A Perfect Crime

by Peter Abrahams

  Roger’s mind ran through its gears, each one more powerful than the last, spinning, whirring, so fast that he had to pace, the excess mental energy escaping into his body. The lover’s wife, if she existed: at one stage, a hypothetical and false contractor in a superseded plan for Francie, but now that she did exist, he felt… confusion, so strange for him. Fact: Francie was sleeping with the husband of her tennis partner. He found that harder to believe than the adultery itself. It reduced her to the basest commonality, like one of those illiterates on a TV tell-all show, a walking mockery of his taste. Was it possible for him to have misread her so grossly? Or-or was this something different, something more sophisticated: could it be possible, for example, that this tennis partner, this Anne, knew of the affair and accepted it? Roger’s mind was already at the next stop, waiting with a disgusting image of Francie in bed with the two of them, and before he could digest that, was preparing another, even worse, with four participants. He felt a responding pulse in his groin. No! Were they animals, beasts, mere rutting things? Not him. He stopped pacing, poured water; it trembled in the glass, like an earthquake warning. He drank, tried to calm himself. It’s all right, Roger, he thought, quashing all images. The lover’s wife is just another piece on the board, part of the problem, and all problems are fundamentally mathematical. Permutations and combinations.

  The door opened and Francie walked in, snow in her hair, her appearance revealing nothing at all of what he now knew hid within. “Hello, Roger.” She glanced around. “Were you on the phone?”

  “No.” But had he said permutations and combinations aloud? The air in the room felt disturbed, as though the last ripples of a sound wave hadn’t quite flattened away.

  She took off her coat, her old coat- where’s the new coat, Francie? — and hung it over the back of a chair.

  “When did you get back?” she said.

  “Moments ago.”

  “How was the trip?”

  “Didn’t you get my message?” Enjoyable, asking that. Dance on my string, Francie.

  “Yes, but it didn’t say much.”

  Enough to do the job. “Cautious optimism, then-how does that sound?”

  “Fine.” She was watching him, waiting for details, waiting for.. for some suggestion that he might be moving to Fort Lauderdale, of course! What better moment to spring a surprise:

  “Your tennis partner called. She’s invited us to dinner tonight.”

  Oh, Francie was very good, showing almost no reaction at all. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll cancel.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I know how you hate those things.”

  “Not at all. In fact, I’ve already accepted.”

  “You want to go?”

  “Why not? She sounds… charming, and she is your tennis partner. You must be a nice fit.”

  “A nice fit?”

  “On the court. You’re in the finals, after all.”

  “Anne’s a good player.”

  He poured another glass of water, started for the door that led to his basement room, stopped with his hand on the knob. “Her husband’s coming, too,” he said. “I didn’t quite catch his name.” He paused, his back to her. “Fred, is it?”

  “Ned.”

  That surprised him. He’d expected something craven: “I’m not sure” or “Ned, I believe.” Surprised him and infuriated him. He went downstairs without another word.

  Roger sat by the glassed-in window in the spectators’ gallery off the bar, overlooking court one. On the court, the umpire was already in her chair, and the players were warming up their serves. He studied them one by one. First, the opposition: a stocky woman with an uncoordinated service motion, each component slightly mistimed, and a thinner one with better form but little power. Then he turned to Francie and her partner: Francie had improved her serve since he’d last seen her play, years before; she’d perfected her slide step, now got her legs nicely under the ball, hit it hard. And her partner, Anne: a delicate-looking woman, she reminded him of a Vassar girl he’d dated long ago, his only serious girlfriend before Francie. Anne had the best form of all, but she wasn’t putting a single serve in the court. He leaned forward, trying to figure out why, at the same time hearing the gallery-there was room for fifteen or twenty people, no more-fill around him, hearing Francie’s name mentioned more than once. He should have been prepared, but was not, for that smooth voice.

  “This seat taken?”

  He turned to face radio boy. “No.”

  “Thanks.” Radio boy sat down beside him. He held up crossed fingers. “My wife’s playing for all the marbles.”

