The Crimes of Jordan Wise

NONE OF IT would have happened if I hadn't met Annalise. Sure, I know—that's the way a lot of stories start. Mister, I met a man once. Mister, I met a woman once. You go along living a normal life, more or less on the moral high road, and then you meet the wrong person and suddenly everything changes and you find yourself losing control, running against the wind. It's almost a cliche. Hell, it is a cliche.

But it wasn't like that with me. Annalise was no Circe-like temptress luring me to ruin. The reverse was true, in fact. I was the one in the helmsman's seat all along. The tempter on the first crime, the prime mover on all three. She was the catalyst. If it hadn't been for her, I wouldn't have and couldn't have done any of them.

Yet I didn't corrupt her, any more than she corrupted me. I don't believe one person can corrupt another by intent alone. I think you have to be born with the capacity to commit acts of what some might term moral anarchy; to possess a dark side that you might not even be aware of until the right set of circumstances reveals it. If you meet another person who has the same sort of dark side, as Annalise and I did, fusing the two spreads the darkness through both, until they're consumed by it. Like when you mix chemical agents that individually are harmless but that together produce a volatile reaction.

I was thirty-four when I met her, the summer of 1977. But before I get to that, I should give you a little background on those first thirty-four years of my life, so you'll understand the man I was then.

Born and raised in Los Alegres, a small town north of San Francisco. Father a cabinetmaker, mother a clerk in an arts and crafts store. I was their only child, a surprise change-of-life baby—they were both forty-two when I was born and had long since given up any hope of having a family. You might think, given my sudden arrival, that they'd have lavished a great deal of love and affection on me, but you'd be wrong. It wasn't that they resented me, or that they didn't care; it was that I was a new and difficult complication at a point in their lives when they could least afford another one. They were hardworking, gray little people who'd spent the years of their marriage in a constant struggle to maintain a comfortable lower middle-class existence. Before I was born my father developed a lung disease that ate up most of their savings and kept him from working more than two or three days a week. My mother had to quit her job to take care of me. There was no family member on either side to help out, and no money to hire someone to do it.

So I grew up in a shabby rented house with no frills—a radio instead of a TV, few toys, no books because my parents had no interest in reading. Just enough food to keep from going hungry, just enough clothing to keep me warm and dry, just enough of everything to get by. I grew up listening to long silences broken now and then by mild complaints and heavy sighs and my old man's dry, consumptive coughs. I grew up pretty much alone.

School wasn't much better. I didn't make friends easily—too quiet, too shy. Average student, except for mathematics, the one subject I excelled in. All types of math, anything to do with numbers and calculations. That's the kind of mind I have. Logical, deliberate, precise. Give me an equation in algebra or trigonometry or calculus, and sooner or later I'll work out the answer. Present me with a nonarithmetical problem to which I can apply the principles of mathematics, and the same is true. There has never been any conundrum, no matter how difficult, that I haven't been able to solve. That gift is the central reason my three crimes remain perfect to this day.

My father died when I was a senior in high school. My mother was so tightly bound to him that she went into an immediate decline and died four days after my graduation. Both of them had small life insurance policies that they'd managed to keep up the premiums on. I was my mother's beneficiary, and there was a little left from my father's policy as well—a total of about five thousand dollars. I took this money, and another few hundred from the sale of my parents' meager possessions, and moved to San Francisco.

The only career option that seemed both worthwhile and affordable was accountancy, so I enrolled at Golden Gate University to pursue a BA; they offered a very good accounting program and had a reputation for placing their top graduates in well-paid positions. I found a studio apartment on the fringe of the Tenderloin, I took a part-time job to help with expenses, and I spent most of my free time studying. The hard work paid off. When I graduated I was second in my class and highly regarded by my professors.

I was hired at the first place I applied to, as a clerk in the accounting department of Amthor Associates. You may have heard of Amthor—a large San Francisco-based engineering firm along the lines of Bechtel Corporation, with the same sort of worldwide activity. I applied myself there as determinedly as I had at Golden Gate University and received my first promotion, to junior accountant, in less than three years. Over the next ten years I worked my way up to assistant chief in charge of accounts payable, at an annual salary of $37,000 with health benefits and stock options.

By then I had moved into a comfortable one-bedroom apartment on the lower slope of Russian Hill. I owned a three-year-old Ford, a small portfolio of conservative stocks, a twenty-one-inch TV, a stereo system to satisfy my taste for classical music, a closet filled with Arrow shirts and Roos Atkins suits, and a shelf of books about sailing and seafaring adventure, subjects that had interested me since my teens. I ate dinner fairly often in medium-priced restaurants. I went to an occasional movie or play or symphony performance, alone or sometimes with a date. Sports bored me; I left the only baseball game I attended before it was half over. I paid no attention to politics, or to what was going on in remote places like Vietnam. (I'd avoided the draft out of high school because my vision is less than perfect and I had an inner-ear problem that made me prone to mild dizzy spells.) I was sympathetic to human rights and environmental causes, but never to the point of activism. I lived in a tight little world of my own choosing. I was neither happy nor unhappy. I had few experiences and no expectations, and so there was little to judge happiness by.

