Heat

3

Susan Newman, the mother of the dead man, lived just off Condon Square, where the big statue of General Richard Joseph Condon reminded the city’s sometimes jaded populace that during the Civil War there had lived an Army officer of unsurpassed wit, style, and grace. Covered with pigeon shit now, the smile on the general’s face nonetheless beamed out in bronzed splendor, causing responding smiles from any passersby who chanced to look up. In this city, not many people looked up, preferring instead to study the sidewalks for souvenirs of its vast dog population. General Condon pressed on undaunted, his sword raised high above his head, his smile undiminished after all those years of standing out in the cold, the rain, the snow, and the heat.

They parked the car two blocks from the address Anne Newman had given them at the scene, and then walked past the statue, smiling up at it, and around the corner to number twelve Charlotte Terrace. A doorman asked them to identify themselves, and then phoned upstairs to inform Mrs. Newman that a Mr. Cappella and a Mr. Kling were downstairs in the lobby. He listened for a moment, and then told the detectives they could go right on up, it was apartment 3G.

Mrs. Newman was a woman in her late sixties, wearing a flowing caftan designed to obscure her plumpness. She was perhaps five feet three inches tall, Carella guessed, with an apple-dumpling face and neatly coiffed white hair, folds of flesh hanging on her jowls and on her arms, where they were exposed by the three-quarter-length sleeves of the caftan. She had told them on the telephone that her daughter-in-law would be back from the funeral home by four, but it was now four-fifteen and she apologized for Anne’s delay, saying she had phoned not a moment before to say she’d be a little late. The flesh around her eyes was puffy, and the eyes themselves were streaked with red; it was obvious she’d been crying before the detectives arrived.

“We’ll be burying him tomorrow morning, you know,” she said. “Anne is making all the funeral arrangements.” She took a handkerchief from the single pocket of the caftan, and dried the tears that were forming in her eyes again.

“Mrs. Newman,” Carella said, “I know this is a particularly difficult time for you, and I apologize for intruding on your grief this way.”

“That’s all right,” Mrs. Newman said, “I know you have a job to do.”

“Would it be all right, then, if we asked you some questions?”

“Yes, I told you on the phone it would be all right.”

“I appreciate your generosity,” Carella said. “Mrs. Newman, your daughter-in-law told us she left for California on the first of August, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“She also said she’d spoken to your son this past Tuesday night...”

“I wouldn’t know about that, I’m sorry.”

“What I was wondering... had you spoken to him anytime this past week?”

“No.”

“Was it his normal habit to call you every so often?”

“Yes, once or twice a month.”

“When did you speak to him last, Mrs. Newman?”

“I really couldn’t say. A few weeks ago, I would guess.”

“How did he sound at that time?”

“Well, he...”

“Yes?”

“My son was an alcoholic, you see.”

“Yes, we know that.”

“And when he called... well, usually he was drunk when he called.”

“Was he drunk when you spoke to him that last time?”

“Yes.”

“What did you talk about, Mrs. Newman?”

“The usual.”

“Which was what?”

“His father. Jerry would get drunk, and then he’d call me and talk about his father.” She paused. “My husband died two years ago,” she said.

“How did he die, Mrs. Newman?”

“He... killed himself. He committed suicide.”

“I’m sorry,” Carella said, and Mrs. Newman looked at him, and nodded, and then dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief again. “And this was what your son usually talked about when he—”

“Yes. He was the one who... who found him, you see. Jerry. I was working at the time, I’m a registered nurse, I only stopped working last year. I was at the hospital the night... the night it happened. Jerry had been calling the apartment... he was very close to his father, you see... and when he kept getting no answer, he thought something might be wrong, and he went right over. My husband was a painter, you see. An abstract expressionist, quite well-known, Lawrence Newman. He normally worked at home, in the apartment we lived in on Jefferson, had his studio in a large room overlooking the avenue, the northern light, you see. So when Jerry got no answer, he... he automatically figured something was wrong. He got the doorman there to open the door with a passkey, and when he went in he... he found his father.”

“How did he kill himself, Mrs. Newman?”

“With a pistol. He put the barrel of the pistol in his mouth and... pulled the trigger. In the... the studio. Where he used to work.”

“I’m sorry,” Carella said again.

“I asked him constantly to get rid of that gun, but he said in this city a man had to keep a gun if he hoped to survive. I don’t believe that, Mr.... Carella, is it?”

“Carella, yes.”

