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She sips at her espresso and then looks across the table with those coal-black eyes of hers and says, “That’s too bad. I was hoping to see him again.”

Me too, Kate thinks.

Because, yes, now that this lunatic has entered her life she is finding it more and more difficult to suppress what happened during that summer long ago. Which is why she supposes she couldn’t fall asleep last night, even after the hot tub, even after, in fact, she masturbated under the suds.

You’re right, she thinks, I’m a whore.

Was that the word he’d used?

Whore?

Or was it slut?

Which?

But, yes, if David does by some miracle come in next week, she would like Gloria to be with them because if there’s one thing she’s learned over the years, it’s how to restage the Bloody Fucking Incident in a variety of inventive ways. With a bit more practice she guesses she might even be able to forget entirely what happened back there in the Westport house on that August night fourteen years ago. Aluvai, as they say in the trade. But then she might start stuttering again. Or worse. Again.

But that’s all behind you now.

Sure, Jacqueline, thank you very much.

And I certainly hope so, Ollie.

Still and all, she would like to be together with both of them again.

You always do this.

You’re right, she thinks, I’m a cunt, okay?

Yes.

Le mot juste.

Exactly what was said.

“So call me,” Gloria says. “If you hear from him.”

“I will.”

“Because I’d really like to do it, you know?”

At eight minutes before curtain on Friday night, the doorman announces over the P.A. system that she’s wanted on the telephone. It is David calling from Menemsha to tell her how much he loves her and to assure her that he’ll be there on Tuesday, as he’d promised, will she be coming to the airport to meet him?

“Yes,” she says, “I’ll be there.”

“My plane gets in at seven thirty-eight,” he says.

“LaGuardia or Newark?”

“Newark.”

“I’ll be there. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Why haven’t you called?”

“There’s only one car. We go every place together. I just haven’t been alone. There’s always someone with me.”

“Where are you now?”

“Home. The house. They all went...”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to us.”

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Five,” the stage manager warns.

“I love you, David. Please hurry before...”

She stops herself dead.

“I love you, too,” he says.

“Tuesday,” she says.

“Tuesday,” he repeats.

And is gone.

The letter is waiting in her mailbox when she conies down to the lobby on Saturday morning.

It reads:

The detective is the same one who ran the lineup for her and David back in July. His name is Clancy...

“No relation,” he says at once, though Kate doesn’t understand the reference...

...and he seems happy to see her again, happy to be of assistance to “one of the tribe” as he puts it. Kate has never thought of herself as being particularly Irish, except for her looks, but she’s grateful for the ties that seemingly bind. Clancy could not look less Irish. He has brown hair and brown eyes and a mouth that seems perpetually set in a skeptical sneer. He also needs a shave. She suspects he had a tough Friday night here in the big bad city.

The letters she has collected as evidence of whatever crime the lunatic is committing are now on Clancy’s desk, bathed in sunshine on this hot, sticky, what-else-is-new, late Saturday morning. Clancy is sitting in shirtsleeves, the better to promote the image of hardworking cop. A pistol is holstered at his waist on the right-hand side of his belt. He is smoking, of course. He looks like a cop on a television show. Except for the fact that they don’t smoke on television these days. To Kate’s enormous surprise, he opens the top drawer of his desk, and removes from it a pair of white cotton gloves. He pulls on the gloves. They give him a somewhat comical appearance, like a vagabond at a society tea.

“Has anyone but you handled these?” he asks.

“Well... yes. I showed them to a friend.”

“His name?”

“Rickie Diaz.”

“How do you spell the first name?” Clancy asks, and opens a thick black notebook.

“With an ‘i-e.’”

Clancy scribbles the name into his book.

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“O-kay,” he says, and opens the first of the envelopes.

He reads the letters in sequence.

He looks up every now and then and nods across the desk to her.

At last, he sighs heavily, lights a fresh cigarette, and says simply, “Yeah.”

She wonders Yeah what?

She waits.

“Your typical nut,” he says.

But this she already knows.

“Nine times out of ten, they’re harmless,” he says.

Which is reassuring.

“But this is a crime,” he says.

Good, she thinks.

“What’s the crime?”

“Aggravated Harassment.”

She nods.

He opens the top drawer of his desk again, takes out a paperback book with a blue and black cover. Upside down, she reads the title of the book:

GOULD’S
CRIMINAL LAW HANDBOOK
OF NEW YORK

Clancy opens the book, begins leafing through it.

“I think it’s two-thirty,” he says idly, though the clock on the wall behind his desk reads eleven twenty-seven.

He keeps leafing through the book.

“No, it’s two-forty point three-oh,” he says, and turns the book toward her. “This is the Penal Law,” he says.

She reads:

§ 240.30. Aggravated harassment in the second degree.

A person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when, with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm, he or she:

1. Communicates or causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or

2. Makes a telephone call, whether or not a conversation...

“He hasn’t called me,” she says, looking up sharply.

“Not yet,” Clancy says.

Which is somewhat less than reassuring.

...whether or not a conversation ensues, with no purpose of legitimate communication; or 3. Strikes, shoves, kicks or otherwise...

“The rest doesn’t apply,” Clancy says.

Thank God, she thinks.

“What’s Aggravated Harassment in the first degree?” she asks.

“Has to do with race, color, religion and so on. That’s a felony. Second degree is just an A-mis.”

“What’s that?”

“A class-A misdemeanor.”

“Like stealing my bike, right?”

“Well... yeah.”

“Then this isn’t a very important crime, right?”