Hard Rain (23 page)

The road was narrow and soon began to climb—the road to Mount Blackstone, Zyzmchuk remembered: unbidden, the map drew itself in his mind. The lights of the little car flashed on. Zyzmchuk kept his off.

The road twisted up the mountain. The air grew colder, the wind stronger. Phinney, a law-abider, signaled a right turn to nobody that he knew of and entered a gravel lane. Zyzmchuk stopped. The little car disappeared in the woods. Zyzmchuk switched off his engine and rolled down the window. After a minute or two, he heard a car door close. Without turning on the engine, Zyzmchuk shifted into neutral and backed down the hill until he came to a clearing by the road. He steered onto it and parked the car.

Late evening: the sky would soon be fully dark; no moonlight or starlight could penetrate the thick black-purple cloud Zyzmchuk saw as he got out of the car. The arrival of darkness did something that coffee, beer and whiskey had failed to do—it woke him up. He felt his senses sharpening; listening to the quiet—no birdsong, no rustle of animals, nothing but the wind in the bare trees—he realized it was not merely an absence of sound, but an invitation to it, opening up infinite possibility, like a keyboard to a pianist. That's what made quiet exciting, especially at night. Zyzmchuk just wished he had something more promising to do.

Without making a sound, he opened the back of the Blazer. He put a heavy wool sweater on over his sweatshirt and a black waterproof jacket over that. Then, taking his toolbox, he walked up the lane, keeping to the grass verge that bordered the gravel. The only sound was the wind in the trees.

Zyzmchuk smelled wood smoke. Then he rounded a corner and saw a light glowing in the distance. He stopped behind a tree and gazed in its direction. He saw the dark, square shadow of a cabin, yellow light in its windows, sparks sailing from a chimney into the night. Everything else was indistinct. His vision wasn't what it had been; there were no push-ups he could do for that. Once he'd been able to tell the color of a man's eyes at fifty feet.

Staying in the trees, Zyzmchuk made his way toward the cabin. Open lawns sloped up to it from the front and sides, but at the back, against the mountain, it almost touched the forest. Zyzmchuk circled the cabin. He stopped every minute or two to listen and didn't hurry. Finally, he reached a squat cedar directly behind the house. Ten feet of open ground lay between him and the nearest window. Leaving his toolbox by the tree, he got down on the ground and crawled.

The grass felt cold, the earth hard. Music leaked into the night: Sarah Vaughan. Now he had the divine Sarah to go with the wind in the trees. Two forces of nature. Smiling, Zyzmchuk placed his hands on the windowsill and slowly raised his head.

Alice Frame and Jameson T. Phinney sat on a thick red Persian rug before a roaring fire. She was dressed for après-ski at Gstaad or Megève. He wore cashmere and tweed. They were eating pâté and drinking Burgundy: Zyzmchuk could tell from the shape of the bottle. A wicker hamper lay between them. Alice's manicured hand reached in and pulled out a bunch of grapes. She plucked one and held it up. Phinney opened his mouth. He had little white teeth and a little red tongue. Alice tossed the grape in the air. Phinney caught it like a good little seal. They laughed—a third sound, to go with Sarah Vaughan and the wind. Zyzmchuk was reminded of D. H. Lawrence, Scott Fitzgerald, or one of that crowd. He wasn't reminded of Mata Hari or one of hers.

A cold raindrop landed on the back of his neck. Then another. Zyzmchuk crept back to the cedar tree and sat under its branches. The sky made a whispering sound, a whisper of the insistent kind. Rain fell. The wind drove it at an angle, lashing the ground all around him. He tucked his knees under his chin to keep his whole body in the shelter of the cedar tree. But at last the rain penetrated it, too, dripping off the branches and onto him. First wet, then cold; he thought about whiskey in pint bottles. He thought about it with such concentration that some time passed before he realized that Sarah Vaughan had stopped singing.

Zyzmchuk slid out from under the tree and stood up. Lights no longer glowed from the house; he was about to move around to the front to check on Phinney's car, when he heard a faint sound from above.

