Sliver

by Ira Levin

  They kissed through the end of “Hey Jude,” a deejay talking, and part of “Eleanor Rigby.”

  She went into the living room, combing her hair with her fingers. The blind was down, cups of light on chrome rods glowed at the ceiling; the ceiling light glowed back. The tan-carpeted room looked sterile—a bit—minus its overlay of clothes and what-all. But nice, the tan leather couch almost at the center, facing the TV and stereo at the left; the desk and computer against the right-hand wall, table and chairs by the pass-through—everything tan and white and chrome except some yellow and orange cushions, the twinkling red stereo lights, the black TV.

  “It looks great,” she said. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have recognized it.”

  “I took out a ton of stuff,” he said, going to the couch with two glasses, ice tinkling. “Suddenly I have glasses again.”

  She checked the low bookcase by the desk—technical books and texts, some in Carnegie-Mellon jackets. The Worm in the Apple stood among them.

  The Beatles stopped as he switched the stereo off.

  She smiled, went to him.

  They sat on the soft leather couch knee to knee, hand in hand. Touched glasses.

  Sipped, eye-smiling at each other. Put the glasses down on lucite blocks.

  He took both her hands, looked into her eyes. “The first thing,” he said, “is I love you.” He leaned, kissed her lips meeting his. “That’s why I’m telling you this. Remember that, please. You’re going to get angry, very. I promise. So remember, I’m telling you because I love you. You once said I could tell you anything; I’m taking you at your word.”

  “If you have a wife and children,” she said, “I’m going to cream you. I mean it.”

  “No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “No . . .” He drew a breath, looked down.

  She watched him.

  “The second thing,” he said, “is I’ve told you a lot of lies.” He raised his head, looked at her. “Nothing but lies, practically.”

  She said, “Such as . . .”

  He drew breath. “I’m not a computer programmer,” he said. “Professionally I mean. I can write programs—I wrote the games, back when I was in high school—but those were lies about free-lancing, and Price Waterhouse and ABC.”

  “You don’t own the building,” she said.

  “No I do,” he said. “That was one of the true things, everything about my family, and the money . . . Kay, listen—” His blue eyes sparked, his hands gripped hers. “Suppose I told you I was dealing drugs—I’m not, but suppose that’s what I told you. What would you say? Really. If I told you that.”

  She looked at him.

  “What would you say?” he asked. “This is just what-if. Honestly.”

  She said, “I’d say ‘Quit this minute. It’s wrong, it’s criminal, it’s crazy. Thank your lucky stars you haven’t been caught.’ ”

  “And suppose I did. Quit. What then?”

  “What do you mean, what then?”

  He said, “What would you do if I quit?”

  She drew breath. “I would try to help you find a legal occupation,” she said. “I would try to understand, and help you understand, why you had done such a stupid, risky thing. And help you—not get into it again.”

  “Would you blow the whistle on me?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Don’t be silly. I love you too, remember?”

  He nodded. Leaned, kissed her lips.

  She drew back, freed her hands. “Pete, darling, please,” she said, “get to the point; I don’t know what the hell to expect.”

  “We’re at it,” he said.

  He picked up a remote controller, thumbed red lights onto the TV and the VCR beside it.

  “Show and tell?” she said.

  “You got it,” he said.

  The TV screen came alight—a golf ball rolling across green turf. It plunked in the cup, applause rippled. The screen went dark, another red gleam on the VCR.

  She picked up her glass. Said, “I wish you would—” A living room appeared in black and white, viewed from above, a man walking around gathering papers that rustled, plates that clinked.

  She put the glass down. Watched.

  Him.

  In that room. Taking empty glasses off the lucite blocks. He raised his face, smiled at her. “Hi, Kay,” he said. Kissed at her.

  She turned to him beside her, blue eyes watching her. “Hi, Kay,” he said. Kissed at her.

  She turned, looked up at the chrome-centered Art Deco light.

