Vigil for a Stranger (20 page)

“Oh God.” Her eyes blazed with sympathy. “I really don't want to upset you. I don't have anything to go on, it's just a feeling I had the whole time I was talking to Orin, when he was telling me about this—that there could be something else behind everything he was saying. You know what I mean?” She signaled to Frank for more coffee. “And, of course, you know that Orin used to be an actor.”

My heart gave a lurch. “He never told me that.” I remembered, though, what she said to me on the phone that day:
he's a real con man
, her voice full of laughter.

“Now that is really odd,” Alison said, leaning forward, nodding her head, tapping the table in front of her with one finger, as if that was where the oddness lay. “Because he was quite good, and he was fairly well known in St. Louis. There's a little repertory theater there. He was one of their shining lights.”

“You mean he was a professional?” I was amazed, and then I wasn't. Since the moment I met him, I had thought of him as an actor—a natural actor, a mimic, all part of his personality, his ability to entertain.
A real con man. Something else behind everything he's saying
. “I can't believe he wouldn't tell me that.”

Frank approached and poured coffee. Alison turned her head and smiled vaguely in his direction but kept her sympathetic eyes on my face. “It is a bit weird,” she said.

“Unless Orin Pierce is indeed Orin Pierce.” I spoke the words reluctantly, wearily. Suddenly what I wanted to do was take a cab over to Silvie's, borrow her guest room and go to sleep.

“And he's been in hiding all these years?” asked Alison. “But hiding from what? And why emerge now? How can you be in hiding and be a professional actor at the same time? And who died in New Mexico? And if you hadn't found him, would he have found you?” She dumped sugar into her coffee and said, “Actually, the Pierce story answers a lot of questions I've always had about Orin. He's a very elusive guy—have you noticed that? What do you know about his past? And Roger agrees with me. If Orin doesn't want you to know something, you damn well don't know it. Am I right?”

She was right. And yet he was always trying to get me to check his background, send for his birth certificate, meet his old friends. I told this to Alison and she dismissed it. “He could easily have certain things programmed and ready to go. An old lady down in Florida, various forged papers—who knows? Actor pals. What I'd do if I were you is check something he can't fix, some detail that's official—I don't know—school records or something. One of these things he keeps daring you to check. Take him up on it. It's worth a try—you might learn something interesting.”

She had that Nancy Drew look in her eyes—the voraciousness I'd seen before. She was beginning to irritate me. I started to say something, but she forged ahead. “The question we keep coming back to is
why
?” She shrugged. “It could be a lot of things. Maybe he murdered someone. Or drove someone to his death.”

I was suddenly cold: a chill fell over our table, our coffee cups, the silver pitcher of cream and the remains of dessert. Orin had said exactly those words once—or nearly. In the Metro that first day? Yes—and then we had talked about movies, what would happen if this were a movie. I forced myself to pick up my water glass and drink from it. My hand didn't tremble. And yet the movie had become
Gaslight
—Alison and Orin combining to drive me crazy.

I knew, of course, that this explanation was as far-fetched as any of them, I had read enough murder mysteries to understand the importance of motive. Sheer malice wasn't enough, or the pleasures of torture for its own sake. Money had to be involved, or love, or revenge, or madness. None of these seemed to provide a coherent explanation.

Alison was staring into her coffee cup with frowning concentration. “Or maybe he just wanted to shake off his old life and come out of hiding—start over. Like what's-her-name, the Weatherwoman.”

“Why did you say that?” I asked her suddenly. “About driving someone to his death?” I didn't wait for an answer. Unable to stop myself, I went on. “Because for years I blamed Pierce for my brother's suicide.”

Alison looked confused, and I realized that during our long conversation I had barely mentioned Robbie's name. “My brother Robbie shot himself with Pierce's gun. He was twenty years old. This was after Pierce was dead, but I used to be afraid Pierce had something to do with it. I worried about it for years.”

My head was beginning to ache: too much wine, too much food, too much late-afternoon sunlight glaring in at our table by the window. Too much thinking about the unthinkable in its various guises.
I hereby exonerate Pierce from any and all wrongdoing:
I could hear Robbie saying those words, I could see the shadows move across his face until he disappeared back into them. I could hear myself screaming until Emile came.

