A Perfect Crime

13

Francie, in her office, checked out slides of rain paintings submitted by a new artist. Not paintings of rain but paintings made by rain falling on fast-drying color fields of thick pigment. A gimmick perhaps, and making a statement that had been made many times, but the paintings themselves were strangely beautiful, especially the two deep, roiling blues, Madagascar and Untitled 4; they reminded her of the primeval soup that all earthly life was supposed to have come from. She was reaching for her loupe to take a better look when her phone rang.

“Hi.” It was Ned. “What are you doing this second?”

“Looking at rain paintings.” Her heart beat faster right away.

“I thought it would be something like that,” he said. There was a silence. “I really just wanted to hear your voice.”

The rain paintings, her office, her job, all shrank to insignificance.

“I’m at the studio, but I can’t work at all today,” Ned said. “Does that ever happen where you are?”

“Yes.”

Another silence, thick with tension like that of desire, at least in her mind, and then: “I keep thinking about you-something you did once, in particular.”

“What?”

He lowered his voice. “Something you did to me. We did together. At the cottage.”

In his mind, too. Francie’s heart beat faster still. “What was it?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Stop teasing me.”

He laughed. “Say you love me. Then I’ll tell.”

“You know I do.”

“But say it.”

“I love you,” Francie said.

The door opened and Roger walked in. Francie felt the blood draining from her face as though a plug had popped out the bottom of her heart. Had he heard? For a moment, he stood very still at the door, his eyes on her-a very brief moment. Then he was raising his hand and fluttering his fingers in a delicate little greeting that wasn’t him at all. At the same time, Ned was saying, “I dream about it sometimes. Don’t you remember the first time you ever-”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Francie said.

“Someone’s there?” said Ned.

“As soon as I see the report,” Francie said. Roger was walking around the office, examining things with interest. “Talk to you then.”

“I hope they didn’t-”

She hung up.

“Some big mover and shaker?” said Roger, sitting in one of the chairs opposite her desk.

“What?”

He nodded to the phone. “In the art world.”

“No,” said Francie. “What brings you here?”

“Can’t hubby pay a visit to wifey’s workplace?”

But why now? It had never happened before. She looked at him closely, trying and failing to penetrate the facetiousness, the big smile, to discover if he had indeed heard anything as he came in the door. All at once the lying, the subterfuge, and maybe most of all her talent for it, made her sick. She rose, almost stumbling, mumbled something about the bathroom, hurried out.

In the cubicle, Francie stood over the toilet for a few moments. Her nausea ebbed. She went to the sink, splashed cold water on her face. A pale face, she saw in the mirror, and the eyes troubled. Yes, she hated the lying, but she wanted love-was that too much to ask? And even if she didn’t, it was too late. She was in love, close to the kind of love the poets wrote of, love that took away hunger, that focused the mind, waking and sleeping, on the loved one; a kind of love that turned out to be not just a literary conceit but real, after all.

Francie returned to her office. Roger was standing by the desk, talking on the phone. “Oh, here she is,” he said. “Nice talking to you, too. I’m sure we will.” He handed Francie the phone.

“Hello?” she said.

“Francie? Anne here. They want to reschedule our match for tomorrow, same time.”

“No problem.”

“Great,” said Anne. “I think I just met your husband.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t catch his name.”

“Roger,” said Francie, looking at him. He smiled.

“He sounds so nice.”

“Remember Bob Fielding?” asked Roger, gazing out the window of Francie’s office. “And you’ve got a view.”

“No,” said Francie.

“Sure you do. Used to be with Means, Odden. Now he’s running his own place in Fort Lauderdale.”

Francie had a vague memory of whiskey breath and air kisses that always managed to land. “Maybe I do.”

“You must. Can’t forget a character like Bob Fielding. The fact is, he’s doing very well. And there just might be something appropriate for me down there.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I’m way ahead of you,” Roger said. “My flight leaves in a couple hours, if you don’t mind giving me a ride to the airport.”

Francie drove him to the airport. He seemed happier these days, indeed almost happy; it had been years. She caught a glimpse of a civilized end: Roger working in Fort Lauderdale; she, in Boston-he would never expect her to leave her job; Em reaching the age where Ned would consider divorce.

Francie dropped Roger in front of the terminal. “Good luck,” she called through the open window as he walked away, garment bag over his shoulder, briefcase in hand. An affecting figure, she thought at that moment, even brave, and she felt a sick little stab beneath her heart.

Roger turned. “Luck is not a factor,” he said. A gust of wind caught the skirts of his open trench coat and raised them behind him like wings.

