“You’re not?”
She laughed, for the first time that day. I laughed, too.
The tension was finally broken. We were back on track. The pout was off Gretchen’s lips. She’d come to her senses, pulled herself together. If I had the time, I would have pushed her back into bed. But I wanted to make it home in time for dinner like I always did.
Before going our separate ways, we talked about next time.
But for the first time, I wasn’t sure I wanted there to be a next time. I was going to have to think it over long and hard.
As usual, Gretchen left the room first. A few minutes later, it was my turn. It was a precaution we’d stayed with from the beginning, to never be seen together, just in case we happened into the eye of a security camera.
Out on North End Avenue I took a deep breath. It was okay. Gretchen was gone, and I’d be home in half an hour.
But the scene back in the hotel, like the earlier one, when she talked about bumping off Monica and Leonard, lingered in my mind. Now I was downright paranoid.
11.
I heard nothing whatsoever from Gretchen for the next few days. That was out of the ordinary. My thoughts started running every which way. Was she miffed at me for not giving her what she wanted? Was she about to break it off? Had she fallen hard for me against her will, and was she now trying to back off, realizing that things were about to get out of hand?
Or had Leonard caught on, maybe? Was he putting his foot down?
Has she met someone else?
Whatever—if it had to end, then it would have to end, and it would be best if that happened before I couldn’t manage the situation any more. And I was damned close to that point now.
As I’d reminded myself constantly from the outset, I was prepared to let Gretchen go if I had to. I reminded myself of that again. Beautiful as she was, I didn’t have to have her. There’d be other women. I had the system down now, didn’t I? Hell, up until now, I’d worked it to perfection. In fact, I’d even learned something, which was that I had to change partners before the dance went on too long and we got too tight. All I’d have to do was run another ad, or go back to my stack of manila envelopes, which was waiting for me out in the carriage house, and contact choice number two—a blonde stunner by the name of “Morgan” who lived up in Westchester County.
Maybe, I thought, I should have already made the move. Or, better yet, maybe I should give it all a rest.
12.
When I still hadn’t heard from Gretchen after two weeks, I began to breathe a little easier.
Instead of sneaking out to the carriage house for Morgan’s contact information, I decided to hang back, give myself a break from the stress of fooling around behind my wife’s back. Besides, I wasn’t quite ready for a go-round with a new babe. I’d do it again probably, but in the future I’d be even more careful. The way things had turned out, I was very lucky.
It was fall, the days had grown shorter, the haunted nights longer. I got a little blue. Monica and I hadn’t been on any long trips since Maui, out of the ordinary for us, and I was restless. I had nothing to distract myself with. Even though I thought I was putting a good face on it, my gloomy mood caught her attention.
“Anything wrong, Richard? You haven’t been yourself lately,” she remarked one evening after Diane had gone up to bed and we were sitting in front of the TV watching a French film on channel twenty-one.
“What do you mean?”
“For the past couple of weeks you’ve been very . . . I don’t know—quiet. Not your usual talkative self.”
“Huh.”
Lately I’d noticed that Monica’s ass had grown a little broader and that her belly was pulsing over her jeans. She wasn’t cutting it in tight denim anymore. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t bring myself to. It occurred to me that she was turning into a replica of her mother, who died a few years back and who wasn’t just overweight but sported a black mustache.
“Most of the time I can’t pry two words into our conversation, but lately I can’t seem to get a word out of you.”
“Well . . .”
Gretchen. It was Gretchen.
I ached for the touch of her marvelous body, the elegant perfection of her face—everything about her, really. The truth was that I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I felt like I’d been ditched by someone I’d fallen hard for.
Maybe I had.
The truth was that I’d been thinking about Gretchen nonstop ever since the last time I saw her, but I couldn’t let on to my wife, could I? Thank God our sex life had grown so sporadic—if she’d used it as an index of my interest and fidelity, I’d have been in real trouble.
“It’s nothing. I’m just thinking about the novel, is all,” I lied, “trying to work out a few sticky plot points. Don’t worry about me.”
“How’s it coming, your novel?”
It wasn’t coming at all. When my head wasn’t in a good place, I found it impossible to write, so the novel-in-progress just sat there and gathered dust. Weeks earlier I’d basically abandoned the book, which was a sort of psychological mystery about an executive who witnesses a murder and doesn’t know what to do about it, and I hadn’t done a lick of work on it or anything new since—I was way too preoccupied with another part of my life to even think about sitting at the terminal and producing.
“Not so good. That’s why I’m always thinking.”
“Can I help?”
“Probably not.”
“I do want to read it, Richard. Maybe you should let me see what you’ve got and I can tell you whether or not you should go on. Would that help, do you think?”
Monica had performed editorial service for me in the past, and her insights and advice were on the money, even if they’d never helped me maneuver myself into print.
