A Perfect Crime

16

“I heard all about it,” Nora said as the windows of Ned’s car slid down. “Way to fire, kiddo. How’s Anne?”

“It’s just a sprain,” Francie said.

“She going to be ready to play for the hardware?”

“She says so.” Francie opened the door. She turned to Ned, found she couldn’t quite look at him. “Thanks for the lift,” she said, again attempting to find the tone she’d use with a new acquaintance, again getting it wrong.

“The pleasure was mine,” he said, not even trying: more than that, making a deliberately careless reply, one she didn’t like at all. And then, could that possibly have been his hand she felt, brushing the back of her thigh as she got out of the car?

Francie glanced at Nora-what had she seen? what had she heard? — but Nora’s eyes weren’t on her. “Hi, Ned,” she was saying. “How’s it going?”

He peered at her. “Nora, right?”

“Got it in one. Legal Seafood, at Chestnut Hill-you and Anne were ahead of us in line.”

“I remember.”

“Finally caught your show the other day,” Nora continued, talking past Francie, turning on the charm, in fact. With her profile view of Nora’s face, Francie could see her doing it. “Blended families, I think it was,” Nora said. “Are those callers for real?”

“Paid-up members of Equity, each and every one,” Ned replied. Nora laughed, was still laughing when Ned said, “Good night, ladies.” His eyes lingered for a moment on Francie, then turned orange under the sodium arc lights as he drove out of the parking lot. They watched him swing into traffic and accelerate away, tires spinning on a patch of ice.

“What do you think of pretty boy?” Nora said.

“Pretty boy?”

“Come on. He’s gorgeous. Gorgeous, smart, sexy-and funny, too.”

“Grow up,” Francie said.

“Testosterone versus estrogen-what could be more grown-up than that? No holds barred. On the other hand, he’s married, and I soon will be. Bernie wants me in white-can you believe it?”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Nora said, and gave Francie a look at a bad moment, the very moment the first of those bombshells she’d anticipated was going off in Francie’s brain: Someone like Anne, that’s different-modest sex drive at best. What were the implications of that now?

Nora’s eyes narrowed; then she went on: “Maybe you’re right. Some marriages-I’ll take that a little farther-most marriages baffle me. Why should mine be any different?”

Francie hadn’t followed, was aware that a question had been asked, no more. She nodded.

“What does that mean?”

Francie didn’t answer. She had meant to tell Nora about Ned, the constant omission of this fact of her life putting too great a strain on their friendship, but how was that possible now? Nora knew Anne-and more, much more, had speculated about Anne’s sex drive, found Ned attractive: how horribly tangled every little aspect of this was-and would thus be put in the intolerable situation of having to lie for Francie, an adulteress once removed. Impossible. Impossible and unnecessary, since it was over. She had just seen Ned for the last time. That was that. The resolved and the unresolved, all in a box. It just had to be closed and put away: a tidy, persuasive image, like slicing through the Gordian knot. But the back of her thigh still tingled in the place he’d touched it, if in fact he’d touched it at all.

“Are you saying that Anne and Ned make sense to you, for example?” Nora asked. “As a couple, I mean.”

Francie whipped around to face her. “Who the fuck does?” she said.

Nora stared at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You’re a thousand miles away, and when you’re not, you’re mean as a snake. And you look like you’ve seen a ghost. I’ll take that farther, too-you look like shit, if you want the truth, which isn’t your style at all. Something’s wrong, very wrong. Fess up.”

Francie took a deep breath. At that moment, she remembered the conversation on the ice: There’s someone I have to tell. I won’t say it’s you, if you don’t want, but I have to tell. Had she mentioned Nora’s name? Yes. Had Ned therefore assumed that Nora already knew? How else to explain his reply when she’d thanked him for the ride? The pleasure was mine. Was it a sort of inside joke, inviting Nora in on the secret? If so, why now, when he’d always been so careful? Did the burden of the secret sometimes grow so intolerable that the truth had to burst out, even be flaunted? That could be dangerous-could have been, Francie corrected herself, because it was all going in a box, resolved and unresolved.

