Kissing the Beehive (22 page)

We stood in the kitchen. For the first time in ages he was dressed in normal clothes -- a pullover, jeans, boots. At another time, I would have rejoiced at the change in him. But it was today and a blade was an inch from my neck and maybe Cassandra's.

Before I showed him the note he had been full of good cheer and wisecracks. Now he had his hand on the button of the Cuisinart again and kept switching it on and off as he had the night before. Only now it was every second and so annoying I wanted to throw the thing out the window. I didn't have to.

When I finished accusing him, my chin was stuck out so far I could feel the cords of my neck stretching. He did nothing but look at his hand on the machine. On off on off on . . . Then without any warning, he scooped up the

gadget and heaved it like a fastball against the refrigerator. _Ka-bam_! Parts exploded in every direction. It had been so long since I'd seen how strong Frannie was. When we were young, McCabe did things in fights that amazed everyone. You never, ever, not even in your dreams, messed with Frannie
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McCabe.

Yanking his sweater up, he pointed at the large white bandage across his stomach. "I was _shot_!

Guy put a hole here 'cause he wanted me dead.

Understand? I can't help you with your kid, Sam. Sorry, but my tank's empty at the moment because I'm scared too. He's after me, you, Cass, _everybody_! And we're not gonna win this time, brother.

"You can be good, you can be moral . . . So What? Fuuuuck you! You still die, because some nobody don't like the way you _breathe_. Now you're beginning to understand it. I saw it in Nam, I saw it here, and now they got me. Look at what happened to Pauline! Makes absolutely no sense, and that was thirty years ago. Compared to today, things were safe then! She fights with her boyfriend while some mass murderer's watching. Guy doesn't even know her but kills her anyway! Hey, why not, she's pretty. So her poor husband goes to jail, gets the shit beat out of him, goes nuts . . . Come on!

"I give up, Sam. I admit it. I'm gonna sit in my house, watch videos and listen to _The Pirates of Penzance_. What should you do? Show the guy your book. Save your daughter. Save _your_

ass. Forget the rest."

To my immense relief and dismay, Veronica acted like an angel. With great reluctance, I called and told her about the killer's demand. She was aghast to hear about the photograph of Cassandra and said she would do whatever she could to help.

Neither of us said anything about what had happened between us recently.

Hearing her voice again, part of me melted, another part stiffened and wanted to shout, "Why did you lie to me? I need to trust you now, but how can I?" But I kept my mouth shut because I desperately needed her, Cass needed her, and what she had to do to help could be extremely dangerous.

How would the killer contact her once she had the disk? I despised him for putting me in this spot. Why couldn't I just have sent it to him at an untraceable address, or drop it off someplace

--

"Because he wants you to know how much he knows about your life," she said gently. "Maybe he shot Frannie, he sent that envelope to Durant with the old clippings, took the picture of Cassandra . . . Think about it. It's intimidation, Sam. He wants you to feel him breathing in your face."

"Okay, so what happens if he reads what I wrote and doesn't like it?"

"If he was someone else, I'd say you were in trouble. But he's different. He wants you to do this.

It's his only chance of having a book written about him. I don't think he'll do anything other than give you suggestions."

"_Suggestions_? Jesus Christ!"

"Stop fretting, Sam. There's nothing you can do about it now except go along with what he wants. Let's figure out --"

"Veronica?"

She caught her breath as if she was sure I was about to say something she didn't want to hear.

Her "Yes?" was a whisper.

"Thank you for your help. Thank you very much."

She exhaled loudly. "You're welcome. It's the least I can do after the trouble I've caused. Listen, I had lunch with Cassandra. Please don't be mad.

I know _you_ don't want to see me now but I thought it would be all right if we met and I told her everything. I asked her not to tell you till I did. We had a good time, Sam. She said she'd like to introduce me to her boyfriend.

She's so smart. She's a great girl."

