The Best American Mystery Stories 2018

Louis Bayard BANANA TRIANGLE SIX ^{from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine}

Friday lunches were boiled as a rule, and today’s was no exception. With a feeling of numb resignation, Mr. Hank Crute guided his fork around the slab of corned beef, the bed of wild rice, the clutch of blanched green beans. His hand trembled just a hair as he let the fork drop to the table and pushed the plate away.

“Not hungry anyway,” he announced, to no one in particular.

Some days, indeed, he ate so little he was amazed to find himself still alive. Some days the only reason to get out of bed was so they wouldn’t come knocking for him. One of those stern Eritrean gals reminding him he had less than half an hour of breakfast left.

“Get a move on, Mr. Hank!”

For after breakfast, they would remind him, there was Morning Chairobics and a bus trip to CVS and the weekly meeting of the Card Club. And later on the Scrabble Club and the Scrapbooking Society and, still later, the Sing Along ’n Snacks Social and the ring toss and Twilight Walk with Miss Phyllis.

“Oh, and don’t forget! Hair styling from Miss Desdemona!”

Never mind that Hank Crute had gone eighty-four years on God’s earth without requiring a hair stylist. This was the kind of place that would foist activity on you whether you wanted it or not. As he sat staring at the ruin of his lunch, Hank grew a little dizzy thinking of all the places he was supposed to be or not supposed to be—the wheels that were already in motion on his behalf, ferrying him from one part of the Morning Has Broken facility to another without taking him anywhere.

He closed his eyes. Waited for some hard intention to contract out of the darkness.

My room, he thought.

Gripping the rim of the table, he edged his chair out and rocked himself to standing, only to see that another plate had materialized alongside the plate he had just pushed away. Almost identical, right down to the forked trails in the rice and the splayed green beans.

A prickle of terror climbed the back of his neck. Surely he hadn’t actually gotten two plates for himself? Surely someone had joined him along the way. Someone whose name and face he had temporarily forgotten (as he was always doing). What other reason could there be for two plates of boiled food?

With a lurch, he took a step back and surveyed his surroundings. Among the semiambulatory and near-bedridden residents of Morning Has Broken, Hank took no small pride in being able to travel without walker or wheelchair, but that lonely eminence meant that sometimes he had to stand for upward of a minute orienting himself, and even after plunging forward, he might have no clear suspicion of where he was heading. As often as not, he would wait for something to rear up before him before concluding that this was the very thing toward which he had been tending.

In this manner, he came upon the elevator.

And concluded that yes, this was just where he’d been traveling. He was—he remembered now!—going back to his room. And once there, he would take a nap and forget all about corned beef and wild rice and lunch companions who slipped away when you weren’t looking. It was a treacherous world.

He stabbed the Up button with his index finger, listened for the rumble of the car. A light flared above him, and the elevator doors exhaled open. So intent was he on bustling inside that he very nearly collided with a woman who was equally intent on leaving. For several seconds they stood regarding each other.

“Why, it’s Mr. Hank,” she said at last. “Good morning.”

Her lips were dark and shrunken. Her walker rested on punctured tennis balls.

“It’s afternoon,” he said.

“So it is.”

She wasn’t moving.

“I’m Mrs. Sylvia,” she said.

“I know who you are.”

It was one of the curious things about this place that the residents only knew each other reliably by first name. Possibly Mrs. Sylvia had once divulged her last name, but that secret lay buried.

“You should come to the movie matinee today,” she said. “It’s a Stewart Granger movie.”

“Who?”

“Stewart…” She had a flash of panic, wondering if she’d gotten it wrong. “Stewart Granger.”

“Little bushed,” he mumbled.

“Nothing a fifteen-minute snooze wouldn’t fix.”

“Could be.”

“Will I see you at dinner?” asked Mrs. Sylvia.

“That’s as may be.”

She was still watching him when the doors closed.

He let out a current of air and leaned back against the wood paneling. From somewhere in the not-distant past, a mocking voice (whose?) came curling back. “Man at your age, still able to walk. Why, you must be the rooster in the henhouse.” He never felt less like a rooster than in the company of Mrs. Sylvia. Or any of the other widows who tried to cajole him into Bingo Night or wine, cheese, and crossword socials. He could remember some old crone flashing her aquamarine rings at him and crooning, “It’s not right for a man to be alone. It’s all right for a woman, but not for a man.”

Well, it was all right for this man.

He must have dozed for a second, because when he next opened his eyes, the elevator doors were wide open and the gold-and-royal-green carpet of the ninth floor spread before him. Taking care to lift his sneakers clear of the shag, he traveled past the two wing chairs, past the vague seascape, turned the corner, and made his way to number 932, nearly at the end of the hall.

