by Joy Fielding
“Johnny K. or Johnny R.?”
“What?”
“Johnny R. or Johnny K.?” she says, reversing the order.
“I’m not sure. Wait.” I replay the earlier message in my head: This is Johnny K. from Carlito’s Auto Repair. “Johnny K.,” I say, louder than I intended. I picture the poor woman pushing the phone away from her ear to escape the sound of my voice.
“Did you call here a few minutes ago?” she asks.
“I think we got cut off,” I lie.
“Sounded like somebody yelled ‘No!’ or something. It was weird.”
“Really? That is weird.”
“Hold on and I’ll connect you to Johnny.”
A brief interlude of salsa music follows. “This is Johnny Kroft.”
The same voice as on my voice mail. Nothing like that other voice.
“This is Bailey Carpenter. I believe you phoned about my car.”
“Right. The silver Porsche.”
“That’s the one.”
“Yeah, sorry for calling so early. I wanted to catch you before you left for work.”
“At seven o’clock this morning?”
“Seven? No. It was only about ten minutes ago.”
Ten minutes ago, I repeat silently. “You said my car is ready?”
“Yep. There was a pretty deep scratch across the hood and one of the headlights was damaged, plus there were a few minor dents along the driver’s side that we took care of. Bill comes to four thousand seven hundred dollars and twenty-six cents.”
Tell me you love me.
“What?”
“Sorry. I know it’s a lot,” Johnny Kroft apologizes.
What’s happening?
“But what can you do?” he asks. “It’s a Porsche, right? Expensive car, expensive repair bill.”
“What did you just say to me?”
Tell me you love me.
“What did I just say to you?” he repeats. “ ‘Expensive car, expensive repair bill’?” he asks, as if he’s not sure. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be flip. Of course it’s a lot of money.…”
“You didn’t just tell me to …?” I stop. Obviously he said nothing of the sort. We’re operating in two different realities. My reality is that I’m stark raving mad. “So my car is ready to be picked up?”
“Anytime you’re ready to stop by.” He gives me the address, at the corner of Third Street and Northwest 1st Avenue, within walking distance of my condo. I tell him I’ll drop by sometime this morning. He says he’ll look forward to showing me exactly what was done, adding that he thinks I’ll be pleased.
Tell me you love me.
I hang up. But the words tunnel into my brain: Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me. They follow me into the shower. Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me. “You are officially off your rocker,” I acknowledge, pulling my wet hair into a ponytail as I emerge from the shower and get dressed—baggy white jeans and a loose black jersey top—before opening the blinds and staring toward Paul Giller’s apartment. Even without my binoculars I can see Paul and his wife moving about their bedroom. They are dressed—he in a casual shirt and jeans, she in some kind of uniform, like the kind my dental hygienist wears. They pass each other in front of their bed without touching.
The phone rings, and I jump. “Hello?”
“It’s Claire. Did I wake you?”
“No. I’m up.” I don’t tell her that I’ve been up since seven, when the first phone call of the morning jolted me rudely awake, because I’m no longer sure of any such thing. I remind myself that Claire and I drank almost two bottles of wine last night and that the alcohol is still in my system, no doubt causing me to hear things that aren’t there. There were no phone calls from the man who raped me, no voices commanding me to say anything. The only calls I got were from Carlito’s Auto Repair. Everything else is a product of my paranoid, alcohol-soaked brain. “My car’s ready,” I tell Claire. “I was just going to walk over and pick it up.”
“Please tell me you aren’t planning to drive it home.” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I’ll be right over.”
“No, Claire. It’s your day off. You’re supposed to be relaxing and taking it easy.…”
“Don’t argue,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to drive a Porsche.”
She hangs up and I return to the window. It can’t have escaped your notice that the man you’ve been watching fits the description of the man who raped you, Claire said. Is it possible?
Just who is Paul Giller anyway?