Roger’s first flight-discounting babe-in-arms vacations to the Caribbean, London, Paris-his first conscious flight had been from Logan to Palm Beach at the age of six. Some of the excitement of that day, long worn away by the tedium and annoyance of countless flights since, returned to him now as he sat in a window seat and watched the earth recede. He ordered a Scotch, but just one, and came very close to talking to his neighbor.

A smooth beginning: landing on time in Miami, renting a car, meeting Bob Fielding in his dismal office. Bob hadn’t heard Roger was no longer with Thorvald and asked him for a job, but no matter: this was all a play, a fiction designed for the day, if it ever came, when he could swear under oath and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, yes, he had flown to Miami but, no, not for any illegal, to say nothing of deadly, purposes-only to feel out a former colleague about the possibility of a job, as Bob Fielding would attest. Bob Fielding: long forgotten, but still, a piece on the board, to be rearranged. IQ 181-on a bad day. Roger hurried down to his car and drove north to Delray Beach.

Fucking mosquitoes. They’d moved the highway crew west, onto 441, practically in the Everglades. Clouds of mosquitoes rose up whenever Whitey jabbed at the grass with his steel-tipped pole, whining around his head, tormenting him. Plus the heat and the humidity were too fucking much. He was tired of sweating that clammy sweat every time he moved, of the sun burning down on the back of his neck. And then there was the threat of AIDS. Rey said you couldn’t get AIDS from a mosquito, but why not? Would you bite someone that had AIDS? No. Getting bit by a mosquito that had bitten an AIDS victim was the same thing. Ever seen the blood when you squish a mosquito? he’d asked Rey. Could be anybody’s blood, the blood of some ninety-pound faggot junkie on his deathbed. Whitey swatted at one now, just after it got him right on the face, and examined the palm of his hand: crushed mosquito parts in a red smear. “Fuck,” he called out aloud. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” There was no one to hear, the traffic being light, car windows all rolled up against the heat.

A Lexus went by, then a Benz and a Porsche. Whitey stabbed a scrap of aluminum foil, dropped it in the bright orange plastic bag. “Done much thinking about your future?” the social worker had asked the day before.

“Fuck,” said Whitey. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He was too busy spearing trash, swatting mosquitoes, and being angry about the future to notice the car pulling to the side of the road behind him. The opening and closing of the door didn’t really register either-what was he trained to do? fuck all; society had completely failed him-and it was only when a voice, a male voice, educated and polite, said, “Excuse me, sir,” that Whitey turned.

Sir? Whitey couldn’t remember ever being called sir before, certainly not by anyone like this: a tall man, almost as tall as Whitey, with dark hair cut in a distinguished way like that black-and-white actor, the name didn’t come to him, smooth skin, an expensive black suit. “Me?” said Whitey.

The man smiled. “Maybe you can help me,” he said, producing a map. “I’m a little lost.”

“Where you headed?” said Whitey as the man came closer, donning rimless glasses, unfolding the map. A banknote fell out, fluttered to the ground, where a sudden breeze caught it, rolled it over, threatened to carry it away. Without thinking, Whitey speared the bill, raised it up on the steel tip. “Dropped something,” he said, and saw what it was: a one-hundred-dollar bill.

The man plucked it off the steel tip with thumb and index finger, said: “How the heck did that get there?”

Whitey thought, Plenty more where that came from. Sharp thinking, because the next second the man was returning the bill to his money clip-a money clip, not a mere wallet, and gold besides-and Whitey saw them, thick and green. Whitey took all that in from the corner of his eye, crafty, unnoticed.

“Thanks,” said the man, tucking the money clip into his right front pocket; Whitey made sure to note the exact location, although he had no idea what he was going to do with the information. “Now, what I’m looking for,” said the man, frowning at the map, “is Abner and Sallie’s Alligator Farm. It’s supposed to be around the junction of..” His voice trailed off.

A rich guy, maybe, but not very bright. Whitey could see the back of the sign for the turnoff to the alligator farm about two hundred yards away; the man had driven right past it. “The alligator farm?” said Whitey. “That’s a bit tricky.”

“I was afraid it would be,” said the man.

Whitey paused, quickly scanning the man’s face again, confirming his first impression: an innocent. “Tell you what,” he said. “How about I just hop in with you, make it easy, like.”

“I couldn’t really ask that,” said the man.

Whitey wasn’t sure what that sentence meant. “Meaning I’ll guide you there,” he said.

The man laughed, a strange barking laugh that Whitey didn’t get and forgot about almost at once. “That’s very good of you,” the man said, “but I couldn’t take you away from your work.”

