On the train Sam watched the streetlights and headlights slip by, cold and quick. He was surprised to realize how much he had come to accept wanting Alice. He closed his eyes and pictured her waiting for him in the parking lot; the thought of hugging her filled him and he smiled. So maybe it was a bad idea. But all love started as a bad idea somehow, and anything that eased loneliness had to be good.
The train slowed and Sam moved into the line of people in the aisle. As he took the last step to the ground he saw Alice across the street, standing next to her minivan, her hands deep in her coat pockets, a scarf wrapped around her neck and chin. She nodded to him.
“Hi,” Sam said. “You look cold.”
“A little cold,” she said.
He smiled and walked around the front of the minivan and got in. “I have a little time,” he said. “I could go for coffee if you want to.”
“It’s nice and warm in here, I left it running,” Alice said. “Do you want a ride? I don’t really have time for coffee. I know you don’t, either. I could just give you a ride.”
“I live just up the block,” Sam said.
“Sam,” Alice said. “I need to talk to you about this. I mean, about us seeing each other and talking.”
“Ok,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say. I just—I have to not do this anymore,” she said.
“What?” he asked, though he knew.
“I can’t—the way we’ve been talking. I’m not saying I think you feel anything more than friends, I don’t assume that. I only—it’s just that I need to put all my energy into my marriage now, does that make sense? Do you understand?”
Sam nodded.
“I hope you’ll stay in the book club,” she said, steady. “I think that’s ok. Just not the extra stuff, you know?”
“I understand,” Sam said. He tapped his briefcase.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“No, nothing,” Sam said. “I understand.”
She smiled at him. If she didn’t ask him now about his feelings she’d never know. And that was as it should be, she should never know.
Warm air, heater noise, the light of the streetlamp melting on the windshield.
Alice studied the hem of her coat. “Ok,” she said.
Sam ran his fingers along the armrest.
“Is Mrs. Atlee—how’s Mrs. Atlee?” Alice asked, biting her thumbnail.
“She’s ok. Not great,” Sam said.
“I’m sorry,” Alice said. He was going to have to go through all this alone now. She hadn’t thought of that. She was horribly selfish for not being his friend now. Even if she felt more, she should be able to be his friend and also focus on her marriage.
“Yeah. She’s having trouble eating again,” Sam said. “It makes me wonder—you know that thing about when you die your life passes before your eyes? Maybe that’s—maybe she’s going through that.”
“That is just so awful. I am so sorry,” Alice said.
Sam nodded. “I should go,” he said.
“Yeah, ok,” Alice said. “Do you want a ride? Oh—no, you said—”
“Yeah, that’s ok. It’s right up the street.” He opened the door and stepped out. “I’ll see you,” he said.
“Ok,” Alice said.
Sam closed the door and stepped back as the minivan pulled away.
A half block away, under the awning of a pizza shop, McParland stroked his moustache. The boy—he needed to follow the boy but he could do that anytime, whereas the woman in the automobile might be more difficult to find again. He pulled his slouch hat low and started at a brisk jog after the minivan.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Beacon Club
Sam walked slowly, fingering his invitation, checking the numbers on the buildings as he made his way along the uneven brick sidewalk. Soft snowdrops fell, covering his hat and shoulders. He came to the Beacon Club, a gray building with a crimson door, and stood for a moment, wondering why he’d let Mrs. Atlee talk him in to going to this dinner.
“You’ve got to go, you can’t pine away over that married woman every night,” she had said, her voice hoarse, her black eyes dull in her pale face.
“I’m not pining,” Sam had told her. “Nothing is going on with me and Alice.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, you’re pining, Sam. I can feel it. Now what on earth are you going to wear? Not one of those awful suits I see you in all the time. You need a decent suit and an overcoat.”
“What’s wrong with my suits?”
“I’ll die soon enough without questions like that,” she had said, smiling weakly.
Sam had bought a three-button black suit and an overcoat the next day, but now he felt that he ought not be here, going to some fancy club for a dinner he didn’t want while Mrs. Atlee lay in bed alone.
At the low rumble of a powerful engine he turned. A long limousine with round headlights and swooping wheel covers pulled to a stop with the squeaking of rubber on wet pavement. It looked like it was from the 1920’s, Sam thought, wiping snow from his face. The driver, in black livery, came around and opened the rear door for a pale woman with red lips set in a half smile and platinum blonde hair tucked under a black, bell-shaped hat and. Her eyes, light green, bright even in the dark, touched on Sam; she tucked her chin and held her overcoat closed at the neck.
Sam looked at the limousine again. He wondered if that woman was going to the dinner party he was going to; he thought of Alice, who didn’t want him, who had asked him to stay away. Maybe it would be fun for an evening—trying to act like he could fit in such a luxurious world. As he approached the door of the club it opened.
“Good evening, Sir,” a heavy butler said, bowing slightly, his bald head like dull brass.
“Hi,” Sam said.
“Your coat and hat, sir.”
Sam stuffed his hat in his pocket and gave his coat to the butler.
