More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

THE COMMUTER

Monday started out bad.

Charles Monroe was on the 8:11 out of Greenwich, his usual train. He was juggling his briefcase and coffee — today tepid and burnt tasting — as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to get a head start on his morning calls. It brayed loudly. The sound startled him and he spilled a large comma of coffee on his tan suit slacks.

“God damn,” he whispered, flipping open the phone. Monroe grumbled, “’Lo?”

“Honey.”

His wife. He’d told her never to call on the cell phone unless it was an emergency.

“What is it?” he asked, rubbing the stain furiously as if the anger alone would make it vanish.

“Thank God I got you, Charlie.”

Hell, did he have another pair of trousers at the office? No. But he knew where he could get one. The slacks slipped from his mind as he realized his wife had started crying.

“Hey, Cath, settle down. What is it?” She irritated him in a lot of ways — her incessant volunteering for charities and schools, her buying bargain-basement clothes for herself, her nagging about his coming home for dinner — but crying wasn’t one of her usual vices.

“They found another one,” Cathy said, sniffling.

She did, however, often start talking as if he were supposed to know exactly what she meant.

“Who found another what?”

“Another body.”

Oh, that. In the past several months, two local residents had been murdered. The South Shore Killer, as one of the local rags had dubbed him, stabbed his victims to death and then eviscerated them with hunting knives. They were murdered for virtually no reason. One, following what seemed to be a minor traffic dispute. The other was killed, police speculated, because his dog wouldn’t stop barking.

“So?” Monroe asked.

“Honey,” Cathy said, catching her breath, “it was in Loudon.”

“That’s miles from us.”

His voice was dismissing but Monroe in fact felt a faint chill. He drove through Loudon every morning on his way to the train station in Greenwich. Maybe he’d driven right past the corpse.

“But that makes three now!”

I can count too, he thought. But said calmly, “Cath, honey, the odds’re a million to one he’s going to come after you. Just forget about it. I don’t see what you’re worried about.”

“You don’t see what I’m worried about?” she asked.

Apparently he didn’t. When Monroe didn’t respond she continued, “You. What do you think?”

“Me?”

“The victims have all been men in their thirties. And they all lived near Greenwich.”

“I can take care of myself,” he said absently, gazing out the window at a line of schoolchildren waiting on a train platform. They were sullen. He wondered why they weren’t looking forward to their outing in the city.

“You’ve been getting home so late, honey. I worry about you walking from the station to the car. I—”

“Cath, I’m really busy. Look at it this way: He seems to pick a victim once a month, right?”

“What?…”

Monroe continued, “And he’s just killed somebody. So we can relax for a while.”

“Is that… Are you making a joke, Charlie?”

His voice rose. “Cathy, I really have to go. I don’t have time for this.”

A businesswoman in the seat in front of him turned and gave him an angry glance.

What’s her problem?

Then he heard a voice. “Excuse me, sir?”

The businessman sitting next to him — an accountant or lawyer, Monroe guessed — was smiling ruefully at him.

“Yes?” Monroe asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you’re speaking pretty loud. Some of us are trying to read.”

Monroe glanced at several other commuters. Their irritated faces told him they felt the same.

He was in no mood for lectures. Everybody used cell phones on the train. When one would ring, a dozen hands went for their own phones.

“Yeah, well,” Monroe grumbled, “I was here first. You saw me on the phone and you sat down. Now, if you don’t mind…”

The man blinked in surprise. “Well, I didn’t mean anything. I was just wondering if you could speak a little more softly.”

Monroe exhaled a frustrated sigh and turned back to his conversation. “Cath, just don’t worry about it, okay? Now, listen, I need my monogrammed shirt for tomorrow.”

The man gave him a piqued glance, sighed and gathered up his newspaper and briefcase. He moved to the seat behind Monroe. Good riddance.

“Tomorrow?” Cathy asked.

Monroe didn’t actually need the shirt but he was irritated at Cathy for calling and he was irritated at the man next to him for being so rude. So he said, more loudly than he needed to, “I just said I have to have it for tomorrow.”

“It’s just kind of busy today. If you’d said something last night…”

Silence.

