The Cutting mm-1

by James Hayman

  From her chair, Hattie could see a pair of cardinals on a branch of the large maple just outside their bedroom, barely lit in the last glow of the setting sun. The male preening his fiery plumage. The dull, brownish female, quietly pecking for insects by his side. She’d never known them to be out so late. Finally they flew away.

  She remembered seeing Lucas in New York before he left. The winter of 1989. More than fifteen years ago. The city was raw and cold in its covering of sooty slush. The restaurant where they were meeting was a new place — one of dozens of sushi bars springing up all over the East Village. Hattie arrived first, coming directly from her office, and she managed to snag a table for four. The place was crowded, and because she felt embarrassed fending off the waiters as she waited for the others, she drank two large gin and tonics. Finally Philip and Lucas came tumbling in, noisy and laughing. Lucas brought a new friend. A boy with a Spanish name, Carlos or Eduardo or something like that. He was a dancer in the corps de ballet with one of the big-name dance companies — the Joffrey, she thought. He had beautiful dark brown skin exactly the color of the leather sofa in her father’s den. She finished her second gin, and they ordered sake. The sake was warm and felt good going down, so they ordered more. Lucas was showing off, ordering and eating esoteric bits of sushi not found on the menu. Revolting-looking stuff, Hattie thought. Leeches and slugs, for all she knew — and there was Philip pretending to love each slimy piece, though she was sure he hated it even more than she did.

  Afterward, they all went back to Lucas’s place. She remembered climbing the four steep, narrow flights of stairs. The halls smelled of garbage and rotting food. At the top they practically fell into the studio, a tiny single room about twelve feet square with cracked plaster walls and a dirty brown commercial carpet. It was dominated by a huge king-sized bed. Hattie wondered how they’d ever gotten the damned thing up the stairs. Two small filthy windows looked out on an airshaft. The only furniture besides the bed was a chair covered in lime green vinyl, a small bedside table, and two lamps. Most of the light came from a dim overhead.

  ‘Behold!’ Lucas drunkenly exclaimed, flopping down on the mattress and pulling the giggling boy, Carlos or Eduardo, down on top of him. ‘Behold the playing fields of Eton! Upon which the Battle Sexualis is frequently fought and usually won.’

  Lucas started kissing the boy, but he pulled away. ‘I want a drink,’ the boy said, slurring the words.

  ‘Not until you take your clothes off,’ said Lucas.

  Hattie leaned against the door, watching, while Carlos or Eduardo undressed. He had a beautiful dancer’s body, long and muscular. He posed for Lucas. ‘Now do I get my drink?’ he said teasingly. He was the first black man she’d ever seen naked. His penis was very dark and uncircumcised. She realized she’d expected it to be huge, but it wasn’t, only a little bigger than Philip’s. Even so, his body excited her in a way Philip’s never had.

  Lucas got up and opened a pair of louvered doors, revealing a tiny kitchen a few feet from the bed. Really more of a closet than a kitchen. The small sink was piled high with dirty dishes. He pulled out a bottle of vodka and a glass from a cupboard and handed them to the boy, who poured some and lay down on the bed and began drinking. Then Lucas began taking off his own clothes.

  Hattie thought she should leave. Instead, she stood, her back to the door, watching Lucas until he, too, was naked. She glanced over at Philip. He was sitting in the vinyl easy chair, watching her watching Lucas. She felt both nervous and exposed. Lucas opened a drawer in the bedside table and took a joint from a small plastic bag. He lit it, took a long drag, got up, and walked to where Hattie was standing and handed it to her. She took a drag, held the smoke in her lungs, and handed it back. Then Lucas took her hand and put it on his cock. She began stroking it and it got hard. She exhaled the smoke. ‘I didn’t know you still liked it with girls, Lucas,’ she said.

  ‘With you, Hattie, I think I could like it very much.’ She felt a tremor rather like electricity. ‘Besides, Philip and I share everything.’

  Lucas was staring at her with those extraordinary eyes. He was tall, like Philip, but with a more intense face and a harder body. ‘Including me?’

