The Ex

by Lutz, John

  She first noticed the man watching her while she was walking along Eighty-sixth Street toward the station at Central Park West. He was well over six feet tall and very thin, with a narrow face, sad eyes, and straight red hair that hung lank almost to his shoulders. He was wearing jeans and a baggy black T-shirt lettered GREAT GOTHAM below an outline of the city skyline in yellow. Molly had sensed that someone was staring at her, glanced to the side and saw the man, and he quickly and somewhat guiltily averted his eyes.

  She figured she knew what he’d been thinking; he was sizing her up, gauging her sexuality. That wasn’t unusual in New York. It was as much a part of subway travel as tokens and turnstiles.

  She noticed, though it didn’t greatly concern her, that he’d descended the subway station stairs behind her. Now he was standing well away from her on the platform. She might not have seen him if it weren’t for his height. He was looking away from her, in the direction from which the train would make its approach.

  Within five minutes Molly felt the cool breeze that meant a train was bearing down on the station, pushing the air before it. A single white light became visible down the tunnel, and with a thunderous roar the train flashed in a blur along the tracks and appeared to be an express speeding past this station. But it slowed and squealed and clattered to a stop.

  Molly was standing within a few feet of the train, and she boarded the sleek steel car as soon as the doors hissed open. She sat down on one of the plastic seats on the opposite side of the car, near the end, across from an old woman with a large shopping bag resting on the floor between her legs, and a man who appeared to be sleeping despite the open magazine spread out on his lap. The glossy cover of the magazine featured a blond woman wearing a skimpy red outfit and wielding a whip. Above the woman with the shopping bag was an ad with a phone number to call if you needed repair of a torn earlobe.

  There was a nasal, indecipherable public announcement concerning the route and the next stop, then the train jerked and accelerated away from the station, and Molly settled back to ride.

  As they were running through darkness, the door at the opposite end of the car opened, the one that allowed access from the following car. There was a momentary burst of sound—steel wheels thundering along the tracks—then the redheaded man stepped inside and slid the door shut.

  Molly stared at him, but he merely glanced at her as he gripped a pole to keep his balance and sat down.

  She remembered him standing far away from her on the platform. Which meant he must have made his way through at least two or three cars to get to this one. And apparently he was going no farther.

  When she got off at the Seventh Avenue stop and transferred to an E train that would take her to the Lexington station, she lost sight of the man.

  But when she surfaced to the street near the Citicorp Building, there he was, standing on the opposite sidewalk.

  She ignored him, tried not to think of him, as she walked down Fifty-third toward Second Avenue, where she was going to meet David.

  Near Third Avenue she paused to pretend to look in a shop window, and there was the man’s reflection, along with a cluster of people waiting to cross the intersection. He was staring at her, but when he realized she was watching his reflection, he looked away and moved out of sight.

  She was scared now. And angry. But at least she knew the man appeared in reflection, unlike vampires and imaginary figures of the mentally unbalanced. And he was certainly following her.

  What would Dr. Mindle say if she told him about this? Paranoic delusion, he’d probably say.

  Deirdre would undoubtedly say the same.

  David might agree.

  Though she was on the lookout, she didn’t see the redheaded man again as she made her way to the diner where she was to meet David.

  As she walked across Second Avenue, she saw David through a diner window, seated in a booth. She waved to him, but he didn’t see her among the still tightly knotted crowd of people who’d just crossed the intersection.

  Molly felt better as soon as she entered the Apple Blossom Diner. It was a sunlit, hamburger kind of place, with Formica-topped tables and a stainless steel counter with red vinyl stools. A few dozen customers sat in booths or at tables, another half dozen at the counter. As she walked toward David, she heard the sizzle of something cold being placed on the hot grill.

  She slid into the booth to sit opposite him.

  “You’re late,” he said, looking up from a brightly colored pamphlet he’d been reading—something about a medical plan. He didn’t seem irritated by her tardiness; it was merely an observation.