Most of the time I was accepting of my life, if not completely content with it. It was what it was; I was what I was. But there was a restlessness in me, a vague, persistent yearning for something else, something more. I thought I'd like to learn how to sail, but I never got around to doing anything more than daydreaming about it. I had other daydreams, too, usually triggered by a book or magazine article or TV show: faraway places, islands in the sun, tropical breezes and sunset voyages on dark blue water, a life of luxury and ease. I made tentative plans for trips to Tahiti and the Caribbean, but I didn't follow through on those either; faraway places seemed too expensive and too far away. The only vacation I took outside California was six days on Maui. It wasn't what I'd expected and I had a lousy time.

This Life I was leading, by conservative standards, was exemplary. By other standards it was pedestrian, dull, empty. I broke no laws of any consequence, I paid my bills and taxes on time, I was a model citizen by every measure. The only difference between me and millions of other model citizens was that I had never been married and I lived alone, not so much by choice as because I'd never met anyone I cared to share my life with. That, and inertia.

Not that I led a monkish existence. There were women before Annalise, a few casual relationships. Some women seem to like quiet men of average height, average weight, average looks; men who wear glasses that give them a studious appearance. We come across as nonthreatening, I suppose. Blue eyes had something to do with it, too. My best feature, Annalise said, and she wasn't the first. Now and then one of the women would consent to go to bed with me, and this happened often enough to satisfy my normal carnal instincts if not theirs. I considered my instincts normal at the time, anyway, but I see myself now a lot more clearly than I did then.

None of the affairs lasted beyond a month, and I suspect one of the reasons is that I wasn't much of a lover. I'd never felt completely comfortable with my sexuality, had a fairly low sex drive as a result. I didn't get laid for the first time until I was nineteen, and it wasn't much of a confidence builder. I don't remember the girl's name or what she looked like. All I remember is her saying, "Not so fast, not so fast," and "Oh God, couldn't you wait," and thinking there must be something wrong with me because I wasn't able to do it right.

But for all of that, I was ripe for someone like Annalise. Not just someone to fall in love with, to fill the void in my life. A kindred spirit, a kind of female alter ego, even though I didn't realize it until months afterward. Alone I was nothing, would always have been nothing. With Annalise, because of Annalise, I was capable of anything, any possibility.

I met her at a wedding reception in Sausalito at the beginning of June. The groom was a young guy named Jim Sanderson who also worked for Amthor Associates, in the research and development division. I knew him casually—we'd had lunch together a few times, more by accident than design—so I was surprised when he included me among the dozen or so coworkers he invited to the reception. When the day came, I almost didn't go. I'd never felt comfortable in large crowds, among strangers; never been much good at small talk. At any sort of social gathering I tended to hide in corners or to wander around aimlessly, avoiding contact as much as possible. Sanderson and his bride both had large families and a broad circle of friends and acquaintances, very few of whom I knew.

But the day turned out bright and clear, balmy, and I didn't feel like holing up in the apartment and I didn't want to hurt Sanderson's feelings by not showing up—not that he'd have noticed. So I went. The reception was held at the Alta Mira Hotel, on the hill overlooking the waterfront and the bay. Tables groaning with food, an open bar, waiters circulating with glasses of champagne, a five-piece orchestra. The swarm of guests was as thick as bees in a hive, setting up the same kind of constant, pulsing buzz.

I located Sanderson and his bride and congratulated them. Then I filled a plate and snagged a glass of champagne and tried to find a corner to hide in. There wasn't any inside, so I wandered out to the far end of the terrace. I'd finished the food and champagne and was looking out over the harbor, about ready to make my escape, when a voice behind me said, "You look a little lost, standing there." I turned, and there she was.

The effect she had on me was cumulative, not immediate. The first two things I noticed were her size and how much hair she had. A couple of inches over five feet tall, so that I had to look down into her face; hair the color of dark honey and worn in a thick feathery wave the way Farrah Fawcett wore hers in Charlie's Angels, the top-rated TV show that year. Then: Nice smile. Lightly tanned and freckled skin. Brown eyes, heart-shaped face, a bump of a nose with a slight upward tilt. Slender body, small breasts, slim legs. White dress with a red flower pinned to it, and a string of pearls at her throat. It was minutes before I realized just how well her features blended into a harmonious whole, that she was close to being beautiful.

Usually I was at a loss for any kind of clever repartee; I don't think well on my feet. But that day I managed to summon a reasonably bright response.

"I was lost," I said, "but now I'm found."

"What? Oh," she said, and laughed. Nice laugh. Rich and deep, not one of those tinkly giggles that some small women have. Then her eyebrows pulled together and she said in serious tones, "Did you mean that Uterally?"

"Literally?"

"What you said about being found. The way it's meant in 'Amazing Grace.'"

"You mean am I religious?"

"If you're a born-again . . ."

"I'm not. Being born once was enough."