  “So is mine,” said Roger.

  Radio boy looked down at the court. “Which one is she?”

  Roger pointed her out.

  “Oh, Francie,” said radio boy. “I met her the other night-when Anne twisted her ankle.” He held out his hand. “Ned Demarco.”

  Smooth, smoother even than Francie. Roger had no choice but to shake his hand, hand that had been all over his wife. “Roger Cullingwood.”

  “Nice to meet you, Roger. Let’s hope we bring them a little luck.”

  Roger smiled, a smile that spread and spread, almost culminating in that laughing bark. But he held it in and said, “There’s no luck in tennis.”

  “Heads,” said Francie. The coin spun in the air, bounced on the court. The umpire bent over it.

  “Tails,” she said.

  Francie and Anne touched racquets, moved back to return serve, Anne in the deuce court, Francie in the ad. “How’s the ankle?” Francie said.

  “I feel fine.”

  But she didn’t look fine: her face was colorless, except for the mauve depressions under her eyes, and the eyes themselves couldn’t meet Francie’s gaze.

  “Hungry?” said Francie.

  “No.”

  “Me either,” said Francie. She glanced up into the gallery, saw Roger and Ned side by side, talking. Even though she hadn’t been able to derail Anne’s dinner plans, had prepared herself for the possibility that they might sit together, she wasn’t prepared. She swung her racquet a few times, tried to make her arm feel long. “Let’s work up a fucking appetite,” she said.

  Anne smiled, a smile barely there, quickly gone. Was she about to burst into tears? What the hell was going on? Tennis, Francie. Just watch the ball.

  The server tucked one ball under her skirt, held up the other-“Play well,” Francie said-and served. Not a hard serve, not deep in the box, on Anne’s forehand. By now Francie had seen Anne do many good things with a serve like that-the crosscourt chip, the lob into the corner, the down-the-line putaway. She had never seen her jerk it ten feet wide, never seen her hit with such a tight, awkward motion. A little spot of color appeared on Anne’s cheek.

  “Sorry,” she said, not for the last time.

  “Not a problem,” Francie said, also not for the last time.

  When the match ended an hour and fifteen minutes later, the red spot had spread all over Anne’s face, down her neck, vanishing beneath her collar. But Francie had stopped seeing that bright redness, stopped hearing the “sorry’s,” stopped saying encouraging little things, stopped noticing Anne’s double faults, unforced errors, mishits, blocked all that right out. Blocked out everything in her life as well-Ned, Roger, the cottage. She just played, forgot her life and played as she had never played before: winning her serve at love in almost every game, hitting winners from all over the court, making shots she seldom even attempted, topspin lobs from both sides, inside-out forehands, backhand overheads. Everything went in. At the same time she learned that Vince Lombardi had been wrong, that winning wasn’t the only thing, or everything-it was nothing. All that mattered was hitting that ball on the goddamn nose, again and again and again; pounding, booming shots that never came back. The sound of the ball off her racquet was frightening. They lost 4–6, 4–6.

  The umpire handed out trophies, big ones for the winners, little ones for Francie
and Anne. The winners stayed on the court to have their pictures taken. Anne, her face now draining of blood and as blank as a shell-shocked soldier’s, went into the locker room, Francie behind her.

  A fancy locker room, with whirlpool, sauna, steam, all deserted on a Saturday night. Francie started to lay her hand on Anne’s shoulder, held back. What to say? All she could think of was “Jacuzzi?”

  “In a minute,” said Anne, not looking back at her. Anne turned down the row that led to her locker; Francie moved on to hers.

  She sat on a stool without stirring for a minute or two, the muscles in her legs tingling, a human version of the hum of idling machines. She felt great. What other potentials were locked up in her? The potential for love had already been freed by Ned, and others still inside probably had to do with the children she’d never had and never would. She felt less great.

