Undercurrent

Three

Nothing happened until a quarter to one, and then it was not much.

The boredom of waiting had led to too many cigarettes, and the cigarettes had led to a thin pulsing headache and a deepening of the tightness in my chest. I began to cough a little-dry, sharp sounds like the barking of a very old hound. I stood up and paced back and forth in front of the window to ease cramped muscles, holding a handkerchief over my mouth to catch the phlegm, not looking at the handkerchief, not thinking about the phlegm. I wished to Christ this other woman would come, so I could call Judith Paige and confirm her fears and listen to her cry; they always cry when you tell them, even though they expect the worst. Then I could go home and drink a couple of bottles of beer and try to forget the entire damned thing. Or I wished that Paige would do something to alleviate suspicion completely, to restore some of my tenuous faith in the basic goodness of man; my telephone call, and Judith Paige's tears, would have different meanings then, and those beers would taste better and my apartment would be a little less lonely tonight.

My throat felt dry, and I went into the bathroom and drank a glass of water. When I returned to the window, Paige was several steps from the front door of his cottage, walking without haste along the white-gravel drive toward Ocean Boulevard.

I watched him from the window until he had passed the motel office, and then I opened my door and stepped out into the warm, salt-fragrant afternoon. I came around a couple of conifers in time to see Paige turn left on the boulevard and begin to make his way toward the village proper. He could not be going far, I thought, if he was walking and not driving. Maybe this was it-something, anyway, to give me an idea of which way this thing was going to go.

I gave him a good fifty yards, and followed him on the same side of the boulevard. The sidewalks were filled with humanity, and their bright faces reflected the joy of problem-free moments and a day abundant in the sweet breath of early spring; I felt a little like an alien among them.

Paige went along the edge of the white beach and entered the verdurous park I had seen earlier. Picnickers and chess players, relaxers and readers and watchers sat on the rolling greensward or on curving wooden benches; and beyond, the long municipal pier was crowded with a smooth ebb and flow like the surf itself. There were more sunbathers, more strollers on the shining white sand of the beach. Signs told you the surfs were unsafe, that there were riptides and undertows, but there were still a few waders; there would always be a few waders, a few swimmers, a few challengers.

At one of the benches near the beach, Paige sat down next to an old lady wearing a loose-brimmed straw sun hat. She did not look at him and he did not look at her; he sat with his legs crossed, very relaxed, staring out to sea. I stepped off the wide cinder path and sat down on the lawn under one of the pine trees. I was wearing an old suit, the oldest of the three I owned, and it was of a dark enough color so that grass stains would not show. The walk and the sea air had helped my headache a little, and my chest felt less constricted.

Paige kept on sitting motionless on the bench, communing with the vast Pacific. Out on the rock headlands, cormorants and loons rested between fishing excursions, and even at this distance you could hear the atonal but somehow pleasant barking of sea lions. Near the breakwater, sailboats drifted languidly and a pair of fiberglass ski boats raced side by side, raising fans of white spume not quite as graceful as those created by the skiers they towed behind; and beyond, on the Pacific itself, a charter boat coming in sleek and white against the solid-blue backdrop of sea and sky.

Ten minutes went by. I saw Paige raise his left arm and look at a watch on his wrist and lower the arm again. So all right-he seemed to be waiting for somebody; if you're taking in the air or the sights, you don't usually pay much attention to time. Assuming it was a womanwhy here in the park? Why not at the Beachwood, where you could get down to basics in a matter of seconds?

I was good at asking myself rhetorical questions, so I stopped it and tried to blank my mind enough to enjoy the surroundings. Paige glanced at his watch again at one-ten, and again at one-fifteen; other than that, he was very patient sitting there. It began to get a little cool in the shade, and I moved over to a wide patch of sunlight. One twenty-five.

The old woman in the sun hat got up and moved away arthritically. Paige paid no attention to her. But he paid plenty of attention to the wedge-shaped, balding man who took her place on the bench a couple of minutes later; he acknowledged a greeting, slid over a little, and the two of them began an earnest conversation without preamble. I could see their lips moving in profile.

I got on my feet, and I did not know what to think. The balding guy was forty, maybe, with heavy masculine features and straight, sparse black hair combed away from the elliptical-shaped bald spot extending from forehead to crown, as if he were proud of it; he wore slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. Nothing in any of that. Well, maybe it was his alleged business deal, and Judith had been overreacting and I had been too quick to convict Paige before he was proven guilty. But then again, what kind of business do you conduct in the park?

