52 pickup

11

Mitchell was in the kitchen when he heard the front door open. He hadn't eaten. He had been here more than two hours, sitting in the den most of the time, waiting for her, wherever she was. He was in the kitchen deciding if he should make a sandwich, wondering if it would be all right. It was his house, but now he didn't live here. It gave him a strange feeling. With the sound he moved away from the refrigerator. Looking at an angle through the doorway, past a corner of the dining room to the foyer, he saw Barbara, her hand on the partly open door. He heard a man's voice, outside, say, "We'll make it again real soon, okay?" But he didn't place the voice until Barbara closed the door and turned and saw him. Mitchell said to himself, Ross. God Almighty, Ross. Already. He saw the look on her face. Surprise? Caught? Caught in the act. Or momentarily startled. When she came into the kitchen her expression was calm, composed.

"How long have you been here?"

"A little while. Not long."

"I went out for dinner."

"I thought you might've. Where'd you go?"

"The Inn," Barbara said. "I think it's going downhill. Getting noisy."

Mitchell nodded. "Very popular I hear with unescorted ladies."

"I wasn't alone."

"I know you weren't."

There was a silence. They were standing only a few feet apart, looking at each other, waiting. It was in Mitchell's mind that he was going to stand there and not say anything as long as it took to outwait her. But the stubborn feeling passed. She looked good. In black, with pearls. She looked better than ever. She had been out to dinner with Ross. He knew it. But if she didn't want to tell him about it, if she wanted to keep him hanging-she had every right to turn and walk away if she wanted to. He felt dumb. A big dumb jealous husband putting his wife on the spot.

He said, "I was thinking about making a sandwich. Is that all right?"

She waited a moment, her eyes still holding his. "I don't know. I'll have to ask my lawyer."

"Have you hired one?"

"For God sake, we haven't even talked." She put her purse on the counter and moved past him to the refrigerator. "I have no idea what's going on in your head and you ask me if I've hired a lawyer." Opening the refrigerator she looked at him again. "What kind of a sandwich do you want?"

"I don't care. Anything."

"Hot dog?"

"That's fine."

"Just tell me one thing, all right? Are we talking about a divorce?"

"Barbara-I don't know. I don't know what you're thinking either. The little bit we've talked, I probably haven't made much sense."

"Not a hell of a lot. Do you want a beer?"

"All right."

He watched her go into the refrigerator and move a pitcher of orange juice to reach the beer. As she handed him the can Barbara said, "Are you going with the girl or not?"

"No."

"What does that mean? No, not at the moment, or no, you're not seeing her anymore?"

"Barbara, she's dead."

She waited, her hand holding the refrigerator door open. "You mean she died? Something happened to her and she died?"

Mitchell wasn't sure why he told her. It came out of him. She was dead and he had to say she was dead. He couldn't pretend she was a girl from another time who had moved away or dropped out of sight. She was dead.

He put the beer can on the counter and took the photograph out of his coat pocket and showed it to Barbara. He didn't say anything. He held it up to her and watched her face.

Barbara turned from the refrigerator, letting the door swing all the way open.

"Is that the girl?"

"No, a friend of hers. It's the man I'm interested in. Have you ever seen him before?"

Barbara took the picture from him to study it and he felt his hope die. There was no hint of recognition on her face. She said, "No, I don't think so."

"It's not the man who was here, with the accounting service?"

"Definitely not. He was skinny and his hair was longer."

"I was hoping," Mitchell said. "Well…" He took the picture from her and dropped it on the counter.

"Mitch, who are they?"

"They work at a model studio. I was there today. I had a feeling, I don't know why, and I took their picture."

"They're friends of yours," Barbara said, "or what? Why were you there?-a model studio." There were so many questions she wanted to ask him, that she wanted to know, now, and he stood quietly looking down at the photograph, staring at it with his calm closed-mouth expression. "Mitch, will you please, for God sake, tell me what's going on!"

Behind her, the bright inside light of the refrigerator showed milk cartons and the pitcher of orange juice, cans of beer, jars, packages wrapped in butcher's paper, dishes covered with silver foil.