“Sir,” the butler said, nodding in the direction of the front desk.
“Thank you,” Sam said.
The front hall had a vaulted ceiling and a marble floor with a strip of navy blue carpet that led up to the front desk. Paintings of sailing ships lined the walls.
“Please sign the guest book,” an eggplant of a woman sitting at the front desk said, indicating a leather volume. A glass case held several boxes of cigars.
Sam wrote his name. “Cigars,” he said. “I haven’t had one of those in a while.”
“South party,” the woman said. “In the South room. Straight through the main parlor, down the hall, second door.”
“Thank you,” Sam said, straightening his jacket. The main parlor was a large room with groupings of chairs and sofas upholstered in canary stripe and a fire burning in a broad fireplace. To his right a wide parquet hallway lined with dark paintings and busts opened into what appeared to be a large dining room or ballroom. He walked through the main parlor into a narrow hallway with an arched ceiling and stopped at the second door. He tried the handle and the door slid open, smooth and heavy.
The room was dimly lit with lamps on several of the tables. A fireplace held a healthy fire; above it, on the mantelpiece, a gold-painted frame held another nautical scene, this one of a vessel under full sail on swelling waves beneath a stormy sky along the horizon of which the faintest orange glow of sun cracked the heavy clouds. The mahogany furniture glowed in the dim light; the oriental rug was burgundy and gold; sofas and chairs, upholstered in cream, were gathered around a low coffee table and arranged along the outer walls of the room. The tall, wide windows with small panes and silk curtains offered a view of the heavy snowflakes, the wet street, the chilled Common.
South was standing with two other men in a half-circle at the fire, greeting the platinum blonde woman who had just arrived. He saw Sam and nodded.
“Well, hello, Mr. Morgan,” he said, approaching, holding a highball glass in one hand. “I am so glad you are able to join us.”
“Thank you,” Sam said.
/> South’s face, infused with alcohol, warmed by the fire, still seemed somehow pasty. His handshake was limp and moist.
“I hope the weather didn’t make getting here too unpleasant,” South said.
“Not at all,” Sam said.
“Fine, very good.” South took Sam by the elbow. “Now come, let me introduce you around.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and added, “A few bores have snuck through somehow, despite my finest effort. But it should prove to be a good group, a good group.”
The blonde woman Sam had seen outside was on the couch next to a middle-aged woman with light brown hair, a sagging face, and dreary eyes.
“Mr. Morgan,” South said. “May I present Mrs. Finley and Miss Thompson.”
“Hello,” Sam said, nodding at each in turn.
“Hello, Mr. Morgan,” Mrs. Finley, the middle-aged woman, said, her voice barely audible. “We have heard so much about you.” She wore a flouncy silk dress of emerald green, in the style of the 1950’s. Her lower eyelids sagged, showing a red, watery strip.
“Indeed,” Miss Thompson said.
“Good things, I hope,” Sam said.
“Of course,” South said. “Though, I can assure you, not a word of hyperbole.”
The women laughed.
“What a charming blush you have, Mr. Morgan,” Miss Thompson said. Her skin reflected the firelight; Sam thought that if he looked directly at her for more than a few seconds she seemed to waver in the dim room.
“Please, ladies, allow me to introduce Mr. Morgan around before you monopolize him,” South said, smiling.
“It was nice to meet you both,” Sam said.
“A pleasure,” Mrs. Finley said.
“Do circle back,” Miss Thompson said.
South led Sam to the fireplace. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I would like to introduce you to one of the finest attorneys of the current era, Mr. Samuel Morgan. Mr. Morgan, may I present Mr. Edward Frye and Mr. James Ladd.”
“Hello,” Sam said, shaking each hand.
Frye was tall, with slick hair and bushy eyebrows that hung at the same 45-degree angle as his bowtie; Ladd was average height, bald, heavy. Both men wore old-fashioned black suits with immaculate white shirts.
“Mr. South has told us so much about you,” Ladd said. “We have been quite impressed with your work.”
“Thank you,” Sam said.
“Here here,” Frye said, raising his highball glass.
A short maid with yellow eyes appeared at South’s elbow.
“Something to drink, Mr. Morgan? Whiskey?” South asked.
“Yes, please,” Sam said.
“Bring him a whiskey, please, like this,” South said. “Just a drop of water and not too much ice.”
The maid curtsied slightly and left them.
“Well, hallo!” a round man with a plum head called, entering the room.
“Ahh, yes,” South said quietly to Sam. “Roberts and his delightful wife. He bellows like a walrus and she cannot speak.”
“Hello Roberts!” Frye and Ladd cried in unison.
“My God, how long has it been?” Roberts asked the ceiling loudly. “A dog’s age!”
Everyone in the room laughed, looking at each other.
“Hello, Roberts,” South said. “Very good, very good indeed. Allow me to introduce Mr. Morgan. Mr. Morgan, I present Mr. and Mrs. Roberts.”
