Irresistible Impulse

TWENTY-ONE

Karp listened to Lionel Waley’s closing statement for the defense in Rohbling rather as a great operatic tenor might listen to another one reaching for the high note and hitting it just right-that is, with a mixture of admiration and bile. The State of New York favors those who represent it by providing that the closing arguments for the defense precede those of the prosecution, and there is no rebuttal allowed. Karp would have the last word. Waley had therefore not only to make his own argument but to predict what language Karp would use and discount it in advance. Which he was doing, or trying to. Karp took notes, and adjusted in his impossibly crowded brain the phrases and sequence of presentation of his own closing so as to counter these preemptive strikes. Waley was saying, in effect, “The prosecution will say blah-blah, but you know that wah-wah is true.” Karp would have to do the opposite, but retrospectively. This is one reason why the closing arguments in major criminal trials, although written-out and outlined, are not memorized speeches but are given extempore. Another is that as he speaks, the lawyer is reading the jury, seeing what cuts sharply, what moves the listening faces, and what does not.

Waley was expatiating on the law as it applied to the case and interpreting, in a way favorable to his client’s cause, the charge that the judge would give to the jury when the closings were finished. He could do this because jury instructions in criminal trials are almost entirely boiler-plate exercises, pinched by actual statute and acres of precedents, besides which, Judge Peoples’ instructions were notable for balance and fairness.

“The law assumes competence, it assumes rationality,” Waley was saying, “but it allows for tragic cases where rationality and competence do not exist. A criminal act requires a criminal actor, that is, someone who understood what the law required and made a conscious and knowing decision to break it. It is the burden of the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Jonathan Rohbling, at the moment of committing the crime with which he is charged, did not lack substantial incapacity to comport his conduct to the requirements of law. In simple language, it is for you, the jury, to decide on the basis of the evidence you have heard whether there is a reasonable doubt that Jonathan Rohbling was in his right mind on the evening of April twentieth in Jane Hughes’s apartment. If you have such a doubt that because of his mental disease he did not know what he was doing, or that it was wrong, then you must find him not guilty by reason of insanity.”

Karp made a note. Not that great, Lionel, he thought, all those negative constructions are confusing. But he knew that in the course of his speech Waley would repeat that essential argument many times, with many illustrations. He would try to demonstrate that the testimony of his shrinks constituted reasonable doubt. If a trio of top psychiatrists testify the guy’s crazy, well, then …

The argument was standard and specious, and Waley was presenting it as well as Karp had ever heard it done. He wondered briefly if Waley really believed that Rohbling was insane under the law, and decided that he did. That was his art, his genius as a defense attorney: he could manipulate his beliefs to suit his case. He was stricken by the tragedy of J. Rohbling, madman, and if he could make the jury believe it along with him, he had won. Karp took notes, listened, waited. It would be some hours yet before his last licks.

“He must have tossed it in,” Marlene was saying, “from that window. He climbed up the ivy, your window was open, and he flipped it in. You’re on the west side of the house and the wind was from the east-it still is-”

“I thought the dog was supposed to stop anyone from getting in,” Edie Wooten protested. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were still moist and red. She was hunched in bed like a kid with the chicken pox, dabbing her face with tissues and then tearing them into shreds.

“Nobody got into the house, Edie, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. If he had tried to open the window enough to climb in, the dog would’ve heard him. As it was, I heard something in the night and so did Sweety. He must have tossed the rose and note and run off.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Same as before, only now I think we’ll put Sweety in your room at night.”

“You think he’ll come back?” She bit her lip, hands to face, classic terror.

“Of course. He was to. He’s obsessed. And we’ll get him.”

“So … what? I’m the bait?”

“Afraid so. Unless you want to spend your life running, this is it.”

Edie wailed and pulled the covers over her head.

Marlene left her then and walked around the house with Sweety. She checked the ground under Edie’s window, but found little disturbance. Robinson must have been particularly careful, or maybe he had sent Ginnie.

In the boathouse, she saw that Bonito, the big Chris-Craft, was in its berth, looking tatty, with lines tangled and bottles and articles of clothing strewn on its decks. There was a noise from below decks. Sweety gave his warning growl.

