Damn it. This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I gave her a peck good night. A few minutes later I heard her slowly climbing the stairs. I imagined some kind of disappointment, some disapproval, in her heavy steps.
Then I thought of her up there reading. Monica always read before switching off the lights, and I’d noticed that her book this week was a collection of stories by some Bengali hotshot who was winning all kinds of literary prizes. Whenever my wife read someone who was garnering recognition, I got a little jealous because I’d never been able to get anyone to publish even a word of my work, let alone grab any attention for it.
That’s what American editors and agents seemed to go for—foreigners. “Fresh voices,” they liked to call them. I guess that’s why I’d never gotten anywhere with my work—I was stale. I was white. I was American. I was a male. Publishing was run by women. Women were the agents. Women were the editors. Women were the readers. There was no place for somebody like me. But maybe there was another reason I’d never gotten anywhere with my literary work: maybe I was subpar as a writer. Fluffing pharmaceutical ads was one thing. Writing a good novel was another.
I had a real good story to tell now, though, a story that was almost unbelievable, but in all likelihood it was too late.
Why didn’t I just pay Wellington off? Wouldn’t that be a hell of a lot easier than this?
I gave up trying to look at the ads. All I cared about was the TV set. The only thing I was able to do was hop from channel to channel in search of the news alert that would trumpet my crime to the world. I felt like a schoolboy who isn’t prepared for a math test—even though he knows that taking it spells disaster, there’s no way he can avoid it.
20.
I must have dozed off right there in my chair. I’d been thinking about getting up and grabbing a bottle of something—vodka, whiskey—but I was so whipped I couldn’t make it to my feet. Next thing I knew, I was out. When I lifted my head off the desk, the eleven o’clock news was carrying a story about the proliferation of rats in certain Manhattan neighborhoods. At about eleven fifteen I finally got my ass up and ducked into the bathroom to take a leak.
When I came back a few minutes later with a bottle of Heineken, what was happening on the screen made me shiver to the bone.
The Channel 4 news camera was panning a building that looked familiar. I didn’t have to think too hard about what it was—the Soho Grand Hotel.
I dropped into my chair and pushed my face practically into the screen.
“The body of a man has been discovered in a suite of the trendy Grand Hotel here in Soho,” announced the female reporter on the scene. Julie Estevez was one of those correspondents I had the hots for from a distance, and tonight she looked lovelier than ever. The clip had been taped when it was still daylight, so I had to assume that it was at least several hours old, and that the discovery of Wellington’s carcass had been made much earlier.
“Police are investigating, but have released few details. It is thought, however, that the man, believed to be in his mid-to-late thirties, was the victim of foul play, possibly a sex crime.”
There was a quick cut to Ms. Estevez conducting an outdoor interview with a representative of the hotel, a dapper, fiftyish fellow with salt-and-pepper hair who spoke in a somber but even voice about the horrifying discovery.
“Of course it’s disturbing that something like this could happen here, since nothing remotely like it has ever occurred in the years we’ve been in operation. But we’re confident that it is an isolated incident and that the police will quickly get to the bottom of the matter. We just want all of our guests, and anyone else thinking of, or planning on staying with us in the future, to be assured that the Soho Grand is completely safe and the same wonderful facility that it’s always been.”
Julie pressed the hotel spokesman for anything about the circumstances surrounding the incident.
The man hesitated. “The police have asked us not to talk about it while their investigation is active.” He manufactured a tight smile. “I’m sorry I can’t say any more at this time.”
Then he retreated into the hotel, leaving Julie Estevez to wrap things up. “Reporting from the Soho Grand, this is . . .”
Etc. The anchor promised sports and weather in the next segment, and cut away to a commercial for the Meadowlands Racetrack.
Like a zombie I sat there staring at the screen.
Now what? Now what’s supposed to happen?
For what seemed like minutes, I couldn’t even think. I was virtually paralyzed. Then I realized that I’d better try and find out everything I could about what had gone down at the Soho Grand. Frantically I switched channels, to the other news programs, but if they’d covered the story, it was when I was sitting there incapacitated by shock. Now I’d have to wait until morning—no way the big cable stations would pick up a local story.
Screw the beer. Beer wasn’t going to be strong enough. I got up and went to the liquor cabinet, which was just off the dining room. I rummaged through the bottles until I found the Wild Turkey. I pulled it out, jimmied a squat whiskey glass out of the bin overhead, and poured until it was full.
Then I scurried back to my hole and locked the door.
Drinking myself into numbness was the only thing that made sense. Which is what I was going to do. Or try to.
Okay, I told myself . . . they’d found Wellington, but that didn’t mean the cops were anywhere near close to figuring out it was me who’d killed him. It was inevitable that his body would be found, that much I realized. If I could have moved his remains out of the hotel, I would have, but it would have been way too risky. That was a no-brainer, and I’d reached that conclusion at the hotel yesterday. Torturing myself over the fact that I’d murdered him wasn’t going to help me now—it wouldn’t ever help me. The only thing that I could do from this point onward was try and stay ahead of the authorities—as many steps as possible.