“I don't mean that it's something we need to talk about,” I told Alison. My voice was strained and breathless. The headache escalated. “It was just what you said—about someone being driven to his death—I wondered if it really meant anything or if you were just—” I made a vague gesture. “Just nattering on. Just playing Miss Marple.”

She was shocked. She said, “God, Chris, I certainly didn't mean that, I didn't mean anything at all, it was movie talk, I don't think there's anything
sinister
going on.”

“Orin suggested that same thing. That Pierce murdered someone, or—” I kept getting confused. Did Orin really say this? Because if Pierce was alive Orin was talking about himself: every speculation about Pierce could be a truth. “You see—”

I stopped again. What exactly did I want to say? Whatever had been lurking beneath it all since the moment Alison sat down next to me on the train. This was suddenly clear to me. “If Orin is really Pierce, if Pierce has been alive all these years, then it's horrible, it's evil, it's—I mean the deception, the betrayal of so much.” What I was really thinking of was Robbie, but I didn't want to talk about Robbie anymore. I went on. “Even the idea that someone could change so much, or that you don't really know someone who's close to you.”

Alison nodded. “It's scary.”

There was a silence. I saw Orin again in his office: the White Rabbit, the balding man in the three-piece suit polishing his spectacles. Could Pierce really have come to this? I said, “But if he's not Pierce, then nothing in the world makes any sense.” The words shocked me even as I spoke them: I hadn't known I believed this, that my endless vacillating had ended in this blunt reality. And yet,
Of course
, was the first thing I had thought.
Yes
.

“It's certainly a bizarre coincidence,” Alison said. “And I suppose that has to be the truth—either that, or we live in a world where you have to decide between evil and absurdity.” We sat looking at each other. I had no way of knowing how serious she was, or how much of this conversation was like a game to her—fun, like racquetball or Trivial Pursuit. She leaned forward and said, “Oh come on, Christine—you should just check him out. Make some phone calls. I'm so
curious
!”

“Alison. Please.” I could feel tears behind my eyes, and I willed them not to spill over. “At this point, I just wish it would leave me alone,” I told her. “I wish I could go back to the way I was. I wish I weren't sitting in this restaurant being so
miserable
.”

I heard my voice rise. Alison looked alarmed. She ran her hand back through her hair; her hair fell perfectly back into place, but her face was troubled: flushed slightly, it showed lines, and she looked her age. “Oh, Christine, forgive me. I've gotten all wrapped up in this idea. It would explain so much about Orin. But I'm probably wrong. And I for sure don't want to upset you. I'm sorry, let's drop it.”

But I knew that what I needed was to continue. I needed to know the truth, if there was any more truth to be known. I took a deep breath. “I'd like to talk about it a little more, actually,” I said. “Unless you're in a hurry.”

She shrugged and shook her head. “I think you do need to talk about it, Christine. And I'm sorry to be such a voyeur, but—” She smiled a little, apologetically. “I'm fascinated, I have to admit it. I mean, nothing this interesting ever happens to
me
.”

“Well, why would he use his own name?” I asked abruptly. I seized on this detail because it was baffling but concrete; it was the sort of puzzle Nancy Drew and Miss Marple might discuss profitably together over their tea. “You say he was well-known as an actor in St. Louis,” I pointed out. “Why wouldn't he use a stage name?”

“Easier.” Her eyes were bright; she liked it, I could see, that the conversation was becoming normal again:
two women gossiping in a restaurant
. “He wouldn't have to forge anything. But I think the main thing is that it introduces an element of risk—of chance. Have you ever been to the track with Orin? He's really into it—the whole gambling thing. Get him to take you to Belmont sometime.”

“That answers my next question, I suppose.”

“What was your next question?”

“Why would he get involved with me?”

“The risk?” She smiled again. “Maybe—aside from the fact that he seems to be genuinely crazy about you.” I didn't smile back. She said, “And then there's the idea that if he's ready to come out of hiding you'd be the one he'd trust.”