“Not a problem,” said Whitey, “long as I’m back at five.”

The man checked his watch, a Rolex-Whitey had seen them in Playboy — and said, “I guarantee it. And I’ll pay you for your time…”

“Yeah?”

“… Mr…”

“Whitey”-Christ, maybe having his real name out there wasn’t such a good idea, especially if this guy ended up getting rolled, or something-“Reynoso.” Rey’s last name.

The man held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Reynoso. Everyone calls me Roger.”

They shook hands, got in the car. A brown leather jacket, soft and luxurious, lay on the front seat. Whitey lifted it carefully and thought of the leather jacket he’d had long ago, leatherette, actually. “Here’s your jacket.”

“Not mine,” said Roger, starting the car. “Belonged to my assistant-former assistant. Just toss it in the back.”

Whitey tossed it in the back and said, “That way,” and Roger drove back up the highway. A nice car, with sunroof, CD player, cell phone. “Hang a right,” said Whitey, and Roger-a cautious driver, Whitey saw, both hands on the wheel, back straight, eyes on the road-swung onto the turnoff. The road narrowed from two-lane blacktop to one, the blacktop turned to dirt, huge ferns and other growths Whitey didn’t have names for closed in from above, and then they were at

a barbed-wire gate on which hung a sign: WELCOME TO ABNER AND SALLIE’S ALLIGATOR FARM. OBSERVE ALL RULES.

“You certainly know your way around,” said Roger. “Are you from this area, Mr. Reynoso?”

“Hey, call me Whitey,” said Whitey. And: “No.” Giving him that much, but not actually divulging where he was from, playing it close to the vest.

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“New…” Whitey was going to say New Mexico, then remembered something about the best lie being close to the truth, and thinking what the hell, said, “Hampshire. New Hampshire.”

“No kidding,” said Roger.

“You’re from New Hampshire, too?”

“I have interests there,” said Roger.

Interests-Whitey liked the sound of that, wanted to know more. “Interests?” he said.

But maybe that was too subtle, because Roger said, “And what brought you down here?”

“Well, Florida, you know,” said Whitey.

“The climate?”

“Yeah, the climate,” said Whitey, although he hated it. “And the mosquitoes,” he added, a remark that just popped out.

Roger laughed his strange laugh. “You’ve got a sense of humor, unlike…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but somehow Whitey knew he was talking about the former assistant. The jacket must have been almost new: Whitey could smell the leather. “I like a sense of humor,” Roger said.

“Me, too,” said Whitey. He tried to remember a joke he’d heard about a rabbi, a dildo, and a parrot, but before he had it clear in his mind, an enormous woman with thighlike upper arms poking out of her tent dress came to the other side of the gate. Roger slid down the window.

“You all for the gator show?” she said.

“Yes,” said Roger. Whitey thought for a moment about his job, but as long as he was at his post for the five o’clock pickup he was fine, and it was only three-thirty; besides, he’d never seen a gator show.

“Four bucks apiece, ’stead of five. On account of no rasslin’today.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Roger.

“No gator rasslin’. My husband’s the rassler, and he’s with the lawyer right now.” She leaned on the car; it rocked under her weight. “The environmentalists, they got a court order to stop the rasslin’. For ‘ protecting the health and safety’of the gators. Of the gators! Ever rassled a gator, mister?”

“No,” said Roger, handing her money, his nose narrowing as though he were trying to cut off the sense of smell.

“Well, I sure as hell have-where you think I got this scar? — and I can tell you it ain’t the gators need protectin’. Park it in the lot and stay on the people side of the fence.”

She opened the gate. Roger drove into a dusty little yard, parked beside the only other car, a rusted-out Chevy on blocks. A few feet beyond it stood four or five rusted rows of bleacher seats, and beyond that lay a ditch, filled with algae-crusted water and lily pads, and fenced in with ten-foot-high chain-link. Six alligators, five of them between eight and twelve feet long, the sixth a baby, lay motionless on the far bank.

Roger and Whitey sat in the bleachers, read the rules- Positively No Feeding, Do Not Stick Fingers Thru Fence, No Teasing — watched the gators. The sun was hot, the air full of small, sharp-edged flying things, the gators still. After only a minute or two, Whitey’s shirt was sticking to his back; he noticed that Roger, in his black suit, didn’t seem to be feeling the heat at all.

For no reason that Whitey could see, the baby gator suddenly rose up and made his way to the ditch. It stood at the edge, seemed to be looking at Whitey and Roger, the only spectators across the way, then slid into the water and disappeared.

“Cute little bugger,” said Whitey.