“Okay,” she continued, “I’ll do it. But, Charlie, promise you’ll be careful tonight coming home.”

“Yeah. Okay. Gotta go.”

“’Bye—”

He hit disconnect.

Great way to start the day, he thought. And punched in another number.

“Carmen Foret, please,” he told the young woman who answered.

More commuters were getting on the train. Monroe tossed his briefcase on the seat next to him to discourage anybody else’s sitting there.

A moment later the woman’s voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey, baby, it’s me.”

A moment of silence.

“You were going to call me last night,” the woman said coolly.

He’d known Carmen for eight months. She was, he’d heard, a talented real estate broker and was also, he supposed, a wonderful, generous woman in many ways. But what he knew about her — all he really cared to know — was that she had a soft, buoyant body and long, cinnamon-colored hair that spread out on pillows like warm satin.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, the meeting went a lot later than I thought.”

“Your secretary didn’t think it went all that late.”

Hell. She’d called his office. She hardly ever did. Why last night?

“We went out for drinks after we revised the deal letter. Then we ended up at the Four Seasons. You know.”

“I know,” she said sourly.

He asked, “What’re you doing at lunch today?”

“I’m doing a tuna salad sandwich, Charlie. What’re you doing?”

“Meet me at your place.”

“No, Charlie. Not today. I’m mad at you.”

“Mad at me? ’Cause I missed one phone call?”

“No, ’cause you’ve missed about three hundred phone calls since we’ve been dating.”

Dating? Where did she get that? She was his mistress. They slept together. They didn’t date, they didn’t go out, they didn’t court and spark.

“You know how much money I can make on this deal. I couldn’t mess up, honey.”

Hell. Mistake.

Carmen knew he called Cathy “honey.” She didn’t like it when he used the endearment with her.

“Well,” she said frostily, “I’m busy at lunch. I may be busy for a lot of lunches. Maybe all the lunches for the rest of my life.”

“Come on, babe.”

Her laugh said: Nice try. But he wasn’t pardoned for the “honey” glitch.

“Well, you mind if I come over and just pick up something?”

“Pick up something?” Carmen asked.

“A pair of slacks.”

“You mean, you called me just now because you wanted to pick up some laundry?”

“No, no, babe. I wanted to see you. I really did. I just spilled some coffee on my slacks. While we were talking.”

“Gotta go, Charlie.”

“Babe—”

Click.

Damn.

Mondays, Monroe was thinking. I hate Mondays.

He called directory assistance and asked for the number of a jewelry store near Carmen’s office. He charged a five-hundred-dollar pair of diamond earrings and arranged to have them delivered to her as soon as possible. The note he dictated read, “To my grade-A lover: A little something to go with your tuna salad. Charlie.”

Eyes out the window. The train was close to the city now. The big mansions and the little wannabe mansions had given way to row houses and squat bungalows painted in hopeful pastels. Blue and red plastic toys and parts of toys sat in the balding backyards. A heavyset woman hanging laundry paused and, frowning, watched the train speed past as if she were watching an air show disaster clip on CNN.

He made another call.

“Let me speak to Hank Shapiro.”

A moment later a gruff voice came on the line. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Hank. It’s Charlie. Monroe.”

“Charlie, how the hell’re we coming with our project?”

Monroe wasn’t expecting the question quite this soon in the conversation. “Great,” he said after a moment. “We’re doing great.”

“But?”

“But what?”

Shapiro said, “It sounds like you’re trying to tell me something.”

“No…. It’s just things’re going a little slower than I thought. I wanted to—”

“Slower?” Shapiro asked.

“They’re putting some of the information on a new computer system. It’s a little harder to find than it used to be.” He tried to joke, “You know, those old-style floppy disks? They called them file folders?”

Shapiro barked, “I’m hearing ‘little slower.’ I’m hearing ‘little harder.’ That’s not my problem. I need that information and I need it soon.”

The morning’s irritations caught up with Monroe and he whispered fiercely, “Listen, Hank, I’ve been at Johnson, Levine for years. Nobody has the insider information I do except Foxworth himself. So just back off, okay? I’ll get you what I promised.”