On the sconce alongside his door was a bud vase with a single white artificial carnation. Above the sconce an embossed nameplate: HENRY CRUTE. He had long ceased to notice it. The only nameplates he ever noticed were the ones that went away. Vanished overnight, some of them, leaving nothing but a rectangular outline on the wall.

Once inside, he stood for a moment gripping the door handle, then tottered toward his red corduroy armchair—collapsed into it with a despairing grunt. By habit his eyes swung toward his prescription-pill dispenser on his coffee table. Those seven small chambers with their soothing litany: M, T, W, TH, F, S, SU.

Pills, he thought. Had he taken his pills?

But his eyelids were already scrolling down, and in the grayness that swirled through him, not a single definite proposition could be entertained—until something that was not gray broke through, sharp and clear.

A voice.

Hank opened his eyes. A woman was standing over him.

That fact was so overladen with surprise that it very nearly mastered him. How had she gotten in? Had he left the door open? Had he been so unpardonably sloppy as that?

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Hank,” she said. “I was wondering if you had a moment.”

He made to lever himself out of his chair, but even as she said, “Don’t get up,” he was already falling back.

“How are we doing today?” she said.

She was young. On the lower side of her thirties, he would have thought (though he could no longer trust himself on this score). She wore a smart lab coat, with a nametag pinned over her coat pocket and over her shoulder a leather satchel.

“I’m Dr. Landis,” she said.

Next moment she was extending a clean, strong white hand, ringless. He held the hand briefly in his, felt the pulse of warmth beneath its lightly veined skin.

“If you say so,” he said.

“I believe we had an appointment.”

“We did?”

“I believe so.”

“No one said anything to me.”

“Um…” She slid some kind of phone contraption out of her coat pocket; her fingers gavotted across the screen. “Hank Crute… one o’clock to one fifteen… Yep, I got it right.”

She was smiling at him now. Nothing too gaudy, the lightest pearling of teeth.

“I’ve got loads of appointments,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Can’t be bothered to write them all down. I’d be doing nothing else.”

“Shall I sit here?” she asked, lowering herself decorously onto his bed. His face pinked, but just as he began to protest, he recalled there was nowhere else in the apartment for anyone to sit.

“We’ve met before,” said Dr. Landis.

“I meet a lot of people.”

“Well, to refresh your memory…” She gently dragged the coffee table into the space between them. “I’m the head clinician. And one of my jobs is to track the—the cognitive function among our residents.”

“Why?”

“Because we want to make sure everyone at Morning Has Broken is healthy and happy and ready to roll.” The words were chirpy, but the voice was cool, and the eyes were softly appraising. “So if it’s all right, Mr. Hank, we’re just going to run a few simple tests.”

He said nothing.

“We’ll be done before you know it,” she said, “and you can get on with your afternoon.”

“I hope so,” he answered gruffly, wondering in the same breath how many times he had met this woman. How long had she even been working here? A month… a year…

“Mr. Hank? May we proceed?”

He curled his lip and folded his arms across his chest. “Get on with it.”

She reached into her leather satchel, drew out three cards, and laid them on the coffee table.

“Now, Mr. Hank, each card has a word printed on it.”

“I have eyes.”

“Can you please read the words for me? Left to right.”

“Banana. Triangle. Six.”

“And again?”

“Oh, for… Banana. Triangle. Six.”

“Very good,” she said, sweeping the cards back into the bag.

“That wasn’t so hard,” he muttered.

“No, it wasn’t. Now in a few minutes I’m going to ask you to repeat them back to me, all right?”

“Fine.”

Quickly and with minimum fuss, she took out a clipboard, lined with gridded paper, and uncapped a ballpoint pen.

“Mr. Hank, can you tell me what day it is today?”

“What do you mean, day?”

“Day of the week.”

Normally the question would have panicked him, but it so happened that the smell of corned beef was still on his skin, and from there the inferential chain was startling in its efficiency. Corned beef was boiled beef. Boiled beef was boiled food. Boiled food was…

“Friday!”

He spit the word out with such force she actually drew back an inch. But the look of self-possession never wavered.

“That’s correct. Now maybe you can tell me the date.”

“Maybe I can.”

“As in month and date.”

“Let me think about that and get back to you.”

“Okay.”

Her hand sloped across the clipboard, leaving a trail of words in its wake.

“Do we do this every month?” he asked.

“Yes indeed.”

“So the next time you come… that’ll be Friday.”

Pathetic, he knew. Clinging to his sole triumph.

“I’ll be back on the twenty-fifth,” she said. “Which will beee…” Her fingers once more set to dancing across her phone screen. “Sunday. But I take your point, Mr. Hank. Hey, can you tell me the name of our president?”

He blinked at her. “President?”

“Yes.”

“Of what?”

“The United States.”

“Ohh…” His mouth contracted to a point. “So many to choose from. I mean, there was Nixon and Reagan. Kennedy.”

