CHAPTER 11

Going over the Queensboro Bridge, Claire turned clear around in her seat to get a good look at the skyline. The sky had turned overcast but the heavens were lit. New York lived and breathed a great mucky glow of its own. She sighed. That’s my town from here on in, she realized, pleased. Oh, it would all work out. She felt better now, all snuggled up in the leather upholstery soft as butter. There was something about a posh car. It made you forget all about tomorrow. Rather like late-night television. She looked over at Stefan. He smiled back, concerned. He wasn’t so bad, really. Just a hell of a snob. But then so had she been, back in the Munich days. She stroked the nice leather. There was nothing wrong with being a snob. It showed you were discerning. Perhaps Stefan was only so happy-go-lucky on the outside. Maybe he was as wracked by doubts and inconsistencies as she. After all, she hadn’t given him much of a chance.

As though reading her change of heart with some devious instinct, he leaned over and placed one hand on the seat beside her knee. He wore a heavy gold ring with a lapis lazuli stone.

“That’s an interesting ring,” she admired.

Stefan chuckled. “My great-grandfather’s ring.”

“Is that so?” Claire imagined herself, years down the road, wearing such a ring herself. And Stefan, dignified Stefan, one day passing his own heavy ring down to their son. The only trouble was, the son looked remarkably like a miniature Johnny Benedetto. “Honestly,” she said out loud, “sometimes I get so confused. There really is something to be said for the oblivion of drunkenness.”

“Only you’re not drunk, are you?” he said, meaning something else. Of course, he wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t got to where he was by being dim-witted.

“You’re the type who’s always thinking,” he eyed her fondly. “That brain never stops.”

“Oh, it stops, all right. It just does so at teeming intersections.”

“You know what you need?”

“What?”

“A good dose of security. That’s what.”

“I’ve got all the security I need. I’m living with my parents, after all.”

“I mean real security. Financial. Then you’d be free to pursue your art.”

“I could always get a job, Stefan.”

“Or marry someone with a lot of money.”

Claire switched on the radio. Why was he saying things like this to her? Did he like her that much? Financial security was an attractive commodity. He knew she knew that. Albinoni’s adagio for strings came on. One of her dad’s favorites. Now her parents didn’t have much more than a pot to piss in and yet they had everything. At least, if you looked at it a certain way they did. Her mother always said there was no security in the world. Just look at Mrs. Dixon. Whatever it was, Mary always had a handy point of reference among her friends. That poor woman. She’d looked after her bedridden mother for years until the poor old thing had died. There was no money left after that and she wasn’t getting any younger, so when Rudy Dixon came along, nice big house, good job with a fine company … she’d accepted his marriage proposal with relief. Finally someone to look after her. Security. And what had happened? Not two years into the marriage, Rudy had had himself a massive stroke and Mrs. Dixon spent the next thirty years looking after helpless Rudy and cleaning that big house herself. No, there were no sure things, no security in the world. Banks did fail. Stocks and bonds collapsed. You were better off taking your chances with someone you loved.

And there was another thing. Claire had lived overseas long enough to know that an American passport was still a desirable commodity. Even for a wealthy Pole with diplomatic immunity. Stefan was attracted to her, she knew that. Even now his hot little breaths were fogging up her sense of well-being.

She knew exactly what sex would be like with Stefan. It’d be slick, expert sex … like between the lines of the glossy magazine advice columns. The music would be suitable. Most likely black and newly released. He would moan. His body would be scented with the most expensive men’s cologne from Bloomingdales. He would labor away at satisfying her first, tackling her body with all the cultivated calisthenics picked up at the health club. Yes, he would do his level best. When it was over, he’d sink down onto his elbows and gaze at her with triumphant eyes. Maybe even hold up his Waterford champagne glass for a replenishing toast. And she knew that the smell, the essence he would emote then, what with the talcum and the perfume rubbed away, would be thoroughly repugnant to her. She knew it. Just as surely as she knew that she had no idea what it would be like with Johnny. With Johnny all she knew was that she was compelled to him, thirsted for him with an almost infantile yearning, and had lost her mind when he’d held her. From that moment on she had only one insistent memory whenever she got close enough to herself to turn out the world, when she was drying her face with a towel or when her cheek touched the pillow … a dark and fragrant mental picture of a still-unopened blood red rose.

“I’d like to go straight home, Stefan.”

“I know. We’ll just stop off at my place for a quick drink. Help you sleep.”

“That’s very kind of you, but no thank you.”

“Come on, Claire. Don’t play coy with me.” He was driving faster now, deliberately intimidating her.