"Good. I have a problem with Holy Rollers."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"As long as you aren't one." She smiled again. "You know, this is a pretty odd conversation."

"I guess it is."

"Not that I mind. I find odd appealing—up to a point."

"Is that why you came over to talk to me?"

"No. Because you looked like a lost stray."

"I don't deal well with crowds," I said.

"Shy?"

"You could say that."

"I'm just the opposite. Outgoing. I love parties, the bigger the better." She sipped from the glass she was holding. "Champagne, too. But I think I've about had my limit. What's your limit?"

"One or two glasses. I'm not much of a drinker."

"Mine's five or six. This is number six."

She was a little drunk, I realized then. There was a flush across her cheekbones, and the brown eyes had a glaze.

I asked her if she was a friend of the bride or groom, and she said, "Neither. Friend of a friend who went to school with the bride. You?"

"I work for the same company as the groom."

"Which company would that be?"

"Amthor Associates. In the city."

"That's an engineering firm, isn't it?"

"Yes." I didn't tell her what I did at Amthor and I was glad she didn't ask. Some people equate being an accountant with being dull, uninteresting, and the fact that I fit the stereotype embarrassed me in situations like this. "What do you do?"

"I'm a buyer for Kleinfelt's. The department store. Well, assistant buyer. Women's lingerie."

"That sounds interesting."

"Actually," she said, "it's a pretty shitty job."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Bad Annalise," she said. "Six glasses of champagne makes me say and do things I shouldn't."

"Annalise. That's an unusual name. Euphonious."

"What's that, euphonious?"

"It means pleasing to the ear. What goes with Annalise?"

"Bonner. Is your name euphonious?"

"I doubt it. Jordan Wise."

"You're right, it's not. Are you a wise Wise?"

"Not as often as I'd like to be," I said.

"Me, either. Who is? Well, Bert is. Thinks he is, anyway."

"Who would Bert be?"

"The fellow I came with. But he seems to have disappeared."

"Boyfriend?"

"Jury's still out on that. Why? Are you interested?"

"Yes," I said. Bold. And I'd never been bold before. She brought that out in me right from the first. "I'd like to see you again."

"Are you asking me for a date?"

"Lunch, dinner, a movie, whatever you like."

She thought about it, her head tipped to one side. "Well, maybe," she said. "Jury's still out on that, too."

"When will there be a verdict?"

"After due deliberation. Which just began, so it might take a while. You never know with juries."

"How do I find out?"

That was as far as it went. She didn't have a chance to respond, because another voice said loudly, "Annalise, there you are," and a blue-eyed blond guy, half a head taller and a yard wider than me, came barreling up. He didn't even glance at me; as far as he was concerned, I wasn't even there. "I've been looking all over for you. Come on, there's somebody I want you to meet." He took hold of her arm and started tugging on it.

It cought me flatfooted. I didn't have a chance to say anything more. She smiled at me and shrugged as if to say "What can you do?" and let him drag her off into the crowd.

I felt a rush of anger at the blond guy. Asshole! Yanking on her like that, taking her away! But the anger didn't last long. The dull acceptance that had characterized so much of my life replaced it. So what's the big deal? I thought. She'd probably have said no anyway. Forget it. Forget her.

But I hung around the reception for another half hour, working my way through the crowd. Annalise was gone, or at least I didn't see her anywhere. Finally I left and drove home, feeling flat, putting the flatness down to the crush of strangers even though she was still on my mind. She stayed on my mind the rest of the day, and I dreamed about her that night.

Forget her? Even then, at some level, I knew I never would.

It took me nearly a week to work up the nerve to call her. I would've done it sooner if she'd had a listed phone number, but she didn't and nobody I knew who'd been at the reception knew her. I was reluctant to call her at her job. Amthor Associates frowned on personal calls on company time, and I thought Kleinfelt's Department Store would probably feel the same. But it was either that or give up without trying, so I rode the elevator to the lobby on my morning coffee break and called Kleinfelt's on one of the public phones.

She answered with her last name and a Miss in front of it. I identified myself and said that we'd met at the Sanderson reception on Saturday—"Lost and found, if you remember."

"I remember," she said. Not as if she were glad to hear from me, but friendly enough. "I didn't have that much champagne."

"I was wondering," I said, "if the jury has come in yet."

"Jury?" Then she got it and it made her laugh. "Oh, the jury. Bight. Well, let's see. Which case were you interested in?"

"Mainly the one involving me."

"Mmm. Just now, as a matter of fact."

"What's the verdict?"

"In favor of the plaintiff, I think. Why don't you call me again tonight to confirm it?"

She gave me her home number. And when I called her that night, she confirmed the favorable verdict. She was busy Friday and Saturday, but Sunday would be all right for dinner as long as it wasn't a late evening.

She lived in an eight-unit apartment building near Golden Gate Park and the University of California Medical Center. I picked her up there and we went to Castagnola's on Fisherman's Wharf for dinner and then to the Top of the Mark for drinks. Annalise wore white again—a white flared skirt and a pale-blue-and-white blouse under a white jacket. If white is a color, it was her favorite, with pale blue a close second. She drew a lot of male eyes. Being with her made me feel proud and privileged and a little possessive, feelings I'd never had with any other woman.