Shapiro sighed. After a moment he asked, “You’re sure he doesn’t have any idea?”

“Who, Foxworth? He’s completely in the dark.”

A fast, irritating image of his boss flickered in Monroe’s thoughts. Todd Foxworth was a large, quirky man. He’d built a huge ad agency from a small graphic design firm in SoHo. Monroe was a senior account executive and vice president. He’d risen about as far as he could in the company doing account work but Foxworth had resisted Monroe’s repeated suggestions that the agency create a special title for him. Tension sat between the men like a rotting plum and over the past year Monroe had come to believe that Foxworth was persecuting him — continually complaining about his expense account, his sloppy record keeping, his unexplained absences from the office. Finally, when he’d gotten only a seven percent raise after his annual review, Monroe’d decided to retaliate. He’d gone to Hunter, Shapiro, Stein & Arthur and offered to sell them insider client information. The idea troubled him at first but then he figured it was just another way of collecting the twenty percent raise that he thought he was due.

Shapiro said, “I can’t wait much longer, Charlie. I don’t see something soon, I may have to cut bait.”

Crazy wives, rude commuters…. Now this. Jesus. What a morning.

“This info’ll be grade-A gold, Hank.”

“Better be. I sure as hell am paying for gold.”

“I’ll have some good stuff by this weekend. How ’bout you come up to my country place and you can look it over. It’ll be nice and private.”

“You got a country place?”

“I don’t broadcast it. Fact is, well, Cathy doesn’t know. A friend and I go up there sometimes…”

“A friend.”

“Yeah. A friend. And she’s got a girlfriend or two she could invite up if you wanted to come.”

“Or two?”

Or three, Monroe thought but let it go.

A long silence. Then Shapiro chuckled. “I think she oughta bring just one friend, Charlie. I’m not a young man anymore. Where is this place?”

Monroe gave him directions. Then he said, “How ’bout dinner tonight? I’ll take you to Chez Antibes.”

Another chuckle. “I could live with that.”

“Good. About eightish.”

Monroe was tempted to ask Shapiro to bring Jill, a young assistant account exec who worked at Shapiro’s agency — and who also happened to be the woman he’d spent the evening with at the Holiday Inn last night when Carmen had been trying to track him down. But he thought: Don’t push your luck. He and Shapiro hung up.

Monroe closed his eyes and started to doze off, hoping to catch a few minutes’ sleep. But the train lurched sideway and he was jostled awake. He stared out the window. There were no houses to look at anymore. Only sooty, brick apartments. Monroe crossed his arms and rode the rest of the way to Grand Central Station in agitated silence.

The day improved quickly.

Carmen loved the earrings and she came close to forgiving him (though he knew full restitution would involve an expensive dinner and a night at the Sherry-Netherland).

In the office, Foxworth was in a surprisingly cheerful mood. Monroe had worried that the old man was going to grill him about a recent, highly padded expense account. But not only did Foxworth approve it, he complimented Monroe for the fine job he’d done on the Brady Pharmaceutical pitch. He even offered him an afternoon of golf at Foxworth’s exclusive country club on Long Island next weekend. Monroe had contempt for golf and particular contempt for North Shore country clubs. But he liked the idea of taking Hank Shapiro golfing on Foxworth’s tab. He dismissed the idea as too risky though the thought amused him for much of the afternoon.

At seven o’clock — nearly time to leave to meet Shapiro — he suddenly remembered Cathy. He called home. No answer. Then he dialed the school where she’d been volunteering recently and found that she hadn’t come in today. He called home once more. Still she didn’t pick up.

He was troubled for a moment. Not that he was worried about the South Shore Killer; he just felt instinctively uneasy when his wife wasn’t home — afraid that she might find him with Carmen, or whoever. He was also reluctant for her to find out about his deal with Shapiro. The more money she knew he made the more she’d want. He called once more and got their machine.

