He went outside again, and stood on the sidewalk. In addition to the street-level floor of the building, there were five floors above it. Four windows fronted the street on each of these upper stories, but he supposed most of the loft space was divided, and he couldn’t even guess how many apartments there might be. He jotted the address into his notebook — 641 Hopper Street — and then went into a luncheonette on the corner across the street, and sat eating a soggy hamburger and drinking a lukewarm egg cream while he watched the building. The clock on the grease-spattered wall read twelve-forty. He checked the time against his own watch.
It was one o’clock when he ordered another egg cream. It was one-thirty when he asked the counterman for an iced coffee. Augusta did not come out of the building until a quarter to two. She walked immediately to the curb and signaled to a cruising taxi. Kling finished his coffee, and then went into the building again and copied down all the names on the lobby directory. Six of them in all. Six suspects. There was no rush now; he suspected the damage had already been done. He took the subway uptown to Jefferson and Wyatt, where his wife had a two o’clock appointment at Fashion Flair. He waited outside on the sidewalk across the street from the building till she emerged at a little past five, and then followed her on foot crosstown to her agency on Carrington Street. He watched as she climbed the steps to the first floor of the narrow building.
Then he took the subway again, and went home.
The air conditioner was humming in the second-floor bedroom of the brownstone. The room was cool, but Kling could not sleep. It was two in the morning, and he wasn’t due back at work till four this afternoon, but he’d hoped to get up early again in the morning, in time to leave the apartment when Augusta did. He wanted to see if she visited her pal on Hopper Street again. Wanted to see if visiting her pal was a regular lunch-hour thing with her, quick matinee every day of the week when she wasn’t out screwing around instead of eating in a Chinese restaurant. He was tempted to confront her with it now, tell her he’d followed her to Hopper Street, tell her he’d seen her go into the building at 641 Hopper Street, ask her what possible business she could have had in that building. Get it over with here and now. He remembered what Carella had advised him.
“Augusta?” he whispered.
“Mm.”
“Gussie?”
“Mm.”
“You awake?”
“No,” she said, and rolled over.
“Gussie, I want to talk to you.”
“Go t’sleep,” Augusta mumbled.
“Gussie?”
“Sleep,” she said.
“Honey, this is important,” he said.
“Shit.”
“Honey…”
“Shit, shit, shit,” she said, and sat up and snapped on the bedside lamp. “What is it?” she said, and looked at the clock on the table. “Bert, it’s two o’clock, I have a sitting at eight-thirty, can’t this wait?”
“I really feel I have to talk to you now,” he said.
“I have to get up at six-thirty!” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but, Gussie, this has really been bothering me.”
“All right, what is it?” she said, and sighed. She took a pack of cigarettes from beside the clock, shook one free, and lighted it.
“I’m worried,” he said.
“Worried? What do you mean?” she said.
“About us,” he said.
“Us?”
“I think we’re drifting apart.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said.
“I think we are.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Well, we… for one thing, we don’t make love as often as we used to.”
“I’ve got my period,” Augusta said. “You know that.”
“I know that, but… well, that didn’t used to matter in the past. When we were first married.”
“Well,” she said, and hesitated. “I thought we were doing fine.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head.
“Is it the sex, is that it? I mean, that you think we don’t have enough sex?”
“That’s only part of it,” he said.
“Because if you, you know, if you’d like me to…”
“No, no.”
“I thought we were doing fine,” she said again, and shrugged, and stubbed out the cigarette.
“You know this girl who’s with the agency?” he said. Here it is, he thought. Here we go.
“What girl?”
“Little blond girl. She models junior stuff.”
“Monica?”
“Yeah.”
“Monica Thorpe? What about her?”
“She was out there at the beach that night of the party. On the Fourth. Do you remember?”
“So?”
“We got to talking,” Kling said.
“Uh-huh,” Augusta said, and reached for the pack of cigarettes again. Lighting one, she said, “Must’ve been fascinating, talking to that nitwit.”
“You smoke an awful lot, do you know that?” Kling said.
“Is that another complaint?” Augusta asked. “No sex, too much smoking, are we going to go through a whole catalogue at two in the morning?”
“Well, I’m only thinking of your health,” Kling said.
“So what about Monica? What’d you talk about?”
“You.”
“Me? Now, there’s a switch, all right. I thought Monica never talked about anything but her own cute little adorable self. What’d she have to say? Does she think I smoke too much?”
“She said she’s seen you around town with a lot of guys,” Kling said in a rush, and then caught his breath.
“What?”
“She said—”
“Oh, that rotten little bitch!” Augusta said, and angrily stubbed out the cigarette she’d just lighted. “Seen me around, seen me—”
“One guy in particular,” Kling said.
“Oh, one guy in particular, uh-huh.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Which guy?”
“I don’t know. You tell me, Gussie.”
“This is ridiculous,” Augusta said.
“I’m only repeating what she said.”
“And you believed her.”
“I… listened to her. Let’s put it that way.”
“But she couldn’t tell you which guy, in particular, I’m supposed to have been seen around town with, is that it, Bert?”
“No. I asked her, but—”
“Oh, you asked her. So you did believe her, right?”
“I was listening, Gussie.”
“To a juvenile delinquent who’s only been laid by every photographer in the entire city, and who has the gall—”
“Calm down,” he said.
“—to suggest that I’m—”
“Come on, Gussie.”
“I’ll kill that little bitch. I swear to God, I’ll kill her!”
“Then it isn’t true, right?”
“Right, it isn’t true. Did you think it was?”
“I guess so.”
“Thanks a lot,” Augusta said.
They were silent for several moments. He was thinking he would have to ask her about 641 Hopper Street, about why she’d gone this afternoon to 641 Hopper Street. He was thinking he’d done what Carella had suggested he should do, but he still wasn’t satisfied, he still didn’t have the answers that would set his mind at ease. He had only opened the can of peas, and now he had to spill them all over the bed.
“Gussie…” he said.