Downtown

5

The telephone kept ringing into the otherwise blinking stillness of the room.

Michael picked up the receiver.

“Crandall Productions, Limited,” he said.

“Arthur?” a woman’s voice said.

“Who’s this?” he said.

“Is that you, Arthur?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“You sound funny,” she said.

“Who’s this?” he said again.

“This is Albetha,” the woman said.

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“Arthur?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Arthur, your children are waiting for Santa Claus, what are you doing at the office? It’s Christmas morning already, do you know that? It’s already five minutes past Christmas, do you know that? Now when do you plan on coming home, Arthur?”

Michael gathered she did not know he was dead. “Did you get the roses?” he asked.

“Yes, I got the roses,” she said. “Thank you very much for the roses, Arthur, but I’m still getting a divorce.”

“Now, now, Albetha,” he said.

“Arthur, the only reason I want you to come home here tonight is because it’s Christmas and the children expect you to be here, that’s the only reason. Tomorrow I’ll explain to them how their daddy is a no-good philanderer, but this is Christmas right now, and you’d better come home here and get in your Santa Claus suit and be Santa eating the cookies and drinking the milk for your goddamn children, do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” he said.

“Or is she there with you?” Albetha asked.

“Is who here?” he said.

“Jessica,” she said.

“I don’t know who that is,” he said.

“Your blonde bimbo with her red panties,” she said.

“Oh, her,” Michael said.

“Come on home to your children, you louse!” Albetha said, and hung up.

“Albetha?” he said. He jiggled the rest bar. “Albetha?”

“His wife, huh?” Connie said.

“Maybe I ought to call her back,” Michael said.

“No, I think we’d better get out of here,” Connie said. “Because I think I heard a police siren.”

Michael listened.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said.

“Not now,” she said. “While we were kissing. I thought it was a siren, but maybe it was just a cat.”

They both listened.

Nothing.

“It was probably just a cat,” she said.

“Let’s see if he’s got an address book,” Michael said, and went to the desk and began rummaging through the drawers again. “I want to call her back.”

“Although it sounded very much like a siren,” Connie said.

“Here we go. Do you think his home number might be in it?”

“I don’t know anyone who lists his own number in his address book. Did you just see a light in the backyard?”

“No.”

“I thought I saw a light,” Connie said, and went to the window. “Yep,” she said, “there’s a light moving around down there. You know what? I think that was a siren I heard. Because those are two cops with a flashlight down there.”

Michael went to the window.

“Shit,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “Heading for the fire escape.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

“Don’t forget Crandall’s picture …”

“I’ve got it.”

“… and his address book,” she said, “the tall one’s starting up the ladder.”

He pulled her away from the window and together they hurried to the front door. He turned the thumb knob on the lock, opened the door, and then followed her down the steep flight of steps to the street-level door. Through the thick plate-glass panel on the door, they could see a police car parked at the curb in front of the limousine, its dome lights flashing. Freddie was sitting on the limo’s fender, looking innocent. The lock on the street-level door was a deadbolt. No way to unlock it on either side without a key. Michael backed off, raised his leg—

“Don’t cut yourself!” Connie warned.

—and kicked out flatfooted at the glass panel.

A shower of splinters and shards exploded onto the sidewalk. Freddie, startled, jumped off the fender of the car. From the office upstairs, one of the cops yelled, “Downstairs, Sam!”

Michael was busy kicking out loose shards. Cold air rushed through the open panel. He helped Connie climb through, her long legs flashing, green panties winking at him for only an instant as she jumped clear. He climbed through after her and began running toward the limo. Connie slapped a five-dollar bill into Freddie’s hand, ran around the limo’s nose, and began unlocking the door on the driver’s side. Behind him, Michael heard one of the cops yell, “You! Hey, you! Hold it right there!”

The electric lock on his side of the car clicked open. He yanked open the door, climbed in, and slammed the door shut just as Connie stepped on the starter. There were gunshots now. He pulled his head instinctively into his shoulders, but the cops were only shooting at the deadbolt on the door to Crandall Productions, Ltd. The engine caught just as they kicked open the door and came running out of the building.

