"Sure, I'll play," she said, feeling the room
spin.
"And Cates?"
"Timothy? I'm sure he'll play, too."
"Thank the Lord," the eggplant said, getting up.
And what about Dorothy, she thought. Had she played along,
too? The question persisted, leaving a knot in her stomach that she couldn't
ignore.
"Dot."
Before he turned on the lights, he called out. It was a
useless effort. He knew she wasn't there. Wild hope had driven him through the
heavy rain back to his Capitol Hill apartment. What he had failed to calculate
in his scheme, excised by sheer blindness, was the power of desperation. If he
hadn't moved quickly, Arthur Fellows would have run him down without pity or
remorse. In cold blood. He shivered, less from the chill than his fear. Had she
escaped as well?
He picked up the phone and called the Cathedral Avenue
apartment. He let it ring five, ten times, praying to hear the sound of her
voice at the other end. Without changing, he jogged through the rain back to
his car. Please God, no, he begged, as he sped toward her.
Absolution was what he craved. He would get down on his
knees and beg her forgiveness. In the car, he held tightly to the wheel,
feeling the chill permeate his body. He began to shiver as he maneuvered the
car along the Southwest Freeway, forcing his alertness to be sure he took the
right cut-off and not the one that led to Virginia. It could lose him as much
as half an hour.
Please be safe, Dot, he begged God. God! It was, he discovered,
suddenly not just a figure of speech. He was beseeching a tangible source, a
protector of his childhood. Don't punish her, he pleaded. It was my evil, mine
alone. It wasn't her fault.
It was frustration, he beseeched. It had corrupted him,
destroyed his sense of morality, melting good and evil into an
indistinguishable mass. Hadn't he once done good as a journalist? All he wanted
was to prove a point, illustrate hypocrisy. Wasn't that good? To satirize their
phony standards? To bring back relevance?
As his thoughts whirled, he headed the car up Seventeenth
Street to a deserted Connecticut Avenue. The light drizzle continued. The
street lights, set for heavy traffic, inhibited his speed, and he pounded the
seat beside him every time he was forced to stop. He was afraid to go through
the reds. Being stopped by the police now would only slow him further.
By the time he reached Calvert Street he was pleading to
Dot, offering justifications to her as well. No. He had no right to deny her
feelings, to force her into this against her will. "Never," he vowed
in desperation. He would protect her forever, take care of her, make amends. He
would destroy the tapes. They would go away together. He would get another job
in some other place and spend his days and nights loving her, demonstrating his
sweet love in a thousand ways. The idea energized him and for the first time in
months he felt real elation. Finally, hate had gone. Just give me the chance,
he begged.
There were no parking spaces near the house, forcing him to
double park. The lights were still blazing in the apartment. Thank you, God, he
thought, rushing out of the car and fumbling for his key, bursting with the
news of his, their, liberation. His fingers trembled so badly, he couldn't fit
the key into the slot and he pressed the apartment buzzer.
"Dot," he called. "Please. It's over now.
Please. Open the door."
When she didn't answer his buzz, he steadied himself and
managed to get the key in the slot, hoping the door would not be chained or
bolted. Surprisingly, it opened freely and he rushed in.
"Dot. Dorothy? Please. Where are you?"
When it was apparent she wasn't there, his mind filled with
dread, searching for an answer. Was it possible that one of the men had
actually offered her a haven? Perhaps she did mean more to one of them than
even he had suspected. If that were true, she was in good hands. He deserved
it, deserved to lose her.
The thought of her escape calmed him, but not for long.
Looking in the closets, he had seen nothing amiss, nothing out of place. Nor
had there been signs of her taking anything out of their Capitol Hill
apartment. She would not have left without taking something. Inspecting the
apartment, he noted its extreme neatness, even neater than it had been earlier.
In the kitchen and bathroom, everything gleamed. The contents of her drawers
were perfectly placed. Her little nest was spotless.
