“Gilrein,” he hears and flinches, his own name once again sounding like the start of an attack.
But when he turns, there she is, dressed in clothes — jeans, oversized sweater — he no longer recognizes.
“Wylie,” he says, the name coming out strange, sounding like an anachronistic curse.
She steps through what was once a doorway and is now just an oddly angled portal.
“I got a phone call from Rudy Perez,” she says. “He didn’t make a lot of sense.”
“You know Perez,” Gilrein says, studying her face, and upset but not at all surprised by how nervous he is, “totally uncomfortable when he’s got to handle the truth.”
Wylie smiles and says, “Good thing it doesn’t happen that often.”
She walks over to him, leans in, and kisses him on the cheek, sisterly, warm but setting up the correct distance right at the start.
Gilrein runs a hand through his hair.
“Jesus, Wylie,” he says, “couldn’t you have made yourself ugly or something?”
She gives up that laugh, the chin shooting out at him slightly. She says, “I could say the same thing, you know.”
“No,” shaking his head, but keeping everything friendly, “no you can’t. Those are the rules. The walker doesn’t get to carry the torch for the walkee. It would screw up all those pop songs.”
“Yeah,” she says, voice soft, restrained. “I guess so.”
And then back to business. Gilrein has always attributed her ability to instantly screw down her emotions to some kind of inherent, maybe genetic coolness just under the surface of her skin.
She says, “I can’t believe Rudy Perez rang me up because he was so concerned about affairs of the heart.”
He can match her, he lies to himself. He can keep the whole thing on some kind of professional, detached plane, just two bureaucrats swapping information. Two adults involved in a short business discussion whose protocol leaves nothing at stake.
“Perez tried to tell me you were working for August Kroger,” with maybe just a little exaggerated disbelief in the voice. He’ll need practice.
Wylie turns sideways, rests half of her behind on the edge of the love seat.
“And why would that be any of your business?” But she’s missing her mark as well, getting overly defensive too soon.
“Hey, Wylie,” he says, all of a sudden completely unsure of just how to play this, “look at me, for Christ’s sake. We don’t have to be this way with each other, do we?”
“Look, Gilrein, I told you, what, six months ago, that we couldn’t talk to each other at all. That’s the only way to do this—”
“Have I called you? Have I come by the Center?”
“—I get this call from Perez saying you’ve gone crazy or something. Saying you threatened to burn down the Shoppe and you were serious. He says you beat him up.”
“Screw Perez, okay?”
“What’s going on?”
“You don’t want to see me, why’d you come down here, Wylie?”
“I don’t want to do this, Gilrein. I can’t do this, all right? I’m feeling a little hungover right now, okay?”
“Just answer the question and then go if you want, okay? Just tell me, Perez is lying, right? You’ve got nothing to do with August Kroger, right?”
They stare at each other. Gilrein watches the way her hand toys with a tassel on the quilt.
Finally she says, “The fellowship was running out. I hadn’t finished the book. I didn’t have any money.”
“Jesus Christ” is all he can manage.
“It’s just a stupid job, Gilrein,” her voice getting louder and tighter.
“August fucking Kroger. I don’t believe this.”
“It’s a job. In my field. Okay, all right. I need to stay in town. Until the book is done. You don’t have any—”
“You couldn’t teach?” knowing it’s exactly the wrong thing even as he says it.
“I’m not a teacher,” the studied accenting of the last word carrying the perfect resentment, “I’m a researcher.”
“Could’ve just sold your ass down in Bangkok, you know,” getting nastier than he’d feared. “Some people love that clinical look. And real blonds are at a premium on Chin Avenue.”
“You bastard,” glad to hear it because he knows he deserves it.
“What do you want from me, Wylie, huh? You remember who I am?”
“Yeah, I remember who you are—”
“August Kroger, for Christ sake,” sputtering, not at all sure how to convey his sense of outrage and bottomless disappointment. “You leave the Center to go to work for a filthy little gangster like Kroger.”
“Mr. Kroger has never been arrested—”
“Mister Kroger,” yelling now, “Mister Kroger. I don’t believe this. I was a cop for a long time, Wylie. I knew what Kroger ate for dinner before you even heard his name.”
“He’s a major collector,” she says, trying to go back to a measured tone no matter how unlikely the chance. “He’s got a stunning library. And he’s not some poseur. He knows his material. He understands what he’s buying.”
“You don’t want to hear it, do you?” Gilrein says, as if he’s just figured something out. “That’s it, right? You already know the bulk of it and you don’t care.”
“Is this where you judge me, Gilrein? Is this the part where you tell me how disappointed you are in me?”
“He’s filthy, Wylie. Worse than you’ve allowed yourself to imagine. He’s not a neighborhood mayor, you know. He’s lying if he’s told you otherwise. He doesn’t take care of his people. He doesn’t have any people. He’s just a mob rat who read some books.”
“Look, Gilrein, I’ve got nothing to do with his business affairs—”
“Business affairs,” the words bursting out of his mouth.
“I’m the curator,” she says. “I’ve got complete autonomy. I run his library. Period. I’ve got a budget and a general mission. I go through the catalogs. I attend the auctions. I contact the dealers. I acquire and I inventory and I restore.”
He shakes his head and blinks like he’s just emerged from a murky pool of water.
“It really doesn’t bother you that this guy is a killer. A goddamn down-in-the-slime bad guy.”
She exhales melodramatically and says, “It’s good to know you haven’t lost that paranoia I used to love.”
It hurts because, in the larger scheme of things, it’s true.
“Wylie,” he says, “take a look at this,” and he starts to peel his shirt up off his chest. She gets alarmed, gets up off the love seat and takes a step back but then sees the run of blue and purple bruises along his ribs.
“Oh my God,” she says, her head bending forward to study the contusions as if they were a map to the library of Alexandria.
“What—” she begins.
And he snaps, “August Kroger did this to me.”
She squints up at him, her head still bent level with his torso, her eyes showing either confusion or doubt. Then she confirms that it’s doubt by straightening and nodding and gathering herself together for a final goodbye to an ex-lover gone crazy with rejection.