Now and Then

12 .

Isat at the counter and sipped a scotch and soda, tall glass, a lot of ice, to support the two I’d had with Epstein. I liked to drink alone in the quiet room. This was widely held to be the hallmark of a problem drinker, but since I rarely drank too much, and since I could drink or not drink as circumstance dictated, I was able to relax about it, and have a couple of drinks alone, and have a good time.

Susan was in New York overnight for a conference and Pearl was visiting me. I had fed her when I got home, and taken her out, and now she was on her couch looking at me without censure. Pearl II was a solid brown German shorthaired pointer like her predecessor. Thanks to the magic of selective breeding, she was, in fact, very much like Pearl I, which was sort of the idea. A way to manage mortality a little. She loved Susan and me, and running, and food, and maybe Hawk, but it was never clear to me in what order. I raised my glass to her.

“Here’s looking at you, yellow eyes,” I said.

She thumped her short tail a couple of times.

“Epstein is not being entirely open,” I said.

Pearl settled her head on the arm of the couch so that she could look at me without the effort of raising her head. Her eyes weren’t really yellow, they were more golden, or topaz. But Here’s looking at you, topaz eyes didn’t have the same ring.

“He knew who Perry Alderson was.” I took a drink. “And I bet he knows what Last Hope is.”

Pearl II was almost five now. She had been with us long enough so that the transition had become nearly seamless. It was diffi cult to remember which Pearl had done what with us.

“And he sure as hell is going to look into both of them.”

My drink was gone. I got up and made another one.

“Epstein’s also going to nose around quietly and see if he can fi nd out which agent is having problems with his wife.”

I wondered why I didn’t just dump it all in Epstein’s lap. The bureau has its ups and downs, but Epstein was an up. And he had resources. Far more than I did.

“The poor bastard,” I said.

Pearl gazed at me blankly.

“Doherty,” I said.

Pearl lapped her muzzle once.

“Adultery happens,” I said. “Hell, it happened to me.”

I drank again.

“’Cept we weren’t exactly married, so I guess technically it wasn’t adultery.”

It sounded to me as if maybe technically came out as tenichly. Fortunately Pearl didn’t know the difference, and had she known, she wouldn’t have cared anyway.

“But that was a long time ago,” I said.

Pearl seemed to have lost interest. She shifted onto her back with her feet up and her head lolling over the edge of the couch.

“Even before Pearl the First,” I said.

I got up and found a lamb shank in the meat keeper. I put it in a casserole dish with some carrots and onions and some small red potatoes. I sprinkled in some oregano and a splash of white wine, put the cover on, and slid it into the oven at 350. I set the timer for an hour, made myself another drink, and took it with me while I walked to my front window and looked down at Marlborough Street. It was empty. But not very dark. The streetlights had an effect and it was still early enough in the evening for the lights to be on in front windows and that brightened things as well. I liked the look of it, of the light spilling domestically from front windows while people ate late supper together and maybe shared a bottle of wine.

“She’ll be home tomorrow,” I said to Pearl.

The recent winds had shaken some of the leaves loose from the trees. The trees weren’t bare yet. But they were in the process. There was an occasional wind still stirring and, now and then, it scattered some of the leaves along the sidewalk. It made me think of a poem. I looked back at Pearl, whose position was 49 such that her ample jowls had fallen away from her rather signifi cant teeth. It had been a long time ago, more than twenty years, since Susan had gone off for a time. In the long run the episode had been good for us both. And we had healed stronger at the break. That was then, this is now. That was us, not Mr. and Mrs. Doherty.

“A thing is what it is, and not something else,” I said aloud in the rich silence of my apartment.

I looked out at Marlborough Street for a while. At the wedge of the Public Garden I could see across Arlington Street. I sipped my drink. I rarely got drunk. But rarely is not never. Then I looked back at Pearl, who was now asleep.

“Or maybe it is Margaret that I mourn for,” I said to her.