Nightlife

by Thomas Perry

  Catherine reached for the telephone, then stopped, her hand in midair. It was too late to reach the captain anywhere but at home, and she wasn’t sure what she believed, what she wanted to tell him. She decided what she was going to do, half-stood to go to her spare room to turn on the computer, then remembered that she wasn’t in her house anymore, and the computer wasn’t fifty steps away in that direction. She was in a small apartment, and the only computer was the laptop she had signed out from work. She went to the big briefcase she had brought in, unlocked it, and took out the laptop.

  She plugged it into the telephone line, turned it on, and waited for the connection to the Internet. It took a very long time, then failed to connect, so she started the process over again. She was so impatient that she almost unplugged the computer to reconnect the telephone, but she forced herself to wait. It would not do to make a lot of fuss over what might amount to a relatively harmless credit reporting error.

  She got connected, then found the Web site of the Bank of the Atlantic. She clicked on credit card accounts, then “Access your account,” then gave the account number that was on her credit reports and the social security number of the primary cardholder. A box appeared that said, “Password.” She swore under her breath, but then thought for a second. She typed in “none.” A new page appeared, asking, “Would you like to create a password?” She had been right: there had been no password entered before. She clicked on the “yes” box. She typed in “Steelhead,” the name of her first dog.

  What appeared next was the current month’s charges for the account. There were two women on the account, Laura Murray and Catherine Hobbes. Under “Charges for Laura Murray” there was nothing. Under “Charges for Catherine Hobbes” there was plenty: “Stahlmeyer’s Dept. Women’s Wear, $2,436.91. Sybil’s, $266.78. The Mine, $93.08. Tess’s Shoes, $404.00. La Mousse, $56.88.” All of the charges had been made within the past couple of weeks. Catherine copied the bill into an e-mail and sent it to herself, then studied it one more time.

  All of the stores were in Portland. They were all on the west side of the river, downtown. Catherine was sure she knew who this was. Tanya had made her mistake.

  Catherine was operating now on an intuition. The part of it that was defensible was something that all cops were aware of and that the captain would understand: cops knew that coincidences existed, but not in the convenient numbers that people in trouble usually claimed. When coincidences turned up in the course of an investigation, they had to be viewed with skepticism. It was possible that even though there was no other Catherine Hobbes registered to vote in Oregon, and none besides her who had a telephone number, listed or unlisted, it didn’t mean that one had not arrived in the past month. But that was unlikely.

  The part of what she intuited that was not quite defensible would be difficult to explain to the captain, and it was the part that seemed most compelling. Catherine had a feeling about Tanya Starling. She had noticed that Tanya changed her identity more often than circumstances required. She seemed to change her name every time she arrived in a new city, every time anything happened that she considered unpleasant or unsuccessful. It reminded Catherine of the urge some people had to take a shower and change their clothes whenever they had a bad experience. Catherine was sure that she found it exciting, maybe even amusing. Tanya was getting very good at making or obtaining false identification.

  Another thing that Tanya had done repeatedly was try to hurt Catherine Hobbes. Could a mysterious credit card in Catherine’s name come up now and not be connected with Tanya Starling? It could, but it was unlikely. But how had Tanya done it? One possibility was that Tanya had been posing as the woman listed as the primary cardholder.

  Catherine called the Denver Police Department and spoke with a woman who identified herself as Detective Yoon. The detective listened attentively to Catherine’s story and agreed to find out whether there was a woman named Laura Murray living at 5619 LaRoche Avenue in Alameda. If there was, Detective Yoon would try to discover whether she had some knowledge of how her record and social security number had been used to get a credit card in the name Catherine Hobbes.

  Detective Yoon called Catherine Hobbes the next afternoon at the police bureau. She said, “There is a Laura Murray, and she’s sitting in front of my desk right now.”

  “She is?” said Catherine. “Is she somebody who might have helped apply for the card, or just a victim?”

  “She doesn’t know anything about it. She’s twenty-two, with no criminal record—no record of any kind except two old tickets, one for speeding and a parking violation. She’s got a good job, and has lived here all her life.”

  Catherine said, “Let me fax you a set of pictures. See if she recognizes them.”

  Five minutes later, they were on the telephone again. “She remembers her,” said Detective Yoon. “They met at a nightclub about two months ago in Denver, near Larimer Square. She says that when the girl in the picture danced with a man, she asked Laura to guard her purse. Then when Laura danced, the girl in the picture held Laura’s purse.”

  “Thank you,” said Catherine. “This is a big help. Do you mind letting me speak with Laura?”

  A moment later, a new voice came on the phone. It was young and nervous. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Laura. This is Detective Sergeant Catherine Hobbes, Portland Police Bureau. I want to thank you for your cooperation. It’s very important to us. I need to ask you now for a little more help.”

  “What do you need?”

  “First, don’t try to do anything about this credit card. Don’t call the company or try to cancel or anything. For the moment we don’t want to alert this woman to the fact that we know about the card. When the investigation is over the card will be canceled, and you won’t be responsible for any debts. Can I count on you for that?”

