“That’s Alice! That’s my cat!” I can’t remember being so happy to see her.
“Cute,” Marv says, without enthusiasm. He frowns at the window. “You know, a girl like you, you don’t need a cat. You need a dog, for protection. Cats are good for nothing.”
Officer Lewis appears in the window behind Alice and picks her up. He makes her do a little wave at me in the window, until she leaps out of his arms.
“Look at that, Marv!”
“Very cute.”
A couple of minutes later the cops come out the front door. Lewis is sneezing almost uncontrollably. He runs by, coughing and sneezing, and leaps into the squad car. Officer Tarrant walks over to us, grinning broadly. I can’t figure out what’s going on.
“Nice cat,” he says to me.
“What happened?”
“My partner found out he’s allergic.”
I look over. The white cop is in the throes of a sneezing fit. “Is he okay?”
“Might have to shoot him.” Tarrant laughs, and so does Marv.
“What did you find upstairs?”
“It’s fine, ma’am. Everything is absolutely fine. It looks untouched.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“No one’s there or anything?”
“No.”
“It’s totally safe?”
“Unless you’re allergic to cats.” He bends down to peer into the squad car at Lewis, still hacking away.
I can’t make sense of this. “But the door was open.”
“Come on in with me. We’ll take a quick walk through and you tell me if anything is missing.” Tarrant opens the front door for me.
“Would you mind going first?”
“Age before beauty, huh?” he says, and walks ahead of me. It all seems so strange; I’ve never left the door unlocked before. When we reach the door to the apartment, he swings it open wide and we go in.
Everything looks normal. A small living room, with a paisley sofa and a scrubbed-pine coffee table. The TV is in place and the VCR under it. The stereo sits on the shelf. As usual, Alice doesn’t even look at me. I reach for her, but she jumps from my arms with a soft thud.
“This how you left it?” Tarrant asks.
“It looks the same.”
“Let’s check the bedroom.” He walks in front of me and flicks on the bedroom light. The bed’s unmade, my clothes are piled on top of the computer, and there’s a stack of paperbacks beside the bed on the floor. Neat, it’s not. But it looks like it always does.
“Take a look at your jewelry box,” he says.
I walk to my bureau obediently and look into the open jewelry box. I don’t have a lot of jewelry, but there are a few gold chains, a set of pearls, and my gold power earrings for client meetings. “Everything’s here.”
“You’re lucky. You have a lot of expensive things lying around. The TV, the VCR, the computer. You ought to think about a safety deposit box for the jewelry.”
“Did you search the whole apartment? I mean, am I alone?”
Tarrant nods. “We even checked under the bed.”
I think he intends this as a joke, but it sends a shudder up my spine.
“Like I said, you’re lucky, ma’am. I’ve seen places turned over, cleaned out. Next time make sure you lock your door.”
“You sure you looked everywhere? I mean, I’m not doubting you, it’s just that lately some weird things have been happening to me.”
“Like what?”
His eyes are a deep, friendly brown, and his manner is professional. I feel like I can trust him. I take a deep breath and let it rip.
12
“Wait a minute,” Tarrant says. “Did you report any of this?”
“No. If I did, you’d investigate.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“Well, what would an investigation involve?”
“We’d start with your statement. Then we’d interview anyone you suspect, any witnesses to the incidents with the car.”
“There aren’t any witnesses.”
He purses his lips. “Do you suspect anyone?”
“I think it’s someone at my firm.”
“I see. What did the note say exactly?”
“It said, Congratulations on your partnership.”
He laughs. I see my credibility fall off the table. “That’s all it said? Why do you call it a hate note?”
“It was sarcastic, because I—”
“No threats of bodily harm?”
“No.”
“A note like that, it could be from a friend of yours, a practical joke.”
“But the car doesn’t fit, does it?”
Tarrant shakes his head. “No. So come down and file a report. Bring the note. We’ll send it down to the Document Unit. They’ll test the paper, analyze the handwriting.”
“But I can’t file a report.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t have an investigation of the people at work right now. It’d look terrible. I’d lose my job.”
“Our hands are tied unless you do.”
“It’s out of the question.”
He shrugs. “Then my advice is to be cautious. Don’t go places alone. If you see the car again, call 911.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t be suspecting every little thing that happens to you, like today. I think you slipped up and forgot to lock the door.”
“I don’t know. It’s not like me.”
He nods, a final nod that tells me our conversation is over. “Listen to Uncle Dave. Nine times out of ten, it’s a gag. Or an old boyfriend. Some guy you jilted or didn’t have time for. They get over it.” He claps his hands together. “Now I got to see if my partner is still alive.”
“Maybe if I took him something to drink. Water, or a soda.”
“I don’t usually treat him that nice, but if you want to, it’s not a bad idea.”
“Good.” I head into the kitchen, where the light is already on, and look around briefly before getting a Coke. Nothing has been disturbed. My eyes flit automatically over to the magnetic knife rack. Four steak knives, all accounted for. Plus one lethal-looking chopping knife, Mike’s favorite when he played samurai chef. It all looks fine. Maybe I did leave the door open. Maybe I wasn’t thinking. I get the Coke and walk downstairs with Tarrant.
