“No, he was downstairs watching TV. It was a big house. I don’t know where she was. She came in a little after.”
“How come she hadn’t been watching Stephanie?”
Rollins turned around in the bed to face her. “I don’t know. I always assumed it was because I was so close by. I was playing with my toy cars in my bedroom.”
Marj shifted onto her side. “How’d Neely react?”
“She started crying, just bawling. Screaming. My mother actually slapped her, not that it helped, to try to pull her together.”
“Jeez.”
“The whole scene was so wild—you have no idea. Stephanie on the bathroom floor, the ambulance people rushing around, my parents screaming at me. ‘Edward! How could you just leave her there? Edward! Edward!’ Like that, over and over.” He sniffed, to take in a little air.
“No wonder you don’t like the name.” She said this quietly, as if to herself.
“I should have told you,” Rollins said. “I meant to. But I wasn’t sure you really wanted to know.”
“I do.” Marj stroked his hair. “I want to know everything, Rolo.”
Later, after they drained the last of the champagne and licked the final shreds of crabmeat off their fingers, Rollins began to feel a little better. He drifted back to bed, took a deep breath, and folded his hands in his lap as he lay back against the pillows.
“Sleepy?” Marj asked.
He murmured agreement. He rested his eyes for a moment and his body lightened and he was floating. On a calm, blue sea. So peaceful. There was nothing to fear below and, above, there was only a radiant sky from which a yellow warmth beat down upon him. It was like sunshine, only better, more like love, bathing and caressing him all over, suffusing his loins with liquid fire.
The sound of Marj’s voice brought him back. She was talking on the telephone at the desk by the window. “Oh, shit,” Marj was saying. “Really? But it’s only a little past noon. Yeah, okay. All right, you send that along. I gave you the fax number, right? Okay, thanks. Bye.” Then she hung up the receiver. “Shit,” she said again.
Rollins had trouble focusing. Hearing Marj, he wanted to reach for her. He realized that the warmth of his dream had come from her. From her touch: her touch was love, the light touch of her soft skin. “Who was that?” he asked sleepily.
Marj turned toward him. “Lena.” A curly-haired girl of that name worked in the cubicle diagonally behind Marj at Johnson. “The market’s way off today. That growth fund of Kent McMillan’s? It’s down like fifteen percent. And Henderson is bullshit.”
He was still lost in the erotic warmth of his dream. At first the words just washed over him. But then, seeing Marj’s distress, Rollins rubbed his scalp with his fingertips, to try to rouse his brain to take in more of what she was saying.
Marj went on: “Five people in the department are out sick today because of some stupid flu that’s going around. He asked Lena where I was. Lena didn’t know. Then he wanted to know where you were. Lena didn’t know that, either. Henderson had that personnel guy, Jackie somebody, call us. When he got no answer at your place, and the machine at mine—well, Henderson lost it.” She looked at him more intently. “Are you listening to me?”
Her words struck like ice water. He blinked to clear his mind. “Yes. Of course. Sorry.”
“I’m not sure we got jobs there anymore, Rolo. Lena said Henderson was sure we were out fucking around. He really used that word, fucking! Lena tried to stick up for me. But she said she’d never seen Henderson so pissed.”
Rollins eased back onto the pillows. Fired from Johnson? For himself, he didn’t really care. Not now. Henderson, Johnson…the whole business seemed like ancient history, involving primitive people, petty rituals. And his parents at the bottom of it. Ops was a shit job, just as Marj had said. He couldn’t believe he’d ever done it. “Screw them,” he said.
But he regretted it when he saw the worry on Marj’s face. Obviously, life was different for her, with no trust fund to fall back on. “I should never have gotten you into this,” he told her. Then he sensed that such a confession might not be enough. “Look, Marj, if you need any…well, you know.”
“I’m not going to charge for having sex with you, Rolo, if that’s what you mean.”