“Of course—young Morgan, esquire, joining us for supper. Fine, fine,” Roberts said, shaking Sam’s hand. “Now come along, dear,” he said loudly, taking his wife’s arm and leading her to the fireplace. “And do try to be polite to these scoundrels!”
The maid was at Sam’s elbow, holding a small silver tray; he took his drink from her and had a long sip, the glass cold in his hand. The door was opening, more people were entering the room: a tiny elderly man with tufts of gray hair about his head, ears, and nose, whose suit, black like everyone else’s, looked like it might actually be a hundred years old; a middle-aged man with dried skin and sad eyes; a heavy, giggling blonde woman who was so breathy and fluttering that Sam couldn’t understand a word she said when he was introduced to her; and, last to arrive, her late entrance only adding to the drama of her stiff back and perfectly still head, a black-haired woman of perhaps fifty years, whose black dress appeared to push waist, chest, and neck into a tight, straight line.
“Morgan, Morgan,” the tiny elderly man said, shaking Sam’s hand. “Dr. Horace French. Top rate, top rate. So good of you to come. Now, I wonder if you might help me as you have helped my, I daresay, good friend, Mr. South.”
“I didn’t do much,” Sam said.
French’s wrinkled bald head with its tufts of hair came to Sam’s shoulder; his eyes, half-closed, hovered and watered; his mouth opened to speak but a long pause ensued.
“What is it you need help with, Dr. French?”
French’s eyes remained level with his shoulder. “My great-grandson—now that may seem distant to you, Mr. Morgan, but I can assure you, he was already—”
“Now, French,” South said, arriving at Sam’s side. “How rude of you to bother our young friend with business, when he hasn’t even had a drink yet.”
“It’s okay,” Sam said.
“Really,” South admonished French.
The breathy woman stood just next to Sam. “I’m just so thrilled to make your acquaintance,” she said, as if with great effort through a jaw that would not move.
Sam nodded.
“Are you enjoying yourself, young man?” the man with the dried cornhusk face asked, irrigating the fold of his mouth with a martini.
“Very much,” Sam said.
“That is as it should be,” the man said. “My name is Archibald James. It is a pleasure to meet you.” His eyelids fluttered as if suddenly hurrying to moisten the plump turnips within. “Perhaps I could impose upon you for a bit of advice,” he said, stirring his martini with an olive on a toothpick.
“I’m sure everyone would like to impose on Mr. Morgan for some advice,” the woman in black said.
James’ eyes bulged even further as if each would fly from his head and assault her. The breathy woman giggled and said something.
“I am Louisa Stephens,” the black-haired woman said. “Never mind those fools.” Her face was narrow, her nose and mouth small, her eyes red.
Sam coughed. What could he say to any of them? They all seemed to be trying so hard to be jolly. Except the black-haired woman; she wasn’t trying. An extraordinary tension came off of her. Sam smiled and looked around.
“Hallo, Morgan!” Roberts called from a group near the fire, the rest of whom turned to smile at Sam as well.
Sam nodded and raised his glass to them. Every group of chatting people looked at him as soon as he looked at them; every eye was in constant motion. The tension that seemed to hold the black-haired woman in a straight line from head to toe seemed, too, to hold the room in place somehow and it now seemed to Sam as if everyone in the room was on the verge of screaming.
Sam sat in an armchair by a window and looked out at the fence and the street.
The breathy woman said something; the black-haired woman stared. Sam nodded to her. She didn’t look away.
The outlines of the people in the room, blurry, more patches of color than human forms, were reflected in the window. Someone laughed too loudly. Sam turned to the party again. French and Ladd smiled at him and held up their glasses. He thought how much he’d rather be having dinner with Alice in his apartment, maybe takeout on the couch, they could sit and talk and watch a movie and when it was over he’d hug her. And then she’d leave to go back to her husband—even his daydream about her needed to be realistic but it seemed vital, as if it were reflected in the window as real as the people in the room so how could he not touch it; as if he had to be able to live it because it would be too sad not to. But he wouldn’t see her again, so he had to stop thinking of her. Ok, he was pining now. Just a little. He thought of Mrs. Atlee and smiled.
He finished his drink. It was time to mingle. He noticed that Miss Thompson had been left alone on the sofa and sat next to her.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” she said. Her bleached-lime eyes, sad in the first instant she saw him, grew playful. Her voice hovered in a middle register, her red mouth formed a smile. Her skin was pearl, as if refusing all outward light in favor of a deeper, inner source.
“So, you are—are you a friend of Mr. South’s?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” she said, leaning back. “And you are his lawyer.”
“Well, I don’t—I did do some work for him, yes.”
“We have all heard of your work,” she said.
“How do you know him?” he asked, swirling the ice in his glass.
“Oh, I’ve known Mr. South for many years,” Miss Thompson said.
“Really,” Sam said. She was young, he thought; not more than twenty-five, perhaps twenty-eight. And so small. Her dress lay against her body, accentuating without pressing. That was the problem with so much trendy clothing, Sam thought—all the skin-tight, pressing, pushing fabric.
THE GHOST DETECTIVE: Boston Page 22