  “Sorry, had to wait awhile for a subway.” In truth she’d simply lost track of time and left the apartment ten minutes later than she’d planned. Another symptom of her slipping mental faculties?

  A waiter came over and set two glasses of water and menus on the table. Molly and David had been to the diner often and knew what they wanted, so David handed back the menus, and the waiter took their order without having to leave while they made up their minds. They both ordered hamburgers and Beck’s dark beer.

  When the waiter had jotted kitchen code on his order pad and left, David stuck the medical plan pamphlet into his suit coat pocket. “How late can Julia keep Michael?”

  “Two o’clock. We’ve got plenty of time. Is there a reason why you invited me to lunch today, David?”

  “Does there have to be?”

  “Yes. And I think I can guess what it is. We both feel bad about arguing last night over my visit with Dr. Mindle. And you still don’t like the way it turned out.”

  “The visit or the argument?”

  “Both, maybe.” She hoped he wasn’t still angry, determined to play diversionary word games. Like Dr. Mindle’s games.

  He took a sip of water then set the glass back down carefully in its ring of condensation, as if that were required by Miss Manners. He shrugged and smiled. “You’re right, I guess, but at least you went to see him. I can’t ask you to do more than that.”

  “And you still don’t agree that Deirdre tried to kill me.”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully, and no doubt honestly, “I can’t agree with you on that. And you said yourself you didn’t see whoever was in the basement. Whatever happened, Mol, I’m thankful you weren’t seriously hurt.”

  Molly smiled resignedly. Changing the way he thought was like trying to claw through a stone wall. “You think she was just trying to scare me?”

  “I don’t think she was there, Mol.” He reached across the table and held her hand. “Do you realize you’re accusing someone of attempted murder?”

  “I realize more than that. She did try to kill me, David. And I think she might have succeeded in killing Bernice so she could get closer to us through Michael. If she’s the woman I saw in the park, she’s in great physical shape, an athlete. She’d have the lung capacity to hold Bernice underwater until she drowned. Bernice would have been struggling, panicking, using up oxygen fast.”

  He stared at her in astonishment. “My God, Mol! That’s wild speculation. You shouldn’t be saying it.”

  “I’ve smelled my scent on Deirdre, seen her on the street in a dress that’s missing from my closet. Seen how she looks at you. She wants you again. She wants Michael. She wants my life and I’m in the way.”

  David shook his head, gazed out the window for a moment as if gathering his thoughts, then looked at her. He still had on his glasses from when he was reading the pamphlet, and he seemed to be focusing on her with an effort spurred by intense curiosity. “Do you really think she’s sneaking into our apartment and pilfering your cosmetics and clothes?”

  “Yes, I think so.” She sipped from her water tumbler, then put it down and stared into it. The water was trembling gently, its ice-cluttered surface tilting this way and that against the sides of the glass. But she could see all the way to the bottom and pick up the cream color of the table. She wished her future were as clear. “If she wants to steal my life,
why wouldn’t she steal my green dress?”

  David apparently considered her question rhetorical, because he didn’t attempt an answer. “The only way she could be getting in is from the fire escape,” he said, “through the window we keep propped open for Muffin. If it will make you feel more secure, I’ll nail it so it can’t be raised any farther than six inches.”

  Molly continued staring into her glass. “David, when I came here to meet you, I was followed.”

  He sat back and said nothing. She knew what he must be thinking: Here’s something new. How would he cope with it?

  “How can you be sure?” he finally asked, his voice wary.

  He was on Central Park West, then on the subway, then behind me as I was walking here. I sneaked looks and saw him several times, saw his reflection in a shop window.”

  “Him?”

  “Yes. A man. Tall, with red hair. Sometimes he’d be behind me, sometimes on the other side of the street.”

  She could hear him breathing hard, trying to assess this latest development.

  “You joking, Mol?”

  “I wish I were,” she said to her ice water. “I know how this sounds. Don’t you think I know how this sounds? Well, I know exactly. You’d like to send me back to Dr. Mindle.”

