Sliver

by Ira Levin

  She watched him.

  He looked at her, smiled. “I firmly believe that the rumor was true,” he said. “Please don’t tell me if you hear anything to the contrary.”

  She smiled. “Mum’s the word,” she said.

  “Packed for warm weather . . .”

  “Bathing suits and summer dresses.”

  “Now I owe you for two favors,” he said.

  She asked him where he had traveled; while they finished their coffee he told her about a commune in New Mexico he had lived in for four years; he was thinking about doing a chapter on it. He hadn’t yet found a title for the book.

  “Listen,” he said when they got up, “I’m throwing a party a week from Friday, the twenty-second. Would you like to come? Stuart’s going to be there.”

  “I’m going home on the twenty-third,” she said, “early, but I’m sure I can stop in for an hour or so.”

  “Good,” he said as they walked toward the door. “From eight o’clock on. Bring your friend if you want.” He smiled at her. “I saw you smooching on the corner a while back. Give me a third-floor window and I become a real Nosy Parker.”

  “Who doesn’t?” she said.

  “Tell him for me I admire his taste. What a pity that was about Naomi—what was it, Singer?”

  She stopped by the doorway, looking at him.

  “The girl who jumped,” he said. “Woman, I mean.”

  She looked at him.

  “Oops,” he said. “Have I spilled some beans? I only saw them together once. Eating, not smooching. In Jackson Hole.”

  He took his coat from the rack, said good-bye to Sara.

  Turned to her. “See you on the twenty-second,” he said, shaking her hand. “Very informal. Unemployed actors.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fun,” she said, smiling.

  She looked at the videocamera. Turned her head and stood looking at Diane’s chestnut hair and its dark brown roots, at the changing number above the door. Rode up to twenty.

  The phone rang as she hung her coat away. She picked Felice up and put her on her shoulder, kissed and stroked her; switched the kitchen light on, caught the phone before the third ring could start the machine. “Hello,” she said.

  “Hi, honey, is something wrong?”

  “You tell me,” she said. “About Naomi Singer, for instance.” Felice purred; she petted her, kissed her furred flank.

  “I’m not sure what you mean. . . .”

  “Naomi Singer,” she said. “You can’t have forgotten her. She was around thirty, I think. Worked for Channel Thirteen.” She petted Felice.

  “Kay, what’s this about?”

  “Sam was in today,” she said. “He asked me to tell you he admires your taste in women.” She crouched, hitched her shoulder; Felice jumped off behind her. “He saw you with her,” she said, standing. “In Jackson Hole.” Switched the phone to her left ear.

  “Oh. Yes, that could be, I was there with her once. . . . We went to one of those Sunday-afternoon jazz concerts at the Church of the Heavenly Rest and stopped in on the way back. You think it was some big affair I’ve been keeping secret? It wasn’t, honey. I went out with her two times altogether, that and once before. The chemistry was wrong.”

  “Then why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asked.

  “There was nothing to tell. Did you tell me about every guy you had a hamburger with? She was my type physically, two on a scale of you, and she was in television, so I spoke to her in the mailroom and took her to Hanratty’s for a couple of drinks. But the chemistry was wrong. She was very down and uncommunicative.”

  “Vida said she was bubbly.” She watched Felice on her hind legs scratching at the cork doughnuts.

  “Maybe she was bubbly with Vida but she was down and uncommunicative with me. Then a few weeks later she called on a Sunday and asked me to the concert, and I figured why not; it was a nice day and I might as well get out. She was still down and uncommunicative. That’s the whole story. A few weeks later . . .”

  She said, “You ought to have told me. I can’t understand why you didn’t at least mention it.”

  “It isn’t as if I lied. You didn’t ask. Look, Kay, it’s not one of my favorite topics. I felt I could have listened more closely to her, noticed some signs, maybe reached out somehow.”

  She sighed. “You can’t reproach yourself for something like that. . . .”