But in the kitchen trash can, neatly lined with a white
garbage bag, was a piece of crumbled plastic, the kind used to protect
dry-cleaned garments. It was the only thing in the can. Had it been there
earlier? He looked in her clothes closet and as he fumbled with the neatly hung
clothes, searched his memory for a dress that might be missing. The white
cocktail dress, pure white, lacy. It had been her favorite. He was genuinely
puzzled now, roaming through the apartment, searching for other clues. Where
was she? Under less tense circumstances, his journalist mind would have thrived
on speculation. Now it seemed blocked. Nothing she had done in the last few
hours seemed in character. She was not the Dorothy he knew.
For a little while, he was able to hold back any further
morbid thoughts. She had simply gone away. It had been too much to handle. One
of them must have helped her.
So this was the way it was going to end. Another dead end.
Jane had been right from the beginning. Everything he touched was doomed. He
thought of his son. Was he, too, doomed? Another generation of tainted Martin
genes. Like his old man. Another life aborted by impossible dreams.
His mouth felt parched, and he went into the kitchen for a
drink of water. Standing before the sink, glass in hand, waiting for the tap
water to cool, his eyes drifted toward the window. Not far was the string of
lights across the Ellington Bridge. They seemed so close. If he reached out, he
felt he could almost touch them.
The bridge--suicide bridge! No, he told himself. Morbid
thoughts begot morbid thoughts. But the idea persisted, and soon it crowded out
everything else. Never, he assured himself. Never.
But the morbid itch had, finally, to be satisfied. It was
absurd, but when he remembered how Arthur Fellows had nearly killed him, he
shuddered with anxiety. Letting himself out of the apartment, he went into the
deserted street and walked quickly to the corner, making a left on Calvert
Street. A few cars passed by, but not a soul on foot was in sight. The span
began at the edge of a large apartment house and the low concrete railings were
broken periodically by a circular platform that the builders had evidently
designed as observation posts for nature lovers. What the builders hadn't
anticipated was that they would be used for more bizarre purposes, mainly by
those contemplating suicide.
Stopping at the first one, he peered over the edge. Heights
always made him queasy and he could feel the tingle of fear in his groin.
Although it was still dark, the lights provided some illumination of the
terrain below, and the occasional headlights from the parkway offered a brief,
sweeping view of the trees and vegetation that lined the edges of the ravine.
He rebuked himself for his morbidity as he moved further
over the bridge to another platform. Peering over, he could see the shiny
thread of the creek, reflecting the passing headlights.
At first it had seemed like a crumpled newspaper drifting
at the edge of the creek, and he had dismissed it until a blast of light had
given it more definition. Again he denied the possibility to himself. The
events he had lived through that night had already diluted the edges of reality
and part of him had begun to insist it was merely a dream, and he had no
control over the twists and turns of the subconscious plot line.
Denying it still, he moved from the platform, crossed to
the end of the bridge and headed downward into the ravine, holding on to the
scrubs to keep his balance. Slipping and scudding downward on the soaked
ground, he cursed the anxiety that was driving him, knowing it could not be
true. Soon he would hear the familiar sound of his alarm clock, the reassurance
of reality.
The downward thrust of gravity was relentless, propelling
him toward the creek. But he could not deny to himself the ultimate feeling of
aloneness, the desperate sense of an impending rendezvous with horror. By the
time he was halfway down the ravine, he recognized the truth of it, and finally
in front of him, a broken doll in a white party dress, was Dorothy. He kneeled
before her, struck dumb with terror as the empty eyes peered back at him.
Forgive me, God, he cried into the night, looking upward, tasting the rain and
his tears.
He did not know how long he knelt there. Time had no logic.
Only the inertia of his will moved him. There was something he had to do, but
it had not yet reached reason. The first texture of dawn began in the thickly
clouded sky and he clambered upward. He had wanted to bend down and kiss her
lips, but when the whitening light revealed her face, he was certain that the
real Dorothy had long departed, that this misshapen, broken form was not her at
all. Struggling upward, he reached the summit of the ravine's edge and ran to
the apartment again, hoping that his beating heart would explode his ribcage.
Once inside, he closed the door and leaned against it as if his weight could
keep out the pursuing spirit of vengeance.
Yet, even in this blind anguish, his mind asserted itself.