  ‘Especially you.’

  ‘Have you ever fucked Philip?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Many times — and will again. You and I have that in common.’

  She looked again at Philip. He was enjoying this. Getting off on it. The bastard. ‘Are you going to take your clothes off, too?’ she asked him.

  ‘No. I’m going to watch you take yours off.’

  The boy on the bed pouted. ‘Oh, Lucas, you are such a bore. Don’t you have anything more interesting than pot? And why are you fooling with that girl? Don’t you love me?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lucas said, ‘of course I love you, and I have something much better than pot for you. I got these specially from the hospital.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Something special.’

  ‘Well, let me have them.’

  He handed the boy some white pills from a gunmetal pillbox on the bedside table. Eduardo or Carlos swallowed a couple, washing them down with vodka.

  ‘Philip?’ Hattie said. ‘Don’t you think you should take me home?’ She was still leaning against the door, still wearing her red goose-down ski parka, making no move to leave.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Hattie.’

  ‘But I’m your wife.’

  ‘Yes, I know — and a good upright New England girl you are. But, don’t you see? That’s what makes all of this so interesting. I get to share you with my dearest friend. I get to see you in a whole new light.’

  A new light? Yes. Why not a new light? Then, as much from the pent-up anger she felt toward Philip as from the attraction she’d always felt for Lucas, Hattie pulled down the zipper on her jacket.

  Both Philip and Lucas watched Hattie as she stripped. Eduardo or Carlos was merely bored. She didn’t try to make it sexy. She simply took off her clothes and folded them neatly, laying them on the floor in the corner. When she, too, was naked, she walked to the side of the bed, dropped to her knees, and took Lucas’s cock in her mouth. She licked it until it was hard again. She could hear Philip breathing heavily behind her.

  She looked up at Lucas. ‘Do you have any condoms?’ she asked. ‘There’s no way this happens without a condom. Not with your history.’

  Silently he pulled a condom from the same gunmetal box that held the pills. ‘Lucas’s magic box,’ she smiled.

  She slipped the condom over him, and then he pulled her up onto the bed and put his head between her legs. His tongue flicked delicately in and out, like a snake’s. Her breathing quickened. ‘Lucas’s magic tongue,’ she moaned softly.

  After that she took him deep inside. Even as she approached orgasm, she remained aware of Philip’s eyes, watching, probing, never looking away. His hips seemed to be rocking as if he, too, were on the receiving end of Lucas’s thrusts, he, too, rising and falling, then rising again toward orgasm.

  After she came and Lucas came, Hattie lay there for a few minutes, thinking about what she had done and why she had done it. Finally she got up and walked over to where Philip sat, still watching. ‘Philip, I want you to know,’ she said in the same even voice she’d used to announce her decision to accept the presidency of the Junior League, ‘that that was, by far, the best fuck I ever had.’ Then Hattie put on her clothes and left. Alone.

  She was long gone when Eduardo or Carlos or whatever his name was went into convulsions and had to be rushed to the ER. Lucas, high as a kite, somehow managed to carry the boy, still naked and thrashing, down four flights of stairs and into a taxi for the trip to Bellevue. To his credit, she supposed, he never said anything about her or Philip being in the apartment. Never said anything about what they had done. The boy hadn’t died, but it had been close. In the weeks that followed, there was a formal investigation. Hattie didn’t know the details, but she did know that, whi
le criminal charges were never filed, Lucas lost his license to practice medicine. After that, he disappeared from their lives. Philip never spoke of him again or said anything about that night. Hattie, too, let the matter rest. She thought she’d never see Lucas again and was content with that. Then four years ago Philip told her Lucas was dead.