“Go on,” Nora said. “Spill it.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

Nora nodded. “Okay, pal.” She swung away and walked off toward her car. Francie wanted to call out to her, Nora, Nora, and just let whatever happened after that happen. But she didn’t. She hadn’t done any damage yet, not to Anne or Em, and that was the way it had to be.

Francie went home. The answering machine was beeping in the living room. She switched on lights, listened to the message. “This is Roger,” said Roger. He hated speaking to machines-she heard it in his voice. “Things are… promising. Vis-a-vis Bob Fielding. I’ll be here for another day or two. No need to pick me up.” Long pause. “And good luck. I’m referring to the tournament. If you’re still alive.” Another pause. “In it, that is. Good-bye.”

Francie saw the future: Roger in some condo in Fort Lauderdale, she staying here. Just a few hours ago that would have seemed if not ideal then much better than what she had. But now there would be no Ned to complete the imperfect picture. Even if he did leave Anne, no Ned. She told herself that a few times, then went upstairs, stripped off her warm-ups and her tennis clothes, lowered herself into a hot bath. No Ned. But what if he did leave Anne, and then some time went by-how long? six months? a year? more? — and after that he called her? Was that okay? No. Why not? She was trying to answer that question when the phone rang. Francie picked it up, expecting Roger.

“How’s Saturday night?” Not Roger, but Anne.

“Saturday night?”

“After the match. For our little foursome. I thought we could try Huitres-am I saying it right? Ned loves seafood.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to play?”

“I’m on my feet right now! No pain. Maybe it’s all mental, like they say. Your confidence is rubbing off on me. That’s what Ned thinks.”

“He said that?” Francie said, wishing she could have phrased it as “Does he?” or just kept her mouth shut.

“No, but it’s what he thinks. I can tell. So how about it?”

Never. “Roger’s out of town right now. I’ll have to get back to you.”

“Okay. But I’ll go ahead and make the reservations. I hear it’s a pretty hot place.”

It had been hot, as Francie recalled, the year before; then cursed herself for the thought. “Sounds nice,” she said. “Take care of that ankle.”

“I told you. No pain. We could go out there and whip ’em right now, you and me.”

Call waiting sounded. “I’ve got another call,” Francie said.

“Then bye. And thanks again.”

Francie pressed the button. “Think if this were France,” said Ned. “Or Scandinavia.”

Her mouth went dry. “Where are you?” she said, thinking Anne might walk in on him any second.

“Back in the car,” Ned said. “I forgot the goddamn milk. Serendipitous because it gives me a chance to call you.”

But he’d never called her at home before. “What are you doing, Ned?”

“What I should have been doing from the start. As I would have done, I hope, in France or Scandinavia.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been there. You know, better than I, how the Europeans handle this kind of… situation. There’s no either/or. We could be open, semiopen at least, like Mitterrand, and no one would think twice. And above all, no guilt. That’s the part I’m cutting out-the horrible guilt, the headaches. Is love something to feel guilty about, Francie? They understand these things in Europe.”

“Would Anne?”

“Why not, under those circumstances?”

“Here in America, Ned. Would Anne?”

Silence.

“Would Em?”

Silence.

Would Roger? she asked herself, the most worldly of the three, certainly the one with the most experience of Europe. Possibly, she told herself. But they weren’t Europeans; they lived not in a land of complaisance but of either/or. “Then that answers that,” Francie said, “doesn’t it?”

“You’re letting guilt run your life,” Ned said. “And there’s nothing to feel guilty about-you’ve got to see that.”

“I don’t. There is-and there could be a lot more. That’s what we’ve got to prevent.”

“Then just tell me you don’t love me.”

She couldn’t.

“And even if you did”-his voice broke-“even if you did say it, even if you meant it, I wouldn’t give up. I’d make you love me again.”

Francie covered the mouthpiece with her hand. She didn’t want him to hear her crying.

“Francie? Are you still there? Francie?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you’d hung up. Don’t hang up.”

“I’m not.”

“I should have called you at home long before this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to-I memorized your number, even though I never used it. I’ve been so fucking careful, I almost forgot what this is all about.”

Francie covered the mouthpiece again.