  “I know, but that’s how I felt. So I guess I don’t like to stir it up. If Sam wants to talk about who did what with whom, I can tell you about some acting lessons where the scenes—” “Don’t, Pete,” she said, “I really don’t want to know.” She pounced and grabbed the water bowl as Felice bent to it; brought it to the sink and spilled the water out.

  “I’m just pissed off at him for trying to make trouble between us.”

  She backhanded the lever. “That wasn’t the case at all,” she said, rinsing the bowl under the flow.

  “It sounds like just what you warned me about, an old man being jealous and hostile.”

  “He was inviting us to a party,” she said, filling the bowl. “He saw us ‘smooching’ on the corner. Stuart is signing him.”

  “Did you tell him who I am?”

  “No, of course not,” she said, lowering the bowl, “but he’s probably going to find out. As soon as he turns in something about your mother, Stuart or Norman or someone will tell him I’m going with her son. Why don’t you tell him? He won’t necessarily catch on about the foundation.” She petted Felice’s head as she lapped the water. “And if he does,” she said, “well, maybe it wouldn’t be bad for him to know about that too.”

  “Come on down, we’ll talk about it. Vida’s back, she had the operation, and Liz is setting up for her rap group.”

  “Oh darn,” she said. Stood, turned the water off. “I can’t watch tonight,” she said, “I’ve got to catch up on my reading.”

  “You’re not still sore at me, are you?”

  “No, no,” she said, toeing her shoes off. “Really, baby. I’m so far behind it’s pathetic. I had to bull my way through a conference today and I didn’t enjoy it one bit. Come up later. Will you?”

  “Sure. Love you.”

  “I love you,” she said. “Do you have something to eat?”

  “Plenty. See you later.”

  They kissed, hung up.

  She sat looking at words on paper, wondering if he had lied to her again. He had certainly proved he was aces at it, fluent, convincing. . . .

  What if the chemistry had been right or not so wrong, if he’d had an affair with Naomi Singer? Had he taken her into 13B? Had she too gotten hooked on watching? Yes, hooked was the word for it, hooked—on that God’s-eye view of life, a sliver of it.

  Was he watching her, now, as she sat there looking at words on paper? To see whether she was reading or wondering? Had he clicked the switches, touched the buttons, put her on 1 or 2?

  She turned the page. . . .

  Turning paranoid.

  Except that, thanks to the video wizardry of Takai or Sakai or Banzai, he really could be watching her, could be practically reading over her shoulder. No wonder Hubert Sheer had been going to Japan to do his research. . . .

  She focused on the words. So far behind it was pathetic . . .

  Another serial killer. Come on, guys, give us a break.

  She read a dozen pages of the manuscript. Blue-penciled the Diadem form on the agency binder, Not for us. Put it aside.

  Felt an urge to look up at the light. Scratched her neck instead as she took the next manuscript.

  Domestic conflict. Not as hairy as the Hoffmans and the McAuliffs but credible, well written, quite interesting. The phone rang.

  She looked at it. Picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” she said.

  “You mean it’s not the machine? Ye gods, I can’t believe it.”

  “Hi, Roxie,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’ve been up to my ears.”

  “I can imagine. How is Young Blue-E
yes?”

  “Dandy,” she said. Was he listening?

  “Guess who’s having an exhibit at the Greene Street Gallery come April.”

  “Oh God, Roxie,” she said, “that’s terrific! Congratulations! Tell me all about it!”

  Roxie did, and about Fletcher’s mother’s accident, and their Christmas plans, and a movie they had seen. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Just a light-year behind in my reading.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Good-bye, good-bye. We’re going ice-skating Sunday, want to come?”

  “I’ll speak to Pete and call you. Good-bye. Love to Fletcher.” She hung up.

  Sat reading.

  Scratched her neck.

  Took a shower.

  Saw movement beyond the steamy glass. The door opened and he came in naked, smiling. “Surprise,” he said, hugging her in the downpour, wincing at its heat, dancing against her—“Owwweee . . .”

  She caught her breath. “I could do without Psycho,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” He hugged her tighter, kissing her cheek. “I took a couple of peeks at you. When I saw you go in, I thought, Jeez, I can actually go up and get in with her.’ I couldn’t resist.”

