The Murderer Next Door

by Rafael Yglesias

  “Good seeing you, Moll,” Father said. “Had a good time last night.”

  I TRIED TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE DEVIL.

  Going home on Sunday, I stopped twice for gas and once for a meal—tepid meat at Burger King eaten in twenty minutes. I reached the city in ten hours. New York was miserable, suffering from a winter rain, cold and wet, streetlights smeared on the gutters, pedestrians scurrying from corner to corner as if they were fleeing hunters.

  Stefan appeared as I entered. He moved silently, in stocking feet, his little face appealing to me: “Molly, are you all right?”

  “I saw my father,” I told him. I took off my coat and put it in the closet. The sight of our stored possessions on the upper shelves (a slide projector we never use, a neat pile of scarves, an old humidifier) saddened me.

  “I see…” He was surprised. “I thought you were looking for Ben.”

  “Are they back?” I moved through our hall, glancing into the kitchen on one side, the living room on the other, curious about this place where I lived. Everything seemed to belong in an exhibit, the objects deathly still, unused.

  “I don’t know. I’m not concerned about them—”

  I interrupted: “It made no difference.”

  Stefan beamed his small row of teeth between the neat dark lines of his beard: “What didn’t?”

  “Seeing my father. Didn’t make any difference. I faced it, Stefan. He is what he is. I left my mother behind, stuck her with him. That doesn’t change. I can’t make the same mistake again. Now I need to know—you can help me or fight me. Which is it going to be?”

  “Help you to do what?”

  “I’m going to go over there and make peace with Ben. If I have to I’ll pretend—no, I’m kidding myself. I’ll help Ben, if that’s what I have to do to protect Naomi. Are you on my side or not?”

  Stefan lowered his head, shut his eyes, remained still and silent. What was he praying over? Finally he sighed and looked up at me. “I think we can be happy,” he said. “I really believe that.” He beseeched me with his hazel eyes, their color highlighted by all the black that surrounded them—semicircular eyebrows, finely mown beard, kinky hair. “Don’t you, Molly? I really believe maybe this is all for the best, maybe our relationship could even be improved by this. If you’ve gone and confronted your father—”

  “Stefan, what the hell are you talking about!” He was stuck in the past, thinking of our marriage before the murder. Did he really believe that once again I should preserve myself instead of fulfilling my duty to others?

  What about my duty to Stefan? you want to know.

  But he had lived without me for years.

  “I think you have an opportunity here to explore feelings you’ve locked away—”

  “You’re against me, Stefan!” I yelled. “That’s your—”

  “No!” Poor man, he covered his face in pain. “Don’t make it into that—”

  “Yes, that’s your answer! I’ll tell you your answer because you can’t. You’re against me, that’s your answer!”

  “Please stop saying that.” He rocked from side to side, swaying, hands shielding himself. “I beg you! Please don’t make this mistake! This is our chance!” he shrieked in panic. He trembled, little creature, dark sweet animal, wishing he were a bright lion whose roar would rule the black jungle of my heart.

  My face flushed. My skin tingled, prickly, infected. I was hot, steaming in the damp air. I smelled my mother’s blueberry pie. I shut my eyes and saw its soft browned crust breathing on the wiped-clean surface of the trailer’s yellow Formica counter. The pie oozed purple fruit, the counter’s edge curled up underneath, its glue blackened with age and moisture. I opened my eyes and saw Stefan: “I…don’t…love…,” I recited.

  “No!” he begged.

  “…you,” I finished. I had spoken aloud the terrible secret of our marriage. Shooting him would have been easier and more merciful. You’re cold and hateful, I told myself.

  I don’t know what Stefan did the rest of that night, other than stay away from me. I showered, worked out, drained my body of the little energy I had left, and sat by the pantry window wearing comfortable jeans and a white T-shirt, wrung out.

  Staring across the courtyard at Ben’s kitchen and laundry windows, I realized my life was erased. The dust of the old assignment was still on the chalkboard, its ghost could be deciphered if you squinted, but any minute a new teacher would stride in and write over the past with tomorrow’s homework.

  Their lights came on at eleven-thirty. I crossed the hall right away.