“I’ll jinx it if I talk about it too much. I appreciate it, hon, but I think I’ll be okay eventually, once I get it all straightened out up here.”
I tapped my forehead.
There was sympathetic concern in those big gray eyes of hers. “If you need help, you know you can always ask me.”
“Thanks.”
I leaned over and brushed her forehead with a kiss, as if I were truly grateful and meant it.
If she only knew. What snakes we humans are.
All the same, it was a warning. I was going to have to force myself to act a little more cheerful around the house. We started discussing a jaunt to the Bahamas or Acapulco during Diane’s upcoming semester break. We all could use a little sun and sand, maybe some snorkeling or scuba diving.
As in the days before Gretchen, I actually began to look forward to it.
13.
The phone rang one afternoon when Diane was at school and Monica was off at a meeting of the executive council on the arts, where she was a longtime volunteer and once sat on the board of directors. I picked up in my office.
“Richard Marzten?”
I didn’t recognize the voice.
It belonged to a guy and was self-assured, snotty almost, and I could tell all that from just those two words. It wasn’t a solicitor’s voice, and besides, with our unlisted numbers, we were pretty much off their lists. No, this man’s tone was too flippant for a sales pitch, which alerted me right off that it was no ordinary call.
“What can I do for you?”
“The name’s Norman Wellington. I work for a private investigation agency on Long Island.”
The mere mention of the words “Long Island” made my heart bang like a trapped animal against my rib cage.
I had it! It was fucking George Addington, doing a fake voice, playing a sick joke, and in some kind of perverse coincidence he’d pulled Long Island out of his ass to taunt me with.
“Fuck you, George.”
“What did you say?”
I repeated myself.
“Well, this isn’t George. Like I told you, my name is Wellington, and I work for an investigation agency out here on the Island.”
I would have slammed the phone down in his ear, but there was no way I could, and Wellington had to know it.
Maybe this had something to do with when Monica had me watched? Well, on that score I was clean—clean as a whistle. So what was there to worry about?
“Uh-huh . . .”
I didn’t demand to know what he was after again, because I could conjure up a carload of possibilities. “How’d you get my number?” I asked instead.
I heard him chuckling softly on the other end.
“Ah, Marzten—we have so many ways of shaking privileged information loose these days that it ain’t even much of a challenge.”
He sounded downright smarmy, like a real fucking asshole. I hated the guy already.
I got out of my chair and stood at the window that looked out onto the shiny macadam driveway leading to the carriage house.
“All right, so what’s this about already?”
“Actually,” he went on, “I’ve been watching you.”
Like thunderclouds, something dark and ugly was gathering in the caves of my mind.
“Yeah?”
“I have. I certainly have.”
It was my turn to laugh. This fucking guy was a joke. I didn’t know him from the man in the moon, and I was already in a goddamned war with him.
“I hope you’ll still find it amusing,” he sniffed, “once you hear the rest of what I have to say.”
What would I do if Monica rolled up at this moment in her Mercedes?
By now of course I realized that if I hung up, Wellington would simply hit his “Redial” button. And if I didn’t pick up, he’d keep calling back, and eventually Monica or Diane would answer. He had me exactly where he wanted me. So it would be better if I dealt with this sleazoid when my wife and daughter weren’t around.
“I’ve been retained to perform surveillance on you and Mrs. Leonard Trecker—Gretchen.”
Fucking Christ. Monica was at it again. Somehow she’d figured everything out.
My skin erupted into a cold sweat, even though what Wellington was saying was no great surprise by now. It was just that hearing Gretchen’s name pronounced by anyone other than myself made her existence real. All too real. Up until now, she’d still been something of a fantasy—a little unreal.
So—now I’d been tagged twice in the space of a single year. Creepy. I already had the feeling that this time, though, slipping out of the noose might not be so easy. But not wanting to concede anything, especially if this jerk was recording the call, I kept my mouth shut.
“Marzten?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“I think that you and I should get together and have a little talk.”
Why not just talk to Monica? This was different, all right.
I tried to swallow. My throat had gone as dry as sand in a desert. The easy, innocent glide of a brightly plumaged cardinal across the driveway seemed incongruous with the moment—crazy, even. How could anything be so carefree when my world was about to come apart?
“Why? Why do I have to talk to you?” I tried to put on a show of being gruff and hard, but it was all just that—a front.
“Because I think you have to fully understand the ramifications of what you’re dealing with here.”
Didn’t I know already? I was more confused than ever. Why wouldn’t Monica just confront me personally and—
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I didn’t want to ask what “the ramifications” were, as if remaining willfully ignorant would somehow protect me from the filthiness of my quagmire, whatever it was.
“I think you dig what I’m talking about, Marzten.”
“I don’t. I don’t have any goddamned idea what you’re talking about. Explain it to me.”
This was insane. But I was hell-bent on pretending for as long as possible that I didn’t get it, that I was innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever. Stonewalling it, just like I planned to do a long time ago.