Rollins’ jaw dropped to hear those words, and to feel the anger behind them. “No, Marj. Please. That’s not what I meant.” He wanted to rush to her, to repair this breach between them, but he was still aroused from his dream, and he just couldn’t approach her right then, not in that state. He never should have fallen asleep. This was turning out all wrong. “I just thought that you might need some money, that’s all.”
“Well, I don’t, all right?” Marj flipped the notepad onto the desk. “Look, I’ve been shit-canned before, and I’m sure I’ll be shit-canned again.” Then she dropped down on the chair and fell silent. “Don’t worry about me, all right? Just…don’t. I’ll get through this somehow. It’s no big deal. I’ve been through a lot worse.” As he watched, Rollins could see her hand grope for the Kleenex box on the desk and bring a tissue to her eye. He couldn’t bear that. For her to suffer because of him—that was too awful. Without another thought, he threw off the covers and hurried to her.
Marj turned, and then rolled her eyes at the sight of him. “Oh, God, it’s Eddie again.”
Rollins looked down—his erect penis was poking out through the opening in his boxers like a man waving from an upstairs window. Mortified, he spun away to rearrange himself, then slumped back onto the bed and drew a sheet over himself, his cheeks flaming with embarrassment.
“It’s all right, Rolo. I’ve seen it before, remember?” Then she sniffled, dropped the tissue into the wastebasket, and turned toward him, her voice full of the sympathy he’d come to love from her. “You want some help with that? I suppose I could, you know, like, do something if you want.”
“No, Marj. Really. It’s just that I—” Rollins could feel himself flushing, and he turned toward the draperies. If he continued to look at her, he was afraid his erection would never go down.
“What?” Marj prodded. She came and sat next to him.
Her proximity, her remarkable tenderness, the sudden shifting of the sheets, the memory of her in the bathtub—all this provoked him terribly. He tried to think of extremely cold things—ice, snow, winter—and he took a deep breath that he hoped might prove cooling. But she was right next to him, and she deserved an answer. “Well, I guess I was dreaming about you.”
“Really?” Marj smiled shyly. “About me?”
His erection was rock-hard and pulsing. But still, going slowly, he managed to tell her about his dream, about floating, bathed in her love—only he didn’t use that word, which might have seemed presumptuous. Instead, he settled on “feelings for me.”
Marj seemed to melt as he spoke. “That’s sweet,” she told him. She leaned over to him. “Really.” And she kissed him on the side of his neck.
Feeling her lips on him, Rollins couldn’t contain himself anymore. He inhaled sharply, and then came all over the sheets.
Rollins was speechless, this moment was so far beyond what words could handle. But his expression must have alarmed Marj.
“God, Rolo, are you all right?”
Everything felt wet and sticky down below, and he was sure that she could smell something. “Marj, I—”
“What?”
He slowly, uncertainly, peeled back the sheets, revealing the mess he’d made.
Marj laughed—a wonderful, carefree laugh. “Well, that’s a first,” she said. Then she must have feared that she’d hurt his feelings, because she quickly added: “Actually, it’s kind of impressive.” She went to the bathroom, ran the taps for a moment, and then returned with a wet washcloth. “Here.” She handed it to him.
As he wiped the come off himself and the bedding, he didn’t, to his surprise, feel particularly ashamed. As for Marj, she hardly seemed to notice. She simply took the washcloth from him when he was done, dabb
ed at a few places on the sheets that he had missed, then took it to the bathroom, where she washed it out under the tap.
He was sitting on the side of the bed when she came back.
She stood just inside the door. “I didn’t mean that, you know—what I said a minute ago about being paid.”
“I know,” Rollins assured her.
“And this thing about getting fired. That’s just something that happens. That’s the way I look at it. It’s nobody’s fault.”
“I still feel that if it hadn’t been for me—”
“I’ll be all right,” she interrupted. “I’m pretty good at getting jobs.” She smiled bravely. “Had a lot of practice.” She turned toward the mirror and fluffed out her hair. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Rafael dropped off your clothes. They’re in the closet.”
