Hundred Dollar Baby

37

Susan and I had a Valentine's Day supper at Aujour-d'hui, the dining room at the Four Seasons Hotel. It was the right kind of place for such a supper. The ceilings were high, the lights were muted, the service was friendly and well executed, the food was good, and the window-wall view of the Public Garden was all that the architect had probably hoped it would be. Many of the dining-room staff knew Susan and stopped to talk with her. None of them knew me, but they treated me as if they did because I was with her.

I didn't mind. There were circles where people knew me better. Of course, they weren't circles anyone wanted to move in.

We began with cocktails. Cosmopolitan for Susan. Martini for me, on the rocks, with a twist. When we were alone and it was safe, we exchanged poems written expressly for the occasion, as we always did. Susan's poem, like all her poems, began "roses are red, violets are blue" and went on through odd rhymes and strange metaphors to say very touching things, some of which were quite funny and some of which were quite obscene. My poetry was, of course, Miltonesque… in a vulgar sort of way. She read hers aloud, though softly, and I read mine the same. When we were through we leaned across the table and kissed each other lightly, and settled back to read the menu.

"Do you ever throw your poems from me away?"

"Of course not," I said.

"I keep yours, too."

"After we're gone," I said, "what do you suppose people will think?"

"That we were foul-mouthed, oversexed, and clever," Susan said.

"Not a bad obit," I said.

The waiter came with his pad.

"How was your trip," she said to me after we had ordered.

I told her.

She frowned and took a small sip of Cosmopolitan.

"Isn't this beginning to give you a headache?" she said.

"In the memorable words of L'il Abner," I said, " 'Confusin,' but not amusin'."'

"It's beginning to sound like one of those tumultuous medieval paintings of hell, where it's not easy to see who is doing what to whom."

"People aren't always being open and frank with me," I said. "But the best I can figure is that Mrs. Utley wanted to branch out. Lionel cut in on it and has seduced these three experienced professionals to think he loves them so they'll help him steal Mrs. Utleys money."

"What about his dream of going national?" Susan said. "Is that real or persiflage."

"Yikes," I said. "Persiflage."

"Must I continuously remind you," Susan said, "that I went to Harvard?"

"I love you anyway," I said. "I don't know about his dream."

"What about Ollie DeMars?" Susan said. "If April was in this with Lionel Whosis, why did Lionel Whosis hire Ollie to harass her, and why did she hire you to prevent it?"

"Don't know."

"Who killed Ollie?"

"Don't know."

The waiter came by and looked at my empty glass. I nodded. He went to get me another martini.

"What do you know for sure?" she said.

"That everybody I have talked to so far has lied to me."

"Even Mrs. Utley?"

I shrugged.

"Maybe," I said. "I can't be sure she hasn't."

"It does seem clear that Lionel is trying to pull off some scheme."

"Yes."

"And all of the people he's to pull it off with," Susan said, or on, or however one says it, are women."

I nodded.

"Wasn't he the one you found because he'd been in jail?"

"Yeah. Real-estate scam," I said.

"Do you know who he scammed?" Susan said.

"You mean specifically?"

"Yes."

I shook my head.

"Maybe you should find out," Susan said. "I wouldn't be amazed to find that they were women, too."

"You think there's some sort of misogyny at work?" I said.

"Maybe he just finds them easier targets," Susan said. "But maybe he likes to fuck them."

"You mean that literally," I said.

"I do," she said, "but also colloquially, in the sense of fuck them up."

"It's a pattern," I said.

"It would be interesting to find it was an even wider pattern," Susan said.

"So what would I know, if I knew that?" I said.

My martini arrived. I took a sip.

"I do the strategic thinking," Susan said. "Up to you to implement it."

"My God," I said. "You did go to Harvard."

She smiled at me and raised her glass. I touched it with mine.

"At the moment, the assumption is that Lionel is doing this for money," Susan said. "If you found reason to think he might be doing this out of misogynistic pathology, or for both reasons, you'd know something you don't know now."

I nodded. We sat for a minute, enjoying us.

"Well," I said. "Better to know than not know."

"Much," Susan said.