“I’ve never seen a man with a Mona Lisa smile before,” I said.
“Makes this your lucky day, then. Do you know why the Mona Lisa is smiling?”
“No. Why is she smiling?”
“Oh, it’s not a joke. Leonardo had hired some entertainers, a clown, a juggler, a singer, to provide some entertainment while he labored. They worked the area behind him to keep the model’s attention … and that’s why she’s smiling. Trying to keep a straight face. But she was amused by a clown, someone taking a pratfall, and the result is the most famous and enigmatic expression our civilization has produced. I like that, it appeals to my view of life—both what was going on in Leonardo’s studio that day, which is so gentle and human and real, and all the frantic attempts to understand the Gioconda smile through the centuries since it was painted. Somebody slipping on a banana peel.”
“Is that a true story?”
“Said to be an eyewitness account.”
“Why hasn’t someone told me before?”
“Because you’ve never told the right man he had a Mona Lisa smile.”
“Well, even if it’s not true, it should be.”
“Life does sometimes need a bit of touching up.”
“That’s your business, isn’t it?”
“Yours too, Belinda, yours too.”
It was too hot to eat much, but we shared a sandwich and paid for two lunches so we could occupy the table. “So what was it you wanted to tell me?” I asked. “It couldn’t have been the Mona Lisa story.”
“Did you hear about the three gay guys who mugged the lady in Grand Central?”
“No.”
“Two of them held her down, the third one did her hair. Clavell told me that the other day and now I make it your responsibility.”
“You wanted to tell me that?”
“No, that was a moment of levity. I wanted to tell you I’m going to write a novel. I haven’t told anyone yet, not even my agent. I wanted you to know first.”
“I’m flattered,” I said, puzzled. “By why me first?”
“It’s about the old days. You were part of it. I suppose I just can’t let go after spending the last year working on the show, which was really Harry’s brainchild, not mine. For me it was like an assignment. Now I want to write my version of the story, my book about the Ruffians. And you’re the first and only person I’m going to tell.” His smile curved upward beneath the dark glasses.
“It’s different from the show, then?”
“Very.”
My mind wasn’t working very quickly. “I’d have thought you’d tell the Ruffians first.”
“I don’t think the Ruffians are going to like it a lot. It’s about a woman, one of those women, the kind who passes through every man’s life at one time or another. If he’s lucky. In this case, the woman passes through the life of not one man but a group of men. They all react to her, each guy in his own way.” He stopped, waited, and I wished I could see his eyes.
“It’s certainly a romantic premise.” I was measuring my words. There was something going on in the conversation. I couldn’t name it but I felt as if I were on dangerous ground. “Reminds me of Circe turning men into swine. Or is she like Daisy Buchanan in Gatsby?”
“I don’t think my heroine turns men into swine.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I think maybe the men are already swine.”
I laughed. “You always catch me by surprise!”
“But I have some unresolved questions of plot. This woman of mine, these guys are half-crazy about her, but instead of using her power and toying with them and making their lives utter hell, she’s quite unaware of her effect on them. She just doesn’t notice, doesn’t care. Which is worse in a way. Like a slow-acting poison.”
“So what’s the unresolved plot question?”
“Well, I think there’s going to be a murder. Years later. One of the men is killed. And I’m toying with the idea of having her be the murderer. Yet, she’s my heroine. I wonder, will it work? Or will the reader reject the idea?”
“Depends on how good her motive is, I suppose. Why does she do it?”
He shrugged his thick, heavy shoulders. “I haven’t worked it out yet, although that’s not hard to do. But creating such a character, believable both as this totally innocent femme fatale and as a murderer—that’s tough. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a long way from Scoundrels All! I might have added it was also too close to home, too much a warped view of me. Mostly I was wishing he hadn’t told me any of it.
“My theory is that anyone can be driven to murder. Put enough pressure on, whammo! My heroine is such an innocent that when she finds out that everybody else isn’t innocent, she’s in a vise, her illusions demolished, her belief in the rightness of things shot to hell. So she goes off the edge, kills the old friend from college who most epitomizes that shock of reality.” He reached across impulsively and put his hand on mine. “Of course, it’s just a story. An allegory.”
He sank back in his chair, motioned to the waitress for the check. I looked away, back to the trees in the park. Dammit! I couldn’t seem to get away from the subject. Hacker was such a bright, calm, reassuring man, but just when I felt I could relax and enjoy him, he came up with this. A little obvious, telling me. And was he right? Was anyone capable of murder if the screws were tightened to the breaking point? How deeply could he see into me? Could he see something there that was still unknown to me? Or had he just taken a shot in the dark? Damn writer!
“I hope I haven’t upset you,” he murmured. He handed the waitress his credit card.
“A little unnerving, that’s all. It’s closer to life than you might think—no, I don’t mean I want to kill anyone. But the way you see things … is a surprise.” I tried a bright smile which turned out to be a bad fit. Peter Venables. I could handle him, but if he hurt Sally, then I didn’t know what I might do.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Everything that’s happened lately has taken me by surprise. Still, I can’t ignore the feeling that fate has brought us all back together for some purpose. There’s something wrong with the picture, no matter how I fiddle with the knobs. Take Harry and Sally, they’ve got it all, everything should be great, but there’s something funny in their eyes, something hollow, dying fires, they act like strangers sometimes, bruised from some heavy infighting the rest of us haven’t seen.”
