Second Chance

by Jonathan Valin

The outer door was unlocked, but the inner door leading to the lobby had an intercom system. I found Stein’s name and pressed the button. Through the plate-glass window I could see the cab heading down the icy block. If Stein wasn’t home I was in for a long walk back to Kirsty’s apartment.

  But I was lucky because Jay Stein buzzed me through. He must have been expecting someone because he didn’t bother to ask who I was. If I was really lucky, he might have been expecting Kirsten Pearson.

  I asked myself what I was going to do if the girl was there—or showed up—and decided to see how she reacted to me before doing anything. I had no legal right to interfere in her life, although, after what Marnee told me, I knew that I wasn’t going to like Stein.

  A tall, spindly man with a drooping moustache and lank brown hair was waiting for me in the ninth-floor hall, just outside the elevator door. His face was pale and horsey, with a sad-eyed look of suffering to it that might have impressed the young girls. He wasn’t that old himself. Maybe twenty-eight or -nine. He was dressed even younger than that in torn jeans, cowboy boots, and a faded lumberjack shirt.

  “Are you Jay Stein?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you tell me who you are first?” the man said nervously. He’d been smiling when the elevator door opened, but the smile went away as soon as he saw me.

  “My name is Stoner. I work for Phil Pearson, Kirsten Pearson’s father.”

  The man’s right hand shot to his shirt pocket as if he’d felt a chest pain. He pulled out a pack of Winstons and shook a cigarette into his palm. His hand was trembling so much that three extra cigarettes fell onto the floor. Making a disgusted face, he reached down and scooped them up.

  “I don’t think I want to talk to you,” he said, stowing the extra cigarettes back in the box.

  “You’re Jay Stein, aren’t you?”

  The man lit a cigarette and took a puff.

  “C’mon, Jay. You don’t have to think about that.”

  “I’m Professor Stein,” he said indignantly. “And I’ve got nothing to say to you—or Phil Pearson. Now get out of here before I call security.”

  “And what are you going to tell security? That you’re screwing one of your students?”

  The man’s eyes got very large. “That’s an outrageous lie!”

  There was an open door down the hallway on the left—probably the door to his apartment. Stein started to move in that direction, and I stepped in front of him.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said, backing up. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but there is nothing between Kirsty Pearson and me.” He tapped the cigarette, scattering ashes down his shirt and onto the floor. “We’re friends. No more than that.”

  “You haven’t seen your ‘friend’ in the last couple of days, have you?”

  He shook his head, no.

  “If you’re not seeing her, then I guess you won’t mind if I look in your apartment.”

  “Of course I’d mind. I don’t know who you are or why you’re asking me these questions. Maybe if you told me what this was about . . . ”

  “Kirsty’s been missing since last Thursday. Her father hired me to find her. I’m told that she’s been seeing you.”

  “Told? By whom, told?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Stein got an ugly look on his face. “It was that roommate of hers, wasn’t it? She put you up to this. Christ, what a joke!” He laughed bitterly.

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” I said.

  “That’s because you don’t know what’s going on.” He laughed again, a smoother laugh, full of confidence. “It’s okay. I see what it’s about now. I think I can clear this up.”

  He tried to edge past me, toward his apartment door. But I didn’t budge.

  “I’m not going to run away,” he said calmly. “Let’s go down to my apartment, have a beer, and talk this over like civilized people.”

  ******

  Stein’s front room was a couple of steps up from Marnee Thompson’s Spartan digs. But just a couple. The bookshelves were varnished pine, instead of brick-and-board. The chairs and sofa were cheap Naugahyde copies of top-grain Italian originals. There were a few more ferns, hanging in baskets. Classier artwork on the walls. But it still had the feel of respectable poverty—the assistant professorial kind.

  Two archways opened off the living room. One to a lighted matchbox of a kitchen, the other to a dark bedroom. I glanced at the kitchen as I came through the door. The plastic drainer sitting by the sink had one plate in it, one cup, and one saucer. There were no dishes on the counter. No food or drinks, either.