“Police!” one of them yelled. “Stop!”

Connie rammed her foot down on the accelerator. The car’s tires began spinning on ice, its rear end skidding toward the curb, and then the tires began smoking, and suddenly they grabbed bare asphalt, and the car lurched away squealing from the curb and into the night.

Behind them, Freddie said to the cops, “Clean your windshield, officers?”

The house on West Tenth Street was a three-story brownstone just off Fifth Avenue. The address on the checks in Crandall’s personal checkbook. Presumably the house he shared with Albetha and the kiddies.

“Every light in the house is burning,” Connie said. “The lady’s waiting up for you.”

“For Crandall.”

“Too bad he’s dead,” Connie said, and looked at her watch. “My twelve-thirty pickup is in the Village,” she said. “Here’s a China Doll card, call me when you’re done here. If I’m free, I’ll come get you. Otherwise, here’s my home address. And here’s twenty dollars.”

“I don’t want to take any money from you,” he said.

“Then how are you going to get anyplace? If I can’t come pick you up? Take it.”

“Really, Connie …”

“It’s a loan,” she said.

He nodded, accepted the card and the money, and put both in his wallet. He now owed Charlie Bonano ten bucks and Connie Kee twenty. He was running up a big debt in this city.

“You sure you want to go see this lady?” Connie asked. “Might be cops in there, for all you know.”

“I don’t see any police cars, do you?”

“Detectives drive unmarked sedans.” Michael shrugged.

“Pretty brave all of a sudden,” Connie said.

Michael was thinking that sometimes you could sense things. You could smell the enemy. Sniff the trail and you knew whether it was clear ahead or loaded. He did not think he would find any policemen in Crandall’s house. If he was wrong—

He shrugged again.

“I’ll see you later,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and waited till he walked to the front stoop of the building and up the steps before she eased the limo away from the curb. He watched the tail lights disappearing up the street, the red staining the snow. There was a sudden hush on the night. He looked up at the sky, expecting to see a star in the east. Disappointed, he looked at his watch instead. Twenty minutes past twelve. He rang the doorbell.

The woman who answered the door was perhaps thirty-four years old. She was almost as tall as Michael, her eyes brown, her mouth full, her hair done in the style Bo Derek had popularized in the movie 10, more beautiful and natural on this woman in that her skin was the color of bittersweet chocolate.

“Yes?” she said.

“Is Mrs. Crandall home?” he asked.

“I’m Mrs. Crandall,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, and tried to hide his surprise. The newspaper photograph had shown Arthur Crandall as a white man.

“Yes?” she said.

“Well … we spoke on the phone a little while ago,” he said. “You told me …”

“No, we didn’t,” she said, and started to close the door.

“Mrs. Crandall,” he said quickly, “you called your husband’s office …”

She looked at him.

“I answered the phone …”

Kept looking at him.

“You told me your kids were waiting for Santa …”

“What were you doing in my husband’s …”

“Long story,” he said.

Behind her, a small, excited voice said, “Mommy, come quick! Daddy’s on television!”

“Who are you?” she asked Michael.

“My name is Michael Barnes,” he said.

“Mommy, hurry up!”

Another voice. Two of them in the hallway now. And then a third voice from someplace else in the house.

“Annie? Are you getting her?”

Albetha Crandall looked him up and down. Sniffing the trail. Trying to catch the whiff of danger. She decided he was safe. “Come in,” she said.

Two little girls in granny nightgowns were already running down the hall ahead of her. She let Michael into the house, closed and locked the door behind him, and then said, “You’re not an ax murderer, are you?” and smiled in such marvelous contradiction that he was forced to give the only possible answer.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

Albetha laughed.

“Mommmmmmmy! For Chriiiiiist’s sake, come on!”

