“Zelly, you know I have to take late calls. Like a doctor. And I don’t understand, if I drive around some nights to clear my head—you don’t know what a responsibility it is, taking care of you and the baby.”
“Well—” The silence was relenting in his ear. There was rage in his head and there was a need, overpowering even rage, to keep at least his home inviolable, unchanged by the passions that ruled him. But there was still rage.
“I miss you and the baby.” You are mine: you promised yourself to me.
“I just need a little time to think.” I could snap your neck like a chicken bone.
“You and the baby belong with me.” I will say when you leave.
“I just think I want to stay at my mother’s for a few days.”
“I know I haven’t been there for you and the baby. It’s just that business hasn’t been going well and I know I haven’t been—”
“I found women’s underwear in the closet.”
The phone would break if it were bone. The trophy—a prize of the kill. Tainted now, its sweet memories tainted by innocence. “Honey, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about underwear! Panties. I found a bag in the closet.”
“Way in the back?” You interfering bitch I will break your neck. “That might be stuff Karen left, at the old apartment. Zelly, is all this about underwear? I’m sure my old girlfriend must have left it—the one I lived with before we got together. Karen. I thought I threw all her shit out. Honey, you can’t really have gone to your mother’s because you found underwear in the closet. There’s got to be a real reason.” On the other end of the phone Zelly was crying. “You’re not giving me a chance here. The least you could do is come home and talk about it. I deserve that, at least.”
“You haven’t talked to me in such a long time.”
“Give me a chance before you run away. I deserve a chance.”
“Pat, I don’t know.”
“I want my girls home with me tonight.”
How long does a baby cry before it dies?
“Oh, Pat. I guess I didn’t think about how hard this would be on you.”
But no, the baby’s breath was soft like flowers, like fur.
“Zelly, I just want you and the baby to come home.”
Zelly sighed. Her breath was soft, too. “We’ll come home in the morning.”
“No, now.” My wife, my baby.
“But Pat, the baby’s sleeping.”
“Zelly, I want you now. It’s been a long time since I made love with my wife. I’m sorry about the other day—you know—that was just an experiment. I know you thought it was too kinky—that’s one of the reasons you’re doing this, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” The voice so ashamed—as though she were the one who had done something wrong. It would be a pity to kill her.
“I need my girls home.”
“Okay, Pat.” The silence was breathing again. “You can come get us.”
29
“Thank you for meeting me here today.” John sounded stiff; he felt stiff, when all he’d wanted was to see her again. To see her somewhere outside the unfamiliar streets that were her home, where everywhere he looked he saw melodramatic death. He saw her everywhere now, on the express bus on his way to work, her half-profile lit golden by the morning sun in the window; he saw her out the window, walking a dog, turning a corner, turning away, moving away always; the nape of the neck, the line of the hip, the flag of hair blown out straight by the wind.
For ten days Madeleine had escorted John around the West Village and SoHo. The mid-June weather favored long nighttime walks. They had seen the corners where the hookers stood at night, the gay bars, the all-night delis, the thousand separate places where a killer could hide and wait. They visited the spots where the bodies had been found—even Cheryl’s. Madeleine had stood silently while John cried, helplessly staring out over the river toward the undistinguished Jersey coast—a long green building, a train station or a factory; a low arched building half demolished; the Maxwell House sign, a never-ending drip into a giant tilted cup: GOOD TO THE LAST DROP.
She had agreed to meet him at the Twenty-sixth Street Sunday flea market. There were card tables set out in the sun, laden with every imaginable thing; there were overstuffed Empire chairs and ornate mirrors, cartons of books on tables and under them, boxes of ends of lace, of sweaters and old metal pots and rusted keys delicately engraved, rows and rows of blue glass, green glass, murky yellow glass, rows of flowered, chipped plates, of salt shakers and little metal pill-boxes and porcelain pillboxes and sorry old stuffed Mickeys and mechanical banks and painted cannisters and stereoscopic slides. John saw Madeleine disappearing into the subway kiosk at Fifty-seventh Street, he saw her waiting for the light on Queens Boulevard. When he thought about Cheryl he sometimes saw Madeleine’s face instead. He hated his shallow and unfaithful memory: at times Cheryl came back to him with a paralyzing, fantastic instantaneousness—the whole of Cheryl, palpable and engulfing—and he was left with a miserable emptiness and dejected guilt.
Madeleine had begun to seep into the fissures of his grief. When his wife, Molly, had left him, the grief he felt was not this subterranean pain, molten-lava pain, seeping relentlessly over his heart, searing his heart. He had missed Molly and then he had not missed her, like a habit. Cheryl had worn a rosy scent; he could not say what Molly had worn. Madeleine wore iris, and iris permeated the emptiness of his grief, the depth of it, and the color of her hair, the line of her naked forearm, permeated the emptiness. The void—palpable—became for instants again only memory, when it was filled, obliterated, with memories of Madeleine.