  Hattie heard the front door open and close. Philip. The downstairs lights flicked on. She looked at her glass. The gin was gone. She wanted another, but she didn’t want to see Philip and knew she couldn’t avoid him if she went downstairs. Instead, she put the glass on the mantel of the bedroom fireplace, stripped off her gardening clothes, threw them in a pile in the corner of her closet, and locked herself in the bathroom. She turned on the shower. She looked at her naked body in the full-length mirror. Still slim. Still attractive. Or would be, were it not for the scar tissue where her left breast used to be. The other one seemed so small, so lonely, so orphaned by itself. The cancer had been cut out four years ago, a full mastectomy at Philip’s urging. She’d acquiesced in spite of her own doctor’s less radical advice. ‘Much the safest course,’ Philip had assured her. Philip the self-appointed oracle. Philip the concerned husband. Philip the slicer and dicer. ‘Much the best way to make sure we get it all.’

  Afterward, angry with herself and with Philip, she decided against reconstructive surgery. After all, only Philip ever saw her naked, and it was important to her that he never again find pleasure looking at her body. That he never forget what he had done.

  Hattie climbed into the tub and let the water from the shower, hot as she could stand it, course over her body. She scrubbed herself over and over again with the loofah until her skin felt raw. Then she dried and brushed her hair and dressed in clean jeans and a new sweatshirt.

  She went downstairs. Philip sat in the den, reading. Ignoring him, Hattie crossed to the living room and poured herself another two inches of gin. Then she went to the kitchen for ice cubes and added them to the glass. ‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ she heard Philip call out. ‘The single malt. No ice.’ She poured the drink and brought it to him. She sat in the small leather club chair across from him sipping her gin. Philip continued reading. The loudest sound in the room was the ticking of the ancient burled walnut grandfather clock Hattie had inherited from her own grandfather. As she sipped, she felt the familiar easing of tension, the comforting signal the gin was finally kicking in, beginning to do its job. She picked up the half-completed Times crossword puzzle, then put it down again.

  ‘That detective was here today,’ she said. ‘McCabe?’

  ‘Really? What did he want?’

  ‘I was in the garden and found him peering into the garage. Then he came in and asked me some questions.’

  ‘What sorts of questions?’

  ‘Mostly about who drove what car. He asked me about Lucas.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘That we knew Lucas years ago. That he was dead. That he’d been murdered.’

  Philip was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s alright.’

  17

  How long had she been there in the dark? Hours? Days? Weeks? Longer? Lucy had no idea, no way to measure the passage of time. Once or twice she tried by counting. ‘One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one-thousand.’ Each time, she’d get up to five- or six-hundred-one-thousand and forget why she was counting.

  Her throat was parched. Her stomach hurt from hunger. She remembered reading that a human being could last for weeks without food but only three or four days without water. She was desperately thirsty. Her tongue felt like a big dry furry thing stuck in the middle of her mouth, although she didn’t think she could be totally dehydrated. Even now she could still make tears. More than once she’d felt the wetness sliding out from under her lids and rolling down her cheeks. She tried catching the drops with her tongue to moisten her mouth, but it never worked.

  18

  Monday. 8:00 A.M.

  At this hour on a Monday morning, Middle Street was crowded with worker bees on the way to their various hives. McCabe angled past a trio of pin-striped attorneys spread three abreast across the sidewalk. Lawyers and stockbrokers. About the only people left in Maine still wearing suits to the office. A pretty blond in tight jeans, carrying a briefcase, smiled at him. A fat brown Labrador retriever waddled by her side, apparently on his way to the office, too.

  McCabe entered 109 and took the stairs two at a time. The place was already buzzing. Tom Tasco flashed him a greeting. McCabe stopped. ‘How are you guys doing with the doctors?’ he asked.

  ‘Three teams working full-time. We’ve talked to sixty-two surgeons in the last twenty-four hours. More on tap for today.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘No suspects yet, but if you ever need a quadruple bypass, let me know. I’ve got a lot of connections.’

  Maggie was on the phone, feet, as usual, propped on her desk. An oversized note from Shockley’s admin greeted McCabe at his own desk. The Chief wants to see you. ASAP!!! Deirdre. That’s all he needed now, more crap from the GO. He held the note in front of Maggie, who was still on the phone, with a ‘Do you know what this is about?’ gesture. She shrugged and shook her head no.

