I didn’t say anything. I took off my trousers and her panties. Her body pale, slender, carved in white marble, her hair like the faery gold; her red mouth open, so hungry, there was never anyone so hungry.
I kissed her neck and between her breasts and she pulled me close, her nails in my back holding on to me as if we were in danger of being torn apart. Sucked away into a vortex by terrible forces, the malignancy of Charles, by the blackness pursuing me. We were alone in this land of light. Secure. As long as we stayed together it would be good. Outside there were horrors, waiting like traps. But not here, not here. Here we were safe, safe, in this bed, in this one night.
“We’re shipwrecked,” she said, and I, agreeing, added nothing.
The bed and the silk sheets and her smooth skin and those eyes, blue like that ocean in Donegal. And her hands in my hair and on my back. And her voice in those soft harmonized American vocals.
“Oh, Alexander, you don’t know, you have no idea.”
“I want to know,” I said.
“No, no,” she said.
“Tell me,” I said.
“No.”
“Tell me,” I insisted.
“Kiss me,” she demanded.
My hands stroked her long beautiful legs and her belly and her arms. And I held her close and I kissed her and she tasted of champagne and whisky and ice.
And I kissed her and she didn’t speak and I came inside her and her body ached, hurting with pleasure and loss and she sobbed and we lay there in the dark, panting, breathing, holding each other.
And then she climbed on top of me and we made love again, and the midnight hour came and went.
“Hold me,” she said.
And I took her in my arms and I kissed her, and she smelled of booze and that perfume and her own sweat and the smell of me. She fell asleep. A drunk sleep. Exhausted.
This girl, this woman, here with me in the long, dark, lovely night. Beautiful. And I looked at her. This girl, whose husband was a hundred and fifty miles away in Aspen. This girl, whose husband maybe killed Maggie Prestwick or aided Maggie’s killer on a May morning twenty-two years ago. This man who almost certainly did kill his blackmailer and then committed another brutal slaying on the girl who found out about his slush fund. And it was neat now, tidy. Of course, we had helped, John and myself, killing the only person who could prove anything. We had wiped the traces. And now he could do anything. He could even run for Congress. And win. There would always be rumors, there would always be stories, but nothing that could be proven, nothing that would stick, and with his good works established, and his politics sensible, he would rise. And she would rise with him. From this foundation of blood and lies. Both of them bound by the black rite of this marriage. It would take place, it would happen. Unless I said something, unless I did something, unless I broke her away and let her know the truth about her husband, the truth about Victoria Patawasti. About Victoria, about Amber’s shadow, her mirror, her sister, the ghost that brought us together. Yes, and Maggie, too.
How much did Amber know? How much did she want to know? Is that why I’d slept with her? To find out the truth.
And she lay there snoring, and I knew what I was going to do.
A crime.
It could kill her.
It could fucking kill her.
I eased myself out of the bed. I went to the kitchen and got an ice cube.
I found my jacket. I took out the needle, the spoon, I got some water, my alcohol swab. I boiled the heroin, drew it up through the cotton wool. It would be her foot, she’d never notice and I’m the master, I always find a vein, every time.
But ketch and alcohol do not mix. Just ask any of a dozen dead rock stars. It can stop the heart. Can I take her across the line? What if she’s done nothing? Can I do that to her? Can I take her across and still have the right to save her, protect her?
I found a vein, put the ice cube on it, to numb it. She didn’t wake. I took off the ice cube, swabbed the spot with alcohol, injected the heroin above her heel.
She moaned for a second in her sleep.
I let her absorb it, I watched her chest move up and down.
Her breath became shallow, she began to sweat. Was her heart going to fib? I sat there, frightened for ten minutes, but then she came out of it. She was in the center of the high. There were things I had to know and this might be the way.
I woke her.
“Amber,” I whispered. “Amber.”
She looked at me, smiled.
“Amber, I want to ask you something.”
“Ask me anything,” she said drowsily, happily.