A young man Marlene did not recognize staggered out of the main cabin hatchway. He was wearing nothing but white tennis shorts and a gold razor blade on a chain around his neck. His face, tanned and handsome though it was, showed the signs of a bad hangover. He stared at Marlene and her dog blankly for a moment, then groaned and said, “Jesus shit! Where the hell is everybody?”

“Probably back at Ginnie’s house?” Marlene offered.

“Oh, Ginnie! She took off with Vince. Hell if I know where she is.” He blinked at her. “Do I know you?” “I don’t think so.”

“I didn’t fuck you last night, did I? No, it was somebody … you got anything on you? Uppers? No? Coke? Fuck! I am flicked up! Started in Danceteria, somebody said, Ginnie Woo’s on a fucking boat, now where am I? Some place on the Island. These aren’t my shorts.”

“Vince knows how to throw a party, hey?” said Marlene.

“Oh, fuck, lady! The guy is out of his mind. I say that, I’m fucking out of my mind and I’m my father compared to Vince. Last Thanksgiving? Twenty of us, private seven-two-seven, Marrakesh. Jesus shit! Four days. Fucking Arabs never saw anything like it.”

“On Thanksgiving I thought he would’ve taken you to Turkey, not Morocco.”

“Turkey? What the fuck’s in Turkey? Nah, forget it! Fuckin’ Turks’re real down on fun, man … Christ, you got any aspirin, Empirin, Darvon … shit! You don’t got shit.”

The man staggered back below. Marlene left the boathouse and went around to the dock. She wondered where Robinson and Ginnie had taken off to last night, and there was something else in what the jerk had said that disturbed her, but she couldn’t quite locate the itch. She went back to the house.

Waley’s closing statement took up the whole morning, and at the end of which only the most wideawake observer would have known who the victim was in the case. For Waley the “real” victim was clearly the defendant. Unloved. Abused. Insane. Jane Hughes might just as well have been hit by a runaway truck. Waley ended with an impassioned rendition of his original theme: don’t compound this tragedy by punishing a young man who needs medical help.

Karp went on in the afternoon. He fixed with his eye a juror in the first row, Mr. Domingo Corton, welding-machine operator, fifty-four, whom Karp had noticed nodding in agreement during Waley’s performance. He would speak like this directly to each juror in turn, giving each one that portion of his argument he thought would tell the most, based on his assessment of that juror’s personality and the extent to which he thought they favored either side.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this case is not about the sad life and personal troubles of Jonathan Rohbling. This case is about the brutal murder of Mrs. Jane Hughes, the beloved mother of five children, the grandmother of seven. You have heard a great deal of testimony from distinguished psychiatrists, which Mr. Waley has just ably recalled for you, as to the defendant’s mental state at various times in his life. This testimony may be interesting or not, but it is important that you realize that it is not the critical evidence in this case. Judge Peoples will instruct you that you must convict Mr. Rohbling of murder unless you find that owing to a mental disease or defect he was substantially incapable of comporting his conduct to the requirements of the law. That’s a fancy way of saying that you have to find that when he killed Jane Hughes, he did not know what he was doing or that it was wrong. How would he know this, what the defendant’s mind was like at the moment when he killed Mrs. Hughes? Well, with all due respect to the psychiatric profession, no test or method has ever been devised that will tell you what is in someone else’s head at a particular time. It is beyond the ability of science.”

Mr. Corton was now nodding well enough for Karp too. He shifted his gaze to Mrs. Bertha Finney, sixty-four, retired postal worker, the jury’s lone female black elder.

“So how do we tell? Members of the jury, this is no great mystery requiring years of graduate school, medical school. You know from your own lives that the major evidence indicating mental state is behavior-facial expression, speech, both tone and content, and action. We don’t need a psychiatrist to tell us if a loved one is upset or our boss is angry. Human society depends on our native ability to determine what is going on inside a person from the way they behave. Now, sure, there are frauds, there are cheats, there are con men in the world, but these people also depend on our ability to read mental states from behavior-they are skilled at imitating such behavior so as to give us the wrong idea of their sincerity.”

Switch to Julio Meles, twenty-nine, courier service manager, refresh smile.

“Now, let me assure you that if some poor soul being treated for schizophrenia wandered out of Bellevue in his underwear and pushed Jane Hughes under a train, raving all the while, and waited for the police to arrest him the odds are very good that we would not be here in a courtroom today. The State of New York has no problem accepting a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity when the behavior of the accused clearly warrants it. We are not in the business of persecuting the sick and helpless.”