Seconds later, I’m in the next room, leaning over my desk and accessing my computer. I haven’t so much as glanced at my Mac in weeks. My hands hover over the keyboard, shaking. This is who you are, I remind myself. This is what you do. And if you don’t start doing something soon, something concrete, you will never regain your sanity.
I google the name “Paul Giller.”
My computer screen immediately fills with more than a dozen listings. I dismiss several of these immediately. Two are for a photographer named Paul Giller who lives in Texas, another for a Paul Giller who, at a hundred and six, is Ohio’s oldest living resident. But the next five are for a Paul Giller who lives right here in Miami, a Paul Giller whose row of handsome headshots closely resembles the man who lives across the way. An actor, according to his Internet Movie Database profile. More at IMDbPro, the listing informs me. Contact info; View agent; Add or change photos. I wonder if Heath knows him.
In minutes, I learn his middle name (Timothy), his date of birth (March 12, 1983), his birthplace (Buffalo, New York), that he was the son of a highly respected, now-deceased symphony conductor (Andrew Giller), and that he has his very own website (www.paulgiller.com). I check it immediately.
It contains a short biography, a list of contact numbers for agents, all of which I jot down, and his résumé (bit parts in several locally shot movies and a minor, although recurring, role in a now-canceled TV series that was shot in L.A. several years ago.)
His brief bio informs me he is six feet one, and 190 pounds. Experience has taught me to automatically subtract two inches and add ten pounds, but in Paul Giller’s case, the description seems accurate. According to his bio, he also spent some time in Nashville, where he recorded an album, now available on iTunes. (I can sample a selection, if I so choose, which I don’t.) Also listed are a few commercials, mostly local.
Again, the disconcerting thought enters my mind that he might know Heath. Could there be a connection between them? “Don’t be ridiculous,” I say out loud, suddenly angry, although I’m not sure why. I quit Paul Giller’s site and log onto Facebook.
Since I’m not an official “friend” of Paul’s, I have limited access to his page. What I am permitted to view is more photographs of the man, some serious, some smiling, some in profile, a few without a shirt. There are no pictures of him with anyone else, male or female, no photographs of the woman I saw him with last night and this morning or any of the women I saw him with last week. There is no mention anywhere of a wife.
According to the half dozen “get well soon” messages I see posted on the part of his wall to which I’m granted access, I gather that Paul Giller recently spent a few days in the hospital with a virulent strain of pneumonia. If he was in the hospital the night I was attacked, that would obviously eliminate him as a suspect.
I click out of Facebook and phone the number for Paul’s agent.
“You have reached the offices of Reed, Johnson, and Associates, representing the finest talent Miami has to offer,” the recorded female voice announces. “The office is now closed. If you want to leave a message for Selma Reed, press 1. If you want to leave a message for Mark Johnson, press 2. If you want to …”
“I don’t want to,” I say, hanging up the phone and returning to my bedroom. What was I thinking? Of course the office is closed. It’s barely eight thirty in the morning.
I move to the window, grabbing my binoculars. Paul and the woman are s
till in their bedroom, still largely ignoring one another, careful to avoid contact as they move about the small room. The woman reaches into her purse for her lipstick and applies it without looking in the mirror, then she marches purposefully from the room, Paul following right behind.
Where are they going?
The woman’s clothes indicate that she’s dressed for work, as does the hour. Paul’s clothes tell me nothing. Where is he off to, so early in the morning?
Before I can think twice about what I’m doing, before I even know what I’m doing, I’m racing down the hall of my apartment, grabbing my purse, and heading out the door. If I stop to think, even for one minute, I will stop this craziness and return to the safety of my bed.
Except I’m going crazy there as well.
The elevator arrives within seconds of my pressing the call button, and I am about to step inside when I see a man standing off to the right. He is tall and heavyset, with graying hair and a nose that is too narrow for his wide-set eyes. My knees almost buckle with relief. He is not the man who raped me.