He signed the check. He had nailed down so many of the things I’d been laboriously working my way toward. Just like that. Fast.
“Then there’s you and Jack coming apart,” he said. “One of those dime-a-dozen sad stories, husband fails to realize his potential, wife goes on past him and he can’t deal with it—”
“Where do you get your information?”
“What if I said Jack?”
“And what about you?” I asked. “What’s the matter with you?”
“It’s obvious, surely. A grown man who hasn’t been able to outgrow his fascination with his college days, with all the old relationships that won’t die. Isn’t that a little weird? Why can’t I escape my Ruffian days? Offhand, I’d say it must be unfinished business.”
“And the rest?”
“Mike, mooning around you, hoping you’ll finally notice him. Even Leverett and Clavell, still trying to figure out if they can set up housekeeping together, two old fairies afraid of the encroaching darkness and the solitude. And now Peter Venables shows up from London with a tragic past and pictures of his beautiful daughter who’s the image of his dead wife, a constant reminder of her death, and he just sort of moves in with Harry and Sally.” He shook his heavy head and frowned, perplexed. “We’re all so unsettled and searching, like people looking for whatever it is that will complete us.”
“You sound as if you’re talking about Jung’s anima figure: whatever will complete us … whoever …”
“It’s like this ungodly weather,” he said, standing up. “Everyone sweating it out, waiting for
it to break.”
He looked down at me and suddenly flashed the smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He had a nice California tan. I wished I could see the eyes behind the dark lenses. Maybe his smile was the result of being with me. Hacker Welles, of all people! He would have to be the one most interested in poking into the private, forgotten debris of our lives. And that novel he wanted to write … Me. The murderer.
Chapter Nineteen
WE CROSSED CENTRAL PARK SOUTH and headed into the park, across a grassy knoll where people snoozed in pools of shade and kids played catch. I watched him as he began a mock broadcast of the game, dredging up names for the players that he told me were old Yankees from long ago. Snuffy Stirnweiss, George McQuinn, Joe Gordon, King Kong Keller, Tommy Byrne …
“How about a ride in a rowboat?” he said.
He led the way to the rental dock, climbed clumsily into the boat, and helped me follow. “I wonder how you do this,” he muttered. “Do I sit facing where I’ve been or where I’m going?” Shade and sunlight dappled his face, full of consternation. “No, don’t tell me, I should be able to figure this out. Now, if you pull the oar this way, then you’ve got to sit this way … okay, I’ve got it. Sit down, Belinda, you’re not George Washington and this isn’t the Delaware.”
He guided us inexpertly, slowly, veering one way and another, out into the bright center of the lake. Reflected sunlight rippled, but there was a hint of mysterious breeze, almost enough to dry the sweat. I lay back as he got the hang of it, felt the easy rhythm of his stroke and the slow movement of the boat beneath me. The sounds of the city were wholly stilled now. The water shimmered. I felt like a character caught in the real story behind the gentle delicacy of a French Impressionist painting. I said something to that effect, squinted through nearly closed eyes at his big shape casting its shadow across the space between us, the sun behind him. He seemed dark, a faceless, featureless shape.
“It’s the past again, Belinda. You think of it in a painter’s terms, naturally. There had to be a story behind those paintings of people boating and having picnics, and if you look at it just right you can almost see the whole story, all the relationships, in the moment the painter captured.” He gave it some left hand and we slowly began to make an arc.
“And you see it as a writer.”
He nodded. “I hear a remark, I begin to make a story of it. I see Jack’s fist land on Peter’s nose and I see your face freeze into a kind of death mask and I can begin to see the whole story rather than just the instant.” We were floating toward an overhang of limb and thick foliage, shade. “When Jack hit Peter and you stood watching, I not only knew that you were finished with Jack … I knew you were glad he hit Venables. There was a charge of some kind flowing between you and Peter. But I don’t know what. I’ve been thinking about it.”
“You are a bastard,” I said, after a long pause in which we slid all the way into the shade and I could stop shielding my eyes.
He laughed. “Now you’re angry with me.”
Closer to the bank I was glad to hear a few of the everyday sounds of the park instead of our own voices, his soft and warm, mine too shrill. Should I tell him all the mischief Venables was causing? I disliked the idea of drawing him any more deeply into that cavern of the past, but I wondered what he would make of Venables’ return.
I felt his hand on my bare ankle, shaking me. “Over there,” he whispered.
On a grassy bank, Harry and Sally were sitting, deep in conversation. Hacker was right not to interrupt them. I saw that immediately, yet I felt like a peeper.
Sally seemed to be showing him a paper of some sort, a letter, a piece of manuscript; I was too far away to identify it more accurately. Sally leaned forward, pushed the paper toward him, talking intently. He took the sheet, holding it like something dead, hardly looking at it. He finally threw back his head and laughed, the harsh sound floating on the hot summer afternoon.
