Lawrence, a kinky lab technician and coke addict she’d let pick her up in a bar up near Harlem, was only too glad to take care of her. After all, she took care of him, and almost every night. A girl had to do what a girl had to do.
Hedra flicked a glance at Lawrence and then continued to read. The Times speculated that, given the nature of the crime, it was possible Allie might plead insanity. That irritated Hedra. She knew Sam’s killer wasn’t insane. Allie’d had to kill him, as well as that obnoxious snooping playwright. Sometimes Fate took control, grabbed people by the short hairs and dragged them, leaving no real choice of direction or destination.
“You want another cup of coffee, Allison?” Lawrence asked.
Hedra shook her head no, not looking at him. You could take only so much of a kitehead like Lawrence. She continued staring at the paper, now only pretending to read it. Thinking.
No, she wasn’t insane. Not anymore. If she’d ever been. They’d never really made up their minds about her anyway. Their own minds that circled like pale vultures so high above hers, so far above suspicion. One of the white-coated fools had even suggested she might be a multiple personality. As if everyone didn’t have more than one side. Hedra had overheard them talking about her overwhelming and formative need to escape reality, as if that, too, were unique. Tell me about it, she thought. Explain how I’m different from the millions of people who use drugs and alcohol regularly to escape from this shitty world for a while. Explain why I shouldn’t want to forget the past, after what my father did to create that kind of past. Night after night in my bed, putting his hands on me again and again. Dream after dream that was real. “She wants desperately to be someone else,” they’d whispered, trying to keep it a secret, but she’d heard it through the walls. “Poor child never really developed a center,” her mother, poor mother, had said, quoting another white coat. “Doesn’t have a sense of self-worth or identity. Wants to be someone else, anyone but who she is. My fault, my fault. Wants to be someone else.”
Not anymore, Hedra thought, spreading strawberry jam on her third piece of toast.
Now I know who I am.
Lawrence had picked up the long-bladed knife he’d used to slice bacon and was placing it in the dishwasher. Hedra thought about asking him to bring it to her, then she changed her mind. She couldn’t imagine why the thought had occurred to her.
Chapter 34
HEDRA had watched and waited, and when the time was right she met a Haller-Davis rental agent at the Cody Arms, a woman named Myra Klinger who was blocky as a soccer player and wore a pin-striped blue business suit complete with a yellow power tie and cuffed pants. Unexpectedly, Myra had a martyred nun’s face with brown, injured eyes.
As she unlocked the door to apartment 3H, she looked oddly at Hedra. Hedra had dyed her hair red and styled it in a graceful backsweep, and with her altered makeup and deliberately added weight she had no fear of being recognized by any of the tenants. And even if she were recognized, it would merely be as someone they’d seen before in the building; they wouldn’t connect her with Allie, whose own presence they’d only vaguely acknowledged. New York anonymity was a curse for some, for others a proper blessing.
Myra said, “Strange, you being named Jones. The woman who lived here last was named Jones.”
Hedra smiled. “Common name. That’s why my parents named me Eilla. Eilla Jones.”
Myra swept open the door and stepped aside so Hedra could enter. It was all one smooth and expectant motion, like someone introducing a celebrity to an audience.
The apartment looked shockingly bare, and the traffic noises from outside seemed louder and more echoing than Hedra remembered. The scatter rugs were of course gone; there wasn’t the slightest clutter in the place, and that changed its character entirely. But it could be furnished almost exactly the way it had been the day Hedra moved in. Standing and staring, Hedra could see it, all the furniture in place, the television playing and a book lying on the sofa, and there was a cup of hot chocolate resting on the fat sofa arm.
Home, she thought. I live here. I’m who I am, so there’s nowhere else I should be, nowhere else I could be.
The air stirred by the opening door had settled back down; the atmosphere in the apartment was hot and close, thick enough for Hedra to feel lying smooth and heavy as the softest velvet on her bare skin.
She knew she was expected to react to the apartment, to say something, so she said, “Spacious, but it could be cozy, too.” She walked down the hall, glanced into the bathroom as if looking at it for the first time. She nodded with approval. Nice touch, that. She peeked into the bedrooms and smiled.
“The place’ll be painted,” Myra assured her.
Hedra faced Myra Klinger and said, “No, I love it exactly the way it is. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“You sure? It can be painted the same colors.”
“I’m sure. And I can pay you three months’ rent in advance. I’m promised a good job here, have been for months and now it’s been confirmed, so money’s no problem.” Hedra told her about a job as a computer programmer. She gave Lawrence’s phone number as the company number, in case Haller-Davis decided to check. She didn’t think they’d bother, with a three-month advance plus a security desposit. And it was such a convincing story; she was so good at manipulating people like Myra Klinger, at sizing them up and then using them. It was, after all, their hearts’ desire.
Myra was thinking hard about the situation.
“To tell you the truth,” Hedra said, “this is the last apartment on the list a rental service company gave me. If I don’t get this one, I’m not sure what’ll happen; I don’t have any more apartments to look at.”
“You could get a new list.”
“The way property is in Manhattan, I doubt if that’d help.”
Myra shook her broad head and frowned. “Yeah, it’s a hell of a world sometimes. Hell of a city, anyway.”
“Sure is.”
“People get trapped in all kinds of ways.”
“Don’t they, though?”
“Even caring, affectionate people whose only real crime is being human.”
“Or different,” Hedra said.
“That, too.”
Hedra locked gazes with Myra until she felt the subtle arc of current she’d expected. “Different people in particular get fucked over in this city, so they’ve gotta stick together, don’t you think?”
Myra’s breasts were rising and falling. “Are you positive you want this apartment, Eilla?”
“I especially want it,” Hedra said. “And I’ll do anything to get it.”
Myra smiled. “Maybe there won’t be any problem. I might recommend you get the apartment.”
“Oh, God! Thanks, Mrs. Klinger!”
Myra looked as if her feelings had been stepped on. She said, “It’s Ms. And remember I said ‘might.’”
“Oh, sure. Sorry. There’s one thing more, Ms. Klinger.”
“It can be Myra.”
Hedra grinned. She just bet it could be “Myra.” “Fine. What I mean is, is there a storage area in the basement?”
“Why, yes, there is.”
“Would it be okay if I took a look at it? I’ve got some stuff to store—boxes of books and a bicycle.”
“I don’t see why you can’t have a look,” Myra said.
Hedra rode to the basement with Myra in the service elevator. It was the sub-basement, actually, as the basement itself had long ago been converted to apartments.
In the time she’d lived at the Cody Arms, Hedra had been to the basement only once. She remembered being surprised by its dim vastness, as she was again now. Though it was warm beneath the octopus tangle of heating ducts and with the boilers nearby, there was a cold feel to the basement, as if it were a cave. And in a way, Hedra thought, it was a man-made cave. Far below street level.