About the Author (21 page)

“Which begs the question, why would you even bother to get mixed up in something like this? I thought you were supposed to be ‘lying low.’ Not to mention that you’ve got all the money you want or need. From me.”

Yet even as I said all this, I realized the futility of trying to reason with her. I once saw a fascinating documentary about career criminals. By definition, they are not people who make a big score, then do something sensible with the money—like invest it and live frugally on the interest (or marry their ex-roommate’s girlfriend and move to her secluded hamlet). They blow the dough—they
live large
—then look for the next opportunity, the next score. Lesley was like that. She’d come to New Halcyon to “lie low,” to “chill,” but immediately she had found the criminal element, or it had found
her
, and she was back in business.

Which, incidentally, was what she was now excitedly explaining to me.

“I met this guy, Alain. That’s how he says it: A-
lang
. He’s French. Anyway, he came to one of my parties with these biker dudes I met in Newport. He said he’d pay ten grand for one night’s work! And I tell you what: I’ll give you a cut. You won’t owe me the next payment in our deal. The next two payments,” she added, magnanimously.

I, however, was obliged to spurn that magnanimity.

“Listen to me, Les,” I enunciated slowly, as if speaking to a mental defective. “I am not running drugs across the Canadian border. You might as well ask me to join you in trying to—I don’t know— build a homemade rocket to go to the Moon. It’s not just out of the question, it’s out of all bounds of reality.”

She underwent one of her blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mood shifts, her smile gone, her face twisted into an expression of bellicose rage.

“I ain’t
asking
you to help me,” she snarled. “I ain’t
asking
. Get it?”

I was starting to. She thought she was going to blackmail me into becoming a drug courier. She thought our little deal was transferable.

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t blow the whistle on me for some two-bit drug-running caper,” I said, surprised at how quickly I’d slipped into the vernacular of the tough-guy underworld (it must be all that TV I watch). “I’m your bread and butter,” I went on. “Or what’s the other cliché? The goose that lays the golden eggs. You wouldn’t turn me in. You
can’t
.” She clearly had not been expecting such sangfroid; I was, as I say, a little surprised myself. Enjoying the sensation, I decided to rub it in a little. “I’m afraid you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick on this one.” I got to my feet. “So, if that’s all you wanted to say to me, I think I’ll be on my way.”

“You think you’re so fucking smart,” she said.

I elected not to respond to this and instead simply strolled off the veranda, while she sat there fuming in a volcanic frustration that could find no release. Before I set out over the lawn to my bike, I turned.

“You might want to think twice about getting involved with the local drug dealers yourself,” I said. “It can’t end well.”

“Fuck you,” she suggested.

Riding home, I glowed with the satisfaction of having, for the first time, scored a victory over her. I did not get long to relish my little triumph.

It was the very next day, around one in the afternoon, when a light rap sounded on my half-closed office door. I was sitting at my desk, desultorily looking through the notes I had written on my now-dead novel.

“Cal?” Janet said, pushing in through the door. “Am I interrupting? Something amazing just happened.”

I looked up in alarm. Janet’s face was flushed, her expression wild. “What is it?” I said. “What happened?”

“Oh, it’s nothing bad,” she said quickly. “It’s just the
strangest
coincidence.” She pushed aside the books and magazines heaped on the sofa and sat. She smoothed her light cotton skirt over her knees. “You know that girl who’s renting the Yellow House?”

I heard myself produce the syllable “Yes.”

“Well, I just ran into her at Moran’s, and she struck up a conversation with me in the checkout line. Just trivial stuff at first, about how she liked the area, that kind of thing.”

“Yes? Yes?” I said, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.

“Anyway,” Janet went on in that same dazed, amazed tone, “I asked where she was from, and she said New York, and we got to talking a little bit about that—”

“Uh-huh?”

