Final Edit

by Robert A Carter

  “How many of these beauties are still left?” I asked the driver, a somewhat wizened middle-aged man. Angelo Martelli. 45703. I don’t know why, but I always make a mental note of a cabdriver’s name and usually the number. You never know when you might need it.

  “Ten, I think,” he said.

  Only ten. The last time I snared a Checker there were twelve of them. Think of the odds against running across one. Where, I wondered, had they gone; and why had the cab companies ever given them up in favor of those grungy little Dodges? In my salad days, there were dozens of Checkers on the city streets, roomy enough so that even a disabled person could get into them, all with jump seats and a wealth of legroom. Now—well, I have never subscribed to any belief in the progress of mankind or its ultimate improvement.

  The ride, as I expected, was a happy one, and when we pulled up in front of Susan’s apartment building, I gladly overtipped the driver. “Don’t let this baby go,” I told him. He hadn’t spoken during the ride, and now he only grunted his thanks, but I could tell he was pleased.

  Susan greeted me at the door of her apartment by kissing me sweetly, then drawing me inside with both hands.

  “You’re early,” she said.

  “Couldn’t wait, could you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  She was wearing a white satin robe, belted, trimmed at the cuffs and the hem with lace. And, as far as I could tell, nothing else.

  “The first thing,’ she said, struggling with my jacket, “is to get this off, and then”—tugging at my necktie—“this.”

  “What’s the third thing?”

  “I’m sure you don’t need any help finding the bedroom, do you, Nick?”

  By now we had begun to learn the secrets of each other’s bodies, and their hidden rhythms, so it was some long time before we drew apart, still clasping hands, but spent and silent. There was no need for either of us to ask if it had been good.

  When I started to get out of bed, Susan pushed me back down. “Stay right there, sir,” she said, “for your first surprise.”

  It was a linen robe, periwinkle blue, with a shawl collar.

  “Hey,” I said. “Where did this come from?”

  “Saks. I dropped in there this morning.”

  “Well, I thank you kindly.”

  “Now you know that you can stop by anytime and you’ll always be decent.”

  I kissed her, just a touch of the lips. “Are you, or are you not, the best thing that’s happened to me since I can’t remember when?” I hugged her again. “You are.”

  “I think,” she said, drawing back but at the same time running her hand down the side of my face, “that I’d better see to lunch.”

  “I hope you haven’t gone to too much trouble…”

  “I’ve made a quiche and a salad,” she said, “and I promise you won’t gain any weight. But first, the wine. It’s my other surprise.”

  I followed her into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle.

  “I hope it’s chilled enough,” she said, holding the bottle up for my inspection. It was a rosé, God forbid.

  “It’s special,” Susan said.

  “Oh?” How on earth could that wine be special? I hoped my disappointment wouldn’t be too plain to see. I put on my best smile, even though it was more painful to produce than my worst frown. “How so, Susan?”

  “Well,” she said, clearly pleased, “it arrived at my office with a card that read, ‘From a grateful author.’ Isn’t that neat, Nick?”

  “I’ll say,” I said. “Any idea who the author is?”

  “No, but I hope it is who I think it is—one of Little, Brown’s most difficult authors.”

  “Susan dear, they’re all difficult, aren’t they?”

  “Now, don’t be cynical, darling. Here, let’s drink a toast.”

  She brought out two stemware glasses and poured the wine into them, almost to the brim.

  “To us,” she said.

  “To us,” I echoed, and took a sip. Somehow a sip seemed to be enough. I know it is snobbish, but I have never been able to appreciate rosé. I consider it an adulterated wine, neither white nor red. You might as well drink that carbonated stuff from Portugal—I forget its name. I hoped I could get away with just another sip or two.

  Meanwhile, Susan was emptying her glass with obvious relish, chatting away and fussing around with her salad. Suddenly it seemed to me that the most important thing in the world was for Susan to be happy, even if I had to drink a glass of rosé to achieve it.

  I was about to have another swallow, shutting down my olfactory sense as I did so, when something odd happened. Susan belched.

