Indignation-rage-terror: for a moment her reactions trample one another and she only stares.
Then a swift instinct takes charge. You’ve got to behave like a real person.
Indignation, then.
“What on earth are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“Well.” A furtive smile; he withdraws his hand from the closet and faces her. “I didn’t think you were going to turn up.”
“Obviously.” She says it with bite.
Then she steadies her voice: “You’ve got about five seconds to explain this before I call the police.”
He’s trying to regain his composure: straightening up, rearing back on his dignity. “I don’t think you want to do that.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You’re breaking and entering. What in the hell is the meaning of this?”
She’s glaring at him with unfeigned animosity and she’s thinking:
You’ve got to play this all the way through. Stay innocent. Don’t let the son of a bitch rattle you. Find out what he wants-find out what he knows-but don’t give away a thing.
He lets the silence go on a beat too long. She says, “All right, Graeme, I’m calling a cop,” and turns as if to go.
“Don’t do that, Miss Jennifer nonexistent Hartman.”
Anticipating the effect of the statement he attempts a smile. It is too sickly to achieve the swaggering effect he intends.
He says, “I’ve come by here four nights running. You don’t live here. Nobody lives here.”
He waits for her response. She gives him none-only a hooded anger.
“It’s a front-it’s a blind.” His voice is rising. “I want to know what for.”
She watches him bleakly. If you’ve ever thought fast in your life, do it now.
She says, “You make a habit of burglarizing people’s apartments, do you?”
“I haven’t stolen anything. I thought I’d find out something. And I did.” He gestures toward the open closet. “Those things don’t even fit you. You must’ve bought them so fast you didn’t bother to see what size they were.”
“For a reporter you’re not very observant.”
“No? Very well-then just for fun let’s see you walk around the room in any of the shoes in there. Go ahead. Show me.”
Her heart is skipping beats; she’s faint now. She covers it by crossing to the island of the kitchenette and resting her weight on an elbow on the pretext of poking into the fridge; she takes out a can of vegetable juice and pops the ring top off it and slams the fridge door and drinks.
When her head stops swimming she says, “I don’t owe you anything-least of all explanations-but I’m tired and I want you out of here. All right. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you there may be some significance in the fact that they’re all the same size, even if it’s not my size?”
She slams the can down on the counter and wheels to face him with virulent wrath. That much isn’t feigned; but nor is it uncalculated. She knows she’s got to take control and hold it.
“Listen to me. I’ll try to do this in simple language that even you can understand. I’m subletting to a friend and she’s out of town and I just stopped in to pick up the mail and check things out.”
She moves toward the door. “So much for your mystery. Now if you’re all through sniffing around in that closet-”
He shouts at her: “Where do you live then, ducky? Where do you hang your pretty little hat that you’re too bashful to use it as your legal address?”
“Where and how I live is none of your business.”
He continues to shout, trying by sheer volume to intimidate her. “Who’s paying your rent? What’s the guy’s name? I can see him-the thousand-dollar suits and the Rolls-Royce-some honcho with a society wife at home and a ten-million-dollar image to protect. Tell me the bastard’s name, ducky. Tell me his fucking name!”
The very question pegs him: now she understands. He smells a profit in this. He sees his chance to blackmail someone.
Well then-why not let him think it? Let him go right on assuming she’s the well-kept mistress of a politician or movie mogul. Let him put his nose to the ground and follow that lead as far as he’d like: let him outsmart himself.
She says: “I owe you nothing-least of all information. I know the law. Would you like me to tell you the penalty for breaking and entering? It’s a felony, you know.”
He’s not meeting her glance. She puts her hand on the doorknob and goes on, driving it in: “You’re slime. I can’t stand the sight of you. I don’t want to see you ever again. I don’t want to hear from you. If you want to hang around with Doyle and Marian, do it when I’m not there.”
“Your name doesn’t even need to come into it. You’re a confidential source. Nobody’ll pry your name out of me, not even with a writ. Now all I want to know is who he is.”
“Believe me, you can’t afford to know the answer to that question. It could kill you.”
“Don’t be melo-”
“Get out now, Graeme-or I call a cop.”
His mouth begins to assume a disgusted expression of defeat; he even slouches a few paces toward her-toward the door. But then cunning returns.
His mouth curls into a smile that is more like a snarl:
“Go ahead and phone. I shouldn’t be surprised if they’re just as interested as I am to find out how come Jennifer Hartman was born two months ago. How come there isn’t a trace of her in existence before that. No credit rating, no Social Security account, no driver’s license in California or Illinois. You did say you came out here from Illinois, didn’t you, ducky?”
He leans forward to peer furiously at her. “I think there’s a story in you. Quite possibly a big story.”
She manages somehow to give him a slow cool smile. “Even if your ridiculous suspicions were true, there’s no crime in any of that. On the other hand you broke in here and I ordered you out but you’re still here …”
She walks wide around him, making her way to the telephone, watching him, knowing she’s got to carry the bluff all the way.
He pivots on his heels to keep her in front of him. She picks up the receiver and dials the operator and meets his eyes icily while she listens to it ring.
“Operator? Get me the police, please. It’s an emergency.”
“Put it down,” he says. “I’m leaving.”
But she holds it to her ear. A voice comes on the line: “Police Department. May I help you?”
“I’d like to report a breaking and entering in progress. The address is fifty-one sixty-sev-”
By now he’s got the door open and he’s gone through it and she watches it slam behind him. She hangs up the phone and realizes she’s hyperventilating but she has the presence of mind to walk unsteadily across to the window and pry the blind back.
He’s halfway down the stairs. He doesn’t look up.
He descends out of sight. A few moments later she hears the slam of a car door and the belch of a sports car muffler.
Oh dear God. What am I going to do now?