I was a better drunk than Jake. He was sloppy, incoherent. I was not entirely in control, but I could stand up fairly straight. Concoct a jest or two at the spectacle of Jake slipping off his bar stool to the floor. I raised a conspiratorial eyebrow at Andrea. She laughed.
You look like somebody famous, she said to me. I just can’t put my finger on who.
Harrison Ford?
No. That’s not it.
Well, I’m not famous. But the only difference between me and all those famous people is …
Yes?
… that you’ve never heard of me.
She laughed again.
We talked of this and that.
Jake crawled to a chair. Pulled himself up. Sat down. Put his head on the table.
Andrea put her hand on my arm.
Her hand felt warm and strong.
Let’s go to my place, she said.
Okay, I said. Why not?
Jake lifted his head. Looked straight at me. There was pain in his eyes.
Shit. I was stealing his girl.
She pulled at my arm.
He put his head back down.
Damn.
He wouldn’t remember anything tomorrow anyway, I told myself.
We went to her place.
As we walked, she put her arm through mine. I felt sensations that I hadn’t felt in years. With Lisa it had been a tingle, not much more. This was the real thing. I felt full. I felt like a man.
My God, I interrupted myself. I haven’t even buried her yet.
I started to deflate.
I pushed away the thought.
We got to Andrea’s place. Fourth floor walk-up. Two tiny rooms. Kitchen at one end, couch at the other. Books and ashtrays. Dorothy Parker. Nice. We could talk.
But we didn’t talk. As soon as the door closed, she was on me. She put her arms around my neck. She fastened her lips to mine. Her mouth was wet, insistent. She pushed me up against the wall. She drove herself into me. I felt her body, every curve of it. I gave myself to the sensation. I almost fainted with desire.
She dragged me to the bed. Threw me down. I tried to sit up, to bring her with me. She raised a high-heeled foot. Pushed me back down.
All right. So that was how she wanted it.
She fixed me with a wicked playful stare. She pulled her shirt over her head. Nothing underneath but her. Her breasts were exquisite things. Firm, high and pointed slightly up. She cupped them in her hands.
God in heaven, I thought. I have an erection.
She took off her jeans. She put back on her high-heeled shoes. She stood before me. Muscular. Lithe. Honey-colored. A goddess, to my hungry eyes. She turned her back. The violin.
She told me to turn over. I did as she commanded. She grabbed my hands. Crossed them at the wrists. I felt leather. She strapped my hands together tight.
She ran her fingernails down my neck. I shuddered. I moaned. Every cell in my body was singing.
Turn, she ordered.
I struggled to obey. She pushed me over. I was on my back. She opened my shirt. She ran her fingernails down my chest. I thought I would explode. She reached my pants. Undid the belt. Pulled down the zipper. Pulled them off.
She went away. Left me like that. I sunk into the bed. I closed my eyes. My body floated. This was what I’d needed, all along. I knew. I understood.
I heard her heels on the floor. I opened my eyes. She had her yellow travel duck.
It comes with me everywhere, she said.
She reached down. She put it up against the inside of my thigh.
She turned it on. It hummed and strummed against my skin.
And then it happened.
Melissa sprawled dead, or dying, on the couch. My indifference. I walked on by. Hating her. Hating it. She was dying. I walked on by.
My body shut down. The gates to heaven closed.
Andrea stood up. Her hands were on her hips. She looked at me.
You’re kidding, right? she said.
Too many strong emotions, all at once. Excitement. Humiliation. Desire. Guilt. Supreme pleasure. Impotence. Anger. Guilt. I shut down.
Andrea was not the nurturing type.
Oh shit, she said. You’re not kidding.
She shook her head. She turned me on my side. I didn’t resist. She unbuckled the belt around my wrists. She flung it away. She picked up her clothes. She dressed quickly. She sat down on a wooden kitchen chair. Far away from me.
I think you should leave, she said.
I didn’t blame her. She didn’t know the story. I’d let her down. She was angry. I might be angry too, in her shoes. Her red stiletto shoes.