  “Do you know who this man is?” He was clearly frightened and puzzled by her state of mind. “I mean, have you ever seen him before?”

  “No and no, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t real.” She looked up at him abruptly, which seemed to startle him. “I know what you think—that I’m going crazy.”

  He squirmed in his seat. “No, no, Mol! I think you’re a case of nerves, and I don’t blame you. Hell, everything that’s been happening lately, I’m not the calmest guy in town myself.”

  Molly had his support, she knew. He was on her side. Yet he couldn’t seem to believe any real ill of Deirdre, couldn’t believe his wife entirely. The tug of war he must be feeling, that he was helping to instill in her, was confusing. There were moments when she sometimes took his side, when she thought this whole period of discontent and fear might really be her fault. She absently inserted a finger in the cold water and trailed it in a circle, creating ripples that sometimes overran the glass’s rim.

  “Lately I wonder about myself,” she said. “I can’t help it. I know that’s what she wants, but I can’t help it.”

  David stared at her in such obvious sympathy and pain that her heart ached. “Maybe you should go back to Dr. Mindle, Mol.”

  Her anger stirred. “Don’t be absurd. I don’t need an analyst.”

  “Half the people in this city are in some kind of therapy,” David said with a glance out the window.

  “The other half roam the streets talking to imaginary companions.”

  He squeezed her hand and gave her a strained smile. “I’d like for us to stay in the first half, Mol.”

  The waiter brought their burgers and beer and laid everything out on the table. There were heaped french fries, almost burying those tiny containers of slaw that looked like the miniature paper cups dentists gave you when they instructed you to rinse. The food’s pungent aroma stirred Molly’s appetite then almost simultaneously made her nauseated.

  “I love you, Mol.” David said, when the waiter was out of earshot. “I really do love you.”

  He didn’t add that he was concerned for her sanity. That was kind of him, she thought. He was a genuinely kind man and in so many ways a good husband. But something was wrong between them, something was secret and festering.

  She smiled sadly at him.

  “Possibly you do, David. Yet you ordered onions on your hamburger.”

  39

  Deirdre had told Chumley she wasn’t feeling well. As she expected, he urged her to take the afternoon off. He’d been trying to coach her to increase her skill in double-entry bookkeeping. She’d become bored within minutes.

  After buying a knish and a can of Diet Coke from a street vendor, she sat on a stone wall and ate lunch, then took a cab home. She didn’t like riding the subway. It was too crowded, not to mention the way those assholes stared at a woman. She almost wanted one of them to try something.

  Besides, it hadn’t been that long ago when one of them had set off a fire bomb in a subway car. The bomb had detonated in a station, but it might have gone off when the train was in a tunnel and caused even more death and injury. The idea of being trapped in a tunnel to die of smoke inhalation or burn to death made Deirdre shudder. There would be nothing she could do about it other than to suck in the smoke or flames and make death as quick as possible. She didn’t want that to be her final and uncontrollable destiny

  She entered her apartment and changed to jeans and a blouse, leaving her shoes off. After settling down in front of the TV to watch CNN, she became restless. Wolf Blitzer appeared on screen, talking about impending legislation that had to do with foreign aid. Maybe it was his name, but with his beard that never looked as if it had quite grown all the way out, he always seemed to Deirdre like a man in the early stages of transforming into a werewolf. Not that she believed in such things. Or needed to, like some people. There were plenty of very real threats and injustices in the world without worrying about the inventions of writers.

  Blitzer was pointing to a bar chart with a pen or pencil. She found that she couldn’t sit still; a wild animal seemed to pace inside her chest.

  When Newt Gingrich appeared on camera to be interviewed in front of a bookshelf lined with obviously phony books, she switched off the TV, stood up, and stretched to loosen stiff limbs and eager muscles. Standing tall with her head back, her arms extended straight up, she could almost feel the rough-textured ceiling with her eyes as she peered at it between the widely spread fingers of each hand.

