Sliver

by Ira Levin

  “How come you didn’t take the whole top floor?” she asked, smiling. “That’s what I’d have done.”

  He smiled. “I told you,” he said, “I’m a computer person. I spend the day looking at my monitor, and most of the night too; the view would be totally wasted. So I’m on thirteen. It’s the hardest floor to rent. You’d be surprised how many people are superstitious.”

  “Especially now,” she said.

  He nodded. “Especially now.” He sighed.

  She said, “It’s a tough break for you. Has the building lost value?”

  He shrugged. “A little, maybe. It’ll come back up.”

  She smiled at him. “You were right,” she said, “I was still wondering. I even asked Mrs. MacEvoy, the day after we spoke.”

  “You did?” he said.

  “I feel a little—tacky about it now.”

  “No, don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s great you have that kind of persistence. I said, I sensed it about you.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Would you like a drink?” she asked.

  “Sure, why not?” he said. “Thanks. A gin and tonic?”

  “Vodka?” she asked, getting up.

  “Fine,” he said. Looked across the room. “You certainly have a lot of books. How many of those are ones you edited?”

  She stopped beyond the sofa. “Pete,” she said, turning, “Dmitri said he was told to take special care of me. When I signed the lease. Why?” She stood looking at him.

  He drew a breath. Uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, forearms on knees. “Thank you, Dmitri,” he said.

  Turned his head, looked at her. Nodded. “When you came to look at the apartment,” he said, “I happened to be in the mail room. I saw you for a moment.”

  “A moment?” she said, smiling.

  He said, “Did you ever hear of a television actress named Thea Marshall?”

  She looked at him.

  He sat straight, stared at her, his blue eyes electric. “Oh my God,” he said, “I just realized. Of course you’ve heard of her, people must have told you lots of times you look like her. I didn’t think of it ’til just this instant. Jesus . . .” He shook his head, smiled, got up. “They have, haven’t they?” He came toward her. “Told you? Not so many nowadays, I guess.”

  She said, “Sometimes . . .”

  “Your voice is like hers too.” He leaned at her over the sofa, gripping its Cupid’s-bow back, smiling his dynamite smile. “So a moment was all it took for me to be attracted,” he said, “as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Dr. Palme says it’s universal, no exceptions whatsoever. The Oedipus complex, I mean. She was my mother. Thea Marshall.” He nodded, smiling. “My mother.” He nodded. “Thea Marshall.” He blinked, smiled. “I heard him say that in the elevator once,” he said. “Dr. Palme in two A. He’s a psychiatrist, a good one. On the staff of Mount Sinai.”

  She looked at him. Raised two fingers. Said, “Two vodka and tonics . . .”

  Went into the kitchen.

  Drew a breath.

  Got glasses from the cabinet.

  He came to the pass-through and leaned in, canary-sweatered arms folded on the counter. Watched as she put crescents of ice into the glasses. “She was a terrific actress,” he said. “So lifelike you wouldn’t believe it. She was on all the great dramatic shows of the Golden Age—The U.S. Steel Hour, Kraft Theatre, Philco Playhouse, Studio One. . . . They have kinnies of three of her plays at the Museum of Broadcasting. Kinescopes. Paul Newman has bit parts in two of them. Hi there, Felice.”

  Felice meowed, going to the water bowl.

  She poured vodka over the ice.

  “She was on Search for Tomorrow most of the time I was growing up,” he said. “Play production had moved out to the West Coast and my father wouldn’t let her go out there, so she had to do soaps—The Guiding Light and then Search for Tomorrow. What a job that is. Rehearse in the morning, tape, block tomorrow’s show, come home and study the lines; rehearse, tape, block, study—an endless cycle. Practically the only time I saw her was on the tube! She was a fantastic actress though. So lifelike. A year on The Guiding Light and six on Search for Tomorrow . . .”

  She poured tonic. “What did your father do?” she asked.

  “He was the chairman of U.S. Steel,” he said.

  She glanced at him.