“And then—well, I don’t even know how we got to this, but I guess I mentioned that my husband was a novelist, and the next thing I knew, she was telling me about how she used to wish that she could write, and how she once took a creative-writing course in New York, and how, in this course, she met this guy who was a writer. He was also going to Columbia Law School. Now, I guess at that point I
must
have said something about having known a writer who went to Columbia. You know how it’s always impossible to remember how these conversations go? Anyway, the next thing you know, we both realized that we were talking about the
same person
. Cal, it was incredible, a one-in-
fifty
-million chance. The guy turned out to be my old boyfriend, the one who died—you know,
Stewart
!”

“Oh, my God.”

“That’s
exactly
what I said. It’s the most amazing coincidence I’ve ever heard of! She thought so, too, of course. So we ended up having a coffee together at the Snak Shak, and she told me all about how she got to be friends with him during this class they took. Well, not
friends
, exactly. She didn’t say it right out, but I assume that they slept together a few times. I mean, she wouldn’t have been Stewart’s
intellectual
type. Anyway, here’s the truly astounding part. He actually
gave
her some of his stories to read, and part of a novel he was working on. She was supposed to read them over a weekend and return them, but then he died. And she still has them. Isn’t it incredible? Have you ever heard of anything like this in your
life
?”

“Never,” I said.

Janet’s eyes sparkled in a heightened, electrified way, and her cheeks were kindled with that russet blush which had bloomed in her face the first day I met her.

“It’s all just a silly coincidence, of course,” she added hurriedly, as if suddenly conscious of, and embarrassed by, the excitement that glowed on her skin. “But it’s left me feeling kind of off balance. It’s just so incredibly unexpected.”

“It certainly is,” I said. I inhaled a quivering breath and spread my hands. “I—I don’t know what to say, exactly,” I continued. My voice felt like a small steel ball that I was trying to roll along a shallow groove—an act requiring intense control. “I’m
glad
you’re so happy to hear about this old lover of yours. Even from so . . . so un
whole
some a source.”

Janet frowned. “Cal, you’re jealous. That’s silly. It was just such a staggering coincidence—I mean, not only that she
knew
Stewart, but that we would somehow find ourselves talking about him. I mean, you hear about that kind of thing’s happening, you just don’t think it’ll ever happen to
you
. I thought you’d find it funny.” She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. “It doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

“Which is why,” I rejoined, “you burst in here all aflutter and regaled me with stories of your old lover.”

Janet flinched, as if I had slapped her.

“Anyway,” I went on, “I guess I can’t do anything about your holding a candle for old lovers, but I hope you won’t be seen in that girl’s company anymore. She’s got everyone gossiping about her orgies, and I’d hate to see you become part of the rumor mill.”

During this, Janet’s face had been slowly changing—her brows twisting, her mouth falling open in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” she asked.

“I was hoping
you
were kidding,” I said. “I’m sure the whole town is already whispering about your little date at the Snak Shak.”

“Oh, to
hell
with the whole town,” she suddenly cried, getting to her feet. “And to hell with
you
, too.”

She turned and rushed out of the room. I got up and hurried down the hall after her, cursing myself for losing control—for falling, so quickly, into Les’s trap. Because it was obvious what Les was up to. Her strategy was to go for the soft underbelly of my life, to poke and prod at my marriage until I agreed to aid her in her absurd drug-running scheme. Well, I wouldn’t allow it. The thing for me to do now was take Janet in my arms, apologize, smooth everything over.

I caught up to her in the living room. She had thrown herself onto the sofa, her arms crossed against her chest. She glared up at me. I stopped in the doorway, unable, for some reason, to go to her, to take her in my arms. Perhaps it was her eyes, flashing with anger and hurt, that held me at bay. Perhaps it was the excitement, the rekindled love, that I had seen in her face when she spoke about Stewart. Perhaps, despite myself, I was allowing jealousy to seize control of my words and actions.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was stupid. What I said about—about your old boyfriend. And as for the girl, I just meant that she has a reputation, as you know, which—”

“We had a
coffee
,” Janet interrupted. “God, Cal,” she added, with a bitter little laugh, “you’re becoming like everybody else in this town.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She turned her head away and glared out the picture window. A miserable rain was falling on the lawn, streaking the glass. The shapes of gray trees plunged and shook on the blurred hillside. She said nothing.