But then it was time to leave for dinner and, since Foxworth had left for the night, Monroe ordered a limo and put the expense down to general office charges. He cruised downtown, sipping wine, and had a good dinner with Hank Shapiro. At eleven p.m. he dropped Shapiro off at Penn Station then took the limo to Grand Central. He caught the 11:30 to Greenwich, made it to his car without being stabbed by any knife-wielding crazy men and drove home to peace and quiet. Cathy’d had two martinis and was fast asleep. Monroe watched a little TV, fell asleep on the couch and slept late the next morning; he made the 8:11 with thirty seconds to spare.

At nine-thirty, Charlie Monroe strode into the office, thinking: Monday’s over with, it’s a new day. Let’s get life moving again. He decided to spend the morning getting into the new computer system and printing out prospective client lists for Shapiro. Then he’d have a romantic lunch with Carmen. He’d also give Jill a call and charm her into drinks tonight.

Monroe’d just stepped into his office when Todd Foxworth, even more cheerful than yesterday, waved to him and asked him if they could have a chat. An ironic thought occurred to Monroe — that Foxworth had changed his mind and was going to give him a good raise after all. Would he still sell the confidential info? This was a dilemma. But he decided, hell, yes, he would. It’d make up for last year’s insulting five percent raise.

Monroe sat down in Foxworth’s cluttered office.

It was a joke in the agency that Foxworth didn’t exactly carry on a coherent conversation. He’d ramble, he’d digress, he’d even make up words. Clients found it charming. Monroe had no patience for the man’s scattered persona. But today he was in a generous mood and smiled politely as the rumpled old man chattered like a jay.

“Charlie, a couple things. I’m afraid something’s come up and that invite for golf this weekend? I know you’d probably like to hit some balls, were looking forward to it, but I’m afraid I’ve got to renege on the offer. Sorry, sorry.”

“That’s okay. I—”

“Good club, Hunter’s is. You ever play there? No? They don’t have a pool, no tennis courts. You go there to play golf. Period. End of story. You don’t play golf, it’s a waste of time. Of course there’s that dogleg on the seventeenth… nasty, nasty, nasty. Never near par. Impossible. How long you been playing?”

“Since college. I really appreciate—”

“Here’s the other thing, Charlie. Patty Kline and Sam Eggleston, from our legal department, you know ’em, they were at Chez Antibes last night. Having dinner. Worked late and went to dinner.”

Monroe froze.

“Now I’ve never been there but I hear it’s funny the way the place’s designed. They have these dividers, sort of like those screens in Japanese restaurants, only not Japanese of course because it’s a French restaurant but they look sort of Japanese. Anyhoo, to make a long story short they heard every word you and Hank Shapiro said. So. There you have it. Security’s cleaning out your desk right now and there’re a couple guards on their way here to escort you off the property and you better get yourself a good lawyer because theft of trade secrets — Patty and Sam tell me this; what do I know? I’m just a lowly wordsmith — is pretty damn serious. So. Guess I won’t say good luck to you, Charlie. But I will say get the hell out of my agency. Oh, and by the way, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you never work on Madison Avenue again. ’Bye.”

Five minutes later he was on the street, briefcase in one hand, cell phone in the other. Watching boxes of his personal effects being loaded into a delivery truck destined for Connecticut.

He couldn’t understand how it’d happened. Nobody from the agency ever went to Chez Antibes — it was owned by a corporation that competed with one of Foxworth’s big clients and so it was off limits. Patty and Sam wouldn’t have gone there unless Foxworth had told them to — to check up on Monroe. Somebody must’ve blown the whistle. His secretary? Monroe decided if it was Eileen, he’d get even with her in a big way.

He walked for several blocks trying to decide what to do and when nothing occurred to him he took a cab to Grand Central.

Bundled in the train as it clacked north, speeding away from the gray city, Monroe sipped gin from the tiny bottle he’d bought in the club car. Numb, he stared at the grimy apartments then at the pale bungalows then mini estates then the grand estates as the train sped north and east. Well, he’d pull something out of the situation. He was good at that. He was the best. A hustler, a salesman…. He was grade-A.

He cracked the cap on the second bottle, and then the thought came to him: Cathy’d go back to work. She wouldn’t want to. But he’d talk her into it. The more he thought about it the more the idea appealed to him. Damn it, she’d hung out around the house for years. It was his turn. Let her deal with the pressure of a nine-to-five job for a change. Why should he have to put up with all the crap?