Silence. Roger was staring at the water. Whitey was just about to say “cute little bugger” again when Roger turned to him. Whitey realized for the first time that there was something about Roger’s gaze that made him reluctant to meet it; in fact, he couldn’t. “You seem like a bright guy,” Roger said. Whitey looked modest. “So let me ask your advice on something.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe it’s even happened to you.”

“What has?” said Whitey, starting to lose the thread. A frog croaked nearby; Whitey spotted it, a big bullfrog, even bigger than the one he’d speared on I-95, sitting on a lily pad.

“Reducing it to the simplest possible terms,” said Roger, “did anyone ever take something valuable from you?”

“Not that I can remember.” But then Whitey thought of his freedom, and wasn’t sure.

“You’re a lucky man,” said Roger. “But suppose someone did. What would you do?”

“Like what kind of thing?”

“Call it a work of art.”

“Get it back, of course,” said Whitey. “I’d go after the fucker and get it back.”

“And which is more important?”

“Huh?”

“Of the two. Revenge or recovery of the object?”

Whitey felt Roger’s gaze on his face, suddenly knew the word for what this was-networking, or maybe mentoring. In any case, he knew this was an important question. Revenge or recovery of the object: he tried to sort out the terms. The right answer, from his point of view, was to go after the fucker. Who gave a shit about art? On the other hand, maybe Roger was the type who did give a shit about art.

“That’s a tough one,” Whitey said, searching Roger’s face for some clue. Their eyes met, and Whitey turned away, again unsettled by looking into Roger’s eyes, and as he turned, he saw the baby gator surfacing in a patch of lily pads, weeds trailing off its snout. Eeny meeny minie moe, said Whitey to himself, eeny being revenge and meeny recovery. Recovery won.

“The art,” said Whitey, and could see from Roger’s nod, a satisfied nod, as though he’d expected Whitey to do well all along, that he’d guessed right. “Recovery of the art,” Whitey said, “every goddamn time.”

“My former assistant thought otherwise,” Roger said.

“He did, huh?” said Whitey, shaking his head.

The baby gator glided over to the bullfrog’s lily pad. A green blur, some splashing, and then the bullfrog’s legs were dangling from the baby gator’s mouth. The baby gator submerged.

“He is a cute little bugger,” Roger said. “Awakens old, old memories.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I wouldn’t want to bore you,” Roger said.

“Hey, you’re not boring me, Rog, I swear.”

Roger’s face tightened, for no reason Whitey could see, as though he’d felt a sudden pain. He glanced at Whitey-again Whitey looked away-and went on. “I brought one like him home the first time I ever went to Florida, with my aunt. I was six years old.”

“So you’re not from here?” But Whitey knew that already from the way Roger said “ont,” just like he did.

“Can you guess what happened?” Roger said, maybe not hearing the question.

“It escaped?”

“A good guess, Whitey, a very good guess. But no. My parents didn’t let me keep it. They made me give it to the zoo.”

“I know just how you feel,” Whitey said. “Same thing happened to me with a weasel. Only it wasn’t the zoo. My ma just made me let it go, back in the woods.”

“Did she?”

“You don’t know my ma-that’s her through and through.”

“This was in New Hampshire?”

Whitey saw no other course but to admit it. He nodded.

“You know your way around the woods up there?”

“Shit yeah, Rog. I grew up like that goddamn what’s-his-name.”

“Natty Bumppo?”

“Never heard of him. It’ll come to me.”

But nothing came. The baby gator appeared on the far side of the ditch, climbed out, lay with his elders in the sun; no sign of the bullfrog. Roger said, “My former assistant didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” said Whitey, who was thinking of his own bullfrog, and the crown-shaped ring of blood on its bumpy green head.

“Didn’t know his way around the woods.”

“No, huh?” Whitey conceived a brilliant question: “What were his qualifications, anyway?”

“Not the right ones, evidently. Do you know that saying about law and sausages, Whitey?”

“Law and sausages?”

“You don’t want to look too closely at how either of them is made. My work’s a bit like that.”

Law and sausages. Whitey didn’t get it. Was Roger trying to tell him he was a tough guy or something-dangerous? Whitey couldn’t see it. He, Whitey, was tough and dangerous-he thought of that stupid whore and her pimp with the baseball bat, and what had happened to them. Or was Roger trying to tell him that the assistant had to be tough and dangerous? Or maybe Roger checked his watch, his Rolex, stood up. “Better get you back to your post,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to put your job in jeopardy, would we?”

“Well, the thing is-” said Whitey, but Roger was already walking away and didn’t seem to hear.