“I don’t believe people need guns. Nobody keeps a gun unless he plans to use it, isn’t that so? On another human being.”

“That’s been our experience,” Carella said.

“I read someplace — this was before Larry killed himself, I used to use it as an argument whenever I was trying to convince him to get rid of the gun — I read that a very large percentage of people who keep guns will sooner or later use that gun on themselves. Is that true?”

“The handgun suicide rate is very high, yes.”

“I told him. But, of course, he wouldn’t listen. Said he needed to protect himself. Against what? I asked. Wild Indians? There are no wild Indians on this island anymore, gentlemen. There are only wild Indians in a person’s head.” She sighed, took a deep breath, and then said, “I shouldn’t have left him alone that night. He’d been working on a particularly difficult concept, and simply couldn’t find a solution. He’d done the painting a dozen times over and he still wasn’t happy with it. He was working on that same painting when I said good-bye to him for the last time. I told him it was a fine painting. I knew he didn’t believe me.” She sighed again, and looked away, toward the windows and the magnificent view of the River Dix and its bridges beyond. “And so he found a solution at last in that studio room streaming northern light, with a pistol in his mouth and his finger on the trigger.” She drew a deep, tortured breath and then expelled it on a sigh. “My son was devastated,” she said. “Jerry. That was when he began drinking so heavily. When his father took his own life.”

“This was two years ago, you say?”

“May the twelfth, two years ago. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live.”

“And when your son called you...”

“Yes, that was what he talked about. He was drunk, of course, there was hardly a time he wasn’t drunk, and he talked about his father, yes, and relived again that day in May when he’d walked in and found him with the... the back of... of his head...” She turned away again. Carella waited. Kling was looking down at his shoes. “Forgive me, it’s still very painful. I’m getting to be an old woman now, but I haven’t forgotten what it was like to love someone more than life itself. And now... now this. Now Jerry. Almost as though he—” She shook her head, and brought the handkerchief to her eyes again. “Forgive me,” she said.

“Mrs. Newman, did your son ever give any indication that he might be contemplating suicide?”

“Do they ever?” she asked. “Did my husband? People get depressed, you accept that as a normal human condition. If they keep their troubles bottled inside, how can anyone know what they’re contemplating? Do you realize what pain a human being must be feeling even to think of taking his own life? I can’t conceive of such monumental suffering. The will to live is so great, it seems unimaginable that anyone would—” She shook her head again. “Unimaginable,” she said.

“Do you think your son committed suicide, Mrs. Newman?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Did he have any enemies that you might know of?”

“He never mentioned any.”

“Would you know if he’d ever received any threatening letters or telephone calls?”

“You’d have to ask Anne about that.”

“How did he get along with her?”

“As well as could be expected. Considering.”

“Considering what?”

“The drinking. It was a problem, of course. But they were very much in love when they got married — it was Jerry’s second marriage, you know — and I think Anne was behaving admirably, considering the circumstances. In fact, she’s been an absolute saint these past two years. I’m very fond of that girl.”

“How about your son’s first wife? Jessica Herzog, is it?”

“Yes, that was her maiden name.”

“Have you seen her since the divorce?”

“No. She’s quite a nice person, actually, and I wouldn’t have minded continuing our relationship. But one tends to side with flesh and blood in any divorce situation and... well, unfortunately, we lost contact. It’s a pity, really.”

“Mrs. Newman, from what I understand, you have another son...”

“Yes, Jonathan.”

“Who lives in San Francisco, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“How did he and Jerry get along?”

“As well as could be expected, considering the distance involved.” She looked Carella directly in the eye, and said, “Forgive me, Mr. Carella, but you sound... do you suspect that someone might have killed my son?”

“In any traumatic death,” he said, “we’re compelled to consider all the possibilities.”

“I see.”

“Mother?” a voice said, and they turned toward the entrance foyer, where Anne Newman was extricating a key from the lock on the door. She was wearing a black-and-white striped blazer over a white cotton-knit sweater and black skirt. As she had yesterday, she looked exceedingly cool, and Carella envied a metabolism that seemed to render her immune to the heat. She put the key on the hall table and came into the living room, her hand extended.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, shaking first Carella’s hand and then Kling’s. “There were so many things to attend to. Would you care for something to drink? Mother, have you offered them something? A soft drink perhaps? Some iced tea?”

“No, thank you,” Carella said.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Kling said, shaking his head.

“I’d love a gin and tonic, would anyone mind? Mother, could you fix me one while we talk, please?”