I’m sorry, I said again, pulling up my pants.
Yeah, she said, me too.
I buttoned my shirt. I left.
She didn’t say goodbye.
I WOKE UP WITH PAINS
in every joint. The room was black. I’d had some awful dream. Something vague. Something fearful. It had left me tense and uncomprehending. I knew that if I went right back to sleep the dream would only start again. And I didn’t want to be there. So I propped open my eyelids. I got myself a glass of water. I walked circles around the room. I lay back down. I passed right out again.
I woke.
I was afraid.
I staggered to the bathroom.
I got another glass of water.
I paced.
The whole night was like that.
Finally, the light came through the curtains. I got up. Looked at the clock. Six in the morning. I took a hot, hot shower. I cleansed myself.
It didn’t work. I was still unclean.
I made some strong and bracing coffee. I checked the porch. The
Times
was there.
It was awfully slim. I looked more closely. Monday. Shit. What
happened to Sunday? I felt a moment of panic. I tamped it down. You’re under a lot of stress, I told myself. I took a Valium. I took another one.
Relief. Routine. Routine was good. I drank my coffee.
I read the
Times
. I felt half normal.
Laura called.
She wanted me to come over to the morgue. Some test results were in.
I didn’t want to know. Why couldn’t they just let us cremate her and get it over with?
When I got there Laura was smiling. Not the nervous smile she’d had the time before. A real smile. And Harwood wasn’t there.
Two good signs.
Well, she said as I sat down. It’s not you.
I stared.
I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear that, she continued.
She said it lightheartedly. It was a joke. Why would I be relieved?
But I
was
relieved. I was almost overcome with relief. I was lightheaded with relief.
Concealing my confusion, I smiled and said, as playfully as I could, that I was indeed relieved, though somewhat miffed that she had ever doubted me in the first place.
I
never doubted you, she said.
I should have known that, I said. It was the evil influence of our good friend Harwood, then.
I defer to your judgment on that, she replied cagily.
Okay. I don’t want to put you on the spot.
We smiled at each other. We were old friends, colleagues again.
The problem is…I began.
Yes, I know. If it wasn’t you …
Who was it?
That’s the question, Rick. And I don’t have an answer for it.
I can’t even imagine, I lied.
I could have imagined many things. But I didn’t want to go there.
It’s not your job, Rick. Listen, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this. Detective Harwood may seem a bit crusty.
A bit?
Okay, a lot. But his heart’s in the right place.
I guess I’m just going to have to take your word for that.
Harwood chose that moment to make an appearance.
He looked no less rumpled, no less yellow and no less sardonic than the last time I’d seen him.
Laura tells me you’re not as mean as you look, I said.
She’s entitled to her opinion, he replied, lighting a Marlboro.
I laughed.
He didn’t.
So I guess you’re in the clear, he said, in a distinctly unconvinced tone.
Clear of what? Having sex with my own wife?
Lying about it afterwards.
Well, I said, I suppose. Though why I’d have wanted to I don’t know.
I can think of a few things, he said, expertly blowing a smoke ring and expelling a second spume of smoke through the center of it.
That’s a neat trick, I said.
You ain’t seen nothing.
I’ll bet.
Let’s get down to business, he said. We need some information.
Happy to oblige, I said. After all, you’ve been so hospitable.
Laura excused herself. To go cut up some dead people, presumably.
Harwood started asking questions. Many he’d asked before. I gave the same answers. Some were new. I started to catch the drift. The results hadn’t exonerated me. They’d just changed the theory. Now I’d given Melissa an overdose in revenge for her infidelity.
When it seemed that he was finished, I got up to leave. He put out a hand to shake. I put out mine. He grasped it firmly. His fingers were short. His hand was broad and strong. A working man’s hand.
He held mine for a while longer than seemed comfortable. He looked me in the eye.
The message was clear.
He wasn’t done with me yet.