  He smiled. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “That maybe he used his influence to get her parts on the show. He didn’t, not on the Steel Hour or Kraft Theatre—he owned a lot of Kraft too. But he didn’t. He always maintained a strictly hands-off policy where her career was concerned, they both wanted it that way. She never needed help getting good parts, she was a really terrific actress.”

  She cut lime.

  Asked, “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

  “No,” he said. “Do you?”

  “A younger brother.” Felice scratched at the post, looking up at her. “Good cat,” she said, turning to the cabinet.

  “Don’t give her something just like that,” he said. “Make her do some serious scratching. She’s conning you.”

  Holding the open cabinet door, she looked at him; at Felice on her hind legs, paws on the post, looking up at her. Giving a scratch to cue her. “You’re right,” she said, closing the door.

  “Sorry, Felice,” he said.

  Felice looked at him. At her. At him.

  They chuckled.

  Felice dropped from the post and sauntered into the foyer, black-tipped tail swaying.

  “I think I’ve made an enemy,” he said.

  “She’ll get over it,” she said, smiling. “You’re right, I’ve been an absolute patsy. She’s so damn smart. . . .” She handed him a glass through the pass-through.

  “Thanks.” He held the glass toward her. “Cheers,” he said.

  “Cheers,” she said, touching hers to it.

  They smiled at each other, sipped.

  She turned and went toward the door, saying louder, “It can’t just be a coincidence that Sam Yale is in the building.” Glass smashed on parquet, liquid splashed. She stopped.

  “Shit, I’m such a klutz . . .”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, putting her glass down, going for the paper towels. “That’s another thing you’re the second person to do in less than twenty-four hours.”

  The border of the rug was wet, and the cuffs of his chinos. Crouching, they blotted at the parquet with paper towels, picked pieces of glass from the puddle. Felice came and watched.

  “I’m sorry about the glass,” he said.

  “I’ll deduct it from the rent,” she said.

  They smiled, blotting the parquet.

  “No,” he said, “it’s not a coincidence that Sam Yale lives here. Are you friends?”

  “Acquaintances,” she said. “He followed me onto the checkout line at Murphy’s the day I moved in.”

  “I figured you’d meet sooner or later.”

  “It couldn’t have been much sooner,” she said. Glanced at him. “Was it just by chance that you were on hand to welcome me?”

  He smiled. “No comment,” he said. Teased a sliver of glass from the floor, set it on paper towel. “There are factors involved in his being here,” he said, “that I don’t think it would be right for me to go into.”

  “He told me he’s a recovering alcoholic,” she said, “and about the foundation.”

  He looked at her.

  “The one supporting him,” she said. “Carnegie Hill something. You must know.”

  He said, “Just like that, in Murphy’s?”

  “In the park one day.”

  “Oh.”

  They wiped the floor.

  “Well in that case,” he said, “I guess there’s no reason why I can’t tell you the whole story.”

  They brought the wet towels and wrapped glass into the kitchen. He took the garbage out to the chute while she made another drink.

  They went into the living room. />
  Sat at the ends of the sofa facing each other, each with a folded leg on the cushion. Reached glasses and clinked them, smiling.

  He drank. Looked at his glass. “I think they were lovers,” he said. “I don’t hold it against him. If he made her happy, fine. My father asked for it. He was a real bastard and had plenty of affairs himself.”

  She watched him as he drew a breath, took a sip of his drink.

  “After she died,” he said, “Sam dropped out of sight, for almost ten years. At least you didn’t see his credit anywhere. The first I heard of him was a few months after I bought the building; he was speaking down at the New School. ‘Directing in Television’s Golden Age.’ I went to hear him, of course. It was pretty embarrassing. He was half drunk, rambled all over the place, forgot the question he was answering. . . .”

  She sighed, shook her head.