Roger pulled over at the side of 441. He turned to Whitey, who’d been smelling the leather coat in the backseat, again gave him that look that seemed to see deep inside. “I said I’d pay you for your time.” And there was a one-hundred-dollar bill-not the same one, because there was no hole-held out for him. He was thinking all kinds of things to say, like it’s too much, and I didn’t really earn it, but while he was in the middle of thinking them, he grabbed it.

Roger smiled.

Whitey opened the door, started to get out. But how could he let this go without at least trying? What was there to lose? “This assistant thing,” he said, “are you looking for a replacement?”

Roger raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I hadn’t really thought about it yet.” He seemed to be thinking about it now, staring into the distance. “I’d need someone more discreet this time,” he said. “Discretion is the sine qua non in this business.”

That threw Whitey, and he licked his lips a couple of times before saying, “You never said what the business is exactly.”

“I thought I had,” said Roger, sounding disappointed in him for the first time. “It’s the recovery of valuable objects.”

“Such as what?”

“Paintings, shall we say.”

“Like that someone’s stolen?”

“Precisely like that.”

The DPW truck came into view, shimmering on the horizon.

Now or never. “I want the job,” Whitey said.

“Do you-”

“Swear to God.”

“-know the meaning of discretion, Whitey?”

“It means no questions and keep your fuckin’mouth shut.”

Roger nodded. He scribbled a number on his alligator farm ticket stub. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll set up an interview.”

Whitey stuffed the ticket stub and the money in his pocket, got out of the car. A job interview: he’d never had one. This was the big time.

The DPW truck dropped Whitey at the depot. He caught the number 62 bus, reached the stop a block from New Horizons at five to six. He was almost out the rear door, had one foot on the pavement, when he saw the cop car parked up the street. Did that mean anything? No. But he said, “Oops,” like he’d almost gotten off at the wrong stop, and stepped back on the bus. The driver, watching in his mirror, muttered something Whitey couldn’t hear.

The bus drove on, picked up speed, approached New Horizons. Whitey saw a cop on the sidewalk, talking to the social worker. As the bus drew closer, Whitey saw that the cop was showing something to the social worker, a piece of paper. And as the bus went right by, within a few feet of them, Whitey saw what it was: the artist’s composite, with nothing right except the fucking hair. Whitey stayed on the bus.

Roger was sleeping the deepest sleep he’d had in a long time when the phone rang. He fumbled for it in the darkness of the strange room, answered.

“Rog? It’s me, Whitey Tru-Whitey Reynoso. I’m calling like you said.”

“But it’s four in the morning.”

“Kind of anxious to get started, is all.”

Was he drunk? Stoned? Planning some scheme of his own? Was this not going to work, after all?

“Rog? You still there?”

“Yes.”

“So maybe you could come and pick me up.”

“Where are you?”

“On 441, of course. Where you picked me up before.”

Was he armed? Alone? His voice was full of impending surprise. “Very well,” said Roger.

His motel room had a kitchenette. Roger took the biggest knife from the drawer, hid it under the seat of his rented car, drove out to 441. Could he kill Whitey? Certainly. There was a deep, violent well of hatred in him, as he was sure there was in most people; he’d known it since boyhood. It made war possible, and perhaps all human civilization. The only problem was scheduling: Whitey wasn’t supposed to die yet.

Roger came to the spot where he’d found Whitey, saw a lone man in the headlights, slowed down, slow enough to bring any overeager accomplices out of the bushes, slow enough to see that Whitey was holding some sort of bundle, slow enough to hear him cry, “Hey, it’s me,” as Roger went by.

A few hundred yards beyond, Roger made a U-turn and drove back. He stopped the car, one hand on the knife. Whitey came out of the shadows, opened the passenger door, got in. His eyes were bright. “Hi, Rog. Had me concerned there for a minute. Here. I brought you something.”

Roger inched the knife out from under the seat. Whitey laid the bundle between them: something wrapped in a denim jacket. “Open it, why don’t you?”

With his free hand, Roger opened the jacket-and there was the baby gator, its mouth fastened shut with packing tape. Roger felt Whitey’s gaze on him, waiting for his reaction.

“You’ve done well, Whitey, very well.”

Whitey laughed with delight. “Feisty little bugger, that gator, let me tell you.”

“Not an alligator, actually,” Roger said. “It’s a crocodile-you can tell from the angulation of the jaw.”

“Whatever. Tore my jacket to shreds. My only jacket.”

Roger silently counted three and said, “You can have the one in back.”

“Cool,” said Whitey, donning the leather jacket right away. It felt great. The gator watched with its slitty yellow eyes.