But can I?
The Turkey packed a wicked kick. I could feel myself quickly growing fuzzy around the edges.
And of course there was the problem of Gretchen. I still hadn’t heard a solitary word from her. Maybe I never would—which, of course, would be the ideal scenario. But how likely was it that I wouldn’t hear a peep out of her ever again? If Wellington had been shooting straight about his arrangement with her—and I had no reason to believe he hadn’t been—a murder investigation was going to lead directly to her, and maybe even her husband.
Poor old Lenny Trecker. He was going to have to pay a price, too. As if he hadn’t already paid enough.
But that wasn’t all of it.
It’s just a matter of time until a murder investigation leads straight to me.
Unless I stayed lucky. Up until now, I’d been lucky. Damned lucky. Lucky from the moment I met Monica. I was still sitting here in the lap of luxury, as if I were ruler of my own little fiefdom, as if I’d never met Gretchen Trecker or Norman Wellington.
It was simple. One of two things was going to happen: my luck was going to run out, or it was going to hold. As in once lucky, always lucky. I had a kind of irrational belief in that. All I had to do was look at where I’d come from.
I chewed it over. I was in the jam I was in because of women. Two women. Both had ensnared me, in vastly different ways, the need for each encapsulating the seeds of my potential destruction. If only I’d stayed out in Western Pennsylvania, none of this would have happened. But I couldn’t have. I was a victim of my own character, my own voracious needs . . .
The local news programs wrapped, and they gave way to the Lettermans and Lenos. One monologue was less funny than the next, but my sense of humor was gone anyway so it didn’t matter. I wandered back into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, gargled with mouthwash. Then I went upstairs to the master bedroom, fumbled in the dark for my pajamas, which I kept under the pillow, pulled them on, and craw
led into bed next to Monica, who was snuffling like a Bowery drunk. The noise that a snoring dowager makes is one of the most comically terrible sounds in the world. It conjures up cobwebs . . . madness . . . death.
I lay there staring into the darkness. If only I could shake Monica awake and talk to her. Not confess—that’s not the word I would use—but confide in her. After all, we’d been best friends for so long, my wife and I.
She’d understand, I was sure of it.
In the spasm of a dream her fleshy calf bucked into my toes. The contact jolted me back to reality.
Confess? Confide? What the hell am I thinking?
Each passing second was twisting into an agonizing eternity. Every object in the dim near-distance had become a threat—the black bureau against the wall, the Casablanca fan overhead . . . and especially the digital clock on the nightstand, with its angry red numerals that slowly changed, pushing inexorably into the future.
In my mind I went over every possible scenario of what might happen in that future, until my brain was bleary. The creaks and squeaks the house produced were as loud as shotgun blasts. At some point, after Diane opened her bedroom door, I heard the commode flush in the bathroom down the hall.
How would she react when she learned that her daddy was a murderer? Her life would be ruined forever. Monica’s, too, it went without saying. But my wife had resources. If I ended up in the can, she could take Diane and together they could afford to disappear forever and start a new life.
She was wheezing more loudly than ever. I gently nudged her with my knee and she stopped, but not before marking another sound, something like the grunt of a pig.
Then the house turned deadly silent. Just before getting swallowed up in a nightmare, I had the fantasy that I was the only person left in the whole world. An odd thing to think, until I remembered that the shrinks say every fantasy contains the kernel of a wish.
21.
By the time morning light penetrated the drapes, I felt like I hadn’t slept a single wink—again. My hand moved to the space where my wife had been lying. It was empty and cold.
I squinted at the clock. It was already after eight—much later than I normally stayed in bed. There were voices, female voices, chattering below, on the first floor. Somehow I dragged myself off the mattress, shuffled into the master bathroom, and pulled on my bathrobe.
“I’m not feeling all that well,” I announced to Monica at the kitchen table.
“Uh-oh. Sorry to hear that. I thought you were just catching up on your z’s.”
I looked up from my bowl of shredded wheat and caught her checking out the ding on my head again, as if she still wasn’t buying my story of an out-of-control door.
“I hope I don’t get it, whatever it is,” whined Diane, pushing herself away from the table and going to the vestibule for her backpack. The days when she’d lay a kiss on my cheek before leaving the house were long gone. “Bye, Daddy. Feel better.”
“I’m driving Diane to school, then I’m going to run some errands and meet Lynn for lunch. Are you going into Oriole today?”
I gave Monica what felt like a sickly smile. “I don’t think so. I’m going to call in and tell them that I’ll try and work from here.”
“Then I’ll see you later.”
She gave me a little finger-wave and followed Diane out the door to the carport. Whenever she met her friend, lunch turned into a marathon with other activities—like a trip into the city to a museum or gallery or movie—thrown in for good measure, and I wouldn’t see her for the rest of the day.
I heard an engine turn over and watched the roof of the black Navigator slip past the windows. That damned beast guzzled gasoline like a thirsty dinosaur. Reflexively I winced at the insurance bill for our fleet—a carryover from my deprived Western Pennsylvania youth. Did we really need so many cars?