  She lowered her arms and her body shivered almost in the manner of a dog shaking off water. Then she went to the phone on the desk and used the blunt end of a ball-point pen to peck out Molly’s number. With the receiver pressed to her ear, she listened to the muffled ring and could imagine it much louder in the apartment two floors below. If she was home, Molly would probably be working. She would already have picked up Michael from Small Business. Maybe he’d be taking his nap. Molly would be interrupted at work, and Michael might awaken and cry and receive some of the attention he craved and was denied.

  But when the phone stopped ringing, it was Molly’s voice on the answering machine that came on the line, explaining that the caller had reached the Jones residence but no one could come to the phone right now.

  So the bitch wasn’t home.

  “…but leave a message after the tone,” Molly’s voice was saying. The voice that whispered in David’s ear, that praised and reprimanded Michael, that uttered words that passed the wrong lips.

  The answering machine tone screamed then was silent.

  Deirdre knew what she wanted to do. She couldn’t hang up. She smiled.

  “Fuck you, Molly!” she said. Was the bitch screening her calls? Sitting by the machine listening? Deirdre doubted it, yet maybe it was so.

  She ran her tongue over her lips as if tasting them. Sometimes you had to take a chance, leave things up to destiny. Sometimes it was fun to take a chance.

  “This is Deirdre, Molly. The woman who fucks your husband!” She tried to say more, but laughter almost strangled her and she had to hang up the phone.

  Her blood was roaring in her ears like wild music, singing to her that now she had to do what she’d been considering. Otherwise, how could her message be erased before Molly returned home?

  She started to slip her feet into her shoes, then stopped. Maybe what she planned would be better barefoot. More contact with the flesh and more intimate. Definitely it would be quieter. That might be important if Molly happened to be home and not answering her phone.

  Deirdre padded barefoot to a small vase shaped like a star that she’d bought at the flea market at Sixth and Twenty-sixth. She turned the vase upside down and
the key she’d had made for Molly’s apartment fell out into her waiting palm. She squeezed it hard until it was as warm as her own body.

  She went to the door and opened it, peeked out to make sure the hall was empty, then crept to the stairs.

  It took her only a few minutes to descend the stairs and let herself quietly into the Jones apartment.

  She stood inside the door and knew immediately that no one was home. She could always tell about that when entering a house or apartment; she had a sense about such things.

  But just to confirm what she already knew, she walked about the apartment, glancing into the bedrooms and bathroom.

  Then she went to Molly’s desk and saw by the digital counter on the answering machine that there were three messages. She sat down in Molly’s desk chair and pressed Play, then got a pencil out of the mug on the desk and sat bouncing its point on the flat wood surface while she listened.

  Beep.

  “David, Mol. Just wanted to remind you of lunch, but I guess you’ve already left. Hope so, anyway.”

  Beep.

  “Traci here, Molly. The architectural manuscript is fine. Reads beautifully. Even the author is orgasmic over it, and he’s an architect who hasn’t been responsible for an erection in years. Got another assignment for you if you’re interested. A mystery. Not like the wife-in-the-trash-compactor book, but almost as juicy. Was that a joke? Call you later. Bye.”

  Beep.

  “Fuck you, Molly! This is—”

  Deirdre pressed Fast Forward, then Erase.

  So they were at lunch, together, and Michael was probably being watched by Julia after hours at Small Business.

  When the machine was silent, Deirdre put down the pencil and walked into Molly and David’s bedroom. She went to the closet and opened the door, then stood looking at the now familiar array of clothes. Molly should certainly dress better for David. More the way Deirdre dressed. She smiled. Didn’t Molly know clothes could make the man?

  She shut the closet door and walked to the dresser. In the mirror she saw Molly’s SLEEP OR SEX T-shirt lying on the bed. She went to the bed and picked up the T-shirt, then noticed the toes of a pair of women’s terrycloth house slippers protruding from beneath the spread where it draped to the floor. So this was Molly’s side of the bed.