“You should get something for yourself. I’d pay for it. I mean—if you don’t mind.”
Rollins thought Marj was about to object. But instead she said only, “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Rollins found the clothes on a Louis’ hanger inside the closet. There was a pair of cream-colored trousers and a tangerine shirt.
“Hey, a new you,” Marj said, looking on by his shoulder.
Rollins put them on right there in front of her. The fit was perfect, but, looking in the mirror, he wasn’t sure he was ready for the breezy Californian staring back at him. Marj handed him a pair of tassled loafers and silk socks. “I forgot to tell you, he left these, too.”
Rollins pulled them on, felt the slippery stiffness of the new leather through the light silk. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Looking good, Rolo,” Marj said, and added a cluck of approval from the back of her mouth.
“I guess it will have to do.”
A knock at the door: the bellhop, Rafael, who looked admiringly at Rollins’ new outfit. “Fax for you sir,” he said, handing over an envelope. Rollins pressed a tip in his hand, then closed the door.
Marj hurried to his side. “I forgot to tell you—Lena said another fax had come in. I had her forward it.”
Rollins ripped open the envelope.
You look just like him. The message bore the same rounded script as before.
Rollins and Marj both stared at it.
“Like who?” Marj asked. “What’s this about?”
Rollins let his hand go limp. He felt weak. The hits were coming from everywhere. Rollins looked at his image in the mirror, imagined a young businessman on the make.
In these clothes, he might indeed look just like him, now that he’d gone out to the coast.
Marj snatched the fax from his hand. “Who are you?” she shouted at the paper. “What do you want?” She slammed it down on the desk. “God!” She paced across the room in a sudden rage. “Who is it, Rolo? Do you have any idea? Is it some creep from college who’s trying to bug you? An old girlfriend? Who?”
Rollins sat down on the chair under the window. “It’s somebody who knows my father.”
“Your father? Why him?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Maybe it’s an old girlfriend of his, trying to get back in touch with him.”
“Maybe.” Rollins heaved himself out of the chair and crossed the room. “I’m going to check with Al.” He reached for the phone. “Maybe he’s traced the fax number by now.” He dialed the Maine number he’d kept in his wallet while Marj lay down on the bed.
Rollins turned away from her, the better to concentrate, when the phone started to ring. In moments, Schecter’s voice came on the line. “Al! Thank God I reached you.”
“Where the hell are you? I’ve been calling your apartment all morning.”
“I’m at a hotel—”
“A hotel?” Schecter interrupted, chuckling. “What, a little business travel now?”
“It’s in Boston.”
“Oh, the broad.”
Rollins could hear Schecter blow out some cigar smoke. Rollins glanced back at Marj, who was watching him from the bed. “Any progress on that fax number?”
“I’ve called my guy in California three times now. He tells me it takes time, because there’s a lot of shit to go through with these things. You screwing her?”
The crudeness of the verb silenced him.
“Oh, I get it, she’s right there!” Schecter laughed again, obviously enjoying himself.
Rollins was not in a joking mood. He told Schecter about Tina being planted in his apartment building to watch him. When he said that, the seriousness of the situation seemed to get through, and it did all the more when Rollins added that he’d found Wayne Jeffries staking out his car this morning. “I’m betting that Sloane hired both of them, Jeffries and Tina.”
“All right, Rollins, it’s time to unload on me now. Three people are on you? What the hell’s going on here? What have you been doing?”
“Nothing!”
“Cut the shit, would you? Start at the beginning.”
Rollins started to explain about following the Audi in Somerville, but Schecter interrupted him with a roar: “Wait a second. You were doing what? You FBI now?”
Rollins’ heart sank. Clearly, he wouldn’t be able to breeze through this. “No. This is not a job, if that’s what you mean. It’s just something I’d started to do—in my spare time.”
“What is, exactly?” Schecter always zeroed right in on any evasions.
Rollins wasn’t sure what word to use. He doubted that his own preferred term, “pursuits,” would wash. He braced himself. “Tailing people, I guess you’d say.”
