"I thought you were coming last night," she said. "I waited until Johnny Carson was over."
"I went to a movie," Mitchell said.
"You went to a movie. That was nice. With your girlfriend?"
Mitchell turned from the dresser. He looked at her and seemed about to speak, but said nothing and walked over to his closet.
Barbara watched him. "You know what I almost did? I almost threw all your clothes out the goddamn window. I get urges too, buddy, but I restrain myself. Usually."
"I'm sorry," Mitchell said, turning from the closet.
"For what? I don't know, Mitch. You can talk quietly and sound very sincere-but that doesn't change the fact you're a bastard. I'm the one who's hurt, for God's sake, not you."
"Barbara, who's been in the house in the last few days? I mean besides you."
"Who's been in the house?" The abrupt change in the conversation stopped her. "What do you mean, who's been in the house?"
"Has anyone come in that you don't know?" Mitchell asked quietly. "Or that you do know. A plumber or a painter, somebody like that."
"The only thing that needs fixing," Barbara said, "is the disposal. You said you were going to take care of it."
"All right, then have you noticed anything out of place? Like someone might have walked in or broken in while you were out?"
She shook her head slowly. "The milkman comes in…"
"Or door-to-door salesmen."
"No-"
She shook her head again. "No, there was somebody. A man from an accounting service. In fact he was in here when I got home from tennis."
"When?"
"A few days ago. Sitting in the living room. Can you believe it? Sitting there waiting for me."
"What company's he with?"
"No company. I looked it up, Silver Something Accounting Service, he said, but there's no such company."
"What did he look like?"
Barbara thought about it. "Kind of hippie looking, and the way he talked, very cheeky. He was wearing a dark suit and carried an attache case."
"He had a car?"
"A car picked him up. A white one. I didn't notice the make or year."
"Did he talk… slowly?"
Barbara nodded thoughtfully. "Like it was an effort."
"You're sure you've never seen him before?"
"Fairly sure. Mitch, what is it? Did he take anything?"
"A few things," Mitchell said, answering her but seeing the movie screen, his gun in the vise aimed at the girl and the old sport coat on the table. He saw the soundless gun fired and saw the gouges appear in the plywood as the girl's head snapped back and heard the lazy sound of the skinny guy, who had been in this house, this room, saying bang, bang… bang, bang, bang. Five times. Five shots. Making sure, when one would have been enough to murder her.
Barbara, with a tense, concerned look now, was asking him, "What? Mitch, what did he take?"
His wife looked good. She looked clean. He liked the navy-blue housecoat and her hair and, this morning, the trace of dark circles beneath her eyes. He knew that if he held her he would feel the familiar feel of her body and she would smell good. She had seen the man and maybe she could identify him. She could be a part of this. Right now, not knowing anything about it, she could become involved-another woman involved because of him-and he didn't want her to be, if he could help it.
He said, "The guy took my gun."
"You're sure?"
"It's not here. He took the gun, my old sport coat and maybe a few other things." She would look after he was gone and find this out herself.
"But why?"
"Some people who steal need guns. The sport coat I don't know, maybe he just liked it."
She was staring at him, listening to his sound, analyzing it. She said quietly, "Mitch, that's not the reason he took it."
"I don't know why. I'm only saying it's gone."
"I think you do know," Barbara said.
Mitchell hesitated, but in the same moment said to himself, No. "I've got to get to the plant," he said, and started out of the room.
Barbara's voice followed him to the hall. "Mitch, tell me what's going on. Please."
But he reached the stairway and went down without answering.
O'Boyle said, "Mitch, this is Joe Paonessa. From the prosecutor's office." He saw the flicker of surprise on Mitchell's face, gave them enough time to exchange nods and a glad-to-meet-you, and then offered a brief explanation. "Joe was able to come at the last minute, Mitch. He's been kind enough to give us some of his time, talk to you personally and give his views on your situation."
The man from the prosecutor's office was younger than Mitchell. He was bald and wore a little mustache. He had dark sleepy-looking eyes and a mild expression. But, Mitchell noticed, the expression didn't change. The man didn't smile. He raised himself barely a few inches from his seat as they shook hands. O'Boyle was drinking a scotch and soda. The man from the prosecutor's office had a cup of coffee at his place. He was already eating his salad, spearing at it, fork in one hand and a slice of French bread, thickly coated with chunks of cold butter, in the other. Mitchell ordered a Bud.
"I've never been here before," Paonessa said. "I don't get out to the high-rent district very often."
"I've never been here either," Mitchell said.
"It's pretty popular for lunch," O'Boyle said. "In fact I think it's busier now than at night."
That was the end of the small talk.
"Most situations like yours," Paonessa said, "never get to us. We don't find out about them because the individual is too ashamed to tell anybody. Usually it's a Murphy game. The individual gets caught with some whore and he pays to keep from getting his balls cut off. Naturally he's not going to go to the police and tell them he was with some whore and take a chance his wife finding out."
"I wasn't with some whore," Mitchell said.
"In your case," Paonessa said, "it's the amount of money involved. It's not a simple Murphy situation. You're loaded and they know it. Pay them or they fuck you. Maybe they can do it, I don't know. At least they can tell your wife you've been seeing this whore and that might be enough to screw up your life to some extent, I don't know that either, or how much you can afford to pay to keep people off your back. Jim says you're a respected businessman, never fooled around before. All right, I'll take his word for that. Though I know a lot of respectable businessmen who do fool around." Finishing the salad, he began to mop the bowl with his bread.
"Naturally you don't want to pay them. Okay, but they're not going to let you off, are they? Assume that. They got some dirt on you. You're caught sticking your thing where it doesn't belong. You want to keep your secret a secret. So let's say they feel pretty sure you're going to come across. In fact, they have to feel that way. They have to believe they've made a deal you'll go through with, or else we never get close enough to them, the police don't, to find out who they are. They tell you meet us such and such a place with the money. Or they say leave the money such and such a place. The police either have to tail you or put a bug on you, get voices or whatever information they can from the bug, or stake out the place and pick the guys up when they come for the money. In other words the only way to apprehend them is if you pay or look like you're paying, offer the bait to bring them out in the open. We going to order or what?" He opened the big red menu that was bound by a red tassel around the fold.
"Or I don't pay them," Mitchell said.
"That's up to you," Paonessa said. His eyes roamed over the inside of the menu.
O'Boyle looked at Mitchell before turning to the man from the prosecutor's office. "Joe, Mitch is asking, if he doesn't pay them, and he's considered it, there isn't much they can do to him, is there? He's already told his wife about the girl."
Paonessa's eyes raised, his mild expression unchanged. "Yeah? You told her? What did she say?"