inside. There is a steep flight of steps leading upstairs. The staircase is dark. I rap on the door.
Silence.
I rap again. I fully expect a police torch to illuminate me at any moment. The night is still, even the wind has died. I debate knocking again. Surely she has heard me. Surely even the five medical students have heard me. A light goes on at the top of the steps. She comes down swiftly and unlocks the door for me. She is still wearing her black sweater and slacks, but she has divested herself of her beads.
“Hi,” she says. “You found it.”
“I was scared stiff.”
“Some assassin.”
I follow her up the steps. We turn left and walk through a small kitchen. A note scotch-taped to the refrigerator reads:
Horne—
Excuse the mess. Got a long-distance
call just before I left, and it took
forever.
G.
The kitchen leads to the bedroom, and the bedroom in turn leads to the living room. There is a sofa against two windows, a low table before it, a scatter rug on the floor. Rosenberg and Weinstein’s Civil Procedure is open on the table, a lined yellow pad beside it. A Japanese lantern covers the light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There are charcoal drawings on the walls. An open closet door reveals Sara’s beads hanging on a hook, her long black coat, her tan corduroy coat, skirts, dresses and slacks on wire hangers jammed onto a sagging wooden pole. The shelf above the pole is cluttered with boxes. The entire closet seems ready to implode into the room. I take off my coat and hang it on the door hook, over her beads. She has gone into the kitchen, and when she returns she is carrying a candle in a translucent red holder. She lights the candle and places it on the coffee table. “I don’t have anything to drink,” she says, “but I can make some coffee, if you like.”
“No, thank you, I’m fine.”
“You look cold.”
“I am cold.”
“Sit down,” she says. “Please sit down.”
I sit on the couch. There is a draft coming from the windows. I shift my position. I am terribly ill at ease. I suddenly wonder how Sara felt in my hotel room. It is the first time such a thought has occurred to me, the possibility that despite her seeming poise she was as uncomfortable there as I am here. I look at her curiously. I remember that she is only twenty-one.
“Do you mind if I put on some music?” she asks. “I like music when I’m studying.”
“Go ahead.”
“I really do have to study, Arthur.”
“That’s all right.”
She moves to the record player, selects a record, and places it on the turntable. “I love this,” she says, but when the music starts, I do not recognize the tune. “I have another test on Tuesday,” she says.
“Maybe I can help you.”
“Well,” she says, and smiles. She is too polite to say that a tractor salesman would be of little if any use in cramming for an exam on procedure.
“I have a question,” I tell her.
“Ask it.”
“Why is a law student involving herself in a plot that is essentially anarchic?”
“Because I don’t believe in the law any more, Arthur.”
“Then why are you studying it?”
“Habit,” she says, and shrugs.
“That isn’t true.”
“It’s partially true. I like studying. I’m a good student.”
“But why the law?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs again. “Maybe there’ll be law again someday.”
“There’s law now, Sara.”
“If there’s law,” she says, “why is it necessary to kill him? Why shouldn’t there be another way?”
She does not know I am a lawyer, of course. She does not know I have spent half my life with the law, and therefore she cannot begin to realize my deep feelings for it. Nor can she know, from what I have told her about myself, how truly distasteful I find the act I must commit next week. But she has asked the single question that could even at this late date cause me to change my mind, pack my bag, and head home. I consider it now with all the gravity of a jury solemnly charged: Why shouldn’t there be another way?
I am a lawyer, I am a good lawyer. Read the law then, find the law, use the law, change it by law. By law. I have protested to Raines that I am dedicated, and he has countered by suggesting I am obsessed instead, and I wonder now whether my grief has not robbed me of the power to think rationally. I ask myself if I would have contemplated this same action two years ago, a year ago, even six months ago, before Adam’s death. I admit to myself that I would never have considered it. Adam’s death then is the motivating force, and if avenging his death means that I must become an assassin, then fine, that’s exactly what I will become. I desire neither
revolution nor civil war. Sara has asked Why shouldn’t there be another way? and perhaps there is, perhaps there still exists a slender chance that the nation’s lockstep may be broken, the air cleansed at last—but doing that by law will not avenge the senseless murder of my son Adam. I cannot allow his assassin to escape. I am dedicated, yes, I did not lie to Raines. But I am not dedicated to his cause, only to my own. If that makes me obsessed, then that is what I am, and there is no help for it.