  Francie stripped off her clothes, opened her locker, put on the faded maillot hanging inside. The whirlpool was at the back of the locker room, near the showers. She switched on the timer, got in, closed her eyes, and had a crazy idea almost at once: Why not just take off for somewhere far away, by herself? The Atlas Mountains, Prague, Mombasa. She’d driven through the Atlas Mountains years ago with Brenda, stoned on kif-that many years ago-remembered robed Berber children holding up chunks of amethyst by the roadside, stunted magicians performing their purple tricks. Why couldn’t Francie opened her eyes. Had she heard something over the sound of the bubbles? She twisted the timer down to zero, listened, heard it again, then got out of the whirlpool and followed the sounds to Anne’s locker.

  Anne was sitting on a stool, her back to Francie. She was wrapped in a towel, her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

  “Anne?”

  No reply, just her sobbing, full-throated and ragged. Francie moved around in front of her. “Anne. Please. It’s only tennis.”

  Anne looked up, tears streaming down her splotchy face, snot, too: misery undisguised. “It’s not the tennis, Francie. I-” The sobbing took over. Her towel slipped, exposing her breasts, but she didn’t notice. Francie couldn’t help noticing, even at that moment couldn’t help comparing them to her own: the two pairs of breasts in Ned’s life.

  “Please, Anne.” Francie touched her shoulder. “Everything’s all right.”

  At her touch, Anne fell forward, grabbed Francie around the waist, clung to her, her wet face against Francie’s wet bathing suit. “Help me, Francie.”

  “With what? What’s wrong?”

  And then Anne’s face was tilted up at her, imploring, and Anne, fighting the sobbing demon inside her for control of her own voice, got the words out. “It’s N-it’s Ned. I… I think he’s having an a-a-affair.”

  Francie, stroking the back of Anne’s head, went still. The towel had fallen to the floor, and Anne, naked, was holding on to Francie harder than ever, her crying eyes locked on Francie’s, desperate, pleading. “Oh, God,” Francie said, doing all she could not to cry herself. “I’m so sorry.”

  At that moment, with them in each other’s arms, Francie saw Nora standing wide-eyed at the end of the row of lockers. Francie shifted her own eyes once in the direction she wanted Nora to go. Nora went.

  Anne made a sound, partly smothered by Francie’s breast, somewhere between laughing and crying. “Don’t you be upset, Francie. It’s not your fault. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. She’s”-the laughing component vanished-“she’s just so much prettier than me, and so much smarter. I guess he couldn’t resist.”

  Francie stepped back, freeing herself from Anne’s grasp. “Who are you talking about?”

  Something-the new distance between them, the change in Francie’s tone-made Anne grow aware of her nakedness. She reached for the towel, rewrapped herself, rose unsteadily to her feet. “No one you know, Francie. It’s terrible of me to inflict this on you, especially after that exhibition out there.”

  “Fuck that,” Francie said. “Who?”

  “Her name’s Kira Chang. She’s high up in some big media outfit in L.A. She even had dinner in my house. Can you believe it?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure?”

  “That it’s happening. That he’s… doing this.”

  “I haven’t walked in on them or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “I just do.” She shivered like a baby after a long cry.

  “But based on what?”

  “Little things, but a wife always knows deep down, doesn’t she?”

  “What little things?”

  “Like the other night, the night he drove you back here. He didn’t come home for hours and he had some feeble story about a flat tire. I know he was with her.”

  “How?”

  “She called him. It must have been about the arrangements. She’s that brazen.”

  Brazen. Francie flinched at the word; did Anne not see? “But how can you be sure?” Francie said. “What’s your evidence?”

  Anne stopped mopping her face with a corner of the towel, stared at Francie. “You think I’m stupid.”

  “You know better. Why do you even say things like that?”

  “It’s your tone. I haven’t heard you like this before, so impatient.”

  Francie took a deep breath. Anne had the right story but the wrong name; that meant she really knew nothing, not with certainty, and it had to stay that way. What Francie was seeing now wouldn’t compare with what would happen to Anne if she ever learned the truth. “I just don’t want you jumping to any false conclusions,” Francie said. “How do you know he didn’t have a flat tire, for example?”

