As they walked, she said, “You’re fantasizing, Steve.”
He raised his eyebrows.
She stopped and stretched her arms wide. “Give me a hug. A big one.”
He complied and they embraced and she bit his ear, whispered into it, “You look good, ex-husband.”
“You, too, ex-wife.”
“I’m a sow.”
“Nothing like that at all. You women with your distorted body image-”
She silenced him with a finger on his lips. “Don’t be nice, Steve. I might go home with you.”
He drew back and looked into her deep brown eyes. A couple of zits occupied the space between her plucked brows. New wrinkles creased the corners of the eyes. His eyes took in all of it, but his brain registered none of it. All he saw was mystery.
They resumed walking. “Would that be a tragedy?” he said.
“What?”
“Coming home with me.”
“Probably,” she said. “Let’s not find out.”
She walked faster, breathing through her mouth and blowing out steam. He caught up. They reached the park in the center of the Plaza. On warm nights, kids, sometimes drunk and often rowdy, hung out here. Occasionally, the homeless occupied the benches until the uniforms cleared everyone away. Tonight it was devoid of human occupation other than the two of them. The Plaza sparkled with Christmas lights, silver-blue snowdrifts, hundreds of white diamond stars, and pure magic. Too much cheer for a man who lived in a granite yard. Katz felt suddenly depressed.
Valerie said, “Is this about Olafson?”
“How’d you know?”
“Because Olafson’s dead, and I know what your job is. What is it, Steve? Did my name show up somewhere?”
“In his Palm Pilot.”
“There you go.” She rubbed her hands together. “I could be a detective, too.”
She sat down on a bench and jammed her stiff fingers into the pockets of her coat. “Here I was, sitting in a nice warm bar, getting nice warm male attention.”
“Let’s go inside somewhere,” said Katz. “We could sit in my car, and I’ll turn the heater on.”
She smiled. “And neck?”
“Cut it out,” he said, surprised at the anger in his voice.
“Sorry for offending you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Tight-lipped and colder than the air.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been working twenty-four hours with almost no sleep.”
“All that’s your decision, Steve.”
“I’m sorry, Val. Okay? Let’s start from scratch.”
“Sure,” she said. “And while we’re at it, let’s have world peace.” She turned, studied him, and gave him a look that made him wonder if she was going to cry. What now?
“Val-”
“Been out to Bandelier recently, Steve?”
“Not recently,” he said. Sometimes on days off, he drove out to the national park and got waved in free by the ranger: courtesy from one uniform to another. When tourists were there, he hiked. On slow days, he climbed a ladder up to one of the ancient Anasazi caves and just sat, staring at the ruins of the old pueblo marketplace below. Two Moons would have laughed, but Katz truly felt at one with the spirits of the land. He’d discovered the park right after the divorce, driving aimlessly, exploring the wilderness. Unlike the Big Apple, New Mexico was replete with open space.
He hadn’t recalled telling Valerie of his trips to Bandelier. But then again, he didn’t remember too clearly what they had actually talked about.
They sat there on the bench for what seemed like a long time. Then, suddenly, she took his face in her frigid hands and kissed him hard. Cool lips but a warm tongue.
When she pulled away, she said, “Let’s go to my place.”
Val got her VW van from behind the gallery, and he followed her erratic driving to her studio apartment on an unmarked alley off Paseo de Peralta, not too far from the site of the murder. She lived in the guesthouse of a large adobe estate owned by a California couple who rarely made it to Santa Fe. Val was expected to take care of minor repairs. For the most part, she had the coyote-fenced two-acre property to herself. Once, she’d brought Katz into the main house and they made love on the owners’ big pine four-poster, surrounded by pictures of the owners’ kids. Afterward, he’d started to clean up, but she told him to stop, said she’d take care of it later.
They parked next to each other on the gravel pad. Val had left her front door unlocked and she shoved it open. Katz quelled the reflex to lecture her and followed her inside, accepting the cold Sam Adams she offered. She sat down on her bed, and Katz tried to ignore the terrible abstractions that filled the space like blemishes.
She stood inches from him, got out of her clothes quickly, said, “What are you waiting for?”
A good question. It was hard and fast and great, and Katz had to clench his jaws so as not to scream.
Later, lying naked in bed, she said, “I was in his Palm Pilot because he wanted me.”
“Oh,” said Katz.
“Not sexually,” she said. “I mean, that was there, too. Even though he was mostly gay. But not totally. There was a hetero vibe, too-a woman can tell. What he wanted was for me to leave Sarah and come work for him.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a genius.” She laughed. “He was planning to branch out to Pueblo pottery. He told me Indian art was getting big on the East Coast. With his New York connections, he could triple the business Sarah does. He was also planning to go online. He’d use the auction services for the cheaper stuff and get on the art sites for the higher-end, as well as do some advertising on his own site. He had plans to really build up the market. He said within a year, Sarah would be hurting and that six months after that, she’d be finished.”
“Nice guy.”
“Terrible guy.” Val traced a circle around Katz’s left nipple. “I think that was the primary appeal for him. Not just succeeding but causing Sarah to fail.”
“What was your incentive to leave?”
“Fifty percent raise and eventual partnership. The raise I figured he’d come through with, at least in the beginning. The partnership was bullshit. He’d use me to get established, then get rid of me and bring in some lackey.”
“You turned him down.”
“I told him I’d think about it. Then I proceeded to ignore him.” She played with Katz’s mustache. “A week later, he called me. I didn’t return the call. A few days after that, he called again. I told him I was still thinking about it. He got a little huffy, obviously used to having his way. The third call didn’t come until two weeks later. I told him I was busy with a customer, would get back to him. When I did, he started off all indignant. Didn’t I know who he was? Didn’t I know what he had the power to do to me?”
She lay back, her heavy breasts flattened and spread. “I didn’t play his game. I stayed really sweet and said I’d considered his very generous offer and would continue to consider it but for the time being, I couldn’t commit. He was so shocked he just hung up without saying a word.
Soon after, I saw him walking in the Plaza right toward me. He saw me, too, and crossed the street.“
“Why didn’t you just tell him no?”
She smiled. “You know me, Steve. You know how I am with men.”
She cooked up some spaghetti and tofu sausage, and the two of them ate silently. As Katz washed the dishes, he saw her yawn conspicuously.
He got out of the robe she’d brought him-one of his old ones, but the smell of other men permeated the terry cloth. It didn’t bother him. He was just another man now.
He got dressed, then kissed her good night. Sweet and chaste with no promise about the future. He drove to the granite yard, figuring that tonight he might sleep okay.