It wasn't like most first dates: there was no awkwardness between us. She was as easy to talk to as she had been at the wedding reception—naturally gregarious, so comfortable in her own skin she put you at ease right away. She talked freely about herself, but without the constant ego focus of a lot of attractive women. She was twenty-six. She'd grown up in Visalia, in the Central Valley. Her father, a career soldier, had been killed in Korea when she was a baby; her mother died two years later, she wouldn't say from what. She and her younger sister, Ariane, had been raised by their mother's sister—"one of those religious fanatics who quote the Bible fifty times a day and think all men are sex fiends and girls shouldn't be allowed to wear makeup or date before the age of twenty." That was the source of her dislike of Holy Rollers. The aunt had dominated her husband, treated her nieces like "a couple of heathen slaves." Annalise's sister had been brainwashed into following the same path—she ran a Christian day care center in Visalia—but Annalise had moved out and away as soon as she was of age. She'd gotten a sales clerk's job at Kleinfelt's in Fresno, showed initiative, was promoted, applied for and was given the assistant buyer's job at the store's main branch in San Francisco, and moved to the city three years ago.

She didn't like the job; she used the word "shitty" again. It was demanding, time-consuming, barely paid enough for her to afford her apartment. She was on the lookout for something better, more challenging, in the fashion industry. Not as a buyer; as a designer of women's clothing. Her ambition was to move into the world of high fashion. She'd designed dozens of outfits in her spare time, a few of which she felt were quality work, but so far she hadn't had any luck in interesting a potential buyer. Not even Kleinfelt's, she said with some bitterness.

Eventually we got around to me. My background sounded pretty mundane when I related it. When she asked what I did at Amthor, as I was afraid she would, I told her the truth. She took it well enough, but I could tell she was disappointed, that she'd hoped I was a design engineer or even a junior executive. I couldn't Ue to her, either, about whether I had ambitions to be anything other than an accountant. I had none at that time, beyond a promotion to chief accountant someday, and I said as much.

I didn't try to kiss her good-night when I took her home. I felt I was on shaky ground as it was and I didn't want to do anything that might make her like me less. When I asked if I could see her again, I half expected her to say no. But all she said was "Call me."

I waited two days. It was a big relief when she agreed to another date. Saturday night, this time—a step up on her social calendar. My self-esteem was low enough for me to wonder why a woman as attractive and desirable as Annalise would bother with somebody like me. Pity, maybe? Or maybe a quiet, average-looking numbers cruncher was a respite from the usual macho type she dated. It didn't really matter. All I cared about was seeing her again.

That night we ate at a French restaurant on the bay side of Powell Street. Drinks and dancing afterward in the Tonga Room at the Fairmont. She liked to dance close and the feel of her in my arms was as intoxicating as the mai tais we drank. The evening went well enough so that I risked a brief good-night kiss. She didn't object. "Call me," she said again before I left.

It went on like that for three months. I'd call her early in the week, and she'd tell me whether she was free and on which weekend night. Three weekends she was booked up, or said she was. I knew she dated other men; she'd been open about that. One of them was Bert, the big blond guy she'd been with at the reception. Was she sleeping with him, with any of the other men she saw? The one thing she didn't talk about was her love life, but it seemed certain she had one. She wasn't the virginal type. It made me jealous, but all I could do was bide my time and hope to be favored someday. Her game, her rules.

Usually we went out to dinner, then a nightclub or a movie or a show of some kind. Once we drove down to Half Moon Bay; the rest of the time we stayed in the city. After each date I kissed her goodnight, a couple of times lingeringly, but that was all. She didn't invite me into her apartment. I wanted desperately to make love to her, but I was afraid to suggest it or to make any aggressive moves that might lead to rejection. Twice, in the car afterward, the memory of her body pressed close and the taste of her mouth gave me a hard-on. I'd only masturbated three times in my life before then, in my teens, but on both those nights I gave in to the frustration and the need for release as soon as I got home. My attitude and my behavior seems ridiculous now, looking back. But that was the kind of man I was then. The kind of half-man I was then.

Things changed on the last in our string of dates. Annalise drank a fair amount of wine, and when I took her home, she returned my kiss with more passion than ever before and invited me in. We sat on the couch, began making out. Her hunger was as great as mine at first; her tongue worked into my mouth, she ran her fingers through my hair and moaned a little when I slid a fumbling hand over one breast. I was certain we would end up in her bedroom.

But it didn't happen. Without warning she put a stop to it. Pulled away, breathing hard, and said, "No, we can't do this, it's all wrong."

I said, "Why?" in a choked voice.

"It just is. Wrong for me, wrong for you."

"Annalise—"

"No. You'd better go, Jordan. Right now."

I went. What else could I do? I went with my heart racing and my pants bulging and my head full of confusion. Drove home, jerked off, lay in bed trying to understand. She wasn't a tease and she hadn't been faking her passion; she'd wanted me as much as I wanted her. Then why the sudden turn from hot to cold? Why was having sex wrong for us?