He followed her down the hall. It occurred to him that the police were showing pictures of the dead man on television. Arthur Crandall. His daughters were watching photographs of their dead father. And soon Albetha would be seeing those same photos. And they would undoubtedly be followed in logical sequence by the driver’s license picture of the man alleged to have killed him, Michael Barnes the notorious ax murderer. An eight-year-old girl in a granny nightgown sat on a couch facing the television set. The other two little girls—one of them six, the other four, Michael guessed—had just come into the room and were standing transfixed in the doorway, watching the screen. This was a newsbreak special. The words trailed incessantly across the bottom of the screen. NEWSBREAK SPECIAL NEWSBREAK SPECIAL NEWSBREAK SPECIAL. A very blond television newscaster was talking to the man whose picture had been hanging on the wall in Crandall’s office. He was short and stout and almost bald, and he was wearing a three-piece suit with a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging on a gold chain across the vest. He looked very much alive.

“I am very much alive,” he said to the blond man. “As you can plainly see.”

“Yes, I see that,” the blond man said.

“What does he mean?” the eight-year-old on the couch said.

“Of course he’s alive,” the six-year-old said.

“Boy oh boy,” the four-year-old said.

They all looked like different sizes of the little girl who played Bill Cosby’s youngest daughter.

Albetha was watching the screen, an enormously puzzled look on her face.

“So what do you make of all this, Mr. Crandall?” the blond man asked.

“Well, if it weren’t for the fact that there is a dead man …”

“Indeed there is,” the blond man said, putting on a television newscaster’s solemnly grieving face.

“Yes. But if it weren’t for that, I’d think this was some kind of hoax.”

“Ah, yes. But there is a real corpse, Mr. Crandall. And the police found your identification on him.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Extraordinary.”

“Really. So what do you make of it?”

“I can only believe that this Michael J. Barnes person is responsible.”

Albetha gave Michael a sharp look.

“Yes, the man whose car …”

“Yes, the body …”

“Found in the …”

“Yes.”

“For those of you who missed our newscast earlier tonight, I should mention that the body of a man carrying Mr. Crandall’s identification …”

“Yes.”

“… was found in an automobile rented by a visitor to New York …”

“Is this a series?” the four-year-old asked.

“No, Glory, it’s a newsbreak special,” Albetha said.

“… a man named Michael Barnes, whose wallet was also found …”

“Yes,” Crandall said.

“In the automobile.”

“Yes.”

“So it would appear at least possible that the man the police are now actively seeking …”

“Are you sure this isn’t a series?” Glory asked suspiciously.

“Positive,” Albetha said, and gave Michael another sharp look.

“… is, in fact, the man responsible for the murder. But why—and this is the big question, isn’t it, Mr. Crandall—why would he have put your identification in the dead man’s pocket?”

“I have no idea,” Crandall said.

“Nor does anyone else at this moment,” the blond man said hurriedly, obviously having received an off-camera signal to wrap. “Believe me when I say, however, that we’re happy one of our most talented screen directors is still with us. Mr. Crandall …”

His face taking on a sincere and solemnly heartfelt look, his voice lowering …

“Thank you so much … literally … for being here with us tonight.”

“After the false reports of my death,” Crandall said, smiling, “I’m happy I was able to be here.”

“He’s so full of shit,” Albetha muttered.

“What?” the eight-year-old said.

“I said it’ll be a while before Daddy gets home, so I want you all to go to bed now. If I hear Santa coming to drink his milk and eat the cookies you left by the tree, I’ll come wake you. But you mustn’t frighten him off or he won’t leave any presents. All right now?”

“Who’s this?” the four-year-old said, looking at Michael.

“One of Daddy’s friends,” Albetha said.

“I’m sure.”

Michael smiled.

“What’s your name?” the six-year-old asked.

“Michael,” he said.

“Come on, kids, bed,” Albetha said, and shooed them off down the hallway.

Michael watched them go.

He debated running.

He decided not to.

When Albetha came back some five minutes later, she said, “You still here? I thought you’d be in Alaska by now.”

“No,” he said.