“I love flea markets,” she was saying. “My father and I used to drive all over Muscatine County when I was a kid, looking for lawn sales.” He did not tell her how much Cheryl had liked flea markets, that he had been here before.
They walked among the tables not speaking; Cheryl would run ahead and then back to him, holding aloft some little treasure: the top-hatted china robin the size of her thumb, the round brass medallion commemorating the twelfth annual running of the hundred-yard dash at Emerson High School, Illinois, in 1910. “Look, darling, I’ve gotten another venerable,” she’d cry, mimicking an ancient great-aunt who used to visit them at Christmastime when they were children; if John remembered correctly, Christmas dinner had always been judged “detectable.” Cheryl had been the repository not only of his childhood but of the whole of his family history, John realized sadly; without her there was no great-aunt, no Christmas, no past not entirely his own.
Madeleine picked up a battered coffeepot and held it up in her hands as though it were a living thing. She fingered fragments of lace, ran her hand over a peach-colored teacup with a rose painted on the inside bottom. “The sides are sometimes so delicate you can see through them,” Cheryl would say, holding up a cup to look through the china membrane at the sun. Madeleine did not lift the cup, but her fingers traced the rose.
Now she stood next to a glass case of odds and shining ends; something silver caught the light. John looked at her and saw for a horrible moment not Cheryl, not even a promise for his own future, but only what the man had seen. What he had seen when he tried to murder her.
She was not innocent now; she had been robbed of even the illusion of innocence, of being unknown. He thought that she must know what he was thinking, what all men were thinking all the time, now that she had been raped. A woman scratched her thigh or straightened her skirt and that was an invitation. The leg, the cowboy boot or the stiletto heel; the black tights like skin over the buttocks; the shirt that could be unbuttoned or pulled over the unresisting neck. The eye caught—an invitation. The eye aloof—a challenge. The woman walking ahead of you up the subway stairs is yours, her ass is yours, in your mouth, spread out like a sacrifice under your pumping thighs. And then you get to the top of the stairs and she disappears like mist. The woman walking toward you, her breasts bouncing gently underneath a s
ilk blouse, is yours, the nipples between your teeth like ripe fruit and you plunge it into her and she screams and passes by and you never even saw her face.
The late-afternoon sun cut a shadow across Madeleine’s throat, throwing her face into darkness and her body into sharp relief. She looked trustingly at him: a man who has just lost his sister to the monster would not be like the others, “revolting.” He lowered his eyes.
Reflected sunlight winked at him. He leaned closer: rows of silver rings on a bed of blue velvet. An untidy pile of amber glass beads, green beads, shiny silver metal beads. And next to them a winking eye: a knife. A short green scabbard, intricately designed, a heavy silver handle, the blade obscured. Madeleine followed his eyes.
“Perfect,” she said softly; she might have been in church.
“It can’t be traced,” said John, and she lifted her finger quickly and brought it up to his mouth. The gut kicked, tensed and twisted and breathed, and John hated, for a moment, his sex.
The man behind the counter showed them the knife; they handled it reverently, feigning indifference. And in the sun in front of two or three hundred people they bought the knife, their talisman.
30
“There’s a guy in Queens who’s looking good,” said Scottie. “Three different people have called in I.D.’ing him as the Slasher. Seems he’s a musician, plays the trumpet. Not jazz, classical. And he has a history of altercations with his neighbors—particularly his blond neighbors. He tried to strangle the nineteen-year-old who lives downstairs. This was after he sent her several letters—the girl’s bringing those in today.”
“I want to see them.”
“I don’t know who’s been assigned the questioning—”
“I’ll be able to get the questioning, don’t worry about that. What else do you have on him?”
“He’s suspected of poisoning a neighbor’s cat. He complained several times to the owner that the cat was getting into his apartment and leaving blond hair all over his furniture.”
“What else?”
“An old girlfriend. She said he tried to strangle her during an argument once—almost made her pass out. And he used to write letters to the papers, one was something about the moon.”
“Have you been able to get a hold of any copies of the letters?”
“Nobody ever followed up on the original call. I was meaning—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“—to tell you.”
“Damn, man, I want in on this one! When did these calls come in? When—”
“We’re getting hundreds of goddamn calls a day. You’re answering the phones yourself. We’re all answering the phones. Do you have time to interview every person who calls in?”
“I want in on the questioning of that neighbor. And pull me the name and number of the ex-girlfriend. I want to talk to her as soon as possible. And don’t forget, the relatives and friends of the victims. You’ve held me up on that—”
“I know, I know, but I’ve had to input all this other crap—”
“Just hurry up and get me the name of that girlfriend.”
31
“Pat?” Zelly said hesitantly; she was afraid.
“What?” The restaurant, a new Italian place a few blocks from their apartment, was busy. There was a wall of brunch conversation around them; their high-backed booth was as private as a monastery cell. Pat was drinking coffee; he drank a lot of coffee, with lots of sugar. Zelly had a cup of tea in front of her but she wasn’t drinking it. Mary dozed improbably in her booster seat, every moment about to topple into the bowl of mashed potatoes in front of her.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Zelly said.
