by John Lutz
Allie received a few more obscene phone calls. Not only obscene, but puzzling, and with that eerie familiarity that made her stomach drop.
But all in all she was happy in her reconstructed world. The roommate arrangement was working out.
However, other things in Allie’s world were not. Hedra was a comfort when Allie needed her most. Sam was in Chicago, at something called a new-issue seminar, when Allie entered the apartment sobbing without inhibition, seeking shelter and thinking she’d be alone.
But there was Hedra, standing near the door and wearing Allie’s blue coat with the white collar; she was doing temporary office work nearby for an orthopedic surgeon, had come home for lunch, and was about to leave.
When she saw Allie’s agony, the pained look that came over Hedra’s face almost made Allie momentarily forget her own problem and feel sorry for Hedra. Then she realized it was pain reflected—her pain.
Hedra’s hand was on her arm, fingers gently kneading. “So what’s the matter? What’s going on, Allie?” Her voice was throaty, urgent, and weighted with concern.
Allie pulled away from her, from the surprising intensity of her compassion, and was immediately sorry. What the hell was she thinking, drawing back from a friend’s attempt to console her? She paced in front of the window, trying to organize her thoughts, then came back and sat down on the sofa. Listened to the refrigerator droning in the kitchen. Something was vibrating inside it; glass singing on a wire shelf. It was a subtly piercing sound, like an accepted and ignored scream.
“Allie . . . ?”
Allie swiped at a tear on her cheek and said, “Goddamned Mike Mayfair!”
“Mayfair? What happened?”
Allie made an effort to even out her breathing, not look like such a crushed idiot. The universe was still in place, the earth revolving. Talk, she told herself. Talk about this latest kick in the gut and it might not seem so devastating. “He made it clear to me that if my services for Fortune Fashions were to continue, I’d have to supply certain services for him.”
“Huh? Oh, I get it . . .”
“And Mike Mayfair’s not going to get it. I made a pact with myself when I moved to this shit-hole city. My body, the essential me, wasn’t for sale. I wouldn’t let myself be devoured by what’s outside that window. And, dammit, I still feel that way!”
“Maybe you oughta tell Sam about Mayfair.”
“That’d only cause more trouble, and it wouldn’t really change anything.”
Hedra crossed her arms and studied Allie as if peering through flesh and bone and observing the wheels of her mind, coolly assessing this situation that had broken their lives’ tranquility. It gave Allie an odd feeling, glimpsing this unexpected, calculating side to Hedra. As if the family pet turned out to know how to balance a checkbook. “The company hired you and the job’s not finished,” Hedra said. “So don’t they still need you?”
“Not much. Not at this point. I did too good a job. The systems they need are online and simple enough so that even Mayfair’s secretary can run and expand the programs. Even Mayfair himself. It’ll take some time, and there’ll be minor fuck-ups, but the truth is they can get along fine without me.”
Hedra bit her lower lip so hard Allie thought blood might appear. Hedra said, “Well, I think it’s . . . just rotten!”
That made Allie feel better, almost made her smile. Hedra being Hedra again. But it didn’t tell her anything she hadn’t known. Rotten. That was Mayfair, all right.
Hedra stared at the floor and ground her high heel into it, as if trying to bore through wood and plaster to the apartment below. “You were counting on the money from this assignment, weren’t you?”
“Hell, yes. That’s the card Mayfair was trying to play. He was smooth and he made it all seem halfway respectable, but it came down to prostitution and we both knew it. What we were talking about was ass for cash.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“Christ, Hedra!”
“I’m sorry. I meant what’d you say to him?”
“Nothing at all. I simply left.”
“Best thing, maybe.”
“I passed up some solid accounts because the Fortune Fashions job was so lucrative, and now here I sit with empty pockets and empty time.”
“Empty pockets?”
“Well, they’ll be empty soon.”
Hedra gave a careless backhand wave, as if shooing away a mosquito instead of financial devastation. “I can carry us for a while. And Sam’ll help, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, I’m sure, too. If I ask him. But I don’t know if I want that.”