I sent her the disk. Two days after it arrived, the monster called and told her to meet him at
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noon at Hawthorne's bar. The choice of place wasn't surprising, given all the other things he knew about us. Still, I hated the

irony, as he probably guessed I would. That place had only lovely memories for me. Now it was off my map forever.

Not knowing what to expect, Veronica took only a small purse that contained the disk and her wallet. She said she was tempted to bring a small pocket tape-recorder and turn it on before she entered the bar. I shuddered hearing that because who knows what he would have done if he'd discovered she had it with her.

It never got that far. She took a subway downtown. Almost as soon as she got off the train, she was grabbed from behind and slammed against a wall face-first. It cut her forehead badly. She saw the thief for only a moment when he took out a small knife and cut the strap of her purse in two. When she cried out and tried to stop him, he pushed her into the wall again, snatched the bag and ran away.

"It was a _boy_, Sam. Very dark-skinned. I think he was Indian or Pakistani. But a boy, fifteen or sixteen. He must have followed me all the way from my place and been on the train. It was so smart! Hire a kid to steal it."

Because it was New York no one helped her. After it was over and her head was bleeding, one woman -- _one_ -- came up and gave her a handkerchief to cover the cut. Veronica managed to get to her doctor and then the police.

They made out a report but shrugged when she asked if there was anything they could do.

I had waited the whole time in her apartment. When she had been gone two hours, I called the bar but they hadn't seen her. It was dreadful to sit there helpless, thinking of all the bad things that might have happened. When she returned, the first thing I saw was the bandage across half her forehead.

I ran across the room and we embraced. I wasn't thinking of anything but that she was okay.

After the hug, she took my head in her hands and pulled me into a long, deep kiss. Great relief carries its own surprises and this was no exception. The kiss became plural and soon we were on the floor making love.

Thank God it was crude, fast and over in no time because slow sex with Veronica was as addictive as any drug. This was all hard touch and relief, are you there? Yes, feel me, I'm right here.

When it was over, both of us were shy and completely out of sync with each other. Immediately I wished it hadn't happened, but it had been necessary and that made it okay. Despite all the things that had happened between us recently, there was a large part of me that wanted her back in my life.

We got up and dressed. I went into the kitchen to make tea. She came in a few minutes later.

Blood had soaked through and stained the white of her bandage. It was bright and disturbing.

She came over and reached out to touch my arm. At the last second she stopped and her hand fell to her side. "I'm sorry. That was my fault."

"It was no _one's fault_, Veronica. Don't think that. Sometimes you've got to touch someone to ground yourself. We both needed it."

"I dreamed so often about sleeping with you again. But that wasn't it, this was only fucking."

"Fucking can be great. Especially after something like this."

She sat down and gently lowered her cheek onto the kitchen table. "I was so scared. After it was over and he ran away, I was angry. But when he hit me I was so scared."

I arranged the tea things on the table and waited for the water to boil.

It was hard to look at her, the wide spotted bandage, knowing it was because of me. Knowing that the sex had already turned into a mistake, a place neither of us wanted to be.

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Outside it had begun to snow again. The sky was a mysterious plum gray.

In contrast, the strikingly white flakes were huge and fell slowly.

"What are you going to do now?"

The snow was so cheering and full of mischievous life that it was an effort to turn away from the window. When I did, she looked sad and tired.

"There's nothing I _can_ do but wait to hear what he says. Wait to hear what _grade_ he gives me on my term paper."

Closing her eyes, she touched the bandage with one finger. "I couldn't _do_ anything, Sam. I wish --"

I walked over and got very close. "I missed you. I thought about you all the time. There was nothing you could do! You were attacked."

"But I thought if I met him, I might be able to . . . I don't know. I feel very dizzy. I'm going to lie down. You can go home if you want. I'll be all right."

"Don't be silly! Go lie down."

She sighed and stood up slowly. "The only thing I ever wanted was to be your friend. But when everything else happened and we got so close, I ruined it.

"Now I can see in your face it won't come back. It's over and it's all my fault. Everything that's gone wrong has been my fault. I hate it! I _hate_

what I've done, and what's worse, I still love you so much. But looking at your face now, I see it's gone. All that love has turned into fear and the sex is fucking and there's nothing more I can do!"

