The Astronaut's Wife

16

The phone was answered on the second ring. “Nesbit Arms… What?”

“Room 323, please,” said Jillian.

“Wait a minute.”

There was a moment of silence, then the sound of the extension ringing.

“Yes?” She recognized Sherman Reese’s voice instantly.

“Mr. Reese, this is Jillian Armacost…” She paused a moment to gather her thoughts and her courage. “The autopsy on Natalie Streck, what did it say about the baby?”

Reese did not answer.

“Mr. Reese?” said Jillian. “Are you there? Mr. Reese? Please speak to me.”

Reese’s voice slightly louder than a whisper and he seemed to speak through clenched teeth. “Not on the phone, please, Mrs. Armacost. Not on the phone…”

But Jillian was insistent. “Please, you have to tell me. What did the autopsy report say about the baby.”

“Mrs. Armacost… It is not safe to—”

Jillian’s voice rose and she shouted at him as she interrupted. “Mr. Reese! What did the report say about the baby.”

Reese’s voice was very soft and quiet. “Babies, Mrs. Armacost. It was babies.”

“What?”

“Natalie Streck was pregnant with twins, Mrs. Armacost,” he said. “She was carrying twins.”

Jillian felt as if she had been hit in the stomach and it took her a couple of moments for her to digest what she had just heard. “What’s happening to me, Mr. Reese?”

“You are, too, aren’t you, Mrs. Armacost? You are pregnant with twins, too, aren’t you?” Instinctively she touched her belly and swallowed hard. “Natalie’s babies, Mr. Reese, please… what did the autopsy say about them? You have to tell me.”

Reese spoke quickly. “There’s something I have to show you, Mrs. Armacost. Something you need to see. Do you understand me, Mrs. Armacost?”

Jillian paused a long time. And when she started talking again she sounded like a second grade teacher, light and airy and full of roses and perfume. But she told a story that was hardly fit for the innocent ears of a class of second graders.

“Do you know the story of the princess whose beloved prince dies in battle?” she asked.

“Mrs. Armacost, I have something you need to see. Do you understand me?”

Jillian ignored him. “The enemy prince, after overrunning the castle, finds the princess and forces himself upon her. Months later the princess is with child. But whose? It’s either the child of her enemy, the man who killed her husband, the man who raped her. In which case, she will kill herself and the child. Or is it the child of her prince, the only thing she has left of her beloved, a part of him still alive in her, kept safe in side her. In which case… But how will she know until it is too late? How will she know until the child is born and she can see its eyes?”

The enigmatic message got through to Reese loud and clear. “Meet me right now,” he said urgently. “Somewhere public. Leave your apartment. Meet me now.”

“Where?”

“The subway…”

When Jillian emerged from her bedroom she saw that Nan was awake, sort of. She was sitting at the kitchen counter, still wearing the clothes she had slept in, drinking a cup of coffee and nursing a colossal hangover.

Jillian smiled. “Well, don’t you look the picture of health this morning.”

“Jilly, don’t be cruel,” Nan muttered. “They certainly like to party in this town.”

“Well yes, that’s the reputation…” She headed for the door. “I’ve got some errands to run. Why don’t you take it easy this morning and we’ll do something later.”

The suggestion was music to Nan’s ears. “I’ll take it easy this morning and we’ll do something later. I love it.”

“Bye,” said Jillian and left.

It was only half an hour later that Nan realized that she had been outsmarted by her sister. She was sure Jillian was going to meet that weirdo Reese. She wondered what she could do about it. She had to stop it because she was sure it was a bad idea…

It was Jillian’s first ride on the New York City subway system, a simple ride on the Number Six Lexington Avenue Local from the Upper East Side to the stop at Fifty-first Street. Following instructions Reese had whispered hurriedly to her on the phone, she rode in the front car of the train and got out of the station at the exit farthest downtown, the one that led out on to the corner of Fiftieth Street and Lexington Avenue.

When she got out of the car she walked along the platform to the exit, following the grime-streaked tile tunnel that led to the exit stairs and the street above.

She reached the end of the tunnel, pushed through the turnstile and started climbing the stairs. It was a long set and she had to climb a bit before the street at the top of the stairs came into view. She climbed a few more and saw Sherman Reese standing there at the curb, clutching his tattered briefcase, as if he was just another midtown businessman waiting to cross the street As Jillian rose toward him, Reese looked down at her and half smiled.

She had ten steps to go when she saw a look of absolute shock cross Reese’s features. Up there at street level he had seen something that had startled and stunned him so that for a moment he looked as if he was about to make a run for it. Then he seemed to get control of himself and he looked down to the subway steps and shook his head at her—-it was a slight but definite movement of his head. It said: “no.”

In spite of herself, Jillian took another step or two up toward daylight and once again she was shaken off by Reese, he even risked a little wave of his hand, as if attempting to push her away. This time Jillian stopped dead, her head just inches be-low street level. She was looking up at Reese when she saw someone else—Spencer walking along the sidewalk just above her. She gasped and retreated a step, flattening herself against the dirty wall, desperate not to be seen by the man she was supposed to be in love with, the man who loved her.

Spencer did not see her, but he had definitely spotted Sherman Reese. He walked straight up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Sherman Reese,” said Spencer. “Well, I’ll be damned. What are you doing here in New York?”