Although, can I really be sure?
“Going my way?” he asks with a smile.
I hesitate only briefly before my investigator’s instinct pushes me inside. This is what you do. This is who you are. And the only way to regain control of your life is by taking it. If the police lack the authority to investigate Paul Giller, I lack no such power. If there are rules against them tailing him without sufficient so-called cause, I am under no such restrictions.
I can follow him at will. No one can stop me.
The elevator stops on the twentieth floor and a middle-aged man and woman step inside. They smile. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re getting better, taking control. These are my thoughts as the elevator makes another stop, this time on the fourteenth floor.
The doors open and David Trotter steps inside.
I cry out, everyone turning toward me as I back into the corner. I will myself to disappear, but it is too late. David Trotter has already seen me. He is staring right at me.
“What the hell is your problem?” he demands as the elevator doors close behind him. “What have I ever done to you?”
“Please leave me alone.”
“Leave you alone? My mother had a stroke, for God’s sake! She’s in the hospital up in Palm Beach, I have to drive all the way up there, I don’t sleep for days, and I come home to find the police on my doorstep.…”
“I’m sorry. It was all a misunderstanding.…”
“You bet it was.”
“Please …”
“Take it easy,” the gray-haired man advises.
“I was trying to help you!”
“It was a mistake.”
“Relax, mister,” the woman says. “You’re scaring her.”
“Scaring her? The bitch accused me of rape!”
“Oh, God.” I feel myself sinking to the floor as the elevator comes to a stop on the ground floor, its doors opening into the sun-filled lobby.
“Just stay the hell away from me,” David Trotter warns, the index finger of his right hand pointing at me like a gun. Then he turns and exits the elevator.
“Can I help you, Miss?” the gray-haired man is asking, his hand extended toward me.
I shake my head as I scramble to my feet. Then I push past him out the elevator. “What was that all about?” I hear somebody ask as I hurtle past the concierge desk.
“Miss Carpenter,” another voice calls out, but I don’t stop.
Minutes later, I find myself standing outside Paul Giller’s building. I’m not sure exactly what I intend to do, but I most definitely intend to do something.
—
The building in which Paul Giller lives—and in front of whose ornate wrought-iron-and-glass-paneled doors I am currently standing—is several stories taller than the one in which I live and more austerely modern in appearance. Or maybe it’s just more austere. The lobby is white on white—white marble walls and floors, a single white sofa, fake white flowers reaching toward the high ceiling from a tall white porcelain vase that stands in a corner. Not nearly enough furniture for the space, which is perhaps indicative of the building itself, which has remained more than half-empty since it was completed. Originally intended as a luxury condominium complex, much like mine, construction was already well under way when the economy suddenly tanked. Owners fled in droves. Prices dropped precipitously. Buyers dried up, then disappeared altogether.
The builders regrouped, deciding to rent out the remaining units, although judging by the large signs that hang along the exterior walls—LUXURY UNITS FOR RENT BY THE MONTH. NO LONG-TERM LEASE REQUIRED—they’ve had only limited success. I note that there is no concierge and that a resident directory is posted just inside the lobby doors. I open them—they are lighter, less substantial than they appear—and approach the directory, locating Paul Giller’s name and the number of his apartment. I also note there is a building manager, but when I press his number—drawing up a list of questions in my head to ask him—there is no answer.
Which is when I see them.
They are walking side by side across the lobby, and while they aren’t touching, they seem friendly enough. Friendlier, certainly, than they were moments ago in their apartment. He’s leaning toward her, and she’s smiling at something clever he’s said. Perhaps he apologized for last night’s boorish behavior on the elevator ride down, spoke the words she needed to hear. Who knows? We see what we want to see. We hear what we want to hear.
Not always, I remind myself.
Tell me you love me.
I spin around. A man brushes past me, his shoulder slamming into mine as he hurries outside, as if I’m invisible.