I found out the following week. I called her on Tuesday, as usual, and at first she said she was busy that weekend. Then she said, "No, that's not fair to you," and said she'd see me Friday night. Not for dinner; for a drink, at Perry's on Union Street, where we'd gone a couple of times before. After work, say six o'clock. No, she didn't want me to pick her up, she'd meet me there. I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong, but all she'd say was "We'll talk about it on Friday."

Bad week. I sensed what was coming. I tried to tell myself I was overreacting, but by the time I met her at Perry's I'd given up the pretense. She was already there, sitting in one of the booths with a glass of wine. As soon as I saw her, I knew what she was going to say—I knew it was over.

She waited until I'd ordered a drink for myself. Then she sighed and said, "There's no point in prolonging this. You've probably already guessed anyway. Jordan, I'm sorry, but I don't think we should see each other anymore."

"Why not?" I had myself under tight control, but the words still came out sounding weak and plaintive. "Somebody else? Bert?"

"No. I haven't seen him in more than a month. It's not that."

"Then why?"

"I'm a bitch, that's why."

"That isn't an answer."

"All right. Can you stand brutally honest?"

"Yes."

"I'm fond of you, I really am. More so than any other guy I've been out with in a long time. I can talk to you, you're gentle, you don't make demands. But that's not enough for me."

"Why isn't it enough?"

"You want an intimate, long-term relationship. So do I. But I don't see any way we can have one together. That's why I didn't go to bed with you last week. I wanted to, I wanted to give you that much, but I couldn't go through with it and then hurt you like I'm doing right now. I'm not that much of a bitch."

"I don't understand," I said. "Why can't we keep on seeing each other?"

She said, "We're a bad mix, that's why. You can't give me what I need out of life. And I can't give you what you need."

"That isn't true . . ."

"Oh yes it is. In the long run you're looking for a wife, kids maybe, a nice little house in the suburbs. Stability, security. Respectability. None of that suits me. I grew up in a household like that and I'd go crazy, do God knows what, if I tried to live that kind of life again. Even without the Bible-thumping. No, don't say it wouldn't have to be that way with you. It would. It's already heading in that direction and that's why I have to end it now. We go out, we do the same kinds of things, all our time together is nice and orderly and predictable. Sex would spice it up for a while, but then that would become nice and orderly and predictable too. It almost always does in a long-running relationship."

The words stung, even though she was speaking in a low, matter-of-fact voice. I could feel myself wincing under the lash of them.

"What do you want, Annalise?"

"I told you I was ambitious, didn't I? I want to be a fashion designer, live in New York or Paris. If I can't have that, I'll settle for enough money to live well and dress well and travel, and I don't much care what I have to do to get it."

"You don't mean that—"

"I do mean it. I've already done things that would shock you if I told you about them. You see? I know you, but you don't know me at all."

"You've never let me know you, never even hinted at any of this before."

"I should have. I came close more than once."

"Why didn't you?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter. The point is, now you know what a greedy bitch I am. And you might as well know what else I want that you can't give me: thrills, excitement. You may not believe this, Jordan, but a lot of the time I don't really feel alive. I feel like I'm on hold, or caged, or worst of all, as if I'm running in a wheel like a goddamn hamster. I ache to go places, do things that are exciting and dangerous—live on the edge so I can feel alive all the time. Can you understand that?"

"Yes."

"I mean really understand. I don't see how you can."

"I may be dull, but I'm not insensitive."

"No, you're not," Annalise said. "And you're not stupid or self-deluded, either. You're as aware as I am of what you are—a nice, quiet, unexciting accountant who'll never be anything else. That's your future, and I don't want any part of it. Now, is that enough for you or should I say more?"

I hated her in that moment. The hate flared hot, a white stabbing brilliance like a matchhead struck in a dark room. It burned bright for three or four seconds, flickered, went out and crumbled away into ashes. Left me feeling numb.

She finished her glass of wine. I heard her say, "We'd better leave now." I got up when she did and followed her outside, two paces behind like a dog at heel.

On the cold, windy sidewalk she said, "My car's just down the block. We might as well say good-bye right here."

I said, "Annalise, I love you."

"Oh, God. I don't want to hear that. You're only making it more difficult."

"I can't help how I feel. Please, won't you just—"

"I won't because I can't. We can't. There's nothing more for us, can't you just accept that?"

"I don't know, I can't think right now."

"Well, you'd better accept it, because that's the way it is." She took my face between her hands and leaned up and kissed me on the mouth, a cold dry kiss that left no taste of her at all. "Good-bye, Jordan. Have a good life."

I watched her walk away, thinking it might be the last time I would ever see her.

The thought was unbearable.