  When Ben opened his front door, I extended my certificate book. “It’s a fifty thousand dollar CD,” I explained. “Should be more than enough to handle your immediate legal fees. I can turn the money over to you tomorrow.”

  Ben peered at the green booklet. It was old-fashioned; not a computer statement, a traditional bank passbook. “For doing what?”

  “Stay here. Don’t sell the place. I want”—and, of all things, I began to cry. I was able to keep talking, yet tears flowed with the words, raining out of my eyes as I pleaded—“to help with Naomi, to take care of her. Please let me.”

  From behind him, down their hallway, Naomi called: “Daddy…? Who is it?”

  “Come in,” he said quietly. “Wait here.” He disappeared down the hall, “Okay, honey, just go back to sleep,” I heard him tell her. “You’ve got school in the morning.”

  “I know that!” she said contemptuously. “I thought I heard Molly,” she added with, I fancied, a little bit of longing.

  “Go to sleep,” he evaded. Ben returned to the hall, a finger at his lips warning me to be quiet, and then gestured for me to go into the living room. He veered off to the kitchen and returned carrying two beers.

  “No thanks,” I said when he held a bottle toward me. He had crude manners; that was another of his qualities which had clashed with Wendy’s character. She was a generous and gracious hostess, able to throw large parties without exposing her own nervousness, clever at prodding strangers into conversations. Ben thrust the beer at me and shrugged when I refused—that was more or less his party style.

  “You don’t trust me,” he said.

  I was at a loss for an answer.

  Ben began a kind of laugh, mostly silent, mixed with a grumbling noise. He interrupted it to say, “Listen to me: You don’t trust me.” He broke off to laugh in earnest, mouth open, torso shaking. “Of course you don’t!” He smiled broadly. “Pretty stupid thing to say, wasn’t it?” He expected an answer.

  “Maybe you meant something else,” I suggested.

  He nodded. “What I meant was, you don’t trust me with Nommy.”

  “Really, it’s not that,” I lied. “I just figure you’ll have your hands full. I know you need money—”

  “Okay, okay.” He waved me off. “I don’t wanna hear the whole crappy speech. I need help. That much is true.”

  The phone rang.

  “God,” he moaned. “We’ve only been here ten minutes.”

  “Want me to get it?” I offered.

  He considered for a moment, while I moved to the phone, my hand hovering, ready to lift the receiver. “Sure,” he said with a why-not? look.

  It was a reporter. I told him, sharply, that Ben was out of town, and not expected back. He asked for my name. I declined to give it, hung up, then left it off the hook. “I think you should have the number changed tomorrow,” I suggested to Ben. “And keep it unlisted. I can take care of that, if you want.”

  “Good idea,” Ben said. I thought I detected a hint of wonder in his tone. He took a long drink out of the bottle, eyes staying on me even while he tilted his head back. “What do you know about my lawyer?” he said.

  “Not much. He’s young. Supposed to be bright. I don’t know any more about criminal law than anybody else.”

  “But you can find out things. What about your guy, Brian Stoppard? He’s supposed to be the best. Shouldn’t I get him to defend me?”
>
  I hadn’t expected this. Seemed stupid in retrospect—it was a logical use of me. “I guess so.”

  “But you won’t ask him.” Ben took another long drag on the bottle and made a dull popping sound as he pulled it away from his lips.

  “If you’re serious, I’ll ask him.”

  “It’s my goddamn life!” Ben was furious. His head jerked forward, pecking out the words. “You better believe I’m serious!”

  “I said I’ll help”—I raised my voice to match his volume—“but not if you yell at me.”

  “Fuck you,” he answered mildly, with disgust. “Who else can I yell at? Her?” He nodded at the hall, indicating Naomi’s bedroom. Was he threatening me with abuse of Naomi if I didn’t take it? Is that how he kept Wendy in line? Is that why she didn’t complain of his moodiness, his bullying, and his sexual abstraction?

  “What makes you think you have a right to yell at anybody?” I asked.