There was a big window on the second floor of the cabin. Zyzmchuk could see nothing through it. He opened his toolbox and took out an extendable steel pole, painted black. He screwed a little round receiver-transmitter onto its end and approached the house. Sticking the base of the pole into the ground, he pulled out the extension until the bug reached the height of the window. Slowly he tilted the pole forward until the bug touched the glass. Then he sat down under the tree, pressed the record button on his tape machine, donned earphones and listened.

First he heard rain striking glass. It sounded like a percussion instrument, halfway between a snare drum and cymbals. Then a woman moaned. “Oh, God,” she said. “Jamie. Oh God.”

A man moaned too, deeper and throatier. “Jesus. Jesus Christ. It's so …”

Perhaps, being cultured people, they recognized the lack of original things to say. In any case, they stopped talking. Instead, they made moans together, intensified them, climaxed them. Then there was just the percussion of the rain on the window.

A sigh.

“When is Maggie coming back?” asked Alice Frame. She sounded wide awake.

“Tomorrow night,” Phinney answered, sounding sleepy.

Rain on the window. Rain dripping through the cedar tree, under the neck of Zyzmchuk's waterproof jacket, soaking through his sweater, his sweatsuit and down to his skin: God's punishment, he thought, for a professional voyeur, or auditeur, this time.

Alice blew out a long, slow breath. “God, he's a shit,” she said.

Zyzmchuk turned up the volume. That made the percussion louder.

“It must have been awful,” Phinney said.

“You don't know the half of it.”

Phinney cleared his throat, perhaps in an effort to expel his sleepiness, or just to speak words he didn't want to. “Tell me.”

“I don't want to talk about it.” Pause. “But I've never felt so humiliated in my whole life.” Her voice broke on the word “humiliated.”

“Don't cry.”

“Sorry.”

“Don't be sorry. Cry if you want. Don't be sad, that's all I meant.”

Alice stopped crying. “He's such a shit. He's not even coming for the unveiling. His staff couldn't get the
Times
or the
Post
interested enough to send photographers.”

Phinney said nothing. Rain played its music on the window. “Is there any wine left?” Alice asked.

“Here.”

Zyzmchuk heard her sip. He had good equipment in his toolbox.

“When is Maggie coming back?”

“I already told you.”

“Sorry.”

“Tomorrow night.”

Sip. Time passed. Sip.

“Come closer,” Alice said.

Bedding rustled. “I can try,” Phinney said.

“That's all I ask. I … need you, Jamie. But I'm not supposed to say that, am I?”

There was no reply.

They moaned together, low and passionate. Zyzmchuk took off his earphones. He didn't want to hear their lovemaking, not without a good reason. And the reason was gone, the investigation finished. He knew the cause of Alice Frame's behavior at the lie-detector test, and it had nothing to do with the spy game. It had to do with the adultery game. So he continued to record the sounds in the cabin on Mount Blackstone—Keith could listen to the whole tape if he wanted—but he didn't listen himself. Instead he tried to think of some way to force them to keep their promise. The investigation had been so easy, the results so trite, he couldn't imagine them not trying to wriggle out of the agreement. He thought of all the ways they might try. He thought of all the ways he might counter. He ended up thinking about the job market.

At first light, Zyzmchuk rose, stretched his damp body, packed his toolbox and walked to his car. He drove down Mount Blackstone, out of the rain and into drizzle. He'd planned to drive home, but passing the 1826 House, he saw again the sign advertising rooms with fireplaces. And showers too, he thought. Comfort and rest. Why not? It was Saturday morning.

Zyzmchuk drove up to the office, thinking about warm showers and glasses of whiskey in front of a fire. The office door opened. A woman came out. Zyzmchuk, with one foot already on the pavement, drew it back into the car and closed the door.

The dark-haired woman.

He pulled out of the parking lot before she could see him. Then he drove a few hundred yards down the road and stopped at the Morgan Inn. The Morgan Inn advertised rooms with fireplaces too, but that wasn't why he booked one. The room was booked—chintz and maple, too-soft mattress, no fireplace, they were all taken—because Ivan Zyzmchuk was paid not to believe in coincidences, and he liked to earn his money.

20

A man, or maybe a boy, said, “It's supposed to be fun.”

A woman, or maybe a girl, said, “Not when you treat me like this.”