“That isn’t prostitution, Allie. Not with Sam.”
Allie worked her shoes off and let them drop to the floor. One landed on the soft throw rug, the other thunked on wood. “I guess it’s not,” she said. She began massaging her foot. In her anger after leaving Mayfair, she’d walked blocks along Seventh Avenue before hailing a cab; her legs were tired and her feet were sore and felt clumsy and heavy. Her soles tingled as if she’d been marching barefoot on sandpaper. She leaned back and closed her eyes. “God, I really feel shitty, Hedra.”
“Anybody would, after what happened.” There was a hitch in Hedra’s voice; she seemed about to cry. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”
“I know you don’t,” Allie said, her eyes still closed. “I don’t like it, either.”
Hedra spoke from the blackness. “If you want, I can get you something.”
Allie wasn’t sure what she meant. “No, I’ll be okay. But thanks.”
“You sure?”
“What do you mean by ‘something’?” Allie asked.
“You know. A pill.”
Allie opened her eyes and met Hedra’s guileless stare. “What kind of pill?”
“Just something to make you feel better, that’s all.”
“What kind of pill?” Allie repeated.
“I dunno, it’s something like Demerol. You heard of Demerol?”
“Sure. In hospitals.” Allie stared at Hedra, who was outlined against the bright haze of light streaming through the window. There was something unreal about her, as if she were someone’s strayed shadow rather than solid substance. Here was yet another side of Hedra. “It’s none of my business if you do drugs, Hedra; I’m not preaching. But it’s not for me and thanks anyway.”
The figure silhouetted against the light writhed with discomfort. “Wait a minute, Allie, it’s not like I’m a drug fiend. It’s just that I got used to taking certain drugs when I was in the hospital in St. Louis.”
“I didn’t say you were an addict.”
“No, I guess you didn’t. Guess you wonder what I mean, though, about being hospitalized and all.”
Allie sat quietly, waiting, knowing Hedra felt compelled to tell her about this. Allie had been wounded and brought down to earth. The weak could safely confide in the weak.
“I was just a kid,” Hedra said, “and a car hit me when I was on my bike. It tossed me twenty feet and injured my spine. The doctors couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong; injured backs can be like that. Anyway, I was in the hospital for a while, and they had me on this drug and that drug for pain. They were doing that to a lot of people in those days if they couldn’t diagnose what was wrong; I even saw a TV documentary on it once. Well, eventually the pain just went away by itself, but I was in the habit of taking drugs when I felt bad. I still do it, but it’s not as if I’m hooked or anything. There are millions of people like me, using drugs the way I do sometimes, to help them over the rough spots.”
“I suppose there are,” Allie said. “But it’s a habit I never fell into. Where was your family when all this was going on?”
Hedra stepped out of the light and Allie was shocked by the dismay and rage on her face. “My family situation was never good. I try not to think much about those people, after the way they let me down. Heck, the way the brain can block out bad stuff, I hardly even remember them. Except for my father’s hands, and t
he things he did with them. That’s the way I see him now, just a pair of big powerful hands with dirt under the nails. I can’t even picture my mother at all.”
Her mood passed abruptly, as if a dark cloud blown across her mind had dissipated. Her mental sky was clear and blue again. She smiled. “Oh, well, it’s all in the past. Doesn’t matter anymore. It’s today that matters. And tomorrow. Don’t you think?”
Allie nodded. The end of the month would matter, when the rent had to be mailed to Haller-Davis. She said, “When you don’t have any remaining family, like I don’t, sometimes you think even bad family’s better than nobody at all.”
“Oh, you’re so wrong, Allie.”
“Maybe. I guess it depends on the seriousness of the problem.”
The phone jangled and she jumped at the noise. Lord, she was wired. Tempted to gulp down that pill.
“Easy,” Hedra said, “I’ll get it.”