Monroe parked in the driveway, paused, took several deep breaths, then walked into the house.

His wife was in the living room, sitting in a rocking chair, holding a cup of tea.

“You’re home early.”

“Well, I’ve got to tell you something,” he began, leaning against the mantel. He paused to let her get nervous, to rouse her sympathies. “There’s been a big layoff at the agency. Foxworth wanted me to stay but they just don’t have the money. Most of the other senior people are going too. I don’t want you to be scared, honey. We’ll get through this together. It’s really a good opportunity for both of us. It’ll give you a chance to start teaching again. Just for a little while. I was thinking—”

“Sit down, Charles.”

Charles? His mother called him Charles.

“I was saying, a chance—”

“Sit down. And be quiet.”

He sat.

She sipped her tea with a steady hand, eyes scanning his face like searchlights. “I had a talk with Carmen this morning.”

His neck hairs danced. He put a smart smile on his face and asked, “Carmen?”

“Your girlfriend.”

“I—”

“You what?” Cathy snapped.

“Nothing.”

“She seemed nice. It was a shame to upset her.”

Monroe kneaded the arm of his Naugahyde chair.

Cathy continued, “I didn’t plan to. Upset her, I mean. It’s just that she’d somehow she got the idea we were in the process of getting divorced.” She gave a brief laugh. “Getting divorced because I’d fallen in love with the pool boy. Where’d she get an idea like that, I wonder?”

“I can explain—”

“We don’t have a pool, Charles. Didn’t it occur to you that that was a pretty stupid lie?”

Monroe’s hands slipped together and he began worrying a fingernail. He’d almost told Carmen that Cathy was having an affair with a neighbor or with a contractor. Pool boy was the first thing that came to mind. And, yes, afterwards he did think it was pretty stupid.

“Oh, if you’re wondering,” Cathy continued, “what happened was someone from the jewelry store called. They wanted to know whether to send the receipt here or to Carmen’s apartment. By the way, she said the earrings were really tacky. She’s going to keep them anyway. I told her she ought to.”

Why the hell had the clerk done that? When he’d placed the order he’d very explicitly said to send the receipt to the office.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

“You’re right, Charlie. I think it’s probably a lot worse.”

Monroe walked to the bar and poured himself another gin. His head ached and he felt stuffy from too much liquor. He swallowed a mouthful and set the glass down. He remembered when they’d bought this set of crystal. A sale at Saks. He’d wanted to ask for the clerk’s phone number but Cathy had been standing nearby.

His wife took a deep breath. “I’ve been on the phone with a lawyer for three hours. He seemed to think it won’t take much longer than that to make you a very poor man. Well, Charlie, we don’t have much more to talk about. So you should pack a suitcase and go stay somewhere else.”

“Cath… This is a real bad time for me—”

“No, Charles, it will be bad. But it’s not bad yet. Good-bye.”

A half hour later he was finished packing. As he trudged down the stairs with a large suitcase Cathy studied him carefully. It was the way she examined aphids when she spritzed them with bug spray and watched them curl into tiny dead balls.

“I—”

“Good bye, Charles.”

Monroe was halfway to the front hall when the doorbell rang.

He set the suitcase down and opened the door. He found two large sheriff’s deputies standing in front of him. There were two squad cars in the driveway and two more deputies on the lawn. Their hands were very close to their pistols.

Oh, no. Foxworth was pressing charges! Jesus. What a nightmare.

“Mr. Monroe?” the largest of the deputies asked, eyeing his suitcase. “Charles Monroe?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“I wonder if we could talk to you for a moment.”

“Sure. I — What’s the matter?”

“Can we come in?”

“I, well, sure.”

“Where you going, sir?”

He suddenly realized that he didn’t have a clue.

“I… I don’t know.”

“You’re leaving but you don’t know where?”

“Little domestic problem…. You know how it is.”

They stared at him, stone-faced.

Monroe continued. “I guess I’m going to the city. Manhattan.”