I no longer have any sense of myself, I realize, panicking as my reflection in a nearby square of glass disappears in a sudden streak of sunlight. I no longer know what is real and what is imaginary. I no longer know who I am.
Except I do know. I’m a private investigator. And I’m doing what I do best: I’m watching.
I lower my head as Paul Giller and his wife, if that’s who she is, stride past me, almost close enough to touch, then exit the building. I watch as they approach the curb and wait to cross the street with the lights.
The same impulse that brought me here compels me to follow them.
They still haven’t noticed me, and I’m careful to stay a safe distance behind them. They stop at the next corner, then kiss briefly before going their separate ways. I hesitate, not sure whom to follow. But the choice is made easy when Paul hails a passing cab and climbs inside, disappearing into the morning rush hour traffic. Mrs. Paul, as I have chosen to think of her, continues on by foot.
I scramble to catch up to her.
The neighborhood is a curious mix of old and new, of tall glass high-rises and single-story specialty shops, of sophisticated restaurants and rickety fruit juice stands, of the ethnic and the homegrown, all existing side by side, interwoven and inseparable, although not always compatible. And while English is considered the official language of the financial district, it’s mostly Spanish one sees and hears.
But this morning I see and hear nothing. I am aware only of a woman in a pale blue uniform walking briskly down the street, her arms swinging at her sides.
I am only a few steps behind her when she stops suddenly and swings around. I brace myself for a confrontation. “Are you following me?”
Except she does no such thing. Instead, she approaches a shop window to take in a display of neon-colored shoes. I wait, holding my breath. After a few moments of staring wistfully at a pair of outrageously high-heeled, raspberry-and-purple pumps, she steps away from the window. I squat down on one knee, pretend to be tying my shoelace, although if Mrs. Paul were to take a good look, she’d notice the flip-flops I’m wearing have no laces. I push myself unsteadily to my feet as Mrs. Paul continues on her way.
A young man brushes past me with such speed that he almost knocks me over. “Scuse,” he mumbles over
his shoulder, continuing on his way without stopping, even as I spin around, hands shooting out in front of me, my body tipping toward the concrete of the sidewalk. Luckily, other hands reach out to prevent my fall. One hand brushes against the side of my breast.
I slap it away, recoiling as if I’ve been shot.
“Take it easy,” a middle-aged man says, lifting his hands into the air as if someone is pointing a gun at his back. He shakes his head and walks away, mumbling.
“Are you all right?” a woman asks warily.
“Yes,” I say, and then, as she is walking away, “Thank you.”
But if she hears me, she gives no sign. I lose her in the crowd.
I have lost Mrs. Paul as well. I spin around, looking in all directions, but she is nowhere to be found.
I am as much relieved as disappointed. What did I hope to achieve by following her?
It’s better this way, I tell myself, deciding to talk to Paul Giller’s building manager instead, glean any information I might need from him.
And then, of course, there she is.
As I am turning around, I catch my reflection in the front window of a hairdressing salon, just opening for business. And there she is behind the reception counter, alongside another young woman, this one with long curly dark hair and huge hoop earrings. They are laughing. I push open the door, a cold blast of air-conditioning raining down on my head from the overhead vents. The women continue their conversation, ignoring me as I approach.
“So who’s my first appointment?” Mrs. Paul is asking the woman with the giant hoop earrings.
The other woman checks her computer screen. “Loreta De Sousa, in half an hour.”
Mrs. Paul’s shoulders slump visibly. “Shit. What a way to start the week. She’s never happy with the color she chooses. Never has the patience to sit still and let her nails dry properly. Then she smudges them, and insists I do them all again. Shit.”
So, not a dental assistant after all. A beautician.
“Excuse me,” I venture.
Two sets of startled eyes turn toward me.
“Can I help you?” the woman with the giant hoop earrings asks.
I look directly at Mrs. Paul. “I’d like a manicure.”