“I want to ask you about Charles.”
“Ask me anything,” she moaned.
Heroin isn’t a truth serum and the memory doesn’t blank afterward, so you have to be reasonably subtle, not shock them enough so they’ll remember.
“If Charles wanted to get into someone’s computer, could he do it?”
“Computer?” she asked, her eyelids heavy, her lips in a pout, quivering, under the opium paralysis.
“Yes, Amber, a computer. Could he get into someone else’s computer?” I asked quietly.
“Carrickfergus,” she said.
“What?”
“Carrickfergus,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
She groaned, started drifting off. I didn’t have much more time.
“Ok, forget that, what about Charles?”
“Charles.”
“Yes, look, if Charles was going to kill someone, how would he do it?” I asked gently.
“He wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t kill anyone.”
“But if he had to, if he had to kill someone.”
“He wouldn’t,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes fluttered, closed. Damn. I looked at her. That was enough, I couldn’t risk anything more, she’d remember, I’d kiss and tell her she was beautiful and say something about, oh, I don’t know, Africa, lions. In the morning it would all be jumbled up. She wouldn’t recall. It hadn’t worked or maybe it had and she knew nothing, she was as innocent as the—
“Throw it,” she said lazily from her sleep, her eyes still closed.
“Throw what?”
“Throw the gun, get rid of it,” she insisted.
“Where would you get rid of the gun?”
“Have to get rid of it, Italian gun, throw it away, anywhere, Cherry Creek. Get rid of it.”
“Why there?”
“I don’t know, the nearest river, get rid of it, get rid of it….”
She began to snore again.
She knew, then, she knew Charles had killed Victoria. She had told him to throw away the gun.
I could imagine the scene. He’s just killed Victoria, he comes back. “Oh, Amber, something awful has happened, it was an accident”—and he’s still got the goddamn gun.
Congressman Wegener’s birthday announcement is coming up, they have too much to lose. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her. Maybe he went to confront Victoria and things got out of hand. Amber keeps a cool head. She orders him back out into the snow to get rid of the gun. He throws it in the water and it’s washed away, like what else? Her conscience. Her humanity.
I stared at her sleeping form, at—what was it Yeats said?—“that terrible beauty,” and I thought, Am I better than you? Me, who took a chance on killing you, to get that?
Had a wee while left.
I looked her over. I examined her, as if she were a corpse. That scar on her shoulder had been a tattoo she had had removed. It was about the size of a silver dollar. I could tell from its shape that it had been a harp. Working-class girl, with a harp tattoo. Shanty Irish girl, bit of a klepto, marries old-money Charles? Then she reinvents herself as patrician fabulous? She didn’t give much away. Just that accent and the way she ate pizza. I admired that. Liked that even as I hated her for what Charles did to Victoria. Hated her and wanted her, too. My muscle
s ached. My body writhed. I wanted a hit.
I still had time.
I forced myself to have a scout around. The predictability of the decor. What did it show? What a good job the cleaning woman did? Charles’s shallowness, Amber’s impression that this was how the other half lived. No cultural cringes, no giveaways. I went to the garage and checked their car. An E-type Jag. Had Charles killed Alan Houghton on Lookout Mountain? That’s where they’d found Houghton’s car. Charles could have arranged a meeting up there, killed him, put the body in the trunk and dumped it somewhere, a lake, a canyon, the foundation of a construction project. I popped the trunk, checked it, but it had been long since cleaned. A spare tire, a tire iron, and a Leatherman multitool.
Back to the house. That photograph of Charles playing lacrosse. But screw the murder, I wanted more about her. I searched the drawers, I smelled her underwear, I went through her things. Lingerie, fishnet stockings, tasteful stuff from a high-class boutique. But then at the back, a leather panty with an attachment for strapping on a dildo. I rummaged around. Nothing else. Kinky little minx. I went up to the bed and touched her breasts, kissed her. I watched her. I could have killed her with that dose. Thank God, she was alive, breathing easily.
