He would track down the first husband, he would erase the man from consciousness. He would erase the man’s memory in which his own wife existed. Except he was a civilized human being, a decent human being, except he feared being apprehended and punished, that was what he would do.
Early November when he’d discovered the Key West photos. Late February when his CEO called him into his office in the “tower.”
The meeting was brief. One or two others had been taken to lunch first, which had not been a good idea; Leonard was grateful to be spared lunch. Through a roaring in his ears he heard. Watched the man’s piranha mouth. Steely eyes through bifocal glasses like his own.
Downsized. Stock options. Severance pay. Any questions?
He had no legal grounds to object. Possibly he had moral grounds but wouldn’t contest it. He knew the company’s financial situation. Since 9/11, they’d been in a tailspin. These were facts you might read in the Wall Street Journal. Then came the terrible blow, unexpected, at least Leonard believed it to be unexpected, the ruling in Atlanta: A federal court judge upheld a crushing $33 million award to a hotel-chain plaintiff plus $8 million punitive damages. The architectural firm for which he’d worked for the past seven years was hard hit. Conceding yes, he understood. Failure was a sickness that burned like fever in the eyes of the afflicted. No disguising that fever, like jaundice-yellow eyes.
Soon to be forty-six. Burnt-out. The battlefield is strewn with burnt-out litigators. His fingers shook, cold as a corpse’s, yet he would shake the CEO’s hand in parting, he would meet the man’s gaze with something like dignity.
He had the use of his office for several more weeks. And the stock options and severance pay were generous. And Valerie wouldn’t need to know exactly what had happened, possibly ever.
“...seem distracted lately, Leonard. I hope it isn’t...”
They were undressing for bed. That night in their large beautifully furnished bedroom. Gusts of wind rattled the windows, that were leaded windows, inset with wavy glass in mimicry of the old glass that had once been, when the original house had been built in 1791.
“...anything serious? Your health...”
From his corner of the room Leonard called over, in a voice meant to comfort, of course he was fine, his health was fine. Of course.
“Damned wind! It’s been like this all day.”
Valerie spoke fretfully as if someone were to blame.
Neither had brought up the subject of the trip to Italy in some time. Postponed to March, but no specific plans had been made. The tenth anniversary had come and gone.
In her corner of their bedroom, an alcove with a built-in dresser and closets with mirrors affixed to their doors, Valerie was undressing as, in his corner of the bedroom, a smaller alcove with but a single mirrored door, Leonard was undressing. As if casually Leonard called over to her, “Did you ever love me, Valerie? When you first married me, I mean.” Through his mirror Leonard could see just a blurred glimmer of one of Valerie’s mirrors. She seemed not to have heard his question. The wind buffeting the house was so very loud. “For a while? In the beginning? Was there a time?” Not knowing if his voice was pleading, or threatening. If, if this woman heard, like the frightened woman on the train she would laugh nervously and wish to escape him.
“Maybe I should murder us both, Valerie. ‘Downsize.’ It could end very quickly.”
He didn’t own a gun. Had no access to a gun. Rifle? Could you go into a sporting goods store and buy a rifle? A shotgun? Not a handgun, he knew that was more difficult in New York State. You had to apply for a license, there was a background check, paperwork. The thought made his head ache.
“...that sound, what is it? I’m frightened.”
In her corner of the room Valerie stood very still. How like an avalanche the wind was sounding! There had been warnings over the years that the hundred-foot cliff above Salthill Landing might one day collapse after a heavy rainstorm and there had been small landslides from time to time and now it began to sound as if the cliff might be disintegrating, a slide of rock, rubble, uprooted trees rushing toward the house, about to collapse the roof... In his corner of the room Leonard stood as if transfixed, his shirt partly unbuttoned, in his stocking feet, waiting.
They would die together, in the debris. How quickly then, the end would come!
No avalanche, only the wind. Valerie shut the door of her bathroom firmly behind her, Leonard continued undressing and climbed into bed. It was a vast tundra of a bed, with a hard mattress. By morning the terrible wind would subside. Another dawn! Mists on the river, a white wintry sun behind layers of cloud. Another day Leonard Chase would endure with dignity, he was certain.
2.
“ ‘Dwayne Ducharme,’ eh? Welcome to Denver.”
There came Mitchell Oliver Yardman to shake Leonard’s hand in a crushing grip. He was “Mitch” Yardman, realtor and insurance agent and he appeared to be the only person on duty at Yardman Realty & Insurance this afternoon.
“...not that this is Denver, eh? Makeville is what this is here, you wouldn’t call it a suburb of anyplace. Used to be a mining town, see. Probably you never heard of Makeville back East, and this kind of scenery, prob’ly you’re thinking ain’t what you’d expect of the West, eh? Well, see, Dwayne Ducharme, like I warned you on the phone: This is east Colorado. ‘High desert plain.’ The Rockies is in the other direction.”
Yardman’s smile was wide and toothy yet somehow grudging, as if he resented the effort such a smile required. Here was a man who’d been selling real estate for a long time, you could see. Even as he spoke in his grating mock-Western drawl Yardman’s shrewd eyes were rapidly appraising his prospective client “Dwayne Ducharme” who’d made an appointment to see small ranch properties within commuting distance of Denver.
So this was Oliver Yardman! Twenty-one years after the Key West idyll, the man had thickened, grown coarser, yet there was the unmistakable sexual swagger, the sulky spoiled-boy mouth.
Yardman was shorter than Leonard had expected, burly and solid-built as a fire hydrant. He had a rucked forehead and a fleshy nose riddled with small broken veins and his breath was meaty, sour. He wore a leathery-looking cowboy hat, an expensive-looking rumpled suede jacket, lime-green shirt with a black string tie looped around his neck, rumpled khakis, badly scuffed leather boots. He seemed impatient, edgy. His hands, that were busily gesticulating, in twitchy swoops like the gestures of a deranged magician, were noticeably large, with stubby fingers, and on the smallest finger of his left hand he wore a showy gold signet ring with a heraldic crest.
The first husband. Leonard’s heart kicked in his chest; he was in the presence of his enemy.
In the office that was hardly more than a storefront, and smelled of stale cigarette smoke, Yardman showed Leonard photographs of “ranch-type” properties within “easy commuting distance” of downtown Denver. In his aggressive, mock-friendly yet grudging voice Yardman kept up a continual banter, peppering Leonard with facts, figures, statistics, punctuating his words with Eh? It was a verbal tic of which Yardman seemed unaware or was helpless to control and Leonard steeled himself waiting to hear it, dry-mouthed with apprehension that Yardman was suspicious of him, eyeing him so intimately, “...tight schedule, eh? Goin’ back tomorrow, you said? Said your firm’s ‘relocating’? Some kinda computer parts, eh? There’s a lot of that in Denver, ‘lectronics, ‘chips,’ theseare boom times for some, eh? Demographics’re movin’ west, for sure. Population shift. Back East, billion-dollar companies goin’ down the toilet, you hear.” Yardman laughed heartily, amused by the spectacle of companies going down a toilet.