  The living room was just as tidy and unpromising. An open book, Snap by Abby Frucht, sat on an ottoman in front of an armchair, a stack of papers on the floor beside it. The rest of the furniture looked unlived in, as if it had just been delivered the day before. The only item in the room that smacked of Kirsten Pearson was the overflowing ashtray on the windowsill. And that was just as much Stein as it was Kirsten. He’d already lit another by the time he shut the door.

  “Have a seat,” he said, walking into the kitchen. “You want a beer?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I thought guys like you always drank beer,” he called out.

  He came back with a can of Bud in his hand and the cigarette drooping from his lip.

  “You’re a detective, aren’t you? A private cop?”

  “Let’s talk about you, instead.”

  Stein laughed—a real laugh this time. Popping the tab on the beer can, he plopped down on the couch and slung his leg over the armrest. He was obviously feeling a lot safer inside his own apartment, and whatever edge I’d had in the hall was just as obviously gone.

  “Tell me the truth,” he said. “It was Kirsty’s roommate who gave you my name, wasn’t it?”

  “No.”

  He grinned. “It had to be her.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because she’s insanely jealous of anyone who comes near Kirsty. The whole world knows Marnee’s gay. Except Kirsty, maybe.” He took a sip of beer. “Kirsty doesn’t think like that. She sees people in terms of her own needs. But she doesn’t see their needs.” He took another sip of beer and scattered cigarette ashes on the couch. “I wouldn’t get seriously involved with a kid like her. I couldn’t if I wanted to. Sex scares the hell out of her. Men scare the hell out of her.”

  “You’re telling me you two didn’t have an affair.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Then why’d she have a breakdown last spring?”

  He shrugged. “Kirsty’s crazy, Stoner.”

  “Crazy enough to fake a relationship with you?”

  “Crazier than that. Look, I did take her out a few times, after class. But there was no great romance between us. That was just her fantasy—or her roommate’s. Kirsty didn’t really want romance.”

  “What did she want?”

  “A daddy. Someone to look after her, someone with a little more spine than her old man. I mean that kid’s need for affection is tremendous.”

  I said, “Empathy doesn’t seem to be one of your strong points either, Stein.”

  His face flushed angrily. “Kirsty has a long history of emotional trouble dating back to her childhood. There was nothing I could do about her past except encourage her to write about it. And that’s exactly what I did.”

  “What about her childhood?”

  “Her father didn’t tell you?” he said, looking surprised. “Kirsty’s mother was schizophrenic. In and out of mental wards all her life. When Kirsty was six, the mother killed herself. Violently.” The man ducked his head as if he was embarrassed by his own avid gossip. “When you’re carrying around that kind of genetic baggage, there isn’t a whole lot anyone can do to help. I’ve tried to be a friend to her, but that’s not always an easy thing. Kids can . . . misinterpret.”

  “Try somebody other than a kid.”

  He didn’t say anything.
/>
  “When’s the last time you saw Kirsten?” I asked.

  “Last week. Thursday morning. She came over here to talk.” He gave me a pointed look. “Just to talk.”

  “About what?”

  Stein sat back in the sofa, clasping his hands behind his head He was tired of me and the conversation. “Her brother, Ethan, came to town. He wanted to see Kirsty, but she wasn’t sure she should go.”

  “Why would she have a problem seeing her brother?”

  “Because he’s crazier than she is. He drags her back to the past, and that’s a place Kirsty doesn’t need to visit, especially now.”

  “You’ve talked to the brother?”

  “Once. When he came through Chicago last year. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that intense. But then writers aren’t exactly a relaxed bunch.”

  “Ethan’s a writer, too?”

  “Journalist. At least that’s what he calls himself. He looks like he’s a step above homelessness to me. I think his wife is the only thing that keeps him grounded. That and his weird obsession with his mother. That’s really all he and Kirsty share—the mother. Neither one of them has been able to come to terms with her suicide. If you ask me, they never will.”