“Yes, darling,” Mrs. Newman said, and immediately left the room.

“What is it you’d like to know?” Anne asked. “This heat is brutal, isn’t it? Is it cool enough in here for you?”

“Yes, it’s fine, thank you,” Carella said. “Mrs. Newman, Detective Kling here was the one who spoke to the Medical Examiner just a little while ago, would you mind if he asked the questions?”

“Not at all,” she said, turning to Kling. “What did they find?”

“Conclusive evidence that he was killed by an overdose of Seconal,” Kling said.

“Ah,” she said.

“Mrs. Newman, we found a prescription bottle...”

“Yes, that must’ve been it,” Anne said.

“...on the bathroom floor,” Kling said. “One Seconal capsule in it.”

“One? Oh my God! There were thirty capsules in that bottle when I left for California.”

“Then you hadn’t taken any between the time you filled the prescription on July twenty-ninth—”

“No, I still had some left from last month, half a dozen or so. I took those with me to California.”

“Does your doctor regularly prescribe Seconal for you? Dr. Brolin, is it?”

“Yes, James Brolin. I have difficulty sleeping, and the stuff you can buy over the counter wasn’t working for me. Dr. Brolin saw no danger in prescribing a barbiturate.”

“How long have you been taking Seconal?” Kling asked.

“Ever since... well, it’s been several years now.”

“Ever since what, Mrs. Newman?”

“Ever since Jerry began drinking so heavily. Living with an alcoholic isn’t an easy task, I’m afraid.”

“Did you take the drug every night?”

“No, not every night.”

“Was the prescription a refillable one?”

“No, that’s forbidden by law in this state. Too many refillable prescriptions were falling into the hands of addicts.”

Kling felt mildly reprimanded. He plunged ahead regardless. “Then Dr. Brolin wrote a prescription for you each and every month, is that right?”

“Sometimes less frequently. Depending on how low my supply was.”

“And it was low just before you left for California.”

“Yes. As I say, I had six or seven capsules left, something like that. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t like loose ends hanging. I try to tidy things up before going away anyplace. So I asked Dr. Brolin for a new prescription.”

“Do you go away frequently?”

“Only occasionally. When there’s a show I feel I must see. I never miss the one in Chicago, for example, and the one in Los Angeles this year promised to be particularly good.”

“Mrs. Newman, the Medical Examiner’s report indicates that your husband was intoxicated at the time of his death. When you—”

“I’m not surprised,” Anne said.

“When you spoke to him last Tuesday, did he sound drunk?”

“It was sometimes difficult to tell. He’d very often be drinking steadily and still manage to sound quite lucid.”

“Did he sound lucid the night you spoke to him?”

“He sounded... normal. Depressed, but normal. Then again, depression had become almost a normal state with him in recent months.”

“Did he ever discuss suicide with you?”

“Well... I’m reluctant to admit this because it might sound callous.”

“In what way?”

“You may wonder why I left him to go to California when I knew how he was feeling.”

“How was he feeling, Mrs. Newman?”

“He told me... he said he’d had enough.”

“Of what?”

“Of living. Of life.”

“When was this?”

“The day before I left.”

“That would’ve been a Thursday...”

“Yes, Thursday night.”

“July thirty-first.”

“Yes.”

“He told you he’d had enough of living?”

“He was drunk, of course, I... he’d told me the same thing many times before.”

“That he was thinking of taking his own life?”

“Not in those exact words.”

“What were his exact words?”

“He said his father had the right idea.”

“Meaning...”

“He was referring to his father’s suicide. His father killed himself two years ago.”

Mrs. Newman came back into the room. She had cut a lime in the kitchen, and a slice now floated in the tall glass containing Anne’s gin and tonic. She overheard the last of her daughter-in-law’s words, and said, “I’ve already told the gentlemen about that, darling. Here you are.”

Anne accepted the drink, said, “Thank you,” and then said to the detectives, “Are you sure?”

“We’re on duty, ma’am,” Kling said.

“Ah, yes, of course. Cheers,” she said, and took a sip of the drink. “Oh, that’s good,” she said. “I find this heat insufferable, don’t you?”

“Regarding the heat,” Carella said, “I’d like to ask you some questions about the air conditioning in your apartment.”

“The air conditioning?” Anne said, looking surprised.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sure you noticed how hot the apartment was...”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, the windows were all closed, and the air conditioner was turned off, and I was wondering—”

“We always had trouble with the air conditioning,” Anne said, and sipped at her drink again.