Karp turned his attention to Earlene Davis, forty-one, restaurant cashier.

“But we know that such is not the case with Mr. Rohbling. We know it in the teeth of all the wild theories of all the psychiatrists that Mr. Waley can find in the telephone book and hire for generous fees, because we know how Mr. Rohbling behaved. You’ll recall me asking Dr. Persteiner about how we knew that Jonathan Rohbling did not suffer from schizophrenia, and he answered with one word: competence. Everything we know about the defendant’s behavior in the days preceding and following the murder of Mrs. Hughes shows competence, and not only that. We also see decision, alacrity, and guile. But let me make it absolutely clear, ladies and gentlemen …”

Karp made it absolutely clear to Lillian Weintraub, fifty-nine, housewife.

“… I am not saying that Mr. Rohbling is a model of mental stability. Here I find myself in agreement with Mr. Waley. I have no doubt that Mr. Rohbling is a sick man. But that is not the point. The People are not obliged to show that Mr. Rohbling is a well-balanced, happy person, able to live a full and rewarding life. I am certain that Judge Peoples will instruct you as to that. But there are many types of mental illness. Drug addiction and alcoholism are mental illnesses too, listed as such in Dr. Lewis Rosenbaum’s big DSM III book, which we all saw earlier, but we do not for that reason excuse the junkie who mugs or the drunk who kills with his car.”

Karp focused on Theodore Spearman, the retired NYU chemistry professor promoted to the jury from alternate, a man who might be expected to know about proof.

“No, all we are obliged to prove, and what we have proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that Jonathan Rohbling planned to kill Jane Hughes, that he costumed himself carefully so as to inveigle himself into her confidence, that he sought her out at her church, that he preyed on her decency, posing convincingly as a young black student lately come to the big city, and so got himself invited to her apartment, that he kept that appointment with murder at her apartment, that he killed her, knowing that he was killing her, for Jane Hughes fought hard for her life, she did not go easily as he pressed his suitcase down on her face, smothering her to death. And we have further proven that he escaped stealthily from the murder scene, and that when he was confronted by Detective Featherstone, as you heard, he cleverly and guilefully denied ownership of the suitcase, knowing that it contained damning evidence connecting him with the crime. Ladies and gentlemen, is this the behavior of an out-of-control maniac who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong? Give me a break!”

Pause. Switch to Carmen Delgado, thirty-one, dry cleaner. Karp took a deep breath, summoning the beginning case into his head. He would now review all the significant evidence as it applied to the theme he had just laid out for the jury, boosting his triumphs, ignoring his slips, telling him a coherent, convincing tale that would stick, he hoped, to their minds more tenaciously than the one Waley had told in the morning.

Late in the second hour of this grueling work, he noted out of the corner of his eye a young black woman he recognized as a clerk-typist in the bureau office enter the courtroom, walk up to the barrier dividing the well of the court from the spectator seats, attract the attention of Terrell Collins at the prosecution table, and hand him a folded piece of paper. The jury noticed it too, and their attention wavered for an instant. Karp suppressed a flush of rage. By far the gravest sin that any employee of the district attorney’s office could commit was to interrupt in any way a closing argument. Death in the family was no excuse, nor was the outbreak of nuclear war. Karp raised his voice a hair, pumped out a little more charisma, brought the jury back to full attention, and plowed on. He would have someone’s ass for this. Afterward.

Karp in his office, drained, rubbing an icy can of Coke across his eyes.

Collins was there for his usual postmortem, this the very last one. He could tell by the twitching of his boss’s jaw that something was wrong (talk about bahavior!), but he didn’t have a clue as to what it was. He thought that the closing had gone splendidly. Karp had brilliantly defused the whole dueling-shrinks aspect of the case, finessing Waley’s strongest card. The press-they had been yelling something about another granny-killer victim, but they had rushed down the gantlet so quickly that he hadn’t been able to make out what it meant.

Karp chugged three-quarters of the soda and snarled, “Now, what the fuck was that business with passing papers in the middle of the goddamn closing?”

“Hell, Butch, I don’t know. Look for yourself. I wasn’t going to get into a damn discussion with the woman, so I just took what she gave me.”

Karp read, “Fulton says call Homicide 28th IMMEDIATELY.”