  “Oh my,” she said. “Oh my Lord.” And then she hiccuped. “Excuse… excuse…” I put my wineglass down and turned to her. She was swaying, ever so slightly.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I don’t feel so good, Nick,” she said, almost inaudibly. “Excuse me… okay… I think I’ll—” And with that, she bolted for the bathroom.

  “Need any help?” I called. There was no answer, but shortly afterward I heard the sound of retching from behind the bathroom door.

  What the hell? I hadn’t thought the wine was that bad, just ordinarily unappetizing. I picked up the bottle and looked at it. Armand de Jacquin Gamay Rosé. So who are you, Armand de Jacquin?

  The cork was lying beside the bottle. It was dry, usually a bad sign. When the wine steward brings you the cork, you’re supposed to feel if it’s slightly damp, as it ought to be, not smell it, as some people do.

  Then I noticed something strange. Several tiny holes in the top and bottom of the cork.

  I picked it up and called out: “Are you okay? Susan?”

  My only answer was a soft moan from the bathroom.

  And by now I was beginning to feel… nauseous. Dizzy, in fact. The wine—something wrong with the wine.

  Holy shit, I thought, have we been poisoned? But who? Why?

  “Susan!” I cried out, but I don’t think she heard me, for there was no answer. I made my way to the bathroom, step by step, hoping that I wouldn’t vomit before I got there.

  “Susan…” This time I could barely croak her name. “Oh my God…”

  She was lying on the bathroom floor, her head resting against the base of the toilet.

  Somehow I managed to get back to the living room. The phone… pick up the phone… dial 911…

  Three numbers to dial. They took forever. And then I remembered nothing. Nothing at all.

  Chapter 26

  The voice came from a long, long way off. “Niiick,” the voice said. “Can… you… hear me… Nick?” So faint, so far away, it might have been disembodied, celestial even.

  I attempted to speak, but could only utter a strangled croak, an unearthly, subhuman sound. My eyes were still tightly closed; I struggled to open the lids.

  Then the sense of touch came back, and by groping around with my hands, I could tell that I was lying on a bed, that my head was on a pillow.

  At last my eyes came open, and I saw, looming over me, a figure in white, eyes behind gleaming lenses, blinking at me. Again I opened my mouth to speak, but the same gurgling aggh! was all I could manage. It was then I realized that I could not speak because there was a tube of some kind stuck down my throat, choking me, blocking my vocal cords. For a moment I thought I was going to vomit, but the nausea passed and left me limp, sweating from what seemed to be every pore in my body.

  “Mr. Barlow,” said a voice, not the one I had heard at first, “you must not try to talk just now.” The voice was calm, measured, soothing. It belonged to the figure in white with the glittering eyeglasses. A doctor, I thought, and with a bedside manner at that. Which meant that I—

  “You’re in a hospital,” said the doctor, still hovering over me.

  Which one? I wondered.

  “Doctors.”

  Reassuring—a hospital full of doctors, of all things.

&nb
sp; “We’ll be taking that drain in your stomach out shortly, and then you’ll be able to talk.”

  Thank God. Nick Barlow unable to talk is Nick Barlow disarmed.

  It was something like an hour later when the drain was finally removed, and I was able to sit up. Shortly after that, I was assisted out of bed, seated in front of a table of some kind, and fed what tasted like mashed potatoes and creamed corn, although neither dish would ever pass muster even at a truck stop. Nevertheless, I ate greedily. Not only was I ravenous, but I was so relieved to be alive that I would have gobbled down anything at all.

  Once again, I was assisted back into bed, by a nurse on one side and Joe Scanlon on the other.

  “Joe,” I said, “I’m glad you’re here. I think I was poisoned.”

  He nodded. “You certainly were.”

  “But Susan,” I said, sitting bolt upright in bed. “How is she, Joe? Tell me.”

  “She didn’t make it,” he said in the flat, unaccented way with which he probably delivered that sort of bad news to more than one survivor of a tragedy. “DOA, Nick.”