He searched the apartment again. No note. Nothing to indicate what she was
about to do. She had even left the lights on, as if she were certain to be
back. A fleeting thought speared out like flotsam to a man caught in a
whirlpool. She was coming back. Soon. She would be back soon. That broken
lifeless figure was merely wood and sawdust, a castoff doll. He felt better,
but only for a moment. Why? Was it to punish him? Them? Now the idea emerged again.
Them. One of them. Arthur Fellows would have run him down in cold blood.
Breathing in great gulps of air, he tried to calm himself.
He must fight grief, a new enemy, and he scoured his mind for some thread of
redemption for himself. And for Dorothy. His own life was worthless now. Had it
ever been worth anything? All he had to show for time spent was Trey, and even
Trey was denied him. Dorothy at least had her innocence, a rare gift, a talent.
His grief was slowly transforming itself into anger. Anger was good. White hot.
Anger gave sustenance. Anger gave him back his reason. He called Arthur Fellows
at home.
"Yes."
The voice was irritable. In his job, Jason supposed a call
in the early hours would be routine. Important White House business.
"You must come," Jason said.
"Who is this?"
"We got problems, Arthur."
"You again."
There was a long silence, but Jason could hear Arthur's
breathing at the other end, waiting. He didn't hang up.
"She's dead."
"Dead?"
"Very."
"Where are you?"
"At the apartment. You know."
"There?"
"You had better come. Now!"
"You think I'm crazy? No way."
"You'd better trust me now."
"Trust you? Of all people."
"You have no choice. You better come. And fast. Or
I'll blow you out of the water right now."
He hung up and tried to form a pattern of action. Somewhere
in the distance of his thoughts it was taking shape, sustaining him. Had one of
them done away with her? It was a speculation that would never be far from his
thoughts. Or had she killed herself? Was her innocence so pure? Again, he had
to tamp down grief, recall anger.
With a towel, he cleaned himself off, then wiped every
surface that he could find. Nothing went untouched. Sills. Windows. Furniture.
Every piece of tell-tale surface. The floor as well. He detached the answering machine,
gathered every scrap of paper that might bear witness and placed everything,
including the towel, in a plastic bag.
By the time Arthur arrived he'd finished. The ring reminded
him that he would have to wipe the doors clean and the railings and the
buttons. In his early days as a journalist he'd been a police reporter--he knew
too well that the inanimate also had eyes and ears.
Arthur was in a state of blind panic. Deep pockets had
etched themselves below his bloodshot eyes. He seemed to be breathing too
deeply, as if he were unable to bring his body to its usual rhythms. His hands
shook.
"This isn't some kind of trick?" His natural bent
had always been skepticism.
"No trick. She's dead. Off the bridge."
"Bridge?" He didn't wait for any explanation. "Oh
my God."
"I'm not sure whether she jumped or was pushed."
"What are you implying? You know where I was."
"I also know what you tried to do to me."
"I wanted to scare you. I'm not a killer." He sat
down. "I'm a fucking victim. I was taken in and you know it." He
covered his eyes, trying to maintain control. "You want to destroy me. My
family. It isn't fair, Jason. I don't deserve it and neither do they."
"It was never a question of that," Jason said.
"It's too late for regrets, I'm afraid. I've just done that bit. It's
penance now."
"What does that mean?" Arthur said, looking
toward him.
"I've got an idea." He paused before proceeding.
"I want it secret. I'm going to destroy the tapes. It was sheer
madness."
Arthur seemed relieved and the color began to come back to
his cheeks.
"There's no note. I looked everywhere. Still, maybe it
was suicide." He was suddenly speechless with fear. Maybe she was
poisoned. Or there was a wound. He hadn't looked. "Maybe," he said
finally. "Unless one of you people went crazy."
"Good God, Jason. We're victims. We're just people.
Not killers."
"You said that before. But you nearly killed me."
"I was desperate."
"So are they."
"Then when I calmed down, I said to myself, what the
hell. I had a good run. It's the humiliation of it..."
"I told you. I'm destroying the tapes."
"Thank God."
"Don't get too grateful." He felt his stomach
tighten and his heart pump heavily. Arthur looked at him warily, his eyes had
narrowed and his lips fell slack. "Just hold on," he said to placate
him. "It's not as bad as you think. Very simple, in fact. Nobody is going
to get off scot free. I want money."