No, Sara, there is no other way. Not for me.
I am shaking my head. I have been silent with my thoughts, and Sara watches me, puzzled, and says, “Yes?”
“Nothing.” I suddenly yawn. “Forgive me,” I say. “I’m not used to such hours.”
“Why don’t you go to bed?” she suggests.
“May I? Would you mind?”
“No. But I do have to study. At least for an hour. I really do, Arthur.”
“All right.”
I get off the sofa and move toward the bedroom. It is an eight by ten rectangle, with a window on the wall facing the living-room door, and another window on the wall opposite the kitchen door. A bed is on my left, its head directly below the window there. Another bed is on my right, bisected by the second window. There are two small dressers in the room. An open suitcase brimming with clothes is on the bed to my right.
“Which bed?” I ask her.
“The one on the left is mine,” she says.
“Where do I sleep?”
She is silent for a moment. She comes into the room then, walks immediately to her bed, and draws back the spread. She opens the window a trifle, and then goes to the bed with the suitcase on it. “You can use Gwen’s pillow,” she says. “I’ll get you a fresh pillowcase.”
In the room alone, I study the dresser top near her bed. It is cluttered with girl things—bobby pins and lipsticks, hair ribbons, an open jar of cold cream, a plastic container of hand lotion, an eyebrow pencil. A crumpled package of cigarettes is in the ash tray. Two first-year law texts are stacked near the lamp—Fuller and Braucher’s Basic Contract Law, and Gregory and Kalven’s Cases and Materials on Torts. The lamp has a tiny shade printed with daisies. A small oval mirror in a white frame is behind the lamp, tilted against the wall. Sara comes back and changes the pillowcase, and then puts it alongside hers on the narrow bed.
“‘I usually pull the shade down all the way,” she says. “Otherwise the air coming in is too much.” She lowers the shade. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll come to you,” she says, and leaves the room, closing the door behind her. A moment later, she lowers the volume on the record player. I undress silently, folding my clothes and putting them on the bed with the suitcase, Gwen’s bed.
I am asleep when Sara comes into the room. Her footfalls on the creaking floor of the old building awaken me. I sit up, startled, disoriented for a moment. She is standing in the doorway. She is wearing a short cotton nightgown and carrying the candle in its red holder. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost four o’clock.”
“Come to bed.”
“Yes,” she says. She carries the candle to the dresser and blows it out. The room is black. “Move over,” she says, and gets into bed beside me, immediately moving into my arms.
“Do you want something to wear?” she asks.
“No. Take this off.”
“I’m cold.”
“I’ll make you warm.”
“I know you will.”
“So take it off.”
“Okay,” she says, and sits up. She pulls the nightgown over her head. “Brrrr,” she says, and tosses the nightgown onto the floor and immediately burrows in under the covers. I hold her close. Her hands are resting lightly on my chest, as though in prayer. Her head is cradled on my shoulder. She feels weightless. “Is the window too much?” she asks.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Arthur?”
“Mmmm?”
“I’m very tired.”
“So am I.”
“Do we have to make love?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“It’s just that I’m so tired.”
“Would you say you were tired if I asked you to go to the movies?”
Sara giggles, and kisses me on the neck. “Why are you so different tonight?” she asks.
“Why is this night different from all other nights?” I say.
“What’s that?”
“It’s Jewish.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s part of the Passover ceremony.”
“Are you very Jewish?” she asks.
“Not very.”
“Good.”
“What are you, Sara?”
“Nothing. Catholic, I guess. A long time ago. Not any more. I don’t believe in all that religious crap, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“Good.”
