In the morning, as soon as the offices were open, he put in calls to the phone company, the gas, electric and water, identifying himself as John Marchetti and ordering a stop service on all utilities at the house. He filed a change of address at the post office, then called American Express and Visa-the two cards he'd seen the Bullhead flash-and claimed he'd lost his wallet and wanted replacement cards overnighted by FedEx. When the new cards arrived at the post-office box he'd set up, he began to order things for delivery to 1236 Laureclass="underline" a new washer and dryer; an antique slate pool table that weighed over a thousand pounds; a pair of purebred Dalmatians; a deluxe fourteen-jet hot tub that could accommodate six people comfortably. That was just the beginning. He canceled Gina's cell, canceled her credit cards, went down to the bank and closed out their joint savings account. And Yan. He went after Yan too, but in a more immediate way. A week later, after he'd closed the restaurant for the night and made the rounds of the bars, he found Yan's Nissan parked out front of his apartment and poured six plastic jugs of muriatic acid over the finish, then slashed the tires and took out the windshield for good measure. The night was cold, his breath steaming, the tire iron flashing under the street lamp like a sword of vengeance, and maybe somebody saw him there or maybe it was the post-office box, maybe that was it. He never knew really. In fact, he was still asleep when they came for him, and he never did remember his toothbrush.
By the time he got round to cooking, it was past seven and Madison was distracted and whiny. She sat at the kitchen table, pounding her legs back and forth under the chair as if she were on a swing set at the playground, watching him poach the gnocchi while the cordon bleu began to send up signals from the oven and the white sauce thickened in the pan and the zucchini simmered in olive oil, red wine, garlic and chopped basil, the flame up high just before he cut it down nearly to nothing. There was an untouched glass of milk in front of her and the croque monsieur he'd made her from a heel of French bread and the leftover slices of prosciutto and Emmentaler browned in the pan. He could see the semicircular indentation her upper teeth had made in the sandwich when she'd lifted it to her mouth and then decided she wasn't going to eat it after all because she was cranky and tired and sugared-out in honor of Dunkin' Donuts Day at camp and because he wanted her to eat and her mother wanted her to eat and she didn't want to do what anybody wanted her to do, not in her present mood.
For his part, he was through coaxing her. She could kick away all she wanted and she could pout and mug and whine that the milk was too warm and the sandwich too cold or plead for him to read her a story or at least let her get up from the table and watch TV, but he was in a zone-he was enjoying himself, the meal coming to fruition, two sips left of the vodka martini on the counter and the Orvieto on ice. Natalia had set the table on the deck-it was an uncharacteristically mild evening, the fog held at bay, at least temporarily-and she was out there now, martini in one hand, magazine in the other. After the spa, she'd spent the afternoon shopping with Kaylee, and she'd come home in a delirium of shopping bags, the slick shining colors catching the light, her hair swept back, her smile quick and unambiguous and her mood elevated. Definitely elevated. She insisted on trying things on for him-“Did he like this one? Did he? Was he sure? It wasn't too, too… was it?”-and Madison was summoned to try on the three outfits she'd got for her (hence the mood and the lateness of the meal).
He hadn't told her a thing yet, just that he had a surprise for her. While she'd been out shopping, he'd been shopping too, and he'd traded the Z4 in on a Mercedes S500 sedan with charcoal leather seats, burl walnut trim, an in-dash GPS navigator system and Sirius satellite radio, in a sweet color they called Bordeaux Red. There was a price differential, of course-a considerable one, and he knew he was being taken, the salesman pulling some sort of phony accent on him and kissing his ass from the front door to the desk and back again-but that hardly mattered. The Beemer was his down (the pink slip signed over to him by none other than Dana Halter) and there were no payments for the first six months, by which time it really wasn't relevant. Now, as he dodged from one pan to the other, checking the cordon bleu, dipping the gnocchi out of the pot and slipping them onto a greased sheet for a three-minute browning in the oven, he was burning up with the need to show it to her, to show it off and see the look on her face. That was how he'd planned it out, the new car first, the thrill of it, maybe a ride round the block or over the bridge, and then he'd give her the news: Business. An opportunity on the East Coast. But it would be a vacation, a vacation too-see the sights. Didn't she want to live in New York? Hadn't she always said that? New York?
In the heat of the moment-pans sizzling, aromas rising-he didn't hear her come in the door. There was Madison, pouting at the table, there was the deck and the empty chaise, and here she was, Natalia, slipping her arms round his waist. “So what is this surprise?” she cooed, her lips at his ear. “Tell me. I can hardly stand to know.”
Flipping off the gas under the burners, he gave the zucchini pan a precautionary shake and then swiveled round in her embrace. Both his hands climbed to her shoulders and he took her to him for a lingering kiss while Madison looked on in mock disgust. “You'll see,” he murmured, and in that moment he was sure of her, sure of the feel and the taste and the smell of her, his partner, his lover, the dark venereal presence in his bed. “As soon as we eat.”
“Ohhh,” she said, drawing it out, “so long?” And then, to her daughter: “It is a surprise, Madison. For Mommy. Do you like a surprise?”
After dinner-Madison managed to get down two forkfuls of gnocchi and half a slice of the veal, though she just stared right through the vegetables-he took them down the front steps to the gravel walkway along the bay. They were holding hands, Natalia on his right, Madison on his left. Madison bunched her fingers in the way Sukie used to, not quite ready to interlock them with his because she was still in a mood and that would have been too conciliatory under the circumstances-the surprise wasn't for her, after all, or not primarily. “What is it, Dana?” she kept saying in a high taunting schoolyard voice. “Huh? Aren't you going to tell?”
“Yes, Da-na,” Natalia chimed in. “I am in suspense. It is out here, outside? Something outside?”
He didn't answer right away. He was thinking of Sukie, the last time he'd seen her. It was the week he'd been released. They were at McDonald's, same place, same time, but she wasn't the girl he knew. It wasn't just the physical changes-a year older, a year taller, two teeth missing in front, her hair pinned up with a tortoiseshell barrette so that she seemed like an adult in miniature-but the way she looked at him. Her eyes, fawn-colored, round as quarters, eyes that had given themselves up to him without stint, were wary now, slit against the glare of the sun, against him. He could see the poison Gina had poured into them and see too that there was no antidote-there was nothing he could do to win her back, no amount of fudge on the sundae, not the desperation of his hug or the prattle of the old stories and routines. She was lost to him. He didn't even remember her birthday anymore. “No,” he said finally, bending low against the tug of Natalia's hand to bring his face level with her daughter's, “it's inside.”
All three of them had halted. Madison's nose twitched. “Then why are we out here?”
“Because this is an alternate way to our garage, isn't it? An acceptable way? A nice way, out here, breathing nice clean air after dinner?” He straightened up even as she let go of his hand and flew across the grass; just as she reached the garage door-unfinished wood gone gray with the sun and sea for the natural look-he clicked the remote and the door swung up as if by magic.