  At him. “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “There’s a camera up between the floors,” he said, pointing the controller aside; the TV clicked off. “And a glass thread coming down through the stem of the light.”

  She squinted at him. “Why?” she asked. “Are you with the CIA? Or the FBI?”

  “No,” he said, “but it’s stuff they use. Takai, Japanese, the best in the world. A former colonel in the CIA helped me set up the system, procured everything. . . .”

  She looked at him. Said, “The ‘system’?”

  He nodded. “That’s what it is, Kay,” he said. “A whole system. All the lights feed into cameras. Yours included.”

  She looked at him.

  “I’ve been watching you since the day you moved in,” he said. “And listening. To your phone conversations too. Both ends. That’s how I was so intuitive and perceptive.”

  She stared at him.

  “I told you you would get angry,” he said. “I violated your privacy and in a sense it’s almost as if I raped you. But if I hadn’t, would we be here now? Would we have had the wonderful times we’ve had? And don’t I really know you anyway, more sides of you than anyone else does? Even if I pirated some of the data?”

  She stared at him.

  “I was going to let the relationship just tail off,” he said, “but I can’t. It’s too important to me, I love you too much. And having to lie all the time spoils it, not being able to share things . . .” He shrugged, smiled. “So . . . I’m in your hands now, because you could blow the whistle and get me into a lot of very hot water.”

  She stared at him.

  Looked away. At her glass. Picked it up, her hand quivering.

  Sipped, ice in the glass tinkling.

  He watched her, reaching aside, putting the remote controller down.

  She swallowed. Put the glass down. Looked at him. Said, “You watch everybody?”

  He nodded.

  “Guided by the light?” she said. “Searching for tomorrow?”

  Pink-cheeked, he nodded. Smiled. “God, you’re quick,” he said. “It took me years to see that. Sure, that’s how it started, but it’s a whole other thing now, far beyond that.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand—” She looked at the blank TV. “How? How do you—” She turned her hands out.

  He stood up. “Come on, I’ll show you,” he said. “It’s next door.” He bent and picked his glass up, drank.

  “Next door?” she said.

  He put the glass down, backhanded his mouth. “I have thirteen B too,” he said. “The Johnsons are another lie.” He moved away, waited.

  She looked at him.

  Got up, putting a hand to the back of the couch.

  Followed him out of the apartment.

  Across the hallway.

  He unlocked 13B’s door, braced it open for her. “If you think it was messy in there,” he said, “you ought to see what it looked like in here.”

  The kitchen was the kitchen, half-lit in the hallway’s light and a green glow from the pass-through.

  The foyer was pallid green. A green-shaded lamp in the living room hung before a colossal wall-to-wall sea monster, all gray-green scales, lying on a curved sweep of tan.

  Television screens, a curving multitiered wall of them, two mammoth ones in the center. A hundred or more dark screens, each with a green glint moving sideways as she moved nearer, the light growing brighter.

&nbs
p; He was playing the dimmer behind her.

  Ranks of buttons and switches on the curved tan console.

  A black posture-back armchair before it.

  She stopped a few feet back. Stood scanning the half-dozen rows of screens, the pale digits above—4A, 5A, 6A—and across the middle—6B, 7B, 8B . . .

  He went to the console’s left end, turning; stood with a hand on its rounded rim, watching her. “Three for each apartment,” he said, “except this one. The security cameras too—the lobby, the elevators, et cetera. A hundred and thirty altogether. I can feed them onto either of the masters. The distortion is electronically corrected; what’s left I don’t even notice. The eye adjusts pretty quickly.”

  She turned her head, looked at him. “Three?” she said.

  He nodded. “I said, all the lights.”

  She stared at him.

  “I know, it’s a little gross,” he said. “I was ten or eleven when I first got the idea, just a thing I used to fantasize about. Then, watching them start this building, when I saw I could actually do it, I never thought of not including the bathrooms.” He smiled. “They were crucial originally. And a lot of good conversations take place there.”