  He headed for Shockley’s corner office. Might as well get whatever it was out of the way. The door was open. Deirdre told him to go on in. He found Shockley deep in bullshit mode, collar undone, tie pulled down. He was playing to an appreciative audience. Portland mayor Gary Short, who stood nearly six foot five, and Will Hayley, a longtime fixture on the city council, were both seated on his large leather couch. In a city where mayors are selected from the council on an annual basis, Short had no more clout than Hayley, and on issues of public safety Shockley was more powerful than either.

  ‘Sit down, Mike.’ Shockley signaled to the chair in front of his desk. ‘You know Gary and Will?’

  McCabe continued standing and nodded at the two men. ‘We’ve met. What’s on your mind, Chief? I’ve got a busy morning.’ Short and Hayley exchanged glances and decided they’d rather not be present for what McCabe supposed was intended as a dressing-down. They gathered their things.

  ‘You guys have a lot to talk about,’ said Hayley. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’ Mayor Short closed the door as the two men left.

  ‘I got an unwelcome call this morning,’ said Shockley, ‘from Dr. Phil Spencer. He’s not happy. Apparently his wife discovered you snooping around their property yesterday. Then you questioned her, according to Spencer, like a common criminal, quote unquote.’

  ‘I’m not sure “like a common criminal” applies, but yes, I was there, and yes, I did talk to her. I also talked to Spencer the day before, at the hospital. What of it?’

  ‘McCabe, Phil Spencer is one of the most prominent men in this community, not to mention one of the top transplant surgeons in New England. He knows a lot of people, and he’s got a lot of clout that can impact this department. I would appreciate it if you didn’t go crashing around in his affairs. I’d have thought you had more sense than that.’

  McCabe stood silently for a minute, weighing his response. ‘Am I or am I not the lead on this case?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Am I or am I not the lead on this case? If I am the lead, there are a couple of things we’d better get straight before the investigation goes any further.’

  Shockley eyed McCabe cautiously, a cobra eyeing a mongoose. Nobody talked to him this way. ‘Really? And what might those “couple of things” be?’

  ‘For one, as long as I’m in charge of this investigation, I’ll go wherever the facts — and my instincts — lead. If they happen to lead to, quote, one of the most prominent men in this community, unquote, so be it. For another, it seems you had an earlier conversation with Dr. Spencer at the Pemaquid Club Friday night. You talked about my private life and revealed confidential information about the investigation, to a man who, by the nature of what he does for a living, might become a suspect
. Then, to top it off, you shoot your mouth off to the press about the removal of Katie’s heart. We agreed we’d keep that quiet. It’s a detail your adoring public didn’t need to know.’

  Tom Shockley stood, placed both hands on his desk, and leaned into McCabe, his pale face turning bright scarlet. ‘Number one, Phil Spencer is no suspect. I have total confidence that anything I say to Philip Spencer is and will remain confidential. Number two, I also have total confidence he has nothing to do with this murder. Number three, and I believe I’ve said this before, the public has a right to information about one of the most horrific murders this city has ever seen.’

  ‘As for Spencer, maybe he has nothing to do with the case. We don’t know. Either way, as lead investigator it’s my job to decide how to conduct this investigation. Not yours. As for the public’s right to know, all you’ve accomplished by releasing unknown details is to make it harder for our people to screen out the nut jobs. You know? The whackos who call us every day with bullshit information or confessions. By the same token, you made it harder for us to identify someone as the murderer because he knows stuff he shouldn’t. Chief, you may have just doubled our workload. On behalf of my detectives and myself, thanks a bunch.’

  Shockley was trying to control his rage. ‘One more word, McCabe. Just one more and you are fucking toast. You got that?’

  ‘You want my shield, Tom? Here. Take it. Go solve the murder yourself.’ McCabe took out his badge wallet and tossed it on Shockley’s desk, wondering if Shockley would call him on it. Wondering if it even was a bluff. Then he jumped in with both feet. ‘Just remember, Chief, it will make for interesting reading when you try to explain to the press why your star detective suddenly got the ax. The same detective you just bragged about hiring. I’m sure the reporters will find it even more interesting how the chief of police fucked up the investigation.’