High Risk

by Rick R. Reed

  Was this the beginning of their road to failure?

  He came back in. “These are for you.” He handed her a bouquet of irises and left quickly again. When she heard the front door close, she buried her face in the flowers and cried.

  Later, Beth sat in the living room, listening to a Philip Glass CD and drinking a cup of tea. She had closed the blinds, shutting out the brilliant autumnal sun, making the room dark, shrouded in shadows.

  But she could still make out the irises in the crystal vase, where she had put them before placing them on the coffee table.

  Appropriate that he had brought her irises. They watched her like accusing eyes.

  She wore a khaki skirt, pink Oxford cloth blouse, and loafers. She had pulled her hair into a chignon and clipped it was a paisley, silk-covered barrette.

  She wondered if anyone other than the neighborhood garbage men would come across the three Hefty bags she had hoisted to the Dumpster in the alley. She had filled them with a cache of leather, satin, and lace. Would some bag lady come across them, feeling like she would need to celebrate winning the Fredericks of Hollywood sweepstakes?

  She wished that ridding her mind of the guilt and anxiety was as easy as throwing away what she had referred to as her “slut clothes.” But she worried.

  Where was Abbott? Why did he leave?

  The phone’s chirping startled her. Its warble sounded louder, somehow, setting her heart to pounding.

  Beth jumped up and went to the unbroken Sony receiver in the kitchen. Its LCD screen displayed the name Abbott Lowery. She couldn’t avoid the call. And already she was thinking how she would have to make sure to delete the name and number as soon as she hung up.

  She could barely breathe as she lifted the cordless from its cradle. “What? What do you want?” she whispered.

  “Nothing’s over. You realize that, don’t you, sweetheart?”

  “Please…”

  “Sweat it out, slut. Hubby’s gonna find out, soon enough. But I hold the cards and I’ll decide when and where he gets the news.”

  “Oh, no,” Beth whimpered, her voice barely above a sigh. She deplored the weakness and the despair, knowing it was just what he wanted to hear.

  “You didn’t think, did you, that I was gonna let you off the hook that easy?”

  “Listen…” Beth began, but found herself talking to dead air.

  Chapter 5

  Abbott screamed. The scream jarred him from sleep into wakefulness with nothing in between. He sat up. The top sheet was in a ball at his feet; the bottom sheet was damp with his sweat. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, breathing fast, wiping the sweat from his brow. He was disgusted by the fact that his dick was hard.

  He didn’t want to think what the dream was about. To help him keep his mind off the nightmare, he surveyed his studio apartment. Here was the card table and folding chairs he had bought for $39.99 at K-Mart. Here was the plaid and maple Early American couch he had purchased at a thrift store for $150 (it sagged at one end where the springs had broken). And the real antique was the portable black and white TV on a stand, with aluminum foil on its rabbit ears. Abbott didn’t even know if it was possible to buy a black and white set anymore. This one was like his mother’s.

  But he didn’t want to think about her.

  From outside the window, the wan gray light of a crescent moon lit the bedroom. Abbott stood, walked to the tiny bathroom, and pissed.

  No, he didn’t want to think about the dream, but images flashed like jump cuts from a movie trailer. A birthday party. A blood red mouth. Blood. Him screaming. Rope binding his wrists. A little boy with black hair, running down a hallway and the laughter of men. Except for the blood, he didn’t understand why his heart continued to pound. And he certainly couldn’t understand why he was hard. Maybe it was just the urge to piss…

  Sure. That was it.

  Abbott toured the apartment, flicking on the overhead light, the floor lamp, and the desk lamp at the end of the small table where he ate his evening microwaved dinner entrees. He checked under the bed and inside cupboards. He peeked behind the shower curtain, flinging it back so the rings rattled against the metal bar.

  Lights on, he could no longer see outside. The black night pressed against the glass, like something oily and palpable. He saw the black as a living thing, a monster, trying to get in and engulf him, swallow him whole. The black would run into his nose, his mouth, his ears, filling him until he and it were one.