You hear a lot about love. All the psychological and physiological interpretations, the mystique manufactured and built up by Hollywood, fiction writers, ad agencies, greeting card companies. It's sexual attraction and raging hormones and the mating urge and the need to perpetuate the race. It's God's will. It's Cupid's arrow and hearts and flowers and Valentine's Day and sweet-sad songs and sappy movies. It's daydreams and night sweats and long-range plans and lavish weddings and paradise honeymoons. It's feeling as though you'd been hammered and walking around in a daze, or waking up some morning and grinning at yourself in the mirror and saying out loud, "Jesus Christ, I'm in love." It's being unable to eat or sleep or work. It's thinking you'll die or go crazy if what you're feeling isn't returned by the other person. It's this and that and a hundred other things.

And most of it is crap.

The simple truth is, you can't define love or put labels on it. It's an individual experience. You really have no idea of what it'll be until it happens to you, and even then you might not recognize it for what it is for a long time. I didn't. Neither the word nor the concept entered my head until "Annalise, I love you" popped out of my mouth on that cold sidewalk outside Perry's. Before then, she was just a woman who'd gotten under my skin a little deeper than most, a woman I yearned to sleep with and who would eventually pass out of my life whether I got into her or not. I thought about her a lot, I liked being with her and wanted to be with her more often, but that was as far as it went. I didn't walk around in a daze. My appetite was the same, I slept my usual seven hours almost every night, I crunched numbers at my desk with the same precision as always. Love? No way. I wasn't in love with Annalise Bonner.

Except that I was.

And that night I said it, and that night I admitted it to myself.

I'll tell you some of the things love was and is for me. The voice of my experience, the gospel according to Jordan Wise.

Love is that intolerable feeling of loss.

Love is as much suffering as it is joy.

Love is forced self-analysis, having to peel away the outer layers of self so you can see who you really are.

Love is dying and being reborn as something more and something less than you were before.

My rebirth didn't come immediately. I moped around all that weekend, still numb and hurting, and when I went in to work on Monday I must have looked pretty bad because two coworkers asked whether I was ill. I hid from them and the others in the office in columns of numbers and mathematical computations. I'd always been able to do that; mathematics is an orderly world, clean and simple, one in which I functioned supremely well. My retreat, my safe haven.

The fact that Amthor Associates' annual internal audit was scheduled for the next week made it even easier. The firm's fiscal year ran from September to September, the thirtieth of that month, and preparations for it and then the audit itself made for an extra busy time. The audit was mostly a routine procedure, conducted exclusively for tax purposes. The accounting department ran at a high level of efficiency, so there was never any problem aside from a few minor errors and discrepancies. No errors or discrepancies had ever been discovered in my records. My reputation as a skilled and completely trustworthy employee was the primary reason I had been promoted at a relatively young age to assistant chief and why I would be in line one day for the chief's position.

The idea came to me while I was preparing for the audit.

Every day in the office, I was responsible for the disbursement of thousands of dollars to subcontractors and suppliers, yet I'd never thought of stealing any of it. Never thought seriously, I should say. Once in a while a vagrant thought had crossed my mind. You know the kind I mean. Everyone has them, even people born without a dark side. Momentary impulses, little imps of the perverse that appear and disappear so quickly you hardly realize they're there. All that money going out and I'm the one controlling it. Good thing I'm an honest man, because it would be easy enough to turn dishonest. That sort of thing.

This time it wasn't just a stray thought. The idea came suddenly and clearly, not as idle speculation but like a revelation.

I could take some of the firm's money . . . a lot of the firm's money. A staggering amount, in fact, if it were done slowly and with great care. And it wouldn't be all that difficult to accomplish, given my position.

Enough money to do all the things I'd yearned to do.

Enough money to give Annalise everything she wanted.

I could still have Annalise.

It was a mad notion—I told myself that a dozen times. Siphon off thousands of dollars, embezzle it, steal it? I'd never stolen anything in my life. I was honest, I was loyal, I was too damn timid, I'd never be able to go through with it.

You're a nice, quiet, unexciting accountant who'll never be anything else.

Annalise had been right. No matter how much I rebelled against it, that was who I was and that was my future. I didn't blame her for pointing it out, or resent her for cutting me out of her life. How could I? If our positions had been reversed, I would probably have done the same thing.

But I couldn't get rid of the idea; it had already put down roots. The enormity of it and its potential consequences terrified me, yet at the same time it was fascinating, energizing. It gave me something to focus on, a way to lift myself out of the mire of depression and self-pity. All right, I thought, so I wasn't capable of actually doing it. I could still treat it as if I were. Determine whether or not it could be done. An intellectual exercise, like solving sophisticated puzzles and cryptograms.

For the next two weeks I worked on the problem every weeknight and all day Saturday and Sunday. I approached it mathematically, as a complex algebraic equation. Only in this case it was a problem I had to design myself, in its entirety, in order to arrive at a viable solution. I broke it down into two main linked equations: how to appropriate the money, and how to disappear with it without getting cought. The first was the easier to construct, with fewer corollary difficulties; the second was the harder, with more corollaries. I worked on the equations one at a time, shaping and building each with care and noting the corollaries on separate sheets of paper. Once I had the basics in place, I addressed the secondary problems individually, working on each in turn until I had its solution and then plugging it into the main equation.