Got up, searched some more. Looking for back story, photographs, but there was precious little. The past was wiped. Something to be ashamed of, maybe. Finally, in Charles’s study I found a box of college stuff. I rummaged through and found a few pictures of an Amber Doonan in a Harvard production of Twelfth Night. Further down another yearbook. No Amber Doonan, but a photograph of Amber Abendsen, a talented actress in the drama society. She had changed her name. Why? Could she have married someone before Charles?
A talented actress, the caption said.
What else about you, Amber? What else could I know about you? I found her purse and rummaged through it. Driving license, credit cards. A notebook with all the pages blank. More to know but too late now.
Too late now. I was shivering. I put the box away. I went back to her. Breathing. Lovely. I needed a hit. I couldn’t bear to look at her without a hit.
I threw the used needle in the garbage. I cleaned the vessel in the bathroom sink. I cleaned the spoon, let it air-dry. Waited, patient. I took the ketch, I boiled it, I found a vein. Alcohol and heroin do not mix, I thought as I injected myself. I stowed my kit back in my jacket, I lay down with her on the bed.
I climbed on top of her, I touched her belly, breasts. She could barely respond, but I had to have her.
I eased my way inside….
Early morning. Sunlight the color of her hair, filtering through the wooden slat blinds. She’s awake, looking at me. She smiles when she sees me wake.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hi. You look great,” I reply.
“Really? I don’t feel well at all,” she says.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m just a bit under the weather, groggy.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, and look at her.
She seems a little yellow. I kiss her and touch her legs and incidentally check out her left heel. If you miss the vein you can leave a big blister, but I didn’t miss the vein and it seems fine down there.
“I don’t feel a hundred percent but I know what will help. Let’s make love,” she says.
“Ok.”
I kiss her and climb on top and we make love, but I’m still under the influence of the smack and I let her be on top and her back arches and her big breasts heave and drip sweat, and we come together and we’re happy.
I laugh and she laughs.
“Well, that’s position twenty-one in the Kama Sutra knocked off,” I say in an Indian accent.
“What did you say?” she asks, suddenly sitting up.
“I said that that’s position twenty-one of the Kama Sutra knocked off.”
She wraps the blanket around herself and rubs her eyes. Her leg moves in such a way that it is no longer touching mine. She shivers. She looks at me in the half-light with those cat blue eyes. She turns away. I’ve screwed up somehow. She yawns.
“You better go, Charles might be back soon.”
I stretch lazily and nod.
“Gosh, yes, it’s seven o’clock, you better go, we have a maid service that comes,” Amber says.
“I’ll see you this afternoon?” I ask.
“Yes. Come here, Alex, kiss me,” she says.
I lean over, kiss her. Thinking: She’s beautiful, she’s frightened, but she’s basically good, and somehow, somehow, it’s all going to be ok, it’s all going to work out for the best, for her and for me and for everyone.
Of course it is.
10: THE REMOVER OF OBSTACLES
Denver already up. Dollars being made in oil, high tech, commerce, land spec, tourism, and the like. I noted the cars, counted the SUVs, the Jesus fish and the odd “God Hates Gays” or “Abortion = Murder” bumper sticker. At Einstein Brothers I bought a mixed bag of bagels. Carried them to the building, walked up the five flights.
“Alex, what about you?” John asked.
“Not too bad, mate,” I told him.
Areea smiled at me. She was always here now. Before her job, after her job.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
John took the bag of bagels, split it open, and toasted three of them.
“Where’s Pat?” I asked.
“He’s putting his face on.”
Pat always spent at least an hour getting his appearance into some kind of shape for the day ahead. There were sores to be covered, a beard to be shaved extremely carefully, there was rubbing alcohol and pancake to be applied to his skin.
“I’ll just take a half, John,” I said as I went into the bedroom to boil my heroin and shoot up.