  “I did some checking,” he said. “He was living in a ratty little hole on Bleecker Street, teaching acting. He’d been canned by some school down there. I thought maybe he wouldn’t take anything if he knew it was my father’s money, so I had my lawyers set up the foundation. It’s not a big deal. And they hired someone who got in touch with him and put him into the Smithers Treatment Center, right around the corner. When the building was finished, the foundation rented an apartment for him.”

  She said, “That was incredibly generous and sensitive of you, and continues to be.”

  He shrugged. “He directed some of Thea Marshall’s best performances,” he said. “I knew she would have wanted to help him even if they weren’t lovers. And as I said, I don’t hold it against him if they were.”

  “Obviously you don’t,” she said.

  They smiled at each other, drank.

  “Well,” he said, “we went off on a couple of tangents, but that’s what I wanted to tell you, that I’m the owner, so you can stop wondering. I told you another lie down there. I knew you had a cat from your application, I wasn’t in Murphy’s with anyone last Saturday morning. I took a chance that that was when you shopped and that you bought litter.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re a good guesser,” she said. “Both lies forgiven. Gladly.”

  They drank.

  Felice jumped up on the sofa between them. Walked the yielding apricot velvet and sniffed his rubbing fingers. He caressed her head. “Everybody’s forgiving me,” he said.

  She looked at him. Said, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell the other tenants?”

  “No,” he said. He shook his head. “You won’t. You’ll—protect my privacy.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I just know it.” His vivid blue eyes looked at her. “That’s the kind of person you are,” he said. “Do I read you wrong?”

  She shook her head, looking at him. “No,” she said, “you don’t.”

  They drank.

  Felice curled up against his knee. He fingered her orange ear, caressed her head. Said, “What a cutie . . .”

  She said, “Are you hungry? I have a refrigerator full of chicken tarragon and salad, and some super strawberry mousse. . . .”

  “That sounds great,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ve got a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon champagne, the kind James Bond used to drink. Should I run downstairs and get it?”

  She smiled at him. “Why not?” she said.

  “Alex is sixteen years older than I am. He teaches architectural history at NYU. He was on the faculty at Syracuse when we started going together. In my sophomore year.”

  “Hotter?”

  “Sure.”

  He took an arm from around her, groped, found the shower handle; turned the water hotter.

  “We didn’t get married till I was twenty-nine,” she said. “Mmm, that’s great. And Jeff is twelve years older; you’re not the only one with a parental hang-up.” She kissed his throat as he licked water from her eyebrow. He said, “At least you’re getting over yours. . . .” They kissed, laughing.

  Kissed. “Oh God . . .” Turned, kissing. “We’re going to make The Guinness Book of Records. . . .” “Back up . . .” “Wait a sec . . .” She took an arm from around him, groped, found the shower handle; turned the water hotter.

  TWO

  6

  SHE SAILED INTO THE office and slowed and walked. Smiled and said good morning—to Gary, to Carlos, to Jean, to Sara—trying to look as if she hadn’t spent Saturday night and all day Sunday making rapturous love with a twenty-six-year-old man who happened to be the most perceptive, sensitive, intuitive person she had ever known.

  Telling Roxie was one thing; she wasn’t about to tell the world.

  She looked in on June around ten-thirty, asked how the Scrabble had gone and told her not to bother getting those phone numbers; she had spoken to the manager, there had been a misunderstanding. He had told the super, whose English wasn’t very good, to be more attentive to all the tenants; so she was going back to her let-the-owner-have-his-privacy position. Life hadn’t imitated Olivia’s Landlord after all. But thanks.

  She didn’t like lying to June, not even white-lying, but she was afraid that once she got started on how she learned who the owner was, she would wind up gushing out everything.

  She had gushed to Roxie on the phone the night before. “He has these vivid blue eyes and I swear to God he sees right into me! And not just me, Roxie; he took one look at the falcon, which he loves, and he immediately saw what you were going for and expressed it in almost exactly your terms! He even psyched out Felice! You can’t believe how perceptive he is! And funny, and sweet, and wild about me . . .”