  She looked at him, drew a breath. “You have got to realize,” she said, “that this is the most—the most monstrous, horrendous invasion of privacy that could possibly be perpetrated! Not just against me”—she clasped herself with both hands, leaning toward him—“although Jesus God, to say you love someone and all the time be—my God, I can’t even—”

  “I do love you,” he said, moving toward her.

  “Against everybody!” she said. “How can you do this to people? It’s appalling!” She looked at the screens. “My God . . .”

  “They don’t know,” he said.

  “That doesn’t matter!” she cried.

  “It does,” he said, close to her. “Did it hurt you that I was watching?”

  “It hurts me now!”

  “Because now you know! Look”—he took her by the shoulders—”let’s not argue about it, I expected you to feel this way. I’m closing it down.” He held her, looking at her. “If I have to choose between it and you,” he said, “I choose you. I’m quitting. It’s finished. No more.”

  They looked at each other.

  “You’d better,” she said. “This must be against a dozen laws. And you’ll be sued penniless if the other tenants find out, no matter how much money you have.”

  “That’s what I meant about hot water,” he said. Breathed a sigh, looking at her. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said. “I never saw you do anything that wasn’t beautiful, or heard you say anything dumb.”

  “Did you see Hubert Sheer fall?” she asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” he said. “And I didn’t see him afterwards. You can’t see into the showers, the angle is wrong. There’s glare on the door and all the black makes it worse. Look.” He let go of her, turned, leaned over the chairback. “No,” she said.

  Reaching to the console, he looked back at her, his head brushing the green shade. “My bathroom,” he said, “not that one.”

  She said, “I’ll take your word.”

  He stood and turned, faced her. “I hardly watched him at all,” he said, the green glints stirring on the screens. “He was usually reading. I thought he’d gone on the trip he was talking about and left the lights on by mistake. That happens.” He drew a breath. “The only death I saw,” he said, “was Billy Webber when he OD’d. There were two girls with him, which was why I was watching, and they called an ambulance the minute he started convulsing. I wasn’t home when Brendan Connahay and Naomi Singer died, and there’s no camera where Rafael, the super before Dmitri, had the accident.”

  She said, “Do you watch Sam too?”

  “Yes,” he said. “He doesn’t know. Look, I happen to have done a lot of good here, and not just for him. I help people out, financially and in other ways too, sometimes through the foundation, sometimes just cash in the mail. Families of people. Maggie Hoffman’s niece needed a liver transplant, in Shreveport. The mother’s a wonderful woman, gutsy, single, broke; I sent the money. The week before last. The Kestenbaums, who were in your apartment; I helped them too.”

  She shook her head. “It’s wrong,” she said. Looked at him. “It’s wrong.”

  “So I’m closing it down,” he said. He took her at the waist with both hands, smiled at her. “Mommy says no and I’m a good boy, right?” He kissed her cheek. “I can’t junk it,” he said, “because it would be a little hard explaining where everything’s coming from, but what we’ll do is get a locksmith up here and change the lock, and you’ll keep the keys. There’s a door in back too, through the closets; I mention it as a sign of good faith; you never would have noticed it. You can put a combination lock on that. And that’s it. I’ll do some programming, or maybe finish my degree.”

  She looked at him.

  “Is it worse than dealing drugs?” he asked.

  “Do you really mean that?” she asked.

  “About the locks? Yes,” he said. “I told you, I choose you.”

  They looked at each other. Hugged each other, kissed.

  She hugged him tight; sighed and shook her head, looking over his shoulder at the screens. “Dr. Palme too?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “See what I meant about having to lie all the time?”

  “Jesus . . .” She looked at the green-glinting screens. “That’s the pits,” she said, “watching people in therapy . . .”

  “They don’t know,” he said.