“Ok, pal,” he said. He didn’t ask where I’d been all night, or what was going on. This was one of John’s good qualities.
I found a clear track of vein, injected myself, lay down on the bed.
“Did you fall asleep?” Areea asked a couple of hours later.
“Yeah,” I said.
John gave me a look and shook his head. “You’re running late,” he said, “and your bagel’s freezing.”
“Where’s Pat now?” I asked him.
“He’s not feeling well,” John said.
“No?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go visit him.”
I walked down the hall to Pat’s. I was a bit late, but I had to ask him something.
He was wrapped in a blanket in the living room, sipping raw gin from a pint glass. His face drawn, tired.
“Get you anything, mate?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Listen, I’ve got a question. It can wait if you’re not up to it,” I said.
“Fire away. I’m better than I look.”
“Where does Cherry Creek go?”
“The river or the shopping mall?” he asked, stroking his stubble, his dead cheeks.
“The river. How could a shopping mall go anywhere?”
“It meets the South Platte at Confluence Park.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Platte, Missouri, Mississippi, Gulf of Mexico.”
“Shit, ok, I see.”
“Why you wanna know?”
“Oh, nothing, just curious.”
“You wanna know anything else, sip of gin or a martini?”
“Nah, I have to go, actually.”
“Don’t think of fishing there or anything, just a couple of feet deep, best of times.”
“Ok, Pat, I have to head. Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”
“No.”
“Gotta go to work,” I said apologetically.
“Sure,” he said. “Oh, nearly forgot, last night I got a call about you.”
“What?”
“Yeah, some Native American dude from the Denver Police Department called up, wanted to know if I had anyone stay over w
ith me on the night of June twenty-second. Maybe two Mexican, Australian, or Irish guys.”
“Shit, and what did you say?”
“I said nope, said I used to take paying guests but it wasn’t worth the hassle anymore.”
“And what did he do?”
“He thanked me, said it was just a routine inquiry, and hung up.”
“His name was Redhorse, right?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Pat said.
“Did the right thing, Pat, he’s looking for us since—”
Pat put up his hand to stop me. His eyes cold, certain.
“I don’t want to know,” he said. “The best thing is if I know nothing.”
“Ok. Probably best if you don’t tell John, either,” I said.
Pat’s eyes widened, but then he nodded and I said goodbye. I’d forgotten all about Redhorse. Or, if not forgotten, I had put him out of my mind. If I had any sense at all, I’d see that now was the time to quit, to get out of town. But I was so close. So close. And the hook was deeper than ever. She was deeper….
Incredibly, at the CAW offices Charles was there, looking a bit bleary-eyed but showered, his hair gelled back, wearing a fresh linen suit, white shirt, and tie.
“Alexander,” he said with a big grin, “you like cigars?”
“You had a baby?” I asked.
“Sort of,” he said, laughing. “I gave my first public speech last night.”
“How did it go?” I asked.
“Very well. Here,” he said and give me a silver tube.
Charles explained that he’d given the speech to a packed hall in Aspen, made lots of contacts, and then driven back this morning. He had even met Newt Gingrich and Senator Dole. He said that giving a speech wasn’t that much different from lecturing, or presenting a brief, or doing a rap at a door, except that you had to read off a Teleprompter, which took some getting used to.
“Wow, that’s cool, did you write the speech?” I asked.
“Robert and I wrote it. Robert wanted to come and, of course, Amber wanted to come, but, I don’t know, I thought it might be easier if I was there on my own. Amber tells me you escorted her to that play she’s been going on about.”
I nodded. He smiled. There he was. Together, tall, confident, just the sort of person who gets elected to Congress, whose past indiscretions are swept under a rug, never to see the light of day, the sort of fucker who pops up on a vice presidential ticket five years from now. I don’t know what kind of a person Maggie Prestwick was, but I’ll bet she was worth ten of Charles. Victoria Patawasti, I know, was worth a hundred.
Hidden River (Five Star Paperback) Page 25