“Like what?” he said.

“Like last night,” she said.

“Like what last night?”

“Precisely.”

“God, it's true what they say.”

“What who says?”

“Your roommates—that you're a bore.”

No reply. A door closed. Jessie opened her eyes. Gray light leaked in through a gap in floral curtains. She took in the outlines of her room: desk, television, fireplace, the double bed she lay in. She got out of it and looked through the curtains.

A young man was walking away, across the parking lot. He had his head tucked down into the turned-up collar of a jacket that said
MORGAN
on the back, tucked down against the drizzle or because he craved anonymity. The next moment a young woman went quickly by Jessie's window. She was the kind of woman who might one day realize how beautiful she was, but hadn't yet. And it wouldn't be today: her eyes were puffy from crying and she needed sleep. The woman got in a car with a Vassar decal and sped away. Jessie remembered carefree college weekends just like that, but at Stanford they'd had the sunshine to make it all less depressing.

She went to her suitcase, put on the last of the fresh clothing. She'd packed for a day or two. Saturday. Day two. All she had to show for her trip was a broken barrette with a few strands of frizzy hair caught in it. She picked up the phone and called Dick Carr's home number.

“Jesus,” he said. “It's the middle of the night.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“You forgot?”

“I'm in Vermont. Or Massachusetts, I guess.”

“You guess? I've been trying to get in touch with you for two days.”

Jessie held the phone in both hands. “Have they found Kate?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he said, almost impatient. “And nothing new on the hit-and-run. It's about Barbara's will. You were supposed to stop by the office. I'm trying to wrap it up in the next few days.”

“I don't know when I'll be back,” Jessie said, hearing the edge in her tone and doing nothing about it. “Kate's somewhere around here. Or she was on Monday. They both were.”

He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was gentler. “How do you know?”

“They were seen.”

“Does that mean DeMarco was right? He's off on a toot?”

“I think so,” Jessie said. “What did you want to see me about?”

“Signing some papers.”

“Why?”

“Barbara left you her ring.”

“The Amelia Earhart one?”

“Yes.”

“Sell it. And send me the money.”

“I don't like to do that.”

“Me either. But I need the money.”

Silence. Then Dick Carr sighed. “I'll advance you some from the firm. We can formalize arrangements when you get back.”

“Okay.”

“Five hundred all right?”

“Thanks,” Jessie said.

“Where are you?”

Jessie opened the desk drawer and found the stationery. “1826 House.” She read him the address and hung up. She didn't want to wear Amelia Earhart's ring—Barbara's maybe, but not Amelia Earhart's.

Jessie dressed—the jeans, blue sweater, suede jacket—and went into the office. She got a map of the town and paid for two nights. That left seventy-eight dollars in her wallet. She was worrying about that as she went outside. A big rusty jeep shot out of the parking lot. Jessie got into her own car and drove to the campus.

The Morgan campus was the kind that came to mind when someone said “college.” It had broad lawns, green even in November; ancient spreading trees; and impressive buildings—Georgian, Greek Revival, Federal, Colonial. Harold Lloyd could have walked out of any door.

Jessie hadn't expected to find the Alumni Affairs Building open; she only wanted to find it so she could be there first thing Monday morning. But the Alumni Affairs Building—a trim white house with skylights and flowering plants in the windows—had smoke rising from its chimney. Jessie knocked on the door.

“It's open,” called a man inside.

Jessie went in, through a front hall with lacrosse sticks hanging on the wall, and into an office. A man sat behind a monitor, one hand hovering over a keyboard, telephone receiver wedged between shoulder and chin. He pointed Jessie to a chair. “There is no suggested figure, Tad,” he was saying. “This isn't Harvard. It has to come from the heart.” Tad said something; Jessie could hear his tiny voice but couldn't make out the words. Whatever it was made the man behind the monitor laugh. He screwed up his face and twinkled his eyes as though Tad could see him. At the same time, his fingers tapped at the keyboard. Words appeared on the screen: “Addison T. Wheeler, Jr.—$1,000.” “Really nice talking to you, Tad. Don't be a stranger.” The man pressed a button on the phone, opening another line; he didn't waste time by putting the receiver down.