“That’s true.”

“What’s to separate one from the other? They’re all crooks.”

The tiniest flutter on Dr. Landis’s lips. “But only one of those crooks is currently our president.”

“Well, you can…” His hands made a shooing motion. “You can take the whole lot, for all I care. And don’t even ask me who my congressman is. I haven’t voted in ten years. Bunch of shysters.”

Dr. Landis’s pen hovered gently over the paper.

“What state do you live in, Mr. Hank?”

“Virginia.”

“What town?”

“Falls Church.”

“I believe that’s where you last lived.”

“They may be calling it something else. I still call it Falls Church.”

She contemplated him for a brief time, then set her pen down.

“Now, Mr. Hank. Just a few minutes ago I showed you three words. Can you tell me what they were?”

“Three words,” he said noncommittally.

“That’s right.”

“I’m sure you said a lot more than three words.”

“I didn’t say them, Mr. Hank. I showed them to you.”

“Sure you did.”

“I’ll give you the first word. It’s banana.”

“Banana,” he said. “That’s ridiculous. Why would you… there’s not a banana in sight.”

“I didn’t show you an actual banana. I just showed you the word.”

“Well, what good is a word if it—if it doesn’t have a thing attached to it? That’s just crazy talk.”

He felt her dry, light, unsurprisable gaze. “The next word was triangle,” she said.

“Well, I mean, these are not words I use in daily conversation. I mean, I don’t eat bananas. I don’t… I don’t come into contact with triangles. I mean, if you’d said rectangles…”

He was conscious that every word that came out of his mouth dug him in deeper. Yet wouldn’t silence do the same? His hands, for want of instruction, began to rake the arms of his chair, leaving little furrows in the corduroy.

“I’m kind of tired, you must know.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are, Mr. Hank, and I do appreciate how hard you’ve been working. I just had one last question for you.”

“Make it quick.”

“What’s your wife’s name?”

“My…” His breath lodged just shy of his larynx. “My wife.”

“That’s right.”

His hands spidered around his knees.

Very deliberately now, he angled his eyes away from her.

“Take your time,” she said.

“I don’t need to. I don’t need to take my time. Asking me about my wife. That’s goddamn rude is what it is. Why don’t I ask you about your husband?”

“I’m not married, Mr. Hank.”

“Well, there you are,” he said, with an air of finality.

The silence fastened around them now like manacles.

“I know the name of my wife,” he said. “I just don’t care to share it with you.”

“Do you know if she’s alive or dead, Mr. Hank?”

“Well, she’s not here, is she?”

That much he was sure of. If she were here, she’d be here, in this fifteen-by-fifteen square. But no matter where his eyes darted, there was no sign of another. He interrogated the remote control resting by his foot. The pair of reading glasses, slightly bent, on the bedside table. The row of tan Sansabelt slacks hanging in his closet. Over by the door, the pair of galoshes that sat waiting for him day after day (though he rarely went outside and never in the rain). Each object irretrievably and ruinously his.

Hank palmed his eyes shut. He thought, If I concentrate hard enough, I can make this woman go away. I can make this whole thing stop. I can…

“Silly me!”

Her voice in that moment was so different from what it had been—so sweet and disarming—that his eyes immediately sprang open, as if seeking reprieve. And there she was, smiling as sweetly as any woman had ever smiled.

“You didn’t get a fighting chance, Mr. Hank.”

“How… how’s that?”

“You didn’t take your meds.”

Instinctively his gaze swerved back to the medication dispenser on the coffee table. There, in Friday’s chamber, lay the usual troika: white, yellow, and blue. Untouched. Unconsumed.

“Well, Christ!” he shouted. “I could’ve told you that!”

Before she could stop him, he snatched the pills and dry-swallowed them. “There!” he cried, shoving the container away.

Dr. Landis had already averted her eyes, as if he had just started to undress himself. She was still looking away when she said, “Why don’t we give it a few minutes to kick in?”

“Why the hell not?”

Here, he decided, was one benefit of getting old. You weren’t obliged to make conversation. You could just sit in silence. Indeed, as the minutes passed, the only sound was the pattering of his Timex quartz on the bathroom washbasin. (Why hadn’t he worn it?) If anything, it was the light that was making noise. Bright one moment, gray the next. He could’ve sworn he was nodding off, but every time he looked over at Dr. Landis, she was exactly as he had left her, patient and abiding.

“You don’t remember me,” she said at last.

“Sure I do.”

“Then you remember what we talked about. The last time we talked.”

“Naturally.”

“Then you won’t be surprised to learn how sorry I am.”

His confusion registered now as a dull ache, rising up from his extremities and gathering in the joints.

“What’ve you got to be sorry for?” he demanded. “I’m the one ought to be—”

“When it comes to this part,” she said, “I’m always sorry.”