Sally stiffened as if she’d been slapped; then her shoulders slumped forward, and, kneeling, she began to sob. Harry dropped the sheet of paper beside her, reached across, said something, and gently began patting her back. The signals he was giving—the unkind laughter, the affectionate patting—confused me. But I wanted to reach out to Sally, comfort her. I strained forward, unthinking, about to call out, when Hacker reached out to stop me.
Suddenly Sally got shakily to her feet, stuffed the paper into her bag, wiped her eyes, and walked slowly away, weaving up the slope toward the path.
Hacker caught my eye and shook his head as if to say: See what I mean?
After returning the rowboat, Hacker put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug. “You know how these husband-and-wife arguments go,” he said. “It’s probably nowhere near as bad as it looked. Just one of those things—”
“Don’t be condescending,” I shot back. “I know Sally better than anyone else on earth, including Harry. And she was really upset. She’s having a hell of a tough time these days.”
Hacker nodded. “Well, let’s hope it’s not as bad as it looked.”
“Is that really the way you feel? Or would you rather have your theory about all the trouble we’re in be proven right? Wouldn’t you like it more like a novel?”
“You do think I’m a rat!”
“I don’t know what to think about you.”
“Usually I’m happy to take life as it comes. There seems to be enough drama to go around. Now, you have the look of a woman who needs an ice-cream cone.”
“Oh, stop talking so stupidly!”
We were standing at the statue of Hans Christian Andersen near the Conservatory Pond when I heard the familiar voice behind us.
“Hey, you two.” A smile in the voice, a million memories across twenty years. “What’s happening? Everybody taking the day off?”
Hacker turned. “Pure entertainment. Showtime. Watch Belinda bathe herself in chocolate-chip ice cream.”
“I’m not having ice cream,” I said childishly.
It was hard to look at either one of them, Ruffians forever, no matter what. “Hi, Harry,” I said. Memory: I saw Sally’s shoulders slump as if she’d received a hammer blow.
Hacker filled the silence. “Why aren’t you off somewhere counting the money in the till?”
Harry laughed, shrugged. “I would be, but it’s all credit cards these days. So Sally and I came over for a walk. Too hot for her, though. She just went home. She’ll be sorry she missed you.”
We were strolling back toward Fifth Avenue. Harry seemed utterly at ease, unconcerned, as if nothing at all had happened with Sally moments ago. Roller skaters grunted past, sweat flying. Dogs barked. We stopped at the curb.
I said: “Tell Sal I’ll call her.”
“Will do.” He punched Hackers arm. “Take good care of my girl.”
And then we were alone, looking at each other.
Chapter Twenty
I CAME AWAKE EARLY THE morning my show opened. I was soaking wet, the sheets were wrinkled and clinging, and outside my window the big round thermometer Jack had once installed said it was eighty-eight degrees. It was just past seven o’clock. My stomach was a little nervous. The day stretched ahead like a vast, burning, sandy wasteland.
Venables had left several messages on my answering machine. He wanted urgently to speak with me, kept telling me how important it was. But he didn’t have the guts to give me a hint of what he had on his mind. Which assured me that it was just more of his bullshit.
I don’t suppose I’ll ever know if I could have prevented what happened by simply answering him. It’s one of the imponderables you carry with you to your grave … but it haunts me.
Sally called that morning. I was standing mindlessly in the corner like a sailor on a calm sea telling himself there might just be a wind if I could find the right angle. I stood with my foot on the base of the wheel-of-fortune, thinking about the midget Sally always said had crouched inside to control the wheel when it was used for games of chance. Sa
l wanted to wish me well that night and wondered if there was anything she could do to make the day go faster. She sounded as if all the starch had been taken out of her.
While I listened to her I began to wonder what might have brought her down so badly. What if she really were smitten with Venables? After all, one man’s meat just might be another man’s poison. Maybe he was a different man with her. And what if Venables were nuts about Sally? And what if Sally went to Harry and wanted a divorce … ? Oh, hell, it sounded too patently absurd! Until you took everything into consideration. Smitten with Venables, Sally also is certain that Harry is in love with another woman. Add Venables falling for her … and you might have a woman who wanted out of her marriage. And she might have taken it to Harry in the park that day. Maybe with a letter from Venables. Or to Venables. And when Harry heard her proposal he might have told her to grow up and forget the idea of their splitting up … and she might not have known how to handle such an unexpected turn of events … and maybe she was going through the agonies of losing Venables, her one shot at romance—which would have had to be the shortest love affair with a sad ending in history. …
But, listening to Sally droning tonelessly on, I knew I was letting myself think like a soap opera. And what the heck did I know about soap operas?
Sally didn’t mention Venables until the conversation had just about run its course. Then she asked me if I’d seen him. I said no. I could hear a tiny catch in her voice. “That’s strange,” she said. “I know he’s been wanting to talk to you. Well, he can see you tonight. But that will hardly be the time to sit down and talk about old times, which is what I think he has in mind. Oh well …” She seemed to be saying she’d lost interest and who cared anyway?
I decided to chance it. “How are things with Harry? Have you got that idea out of your mind and put to rest?” I tried to sound cheery.
Guilty Parties Page 11