“What kind of trouble?”

“We were constantly calling the super to have it repaired.”

“Well, it was functioning properly, ma’am. I know because I personally turned it on after the techs were through with it. The point is, it was turned to the off position, and I’m wondering whether it was in that position when you left the apartment on Friday morning.”

“I really don’t know,” Anne said. “I mean, the apartment seemed cool enough, I simply didn’t check to see whether the air conditioner was on or not.”

“But the apartment did seem cool.”

“Yes, definitely.”

“When you spoke to your husband on Tuesday night, did he mention anything about the heat?”

“He said the temperature had hit ninety-eight that day.”

“But he didn’t say the apartment was unusually hot, did he? He didn’t say the air conditioner had been malfunctioning, anything like that?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Or that anyone had been there to look at it.”

“No.”

“I’m trying to account for that switch being in the off position, you see. If someone had worked on the unit, then perhaps it was left off by accident.”

“No, Jerry didn’t mention anyone coming in to look at it.”

“Uh-huh,” Carella said. “Bert?”

“Just a few more questions,” Kling said, “and then we’ll let you go. I’m sorry we’re taking so much of your time.”

“Not at all,” Anne said.

“Can you tell me what you remember of your conversation the night before you left for California?”

“Not in exact detail, I didn’t think it was that important at the time.”

“As much as you can remember.”

“Well, Jerry had been drinking, and he told me again — this was a usual complaint — about what a poor artist he was in comparison to his father. Jerry was an illustrator, you have to realize, and his father was quite a well-known artist, and Jerry felt he could never live up to his father’s high achievement. He idolized him... Well, isn’t that true, Mother?”

“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Newman said.

“And... well... I sometimes felt he wanted to be like him in every way possible. I suppose I should have taken his constant threats of suicide more seriously, given the past circumstances. But I didn’t. When he began talking again about how it was all so meaningless, so pointless, I... I hate to admit this, but I cut him short. I had a long trip ahead of me, and this was close to midnight, and I had to get some sleep. I told him we’d talk about it when I got back. I didn’t know I’d be seeing him for the last time at breakfast the next morning.”

“How did he seem then? At breakfast, I mean.”

“Hung over.”

“Mrs. Newman, did your husband know you were taking Seconal?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Did he know where you kept the drug?”

“We kept all our drugs in the bathroom medicine cabinet.”

“And that was where you kept the Seconal?”

“Yes.”

“Is that where you put the new prescription you’d had filled?”

“Yes.”

“The bottle containing thirty capsules?”

“Yes.”

“When did you do that?”

“The day I had the prescription filled.”

“That would’ve been the twenty-ninth of July.”

“Yes.”

“And your husband knew this? He knew you’d put that bottle of Seconal in the medicine cabinet?”

“I assume he did.”

“Thank you. Steve? Anything?”

“No, that’s it,” Carella said. “Ladies... thank you for letting us talk to you. We’re sorry for the intrusion, you’ve been very gracious with your time.”

“Not at all,” Mrs. Newman said.

“Please keep us informed,” Anne said.

In the corridor outside, as they waited for the elevator, Kling asked, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “I want to check with the Beverly Wilshire out there, see how long she talked to him last Tuesday night. Might help us in establishing the time of death.”

“What’ll that get us?” Kling asked.

“Who the hell knows?” Carella said. “But the heat in that goddamn apartment still bothers me. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Yes.”

It was almost five-thirty. They said good-bye on the sidewalk outside, Carella walking to where he’d parked his car, Kling walking toward the kiosk on the corner and the subway ride home to his wife, Augusta.

The note, tacked with a magnet to the refrigerator door, read:

She did not get home until almost eleven.

He was watching the news on television when she came into the apartment. She was wearing a pale green, silk chiffon jumpsuit, the flimsy top slashed low over her naked breasts, the color complementing the flaming autumn of her hair, swept to one side of her face to expose one ear dotted with an emerald earring that accentuated the jungle green of her eyes, a darker echo of her costume. As always, he caught his breath at the sheer beauty of her. He had been tongue-tied the first time he’d seen her in her burglarized apartment on Richardson Drive. She had just come back from a skiing trip to find the place ransacked; he had never been skiing in his life, he’d always thought of it as a sport for the very rich. He supposed they were very rich now. The only problem was that he never felt any of it was really his.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said from the front door, and took her key from the lock, and then came to where he was sitting in front of the television set, a can of warm beer in his hand. She kissed him fleetingly on top of his head, and then said, “I have to pee, don’t go away.”