  “Oh no! Goddamn it, why? Why her, for God’s sake?”

  “I’m sorry, Nick, believe me,” Scanlon said. “I gather she meant something to you.”

  “That, yes, and the damned unfairness of it. She was just too young, Joe.”

  Scanlon hunched his shoulders and sighed. Too many deaths, I thought. He’s seen so many, and every last one of them probably unfair. And what is too young, anyhow?

  “That’s not all of it, Nick,” he said. “There’s more, I’m sorry to say.”

  “More what?”

  “The police think you did it. That you poisoned the wine, Nick.”

  “But why in hell would I do that?”

  “They’ll do their best to figure that out.”

  Of course. It made perfect sense. If I had wanted to poison the wine, I’d have given a full glass to Susan, confident that she’d drink it, and only sip from my glass. Just enough to make me sick, not enough to kill me—but more than enough, probably, to kill her. Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch…

  I told Scanlon about the cork of the wine bottle.

  “Hatcher and Falco will be paying you a visit shortly, Nick. Be sure to tell them about the cork. I beat them here only by posing as the investigating officer. I told the medics this was a homicide matter, and I’d have to question you as soon as you were conscious.”

  “But how did you find out I was here?”

  He coughed and turned a light shade of red. “You were, shall I say, not dressed in your usual style, but there was a pocket diary in your jacket. Margo Richmond was listed as the one to call in an emergency. The ERS guys called her, and she called me. I hightailed over here as soon as I could.”

  “I’m certainly glad of that, Joe.”

  “And I suspect Margo will be here soon, too, Nick.”

  I leaned back, suddenly aware that my eyes were full of tears. Was I crying for Susan’s death? Gratitude to be alive? To have friends like Margo… like Joe Scanlon? All of the above, probably. Thank you, Your Ineluctableness, whoever and whatever you are…

  After Scanlon had left, I slid into a dreary torpor, an immense lassitude that ultimately deepened into sleep. I don’t know how long my nap lasted, but when I awoke in due course, Lieutenant Hatcher and Sergeant Falco were seated on either side of my bed.

  “Do you feel up to answering a few questions, Mr. Barlow?” asked Hatcher.

  “Sure,” I said. “Fire away.”

  “Just tell us everything that happened, exactly as it happened.”

  Falco took out his faithful notebook and a stub of a pencil, which he gripped tightly in his left hand, poised for action.

  After I had finished my recital, Hatcher was silent for a moment; leaning back in his chair, he stroked his chin and said: “You’re sure about the punctures in the cork?”

  “Positive.”

  “We’ll send someone around to check on that. One other thing: the victim did not tell you who had sent the bottle of wine to her?”

  “She didn’t know who it was. The card was just signed, ‘a grateful author.’

  “Did you see the card?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Addressing Falco, Hatcher said: “We’ll look for the card, too. Meanwhile—”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “Don’t plan on leaving town for a few days.”

  “I was thinking of going to Connecticut for the weekend. Once I get out of here, that is.”

  “Don’t even go to Connecticut, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, but my tone was anything but gracious. I have never liked being told where I may or may not go. Some bloody nerve.

  Hatcher and Falco slipped out as quietly as they had come. A nurse appeared in their wake and asked if I needed anything. “Juice?” she suggested, and when I shook my head, “Ice water?”

  “Ice water would be fine, thank you.”

  It was not the nurse, however, who brought the glass of ice water to me, it was Margo. She was a welcome sight, raven-black hair, jet-green eyes, and all.

  “My ministering angel,” I murmured.

  Margo laughed, showing her tiny white teeth. “Not quite,” she said. “When I was a little girl, though, I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up.”

  “And why didn’t you?”

  “Same reason you didn’t become a doctor or a lawyer or an arctic explorer, I suppose. What might have been.”

  “Instead you became Mrs. Nicholas Barlow.”

  “Not at all, Nick. I became Margo Richmond Barlow.”

  “You know, Margo, if we’d stayed married—” She put her finger to my lips.