“Francie? Are you still there?”

She mastered herself. “I’ve got to go.”

“Why? Is he there?”

“No.”

Pause. “Where is he?”

“Out of town.”

“Then why do you have to go?”

“I just do. And Ned?”

“What is it, angel?”

His first term of endearment. “Don’t call me that. And don’t call here anymore. Not here, not at the office, nowhere.”

“You don’t mean that, Francie. You couldn’t. I’m not some stranger. I know you.”

She hung up. It rang again, almost immediately. Had he not only memorized her number but entered it in his speed dialer? How did that reconcile with his spycraft? Suddenly she saw him in a new light, knew what must have been happening inside his head for months, months of struggling against his own spycraft, fighting the urge to call, the urge to see her, the urge to live with her. Francie saw him in a new light, but she let it ring.

After it stopped, she got out of the bath, dried herself. There she was in the mirror again: nothing normal or composed about her now.

She put on her nightie, went down to the kitchen, brewed tea. Found herself brewing tea, more accurately, although she seldom drank it, didn’t like it. Brewing tea and thinking of Mackie, a Scottish baby-sitter hired by her parents when she’d been small. Mackie drank tea from morning to night, following a strict ritual, a ritual Francie followed now. Mackie: her red arthritic fingers wrapped around a china cup, her pale eyes squinting through the steam, her opinions. Mackie had many opinions-about Catholics: hypocrites; dogs: diseased; men: nasty-opinions that had given Francie nightmares and gotten Mackie fired. But the warm cup felt good now in Francie’s hand, and so did the hot tea inside her. Men are nasty, dear; don’t you ever be trusting them. But Mackie, what about Daddy? Now that’s a sharp question, isn’t it, dear? Some, not I, don’t you know, but some, might even say the kind of question a Jewish lawyer would be asking, not a sweet-tempered lass such as yourself.

There was a knock at the front door, perhaps one in a series only half heard. Roger? Home on some earlier flight, with sudden news, good or bad? Francie went to the door, put her eye to the peephole. Not Roger, but Ned. Ned with flowers in his hand, irises, fucking irises of course. She leaned her head against the door. He knocked again.

Francie opened up.

He smiled. “I like your nightie,” he said. “It’s so chaste.”

Francie, forcing herself not to glance furtively past him at the neighbors’windows like some cartoonish sloven that Grosz might have painted, said, “What do you want, Ned?”

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Go deliver the milk.” Francie closed the door in his face.

But she didn’t go away, just stood there. He knocked again. Francie didn’t move. He spoke, quietly, but she heard. “That wasn’t nice, about the milk,” he said.

Francie just stood there, just stood there for as long as she could, and then opened the door. Ned walked in.

He closed the door behind him. “Brought you some flowers,” he said, holding them out.

“I don’t like irises.”

“You don’t?”

“Not particularly.”

It wasn’t so much the crestfallen look on his face per se, but that of all possible emotional reactions to the situation they were in, it had dominated, that did something to Francie. He was mortified that he’d been giving her irises all this time and hadn’t known. There, standing in her front hall, the flowers now dangling uselessly at his side, he looked… adorable: a horrible girlish adjective, a horrible girlish trap, but there was no other way to put it.

She took him in her arms, could not stop herself.

“That feels good,” he said in her ear. “I was afraid it might never happen again.”

“This is the last time,” Francie said, but she didn’t let go.

“Don’t say that.” The tip of his tongue stroked her earlobe. The feeling triggered some force in her body, in her mind, irresistible. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said.

“No,” she said, pushing him away, or trying to, or at least sending her hands a message that he should be pushed away. But he stayed where he was, his breath in her ear, his arms around her, their bodies close, feeling together the presence of another world, not far away. “We can’t,” she said. “Anne.”

“There’s no help for that.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“No, Francie. This happened. It’s happening. You might as well try to… to…” He couldn’t think of an analogy. “We’re not machines,” he said, finding another image, “with an off switch.”

“But Anne,” Francie said.

“I’ll get a divorce.”

“No.”

“Then she can’t know, that’s all. She can never know.”

“No.”