On the television screen, the newscaster was detailing the latest trouble in the Middle East. There was always trouble in the Middle East. Sometimes Kling thought the Middle East had been invented by the government, the way the war in Orwell’s novel had been invented by Big Brother. Without the Middle East to occupy their thoughts the people would have to worry about unemployment and inflation and crime in the streets and racial conflict and corruption in high places and tsetse flies. He sipped at his beer. He had eaten a TV dinner consisting of veal parmigiana with apple slices, peas in seasoned sauce, and a lemon muffin. He had also consumed three cans of beer; this was his fourth. The thawed meal had been lousy. He was a big man, and he was hungry again. He heard her flushing the toilet, and then heard the closet door in their bedroom sliding open. He waited.

When she came back into the living room, she was wearing a wraparound black nylon robe belted at the waist. Her hair fell loose around her face. She was barefoot. The television newscaster droned on.

“Are you watching that?” she asked.

“Sort of,” he said.

“Why don’t you turn it off?” she said and, without waiting for his reply, went to the set and snapped the switch. The room went silent. “Another scorcher today, huh?” she said. “How’d it go for you?”

“So-so.”

“What time did you get home?”

“Little after six.”

“Did you forget the party at Bianca’s?”

“We’re working a complicated one.”

“When aren’t you working a complicated one?” Augusta asked, and smiled.

He watched as she sat on the carpet in front of the blank television screen, her legs extended, the flaps of the nylon robe thrown back, and began doing her sit-ups, part of her nightly exercise routine. Her hands clasped behind her head, she raised her trunk and lowered it, raised it and lowered it.

“We had to go see this lady,” Kling said.

“I told you this morning about the party.”

“I know, but Steve wanted to hit her this afternoon.”

“First twenty-four hours are the most important,” Augusta said by rote.

“Well, that’s true, in fact. How was the party?”

“Fine,” Augusta said.

“She still living with that photographer, what’s his name?”

“Andy Hastings. He’s only the most important fashion photographer in America.”

“I have trouble keeping them straight,” Kling said.

“Andy’s the one with the black hair and blue eyes.”

“Who’s the bald one?”

“Lamont.”

“Yeah. With the earring in his left ear. Was he there?”

“Everybody was there. Except my husband.”

“Well, I do have to earn a living.”

“You didn’t have to earn a living after four p.m. today.”

“Man dies of an overdose of Seconal, you can’t just let the case lay there for a week.”

“First twenty-four hours are the most important, right,” Augusta said again, and rolled her eyes.

“They are.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“You mind if I turn this on again?” he asked. “I want to see what the weather’ll be tomorrow.”

She did not answer. She rolled onto her side, and began lifting and lowering one leg, steadily, methodically. He put the beer can down, rose from where he was sitting in the leather easy chair, and snapped on the television set. As he turned to go back to his chair, the auburn hair covering her crotch winked for just an instant, and then her legs closed, and opened again, the flaming wink again, and closed again. He sat heavily in the leather chair and picked up the beer can. The female television forecaster was a brunette with the cutes. Smiling idiotically, bantering with the anchorman, she finally relayed the information that there was no relief in sight; the temperature tomorrow would hit a high of somewhere between ninety-eight and ninety-nine (“That’s normal body temperature, isn’t it?” the anchorman asked. “Ninety-eight point six?”) with the humidity hovering at sixty-four percent, and the pollution index unsatisfactory.

“So what else is new?” Augusta said to the television screen, her leg moving up and down, up and down.

“Marty Trovaro is next with the sports,” the anchorman said. “Stay tuned.”

“Now we get what all the baseball teams did today,” Augusta said. “Can’t you turn that off, Bert?”

“I like baseball,” he said. “Where’d you go after the party?”

“To a Chinese joint on Boone.”

“Any good?”

“So-so.”

“How many of you went?”

“About a dozen. Eleven, actually. Your chair was empty.”

“On Boone, did you say?”

“Yes.”

“In Chinatown?”

“Yes.”

“All the way down there, huh?”