  Abbott hurriedly shut off all the lights and sat on the floor, curling into a ball. A cockroach skittered across his naked body and he screamed again.

  After a while, his breathing returned to normal and Abbott noticed the phone on the little table, a black dial model like his mother’s (but he didn’t want to think about her).

  The phone was watching him. No, he didn’t see eyes on the thing, but he knew it was watching him just the same, waiting for him to do something.

  * * * *

  Beth and Mark slept, spoons, Mark in back, arms around his wife.

  The phone’s electronic warble woke Beth first. The LCD on the bedside clock told her it was 3:55 A.M. Who could be calling now? she thought, but that was before she was fully awake. She knew immediately who would be calling.

  She lunged over her husband’s just-stirring form. Sleepily, Mark shrugged her off him. He was closer to the phone. “I’ll get it,” he mumbled. “Honest to Christ.” He peered at the receiver where the caller ID had its screen. “Who the hell is Abbott Lowery?”

  The phone rang again. Beth bit her lip, tasted the copper of her own blood. She stopped breathing, fighting the impulse to snatch the phone from her husband’s hand. Such an action would be too incriminating.

  But—oh God—what was he planning to say?

  She forced herself to lie back, nerves tingling and pulsing, and waited.

  * * * *

  Mark pressed the “talk” button. “This had better be good. Do you realize it’s four o’clock in the fuckin’ morning?”

  “Is Beth there beside you? What’s she doing?”

  “What is this, some kind of joke? I know your name, idiot. You weren’t smart enough to block it.” Mark felt sick at the sound of the deep male voice. How did he know Beth’s name? Why call tonight, after this afternoon’s strangeness? Mark had worked so hard at self-denial and now this guy was blowing his fragile house of cards. Mark didn’t know what made him say it. “What? Did you want Beth?”

  He could feel his wife stiffen beside him. Guilt? Fear? Both? She let out a little gasp.

  What was going on?

  The guy laughed, a throaty little chuckle. “Oh, everybody wants Beth. Don’t you know that?”

  “Okay, asshole, I’m hanging up now. You call back again and I call the cops.”

  “Beth didn’t think I was an asshole. It’s funny. She wanted to see my asshole, maybe lick my asshole, but she didn’t seem to think I was an asshole.” Another throaty chuckle followed, making Mark’s skin crawl.

  He slammed down the phone, more satisfying than just turning it off, then leaned over and pulled the connection out of the wall.

  He swallowed hard and turned away from her, pulling the quilt up to his ears. She leaned against him, and he could smell the perspiration. It was the kind of things animals sensed.

  He didn’t want to know.

  He didn’t want to ask.

  All he wanted to do was close his eyes. Forget. Try to reclaim his sleep before the alarm went off in three hours.

  “What was it, Mark?”

  “A crank,” he snapped. “Just go back to sleep.”

  “But…”

  “Forget it! Look, I’m tired.” He felt her peering at him in the darkness, waiting for him to turn to her. He couldn’t move. After a moment, she lay back down, stiff, beside him, as if afraid of their bodies touching.

  * * * *

  Abbott put the receiver in its cradle. He smiled.

  The dream images had vanished. H
e was calm, sleepy even. He crawled back into bed, curled up on his side, and shoved his thumb in his mouth.

  He slept dreamless the remainder of the night.

  * * * *

  The following evening, Abbott watched them in their graystone. They looked warm in there, golden, the evening light spilling out into the street.

  The street was cold. Abbott shrugged deeper into his parka. Indian summer had made an abrupt departure from Chicago earlier that afternoon, chased away by a mass of black clouds from the north that brought rain and a thirty-degree drop in temperature. Now, as rain pattered on the roof of his Monte Carlo, Abbott wished he could turn on the heater, but the heater didn’t work. Nothing much worked in this piece of shit anymore.

  But it did get him up here, to Yuppieville. It was his night off from Bennie’s.

  He drummed his hands on the steering wheel and snorted. So what was he doing sitting across the street from them? Watching the same kind of scum that came into the bar every night.

