Sliver

by Ira Levin

  She hung on till the end of the part.

  Gathered Adidas, jeans, the burgundy turtleneck, the Irish wool sweater. Felice, meatloafed in the middle of the bed, watched her.

  When she was more than halfway around the dirt track skirting the lake of chain-link-fenced reservoir, striding along behind her sunglasses high on the turquoise sky, fiery trees, edged air, motley people, bold squirrels (should’ve brought peanuts), and soaring fowl, feeling better than she had in over two years and maybe in seven or eight, she rounded a leftward curve and saw on the track ahead Sam Yale coming toward her among the pay-no-attention-to-the-arrows crowd, looking as high on the glorious morning as she was, walking with his arms swinging and gray hair blowing, beaming at the water on his right. She slowed as he came nearer, squinting upward. “Sam!” she called. He stopped and raccoon-eyed her; a jogger swerved past him.

  She moved onto the shoulder of the track, lifting her glasses. “Kay,” she said. “Norris.”

  He smiled. “Hi!” he said. Stood smiling while three men walked past him, flat-footed, bare-limbed, elbows pumping.

  She took the glasses off as he came across and onto the shoulder with her, in jeans and black sneakers, a gray windbreaker zipped to the collar of a red flannel shirt. “What a day!” he said, rubbing his hands.

  “Sensational, isn’t it?” she said.

  “And how.”

  “I don’t want to stop. Come on, walk with the arrows, it won’t hurt you.”

  “Arrows?” he said, following her onto the track.

  “On the base of the fence,” she said, putting the glasses on. “Every once in a while.”

  “Hey, slow down,” he said, behind her on her left, “I’m out here for pleasure.”

  She slowed down. Smiled at him as he caught up and strode along. His battered face wasn’t bad-looking for sixty-six. In the stamp-sized picture in Television’s Golden Age he’d been a soulful wunderkind with wavy dark hair, his eyes dark-ringed even back then.

  He smiled at her. “Did the book business declare a holiday?” he asked in his raspy voice.

  “I work at home sometimes,” she said.

  “Nice work,” he said.

  “I picked the wrong day,” she said. “The right one, I mean. How do you know I’m in publishing?”

  He dropped behind her for a stroller with a pacifier-gagged baby in it, pushed by a teenaged girl in a sheepskin jacket and a headband radio.

  He moved up alongside her. “I passed the truck the day you moved in,” he said. “Lots of cartons with the Diadem logo.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Great rolltop desk. How old is that?”

  “Eighty, eighty-five years.”

  “What do you do?” he asked.

  “I’m an editor,” she said. “There, there’s an arrow.”

  “Jesus,” he said, “they painted that when McKinley was president. It’s practically invisible. Nobody’s expected to follow those.”

  “What do you mean?” she said as joggers bounded past them. “They’re there. Who said you’re not expected to follow them?”

  “It’s common knowledge,” he said, dropping behind her for a pair of nuns. A horse cantered by on the bridle path to her right, cantered down a fiery arcade, a chestnut mare ridden by a man in a checked jacket, black boots, riding breeches.

  Sam moved up on her left. “What a day,” he said.

  “A holiday for directors?”

  “Every day, for retired ones. Will you look at that skyline?”

  She looked at shining ranks of white and steel towers south of the park, the beveled Citicorp Building, the Empire State’s needle against the turquoise. “Fantastic,” she said.

  “You’re not in Kansas any more, Dorothy.”

  She gave him a sidelong look as they walked. “What had Kansas on it?” she asked.

  He smiled at her. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s in your mouth.”

  “I don’t have an accent,” she said, bridling. “I worked to get rid of it.”

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m psychic.”

  They detoured around a television crew pointing a peacock-logoed minicam up at fiery trees.

  “You forget,” he said when they were back on the left-curving track, “I directed. The ear is tuned.” He tapped it with a fingertip. “To the average person, no, you don’t have an accent. Except on words like ‘hello’ and ‘how are you.’ ”

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “Very slight,” he said, smiling. “Really, very slight. Only an extremely gifted pro would catch it.” He dropped behind her for a wheelbarrow full of dark cinders pushed by a brown-uniformed man.