I CALLED SHEILA’S OFFICE
. She had a cancellation. I tried to make a joke about it. She didn’t laugh. I didn’t press the issue. I hailed a cab. The driver smelled of pastrami and motor oil. At last a home-grown cabbie.
He let me off across the street from her building. I stole a smoke
before going in. A few minutes late, in the world of Sheila’s patients, meant nothing. It meant high-functioning.
I settled into the couch with a sigh of relief.
The one predictable place in the universe, I said.
She raised an eyebrow.
I’ll complain, I said. You’ll say a word here and there. I’ll have a revelation. I’ll feel better. Until the next time I call and find you have a cancellation. Right?
She gave me a grave look. I knew her take on this. I used humor to avoid the pain. Avoid confronting problems. Blah, blah, blah.
But her look sobered me.
Okay, I said. Things are not that good.
She waited patiently. I told her the story. Some of the story. We talked about Kelly. How to make it easier on her.
I told her a bit more of the story. I told her about Harwood.
Oh dear, she said more than once, that’s terrible.
I still didn’t tell her everything.
You know, I said, I have these dreams.
Yes? she said, leaning slightly forward.
They’re always different, yet all the same.
Yes?
They’re kind of inchoate. Hard to describe. Hard to decipher, one by one. But in one sense they’re all the same. How is that?
There’s always been a crime. A serious crime.
Yes?
And I’m the perpetrator.
Hm.
Usually murder. I’ve killed someone. And I’ve gotten away with it. But not completely.
I
know I’ve done it, for one thing. And I can’t live with that. And there’s someone pursuing me. Someone who knows. A man in a long black coat, sometimes. I see him on the corner. He gets into the cab behind mine. I’m never really getting away with it. Sometimes the murder happened long ago. When I was young. But the point of the dream is, I’m about to get caught.
These kinds of dreams are not uncommon, she said in a reassuring tone.
What’s uncommon, I think, is how goddamn real they are.
How do you mean?
I wake up. Or I don’t, really. Sometimes I wake up from the dream into another dream. In the second dream I’m waking up from the first dream. And the first dream seems so real, that in the second dream I have to ask myself if the first dream was true, that it really happened. And often it seems that it did. That I’m guilty of some horrible crime.
And then?
And then I wake up from the second dream.
And?
The same thing happens.
What thing?
It still feels horribly, excruciatingly real. I’m only half awake. I’m still guilty. It still happened. And then, after I get up, I slap myself around, I get out into the world, it follows me.
The dream?
The guilt. The reality of it. It can go on for days. I look over my shoulder. I expect the knock on the door. I see a man in a long black coat. I see accusing looks everywhere I go. I’m guilty. I did it. I’m a murderer.
That’s terrible.
You’re telling me, I said. Weeks later, it’ll still come back to me. Now, sitting here now, I ask myself, could it be true? Is there some dark deed I’ve been repressing, in my past? Could it be that I’ve actually killed someone? Is that why I have these dreams, these feelings? Could it be the truth, trying to make itself known?
I don’t think so, she said quietly.
I mean, you hear about all these repressed memory things, right? Some traumatic event, you don’t even know it happened, consciously. Your father raped you as a child, whatever?
There’s considerable controversy about that, Sheila said.
I know. But I can’t help wondering.
You haven’t murdered anyone, Rick, she said firmly.
She rarely used my name. She was taking this very seriously.
How do you know? I asked. I could have. You’d have no way of knowing.
She smiled a reassuring smile.
I know, she said. Trust me on this one.
I had no choice. I had to trust her.
I damn well couldn’t trust myself.
I’M STARTING TO WONDER
whether there might be something to it, I said to Dorita.
To what?
Melissa.
I thought I’d changed that subject.
You had. Or you tried. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all weepy on you. I’m just beginning to wonder. For the first time. Whether somebody might have been involved. Other than her.
In her death?
Yes. I didn’t give it the time of day before.
Yes?
But now that the DNA test is in.
Darling, you’ve got me at a disadvantage.
I do?
You do. You know what the hell you’re talking about. And I don’t.
I’m sorry. I’m sort of talking to myself.