Karp punched in a familiar number. Fulton came on the line right away, as if he had been waiting by the phone.

“You heard yet?” the detective asked.

“Heard what? For fuck’s sake, Clay, did you tell my office to interrupt me in court?”

“I did. Get this. A woman named Margaret Evans did not show up for work this morning. When a coworker checked on her at one-fourteen this afternoon, she found her in her apartment, dead, with a blue cloth suitcase over her face. M.E. says it looks like smothering. Time of death, last night sometime. Woman is black, age 58, two kids, four grand kids.”

“Oh, shit!” said Karp. “And the press has it already? How the hell …?”

“Somebody tipped them, is what I heard. How we going to play this, Stretch?”

Karp did not reply for a moment. He was trying to figure out if there was any way of keeping this news from the jury, and decided that there was not. Had he known about it sooner, he might have been able to make a case for sequestration, but by now the jurors were at home, sitting in front of the tube or looking at the evening paper.

“I want you to handle it, Clay,” he said at last. “You need me to call zone command or the Chief of D., I will.”

“No problem. By the way, I checked. He was in Bellevue, in case you were wondering.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” said Karp. “I guess we should thank God for small favors. What’s your thinking, off the bat?”

“Off the bat? A copycat. Rare, but it happens. A psycho, or someone who just wanted to whack his mother-in-law, but was stuck for inspiration until the trial. So we’ll do the usual canvass, check on the relatives, the love life, the neighbors. Who knows, it could be a grounder-”

“It’s not a grounder, Clay,” said Karp, his tone flat and resigned. “Have you thought about the possibility of something nastier?”

“Like?”

“Like, Jonathan’s got a pal, a disciple? My shrink called it his hobby. Maybe there was a club.”

“Maybe you’re getting paranoid in your old age,” said Fulton. “We’re talking about Rohbling here, son. The lone pine tree. Kid don’t have a friend in Jesus, he got no friends at all. Oh, yeah, this’ll amuse you. You know where the vic worked?”

“Don’t tell me … for Rohbling, right?”

“Uh-uh. For that sweetheart you had me trailing around after last winter.”

“Robinson?”

“Yep. She was a medical-records specialist. Small world, huh?”

“Tiny. What was Doctor Death doing the night of, by the way?”

“Oh, he’s clean. According to his office, he was out on some little island in the Sound. Wait a second, I got it written down here somewheres …”

“Wooten Island,” said Karp.

“That’s it.” Pause. “Wait a second, how the hell did you know that?”

“You said it was a small world. Don’t ask,” said Karp.

Karp’s mood was not improved when, upon arriving home, he found the press thicker and more importunate than ever, the Evans murder having lashed them into a frenzy of speculation, and the pickets louder in their invective for the same reason. Thus, when he discovered that his daughter was missing, had been missing since noon, he was not his ordinary calm and reasonable self. He was cruel and abusive to Posie, in the most intemperate language. She wailed and ran to her room, from which issued the sound of disorganized packing. The twins burst into sympathetic tears. In the midst of this shrieking hell, while Karp was attempting to form some productive thought as to what to do next, the telephone rang. Karp let the machine pick it up and heard Marlene’s voice saying, “She’s here.”

Moving as fast as he had ever moved on a basketball court, he raced to the phone and snatched up the receiver.

“Marlene? Jesus, I was going crazy!”

“I bet.”

“Oh, God, I’m fucking shaking here.”

“What’s going on? It sounds like crying.”

“Yeah, well, I yelled at Posie.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and called out the news to Posie, who came out smiling through the tears. Karp apologized, and the girl, who, like the sages of the Orient, dwelt in the eternal Now, swept the weeping twins up and away with kisses. Into the phone Karp said, “Marlene, tell me you didn’t plan all this out without letting me know.”

“Of course not. It was a misunderstanding. I told Lucy that when my business was finished, she could come out here and spend a day or two, and she thought that meant the tennis thing, so when I told her it was finished, she arranged everything.”

“Arranged …?”

“Yeah, she came out with Tranh. Of course, he asked her if I was expecting her, and of course she said yes, which was true as far as she could see, and they took the train and a cab and the livery boat, and here they are. Tranh is paralyzed with embarrassment. Edie Wooten was a little surprised too. Lucy, of course, puts the whole thing off on me. And when I pointed out to her that you didn’t know and would be going crazy, she said she left you a note, and then she said, oops, I forgot the note, sorry. The brat is incorrigible.”