  She had told Roxie who his mother had been, and his father, how unaffected he was about his wealth—doing his own laundry, his apartment furnished in simple Conran’s contemporary under a layer of mess. . . .

  She knew it wasn’t going to be a long-term relationship, not with thirteen years between them—and didn’t want it to be, for his sake; he ought to have children. But for a while at least, for both of them, it was surely the best possible thing that could have happened.

  Roxie, delighted for her, had agreed.

  Would Dr. Palme agree too? She hoped so—and that Pete would very soon be secure enough in the relationship to tell her he was in therapy. How could he not have been scarred, poor baby, hardly seeing his mother at all except on television?

  Though there was, of course, a slight chance, very slight, that he had overheard the doctor talking in the elevator about the Oedipus complex—between the lobby and the second floor. About one in a million?

  In her office, looking out at buildings of glass-walled offices, she longed to call him—just a quick hello to confirm his reality up there on Carnegie Hill.

  No. She resolved she wouldn’t be a nuisance; he’d be busy at his computer in that messy Conran’s living room, working on the program he was doing for Price Waterhouse.

  She got to work too; buzzed Sara and asked her to bring in her notebook.

  He watched Sam.

  Jabbing with two fingers at the crummy-looking portable he’d brought back from Tucson. Abe’s, probably. He’d set it up on the living-room table along with a pad of paper and a dictionary; sat with his glasses on, in his Beethoven sweatshirt, jabbing, stopping and scratching his ear, jabbing, checking the dictionary. No joint in sight.

  Quitting again? And writing what?

  The old scumbag . . . On the checkout line behind her the day she moved in. Trying to repeat history . . .

  And in the park! When? How come? What else had he told her, what had she told him? Obviously they’d had more than a casual conversation.

  The morning after the Rocky thing? When he’d slept till almost noon and there she was, at the desk, telling Sara how gorgeous the park had been? Maddening, not to know . . .

  He smiled at himself—spoiled by too much knowing. Did it matter what they’d said, when and how they’d met? Not in the least. Not a microdot.

  Tough, Sammy, you can’t win ’em all. Be glad y
ou’re alive. You don’t know how lucky you are that Abe didn’t get to go to your funeral. . . .

  He watched Beth searching Alison’s dresser drawers. Not even warm.

  Dr. Palme and Michelle—the usual. Lisa doing aerobics.

  Them again on her bed, she on top, both of them near coming.

  Fantastic, how great she was. Naomi had been frigid by comparison.

  He fast-forwarded through a stretch of talking, whizzing them all over the bed, out of the room, back.

  Watched them starting in again, kissing, stroking each other.

  Thought about calling her, didn’t want to bother her.

  But she would be feeling the same way. More so. And it wasn’t as if she was in rehearsal or on camera . . .

  He killed the sound. Called Information for Diadem’s number.

  Got to Sara and said, “Hello, my name is Peter Henderson. May I speak to Ms. Norris if she’s free? It’s a personal matter.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  He watched them lying curled together, sixty-nining. “Hi . . .”

  “Hi . . .” he said, smiling, watching them. “Sorry to bother you but I had to make sure you’re real. . . .”

  It wasn’t until a few days later—when she left the apartment in the morning to find Vida in a flowered kimono hauling out pink suitcases, bound for a month in Portugal and seeming grim about it—that she realized (riding down in the elevator with the blond couple on fourteen, the goateed man on twelve, the black/white couple on seven) that Pete knew the occupation, income, age, and marital status of everyone in the building, and other information too from their credit reports and references.

  Talk about fun . . .

  She mentioned it that night over burgers and fries at Jackson Hole, around ten.

  He sat chewing, looking at her across the small square table.

  He swallowed. Sipped from his mug of beer as she took a bite of her burger.

  He wiped his lips with his napkin. “I wouldn’t say fun,” he said, “but there’s certainly a satisfaction in knowing the basic facts about everybody. We’re all curious about our neighbors; it’s a defensive instinct from the most primitive part of the brain. Like Felice sniffing.” He took a fry from the plate between them.