  “No, don’t say it.”

  “I was merely going to remark that if we’d stayed married, I’d have gotten into a lot less trouble.”

  She smiled, and I felt the blood rising to my face, for hers was a smile that never ceased to bring me pleasure.

  “You have been misbehaving, haven’t you?” she said.

  I winced, but managed a weak, rather crestfallen smile of my own.

  “The doctor said you were lucky to be alive, that if you had drunk much more of that poisoned wine, you probably wouldn’t have survived. Even so, it was close, and they pumped your stomach out just in time.”

  “What was in that wine, anyhow?” I asked.

  “Potassium chlorate, probably. At least that’s what the doctor suspects it was.”

  “How long will I be here, Margo, did he tell you that?”

  “You ought to be discharged tomorrow, but, darling—”

  How sweet that word sounded in my ears. Did it mean that I was back in Margo’s favor again? Perhaps not, but it did give me hope…

  “—I’m going to be here to take you home,” she continued. “What’s more, I’m going to stay with you in the house for a few days—at least until you feel completely well. Is that understood?”

  I muttered something like “I’m no invalid,” but there was obviously no conviction in my voice. In fact, the conversation had altogether exhausted me. I slumped down in bed and closed my eyes.

  “When you feel up to it, darling, I want you to call your man Oscar and tell him and Pepita to get the spare room ready for me. Nick?… Nick?” And on that faint, rising note, Margo’s voice faded away as darkness closed in again.

  Chapter 27

  My release from the hospital went off smoothly, although I stoutly resisted being pushed out of the place in a wheelchair. I was woozy, but still able, with Margo’s assistance, to navigate under my own power.

  Margo helped trundle me into a cab, and we headed downtown.

  “I’ve saved all the newspaper reports for you,” she said as we bucketed along, hitting one pothole after another.

  “I’ll bet they’re juicy,” I said.

  “They are that,” she admitted. “ ‘Publisher in Deadly Tryst’ was the headline in the Daily News.”

  “Oh great. Just great.”


  “Or this one—’Beautiful Young Editor Drinks Fatal Toast.’

  “I can’t wait to read all about it.”

  “The television news showed the scene of the crime—or should I say, of the fatal tryst?”

  “Please, Margo—I’d rather not talk about it just now.”

  “As you wish, darling.”

  I had been grateful that, since her arrival at the hospital yesterday, Margo had not once mentioned Susan’s name in any of our conversations, which I thought showed admirable restraint on her part. I had no doubt, however, that the subject would come up sooner or later, and at that time I would have to define my relationship with Susan honestly and fully. But not yet. I was still sorting things out in my own mind. Who had sent that poisoned wine—and why? Was it meant for Susan? For me? Or for both of us, perhaps?

  One thing I knew for sure—I wouldn’t be able to rest until I had the answers to these questions, and quite a few others.

  Oscar and Pepita both met us at the door of number 2 Gramercy Park, greeting Margo warmly (I remembered how fond they had been of her in the old days), and me with the proper note of solicitude, not quite clucking over me, but showing a marked concern that went just a shade beyond their customary reserve.

  “Would you like a cold drink, sir?” Oscar inquired in his thick Latvian accent.

  “Iced tea would be perfect,” I said. The ideal summer tipple in my view, fresh-brewed with a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint, but no sugar—and certainly never anything out of a bottle or a can. On hot summer days, I drink as much as a quart of the stuff—at least up to cocktail time.

  “I want you to go lie down, Nick,” said Margo in a tone that brooked no discussion, least of all any dispute.

  “Can’t I have my iced tea first?”

  “All right,” she said. “After your tea, bed.”

  I knew then I was in for a certain amount of bossing around, which, odd as it may seem, I didn’t mind at all. I must be mellowing, like it or not.

  * * *

  So began My Three Days With Margo. She had been quite emphatic on that point. “I don’t intend to move in with you, Nick,” she said, “so don’t get any ideas.”

  “Can’t blame me for hoping, can you?”