I wonder where she gets it from, thought Karp, fuming. “So you’ll send her right back?”

“Well, as long as she’s here, she might as well spend a day or so.”

“What! Are you out of your fucking mind!” Karp yelled. “You’re guarding that woman against a dangerous stalker, and you’re going to keep Lucy there?”

“Well, you know, I made just that point to Lucy,” said Marlene in a distinctly cooler tone, “and do you know what she said? She said that if a stalker could get past me, and Tranh and the dog, we better hang it up.”

“Marlene, that’s ridiculous!”

“And, she said, you’re grumpy because you’re losing your trial and everyone’s miserable at the loft, and that’s why she decided to come. She said, and I quote, I don’t want to stop liking Daddy.”

Karp could not think of a suitable riposte to this. Marlene resumed, after a moment of silence, “How is the trial going?”

“Down the toilet. There’s a killer copycat-ing our defendant, but the jury’s going to think … God knows what the jury’s going to think. I thought it was even money on a hung, and maybe a tiny chance of a win, still, but … you know the background on this was always that he was a serial killer. We couldn’t try it that way, but it was in the air, the jury understood that-you know how it is. Now, with this out, it sours the case. They’re not thinking we got the wrong guy or anything, but maybe he had help, it’s not straightforward anymore.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” said Marlene with genuine sympathy, mixed with relief that the subject had changed from parenting to the law. “And you worked so hard. Do they have any leads on the copycat?”

“Not yet. Woman seems to have been employed by your pal Robinson, by the way. I thought that was significant.”

“Is it?”

“Apparently not, since he was away on your island paradise at the time of the murder last night.”

“No, he wasn’t,” said Marlene. “He took off with his merry band last night on a yacht, and I know they made it to the City because I talked with a guy who started the evening clubbing downtown.”

“Well, well,” said Karp. “The plot thickens.”

“It does indeed,” said Marlene.

“Daddy was mad, wasn’t he?”

“Furious. But I calmed him down. Did you apologize to Tranh?”

“Yes. I said that the dishonor was mine. He said I was an ignorant monkey, not worth drowning.”

“I concur with that. Never again, Lucy, I mean it, although …”

“What?”

“I suppose I should take pride in your resourcefulness. At least you didn’t get lost.”

“I’m socially precocious,” said Lucy with a casual drawl.

“Yes, and intellectually retarded. Now that you’re here, how do you like it?”

“I love it. It’s like a fairy castle on the sea. Could we go swimming now? I have my suit on underneath.”

“No, it’s too late,” said Marlene. “Tomorrow. And wipe that expression off your face! You’re lucky I don’t tie you up in the cellar.”

That evening they dined in the paneled dining room. Tranh leaped into the kitchen and whipped up a moule marinière with a bushel of local mussels. Lucy put on her Perfect Little Girl act, charming the pants off Edie and the Marneys. Tranh sat by the cellist, regaling her, in French, with anecdotes about old Paris. He had, it seemed, worked in a bistro frequented by Darius Milhaud and Paul Claudel. For a pick-up dinner under siege, it was a great success.

Afterward, Tranh and Marlene slept in shifts, but no incident disturbed the night. In the morning, during the sacred hours of cello practice, Tranh stayed by the house with the dog, while Marlene took Lucy down to the beach with her carry-all full of blanket, gun, sandwiches, and a thermos of lemonade.

The day was cloudy, however, with the wind picking up from the east, speckling the bay with little whitecaps. They swam until they were chilled and then walked along the beach, selecting choice pebbles and various interesting pieces of jetsam, until they came to a point that looked over the two-mile channel to Sag Harbor.

They had gone only a little way back when Lucy said, “There’s someone near our stuff.” Marlene squinted, but could make out only a shadow, like a stick figure, near their blanket. It must be Tranh, she thought, and wondered whether anything had gone wrong at the house. She quickened her pace. As they came closer, she saw, and the sight produced a gut wrench of fear and revulsion, that it was Robinson. He was reclining next to her blanket, dressed in white duck slacks, navy lisle shirt, and huaraches.

“Ah, the lovely Mrs. Karp,” he called out gaily, “and who is this? A little Karp? How charming!”