“But I'm the one who found
him,
” I pointed out. “It was sheer chance, my sitting next to you on the train, and then following it up, calling you, calling him.” I didn't know Pierce at all, as it turned out: how could he know me so well? How could he know I would
act
? Pierce, who once told me I lacked passion. I added, “At least, I assume it was chance. Who knows?” I felt slightly ridiculous, but I had to say it. And what did I have to lose? I had already shown Alison all my worst, craziest sides. “I mean, you and Orin are friends, you know him pretty well, and if there's some sort of deception going on—”

She put down her cup, suddenly, and folded her hands together, elbows on the table. She was still smiling, but incredulously, with a touch of coolness, eyes wide: the Comtesse d'Haussonville. “Christine,” she said. “What on earth is going through your mind?”

This time, the tears spilled over—a familiar feeling, not entirely unpleasant. “I keep trying to stay rational,” I told her. “I know I have a tendency to go off the deep end. But I do know this isn't some cheap melodramatic movie, Alison,” I said. “I do know you aren't collaborating with Orin in some plot to drive me crazy. When I'm myself, I know that. This is life, it's not a movie or an Agatha Christie novel, and life doesn't work that way, life isn't so—
interesting
, as you say. So wacky. Whatever. This is
National Enquirer
stuff and everyone knows that's invented by a staff of maniacs in Jersey City.” I laughed a little, shakily. I didn't look at Alison. I had no idea how she was reacting to this. I wiped my eyes on my napkin. The napkin was a deep rose madder, the color of Alison's blusher, and my tears left blotches like red wine stains. I went on, I couldn't stop talking. “And yet this
is
driving me crazy,” I told her. “I want so much for life to be simple again. I just want to be a woman who's sneaking around on the guy she lives with.”

I meant that as a sort of joke, an attempt to close the conversation by lightening the atmosphere, but it didn't work. Alison frowned and looked off into space, distressed. She sighed deeply and said, “Oh God, Chris. Please. Really. I don't know what Orin is up to, but I certainly don't have any hidden agenda. I thought I was being helpful, I really did.”

Faintly, from the kitchen, I could hear talk, laughter, dishes rattling. I wished the attentive Frank would fill our water glasses: my head was pounding, my throat was tight and painful. I wondered if I had aspirin in my bag and, if I did, could I get it down. “And sometimes, what I really
really
want is for him to be Pierce. To be my old friend, back from the dead.”

“Frankly, I think you're going to have to find out one way or another,” she said. “That's the only way to end this madness. You're going to have to make some phone calls, do some checking.”

“I wish you wouldn't
badger
me.” I snapped this out; the kitchen noises suddenly ceased. Then, in the silence, we both laughed, surprising ourselves. She apologized again, and I felt suddenly warmer toward her—maybe only because she made me laugh. But I had a feeling we weren't going to be such friends after all.

My head ached. I wanted to leave—walk over to the Whitney, get some fresh air, look at the folk art, and then meet Orin and talk about something neutral, like whether the idea of putting a trolley line on 42nd Street was really feasible.

I tried to think of a way to leave gracefully, but Alison did it for me. She looked at her watch and said, with regret, “Oh hell, I should get going. I have this boring appointment in about ten minutes.” She was the yuppie big-shot again, the woman with the bulging Filo-Fax.

She paid the check, insisted it could go on her expense account. Frank brought us our coats and helped us into them, out of the proper deferential politeness or a desire to get rid of us faster, I couldn't tell. On the sidewalk, Alison and I embraced. She kept hold of my arm and looked me in the eye. She said, “Chris. Forgive me. I know I've been nosy and intrusive and awful.”

“No you haven't,” I told her. “This talk has been good for me. It's helped me clarify things. I'm glad we got together, really I am.” What I said was mostly true.

She shook her head. “No. I've upset you, I can see that. I'm a pain in the ass. And this whole thing is undoubtedly a dead end. I still think you should check it out, but Orin is probably just weird, and I'm trying to explain him with Pierce. I don't know what it is, maybe the business I'm in, working with these supremely rational
machines
all day, but I love the irrational, I love coincidence and mystery and fog and murk.” She laughed and began to search in her purse for something, talking without looking at me. “The truth is, I had a real crush on Orin for a while, before I got hung up on Roger.” She smiled to herself, down into the depths of her wine-colored bag. “He's such an odd duck—Orin. The mystery man. But he's really a very dear soul. I'm still extremely fond of him.”