Outside, I’m surprised to see Marv still around, leaning on the squad car and talking to Officer Lewis. Lewis’s face is covered with hives and his eyes are swollen almost shut.
Tarrant breaks into laughter, staggering backward comically when he sees his partner. “Oh, man. You look good, Jimmy. What are you doin’ Friday night?”
“Come on, Dave. I gotta get to a drugstore before I croak.”
Tarrant is laughing too hard even to respond. I hand the Coke to Lewis. “I’m really sorry. Maybe this will help.”
He accepts the can miserably. “I can’t see it but I can tell it’s good.”
“Stay cool, Jim. It’s not a brew. It’s a diet Coke.”
“I know that,” he scoffs. “Thanks, ma’am.”
“Thank you for your help.”
They get into the car, with Tarrant driving, and pull away. I’m left standing there with Marv. Even though I’m tired, I’m in no hurry to go back upstairs.
“You musta left the door open,” Marv says. He’s taken off his pith helmet, and his hair is plastered against his head in a ring.
“I guess. Thanks for the use of the chair.”
“Listen, I stuck around ’cause I want to tell you something.” He leans over. “You gotta think about protectin’ yourself.”
“I can’t get a dog, Marv. I’m never home.”
He looks furtively around. “I’m not talking about a dog. I’m talking about this.” He looks down and so do I. In the middle of his calloused palm is a small black gun. It has an embossed black trident on its handle. It looks like a shiny new toy.
“Is that real?”
“Marv, what are you doing with that? Are you nuts?” I look around wildly. The guy with the Bianchi is gone from the window. So is the Bianchi.
“Shh. Shh. I’m tryin’ to tell you somethin’.”
“You can’t just carry that around in your pocket, for Christ’s sake. Is it loaded?”
“Can’t drill no holes if it ain’t.”
I step back. “Jesus, Marv, are you crazy? That’s a concealed weapon!”
“It’s legal. I got a permit.”
“That doesn’t mean you can carry it around! Did you have that when you were talking to the cop?”
He smiles slyly. “Right under his nose and he didn’t even know it. I’m telling you, Mary, you need one of these. You live by yourself. All you got for protection is that scrawny cat. Wise up.” He shoves the gun into my hand.
It terrifies me, just the feel of it. Light and deadly. “Take it back. Get it away from me.” I hand it to him, but he pushes it back at me. I feel panicky. “Marv, take it back! It’s gonna go off!”
He takes it back, with a chuckle. “Can’t go off. It’s got a safety.” He slips it into his pocket as if it were loose change.
“Marv, why do you have that thing?”
“You think you can run a cash business in this city without a gun? Besides, it’s my right. It says it in the United States Constitution. I have the right to bear arms.”
“Don’t tell me what the Constitution says. The Constitution is talking about the need for an army. It’s so the army can have the guns, Marv, not guys who sell plants. You’ll get yourself hurt with that thing.”
“Oh please.”
“You will. I read that. They’ll take it from you and use it against you.”
“You sure you don’t want to borrow it for just one night? If you need to shoot it, you just take the safety off and hold it with two hands, like on Charlie’s Angels. Like this.” He makes a Luger with his fingers.
“No, thanks.”
“Sure?”
“I couldn’t use it anyway. I couldn’t shoot anybody. Now I’m going to bed.”
“Yes, you could. If you had to. If somebody was trying to kill you, you sure as hell could.”
“See you, Marv.”
His thin voice calls after me. “Don’t kid yourself, Mary. You’d use it. Every one of us would. Don’t kid yourself.”
I leave him standing there in the yellow square of light spilling out from my window. A hustler with a toy-sized gun in the pocket of his chinos.
13
I get inside my apartment and check everywhere for notes, for damage, for something missing. For any kind of sign that someone has been here. I find nothing.
I try my best to feel at home. I go around and touch all of my things, rechristening them. I clean up the bedroom. I open a can of Progresso soup. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that something is different about the place. I settle down on the living room floor to figure out the directions for the answering machine, but I can’t concentrate.
Alice comes over and sniffs the open box. She saw the whole thing. “Did I leave the door open, Alice?”
She ignores me and walks away.
“You can be replaced!” I shout after her.
I sit in the middle of my floor with a mug of lentil soup and look around my empty apartment. I feel edgy and decide to call Judy. She thinks the whole thing is as creepy as I do but convinces me that I left the door unlocked. Everybody makes mistakes, she says, even you. Then she gets worked up about Marv’s gun; it takes me ten minutes to persuade her that I wouldn’t think of buying one. I hook up the machine and begin screening the calls after that. I pick up when I hear Ned’s voice.
“Hey, Mary. I didn’t know you had an answering machine.”
“It’s new.”
“You going to use it instead of star sixty-nine?”
“Until my number gets changed.”
“I like it, it’s cute. You sound like a kid.”
“Great. I wanted to sound like a hit man. Hit woman.”
He laughs. “Not on your life. So how are you doing? You’ve been burning up the phone lines.”
“Don’t ask.”
“Anything the matter?”
“Yes, but I’m too tired to talk about it.”