“Get lost, Robinson!” Marlene snarled.

“ ‘Robinson’? Dear me, yesterday when you assaulted me, it was ‘doctor’ and very polite with it. It must be the immigrant crudity surfacing.” He turned his gaze on Lucy, and Marlene felt her flesh prickle. “Manners are very important, little girl. For example, it’s considered rude in the best circles to hit men in their wee-wees with your gun.”

Marlene stooped and yanked up their blanket. “Fine, we’ll leave. Take the thermos, Lucy.”

“Oh, but aren’t you going to introduce me to Lucy?” said Robinson. He rose and took a step closer to the girl.

“Yes. Lucy, this is Dr. Vincent Robinson, a vicious, evil man. You are not to ever talk to him, and if you see him coming, run away.”

She took Lucy’s hand and started to walk back toward the house. Robinson followed close behind Marlene, crowding her, his mouth inches from her ear. “What a thing to say!” he murmured. “Really, I love children. Their bones are so flexible. I like it when they sit on my lap. Do you think Lucy would like to sit on my lap? No? Maybe later.”

They reached the cut in the dunes where a path led back to the big house. Marlene could smell his cologne and feel his breath warm against her neck.

“You have absolutely no idea what you’re in for, do you, my little wop? A bodyguard? What a joke you are! You’re like a dog that’s run into the street just about to get squashed by a truck, you and kikey Ike, and your little mutt bitch-”

Marlene placed two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing two-tone whistle. In seconds the dune grass was rattling with the passage of a large animal, and Sweety emerged onto the path. Marlene turned and pointed at Robinson. “Sweety, iddu é ’n nemicu,” she said. Sweety made a sound like oil drums rolling down a gangplank and showed Robinson all his pretty white teeth. Robinson’s tan lightened a shade. “If that dog touches me, I’ll sue you for every cent you’ve got,” he said. “I’ll break you-”

“No, actually, you won’t,” said Marlene, “because if he goes for you, you won’t be able to pee, much less sue. In fact, I think it’s you who’ve gotten in over your head, Vince, not me. Now go away! We don’t allow degenerates on this side of the island.”

As she spoke, Sweety, his black hair bristling, was inching closer, snarling softly and slavering. A gob of dog drool fell on the naked arch of Robinson’s foot. He forced his face into a not-very-convincing superior smile, nodded, gestured touché with his hand, spun on his heel, and left.

“You should’ve sicced Sweety on him, Mom,” said Lucy as they walked together up to the house.

“No, actually, I’m pretty pleased with the way I handled that. The thing about violence is you want to avoid it whenever you possibly can. It takes something out of you when you use it. At first it’s hard, and then it gets easier, and then you don’t notice it at all. Or like it.”

“Like that man,” said Lucy.

“Yeah, like him. The other thing is, you don’t want to use it in dribs and drabs. Either you don’t use it at all, or you use it with overwhelming force.”

“What you did on the street, in the fair.”

“Uh-huh,” said Marlene. Suddenly she felt weak, exhausted. Though the day was cool, her throat felt rough and parched, as if she had just fought a battle on the desert. She plopped herself down in one of the Adirondack chairs, and took a long drink of lemonade from the thermos. She offered it to Lucy.

“No, it’s too sour. Can I go in and get a Coke from Mrs. Marney?”

Yes, she could. Lucy trotted away. Staring after her, Marlene wondered why she had just given her daughter a lesson in applied violence, why Lucy could shoot a pistol and box at an age when her peers were tinkling out little Mozart sonatas or learning how to float on their toes to Swan Lake. Was this crazy or the acme of sanity, given the state of the world? Marlene couldn’t decide.

She sat there for the better part of an hour. Mr. Marney came out of the house, grumbling to himself and pulling on a yellow slicker. He waved to Marlene as he went past. Shortly thereafter, she heard the sound of the big speedboat starting up, echoing loudly in the boathouse, and then the sound of a group of chattering people on the path to the dock, and then the sound of the speedboat pulling away. Ginnie and her pals must be off. Marlene wondered if her interaction with Robinson had prompted the exodus. She didn’t really care, and in any case the little shits could be back at any time. They seemed like insects in their flitting from one pleasure dome to another. Still, she felt some resolution of this affair was at hand. Either Robinson would go on to other tortures, or he would try again and she would catch him.