“Why do you think I’m different tonight?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “You were so phony the first time. Jesus, you were really phony, Arthur, do you know that? I mean really really phony. It was like the big seduction scene. I thought, God, he must do this every night of the week. You were so glib. I kept thinking you were as glib as the man you came here to kill. How could you be so glib, Arthur?”
“I wanted you, Sara.”
“I’m not sure you did. I think you wanted somebody, yes, but not necessarily me. I’m a very special person, Arthur.”
“I know you are.”
“You didn’t behave that way. To you, I was just the big seduction scene. Do you do this all the time?”
“Hardly ever.”
“Wow, it sure seemed as if you did it all the time. You know, unbuttoning the blouse, and slipping off the bra, and kissing the breasts and all that. And all that dirty talk when we were making love.” She sits up suddenly and looks into my face. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and I can see her clearly now. “Why did you do that, Arthur? Say all those dirty things?”
“To excite you.”
“They didn’t. Or maybe they did.” She shrugs and settles down beside me again, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Anyway, I figured you were just a phony. When I left in the morning, I’d already decided never to see you again. I almost didn’t come to pick you up for the bridge.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“About the bridge? I knew you needed …”
“No. About seeing me again.”
“I haven’t yet,” she says. “I still don’t know what this is all about, do you? Do you really know what this is all about?”
“No, Sara. I’m not entirely sure.”
“Arthur?”
“Yes?”
“Do you love your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you doing in bed with me?”
“Holding you.”
“Arthur, don’t get glib again. Please. If you get glib again, I’ll go sleep in the bathroom. You’re either being glib, or lecturing me, or yelling at me. I don’t know which I like least.”
“I never lecture you.”
“You always lecture me. You’re like the old man of the mountain, wisdom, wisdom. And you never smile.”
“I’m smiling now.”
“Are you?” she says, and reaches up to touch my mouth in the darkness. “Yes, you are. That deserves a kiss.” She kisses me immediately and passionately. I am surprised by her ardor. But she holds the kiss for only an instant, and then breaks it, and falls back against the pillow. She is silent for a very long time. I do not touch her. We lie side by side without touching. I can hear her breathing. I can also hear a clock ticking on Gwen’s dresser. At last, in a very small voice, Sara says, “This isn’t easy for me.” She sounds on the edge of tears. I sit up and study her face. Her eyes are closed. I touch her jaw with my fingertips. She does not open her eyes.
“You really are just a very young girl, aren’t you?” I whisper.
“What did you think I was?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re twice my age,” she says. “I wasn’t even born when you were my age.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not even born!” she says.
“Are you going to cry, Sara?”
“I never cry, I told you that.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go back to wherever you came from.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I know you can’t. Why’d you have to come here?”
“Sara …”
“Oh, Sara, Sara, Sara, Sara, stop saying my name. I’m sick of you saying my name. I’m sick of you.”
“I’ll leave. I’ll get dressed and leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“What do you want, Sara?”
“Oh, shit,” she says, and gets out of bed.
“Where are you going?”
“To take out my contacts,” she says. “I forgot to take out my fucking contacts.”
Sometime just before dawn, I tell Sara that I love her. She does not answer. We have made love and dozed, sleeping in each other’s arms. I cannot keep from kissing her. I kiss her asleep or awake, and her lips respond, asleep or awake. But when I tell her I love her, she does not answer.
“Sara,” I whisper. “Did you hear me? I love you.”
“I’m very sleepy, Arthur,” she says. “Can’t we sleep? Can’t we please sleep? I have an exam Tuesday.”
“This is only Saturday.”
“Tuesday,” she says.
“What?”
“Tuesday,” she repeats.
“No. Saturday.”
“Go to sleep, Arthur. You have to leave soon. Gwen’ll be back.”
“What time is she coming back?”
“I don’t know. Soon. Go to sleep.”
“The hell with her.”
“You have to leave.”
“Why?”
“She’s a virgin.”
“So?”
“Go to sleep, Arthur.”
I do not go to sleep. Instead, I begin kissing her again.
“Arthur, don’t excite me,” she says.
“Why not?”
“I’m very sleepy. Don’t you ever sleep, Arthur?”