“That’s the best we can do. No one gets hurt.”

No one gets hurt. Was it possible? Francie didn’t know. But how could it go on, now that she knew Anne, played tennis with her, had started to become a friend, knew her daughter? It couldn’t. There was no future for her and Ned. But tonight? Just one night? No one would get hurt tonight.

She turned toward the stairs. He followed her up, his hand trailing down her back like a charging device.

Having caught an afternoon flight from Lauderdale, having found Francie not at home, and having left a clever little bit of misdirection on the answering machine just because it felt like the kind of nifty move he would be making from here on in, Roger lay dozing on the couch in his basement room. The phone woke him. He ignored it, preferring to let his mind return to what it had been dwelling on during the plane ride, the details of the post-Francie stage of his life. At first, he’d imagined living alone, staying in the house, soldiering on. But why rule out female companionship? He thought of Brenda, Francie’s friend in Rome, thought of how she’d sounded on the phone. He remembered how attractive she was-rich, too, which was important because even with the insurance settlement he would never be able to see to the needs of a woman even more high-maintenance than Francie. Brenda: wasn’t there some story of a party she’d once been at where Pavarotti and Sutherland had sung Beatles songs around an upright piano? He could see himself building a life out of things like that. What was the name of that tailor’s shop near the Trevi fountain where he’d had that gray suit made, the one with the subtle navy flecks? He could picture the facade perfectly, but the name eluded him, was still eluding him when he thought he heard a voice upstairs-not a voice, but two voices, female and male.

Roger removed his shoes, left his basement room, crept up the stairs in stocking feet. The door to the kitchen hung open a few inches, admitting a yellow wedge of light. He hovered in the darkness, listening. He heard a man say something about divorce. A man with the sickening voice of a pleaser: radio boy. Then Francie said something he didn’t catch. And Roger wanted to hear, wanted to hear everything. He stuck his head in the kitchen, saw no one, nipped around the corner into the unlit back hall, and from there along the corridor, also unlit, that led to the front of the house. He hung in the shadows beside the stairs leading to the second floor. And there they were, in a foul embrace.

Whitey, I need you now.

Francie said, “No.”

Radio boy said, “That’s the best we can do. No one gets hurt.”

They were still for a few moments; then Francie turned, turned so that she was looking right at Roger, right at him, and he thought, Now you’re dead. But her eyes were wet and he was in the darkness, and she didn’t see him. Up the stairs she went-what had she meant by no? — and radio boy followed, up and out of sight, but not before Roger got his first good look at him, the image predictable. Roger listened to their withdrawing footsteps with all the concentration at his command, but it wasn’t necessary. He knew where they were going: into her bedroom, their bedroom, in fact, their marital bedroom. After a few minutes, he went up, too, silent as a big cat in his stocking feet.

The marital door was closed and no light leaked out from under. But Roger didn’t have to see; he heard the sounds of their lust, those cries of Francie’s that she’d never made for him, and the passionate noise of radio boy, and bullshit words of love. Simple death was too good for her. But if he was honest with himself, Roger had known as soon as he had researched the Sue Savard case that there was nothing simple about the kind of death that Whitey handed out, hadn’t been anything simple then, and after all those cooped-up years would be even less simple now. Fair enough. After tonight, he wouldn’t feel bad about it anymore, would cast off any future guilt. She was violating him in every way; it was a form of rape. This was a rape crisis and there was nothing to feel guilty about. His conscience was clear.

And what of radio boy? He was in the marital bed, raping him, too. Roger thought again of searching out some weapon, knife or poker, then bursting in to bludgeon and stab. Again he asked himself, would any jury convict him? And again the answer: in this rotting, leveled-out, lazy-minded country, yes, any jury could. No matter. He had Whitey. How complicated would it be to troll radio boy in Whitey’s path? Complicated, perhaps, he conceded when no immediate solution presented itself, but he’d been born to solve puzzles. This was his metier. The stakes were higher, that was all. He was coming into his own.

On the other side of the door, Francie made some vulgar sound of culmination. Come, bitch. Roger imagined her in an open coffin at the funeral home, her face expressionless.