Her lips began to tremble. She closed her eyes a long time, then walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

I have heard women say that if they were able to remember the pain of childbirth, they would never go through it again. I think that is true with anything traumatic. I know it is for me. I cannot objectively describe what happened to me later that day. Like a faulty nuclear reactor, some safeguarding system in my soul closed down that part of my memory. And I am grateful because what I do remember of it, however diminished by passing time, is still appalling.

I waited for Veronica to reappear but she didn't. I sat on her couch and read a women's magazine cover to cover. Then I stared out the window at the snow and darkening afternoon, walked several circles around her living room, turned on the television . . . Whatever there was to do while she hid herself from me and the truth she had spoken earlier. As the afternoon died the room darkened. I lay down on the couch and quickly fell asleep.

I don't know how long I was out, but it must have been some time. It was that fathoms-deep, bottom-of-the-ocean sleep where you don't even remember closing your eyes, much less any dreams. On waking, you feel as if gravity has increased tenfold. You can barely raise a hand.

I think what woke me was the flickering, but that may only be my selective memory. Something flickering back and forth across my closed eyelids. I'm not sure, because it might have been her voice. A soft, urgent susurration inches from my ear. Lots of _S's_. Did they start the unconscious alarm going inside my sleeping skull?

Impossible to say and ridiculous to try. This is what happened: I awoke to her voice whispering very nearby. The room was pitch-black except for the flickering somewhere. And noises. There were more noises, voices, other voices besides hers. But hers was so close. I could almost feel the hair inside my ear moving from the force of her breath.

Veronica was saying, "Stealing. It was always stealing. Something of yours. Sex, sacred things. It was so close, Sam. Sometimes it was so close it was _inside_ me --"

I had been so deeply asleep that despite the distinct flickering in front of my open eyes, it didn't register above her voice. I blinked a few times but didn't move, like an animal caught in the headlights of its doom.

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She kept talking. Low, sexy, as intimate as a lover's fingers stroking your back.

My eyes finally focused on what they were seeing across the room. Her television was on, playing a video of us in her bed, making love. I had never known she filmed us doing it, never seen a camera in her bedroom. Nevertheless there we were, rolling and tumbling, making the secret noises you think about afterward and love to remember. All of it on tape, Veronica's secret home movie.

How long had she been talking to me? How long had she been sitting on the floor next to the couch, a foot away, talking and watching this film while I slept? What kind of person would do this?

She said something I didn't understand and laughed. A lewd, joyous laugh that might have come in the middle of terrific sex. An electric zap of fear shot through my body. This was madness, velvety-soft but complete.

For however long, although it could not have been more than a few seconds, I lay there thinking as fast as I could about what to do. But there was no good answer because demons lived here, serpents and ogres, creatures from deep inside this woman's disturbed consciousness that lived in their own world and had no space or time for anything else.

Because I could think of nothing to say, I uneasily watched the television. The picture cuts from her bedroom to a busy New York street. I

come walking along and enter Hans Lachner's bookstore, the place where Veronica and I first met. This part of her film meant nothing to me until I saw the suit I was wearing. Then I shuddered. It was a blue and white seersucker I had bought a long time ago at Brooks Brothers. Two years before, Cassandra had accidentally knocked a bottle of permanent black ink across both the jacket and pants. The dry cleaner said it would be impossible to save the suit, so I gave it to the Salvation Army. Two years before. Veronica was filming me _then_? How long had she been following me? How long had she been circling my life before we ever met?

I moved to get up, but she put a hand on my thigh and gently held me there.

"A few seconds more, please! I was going to give this tape to you for Christmas. You have to see this next part before you go. I want to watch it together. It's a big surprise." Her beautiful face was turned to the television and she was smiling. A child's smile, full of excitement and expectation. Slowly I eased back onto the couch. There was enough adrenaline in my body to bring three bodies back to life.