“Bianca lives in the Quarter, you know that.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

The television sportscasters in America all had the same barber. Kling had thought the distinctive haircut was indigenous only to this part of the country, but he’d once gone down to Miami to pick up a guy on an extradition warrant, and the television sportscaster there had his hair cut the same way, as if someone had put a bowl over his head and trimmed all around it. He sometimes wondered if every sportscaster in America was bald and wearing a rug. Meyer Meyer had begun talking lately about buying a hairpiece. He tried to visualize Meyer with hair. He felt that hair would cost Meyer his credibility. Augusta was doing push-ups now. She did twenty-five of them every night. As the sportscaster read off the baseball scores, he watched her pushing against the carpet, watched the firm outline of her ass under the nylon robe, and unconsciously counted along with her. She stopped when he had counted only twenty-three; he must have missed a few. He got up and turned off the television set.

“Ah, blessed silence,” Augusta said.

“What time did the party break up?” he asked.

Augusta got to her feet. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“Keep me awake,” he said.

“What time are you going in tomorrow?”

“It’s my day off.”

“Hallelujah,” she said. “You sure you don’t want any?”

“I’m sure.”

“I think I’ll have some,” she said, and started for the kitchen.

“What time did you say?” he asked.

“What time what?” she said over her shoulder.

“The party.”

She turned to him. “At Bianca’s, do you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“We left about seven-thirty.”

“And went across to Chinatown, huh?”

“Yes,” she said.

“By cab, or what?”

“Some of us went by cab, yes. I got a lift over.”

“Who with?”

“The Santessons,” she said, “you don’t know them,” and turned and walked out into the kitchen.

He heard her puttering around out there, taking the tin of coffee from the cabinet over the counter, and then opening one of the drawers, and moving the percolator from the stove to set it down noisily on the counter. He knew he would have to discuss it with her, knew he had to stop playing detective here, asking dumb questions about where she’d been and what time she got there and who she’d been with, had to ask her flat out, discuss the damn thing with her, the way he’d promised Carella he would. He told himself he’d do that the moment she came back into the room, ask her whether she was seeing somebody else, some other man. And maybe lose her, he thought. She went back into the bathroom again. He heard her opening and closing the door on the medicine cabinet. She was in there a long time. When finally she came out, she went into the kitchen and he heard her pouring the coffee. She came back into the living room then, holding a mug in her hand, and sat cross-legged on the carpet, and began sipping at the coffee.

He told himself he would ask her now.

He looked at her.

“What time did you leave the restaurant?” he asked.

“What is this?” she said suddenly.

“What do you mean?” he said. His heart had begun to flutter.

“I mean... what is this? What time did I leave Bianca’s, what time did I leave the restaurant — what the hell is this?”

“I’m just curious.”

“Just curious, huh? Is that some kind of occupational hazard? Curiosity? Curiosity killed the cat, Bert.”

“Oh? Is that right? Did curiosity...?”

“If you’re so damn interested in what time I got someplace, then why don’t you come with me next time, instead of running around the city looking for pills?”

“Pills?”

“You said Seconal, you said—”

“It was capsules.”

“I don’t give a damn what it was. I left Bianca’s at seven twenty-two and fourteen seconds, okay? I entered a black Buick Regal bearing the license plate...”

“Okay, Augusta.”

“...007, a license to kill, Bert, owned and operated by one Philip Santesson, who is the art director at...”

“I said okay.”

“...Winston, Loeb, and Fields, accompanied by his wife, June Santesson, whereupon the suspect vehicle proceeded to Chinatown to join the rest of the party at a place called Ah Wong’s. We ordered—”

“Cut it out, Gussie!”

“No, goddamn it, you cut it out! I left that fucking restaurant at ten-thirty and I caught a cab on Aqueduct, and came straight home to my loving husband who’s been putting me through a third-degree from the minute I walked through that door!” she shouted, pointing wildly at the front door. “Now what the hell is it, Bert? If you’ve got something on your mind, let me know what it is! Otherwise, just shut up! I’m tired of playing cops and robbers.”

“So am I.”

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“I told you about the party, I told you we were supposed to...”

“I know you—”

“...be there at six, six-thirty.”

“All right, I know.”

“All right,” she said, and sighed, her anger suddenly dissipating.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I wanted to make love,” she said softly. “I came home wanting to make love.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“Instead...”

“I’m sorry.” He hesitated. Then, cautiously, he said, “We can still make love.”

“No,” she said, “we can’t.”

“Wh...?”

“I just got my period.”

He looked at her. And suddenly he knew she’d been lying about the party at Bianca’s and the ride crosstown with the Santessons and the dinner at Ah Wong’s and the cab she’d caught on Aqueduct, knew she’d been lying about all of it and putting up the same brave blustery front of a murderer caught with a smoking pistol in his fist.

“Okay,” he said, “some other time,” and went to the television set and snapped it on again.