She crossed the room and lifted the receiver. Said, “Hello. No, but she’s right here. Just a minute.” She held the receiver out for Allie. “For you.” She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Maybe it’s that Mr. Mayfair calling to apologize.”
“He’s not the type,” Allie said, hoping Hedra was right. She got up from the sofa and padded in her stockinged feet to the phone, pressed the receiver to her ear, and said hello.
A male voice said, “Allie, I’m gonna tie you to the bed and whip your ass till you come. Make you eat shit with a rough wooden spoon. Listen, bitch, I’m gonna . . .”
The voice faded to silence as Allie lowered the receiver in her trembling hand. Let it drop the final few inches to clatter into the cradle. Her breathing was ragged, her throat tight.
She tried to remember the voice of whoever had made the other obscene calls. She couldn’t know for sure if this caller was the same man.
“Who was it?” Hedra asked.
“A crank call.”
“You okay?”
“Sure.” She turned around and faked a smile that didn’t fool Hedra, then felt it go brittle on her face.
“Oh! That kinda call, huh? Think it was that Mayfair jerk?”
Despite her loathing for the man, Allie was unable to imagine him making such a call. “No, not his style.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Hedra said. “Remember, the creep asked for you by name.”
That was what Allie couldn’t forget.
Hedra walked over to the window, her hands jammed deep in the pockets of Allie’s coat as if she were cold.
Staring outside, she hunched her shoulders and shook her head. She said, “It takes all kinds, Allie. And they don’t wear indentifying labels.”
15
He looked like a computer-game figure weaving through a maze. Allie watched Graham Knox’s slender body maneuver among the crowded tables at Goya’s as he brought her the hamburger and Diet Pepsi. Though he actually moved gracefully, there was that inherent and somehow appealing awkwardness about him that seemed to stem more from the tentative, intense expression he habitually wore than from physical motion. He always seemed preoccupied and puzzled by some inner conflict.
“You’re busy tonight,” she said as he placed her order on the table. The charred-beef scent of the hamburger wafted up to her. She wasn’t sure if it made her feel hungrier or slightly ill.
“And you have something on your mind.”
Allie was amazed. “How’d you know?”
Graham gave his canine-like lopsided smile and wiped his hands on the small white towel tucked in his belt. “I’m sort of a student of human nature. Gotta be, in my profession.” A Beatles song, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” began blasting from the speakers. The decibel level of conversation in the restaurant rose to challenge it. The result was a maelstrom of noise. Graham leaned down close to her, his mouth near her ear. “You need to talk, Allie?” She felt his warm breath, like the life-breath of a lover.
“You shared your good news,” she said, “I thought I might share my bad—tempered with some good news, though.”
“The bad news isn’t too bad, I hope.” He glanced at his watch, one of those with a moon phase dial on it to make it more complicated. “It’s just past seven o’clock. The rush is almost over, and I can get off around eight. Wanna combine talking with walking?” He made it sound like a trick of coordination.
Allie thought a walk was a good idea; the noise might not abate in the usually quiet Goya’s. And it was a beautiful late September night, warm and clear. “I’ll eat slow,” she told him.
“I can sneak you some dessert, on the house. Give you an excuse to hold down the table. Unless you’re on a diet.”
She smiled sadly. “No, I’m not in a dieting mood.”
Graham touched her shoulder in sympathy; she noticed his fingers were long and tapered. He retreated through the melee of noise and laughter, toward the swinging doors to the kitchen, his lanky frame swaying among the tables with practiced precision and efficiency. From behind, he appeared not at all awkward or tentative. Someone in a far corner called to him. He waved a hand to confirm that he’d heard. Somebody somewhere turned down the volume of the canned music. The Beatles were finished with “Lucy” and were singing now about “Sergeant Pepper.”
Allie blocked out the voices around her, the laughter and the clinking of glasses and flatware. She gnawed on her hamburger and listened to the music. John Lennon. Christ! How could anyone shoot John Lennon?