  Abbott wasn’t sure he could think of a reason. But the urge to see her and her dumb shit of a husband had been overwhelming as he flipped through the three snowy channels he could receive at home. He needed to know what she was doing, if his call the night before had had any effect.

  So now he sat shivering, watching.

  Beth wore clothing totally unlike what she was wearing the day he’d met her. Gone were the thigh-revealing leather skirt and the tits-revealing vest; this evening she wore a tan dress, almost formless, falling to just below her knees. For jewelry, she had on nothing other than a string of pearls around her neck. Her red hair was slicked down and pulled back into a tight bun. Abbott snorted. She looked like a librarian.

  And there was the husband, Mark (Abbott bet Beth was sorry she had slipped and given away his name). He was about what Abbott had expected. Clean cut. Blond hair. A dark suit and a white shirt with a striped tie. Abbott would have suffocated in such an outfit.

  Besides, he didn’t need to impress anyone, as this guy obviously did.

  Neither of them sat still. Beth was gathering some items from a table and putting them in her purse. It looked like Mark pulled a set of keys from a hutch drawer. The happy couple was going out for dinner, no doubt. Abbott started the engine, just to give it time to warm up. The evening could prove even more interesting than he had imagined.

  He felt like having a drink in the bar of some swank restaurant.

  * * * *

  “Are you sure you want to do this? We can stay in and eat. I just made a pot of chili this morning.” Beth smoothed her dress. There was nothing less she wanted to do than go out for dinner. She didn’t know why Mark wanted to, either. He had been cold and tense with her ever since the phone call last night.

  “I think it would be a good idea.” He moved to the window. “It looks like it’s raining.”

  “The nice weather couldn’t last forever.”

  “Nothing lasts forever.” Mark snatched up his keys from the hutch. “Let’s go.”

  Beth fingered her pearls, then went to the closet and took out her raincoat: tan, mid-calf length.

  * * * *

  The Province was one of Lincoln Park’s newest restaurants. Tiny, it had been decorated to look like the home of a French peasant, or at least what a Chicagoan might imagine such a home would look like. There were wide plank tongue-and-groove wooden floors, ecru walls painted to look like aged parchment, complete with artfully placed cracks, some large enough to let the brickwork beneath show through. A large fieldstone fireplace dominated one wall of the room, its mantel crowded with pewter candlesticks, rustic leather-bound books, and above it, a mirror that had been shattered and reassembled. Across from the fireplace stood a small bar with no stools, only a brass rail, where patrons could order drinks like Pernod or Lillet Blanc. Between the fireplace and the bar were about eight or nine pine tables with mismatched chairs. Pink linen tablecloths and tiny vases filled with wildflowers completed the look.

  “I’m surprised we could get in.” Beth said, then tried to lighten Mark’s dark mood by throwing him a compliment. “You must have been able to pull some strings.”

  “No. It’s a weeknight and it’s early.” Mark didn’t look up from his menu. “Want a drink?”

  Beth thought she would actually like several, anything to dull the anxiety. When the waiter approached them, a thin man with close-cropped black hair and a soul patch, Beth immediately ordered a martini. “Make it with Ketel One.” She was about to ask for it dirty, but decided against it.

  Mark had a Dewars.

  They consumed their drinks in virtual silence. They made a few comments about how well the room had been decorated and the comfortable atmosphere, but neither of them looked at each other. Not really. Their eyes never met.

  But once they had been served their dinners—Beth had a cassoulet with white beans, grilled duck confit, and garlic prawns, while Mark had mustard-crusted sole—they started to relax and talk, even if the level of comfort never reverted back to what it had been before yesterday’s traumas. Or, Beth thought pessimistically, maybe it was just the alcohol: both had had an additional cocktail and now they were sharing a bottle of white burgundy.

  Although it wasn’t all that interesting, Beth was grateful to hear about Mark’s day in court and how he had succeeded in thwarting the opposition’s attempt to take custody for an eight-year-old daughter away from his client. He even managed, at last, to smile at her.

  She hoped he was beginning to embrace the idea that last night’s call was just a crank.