  “Sure.” Laura didn’t sound sure.

  “The other thing I need is to have you tell me everything you can remember about meeting this woman, everything she said to you, the way she looked, what she was wearing. There is no detail that’s too small to be useful.”

  48

  Judith opened her eyes and listened to the rain outside her apartment window. She liked it when the rain came down for two or three days at a time. It always seemed to her to be the world cleaning itself of the dirt and dead things, the unhappiness and mistakes. It rained almost half of the days of the year here.

  Judith sat up in bed and looked at the window. The rain was running down past it from somewhere above, and she could hear it hitting below, splashing like a tiny waterfall. She got up, pushed the button on the coffeemaker, then padded out to the bottom of the carpeted stairs, where the manager left her newspaper every morning, and brought it back with her.

  She sipped the coffee, sat cross-legged on the couch, and ignored the newspaper. Sitting here listening to the water outside made her feel very warm and safe. It was a feeling that she had not experienced until she had grown up. She had never liked rainy days when she was just Charlene.

  In Wheatfield it sometimes rained for days like this in the spring and fall. Her mother hated the rain, hated ever being cold or wet, so she never went out. She hated being trapped in the house too, so she would wake up already irritated. Her blond hair would be in a network of ringlets that Charlene could hardly imagine having happened in the short time between last evening when she had gone out and the very next day. It looked like an unraveled rope.

  Her mother’s pretty, childlike face would be warm and pink from being pressed against her pillow, and it would carry impressions from the folds in the pillowcase. She would get up and stand beside the percolator and scowl at the sight of the coffee gurgling up into the little glass cap on top. She would find the green-and-white pack of menthol cigarettes on the counter, light one on the stove burner, and leave it in the corner of her mouth while she poured her coffee and went to the front window to stare out.

  Years later, Charlene had realized that her mother behaved exa
ctly like a cat. Even though she knew it was raining—had seen the water streaming down the outside of the bathroom window, had maybe even been awakened by it as it poured from the gutters out the downspout near her corner of the house, she still had to go to the front window to see if it was raining out there too.

  After a few minutes of silence while she glowered at the rain and built her mood, Charlene’s mother would begin. She would look at Charlene with frank curiosity. “Have you rehearsed for the pageant next week?” Charlene would say she had spent most of the time doing homework, but she had rehearsed. Her mother would say, “Let’s hear the seashore song.”

  Charlene would sing it, maybe not as well as she could, because she could see from the first seconds that her mother’s expression was not admiring or pleasant. Singing for her was like pleading a case while walking up the steps of the gallows.

  Her mother would hear the end of the song as a signal to respond. “How could I have spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of my time on you? You sound like a trained parrot. You dance like a cow. How can you possibly be anything but embarrassing by next week? God, I should see if I can get my entry fee back. And look at your skin. Have you ever thought of eating a vegetable instead of a candy bar? You look like the ghost of a ghost.”

  When she had talked enough about the next pageant, which she had trained Charlene to believe was the last boat out of poverty, she would move on to a variety of new topics. “Your room . . .” “Your clothes . . .” “Your . . .” As the morning got started, her voice would rise in pitch and volume until, during a pause for breath, Charlene would hear the current boyfriend creaking the springs in the bedroom, jingling his belt as he put on his pants. There would be a heavy thump as he put a toe in his shoe and stamped it to get his foot in.

  A short time later he would appear, walking through on his way out, sometimes pausing to make some excuse, and sometimes just preferring the rain to the noise. Then her mother would blame her. “You always make me look like I’m the big bitch. I wouldn’t have to raise my voice if you’d just listen and do what you’re supposed to. My God, look at that hair. I spend hundreds of dollars on cut-and-colors, shampoos and conditioners, and you have to look like the bride of Frankenstein. I’ll tell you, if you don’t do well on this pageant—either Miss Hennepin County or at least first runner-up—I’m through with you. You can be your own coach and manager and teacher and maid and chauffeur. Then where will you be? Miss Nothing. Miss Ugly Little Zero.” She would sit on the couch with her arms folded and put Charlene through a series of chores or a series of rehearsals, depending on her mood and the state of the little house.

  Her mother would be distracted from her when the boyfriend returned, and there would be a fight. Usually the fight made it better for Charlene, but not always. She remembered one boyfriend named Donny, who was tall and thin and quiet, with long arms and legs. He was from somewhere in the South—was Tennessee right?—and he had an accent. He came in during one of her mother’s tantrums on a Sunday, around one in the afternoon.

  Her mother had heard the door and spun her head around to face Donny. She shrieked, “And you too. You worthless—”

  Donny’s arm moved so fast that Charlene wasn’t sure whether she saw it or only heard the slap and her imagination supplied the abrupt motion, the forearm bringing the backhand across her mother’s mouth. Her mother went backward onto the kitchen floor, either because she had seen the movement at its start and tried to save herself, or was actually propelled by the force of the blow.

  She could remember Donny’s face while it was happening. When he heard what Charlene’s mother was saying he might have narrowed his eyes slightly, but otherwise his face remained impassive. The long arm just swung, and there was something in it of the routine. It was like a horse twitching its tail to brush a fly away.

