“Something I want to talk to you about,” he said. “Come on down the hall.”
She followed him down the corridor, past Mollie’s room, her daughter already asleep. Silently, they went past the loudly ticking grandfather clock standing against the wall, a gift from Michael’s mother, and then into the den at the far end. The room was small, a sofa on one wall, a French lieutenant’s bed on another, an audio/video center on the third wall, and windows overlooking Eighty-First Street on the fourth wall. Michael closed the door behind him. The walls in the prewar apartment were thickly plastered, making each room virtually soundproof. She wondered why he was whispering.
“This case I’ve been on?” he said.
She nodded.
“I think I can tell you a little about it now.”
She wondered why he had chosen to tell her at just this moment, close to midnight, when she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to lose herself in Vogue before she drifted off to sleep. Family gatherings at her parents’ apartment were never quite stress-free. She’d been looking forward to a good night’s sleep in preparation. But no, Michael was telling her how they’d been conducting this surveillance since the beginning of the year...
“The son of a Mafia boss the U.S. Attorney put away for good. We’re certain he’s running the mob now, we’ve just been waiting to get enough for an OCCA conviction. To do that, we’ve got to show a pattern of racketeering activity. Problem is we haven’t got anything concrete as yet. We know he’s linked to narcotics and loan-sharking, but we can’t prove it from what he or anyone else has said. We also think he may have ordered a hit or two, but again, no proof. The reason I’m telling you all this...” Michael said.
Yes, why are you telling me all this? she wondered.
“... is that I think we’ve found a way to get to him.”
“Well, good,” she said.
“I got hold of all this stuff on Thursday morning,” he said, and went to the tape deck in the cabinet on the wall. She noticed that the power was already on. “Here, listen,” he said, and hit the PLAY button.
At first she thought she was living a nightmare.
“October fifteenth,” a woman’s voice said. “That’s the date you have to turn on the heat.”
“How do you know that?”
A man’s voice.
“When we were first married, we had an apartment that was freeeeeeezing cold. We called the Ombudsman’s Office...”
“How’d you know to do that?”
“My husband researched the law,” the woman’s voice said.
Her voice said.
“... found out the mandatory date for...”
“I hate it when you talk about him,” the man’s voice said.
Andrew’s voice said.
She thought her heart would stop.
“All the things he does or doesn’t do in his crummy little job that pays...”
“Getting the heat turned on had nothing to do with his job.”
“Where will you be going?”
“France. St.-Jean-de-Luz.”
“Where’s that?”
“Near the Spanish border. We went there on our honeymoon.”
“Terrific.”
“Andrew, this won’t be any kind of romantic trip. Mollie’s going with us.”
There was a long silence.
“I’ll miss you.”
Andrew’s voice again.
“I’m not gone yet. How’s this thing doing?” Her voice changing to a whisper now. “Looks like it might need a little help.”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“Mmmmm.”
Another long silence.
She did not know where to look. She would not meet Michael’s eyes. Was it possible he hadn’t recognized the voice on the tape? Was it possible he didn’t realize that the woman performing...?
“You ever do this to your husband?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. Every night of the week.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m lying.”
“Jesus, what you do to me!”
“Whose cock is this?”
“Yours.”
“Mine, yes. And I’m going to suck it till you scream.”
“Sarah...”
“I want to see you explode! Give it to me!”
“Oh God, Sarah!”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes!”
And another long silence.
Michael snapped off the machine.
“We think we know who she is,” he said, and moved to the VCR. Again, the power was already on, a cassette was already in place; Michael simply pressed the PLAY button.
From the right-hand side of the screen, Sarah saw herself moving into the frame...
He knows, she thought.
... crossing hurriedly to the blue door on Mott, her back to the, camera...
Oh God, he knows.
... and then pressing the bell button under the Carter-Goldsmith Investments nameplate, back still to the camera...
There was no way that any objective viewer could say for certain that the blonde leaning into the speaker in that shadowed doorway, her face partially hidden, was Sarah Welles. No way that any stranger could possibly identify her as the woman announcing herself beside that blue door. The picture simply wasn’t that good.
But as she watched herself reaching for the doorknob the instant the buzzer sounded, watched herself breathlessly letting herself in, she knew that anyone who knew her would recognize her in an instant. Michael knew her. Knew the clothes she was wearing, knew the way she moved, the way she walked, knew every nuance. Even with her back to the camera...
The door closing behind her now.
The camera lingering on just the door now.
Outside in the hall, the big clock tolled midnight.
“Happy Mother’s Day,” Michael said bitterly.
4: May 10–June 2
Mollie complained that she didn’t need a baby-sitter, and besides why were they going out on a Monday night? Mollie was twelve years old, and twelve in the city of New York was considered grown-up, at Hanover Prep, anyway. Michael told her there were lots of bad guys out there, and he would feel happier with Mrs. Henderson in attendance. Secretly, Mollie felt Mrs. Henderson would be the first to pick up her skirts and run out the door if a bad guy came climbing through the window. Michael gently told her they wouldn’t be long.
“But why are you going out on a Monday?” Mollie whined like a twelve-year-old grown-up.
Walking beside him on the street now, people everywhere around them, Sarah felt he might kill her. He had left the apartment immediately after their confrontation on Saturday night; she suspected he had spent the night in his office. His anger now was monumental. He walked as if propelled by an inner fury, his jaw set, his eyes refusing to meet hers, his gaze, his head, his entire body, thrusting into the night like a dagger. In a voice she scarcely knew, cold and distant and barely audible, he said, “This man represents everything I hate. Everything I’ve devoted my life to destroying, this man rep—”
“Yes, Michael, I know that.”
“Don’t give me that damn impatient...”
“I didn’t know what he was.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
She was silent for several seconds.
Then she said, “I don’t know.”
He turned to her at once, as if to strike her, his fist clenched, his arm coming up. She stopped dead on the sidewalk, flinching away from him, saw his contorted face and the anger seething in his eyes a moment before he withdrew his hand, trembling. They were on Lexington Avenue, it was a mild night, the sidewalks were crowded; she felt certain he would have hit her otherwise. He began walking again, faster now. She debated running away from him, back to the apartment. She was afraid to do that, afraid he might chase her, grab her, punch her, she didn’t know what he might do. She no longer knew this man. Her husband. This man.