Reese smiled as best he could. “Commander Armacost. What a surprise… Of course, you’re living up here now. I had quite forgotten about that.”

“Really,” said Spencer. “I’m as surprised to see you. I saw you across the street and I said to myself ‘Is that Sherman Reese?’ So I trotted on over here arid yes, here you are.”

Jillian still hugged the wall. She had not retreated at all, but had not gone up a step, either. She could see and hear her husband and if he should happen to look down the staircase he would see her, too. She could feel her heart pattering in her chest.

But Spencer did not look down. He focused all his attention on Sherman Reese. “Are you in town on business?” Spencer asked. “NASA business?”

“I am not with NASA anymore,” Reese said stiffly, trying and failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Very casually Reese put his briefcase down, placing it just at the base of the concrete railing that encircled the entrance to the subway station.

Spencer nodded and looked sympathetic. “I had heard that,” he said. “I just thought it was one of those nasty agency rumors that crops up every so often. It’s sad to see it’s true. Should you need a recommendation, I’m the man to ask.”

“I appreciate that,” Reese said.

Spencer rested his hand on Reese’s shoulder. “You know, it’s funny running into you like this. I was just thinking about you, Mr. Reese. Just yesterday.”

“Really,” said Reese casually. “That is something of a coincidence. Can I ask what you were thinking?”

“It was about those tests you wanted to do on me after Alex Streck died. Remember those? Look, Sherman, do you have some time right now?”

“Actually,” said Reese reluctantly. “I was just about to—”

Spencer cut him off. “Come on now, Sherman. You’re a man of leisure now. You’ve got nothing but time…”

Jillian stood transfixed, straining to hear every word. Then a train thundered into the station beneath her, obliterating all other sound. She saw Spencer lean over and yell something in Reese’s ear. Then Spencer took Reese firmly by the forearm and walked him away from the entrance to the subway station. Jillian’s heart leaped when she saw the abduction and she almost cried out when she realized that Reese had left his stuffed briefcase behind, resting against the railing of the subway station entrance. It was obvious that she was supposed to take it. She took a tentative step up the steps, a hand out to grab the case. But before she could lay her hands on it she heard her husband’s voice again.

“Forgot your satchel there, Mr. Reese.” Spencer leaned down and grabbed the case and then jogged back to Sherman. He had come within inches of his wife, but had not seen her. She waited a moment, then walked slowly up the stairs and stood on the sidewalk. There was no sign of Spencer or Reese. They had vanished into the swarms of pedestrians thronging the streets of the city.

There was a time when the Nesbit Arms would have been called a flophouse or a fleabag. Now it went by the acronym SRO—single room occupancy hotel. It was a dumping ground for the mentally ill, people living on tiny disability checks, alcoholics, drug addicts, and those just hanging on because they knew that the next stop after places like the Nesbit Arms were the cold, unforgiving streets of the city.

It took some courage for Jillian to walk into the place and to cross the dimly lit lobby and to enter the rickety elevator. She got off on the third floor and walked down the narrow hall. Odd sounds emanated from the rooms that lined the corridor. There was laughter, music, screaming, moaning. The whole dispiriting scene was punctuated by the unpleasant odors of cooking, stale beer, and bug spray.

Jillian stopped in front of Room 323. She touched the door and to her surprise it swung open. Quickly she stepped inside. The room was spotless—or as spotless as a room in an SRO can be. The bed was neatly made, the dresser bare. The closet was completely empty—there was not a scrap of paper or a piece of clothing, nothing that suggested that a human being occupied this unpleasant little space. Nothing, that is, except for a single drop of blood on the cracked gray linoleum floor. The reddish brown spot was about the size of a quarter.

Jillian looked up from the floor and into the cracked mirror above the dresser. Looking back at her was the grizzled, unshaven image of a thin old man. Jillian whirled around to face him. “So,” the-old guy asked conversationally, “tell me, you a hooker or a cop?” She was too startled to answer. He looked down at the floor and saw the bloodstain as well. He walked over to it. “I’m the clerk in this place and I don’t like people in my rooms who don’t belong here. Now…are you a hooker or a cop?”

“I’m neither,” Jillian managed to say. “I’m a friend…of Mr. Reese.”

Jillian looked down at the blood on the floor and the clerk put his foot over it, rubbing it with the toe of his shoe. Then he patted his pockets looking for a cigarette. He found one, lit it and exhaled a cloud of bluish smoke.

“Is this Mr. Reese’s room?” Jillian asked. “He told me he was staying here.”

“His room,” said the clerk. “Not yours.”

“You’re sure this is his room?”

The clerk took another deep drag on his cigarette and nodded. “This is what I do, ma’am. This is all I do. All day long. I keep track of these rooms. Who checks in, who checks out…”

“Did Mr. Reese pay in advance?” Jillian asked.

“Mr. Reese still has two weeks left on his advance, ma’am,” he said. “He was here this morning. Maybe he’ll be back. Maybe not. You can never tell.”

Jillian nodded. It was plain that she wasn’t going to get anything out of this guy—chances were good he didn’t know anything, anyway. As she turned to leave the dingy little room she noticed that there were three brand-new deadbolt locks on the door.

“You find that Mr. Reese of yours,” the clerk said, “you tell him he’s welcome back here anytime. He pays in advance and not only that”—he fingered the deadbolt locks—“he does his own improvements to the property.”