  Of course he did. Why would he think anything else? People did crazy things these days. Mean things. Malicious things. She knew Mark made enemies through his work…it came with the territory. She took a sip of the wine—very good—letting it sit on her tongue for a moment before swallowing. She looked around the room.

  He was there.

  Beth’s hand jerked, knocking over her wineglass, trying to restrain herself from getting up and fleeing.

  “Oops!” Mark laughed, throwing a napkin over the pool of wine and refilling her glass. He hadn’t picked up on her distress.

  Abbott stood at the bar, staring, wearing that little grin she had thought sexy, for the better part of an afternoon, but now found malicious. He lifted a glass of beer to her. She quickly looked away, lest Mark should notice her gaze and turn. Was it time to get cramps? Was there some other reason she could dream up for a very hasty departure?

  It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if they left now or after coffee and dessert. Either way, he could easily catch up. Beth stared at the table, feeling her extremities go cold. Suddenly the food looked no more appealing than a plate of entrails. Her stomach lurched. She wondered if her face had, as the French would say, blanched. The martinis didn’t seem like such a good idea as the room began to spin.

  “Anyway, the judge called for a sidebar and when I got up there, I told him…” Mark droned on. She couldn’t follow anything he said; he might as well have been speaking French. She looked up, though, when she realized he was asking a question.

  “Honey, what’s wrong? Do you feel okay?”

  She feared he would notice the panicked tears that had sprung to her eyes, the white color she was sure her complexion had adopted. How would she explain? She folded her hands in her lap, then unfolded them, then picked up her wineglass, sipped, put it down. She toyed with her napkin. “Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing’s wrong.” She made her voice louder, forcing herself to smile and look at Mark. “Some wine just went down the wrong way.” Bigger smile. “Made my eyes water.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What else could it be? You were saying…”

  “I was rambling. Sorry. Sometimes I forget a world goes on out there that has nothing to do with depositions, writs, and rulings. How’s your dinner?”

  “Fine.” Beth picked at the duck with her fork, forcing herself to bring a bit of the meat to her mouth. The moist flesh made her stomach churn
. She forced herself to swallow.

  Their waiter came to the table. With a grin, he set down in front of Beth a squat glass with a pale green liquid inside.

  “Pernod and water. For the lady.” He smiled at Beth, then glanced at Mark, the look fast, surreptitious.

  “But I didn’t order this.”

  “Compliments of the gentleman.” Beth’s heart began to thud as the waiter turned and gestured. Beth stared into the cloudy, greenish liquid, knowing Mark was directing his attention toward the bar. When she looked up, Abbott smiled and waved.

  “Do you know that guy?”

  I can’t show that I’m nervous. That would be all wrong. I have to play this right.”

  She forced herself to meet Mark’s blue-eyed gaze. Remember: he can’t see that your heart is pounding. He can’t see you stomach churning. “No, of course I don’t know him.” She laughed, trying to sound lighthearted. “I guess I can still turn a head.” She put her hand over his. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  He shrugged and lifted a forkful of salad to his mouth. “I guess I’ve got no reason to be. Don’t you want to thank him?”

  “I don’t know him, honey, as I said.” She picked up the glass, trying to keep the Pernod from sloshing over the edge, put on a brave smile, and raised the glass to Abbott. She mouthed the words, “Thank you.” Then she looked back at Mark. “Hopefully, that’ll be the end of it.”

  Eating the rest of her meal felt like stuffing Styrofoam down her throat.

  * * * *

  Three days passed. Three days of jumping each time the phone rang. Three days of nervous glances out the window. Three days of wondering every time Mark called from the office if he would relate to her a story about an “interesting” call he had received. “You know this Abbott Lowery person, don’t you, Beth?” And then she imagined herself sitting down as Mark spilled out everything Abbott had told him, replete with details that would confirm the veracity of his accusations.

  But nothing happened. The absence of hearing anything from Abbott was both a relief and a terror. She wondered if she would ever be free from living with the expectation of being exposed, of having her life turned upside down.