There was, in fact, a new warmth in her hazel eyes. A warmth too in her white hand, pressing on his.

“We only have a few minutes,” she said.

For what? he was going to ask, but she was speeding straight on.

“Now if you promise not to get up or cry out, I’m going to show you a piece of paper. Is that all right with you?”

“Like I’ve got a choice,” he grumbled.

“It’s a piece of writing, okay?”

She drew out a sheet of taupe stationery, folded in half. With soft fingers, she spread it out on the coffee table.

“Hank, I’m going to ask if you recognize the handwriting.”

But he misunderstood. He thought she was asking if he knew how to read. As if he could forget that! D. E. A. R. Dear. H. A. N. K. Hank. Dear Hank.

Why, it was a letter to him. Of course it was.

“You should keep reading,” she said.

This is you talking, Hank. YOU.

He frowned down at the words. Noted the strange curlicue of the h, the heavy dot over the i, the rather showy underswoop of the y. It was his own cursive, staring back at him.

“This… this doesn’t…”

But as his fingers glided across the page, he realized they were moving in perfect synchronicity with each letter. Forming each word as it came.

With an inrush of air, he heaved his head back up. “I don’t…”

“Keep reading, Mr. Hank.”

Kids. Kids…

Stop reading, he told himself. Stop.

But his eyes, without his volition, kept scanning, and his brain, that fevered contraption, kept interpreting, and the words rolled on… .

His breath was growing ragged now as he raised his eyes to the woman on his bed.

“You… you don’t work here at all.”

She smiled softly, shook her head. “I work for an organization called Timely Endings. You don’t remember, but you contacted us two years ago.”

“But… but who gave you this letter? Who told you to—”

She pointed to the bottom of the page. There, like some childish prank, lay his own name, in his own hand.

As real as anything could be. So real that everything around him grew more preposterous the more he contemplated it. Corned beef and Mrs. Sylvia and Stewart Granger. Bingo Night and hair styling with Miss Desdemona. The cord that bound him to Morning Has Broken, to waking and sleeping, had without another thought been severed. There was nothing to do now but drift.

From somewhere in the slipstream he could hear Dr. Landis’s not-unsympathetic voice. (“We always make sure our clients write their own letters in advance. Just so they know it was their idea. It’s always their idea.”) He could see—just barely see—her soft white hands refolding the stationery, returning it to her leather satchel. (“Your account is paid in full, and there won’t be any problem with medical examiners.”) He could feel the air vibrating around her slender alabaster form as it rose. (“And of course your children will know nothing. We are the soul of discretion.”) For a time she seemed to be floating away with the rest of his world, until suddenly, shockingly, she was kneeling beside him.

“Hank,” she whispered. “This is what you wanted. When you still knew what you wanted.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t…”

I didn’t want this.

But what was this? What was not this? There was no way of separating one from the other.

“It’s all right,” she said, her breath stirring against his cheek. “I’ll stay with you.”

In that moment, how beautiful she loomed (though he could no longer see her, though he had forgotten her name). Her creamy white hands, pressed snugly over his. Her face, soft and plangent, parting now before another face. A face he recognized from the moment he saw it… parting now by the tiniest of fractions to emit a name…

Celia.

Dear God, it had been there all along. Her name. And with it a whole caravan of sensory data. A smell of sage. A crimson mouth. A drily tickled voice. Hair feathered across a pillow.

Celia. Celia.

If he could just speak it, he might yet stay tethered to the here and now. He might buy himself another month, another year. But his tongue had thickened into a slab, and his throat had dried to flint, and his lungs were crouching like beggars over their last remnants of air. So that when the end came for Mr. Hank Crute, his wife’s name was nothing more than soundless drops, bathing his stilled brain.

Among the Morning Has Broken residents, no one took the news of Mr. Hank’s death harder than Mrs. Sylvia. She told anyone who would listen that she and the late gentleman had enjoyed a special rapport. Only minutes before he died, he had promised to escort her to the Stewart Granger movie and then to dinner. How sad, and at the same time how fitting and beautiful, that hers should have been the last face he saw.

In the ensuing weeks Mrs. Sylvia went on at such length about Mr. Hank that one of her dinner cronies was moved to crack, “If he liked you so much, why didn’t he put a ring on it?” Not long after that, Mrs. Sylvia’s bridge club, weary of her exhibitions, replaced her with a less tiresome fourth and suggested she try her hand at blackjack or canasta. Mrs. Sylvia took the more dignified course of retreating to her room, where she sat in silence for hours at a time, conjuring memories of her departed lover, whose name and face were already blurring into something satisfyingly indeterminate.

In this pose she was interrupted one day by a visitor, who stood over her (had she forgotten to close the door?) with a leather satchel and an air of cool but not chilly professionalism.

“Mrs. Sylvia? I was wondering if you had a moment.”