  Charlene watched her mother. After a second or two, she raised herself on one elbow, staring, her nose and mouth bleeding. Her expression of anger and contempt was gone. She just lay there blinking, her mouth open, eyes empty and surprised, no more ready for thought than a person who had been hit by a truck.

  Donny kept going toward the bedroom, and Charlene realized that the whole episode had not interrupted his progress for more than two seconds. He went in and closed the door. After a minute, her mother managed to sit up. Ten minutes later Charlene could hear Donny snoring.

  Her mother had withdrawn to the couch, lying there and crying for an hour or so, feeling sorry for herself. Charlene wanted to stand over her and ask, “What did you expect? Are you blind and deaf? Did you live with him, sleep with him, drink yourself sick with him, and imagine that anything but this could possibly happen?” But she did not.

  Charlene had liked Donny better than most of the others, because he had a kind of forthright simplicity. He had none of the willingness to struggle for advantage that made the others pathetic victims of her mother’s manipulation. For most of her childhood, her mother’s rainy-day scenes were acted out with a boyfriend of the other sort: Paul, or Mike. She would turn on the boyfriend, practically spitting venom, and he would respond. He would act exactly the way she did, as though he were not another person, really, but just her mirror and echo. Within a few minutes they would be simultaneously shouting different versions of what had caused the argument, then a list of bad things that each of them had done on other occasions, then bad qualities and habits, and, finally, there would just be an apportioning of ugly names.

  It would go on all through the long, rainy day and into the evening, because her mother would not go out on a rainy night. If the weather didn’t clear, Charlene would get two days of it. Between attacks on the boyfriend, Charlene’s mother would deliver harangues against her for everything she was and everything she should be but wasn’t.

  It had taken changing herself into Tanya Starling and moving into the high-rise apartment in Chicago with Carl to teach her that there were pleasures to a rainy day. Carl had been an expert at enjoying himself. On a rainy day, if he wasn’t involved in a legal case that had something urgent about it, he would sometimes stay home. They would lie around in bed and make love.

  It was only when they were really hungry that Carl would jump out of bed, throw on some pants, shoes, and a rain jacket, and head for the elevator. He would be back in twenty minutes with croissants, Danish pastries, doughnuts filled with cream and jelly, and special coffee from the bakery around the corner.

  She remembered how, as soon as she heard the apartment door close, she would be up, trying to use the twenty minutes as efficiently as she could. She would quickly bathe, running the water while she brushed her teeth. She would do her makeup, brush her hair, put on something that looked good on her but maintained the pretense that she wasn’t bothering today. As she remembered, she felt a sharp sense of loss, not for Carl but for the days with Carl. What was lost was the way she had felt and been.

  She picked up the telephone and called Greg’s house. She heard his voice answer, “Hello?”

  “Hi,” she said. “Are you planning to do anything important at work this morning?”

  “Important, but not life-and-death important. Anything I can do for you on the way?”

  “Yes. Come here instead of there, and spend a rainy morning with me. I’ll make your dreams come true. One of them, anyway.” She hung up. Then she went into the bathroom and threw off her pajamas. She got ready with the same efficiency that she had used in the old days when Carl had gone out for pastries. She knew it would take Greg about twenty-five minutes to drive here at this time of the morning in the rain.

  Today Judith was determined to live the life she had willed for herself. It was precarious, because some stupid piece of bad luck could throw her into the hands of her enemies at any second, but that didn’t matter right now. Maybe perfection was always supposed to be brief, just a limited period when everything was in its prime. The life she had imagined existed only if she was at her most beautiful and energetic, not a girl any l
onger but a grown woman, someone who had been loved enough to take all of the man-woman maneuvering lightly, like a dance, and not be overwhelmed by it or scared. The rest was eternal: the nights of drinking martinis with their icy, oily shimmer, even the shape of the glasses unchanging; the man, purely appealing because he was the man of the moment only; the dim, romantic lighting and the music; a day of soft sun filtered through rain.

  There had never been anything in the fantasy about having the perfect moment go on into some decrepit old age, and it couldn’t. For now, for this series of heartbeats—whether now lasted for a couple of years or now was already ending—things had reached a perfect pitch.

  Judith savored her rainy morning, and in the afternoon she and Greg dozed peacefully on her bed, listening half-consciously to the steady rain. She roused herself twice, once to lift Greg’s sleep-heavy arm and drape it across herself so she could press her back against his chest and feel the skin warming her. The other time it was to crawl off the bed and pick up the newspaper she had never gotten around to reading.

  She took a pen to the ads for the nightspots, then looked at the ones she had circled and made a plan for the evening. They would start at the Ringside for dinner, because on a rainy night she didn’t feel in the mood to ruin a pair of heels and get a good dress splashed. A leather booth in a steak house with big, warm dinner plates and a coat rack behind her felt right. Then she picked out a cluster of four clubs within a couple of blocks of one another, so she and Greg could move easily from one to another.