“A ploy, right? Murderer sticks around, lady thinks, Gee, he can’t be the murderer.”

“No, not a ploy.”

“You going to slay my children in their beds?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You better not. And don’t call me ma’am. I’m at least five years younger than you are. What size suit do you wear?”

“Thirty-eight long.”

“Arthur’s a forty-six regular. Come along with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Put you in a Santa suit.”

He followed her up the stairs.

“Why do they think you killed somebody?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“But you didn’t, huh?”

“I didn’t. It wasn’t even my wallet. All they stole from me were my credit cards and my driver’s license. And my library card.”

They were in the master bedroom now. Four-poster bed covered with a gauzy canopy. Imitation Tiffany lamp in one corner. Plush velvet easy chair. Old mahogany dresser.

“What are you doing here?” Albetha asked.

“I thought you might be able to help me.”

“How?”

“This was before I knew your husband was still alive.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a pity,” she said. “Him still being alive.”

“You’re divorcing him, right?” Michael said.

“Right.”

“Because of Jessica.”

“Right.”

“Jessica who?”

“Here, put this on,” she said, and handed him a Santa Claus suit on a hanger. “I’ll get some pillows.”

“Jessica who?” he asked again.

Albetha went to the closet. He began taking off his trousers.

“Wales,” she said. “Why do you want to know?”

“What does she look like?”

“She looks like a bimbo,” Albetha said. Her back was to Michael. She was reaching up for a pair of pillows on the closet shelf. The trousers were much too large for him. He suspected they’d be too large even with pillows in them.

“What color hair does she have?”

“The same color hair all bimbos have,” Albetha said. “Blonde. Even black bimbos have blonde hair.”

“Is she black then?”

“No,” Albetha said. “Here. Stuff these in your pants.”

He accepted the pillows.

“She’s white?”

“Yes. Even as the driven snow.”

“I need something to fasten these pillows with,” he said.

“I’ll get one of Arthur’s straps.” She went to the closet again.

“Are her eyes blue?” he asked.

“No. Brown.”

Which eliminated the woman in the bar. Whose star sapphire ring he hadn’t stolen. And who’d called herself Helen Parrish.

“How does your husband happen to know her?” he asked.

“Intimately,” Albetha said, and came back with a very large brown belt.

He took the belt, wrapped it around the pillows, and buckled it. He fastened the trousers at the waist. They felt good and snug now.

“How do you know she wears red panties?” he asked.

“Don’t ask me about her goddamn panties. Goddamn blonde bimbo with her red panties. God knows what I may have caught from her panties.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had her panties on once.”

“How’d that happen?”

“They were in my dresser drawer. Can you imagine that? He hides his bimbo’s panties in my dresser drawer, mixed in with all my own panties. So I go to put on a pair of red panties, I put on her panties instead. I got out of them the second I realized I’d made a mistake. But who knows what I may have caught from them?”

“Well, you only had them on for a second.”

“Even so. That’s why they won’t let you return panties, you know. Department stores. I wanted to call her and ask who she’d been intimate with lately. Besides my husband. You can get trichinosis from just eating the gravy,” she said.

“You can?”

“Sure. From the pork. So don’t tell me about only a second. Who knows what was in her panties?”

“Well, there’s no sense worrying about it now,” Michael said.

“Sure, you don’t have to worry, you’re not the one who was in her panties. Do you think I can get them analyzed? Put them in a paper bag and take them to a lab and get them analyzed?”

“For what?”

“For whatever she may have. I really would like to call her, I mean it. Hey, Jessie, how are you? Listen, do you remember those red silk panties Arthur left in my dresser drawer? They’re walking across the room all by themselves, who’ve you been with lately, Jess?”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t tell a perfect stranger who …”

“I’m not such a perfect stranger, I had her panties on. Also, she’s no stranger to my husband, believe me.”

“Does she work for him or something?”

“She’s an actress,” Albetha said.

“She’s in his new movie.”

“I didn’t know there was a new movie.”