  There was a knock at the door. Looking relieved, Stein stood up.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ve got some company.”

  I stood up, too. “What did you tell Kirsty to do about Ethan?”

  “I told her not to see him. To go home to Cincinnati. Apparently she didn’t take my advice.”

  “Did she tell you where her brother was staying?”

  “Somewhere in town, I guess.”

  “Can’t you do better than that?”

  “I’ve answered enough questions,” he said sharply.

  Stein went over to the door and opened it. A pretty girl was standing outside with a bottle of Chianti in her hand. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty.

  “C’mon in, Lucy. Mr. Stoner’s just leaving.”

  The girl smiled at me winningly as she came into the room.

  I walked over to the door. “Stein, if you’re lying to me about Kirsty Pearson, I’m going to get your ass fired. That’s a promise.”

  The girl gasped, as if she couldn’t believe anyone would speak to a professor like that.

  “Don’t threaten me,” Stein said, reddening furiously. “If you come here again, I’ll call the police.”

  He slammed the door in my face.

  5

  THE TROUBLE with a dramatic exit is that you can’t go back and ask to use the phone.

  I had to walk two blocks south on Kenwood to find a booth. By then I was so cold that I figured it would be worse to wait for a cab than to keep walking. So I pushed down the icy, gaslit sidewalks, head ducked against the wind, until I got to 56th Street.

  Arthur Heldman’s house was on the corner of 56th and Blackstone—a Prairie-style bungalow, L-shaped, parasol-roofed, with dark, glistening curls of frozen ivy climbing its board-and-stone walls. The front door was off to the side, down a driveway. The windows were lighted on that side of the house, as was the lamp above the door.

  I knocked hard on the door and could barely feel my fist through the glove, I was that cold.

  A tall, heavyset man of about fifty with ruddy cheeks and silvery hair and beard answered my knock. He was wearing wire-rim glasses, a black turtleneck sweater, and checked wool slacks that made him look, rather winningly, like a spiffy St. Nick.

  “Can I help you?” he said in a friendly voice.

  “You can if you’re Professor Heldman.”

  “I’m Art Heldman. And you are . . . ?”

  “My name is Stoner, Professor Heldman. I’m searching for a student of yours, Kirsten Pearson.”

  “She’s lost?” the man said with alarm.

  “She’s been missing for four days. I’ve been hired by her father to find her.”

  “Poor kid,” he said, shaking his head. “Please come in.”

  Heldman ushered me down a hall to an oak-paneled study. The room was furnished with Georgian pieces—a stately armoire, a desk like a three-tiered ship of the line, two mahogany armchairs with embroidered backs, and several bookshelves with mullioned fronts and leaded glass panes. A facsimile of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary sat on a stand in one corner, spotlit like a shrine.

  Heldman was clearly proud of the room. On his salary, a lot of scrimping and saving must have gone into fitting it out. He let the knickknacks work on me for a moment, then went over to the armoire, took out a bottle of Dewar’s, and poured two fingers of Scotch into a tumbler.

  “Here.” He handed the drink to me. “You look frozen.”

  “Close to superconductivity.”

  Heldman laughed hoarsely.

  I swallowed half of the drink, and my eyes clouded up. Another couple of swallows, and I started to feel my body again, as if I were putting it on piece by piece like a suit of clothes.

  Heldman seated himself on a chair beside a small cherry wood table. There was a second chair across from him. I sat down on it.

  “You say Kirsty’s missing?” he said.

  “For four days.”

  “You’ve tried her apartment, of course?” he said, leaning forward with the air of a friendly neighbor.

  “That was the first place I looked. She wasn’t there. Her roommate suggested that she might be with a man named Stein.”

  “Jay?” Heldman drew back slightly, as if the neighborhood had changed.

  “I was told that Kirsty had been seeing him on a regular basis. He claims that she hasn’t been.”

  The man nodded slowly. He’d started to look less like St. Nick and more like St. Sebastian, as if the mere mention of Stein caused him physical pain. I figured it was because I was talking about a colleague, but it was also possible that he knew the truth about Stein and Kirsten and wasn’t happy about it.