  He moved up alongside her. She said, “I looked you up in a book we published a few years ago, Television’s Golden Age.”

  “Wow, what a great title,” he said. “Who thought of that? Not you I hope.”

  “It happens to be a very good title,” she said. “It tells what the book is about in clear understandable English.”

  “I stand corrected,” he said.

  “No, it wasn’t mine,” she said.

  They walked toward the gatehouse at the south end of the reservoir. Joggers bounded past them.

  “So were you impressed?” he asked.

  “Very,” she said. “Puzzled too.”

  “Why it all ended? Easy. I’m a recovering alcoholic.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at him. “Glad you’re recovering though. That wasn’t what I meant, although—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought this up. I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it.”

  He said, “Initials T.M.?”

  She sighed, nodded.

  “Tom Mix. Always a favorite.”

  She smiled.

  “You cross-checked our credits,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “She was in almost twenty plays that you directed.”

  “They liked her at Steel and Kraft.”

  “You won two Directors Guild Awards and an Emmy,” she said, “and your career stopped short the year she died.”

  “What do you edit?” he asked. “Kissing with castles in back?”

  “I have,” she said.

  “One thing had nothing to do with the other,” he said. “We hadn’t seen each other for two or three years at that point. Our paths had separated, in every sense. I was out on the coast doing movies of the week. She was here doing soaps.”

  They crossed the terrace before the stone gatehouse, passing people at the fountains, people stretching themselves over legs braced on bench backs, a jostle of teenagers in red track suits, a man in red clapping at them.

  “If you want the truth,” Sam said, “she wasn’t a very good actress.”

  “I noticed,” she said.

  “Or a very good person,” he said. “She was vain and greedy. Totally self-centered. Spiteful. Inconsiderate. Petty. I was crazy about her.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I said ‘crazy,’ ” he said. “Who can explain it?” He looked at the track ahead, sighed. “Who can tell you why?” he said. “It was an enchanted morning. Across a crowded television studio . . .”

  The teens in red track suits loped past them in ones and twos as they followed the curve to the east of the reservoir.

  “Are you completely retired?” she asked.

  He said, “I teach a little. Acting, directing . . .”

  “How long have you been in the building?”

  “Since it went up,” he said. “Three years.”

  They walked on.

  Joggers bounded past them.

  A red-suited teen.

  “If you’re wondering what I’m doing up in this neck of the woods,” he said, “I’m a charity case.”

  “No I wasn’t, don’t be silly,” she said, “everybody lives all over the place nowadays, it’s great, it’s one of the best things about the city.”

  He said, “The Carnegie Hill Cultural Enrichment Foundation. Do I have to explain what t
heir purpose in life is? One of the ways they think they’ll achieve it is by seeding the neighborhood with hard-up artsy types. I get the apartment rent-free plus a stipend. And it’s the ideal location for me.” He smiled at her. “Smithers around the corner on Ninety-third. The Smithers Treatment Center. I was in it for a while when the building was under construction.” He dropped behind her for a pair of joggers, a man and a boy, in sweatshirts stenciled BLIND and GUIDE.

  They came to the esplanade at Ninetieth Street, went down the wide pebbled steps. A television crew stood in the bridle path, pointing a minicam at passers-by looking up at fiery trees.

  “Oh great,” she said, “we’ll be on the six o’clock news. Tomorrow’s joke at the office.”

  “I’m that bad?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Don’t panic,” he said. “There’s always a solution.”

  They walked past the eye-logoed minicam with his middle finger in the air.

  They crossed the park drive and Fifth Avenue. Walked along Ninetieth Street past the iron-fenced garden behind the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. He said, “That was Andrew Carnegie’s retirement home.”

  “I didn’t know that,” she said, looking at the brick-and-stone Palladian mansion.