  “I got plenty to yell about.” He sucked on the bottle; looked as petulant as a baby doing it. “Believe me,” his lips smacked off from the suction to say. “I’m fucked. Really fucked. You wanna help? Get me a good lawyer.”

  “I can ask Brian. That’s all I can do. I can’t make him agree.”

  He cleared his throat and finished off the bottle. “Thanks for offering the money. I’ll be happy to take it, but I’ve got to be honest, I don’t know if it’s really enough for me to afford staying here. They fired me. I don’t think I’m going to get another job easily.”

  “I’ll pay the bills.”

  Ben’s eyebrows twitched. His mouth hung open.

  I specified the offer: “I’ll pay the maintenance, her school, your legal bills.”

  He cleared his throat again, louder. “Why? What do you want?”

  I lowered my head and spoke to the red Oriental rug. “I want to stay.”

  “Excuse me?” He hadn’t heard.

  “I’d like to stay, Ben.” I trembled—shivered really—after making this naked request. Managing to look at him, I noticed a smudge on his right lens—I’ve always been amazed that people who wear glasses can be unaware of what’s right in front of their eyes, so to speak.

  “What do you mean, live here?”

  “I can sleep in Naomi’s room. Or on the couch.”

  His face scrunched up, everything moving toward the center, utterly confused: “For tonight or—”

  I nodded my agreement at the unspoken phrase, scared to be more explicit.

  “You want to live with us?”

  I nodded. I was ashamed. My hands shook. I lowered my eyes during the brief but intensely painful silence, waiting for his response as if it were a benediction.

  “I think that’s going to look really bad, Molly. Don’t you? People would think we were…” He raised his eyebrows lasciviously. “You know…? That might be just the thing to put me away for good.” His tone changed, to suspicion and anger: “Maybe that’s exactly what you want.”

  “No, Ben!” I skidded forward on the edge of the couch. Unconsciously, I grabbed his hand. “I want to be with Naomi, to take care of her.”

  Ben winced, one eye winking with outrage: “You think I’m gonna hurt her.” His thick hot fingers lay loosely in my tight grip.

  “No, you need my help!”

  “I’m a good father,” he said, pulling out of my grasp” and pointing to himself. “No,” he revised, “I’m a great father. Have you seen those guys, the fancy daddies at Riverside? They don’t know a fucking thing about their kids’ lives. Brag about them, sure; show them off, sure. Take them to ice-skating on Saturdays, go to the ballet recital, sure, but take care of them when they throw up at three in the morning? Do anything for them that’s menial? No.” He shook his head, summing up, triumphant and scornful.

  He’s proud that he cleans up vomit, I noted. The observation was subversive to my mission. I kept quiet, pressed my lips together to ensure my silence.

  “I’m not gonna hurt her,” he insisted, his eyes misty. “I love her. I would die before hurting her. Do you understand?”

  My smart-aleck attitude was wrong. He was no Lobsterman Gray, he cared for his daughter. He spoke the truth; Naomi was more than a component of his vanity. “I understand, Ben. I’m sorry,” and I was sorry. “I want to help. That’s all. I have confidence in you—”

  “That’s such bullshit!” He pushed his way out of the chair. “You tried to take her away from me! Did you forget that!”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He had paced away, in his irritation. He stopped in his tracks. “What?”

  “I did forget I tried that. Seems like years ago. I was angry at you. I wanted to hurt you. But you’re right—you’re a good father.”

  Ben held the empty beer bottle by the neck. He tapped his leg with it, crinkling his broad hairless forehead, puzzled. “You wanted Harriet to have custody?” He emphasized Harriet’s name comically and broke into a smile. “I mean, she’s meshuga. Really meshuga. The word was invented to describe her.”

  I laughed. He did too. We relaxed. We were at ease.

  How strange.

  “Why do you want to sleep here?” he wondered. “Obviously you think I’m gonna do something to her. I mean, I don’t expect you to believe that I’m innocent, that I didn’t do it. That’s too much to hope for. But you really think I would hurt her?”

  He seemed to have no awareness that I feared sexual abuse: he meant hurt as in brutality. Was that a good sign, or proof that he had those longings? What worried me? That he would beat her to death someday? Fondle her? Rape her?