“Gretchen, Marzten. Gretchen Trecker. You know who she is, don’t you?”
“Never heard of her.”
I heard Wellington breathe out, hard.
“Don’t play me for a fool, Marzten. It makes me mad—really fucking mad.”
“I’m not trying to—listen, I have no idea what in the world you’re talking about.”
Wellington sighed. “All right, Marzten, all right. Looks like you’re gonna force me to break out the pictures. I didn’t think I’d have to resort to that.”
Pictures. What pictures? And why not just show them to Monica? Why show them to me?
I decided that I wanted to see them. That I had to see them.
“Where . . . and when?”
“See? I knew you’d come around, Marzten.”
I said nothing.
“Room 708, the Soho Grand Hotel. You know it, I think? Shall we say tomorrow at two? And Marzten . . .”
“Yes?”
“Mark it on your calendar. Make sure you don’t forget to show up, hear?”
14.
I did a frantic check of every search engine on the Internet. There were Norman Wellingtons in New Zealand and England, Florida and Arizona. I doubted any of them were my PI. But no Norman Wellingtons in the New York City area.
It didn’t mean that the bastard didn’t exist—it only meant that I couldn’t locate him. After we’d hung up it dawned on me that I’d been so thrown by his out-of-left-field phone call that I hadn’t asked Wellington for the name of the agency he worked for. Or his phone number. He had me so flummoxed I couldn’t think straight.
Dumb. Stupid. Idiotic.
But it was too late to ask for information now. I either went to meet him or I didn’t.
What was most intriguing—and baffling—was that Monica didn’t seem to have a clue what it was all about. When she got home later that afternoon, she was like she always was. If she knew anything about this Wellington character and what was about to go down, she wasn’t giving anything away. Ditto Diane when she came in. She was too young anyway.
Which meant that in all probability Monica was in the dark about Norman Wellington. Which in turn meant that I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
What does this oily underwear-sniffer want with me?
I turned over all the possible scenarios in my mind. Number one, Monica did know what Wellington was up to, but wasn’t letting on to me. But why Long Island? For all our world travels, that was one place, close as it was to Essex Fells, she never went to—as far as I knew—and showed not the least interest in. Why would she retain a detective agency all the way out there? Hell, we never even went to the Hamptons, preferring more exotic locales or our boat for even brief getaways.
That left number two—Leonard Trecker. The old boy was on to his wife—that had to be it.
But why come after me? His wife was the real culprit here, wasn’t she? Then again, furious, cuckolded husbands usually took it out on the other guy, when the source of their trouble was right under their noses.
One part of me argued with another not to meet with this Wellington creep. But really, how could I possibly do otherwise? I had to go, didn’t I? If I didn’t, the son of a bitch would call again, keep calling, and he might get my wife or daughter on the line and start blabbing to them about who knows what all. If I didn’t do as he wanted, he might even show up on my doorstep.
What then?
I had no choice but to try and break the silence between myself and Gretchen in an attempt to find out what was what. I dropped her an e-mail from the handle I’d last used, but by the next morning there was no response. Did she have anything to with this whole thing? But why?
Maybe, I co
njectured, she didn’t have a penny of her own and she was out to blackmail me. But that didn’t make sense. How could she have laid out the thousands for the rooms we’d rented over the past few months? I’d paid my share, true, but she’d spent much more, according to my calculations. Hell, she seemed to relish getting rid of her dough. It didn’t make sense.
Unless, of course, she’d run up a shitload of debt seeing me that Leonard wasn’t privy to. But in all those months wouldn’t he have already caught on to her? You would think an estate attorney would keep an eye on his books, wouldn’t you?
No—nothing quite added up.
15.
Nevertheless, though I considered not showing up, calling Wellington’s bluff, forcing his hand into whatever shit he might try and pull next, the following day I was in town early.
I told Monica before she left the house that I’d be at the Oriole offices on a new assignment (which I had in fact recently negotiated) and that I’d probably be there most of the afternoon, if not well into the evening. Since she only called my cell phone when I was on assignment, and not very often at that, it would be easy enough to fake, wherever I was.
I dressed in clothes I wouldn’t normally wear—a London Fog raincoat minus its fleece, black jeans, an olive sweater, a fedora. I parked the red Saab convertible, the one vehicle of our little fleet that I drove most rarely and Monica hardly ever got into, near the diner on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Grand Street and hiked toward West Broadway. A twinge of longing nudged me toward Kin Khao, where Gretchen and I had our first rendezvous, for a quick pop of something strong. I made my way up to Spring Street, but when I saw the hubbub of tourists and shoppers inside, the idea no longer appealed. In fact, the sight of the place depressed me now—it was a place where I should never have set foot. Christ, what a fool I was! How could I really have expected to get away with it?
No Strings Page 6