  “That’s why we’re on Carnegie Hill,” he said. “This was farmland when he bought it. His steel company eventually became U.S. Steel; I did so many Steel Hours I feel I’m on home territory. This is the house Robert Chambers lived in.”

  “I know the name. . . .”

  “The preppie who strangled the girl in the park.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’re a mixed bunch up here.”

  They turned at the corner, headed up Madison.

  “Television must have been very different early on,” she said.

  “And how,” he said. “Everything going out live, no tape, no retakes. Every show an opening night—blown lines, missing props, but alive, electric, the actors going for broke. The scenery was painted different shades of gray, color didn’t matter.”

  She said, “Why don’t you write your memoirs? Or talk them into a tape recorder. It could be interesting.”

  “My ‘memoirs’?” He smiled.

  “Yes,” she said. “Give it some thought. Do you know Hubert Sheer? He lives in our building, in nine A.”

  He shook his head.

  “He’s a writer,” she said, “a good one. He’s doing a book on television that he’d probably like to talk to you about. I’ll have to introduce you. But think about doing something of your own. Really, it could be salable. If you want to go into serious personal material, fine. Or you could keep it light and amusing if you like, which I’m sure you could do. Whatever feels comfortable.”

  He smiled. “I’ll think about it,” he said. Gestured at Jackson Hole as they passed it. “Want some coffee?”

  “Can I have a rain check?” she asked. “I have to go to the bank and get back to work.”

  They crossed Ninety-first Street. She took her sunglasses off. “I’m glad we met,” she said, offering her hand.

  “Same here,” he said, shaking it, smiling at her.

  “Think about it,” she said. “I’m not just making nice.”

  “Okay, I’ll think,” he said. Turned and went.

  Came back. “Hey,” he said. “I was kidding about the accent. I saw the return address on a package of yours in the mailroom the other day. Norrises in Wichita.”

  Smiling, she said, “Thanks for telling me.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to think you wasted your time,” he said. “No accent at all, not a whisper.” He smiled at her, turned and went.

  She turned, put the glasses on, waited for the sign to change. Jigged on her toes, smiling up at the turquoise sky.

  She presented three books at the pre-sales conference Wednesday; the marketing people liked two and loathed the third less than she and the rest of the editorial department had expected. She spent an hour at Saks—bought a claret silk dress and some underthings.

  Had long talks that evening with Bob and with Meg Hunter, who called from JFK between planes to London; they relived Syracuse for over an hour. She shaved her legs while Claire Bloom read the last part of To the Lighthouse, and Felice, on the bathmat, licked and scrubbed.

  She worked most of Thursday with a woman from Newark whose first novel, witty science fiction, was two hundred pages too long. Went to the Warner party for their Catherine the Great bio, upstairs at the Tea Room—everyone there for champagne and blini and caviar.

  Opened her cab door to white light and a caring-looking woman with a microphone. “Do you live here?” A man, “Did you know Hubert Sheer?” The woman, “Do you know this building is being called the Horror High-Rise?” Walt fended them off, ushering her toward the door. “He kicked me! Did you get him kicking me? Hey you! Doorman! You’re in trouble, shithead!”

  Walt looked out through the glass door as he closed it. “The scum of the earth,” he said in his deep baritone. “It was like feeding time at the zoo before. You’re lucky you’re late.”

  She said, “Hubert Sheer?”

  He turned toward her, looked at her through his glasses. Nodded. Glanced away and stepped back, pulling the door open. People went out. He closed the door.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He drew a breath and took his glasses off. Looked at her with watery hazel eyes, his lined face pale. “He fell in the shower,” he said. “He had a cast on his foot, and a plastic bag taped around it to keep it dry—and he slipped and hit his head.”

  “He’s dead?” she said.

  He nodded, opened the door. A man came in saying, “Jesus Christ . . .” Walt closed the door, watching her. Said, “Did you know him, Miss Norris?”

  She nodded.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  She couldn’t decide.