  Stefan had told me—in our famous discussion a hundred years ago last week, after I followed Ben to the Battery Park apartment—that transvestites are not pedophiles.

  “Maybe he’s a Renaissance pervert,” I had said. Punchy, we laughed our heads off. I thought I was so clever, such a good friend to Wendy, sympathetic and yet witty too.

  “I don’t care what else you think about me,” Ben warned, and accused me with his long elegant index finger, “I don’t care what you say, I don’t care if it means I lose your money—but don’t ever think, even for a second, that I would hurt Naomi. I…” The word reverberated, he turned his tapered finger on himself, and his voice quaked with feeling: “love her.”

  “I know you do—”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I do, I do. I really do.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “All right.” He moved toward the kitchen, waving the empty green bottle jauntily as he walked. He halted abruptly, frozen in midstride, twisted his head around to say, “But I can’t let you stay here. It would look bad.” And then he resumed his pace.

  A murderer worried about appearances. Stefan had thought of his image as well. Men.

  “You can come here every night if you like, have dinner with us and so on, but if you sleep in, everyone’s gonna think the worst.” Ben talked from the kitchen. He dropped his bottle into the garbage (it landed with a great thud because of the height of the fall) and returned the one I had refused to the refrigerator. Idiotically, I was annoyed that he didn’t save the empty to recover the five-cent deposit. I was excruciatingly tired. I had driven one thousand miles in two days; I had nearly killed my father. I began to regard my situation from a sarcastic distance. I thought: Why should I give him fifty thousand dollars if he’s going to toss out nickels like junk mail?

  “Can we talk about this tomorrow, after I take Nommy to school?” Ben asked, hands on his back, arching forward, a body yawn.

  “Yeah.” I got up, resigned. Back to my limbo with Stefan. “I need sleep too.”

  STOPPARD SAID NO. WHAT AMAZES ME, LOOKING BACK ON it, is that all these men were so uncooperative and yet I was convinced it was my fault, that I was the failure. Why didn’t I appeal to women for help? You’re right to notice. I didn’t because none had power in this circumstance. The one woman who seemed to have access to power was me. But its use depended on these men: Brian Stoppard for the law, Stefan
for the head, Ben in possession of the fragile property.

  “You’re out of your mind,” Brian said casually. He swiveled in his chair, like a kid on a soda-fountain stool. He smiled, a laughing, mocking flash of teeth. “The approach you’re taking to this situation is”—he gestured helplessly—“nutty. I can’t think of a better description. It’s nutty. He killed your best friend. I’m not going to defend him at your request because right now you think it’s better for the girl’s sake. That’s an emotional whim. What happens if in two weeks—or worse, in a year when it goes to trial—you’ve changed your mind? Molly”—he stopped the boyish swinging back and forth—“let’s fight to get custody of her! For God’s sake, we’ll make it a feminist issue. Child abuse is a hot topic right now. If you want, I’ll lower myself and we’ll go on ‘Donahue’ and ‘Geraldo’—and anybody else with their name as the title of a television show.” He smiled at his joke, saw I was not amused, and continued: “We’ll embarrass the law into changing. It can be done—everything is political. There’s nothing inevitable about the current premise that a natural parent is the best guardian under all circumstances. All we have to do is say, ‘If Joel Steinberg had killed Hedda first, under the law he would have retained custody of Lisa—’”

  “But that’s not true, Brian, this situation is different. Ben is Naomi’s real father, it’s not an illegal adoption, Ben has never hit her—”

  “That doesn’t matter!” Brian sprang his chair forward and pounded the desk with both fists. “We’ll make thunder and scare everybody under their beds. I’m talking public relations, not reality. We don’t have to be right, Molly, we just have to win.”

  Yes, and little Naomi would have her face published daily in the New York Post. She could become chums with all the Child Protection people while she shuffled from one hearing to the next, from one psychiatric evaluation to another. You’d thank me for that, wouldn’t you, Wendy?

  I declined Brian’s alternate strategy—disappointed, he sullenly returned to his back-and-forth swivel, perhaps thinking up a different flavor of ice cream to ask for.