  She said, “I knew you were watching me. . . .”

  “I knew you knew,” he said. Smiled. “It was sort of a turn-on. . . .” She looked away; he took her jaw and turned her face to him, looked at her. “I wasn’t lying, honey,” he said. “Really. I took her out twice and that was it. If it had been a big thing I would have told you. I don’t blame you for wondering; look how much I’ve lied to you before. But it’s the truth. I swear.” He kissed her, hugging her.

  She tongued with him in the downpour.

  She hadn’t known he had a passkey, though she ought to have guessed he would. Even where people had changed their locks, there would be duplicate keys in Dmitri’s office that he could have access to.

  First thing next morning she called the publicity department. Tamiko was there. “Hi dear, I need a favor,” she said. “Could you get me newspaper clippings about those deaths in my building? I might as well be fully informed on the subject. The last one was near the end of October, Hubert Sheer with a double E.”

  “One of the databases we subscribe to ought to cover that. Did you check?”

  “I didn’t think of it,” she said. “I never do.”

  “It’s Thirteen Hundred Madison, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll check. If there’s nothing there I’ll call someone at the Times. No sweat either way.”

  “Thank you, bless you,” she said.

  “What’s this I hear about you and a Prince Charming?”

  “We’re friends,” she said.

  When her ten-thirty appointment left the office, Sara brought in a nine-by-twelve envelope from publicity.

  A computer printout, accordion-folded, half an inch thick.

  She skimmed over accounts of community opposition to plans filed by Barry Beck for a 21-story sliver building at 1300 Madison Avenue; of Civitas and Carnegie Hill Neighbors up in arms, rallies at the Brick Church, a three-year battle lost in court—half of the half an inch.

  She read about the death, believed to be drug-related, of William G. Webber, securities analyst, 27, of 1300 Madison Avenue.

  Yes, the follow-ups reported, William G. Webber’s death had been drug-related, a massive cocaine overdose. He had been a dealer as well as a user; apparently he had confused his cut and uncut merchandise. Fortunately his two female companions had taken less than he.

  She hurried to an eleven o’clock marketing meeting—a love-in, what with four books on next Sunday’s list, two fiction, two non. June invited her to dinner, “and Peter too, or anyone else of course,” on Saturday, January sixth. She thanked her, said it would be Pete more than likely.

  She lunched a British agent at Perigord East.

  Told Sara to hold all calls.

  Read about Naomi Singer’s suicidal plunge from her fifteenth-floor apartment at 1300 Madison Avenue. The account mentioned the fatal heart attack a year earlier of another of the building’s tenants, Brendan Connahay, 54, and the cocaine-overdose death before that of a third tenant, William G. Webber, 27.

  Naomi Singer had been 31, a production assistant at WNET-TV. She had called in sick on a Thursday morning and jumped from her living-room window shortly before noon. A native of Boston and a Wellesley graduate, she had moved to New York three months earlier. She left a page-long handwritten letter “expressing depression about world and personal affairs and apologizing to her family and friends.” She had no history of mental illness or drug use.

  The friends and co-workers of Naomi Singer, 31, who threw herself from a window at 1300 Madison Avenue, were shocked. A Barbara Ann Avakian was quoted: “Though Naomi was deeply concerned about environmental issues and human rights, she was basically a very affirmative person. She made numerous friends in the short time she was here at Thirteen, and she was enthusiastic about the project she was working on, a documentary on the homeless. It’s difficult to understand how she could do such a terrible thing.”

  She read about the death of Rafael Ortiz, 30, the superintendent at 1300 Madison Avenue, whose head and left arm had been partially severed in an elevator motor. He had been performing routine maintenance, early on a Tuesday morning. Such accidents, while not unheard of, were rare and almost invariably associated with drug or alcohol use, according to a spokesperson for the elevator’s manufacturer. Mr. Ortiz’s death was the fourth in the building in slightly over two years. He left a pregnant wife and two children.