  He showed her to a bench by the block where the monitors were, took her briefcase as she sat. He put his glasses on, held the briefcase with both hands. Bent to her over it. “Someone from his agent’s office came to check,” he said. “He wasn’t returning his phone calls and he missed an appointment.”

  “When did it happen?” she asked, looking up at him.

  He drew breath and looked away. Shook his head, sighing. “They’re not sure yet.” He looked at her. Blinked through his steel-rimmed glasses. “He was on the floor under the shower,” he said. “Very hot. So they may not be able to tell exactly. The last time anyone heard from him was late Monday night.” “Oh Lord,” she said.

  4

  EDGAR CALLED, OF COURSE. “Good God, what abysmally rotten luck!”

  “Isn’t it, I can’t believe it,” he said, muting the TV at the foot of the bed. “I spoke to him in the elevator a few times. He seemed like a nice guy.” He put the remote on the night table, picked up the I-Heart-New-York mug; held the phone with his shoulder, pushed up the pillows in back.

  “And it had to be on a day with no news.”

  “It’ll blow over,” he said, settling in. “The same as it did with Rafael.” He sipped the coffee.

  “I beg to differ. This is the fifth, not the fourth, and a somewhat distinguished author, not a superintendent. The building is bound to become—less desirable. I hate to say I told you so, but do you remember my warnings against going rental? If you’d left it a condominium you could be unconcerned. Relatively.”

  “I know,” he said, watching a mute cleanser commercial. “I’m sorry now I didn’t listen to you.” He sipped coffee.

  “I assume you’ve seen the newspapers.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’m still in bed; I was up late last night.” He put the mug down, picked up the remote.

  “The front page of the Post is ‘Horror High-Rise’ in giant letters, alongside a photo of the building looking up toward the top. The News opted for ‘High-Rise Horror’ with the same layout. The Times—here we are—has it on page B three: ‘Writer Is Fifth to Die in Upper East Side Bu
ilding.’ They have Connahay working for Merrill Lynch; I suppose they’ll correct that tomorrow.”

  “It’ll blow over,” he said, thumbing away toddlers, soapflakes, gorillas in the wild. “It’ll take a few days longer this time, that’s all.”

  “The phones have been ringing incessantly. ‘Who owns the corporation? How do they feel?’ ”

  “Shitty, how do they think?”

  “I strongly suggest, and everyone here concurs, that a public-relations specialist be brought in at once.”

  “To do what?” he asked, thumbing. “Hold a press conference? It’ll only keep the story hot.”

  “No, no, no. To cool the story down. A specialist who would—encourage the media to turn their attention elsewhere as quickly as possible.”

  He sat up. Asked, “Do you know someone who could do that?”

  “I’ve been told of two people. They’re expensive and not necessarily deductible, though I think we could make a persuasive argument to the IRS.”

  “Fuck the IRS,” he said, “get right on it. That’s a great idea, Edgar. Jesus, what a world we live in.”

  “I’m glad you agree.”

  “You bet I do,” he said. “Hop to it.” He hung up, sat a moment, smiled. Zapped the TV. Slung the blanket off, got up.

  Went to the window and threw the right side of it all the way open. Pulled air in through his nostrils, as much of it as he could contain, rising up tall on his toes . . .

  Puffed it out, pummeling his bare chest with his fists.

  Alex called, of course. “I was so sorry to hear the news. Did you know the man?”

  “No,” she said.

  “That’s quite a list: a suicide, a cocaine overd—” “Alex, I’m working.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just wanted to say hello and see how you’re doing.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Wreaths of garlic on the windows, crucifixes close at hand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind,” she said.

  Roxie called. “Jesus, what a pity.” Bucked her up. “Chances are he liked all the wrong things.”

  Vida Travisano rang the doorbell, tinted to perfection and perfumed, pink-nailed fingers holding up the top of an embroidered ivory-satin sheath. She’d gotten the back of it partly buttoned and the fingernails had started coming off.