"I want to tell you," Mitchell said. "But it doesn't have anything to do with you. It's happening to me; I don't want to see you involved in it."

"Mitch-whatever it is-it's happening to us. I'm already involved. As long as I'm your wife I'm involved."

He looked at her, not saying anything. He walked over to her and slowly, carefully, put his hand on her shoulder. As she looked up at him he reached around her to push the refrigerator door closed.

"All right," Mitchell said. "Let's sit down."

There were four cigarette stubs in the ashtray. A drink, half-finished, was forgotten, the ice melted. Barbara sat across the coffee table from him, sitting forward in the low chair. During the past half hour she had not taken her eyes off him.

"But what if she isn't dead?"

"I know she is."

"You see people shot in the movies. It can look real-"

"I thought of that," Mitchell said. "She's dead. I saw her face. Her eyes were open, with a look I've never seen before. She wasn't breathing. She wasn't faking it, she was dead."

"What would they do with her? Where do you keep a dead body?"

"I don't know. Maybe they buried her somewhere."

"With your gun and your coat."

"My fingerprints are on the gun. My permit-"

"If they kept her body," Barbara said. "If they still have it, or know they can get it."

"That's their whole point," Mitchell said. "I pay, or they tell the police where to find her."

"All right, what if you go to the police and tell them first?"

"Tell them what?"

"The whole thing," Barbara said. "I mean you wouldn't be going to them if you actually did it. They'd realize that."

"I don't know where the girl is. I can't prove anything."

"At least you could tell them exactly what you saw. Then it's up to them to investigate and find out who did it."

"How?"

"I don't know. It's what they do."

Mitchell thought for a moment and came at it from another angle. "Let's say there are suspects, they're arrested. Let's say they actually did it. Do you think they're going to implicate themselves, tell the police where to find the girl's body?"

"Then look at it this way," Barbara said. "If they saw the possibility, that it might happen-the whole thing blow up in their faces-then they wouldn't have kept the girl's body."

"They haven't necessarily kept it. It's probably hidden somewhere."

Barbara shook her head. "If there's the least possibility they could be tied in with the murder, they don't want a body around that could be found by someone, accidentally discovered, and used to implicate them. Mitch, why would they take the chance?"

"You're saying they got rid of her. Put her somewhere she can't be found."

"I think so," Barbara said. "They say if you refuse to pay, they tell the police. That could have been a bluff. They frighten you enough and you pay off. If you don't they have nothing to lose. So if they didn't get rid of her body before, they would the moment they see the police beginning to close in."

"Then nothing can be proved."

"Go to the police and tell them. Let them worry about it."

"Barbara, once it's told-you don't edge into something like this. I tell them a girl's been murdered, it's out, everybody knows about it. It's in the papers, the whole story. I'm fooling around with a young girl and she ends up dead."

"Can't it be approached, you know, confidentially? Keep it quiet?"

"I don't see how. Not when someone's been killed."

She stared at him a moment. "You're afraid of the publicity? Is that what's bothering you?"

"Barbara, the girl died because of me, because I knew her. That bothers me more than anything. The publicity-" He paused. "I don't see this, if it got in the papers, as what you'd call bad publicity. I see it as something that could destroy our lives, affect our kids, ruin, wipe out everything I've worked for, built up. Listen, I feel this more than I can explain to you. I mean I want to do what's right, I want to see them caught. But I'm also realistic, practical about it."

"I told Ross," Barbara said, "I thought you were sometimes cold-blooded. But that isn't really the word."

"Use it if you want," Mitchell said. "I'm saying I don't feel, my conscience doesn't tell me I have to go to the police. Like that's the only way."

"But what other way is there?"

Mitchell paused. "What if-I don't know how-I handled it myself?"

"Mitch, please. Don't say that. They've already killed someone."

"So have I. With six machine guns."

"Mitch, that was different. My God, I don't have to tell you that."

"I'm not saying I'm going to. I'm saying what if."

Barbara stood up. "Mitch, look, if there isn't a body, you can refuse to pay them. If there's nothing they can hold over you-the threat of telling the police-then you're out of it. There isn't a thing they can do."