  “You’ve spoken to Jay?”

  “About twenty minutes ago. He hasn’t seen Kirsty since Thursday morning. Apparently she stopped at his apartment before leaving town. Stein says to discuss her brother.”

  “She stopped here too. The same morning. And she did mention her brother.”

  He said it like he was trying to back Stein up. But it was clear from his tone that Ethan Pearson hadn’t been the only topic of conversation.

  “She was thinking about going to see Ethan while he was in town,” Heldman went on.

  “Did she say where he was staying?”

  “No, just that he was eager to talk to her.”

  “Do you know what about?”

  He shook his head. “Kirsty’s always been a little vague when it comes to Ethan. At least, she has with me. I don’t think he’s a healthy influence on her—if that’s what you want to know. At least, he doesn’t seem to be from what I’ve read of her novel.”

  “Which novel is that?”

  Heldman spread his hands as if he were opening a book in front of me. “Kirsty’s been working on an autobiographical piece for the past couple of months. A kind of therapeutic exercise to help her put her life in order after this past summer. She calls it Second Chance.”

  “Why Second Chance?”

  I thought of the sign on Kirsty’s door.

  “Because she doesn’t believe in them,” he said wryly. “At least, not for her.”

  “Is Stein in this book?”

  Heldman sighed. “Yes. She hasn’t finished the last chapter yet, but he’ll be a large part of it—and so will her father and her brother, Ethan. You see, Kirsty believes in living out what she writes—or writing what she lives. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which.”

  “Did she mention Stein when you talked on Thursday?”

  “Yes.” The man stood up, walked over to the armoire, and poured himself a stiff drink. “You already know that she became involved with Jay last year.”

  “He had an affair with her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, turning back to me with the bot
tle in his hand. He splashed a little more Scotch in my glass. “She was pretty damn attached to him—I know that. I’m afraid she still is. She told me on Thursday that she was seeing him again.”

  “Seeing him meaning sleeping with him?”

  “I think so.”

  The man pursed his lips as if he’d bitten into something rotten. Or maybe he just caught a whiff of what I was thinking about Stein.

  “Look, I care for that girl deeply,” he said. “And I’ll do anything I can to help you find her. But Jay isn’t the reason she’s disappeared. There isn’t one reason.”

  “Stein blamed it on genes.”

  Heldman blushed. “I realize he can be an obnoxious ass. But you’ve got to understand that he stepped into a situation he wasn’t equipped to deal with—a situation very few people could deal with. Kirsty’s life has a pattern to it that predates Jay—a pattern that has slowly solidified into something like a fate. Events have conspired to make her believe that no matter what she does, she is bound to end as her mother did—crazy or a suicide. Her brother has apparently done a lot to reinforce that belief by constantly obsessing about the mother’s death. And of course, so has her father, whose overprotectiveness kept Kirsty a child in many ways. But the point is—so has Kirsty herself.

  “For years now, consciously or unconsciously, she has been making choices that will lead her in the direction of suicide. The Stein thing is just one more instance. The fact that she’s infatuated with Jay is beside the point. In a way, Kirsty understands that herself. Deep down she’s chosen Jay Stein precisely because she knows he will reject her.”

  “It’s a theory,” I said.

  The man gave me a rueful look. “You don’t believe me?”

  “I believe the girl is deeply troubled, but I think it’s a bit too damn enlightened to blame Kirsten for Jay Stein’s callousness. Or to dismiss a need for affection as a death wish.”

  Heldman blushed. For a second I thought he was going to get pissy, but he surprised me. “I didn’t mean for it to sound that way. All I meant to say is that Kirsty honestly believes we are trapped by our pasts. Our childhood pasts. And no one gets a second chance at childhood.”

  He wanted it to sound profoundly sad. It only sounded sadly adolescent to me. But most literature professors I’d known developed that same lump in their throats when they spoke of life’s inequities—kind of like narrators in PBS documentaries.