I stood there a little uncertainly. I wanted to hear what they were saying over on the bench, but there was no way I could eavesdrop; the bench was situated on a loop in the path, and one of the rectangles of flowers blocked it off for thirty feet to each side and to the rear. The only thing I could do was walk around in front of them on the path, and there was not much percentage in that, since I would not be able to stop anywhere near them without being conspicuous about it.

But I decided to make the walk anyway. If they were talking loudly enough, there was the chance that I could hear some of their conversation. I took off my suit coat and put it over my right shoulder on my thumb and stepped out onto the path. As I approached, sauntering, trying to look like a guy with nature on his mind and nothing else, they were still sitting with their heads close together. I did not look at them as I passed, and they appeared not to notice me. I could hear the mumble of their voices, but that was all; whatever they were discussing, it was strictly for their own ears.

I followed the path some distance away without looking back, and then turned onto the lawn; there was no point in going back the way I had just come. The two of them were still sitting there, still talking. I located an empty bench facing toward them, under a gnarled old oak, and sat down to wait until they decided to break it up. All I could do now was to keep following Paige, and to wait until something definite happened one way or another.

At the end of another ten minutes the balding guy stood up and turned away to the north, the direction from which he had arrived. Paige stayed where he was for a couple of minutes, watching the sea again; then he got to his feet and moved off to the south. I let him get seventy-five yards away, saw that he was paying no attention to his rear flank, and started after him. He took me directly back to the Beachwood.

I waited outside the motel grounds until Paige was inside his cottage. Then I went over to the office, to where they had a soft-drink machine, and bought myself an orange. I drank it there, letting a few minutes go by. Paige did not come out again. Finally I returned to my own cottage, tossed my coat on the bed, and took up my former position in front of the window.

Time passed, and I began to develop the headache once more. Paige appeared once, forty minutes later, to get something out of his car; other than that, nothing stirred in Number 9. The bamboo blinds were drawn across the cottage's front window, but even if they had been up, I could not have seen inside from where I was, and I had not brought a pair of binoculars with me.

Four o'clock. Five. The sun drifted low over the sea, and the sky turned smoky and bloodshot with lines and streaks of pale crimson. A wind came in off the ocean, gathering strength, and tousled the leaves and needles on the trees. It was quiet in the room-too quiet. I began to feel oddly restless. Nerves. Waiting was never any good, and it was worse when you did not know just what you were waiting for. But the waiting I was having to do was nothing compared to the waiting of Judith Paige- and the half-knowledge for her was agony; for me, only a source of irritation.

Five-thirty now, and I was almost out of cigarettes. How much longer? The rest of today, and tomorrow, and part of Monday? Maybe Paige's sole purpose in coming to Cypress Bay was his meeting with the balding guy in the park; maybe that's all there was to it. All rightthen why did he tell Judith he was staying until late Monday afternoon this trip out? And what the hell is he doing over in that cottage? Sleeping? Drinking? Watching the goddamn television?

The rear entrance, I thought. The beach entrance.

Oh Christ, I thought. Some stakeout you are, some smart cop. You sit over here on your fat ass thinking visitors have to come in the front way, or that Paige has to go out the front way, and you can't see the rear entrance or the beach and he could be gone or he could be having a party over there with half of Cypress Bay, and even though you can't watch both entrances at the same time, you should have thought about the beach, you should have been checking it…

I got up on my feet and went over to the door and cracked it like a furtive, neighbor. There was a white-gravel path further down, beyond the office, that led between two of the cottages and onto the private beach. Okay, so let's go out to the beach for a stroll, I thought- and a little voyeurism if you can find a window or a keyhole or a place to put your ear. Play it according to stereotype: the peeper, the snooper. It's that kind of job, isn't it?

I opened the door wide and went out, and the wind was chill on my bare arms; my coat was still inside on the bed. The hell with that too. I started across the grounds toward the gravel path-and all at once the door to Number 9 jerked open, with a sound that was audible above the wind. I managed to keep from breaking stride, but I was looking over there now. The door was still open and it stayed open; Paige did not come out.

I kept on walking, more slowly, and then I stopped because I was almost abreast of the entrance to Number 9 and I could see that there was something in the doorway, something on the floor of the cottage just inside. The wind turned colder. The wind turned very cold.

I had to go over there, and I did it without hesitation. This was something else altogether. I got to the open doorway, and my stomach turned, and the mental image of Judith Paige's sweet pleading face made the sickness in my belly darker and more acute. The waiting was over for all of us now, but for her the agony had only just begun.

If Walter Paige had been an unfaithful husband, he would never be unfaithful again.

And whether or not Judith Paige had been a cuckolded wife, she was now something else entirely: she was a widow.