Tranh came out of the house. Marlene watched his peculiar light, shambling, round-shouldered walk, which always looked to her as if he were carrying a burden. He made almost no sound as he crossed the gravel path.

“Excuse me, Marie-Helene, but the repair shop has called. Your car is completed. They wish to hear when you will collect it.”

Marlene looked up at the sky, which was lowering. “It’s going to pour later. Let’s do it right now,” she said. “We’ll drive over to Southhampton in the Wolfe-mobile and you can drive the VW back here, and then you can take Lucy back tomorrow in Wolfe’s car. Oh! Can you drive a …?” Marlene gestured shifting a manual shift. Tranh responded with a remarkable Gallic facial expression combining injured pride with a negative assessment of the intellectual capacity of the interlocutor. Marlene laughed, Tranh brought out one of his rare grins, and they both went inside.

Marlene and Lucy were in Wolfe’s Caprice, driving back to Sag Harbor, the VW, ransomed for an outrageous fee, trailing behind, the windshield wipers clearing the steady drizzle from the windows. Marlene and Lucy were singing along with the Eagles tape. Marlene felt good. There seemed to be some new energy vibrating in her body, and the familiar lyrics were somehow more profound and full of a deeper meaning. The last song, “You Can’t Hide These Lyin’ Eyes” finished amid general merriment. Lucy popped out the tape.

“Are there any more tapes?”

“Hits of the Seventies?” Marlene offered.

“Yuck!” Lucy popped the glove, came up empty, looked on the floor behind the front seat.

“Here’s one,” she said, retrieving it.

“That’s not music,” said Marlene. “And put your belt back on!”

Lucy did so and looked at the plain black tape. The label had nothing on it but a numbered date. “What is it, then?”

“Oh, it’s like a lesson. Wolfe listens to it while he drives. It sort of helps him to be … I guess, better at his job.”

“I want to hear it,” said Lucy, and thrust it into the slot.

Click. Hiss. “You’re wrong, it is too music,” said Lucy.

Marlene jammed on the brakes so hard that her rear wheels fishtailed and Tranh had to swerve to avoid her as he pulled up on the shoulder behind. She turned off the engine and dashed back to the trunk. With shaking hands she inserted the key and jerked up the lid, revealing two long boxes of tape cassettes. She inspected a few, but knew beforehand what they were: commercial tapes and bootleg tapes from concerts, everything Edie Wooten had ever recorded.

Tranh came running up. “What is the matter? Has the car broken down?”

“No, and there’s no time to explain. We have to get back to the island immediately.” She slammed the trunk down and ran to take the wheel. The Caprice roared onto the road, tires shimmying on the slick pavement.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” asked Lucy as the car passed a truck at seventy in the face of incoming traffic, and the outraged horns blared.

“What’s wrong is I’m an idiot,” said Marlene tightly, half to herself. “Of course it was Wolfe. It was sticking in my face from the time I read his application. He was a security guard at Tanglewood, and the Music Lover letters started just after that. I let him into her apartment-of course he had the keys, he could come and go as he pleased. The night in Juilliard, same thing. Christ! I saw Robinson, and it never occurred to me that-shit! And when he came in the other night, he didn’t have to climb any walls-Sweety would’ve licked his hand. Conway Twitty, my ass!” She actually banged the heel of her hand against her forehead. She was puzzled about what she was feeling. A disaster like this … but somehow she found it hard to take seriously, as if a barrier had appeared between her and the world of feeling.

“Wolfe is really a bad guy?” asked Lucy, confused.

“Yeah, and he’s probably sitting in there right now because we left her alone with my famous guard dog. I was so damn focused on Robinson and that stupid sister …” She giggled, and Lucy shot her an odd look.

It was pouring when they reached the marina, and a sharp northeasterly wind was whipping up a strong chop in the channel. Wooten Island was invisible in the gray. The manager of the marina had wisely shut down for the day, put his rental motors away, and battened down his day sailors and Boston Whalers. In such situations visitors to Wooten Island were supposed to call from a pay phone at the foot of the marina dock so that Mr. Marney could come in with the island speedboat. Marlene did so and got a “temporary out of service” recording.

She explained the situation to Tranh, after which he said, in French, “You are not to blame, Marie-Helene. He was a plausible villain. I had no suspicions myself, and I am suspicious of nearly everyone. In any case, I presume you do not wish to involve the police.”