Schecter blew out some smoke. “You’re kidding.”
“I’ve only done it a few times,” Rollins insisted. But then he sensed Marj listening in, and he remembered how he’d told her the same. “Well, more than a few, I suppose.”
“So it’s like a hobby,” Schecter said.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that,” Rollins admitted, relieved to find a word that was acceptable to both of them. “It’s just something I started doing. It helps me unwind.”
“Fucking wacko.”
“Yes, probably,” Rollins admitted.
It was a painful concession, as Schecter must have sensed. “Okay, so you followed this car.” He puffed on his cigar. “Then what?”
Rollins described following Jeffries to the dark house, then meeting Sloane there, and spying on him. Schecter listened quietly, taking a pull on his cigar now and then.
“Well, that’s the craziest fucking thing I ever heard,” Schecter said when Rollins was finally done.
“No one was ever supposed to know, all right?” Rollins said with some irritation.
“No one ever is.”
“I called you for help, Al,” Rollins reminded the investigator.
Schecter went quiet for a moment. “Just tell me one thing. How’s that dykey cousin of yours fit in?”
Rollins told him about Marj’s finding the photograph of Cornelia in the Globe file on the North Reading house.
“So that’s why you went up to Londonderry?”
“Partly.”
“What’s the other part?”
“I’d rather not go into that now.” He wasn’t willing to confide everything. There were some aspects of this drama that simply seemed too personal. He could tell Marj, but he’d had to work at it. They came from a part of him that was painful to reach.
“Rollins,” Schecter prodded.
“I was just there, all right?”
“Okay, you were just there. And you found out that her house had been sold. So there seems to be some movement there.”
“Some.”
“Like the maggots are starting to squirm.” That was a favorite Schecter expression.
“You could say that.”
He took another puff. “And what’s the deal with North Reading—Cornelia never lived there, did she?”
“Not so far as I know.” Rollins told him that a next-door neighbor had hinted about some wild goings-on in the house,
and the Globe had reported Sloane’s drug arrest. “So there may be a link there,” Rollins said. “Cornelia used drugs—marijuana, anyway. Maybe there’s a drug connection of some kind.”
“Could be,” Schecter said, but he didn’t sound satisfied. He asked for the street address of the Elmhurst house, then said he would put in a call to the chief of police down in North Reading to see what he could pick up. “We go back a ways.” Then he added: “Now, what are you doing tonight? Aside from you know what.”
“No plans. We’re kind of holed up here.”
“Good, because I’m coming down to see you before you get yourselves killed.”
“We’ll be all right, Al.”
“Course you will. Meet me at Joey’s at six.” That was a Waterfront restaurant he’d always liked. “I’ll be in the back. Bring the broad. I’d like to meet her. Deal?”
Rollins cupped a hand over the receiver. “He wants to meet us for dinner.”
Marj nodded.
“Fine,” Rollins said.
“See you there.”
Sixteen
Joey’s was an old-fashioned fish place on Atlantic Avenue, a block from the wharves, where the air was wet with the smell of the sea. It had an aquarium just inside the door, and Marj paused a moment to watch the colorful, big-eyed fish swim about. “Look at them,” she told Rollins, pointing. “All eyes, just like you.” Then she laughed, and Rollins led her inside. She was wearing a long, slinky skirt and matching vest that she’d purchased at the shop downstairs at the Ritz and charged to the room. He was excited to feel the vest’s gold brocade under his fingertips, especially knowing that he’d paid for it—and that her bare flesh was on the other side. He imagined that he’d staked a claim to her publicly. As he entered the restaurant, he raised his chin and thrust out his shoulders slightly, conscious of his profile beside this beauty whom he had dressed in gold.
It was just before six, and the restaurant was nearly deserted, except for a few salesman-types at the bar getting an early start on happy hour. Some light jazz was playing, and there were a few neon logos on the walls.
An Asian woman in black came out from the kitchen. “You the ones with Al?” she asked.
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