"But they'd still be loose," Mitchell said. "They killed that girl as coldly as you can do it, and they'd still be loose." He looked up at his wife. "I'm in this, Barbara. I'm not going to run, I'm not going to try and forget about it and hope it goes away. I'm going to do something."

That was exactly what she was afraid of.

Barbara made him an omelet with cheese and onion and green pepper. He stood at the counter to eat it, with French bread and an avocado, and the beer she had handed him earlier. He was tired, but he didn't feel like sitting down. He was thinking about Leo Frank and picked up the photograph again. He was thinking about getting in the car and driving down to Detroit. It would take him about twenty-five minutes, that's all. Start with Leo, because he still had a feeling about Leo. Walk into the model studio and this time talk to him. Lead him with questions and watch his reaction.

Barbara said, "Did you tell them you'd pay?"

Mitchell shook his head. "No."

"Do they think you will?"

"I don't know."

"Mitch, even if you wanted to pay them"-she paused as he looked up at her-"where would you get the money? Over a hundred thousand dollars?"

"I've never considered paying, so I haven't thought about it."

"We don't have that kind of money. Do they think you just keep it in the bank?"

"Barbara, I don't know what they think. I guess they figure I can get it if I have to, at least ten thousand bucks at a time. The first payment's due tomorrow."

"And another one a week from tomorrow," Barbara said, "and another a week later. Can you put your hands on thirty thousand dollars that fast?"

"I could if I had to."

"You'd have to sell some stock, wouldn't you?"

"Or borrow it from the bank."

"But without borrowing-you can't touch the trust funds, can you?"

"No. Or the depreciation investments. In fact, I just sold most of our fooling-around stock last month and put the money into five-year municipal notes. We can't touch that either."

"So if you wanted to pay them off," Barbara said, "how much do you think you could raise?"

"If I had to?" Mitchell paused. "I don't know, maybe forty or fifty thousand without too much trouble."

"Do you think they'd settle for that?"

"Are we just thinking out loud or what?"

"You said the one sounded as though he knew as much about you as your accountant."

"He knows about the royalty. That's enough."

"What if you showed him exactly how much you can pay?" Barbara said. "Whatever the amount is, but that's it and no more. Do you think he'd settle for it?"

Mitchell put his fork down. He looked at his wife, at her drawn fixed expression, and knew she was serious. "You think I'd make a deal with them?"

"Mitch, they killed that girl. If you won't go to the police then you have to pay them. Don't you see that? Or they'll kill you."

"You think if I pay them, that's all there is to it? They go away, we never hear from them again?"

"Talk to them when they call," Barbara said. "Tell them you'll show them facts and figures, what you can afford to pay. If you can convince them that's it, why wouldn't they take it?"

"You make it sound easy," Mitchell said. "Expensive, but easy."

"How much is your life worth?" Her voice was calm; the concern, the fear, was in her eyes.

"I don't know, if I got close enough to talk to one of them," Mitchell said, "I'm liable to break his jaw."

Barbara closed her eyes and opened them. "Mitch, go to the police. Will you please?"

He finished the beer in his glass and placed it on the counter. "Talk to one of them," Mitchell said then. "Not all of them. Just one."

"What do you mean?"

"That could have possibilities," Mitchell said. He nodded, thinking about it. Yes, it sure could. Get one of them alone and talk to him. If he could first find out who they were.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing really. Maybe an idea; I don't know."

"Would you like some coffee?"

"No thanks. I want a bed more than anything else." He looked at her for a moment, saw no response in her eyes and started to turn away.

"Mitch-"

There it was, a good sound. Soft, familiar. He turned to look at her again.

"What?"

"God, I miss you."

"I miss you too."

"Then don't go," Barbara said. "Stay here."

"I'm sorry." He wasn't sure how to say it, but he knew he was going to try. "I'm really sorry I hurt you. I don't know why-it was a dumb thing I got into."

"I know." Barbara nodded slowly. "Let's not talk about it anymore, all right? Let's go to bed."