Marlene felt a surge of gratitude. Somehow Tranh understanding this made it all right. Police. It would be a zoo. Heiress held hostage by hired guard. End of business. Karp, his anger and disapproval. But now, she thought, it would all work out, simply and neatly. She felt full of power, as if rays of energy coursed from her head. She could even see the rays, a pale purple tingling to rose at the edges. She felt a warmth in her limbs and stomach, as if anticipating some good thing. The nasty day suddenly seemed brighter. “Right,” she said. “Our mess, our cleanup.” She laughed. Tranh looked at her strangely and said, “I will prepare one of these boats,” indicating the seventeen-foot Fiberglass day sailors.

“Oh, a sailboat,” she cried. “We’ll sail to the isle. Can you sail?”

Again the quizzical expression, blended now with worry. “I am not sure. I have only sailed from Nha Trang to Luzon in the Philippines. But the boat was smaller.” He jumped “down into the white craft, hauled the sails out of the cuddy, and began to bend the mainsail to the mast. “Lucy! Come help me!” He lifted the child down from the dock. He handed her the jib and showed her where it snapped to the fore-stay and jib sheets. Marlene was dancing along the dock, kicking at puddles. She studied the iridescence of some spilled oil. It was amazing that she had never noticed that you could make pictures in the spilled oil. No, not make pictures, the oil was showing her messages, vital messages, messages of cosmic significance, if only she could work them out.

She stared into the glistening pool. Images of battles and palaces appeared; weird hierarchical figures swam to the surface and mouthed oracles. Yes, all of this she had thought to be reality was merely a cover, and made sense only if you knew the secret. The interplanetary secret. She dropped to her knees, studying it, full of wonder. It was all perfectly clear.

A man grasped her arm, a man who was Tranh yet not Tranh, who had a golden face and coruscations of red fire darting from his head. She let him lead her to the ship. How clever of them to disguise the star vessel as an ordinary sailboat! She went aboard and allowed herself to be placed on a seat in the cockpit. There was a small figure there too, shining like mother of pearl, speaking to her in a language she could not understand. She smiled back at the figure and closed her eyes so she could help to navigate across the stars.

“Lucy, listen to me,” Tranh said in Cantonese as he cast off the lines and kicked the bow away from the dock. “Your mother is not well. Has she taken a drug or fallen and hit her head?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Lucy in a quavering voice. “She just had some lemonade and a ham and cheese sandwich that Mrs. Marney made.”

“And did you eat this food too?”

“Uh-huh, but the lemonade was too sour.”

“Did you meet anyone on the beach?”

“Just that doctor, the bad one. He was waiting for us by our blanket. Sweety chased him away.”

“Wah! This must be the answer. Some drug. Lucy, she will not be able to help me with Wolfe, and I will not be able to do all necessary things by myself. So you must be a brave girl and help me.” He had her get herself and her mother into life jackets, dropped the centerboard, and showed her how to work the jib sheets. Then he sheeted in, and the boat began to move rapidly across the bay in the stiffening breeze.

When they were past the stone breakwater, the boat took the full force of the surge and the twenty-five-knot easterly wind that was blasting up the Sound. Lucy gave a little cry as the boat heeled over on its beam ends. Tranh steadied it, eased the main-sheet, and set out on a broad reach toward Wooten Island. Marlene rolled off her seat and onto the deck of the cockpit. Her eyes were still closed, and she had a blissful smile on her face. They were all soaked to the skin from the rain and spray, and Lucy had started to cry, the tears invisible against her wet face. The island was still lost in the rain, but Tranh had a superb sense of direction. Many times he had taken boats through the mangrove marshes of the Mekong Delta at night, in the teeth of enemy patrols. When he judged it proper, he tacked, Lucy letting fly the jib sheet at his command. The boat whipped about. Marlene rolled languidly across the deck to the lee bulkhead. A gray mass appeared ahead of them, and in a few minutes Tranh spotted the flagpole at the foot of the Wooten Island dock. Tranh brought the boat alongside, tied its bow and stern lines to cleats, rummaged through Marlene’s straw bag for her pistol and spare magazine, and lifted Lucy out of the boat. Marlene he covered with a spare sail and left her where she lay, smiling to herself between Proxima Centauri and Arcturus.