“Just give me the headline.”
“I thought a car was following me, but it wasn’t. I thought someone broke into my apartment, but they didn’t. Not a good day.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. Now I’m tired. I was just about to go to sleep.”
“I should let you go then.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. I’m supposed to tell you. Your father sends his regards.”
“My father what?”
“I was at Masterson. He introduced himself.”
“To you? Why?” Ned sounds concerned, almost frightened.
“I don’t know. He said he wanted to meet me. I guess you told him that we—”
“I haven’t spoken to my father in fifteen years, Mary.”
“You haven’t? Why not?”
“It’s a long story. I’d rather not talk about it over the phone. Can I stop by your office tomorrow?”
I offer a tentative okay and we hang up. None of this makes sense. Why would a grown man sound frightened of his father? Why haven’t they spoken in a decade and a half? How does his father know anything about me? I have so many questions lately, and no answers at all. I don’t like this feeling, that everything’s slipping out of control. I kept it together after Mike died, and it wasn’t easy. Now it’s all under attack. Threatened at the foundation.
I close the living room blinds and check the dead bolt. I decide to take a hot bubble bath to calm down. I push the ANSWER CALL button on the answering machine and fill the tub. I undress quickly, throwing my clothes into a heap on the bathroom floor. I sink deep into the warm, scented water, artificially blue in imitation of the Caribbean. The box promised that the sapphire currents would wash my troubles away. Don’t worry, be happy. I lie still in the tub, listening for any sound in the apartment. The only noise is the crackling of the bubbles as they pop at my earlobes. I try to enjoy high tide, but as soon as I start, the telephone rings. I stiffen and wait for the machine to answer.
The rings stop, and there’s a mechanical noise as the tape machine engages. “Mary, this is Timothy Jameson. See me first thing in the morning. You know when I get in.” Click.
At least it’s not him.
I relax in the warm, silky water. It feels good, therapeutic. I sink deeper, so the waves lap at my chin. I close my eyes. No problem, mon.
The next time I hear the telephone ring, the water is cool. Barely conscious, I hear the answering machine pick up the call. A woman’s voice says, too loudly, “This is Stephanie Fraser. We met in Judge Bitterman’s courtroom after your argument. I’ve been calling your office, but you haven’t returned my calls. We just can’t sweep this under the rug, Mary. We need to send a message. So please return my call. I know you must be busy, but this is important. Thank you.”
Click.
“Go away, Steph. I gave at the office.”
But now the water is cold, and I’m awake. How unpleasant. And I have to shave my legs, a task that used to make me feel grown-up but now is merely a pain in the ass. Cranky, I fish under the water for the Dove and soap up the stubble on my legs. I use a new plastic razor, for that extra-close shave. This way I can let it go for three more days. I’m negotiating my ankle bone with concentration when the telephone rings again.
The rings stop and the machine engages.
Silence. No message. No static. It’s him.
Click.
I feel a sharp pinch at my ankle. A crimson seam crosses the bone. The soap makes it burn.
“Shit!”
I hurl the razor against the tile wall, and it falls to the floor.
That’s when I see it: Mike’s picture, the little one of his face, in a porcelain hear
t frame. The only picture of him I haven’t packed away. I keep it on my makeup shelf in the bathroom. It’s a private place that only I can see, every morning.
But it’s not on the makeup shelf tonight. It’s on the floor. Shattered.
“No!” I climb out of the bathtub and pick up the frame. It lies in pieces in my hand as I stand dripping on the tile floor. The porcelain has cracked into separate shards, and the glass over Mike’s face is a network of tiny slivers.
How did this happen? I don’t want to think what I’m thinking.
I check the makeup shelf frantically. A tube of Lancôme foundation. A glass of eye pencils and mascara. A couple of lipsticks and a bottle of contact lens solution. None of the makeup has been disturbed. If it was Alice who knocked over the picture frame, she was pretty choosy.
I look down at my hand. I can’t see Mike at all. It’s as if a storm cloud has passed over his features.
If someone is trying to hurt me, they sure know how to do it.
14
I take a cab to work at the ungodly hour that Jameson gets in. My nerves feel taut, my stomach queasy. I’m losing weight, but it’s not worth it.
I get off the elevator on Jameson’s floor, Lust. When I reach his office, his secretary, Stella, tells me he went to the bathroom. I suggest to Stella, my paisana, that if Jameson didn’t come to work so early, he could take his morning poopie at home like everybody else. This makes Stella laugh, so she tells me a joke too raunchy to repeat. It’s for her jokes that Judy calls her The Amazing Stella.
I go into Jameson’s office and sit down. The office is vaguely nautical in theme, a place for Jameson to pretend he’s the captain of something. For Jameson is short, and has the complex in spades. Suddenly he runs in like a pug off the leash and slams the door behind him. “Well, Mary, I guess what I’ve been hearing is true.”
“What do you mean?”
Jameson remains standing, dipping his fingers into the pockets of a navy blue blazer. “What I am about to tell you is for your own good, Mary. I’m telling it to you because I know you are very interested in becoming a partner here at Stalling.”
Everywhere That Mary Went Page 9