By the end of the first week, it was no longer an intellectual exercise but a solid possibility. By the end of the second week, it had become a probability.

I knew something else by then, too: it not only could be done, I was capable of doing it.

Annalise hadn't been right, after all. I was not just an accountant who would always be an accountant; I was not a nice, unexciting guy who was too timid to take risks. Not any more. The enormity of the plan and its potential consequences no longer frightened me. If by some chance I was cought and sent to prison, life behind bars couldn't be much worse than the restrictive life I'd been leading behind invisible bars of my own construction.

I saw myself as I really was. And discovered my dark side.

I went over the equations half a dozen times, factor by factor, backchecking, refining. There was room for further refinement, but in the main they were flawless except for two factors. One was a y factor: the unforeseen mishap, like a submerged rock in shoal water, that could rip the bottom out of any plan—bad luck, coincidence, miscalculation. The other was a missing x factor.

There was nothing to be done in advance to forestall a y factor. The x factor was essential; it had to be added to the equations to make them complete and functional. The x factor was Annalise.

I could do it for her, but I couldn't do it without her.

I called her the Wednesday after the company audit was completed. She wasn't happy to hear from me, that was plain enough from her voice, but neither did she sound angry or hostile. A little exasperated was all.

"Why are you calling?" she said. "I meant what I said at Perry's."

"I need to see you," I said.

"No, Jordan. It wouldn't do either of us any good."

"As soon as possible. It's important. Very important."

"There's nothing you can say to make me change my mind."

"One hour of your time, that's all I'm asking."

"So you can plead and beg? I couldn't stand it."

"I'm all through with that kind of thing," I said. "What I have to say I think you're going to want to hear."

"And that is?"

"When I see you."

She sighed. "Oh, all right. Tomorrow night at Perry's, after work."

"No," I said. "It has to be your apartment or mine."

"Why? Why are you being so mysterious?"

"I'm not. This talk has to be in person and in private. You'll understand why when you hear it."

"I don't know . . ."

"One hour. You can stop me any time, and I'll leave you alone and never bother you again."

"You mean that?"

"I swear it."

Annalise gave in finally. She'd be home tomorrow night, she said, I could come by for a few minutes then. I said I'd be there at seven.

"You'd better not make me regret this, Jordan."

"If anybody regrets it," I said, "it'll be me."

She wasn't wearing white this time. Blue jeans, an old blue sweater, floppy slippers. Face scrubbed free of makeup, hair tousled. A large glass of white wine in one hand and a flush to her skin and shine to her eyes that told me at least two other glasses had preceded it. All a calculated effort, I was sure, to make herself appear unattractive to me. It didn't work. She could have been caked with dirt and wearing a sack and I still would have wanted her.

Music throbbed through the apartment, the kind of heavy rock I'd told her I didn't much care for. That was intentional, too. She didn't look at me directly when she let me in, didn't ask if I wanted a drink. Just went straight to one of the chairs and sat down. The chair was separated from the other furniture, so that I couldn't sit next to her if that was my intention.

It wasn't. I sat on the couch across from her. "Could you turn the music down a little?"

"It's not that loud."

"It is for what I have to say."

She shrugged and got up to lower the volume on her stereo. When she came back to the chair, she looked at me directly for the first time and what she saw seemed to surprise her. "You look . . . different," she said.

"I am different," I said. "That's why I'm here."

"Well, go ahead, then. I'm listening."

I had already worked out the best approach to take, and on the basis of what she'd told me at Perry's I was reasonably sure I knew how she'd react. But I could have been wrong. People are seldom as predictable as they seem to be; I was living proof of that. It depended on how much she cared for me, if she still cared for me at all, and on just how much larcency there was in her. If she took it badly and sent me packing, I would have to admit she was lost to me and learn to deal with it. And scrap the entire scheme, or revise it to exclude her. To this day, I'm not sure which I would've done.

I said, "The last time we saw each other, you said you were fond of me. Did you mean that?"

"Of course I meant it. I don't say things I don't mean."

"How fond?"

"I can't answer that. Fond is fond."

"Fond enough to be with me if I could give you money, luxury, travel, excitement?"

"Be with you?"

"Long-term. Exclusively."

"Oh, God, I don't know. What difference does it make?"

"Answer the question, Annalise."

I said it sharply, more sharply than I'd ever spoken to her. She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip before she said, "I don't love you the way you love me, you know that. I don't know that I ever could."

"But you could try. Given the right circumstances."

"Will it make you feel better if I say yes?"

"If you mean it."

"All right. Yes, I could be with you. It just isn't possible."

"It is possible."

"I don't see how."

"You said you'd didn't care what you had to do to get the things you want, as long as you got them. Did you mean that?"

"I meant it."

"What would you do for more than half a million dollars?"

Her mouth came open. "Did you say . . . half a million?"

"More. Enough to keep both of us in style for the rest of our lives."

"My God," she said.

"Would you go away with me?"

"Go away where?"