Graham had brought her a scoop of vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries over it. Allie was often amazed by how available fresh produce was in the concrete world of New York. Fresh flowers, too. As if there were a garden on every cloud-high roof.
After dessert and coffee she felt better. Her guilt at eating so many calories was assuaged by the fact that the strawberries and ice cream were free. She suspected even Richard Simmons would accept free dessert in a restaurant. He would if he saw those strawberries, anyway, and his appetite was heightened by other unfulfilled yearnings.
Now she and Graham were walking west on 74th Street, toward Riverside Park. There was a light breeze blowing in off the Hudson. The night was cool and, despite the exhaust fumes, the air smelled remarkably fresh for Manhattan. The sidewalks were crowded with people who seemed to be dawdling, enjoying the unseasonably fair weather; even traffic seemed to be moving slower, car windows cranked down, drivers’ elbows jutting out in vehicle after vehicle as if an amalgamation of flesh and metal formed each machine.
Graham walked on the street side, slowly so Allie could keep pace, and listened intently with his head bowed as she told him about Sam.
“There’s something doubly good when somebody you love is out of your life, then reenters it.”
“Second time around and all that,” Graham said. He didn’t sound happy about what Allie had told him. “Sounds as if you really love this Sam.”
“I don’t seem to have much choice, Graham.”
“Sure, I understand. Lucky Sam. He smart enough to know he’s lucky?”
“I think so.”
“You’d better know it.”
She couldn’t help remembering Lisa. “That’s not an easy thing to know for sure.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s the human condition. What keeps people like me from ever running out of material to write about. Anyway, tell me the bad news you wanted off your chest. If I sound more eager to hear it, don’t blame me.”
She told him about Mayfair and losing the Fortune Fashions assignment. Then she told him about the obscene phone calls in which her name was used.
“You tell Sam about any of this?”
“Just some of the phone calls.”
“Why not about Mayfair?”
“I’m afraid of what he might do. Men like Mayfair are everywhere; Sam getting embroiled in a fight or a lawsuit wouldn’t change society—or get the account back.”
“I suppose not. It’s the phone calls that are really bothering you, right?”
“You know me like a good frien
d, Graham.”
“That’s because I am a good friend.” They stopped and stood on the corner of West 74th and West End Avenue. “Didn’t you say your full name’s in the phone book?” Graham asked. The breeze riffled his dark hair, mussing the wings over his protruding ears.
Allie nodded.
“Then I wouldn’t worry so much about the phone calls. Just some pervert who chose you because he spotted the complete listing in the directory and knew he could shake up a woman by using her first name. It’s probably not as personal as you think. Or as you feel it is. You’d be surprised at the number of obscene phone calls made every day in this city. Every hour.”
“What bothers me,” Allie said, “is that my address is in the directory along with my number. This sicko—if it is only one man—knows where to find me.”
“Yeah. Well, I can see where that makes you uneasy, and that’s exactly what a bastard like your caller wants you to worry about. But believe me, the kind of nut who phones women and makes sexual references almost always does it because he’s too intimidated to confront them face-to-face. These are usually the last people who’d show up at your door and try something.”
“‘Almost always,’ huh? ‘Usually’?”
“Those words apply to virtually everything, Allie.”
True enough. But she didn’t agree with him out loud.
“What’d Sam say about the phone calls?” he asked.
“Pretty much what you said. He doesn’t think they’re anything to worry about. That’s what most men would say; they don’t feel the vulnerability in that kind of situation.”
“Can’t help that,” Graham said. “We’re not afraid of mice, either.”
They began walking down West End. A raggedy man wearing incredibly wrinkled, oversized gray pants, and a green wool blanket draped over bare chest and shoulders, approached them and in an almost unintelligible mumble asked if they had any spare change. The breeze carried his odor of stale perspiration and urine. Graham shook his head no and said, “Sorry.” Allie wondered how it would feel to be rejected that way by an indifferent world. To live on the streets of a city as cruel as Manhattan. Delusion might be essential to deflect the pain.