“How would you know there was any movie at all?” Albetha asked, and looked at him suspiciously.

“A person who said he was your husband told me all about War and Solitude.”

“When was this?”

“Earlier tonight. In a bar. Before he stole my car,” Michael said, and put on the Santa Claus jacket.

“Was this person five-feet eight-inches tall, chunky, going bald, with brown eyes, a pot belly, and a Phi Beta Kappa key on his vest? From Wisconsin U?”

“No, he was …”

“Then he wasn’t Arthur.”

“I know he wasn’t. Now I know. But he was very credible at the time. Told me all about your husband’s work, gave me his business card …”

“Arthur’s business card?”

“Yes.”

“Well, anyone could have that. Arthur hands them out all over the place.”

“Does the name Helen Parrish mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“She’s not an actress or …?”

“No.”

“Or anyone with whom your husband may have worked?”

“My husband has worked with a lot of women over the years, but I don’t remember anyone named Helen Parrish. He was in television before he made Solly’s War, and in television …”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“We called it Solly’s War. Because the man who put up the money was named Solomon Gruber, and he was always yelling about budget, and about frittering away time, that was his favorite expression, `Arthur, you’re frittering away time.` Arthur hated him.”

“What does he look like?”

“Gruber? An Orthodox rabbi.”

“He wouldn’t be a big, burly guy with a crew cut and a beard stubble, and hard blue eyes, would he?”

“No, he’s tall and thin and hairy.”

“Solomon Gruber.”

“Yes.”

“Who put up the money for War and Solitude.”

“Yes. And lost it all. Or most of it.”

“How much, would you say?”

“Did the film cost? Cheap by today’s standards. Cheap even by the standards twelve years ago, when it was shot.”

“How much?”

“Twelve million.”

“That’s cheap?”

“Here’s the beard,” Albetha said.

He put on the beard.

“And the hat,” she said.

He put on the hat.

She studied him.

“The kids think Arthur is Santa Claus, but you’ll have to do,” she said. “Come on downstairs and drink your milk and eat your cookies. If you keep your back to them …”

“Tell me about your husband’s new picture.”

“Strictly commercial,” she said. “Solly hopes. He financed this one, too.”

“What’s it called?”

“Winter’s Chill. It’s a suspense film. What the British call a thriller.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen it.”

“It doesn’t open till the second.”

“Here in New York?”

“Everywhere. As we say in the trade, it is opening wide—which does not have sexual connotations, by the way. The expression refers to opening on thousands of screens simultaneously, as opposed to two or three dozen. The ads should break in Friday’s papers. Arthur’s giving it six days’ lead time. He’s hoping to make a killing, you see. Which may be the way to do it, who knows?”

Albetha shrugged.

“His last film was a class act. This is crap. But maybe the public wants crap. I find it ironic. In television, Arthur was doing crap. He left television to do a really fantastic film that didn’t make a nickel. Now he’s back to doing crap again.”

He looked at her for a moment. She seemed to be searching his eyes for answers, but he had none for her.

“How do I find your husband’s mother?” he asked.

“You don’t,” she said.

“He was supposed to call her yesterday. Maybe if I can learn what they talked about …”

“He didn’t call her yesterday.”

“It was on his calendar. Call Mama.”

“His mother’s been dead for ten years.”

“Oh.”

“May she rest in peace, the old bitch. And he didn’t call my mama either ‘cause they don’t get along.”

“Do you have Jessica Wales’s address?”

“Yes. Why do you want it?”

“I want to talk to her.”

“How do you know I won’t call the police the minute you leave here?”

“I don’t think you will.”

“Why not? You’re wanted for murder.”

“Yes, but I’m Santa Claus,” he said, and smiled behind the beard.

Albetha smiled with him.

“Have you ever been Santa before?” she asked.

“No. But I was Joseph a long time ago. In elementary school in Boston.”

“When the world was still holy and silent,” Albetha said.

He looked at her.

Tears were suddenly brimming in her eyes. “Come,” she said softly. “Be Santa for my little girls.”