“Well,” I said, unable to control my temper, “maybe I am becoming one of the gossiping fuddy-duddies. But I’m almost positive that she
is
dealing drugs. And God knows what else. And I don’t want you to see her again.”

Janet stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my studio to paint.” She started to walk out of the room.

“Hold on a second,” I said. “You haven’t promised.”

She turned and looked at me. “Cal,” she said, “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that.” She turned and walked out. A few seconds later, I saw her, through my office windows, stalking angrily down the driveway to her studio.

I stood there for a moment, panting, then I hurried to the front-hall closet, pulled on my raincoat, and plunged out the front door.

The pasture’s grasses and weeds whipped against my pant legs, soaking them, as I hurried down the hillside on foot. I had opted against the car or bike since I did not want Janet to know I’d left; irrational though it was, I feared she might deduce that I was on my way to see the girl. At the bottom of the hill, I climbed over a fence onto the dirt road, then broke into a light trot. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the entrance to Les’s driveway. I darted down it to the house as the rain whooshed in the canopy of leaves above me. I stomped loudly across her veranda and pushed in through the screen door.

She was sitting in the front room, her legs propped up on the fender bench in front of the fireplace. Dressed in a pair of tight jeans and an oversize sweatshirt with amputated sleeves, she was flicking rapidly through a
Cosmopolitan
magazine. She looked up with an expression that suggested she’d been waiting for me.

“Dude,” she said. “What brings you here?”

I advanced on her. My toe kicked something, and I heard the clatter of a bottle spinning into a corner. When I was almost upon her, she tossed aside the magazine, and I saw the object in her hand—snub-nosed, matte black, the snout, with its unblinking steel eye, pointing at my midsection. I stopped. On cue, a low growl of thunder shook the house. Having lived my entire life avoiding the kinds of stories that feature that archcliché of the gun-wielding bad guy (the mere sight of someone brandishing a pistol on TV triggers the push reflex on my zapper finger), I now found myself, incredibly,
living
the cliché.

“Alain gave me this,” she said matter-of-factly. “Free of charge. It would’ve cost me a hundred bucks, at
least
, on the street in New York. I gotta give it back to him, though, after we deliver the shit. Hey,” she added, “take a seat.”

With my eyes riveted to the barrel, I backed up, slowly, and lowered myself onto the littered sofa. I knew that she had no intention of shooting me if I behaved myself; but accidents with firearms do happen.

“Ran into your wife today at Moran’s,” Les said. “Damn, she’s cute! But we can talk about Jan later. I wanted to let you know, the deal goes down in a week.” She used the gun barrel to flick a stray band of hair off her face. “So get ready.”

“If you plan to use that thing,” I said, nodding at the gun, “then you may as well do it now. Because I’m not helping you out with your crazy drug running. I came here to warn you: stay away from my wife.”

“No shit,” she said. “
You’re
warning
me
. I don’t know, dude. I’m not sure you’re really in a position to—”

“You stay away from my wife!” I bellowed, shaking my index finger at her. “You stay away from her! Or I swear to God I’ll—”

The slam of a car door cut short the rest of my sentence. Les raised her eyebrows.

She got up and with the gun trained on me, walked to the streaming window that looked onto a section of the driveway. She peered out, then turned back to me.

“You might want to hide somewhere,” she said, stuffing the gun into her waistband. “It’s your wife.”

I jumped off the sofa.

“In here,” Les said. She stepped over to a small door built into the wall beneath the stairs, swinging it open to reveal a storage area stuffed with moldy sleeping bags, old golf clubs, a wooden croquet set, a rolled badminton net. I shouldered this apparatus aside, ducking my head to clear the projections of the underside of the stairs.

“I’ll get rid of her fast,” Les said with a wink. Then she shut the door. I was swallowed by a cobwebbed, musty blackness.

Janet’s footsteps advanced along the veranda, then stopped.

“Lesley?” Janet called out lightly. Her voice sounded terrifyingly clear. The door that concealed me was a flimsy membrane of wooden tongue-and-groove slats.