Why not? It was as good a place as any.

“I see,” the smaller deputy said and then glanced at his towering partner. “Out of state,” he said significantly.

What did he mean by that?

The second deputy asked, “Is this your MasterCard number, Mr. Monroe?”

He looked at the slip the officer was holding out. “Uhm, yes it is. What’s this all about?”

“Did you place a mail order yesterday with Great Northern Outdoor Supplies in Vermont?”

Great Northern? Monroe had never heard of them. He told the officers this.

“I see,” said the large cop, not believing him.

“You do own a house on Harguson Lake outside of Hartford, don’t you?”

Again he felt the sizzling chill in his spine. Cathy was looking at him — with a look that said nothing would surprise her any longer.

“I—”

“It’s easy enough to check, sir. You may as well be honest.”

“Yes, I do.”

“When did you get it, Charles?” Cathy asked in a weary voice.

It was going to be a surprise… Our anniversary… I was just about to tell you…

“Three years ago,” he said.

The shorter of the deputies persisted, “And you didn’t have an order sent by Great Northern via overnight delivery to the house on that property?”

“An order? No. What order?”

“A hunting knife.”

“A knife? No, of course not.”

“Mr. Monroe, the knife you ordered—”

“I didn’t order any knives.”

“—the knife ordered by someone claiming to be Charles Monroe and using your credit card and sent to your property was similar to the knives that’ve been used in those murders in the area.”

The South Shore Killer…

“Charlie!” Cathy gasped.

“I don’t know anything about any knives!” he cried. “I don’t!”

“The state police got an anonymous tip about some bloody clothes on the shore of Harguson Lake. Turned out to be your property. A T-shirt from the victim two days ago. We also found another knife hidden near the T-shirt. Blood on it matches blood from the victim killed two months ago near Route fifteen.”

God, what was going on?

“No! This is a mistake! I’ve never killed anyone.”

“Oh, Charlie, how could you?”

“Mr. Monroe, you have the right to remain silent.” The large deputy continued with the rest of the Miranda warning, while the other slipped the cuffs on him.

They took his wallet from his pocket. His cell phone too.

“No, no, let me have the phone! I get to make a call. I know I do.”

“Yeah, but you have to use our phone, sir. Not yours.”

They led him outside, fierce grips on his biceps. Struggling, panicky. As they approached the squad car Monroe happened to look up. Across the street was a slightly built man with sandy hair. A pleasant smile on his face, he leaned against a tree as he watched the excitement.

He seemed very familiar…

“Wait,” Monroe cried. “Wait.”

But the sheriff’s deputies didn’t wait. They firmly shepherded Monroe into the back of their car and drove out of the driveway.

It was as they passed the man and Monroe glanced at him from a different angle that he recognized him. It was the commuter — the one who’d sat next to him on the train yesterday morning. The rude one who’d asked him to be quiet.

Wait… Oh, no. No!

Monroe began to understand. The man had heard all of his conversations — with Shapiro, with Carmen, the jewelry store. He’d taken down the names of everyone Monroe’d been talking to, taken down his MasterCard number, the name and address of his mistress and the details of his meeting with Hank Shapiro… and the location of his house in the country! He’d called Foxworth, he’d called Cathy, he’d ordered the hunting knife….

And he’d called the police too.

Because he was the South Shore Killer…

The man who murders because of the least affront — a fender bender, a barking dog.

With a wrenching gesture, Monroe twisted around and saw the man gazing at the receding squad car.

“We have to go back!” Monroe shouted. “We have to! He’s back there! The killer’s back there!”

“Yessir, now if you’ll just shut up, we’d appreciate it. We’ll be at the station house in no time.”

“No!” he wailed. “No, no, no!”

As he looked back one last time he saw the man lift his hand to his head. What was he doing? Waving? Monroe squinted. No, he was… He was mimicking the gesture of holding a telephone to his ear.

“Stop! He’s there! He’s back there!”

“Sir, that’ll be enough outta you,” the large deputy said.

A block behind them, the commuter finally lowered his hand, turned away from the street and started down the sidewalk, walking briskly in a contented lope.