  She looked at the screens. Drew back, peered at him. Said, “And this is what you’ve been doing for three years?”

  “It’s the most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen, Kay,” he said. “Dramatic, funny, heart-breaking, sexy, suspenseful, educational . . .”

  She touched his cheek, shaking her head. “Living soaps,” she said.

  “No, life,” he said. “The real thing, the soap that God watches. A sliver of it anyway. No actresses, no actors, no directors. No writers or editors. No commercials. And every bit of it true, not somebody’s version of the truth—like all the books you’ve read.”

  She drew from his arms. “You son of a bitch,” she said, “you’re trying to sell me on it. . . .”

  “Just watch for an hour,” he said, reaching to her. She pushed his hand away, heading for the foyer. “Tomorrow the locksmith,” she said.

  “Tomorrow?” he said, going after her.

  “Tomorrow,” she said, opening the door. “They work Sundays.” She went out into the hallway. “Jesus,” she said.

  Leaned to the mirror, poked her hair.

  He came out, closed the door, tried it.

  “You’re too much,” she said. “Mr. Open, Mr. I’m-In-Your-Hands-Now—pushing his peeping machine. When I think of the conversations you listened to, never mind the goddamn bathroom . . .”

  “I apologized,” he said. “What do you want me to do, grovel? I have something terrific I want to show you.”

  “You’ve shown it,” she said, plucking at the pullover’s collar. “God almighty, what did you spend on that?”

  “Counting the bribes,” he said, “not counting the building, a little over six million.”

  She looked at him in the mirror. “That’s a genuine sin,” she said.

  “The building’s gone up ten mill,” he said. “I’m ahead on the deal.”

  “That’s worse,” she said. “But it makes me feel fine about locking it up.” She turned, stepped to the elevators, touched between them, looked at him. “I don’t want you watching me tonight,” she said.

  “I won’t,” he said. Raised his hand.

  “Or anyone else,” she said.

  “Oh come on,” he said. “The last night? And a Saturday night?”

  They looked at each other.

  “On second thought,” she said, “maybe I’d better watch you. Go turn off the lights. You’re staying at my place.”

&n
bsp; He went to 13A, smiling.

  “Don’t look so smug,” she said. “I’m really pissed off at you.”

  “Legally it’s still a gray area,” he said, lying spooned behind her, clasping her breasts, his cheek in her hair. “Especially when the camera is outside the rented premises, which it is in this case. I’m very well informed on privacy issues; the couple in ten B are with the ACLU.”

  “Jesus Christmas,” she said, “you spy on the ACLU?”

  “That’s why I approved them,” he said. “I figured they’d keep me up to date. Actually they turned out to be kind of astounding for lawyers.”

  “Good night, Pete,” she said.

  “Good night, Kay.” He kissed her neck, squeezed her breasts.

  They snuggled closer, lay silent.

  Felice turned around against their blanketed feet.

  “Incidentally,” he said, “this was the third apartment house the Colonel worked on. And he did a hotel too.”

  They lay silent.

  “Here in New York?” she asked.

  “He wouldn’t talk about them.”

  “Gee, I’m glad he’s so ethical.”

  “Except he said the hotel’s system is computerized; it only shows the rooms where there’s movement. It can even discriminate between one person and two. This is small potatoes here.”

  “Small immoral ones.”

  They lay silent.

  “Come on . . .” he said. “Half an hour and then we’ll call the locksmith. No bathrooms. No Sam if that’s a problem.”

  “Good night, Peter,” she said.

  They lay silent.

  “It’s not just watching,” he said. “It’s putting different things alongside each other, or the audio from one apartment over the video from another. You get all kinds of—contrasts and harmonies. Sometimes it’s like playing an organ. A people organ.”

  “Will you shut up and go to sleep?”

  “Good night,” he said. Kissed her neck.

  They lay silent.

  A blow shook the ceiling.

  “Jesus,” she said, “what do they do up there?”