“Sure, hon. What about?” The sports pages were in front of him.
“I want to talk to you about our marriage,” she blurted. The paper came down and to her surprise he was smiling.
“Our marriage? You know, I’ve never thought of it that way, as if it were some thing, like a pet. Our marriage Fluffy.”
“Pat.”
“It just struck me as funny. Our marriage. What did you want to say to me about our marriage?”
“Our Fluffy.”
“Yes.”
“Well. This is so hard.” Looking at her eggs, which were slicking over now. “I wanted to know—I need to know—am I a good wife to you?”
Pat put the paper all the way down, and as he talked he smoothed the edges with his palm, back and forth. “Of course you are, Zel. What do you mean?”
“I mean—do I make you happy?”
“This is about when you went to your mother’s a week and a half ago,” he said.
“Yes.” All slicked over shiny, the way they get after you’re done. Zelly couldn’t stand the sight of food after she was done eating. They had not talked about their marriage that night. Pat had held Zelly while she cried, and then they had made love, very gently. They had not talked the next morning. Pat had been neither angry nor unapproachable, but he had not been chagrined either; he had not behaved like someone whose actions had driven his wife and baby from their home. He had played with Mary on the living room floor, and when he looked up at Zelly standing in the kitchen doorway his eyes were innocent, and Zelly could think of nothing to say. As afternoon stretched into evening and into night and the next day and she said nothing, it became impossible to say anything. It had taken twelve days to screw up her courage.
“About the panties,” she said now.
“I told you about those.”
“I know. I know, it’s just—”
“You think I’m having an affair.” There was something in his voice almost like pleasure. Mary let out a little snore and they both laughed. When she met Pat’s eyes they were both still smiling.
“I’m not having an affair,” he said.
“I guess—I guess I knew that. But you’ve been away so much—nobody has their house rewired at eleven o’clock at night.”
“Actually people do, sometimes. But you’re right. Not about the affair—but a lot of times it’s true that I just don’t come home. I can’t explain it—I need to be alone, to be outside, to drive. It’s a male thing. I don’t drink, and believe me, I don’t fool around with other women. But I need my freedom, and I need my privacy.”
“I know that. But the money hasn’t been coming in—”
“The money! Is that what this is about, the money?” His fingers came up off the paper like a mime creating a glass wall.
“No. It’s not about the money. Pat, you haven’t had a real conversation with me in months. It’s about that. And—just you’re being gone, and not talking. And then I found the panties and I thought—”
“Zelly, those were Karen’s panties. I told you.”
“And you’ve been carrying them around for eight years like old love letters?”
“Let’s say more like library books I forgot to return. Come on, honey.” His anger passed just like that. He was all conciliatory now. “Why would I carry around some woman’s underwear?”
The paper was smooth under his fingers. They were talking about the one thing he could never forgive her. She had touched the lavender silk.
“—in the back of one of those magazines,” she was saying. She looked sincere. He could not imagine how she thought his magazines were any of her business. He would have gotten angry again but he could see that would be inappropriate.
“Zelly honey,” he said softly—she was, after all, his wife, and “wife” was a word with meaning and reverence—“those magazines have nothing to do with you. With us.” (How utterly truthful he was being!) “Nothing at all.”
“But you don’t know how they make me feel,” she said. He had never thought about how they would make her feel. He could not even imagine her looking at them. Her reality was limited to the time he spent with her. When he was gone she didn’t exist. Her thoughts, her suppositions, were of limited interest to him; he needed her to be there when he got home.
He never thought that
her fascination with serial killers was any danger to him. Even after she found the panties he was not afraid. Angry, but not afraid. She thought he had mailed away for them from someplace at the back of one of his magazines! She thought he was having an affair! He was quite safe. Now he listened from inside himself while he made quieting noises. That part of his life and this, the baby’s head tipping farther over perceptibly now with each sleeping breath, and the memories of resisting muscle and unresisting flesh, were not connected in any way.
“—member when we met?” Zelly asked wistfully.
“Yes, I do.”
“You asked for clear nail polish.”
“I’d been there three times in one week and I couldn’t think of anything else to ask for.”
“I thought you wanted it for your grandfather. I thought you had an old Italian grandfather who played boccie ball and painted his pinkie nails with clear polish.”
“I was desperate. I kept coming back and you just weren’t getting the hint. I thought if I asked for something stupid you’d realize I didn’t want anything except to see you.”
“I did. But you could have just asked me out.”
Pat smiled into his coffee cup. “Not my style,” he said, and Zelly felt a rush of love for him; it hurt. Imagine if he knew what she’d been thinking!
Pat was the only man Zelly had ever slept with. Sometimes she was embarrassed about that and sometimes she was proud.
“You’re everything I know about love,” she said suddenly. His palms stopped smoothing the paper. “I just want to be a good wife,” she said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. You know that, I never wanted a career for myself, really—just to be a good wife and have lots of babies.”
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