I spooned in another mouthful and began to flip through the Metro section of the New York Times, loose pages it appeared Monica had already read minutes earlier.
The cereal stuck in my throat in midswallow. Goddamn. There it was, right in the upper left-hand corner of page B4: “Grisly Discovery in Downtown Hotel.”
The article was brief, only two short columns. I read through it quickly. The details were basically the same as what was reported last night on the tube. The difference now was that the cops were saying they were sure foul play was involved.
“Police would not divulge specific circumstances concerning the discovery of the unidentified victim so that the ongoing investigation would not be compromised.”
What the hell did that mean? Well, for one thing, that the detectives working the case knew a lot more than they were letting on. That was always true when the cops weren’t talking. They were laying a trap for the perpetrator and at the same time trying to play on his nerves.
No matter what they were doing and why, it left me in limbo.
I needed to concoct an alibi for where I was the afternoon Wellington was murdered, if it came to that. I’d been nursing a couple of vague ideas, but nothing I was 100 percent sold on. That was a problem. A real problem, in a couple of different ways. Because it meant that I might have to come clean—to someone—to cover myself. And I didn’t know if I could or should do that.
Well, I’d deal with it when I absolutely had to.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
The cold, callous sound made by the J.H. Miller grandfather clock in the living room was as loud as a sledgehammer.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
I got up with my coffee mug and wandered from one room of the mansion to the next, stopping in the sitting room in front of Monica’s prize Eric Fischl, a dreamlike and suggestive representation of naked men and women cavorting on a Riviera-like beach that was painted mostly in cheerful pinks and tangerines. She’d paid hundreds of thousands for that canvas straight out of the Mary Boone Gallery—a surefire investment, she said, and of course she was right. The painting was worth over a mil now.
Suddenly the Fischl and everything else around me seemed unreal. Whatever Monica and I owned—from the pricey cars to the elegant furniture and expensive artwork to the mansion itself—was meaningless. I’d killed a man to hold on to it all, and now none of it meant a thing. I’d never be able to fully enjoy any of it again.
In a burst of psychotic illumination, I saw and understood everything: I was the most pitiful and ridiculous fool, trapped and destroyed by my desires. If I had even a lick of sense, I would have beat it then and there, but here I was still holding on for dear life.
I phoned Carole Mills and told her that I wouldn’t be in the office today, that I was under the weather, but not to worry because I’d be working on the material I’d brought home.
She went straight into her pouting routine. “I’m concerned that we’re not going to make our deadline, Richard . . .”
I could just see her on the other end, fidgeting nervously with her tortoiseshell glasses, fretting over nothing. If she were in my shoes, she’d understand what it was to have a real problem.
I was annoyed, but went through the motions with her anyway. “Have I ever let you down before?” And blah blah blah.
“No, but . . .”
“It’ll be okay, Carole. I promise. Don’t you worry.”
My guarantee was complete malarkey, but I couldn’t very well tell her the truth about what was going on, could I? Besides, the deadlines were for the most part soft and rarely enforced. Half the time they were canceled altogether. Every person in the place worked himself into a frenzy only to have the rug pulled out from under him. I’d seen it happen a thousand times. If Oriole canned me, then so be it. I had heavier things on my mind.
For now, anything having to do with work would have to wait. I had to prepare myself for an eventual visit from the police, and the first thing I needed to do was make sure the premises were
devoid of anything that could connect me, however remotely, to the death of Norman Wellington.
I went upstairs, stripped off my pajamas, put on a sweatshirt and jeans, and stepped into a pair of gray Skechers. Then I went back down to the kitchen and pulled the carriage house key off the hook near the cupboard.
It was a typical early-November morning—cool, a little breezy, with clusters of ominous, low-hanging clouds scudding like boulders across the sky. The air was dense and soggy. It felt like it could rain any minute.
I fitted the key into the lock. The carriage house was damp and quiet inside. In the air was a hint of mildew. The place was completely finished. It had been when we bought the property, including a small fireplace against the south wall. And it was partially furnished, but nobody aside from me ever went in, and it had turned into my own personal storage space, for stuff like my Yamaha cycle, surplus books, golf clubs, and the like. Once upon a time Monica and I talked about renting it out, which had probably been done by the previous owners, judging by the amount of work that had gone into it. But since we didn’t need the money, there was no point in having strangers traipsing around the property. I was damned glad now that we hadn’t.
I pulled the dust-covered stack of manila envelopes from underneath the tool locker and dropped it onto the maple dining table we’d moved out from the main house a few years back. For old times’ sake I decided to open a couple of them and remind myself what I was going to be missing when I tore them up.
I was checking out Miss White Plains—the blonde and beautiful “Morgan”—when I heard the door creak.
My heart dropped. I whipped around, in the process trying to block the view of the photos.
“Jesus Christ—say something when you sneak up on me!”
It was George Addington, in a designer leather jacket, royal-blue sweater, and jeans, looking trim and relaxed and like a guy who has lots of free time on his hands.
He laughed, baring his movie star–white teeth.
No Strings Page 11