  The autopsy on Rafael Ortiz, 30, partially decapitated in the elevator machinery at 1300 Madison Avenue, revealed no signs of recent drug or alcohol use.

  Edgar P. Voorhees, an attorney representing the 1300 Madison Avenue Corporation, declined to comment on the rapid out-of-court settlement of the $10,000,000 lawsuit brought by the widow of the late Rafael Ortiz, 30, against the owners of the ill-starred Upper East Side sliver building. . . .

  She read about the death of Hubert Sheer, 43, found in his shower at 1300 Madison Avenue.

  Read again about The Worm in the Apple, magazine articles, teaching at Columbia, Vietnam, the U. of Chicago, the surviving parents and brothers.

  Read again Martin Sugarman’s comment: “He was working on what surely would have been a magnum opus, an overview and analysis of television’s past, present, and future. His death is a loss not only for everyone who knew him but for all of society, which undoubtedly would have benefited from his insights.”

  The autopsy on Hubert Sheer, 43, indicated that he had drowned on the floor of his shower while unconscious as the result of a blow to the head suffered in a fall. He had taped a plastic bag around a cast on his right foot, the result of a bicycle mishap the week before. His death occurred sometime during the night of October 23–24 and was the fifth in three years at 1300 Madison Avenue, the so-called “Horror High-Rise.”

  She closed the printout and put her hands on it, flat, side by side. Drummed to a slow beat.

  She had edited dozens of Gothics and thrillers, she reminded herself.

  Fatal falls in real life were accidents more often than not, especially in showers.

  Naomi Singer’s page-long handwritten letter couldn’t possibly have been a forgery.

  Could it?

  She sat watching her hands drumming on the flat accordion of computer printout.

  She buzzed Sara and asked her to get Martin Sugarman.

  Sat thumbing the edges of the accordion folds.

  Too many Gothics and thrillers . . .

  “Hello, Kay!”

  “Hello, Martin,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks. Congratulations, you people must be walking on air over there!”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I haven’t noticed anyone complaining. Martin, I’ve just reread the accounts of Hubert Sheer’s death. . . .”

  “O
h?”

  “Do you happen to know,” she asked, “whether he was planning to visit a Japanese manufacturer named Takai or Sakai? Of surveillance cameras. They’re supposed to be top of the line.”

  “I have his list of appointments. I have all his papers relating to the book, I’m getting another writer on it. Why do you ask?”

  She drew a breath. “I’m researching the five deaths in the building,” she said. “There may be a book there. Could you possibly check that list for me? I’d appreciate it.”

  “Certainly, of course. Hold on.”

  She sat back, turned. Watched lights going on in the glass-walled offices across the street.

  Too many Gothics and thrillers . . .

  “My secretary’s getting it. Kay, when I think of some of the books you’ve edited, it wouldn’t surprise me if you thought foul play might be involved. I can tell you right now you’d be barking up the wrong tree, at least as far as Rocky’s death was concerned.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “What happened is, when he slipped, he hit the side of his head against the handle of the shower, hard enough to knock him unconscious; and then, when he fell to the floor, he was sort of hunched over, on his knees, with his face down, and he breathed water into his lungs and drowned. There’s no question that that’s what happened; the bruise on his head matched the handle exactly. That’s a very distinctive piece of hardware—you must know, you must have the same one—and there’s no way in the world anyone could have pushed his head down against it hard enough to knock him out; he was a strong, healthy man despite the injured ankle. And nobody else was there, he had no visitors that night and there was no forced entry.” Paper rustled. “I have the list now. What was that name again?”

  She said, “Takai or Sakai. Or something like it.”

  “Takai or Sakai . . . Yes, the Takai Company—T, A, K, A, I—in Osaka. He was going to see them on Tuesday, October thirty-first, eight A.M. Eight—no wonder they get so much done. He has a little note here, ‘High rez cams’—high-resolution cameras, that would be. ‘Cust, H, S, G, S . . .’ ”

  She said, “Custom housings . . .”

  “Yes, that would fit. Why do you ask about this one company?”