"Anywhere a long way from here. The tropics. Tahiti, the Caribbean." She was interested by this time. Puzzled, wary, but definitely interested. Leaning forward in the chair, the tip of her tongue moving back and forth over her upper lip. "If you had that much money . . . yes, I'd go away with you."

"Would you wait twelve to fifteen months for the opportunity?"

"Why so long?"

"It's necessary. No more than fifteen months."

"I'd wait longer," Annalise said. "I've waited for something like that all my life."

"Would you make an unbreakable commitment to me during that year?"

"What do you mean, unbreakable commitment?"

"I'm not talking about dating. In fact, I'd want you to keep on seeing other men."

"I don't understand."

"You will. What I mean is a commitment of trust. Mutual trust. Yours would be to trust me to make all the decisions and to do exactly as I say without question."

"As long as I knew what was happening and I had input into where we'd go to live."

"You'll know. And we'll decide together on the destination."

"Then yes. I'd do anything you told me to."

"Would you marry me?"

Her expression changed. She said, "Oh, shit, Jordan. Is that what this is all about? Some devious way of proposing?"

"No. It's part of the larger proposal, another necessary part."

"How can marriage be necessary?"

"In order to make the rest of it work."

"The rest of what? Can't you get to the point?"

"I am getting to it. Just answer the question: would you marry me for more than half a million dollars and a brand-new life?"

"Yes." Without hesitation.

"Would you become an accessory to a major crime?"

Long stare. "What kind of crime? What have you done?"

"I haven't done anything yet."

"What are you thinking of doing?"

"I've as much as told you," I said. "Commit a major crime for all that money."

"Steal half a million dollars?"

"Yes."

"For God's sake, how? Not with a gun or anything like that?"

"Absolutely not. No violence of any kind."

"Then how?"

"I have a plan. A detailed, mostly risk-free plan."

" . . . You're serious, aren't you."

"Very serious. Dead serious."

She emptied her glass, got up and went to a sideboard to refill it.

I said, "Do you want to hear the rest of it?"

"Yes."

When she sat down again she looked at me in a new way, with a kind of awe, as if she were seeing me for the first time. Her face was flushed, but now it wasn't all the result of the wine. What I'd told her so far hadn't turned her off; she'd taken it just as I'd hoped she would. Excited, eager. Hooked. I could see it in her eyes.

"Half a million dollars," she said. "You really think you can get your hands on that much money?"

"I know I can. That's the easy part. The hard part is getting away with it, disappearing without a trace."

"And you know how to do that?"

"Yes. I can get the money on my own, but I can't do the rest without help. Your help. There's no other way."

She was too restless to sit still; she got up again and paced the room, taking sips of wine, thinking about it. After a time she said, "We'd go to prison if we were cought. I couldn't stand to be locked up."

"I won't lie to you," I said. "Something could go wrong. But I don't believe it will. Not the way I have it worked out."

"Famous last words."

"The risk to you is much less than it is to me. Even if we were cought, you wouldn't know the details of the theft because I won't reveal them to you; you could plead ignorance and I'd back you up, swear you had no prior knowledge that I was going to commit a crime. The most you'd be charged with is aiding and abetting. A good lawyer would probably be able to get you off with a suspended sentence."

She kept pacing. Her glass was empty again; she drained the bottle into it.

"How long have you been hatching this scheme?"

"Not long," I said. "Three weeks."

"Since the last time we saw each other."

"About that."

"So you could have me? That's why, isn't it?"

"Yes. For you and for the money."

"You want me that much?"

"I've never wanted anything more in my life."

She sat down beside me, set the wineglass on the table. Her eyes were very bright, like a bird's eyes, and smoky hot.

"Half a million dollars," she said again.

"More."

"For me."

"Yes."

"You're crazy," she said and took my face between her hands and kissed me, hard. Then she drew back and her eyes burned into mine.

"My God!" she said.

"Annalise," I said.

"For me."

"Yes."

"More than half a million dollars."

"Yes."

She kissed me again, hard enough this time to draw blood from my lower lip, pressing close, her arms tight around my neck, her tongue exploring my mouth. She was trembling, her body quivering as if controlled by invisible electrodes.

That kiss went on for a long time, hot and wet, her breathing coming faster. Then she twisted away and took my hands and pulled us both to our feet. "Crazy," she said again, and led me into the bedroom.

She had a marvelous body. Taut-muscled thighs, large nipples and aureoles on the small hard breasts, skin soft as a baby's. I was so excited that first time I came in less than a minute. She couldn't have been satisfied—her body was still quivering—but she didn't seem to mind. She held me with arms and legs, tight. It was a long time before either of us spoke.

"Jordan?"

"Yes."

"You weren't lying just to get me into bed? You can do it?"

"I can do it."

"Will you? Go through with it, I mean?"

"Yes. Will you?"

"Yes. Jesus, yes!"

Her hands moved on me again. Expert hands, expert mouth, expert body, guiding me, showing me new things, making it last until release was an excruciating mixture of pleasure and pain. Sounds trite, I know, putting it like that, but that was how it was for me.

And that's another thing love is. Bottom line.

Love is the best fuck you ever had.