His words didn’t want to come out. He gave me a sad smile. “I…I…I’m not…well.” His hand reached out and stayed in mid-air, trembling like a dying bird, then fell to his side.
Schadenfreude is not a nice emotion. Happiness at someone else’s misfortune. The krauts nailed it perfectly with that one word. I tried not to feel satisfaction. I tried really hard.
“I…I…I’m glad…you came…to see me,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t mention it.” As if he could. I took a deep breath.
I had to read Emerson’s essay on compensation again. Maybe you were rewarded or punished for your actions in the long run. Maybe there was an unseen symmetry to the world, after all.
I turned and started to leave.
“I…I’m…so sorry, Rogan,” was the last thing I heard as I walked away.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Mrs. Chisolm was just getting off the Nautilus when I caught up with her. She was wearing tight purple shorts and a pink tank top that showed to the world at large everything she had and was proud of. Her face was buried deep in the fluffy white folds of a large towel. She was still, leaning against the machine. Her body was taut, small-breasted and supple. Small beads of sweat covered her upper lip where it showed below the towel.
There was no one else in the health club yet. It would start to fill up in another half-hour.
I stood there waiting for her to lower the towel. When she saw me, she raised her neatly-plucked eyebrows and said, “You’re up early, lover boy.”
“I have to get up early to beat you.”
Her reaction was markedly different from the last time we spoke. Maybe she’d had time to reconsider or maybe the workout had gotten her juices flowing. Her face was flushed and she was breathing deeply. She pursed her lips. “Would you beat me?” she teased. “Promise?”
I shrugged. “Depends on what kind of answers you give me.”
“I have any kind of answers you want and some you don’t.” Her eyes ran over me the way you look over a piece of horseflesh. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you’ll get out of that suit and into a jock strap and some skimpy gym shorts.” Her smile was as old as Eve.
“I don’t have time right now.”
“Make some time. You won’t be sorry. I’ll give you some answers you’ll never forget.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. It was warm and sticky. I gave her what I hoped was an engaging smile. “Thanks, but I’ll pass on your pass, honeybun.”
“Don’t touch me unless you intend to finish it,” she said with a pout.
“I’ll finish it, but not now.” I pointed to the juice bar. “Can I interest you in a broccoli and kelp cocktail?”
She laughed. “I’ll take some pure natural Polish water fresh from the faucets of Warsaw.”
“Deal,” I said.
I took her arm and guided her across the newly-washed floor, threading our way between the exercise machines. We sat on the juice bar stools and she started revolving slowly, pushing herself around and around, like a little child.
“Why do you have to do this kind of work?” she asked. “It’s so demeaning, so tawdry.” She wrinkled up her nose like she’d just smelled something foul.
“Why does a fish swim? Why does a bird fly?”
She must have decided it wasn’t worth pursuing this line of reasoning. She fell silent, stopped spinning and started rubbing her foot against mine.
“Did you know Alicia’s sister was killed?” I said.
She pulled her foot back abruptly. “No,” she said with a shake of her head.
“She was killed with the same gun that shot Alicia.” I studied her face. “Do you have a gun?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t like guns. They make loud noises. They frighten me.”
“Does your husband have a gun?”
“No,” she said in the same voice.
“Did you know your husband banged Alicia’s sister too?”
Her jaw tightened. “My husband and I have an arrangement.”
“Indeed?”
“He can see whoever he likes and I can see whoever I like.” There was a flame deep inside her eyes. It might have been lust or it might have been anger. “Sometimes we even see each other.”
I leaned back on my stool. “Well, that sounds eminently reasonable to me. Who could ask for a fairer arrangement?”
The flame flared brighter. “Don’t patronize me. You live your damn life the way you want to and I’ll live mine the way I want to.”
“Why would you want to kill both women?” I asked.
She stared hard at this meat-eating sedentary stranger who’d just wandered into her oasis of fitness. “I never killed anybody. I never had any reason to kill anybody-especially now…” She stopped speaking.
I took a stab. “Your finances are bad right now.”
Her eyes flickered. “Not for long.”
“You had lots of filthy lucre when Chisolm married you. He blew most of it. Bad investments. High living. Broads. Now the glory days are over.”
Her cheeks were flushed even more. “You’re wrong, lover boy.”
I moved closer to her. “Your husband wanted to shut up both of those girls…”
She shook her head. “My husband wouldn’t take any chances now.”
“Why now?”
“We’re too close to the payoff.”
“What payoff?”
She wanted to prove me wrong. You could tell she was weighing whether to tell me whatever it was and shut me the hell up. “We’ve finished the phase III trial and we’re about to get FDA approval on the human blood factor drug.” She allowed herself a triumphant smile. “And once we have the approval, Bingo. Jackpot. We’ll have our IPO. You know what an IPO is, don’t you? I won’t have to come to a public health club with the unwashed masses. I’ll have my own private gym and my own full-time personal trainer and you won’t be allowed within a mile of it.”
She slid off her stool and put both feet flat on the ground.
“Well then if I can’t exercise with you, I’ll have to retire my jock strap, permanently,” I said. Maybe it was the ambiance, but I’d lost my thirst for a broccoli and kelp cocktail. I was more in the mood for a chocolate milkshake with whipped cream.
A door opened behind us and a man and a woman in exercise clothes came into the gym. They glanced briefly at us and walked on. Something she said made me want to know more. I got off the stool and slung my jacket over my shoulder.
“So long, doll,” I said. “Keep those gorgeous buns tight.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
“Well, the semester’s over and I have abbreviated office hours, but I could see you this afternoon at three,” Edelstein said over the phone.
“Fine,” I said. “Where will I meet you?”
“Come to my office. I’ll take you to the most popular student hangout.”
“Outstanding,” I said. Then I asked him, “Do you remember me?”
“Sure I do, Rogan,” he guffawed. “You were the one voted most likely to end up under a beer truck.”
“Yeah, that would be me. Makes me feel good to know my reputation preceded me.”
The drive down to Princeton was a breeze and the BMW didn’t overheat. It was a little after three when I got to the campus. Edelstein was waiting for me in his office. He hadn’t changed much from the way he looked as an undergraduate, except that his sandy hair was thinner and less curly. Or maybe it was just because he cut it shorter and combed it straight back. He used to be as big as a house. Now he was as big as a small condo complex. He had the same awkward grin and the same soft, sibilant voice. His glasses were different. In the old days, he wore gold wire-rimmed aviator glasses. Now his lenses were large and square and rimless. His face was as unlined as a teenager’s, which you could probably attribute to the fact that he had so much money he could tell the dean to take a trip to Kosovo whenever he felt like it.