  “I checked the spare. He said he hadn’t been able to use it because it was flat, too, but in fact he hadn’t even unbolted it to look.”

  “Does he have a pressure gauge?”

  “Pressure gauge?”

  “One of those little sticks to put on the valve. That’s all you need to check pressure-the tire can stay where it is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s what I mean about jumping to conclusions.”

  “Do you think I should ask him?”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not good at that kind of thing.”

  “Then-then just look in his car.”

  “That’s a good idea. You’re so smart, Francie.” She stared at her feet. “God-what I’ve put you through tonight.”

  “It’s still early.”

  Anne looked up, started laughing, laughter that threatened several times to turn to tears, but did not. “You’re the best, Francie,” she said, and embraced her again, kissing her on the cheek. “Don’t be mad at me.”

  “Let’s just hope he has that pressure gauge,” Francie said, hating herself for it, but it was just the kind of pragmatic remark she would have made if Kira Chang really were a suspect, and she had to stay in character, Anne’s tennis partner and newfound friend.

  “Oh, Francie. Do you think he does? I love him so much.” Her eyes filled with tears, but not tears of misery this time; she had hope, was starting to believe in her marriage again. “I even have these fantasies of us getting old together, going for long walks in the woods, that kind of thing. Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Have fantasies like that.”

  “Everybody has fantasies.”

  Anne bit her lip. “Francie?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you had to bet on the pressure gauge?”

  “It’ll be there,” Francie said.

  Quick, Francie. Shower, dress, dirty things in the gym bag, out, out ahead of Anne. Francie hurried up to the bar. A few people actually applauded as she came in. Francie hardly heard. She scanned the room for Ned, found him-drinking Scotch with Roger. She went to their table. They both rose, something she couldn’t recall either of them doing separately, ever.

  “Very well played, Francie,” Roger said.

  “Just incredible,” Ned
said. “If only-”

  “Thanks,” said Francie, interrupting whatever was coming after that. “I’m thirsty.”

  They sat down. The waiter appeared. Francie ordered water and a beer. Anne would be there any moment. She had to get Ned alone, but how? Both men were looking at her, both a little flushed, both on the point of making some remark as soon as the waiter left. “Damn it,” she said, kicking Ned under the table, “I forgot something. Excuse me.” She got up, left the bar, went down to the lobby, borrowed a pen and a piece of paper at the desk, drank from the fountain, did this and that, looked busy. Where was Ned? Didn’t he get it?

  Ned walked into the lobby, saw her. By now she was at the bulletin board, pretending to scan it. He stood beside her. “You didn’t have to kick me so hard,” he said, eyes on the bulletin board.

  “Is there a pressure gauge in your car?”

  A pause, but very brief. Francie was sure she felt him reeling inside. “What does she know?” he said, almost too low to hear.

  “She doesn’t know anything. She thinks you’re having an affair with Kira Chang.”

  Francie glanced at him. His eyes were closed and there was a V — shaped groove on the right side of his brow. He opened his eyes, turned to her. “What are we going to do?”

  Get on the next plane to Marrakech, she thought, you and me. She said, “Do you have a pressure gauge, yes or no?”

  “No.”

  “Give me your keys.”

  He glanced around, handed her the keys.

  “What did you tell him?” Francie said.

  “That I was going to the bathroom.”

  “Then go.”

  Ned headed for the locker room. Francie hurried back upstairs to the bar, thinking fast. She had come in Roger’s car, Anne in Ned’s. Roger would have a pressure gauge; she seldom went in his car, had never actually seen his pressure gauge, but she knew him.

  Roger was writing something on a napkin as she approached the table. He smiled. “I was getting lonely all by myself.” He folded the napkin, pocketed it.

  “I can’t find my hairbrush,” Francie said, the kind of female inanity he wouldn’t question. “I must have left it in your car, if you’ll give me the keys.”