She gripped the upholstery with ice-cold hands. The bottom fell out of her stomach as he cut through traffic like a shot from a gun.

“Come on, Stefan,” she heard herself say in what seemed an only slightly elevated tone.

“Excited?” He looked like a beautiful little boy having fun. He went still faster.

She burst out laughing. She didn’t know what else to do. It worked. Stefan slowed down, took the turn, and pulled up in front of her house. Even his sudden anger seemed to mellow. “All right,” he said as they pulled up in front of her house. “Tonight you’re off the hook. But tomorrow night”—he gave her an almost malevolent look—“we’ll take a drive. Do you like Montauk?”

“Ooo! So far? Exciting!” She smiled at him, her goodbye full of promise, and hopped out of the car.

He grinned at their secret joke and roared away.

She kept that smile on her face until he turned the corner. She walked up to the stoop and sat down. Something was missing. There he was, staring at her through the screen. She let him out and sat down next to him on the top step, as was their custom, put her arm over him and felt his doggy breath on her hand. “That is one guy,” she said, “with whom I will never again get in a car. Something strange there. Boy. Never again. Do you know I was actually frightened for a moment? Always laugh in the face of fear, your honor. It’s the only way out.”

The Mayor put his chin down on her knees. He was awfully glad she was home, safe and sound. Astonishing how much she meant to him after such a short time. She made him feel somewhat vital. Lord knew she needed looking after. They sat there listening to the crickets. A pack of kids were down the road under the trestle. They heard a bottle break and the muffled laughter, then the giddy shuffle as they ran off. The midnight local lumbered in and out, groaning and wheezing and farting. A cop car passed in front of the house, then parked in its everynight spot up on Bessemer for coffee regular and half a dozen Dunkin Donuts.

Iris’s kitchen light was still on. Claire was tempted to go over and take a peek through the window until she remembered how late it was. If anybody saw her they’d think she was breaking in. The hell, she decided. “C’mon,” she said. “We’re going to do a little spying. You do have a girlfriend over there, don’t you?”

They strolled with pointed nonchalance across the street. “Go on,” Claire egged him through the bushes. “Pretend I’m not here, would you? Gee. Now that you’ve got the green light, you act like Mr. Prim and do it off the curb.”

It wasn’t that. The Mayor cocked his head and his ears went up with a quizzical hoist. It was this baffling sense that something was amiss.

“Just mind you don’t tear that big web there,” she hissed and followed him through down on all fours. Right above her head was Iris’s tentative silhouette. And then she was gone. She left the light on though. She’d be back. Claire pitched herself against the Japanese maple to wait for her return. The living room, aside from the monstrous television set, looked like something from a long-gone era. Through the parted velvet drapes she could just make out the unusual antique furniture, Chinese and Louis XV mostly … oriental screens and bookcases and figures … little figures … what in blazes? It looked like a couch full of children. A hot wind blew and the curtain fluttered shut. The Mayor drew close to her feet. It was so damned quiet. He would have preferred to go but wasn’t about to leave her flat. She was glad he was there but dared not speak. She had to get a closer look. If she could just get up to that branch, she could look in the breezeway window. The Mayor looked on skeptically. Clumsy Claire. She’d never make it. White lightning lit up the sky. Of course. Where else would she want to be but up a tree in a lightning storm? Easy does it … easy does it … she was up with a round roll of thunder.

“Na? So you’ve come for dat tea after all!”

Iris’s voice, and the sudden sight of her eerie, pale-moon face behind and underneath her, jolted Claire right out of the tree.

She wasn’t hurt, but rain was pelting down on top of them now in a resolute gully-washer. There was nothing to do but follow Iris into the house. The Mayor stuck like glue. Iris, trailing an invisible chiffon scarf with one hand up in the air, ushered them in through the hall to the parlor. The smell of cat was very thick.

“Sit down, sit down,” Iris gushed. “Take off dose sopping shoes.” She was all keyed up.

“I shouldn’t have come over like this … in the middle of the night. I ought to go, really. I—”

But Iris wouldn’t hear of it. She was delighted.

“Ve older people don’t sleep a lot, you know. Und I don’t too much like da television. So violent. No, no, no, you couldn’t have come at a better time, to tell you da trute.”

“Fine.” Claire took one careful step backward and sneezed.

“Und dis is my family,” Iris presented the back of the couch.

I can always beat her up, Claire told herself. She’s just a frail old woman. Then she saw who was sitting on the couch. It was a family of dolls. Big dolls, little dolls. There was one enormous one that looked like Shirley Temple. Her wig was golden ringlets of real hair. Most of the dolls were obviously valuable German and French bisque, as old, perhaps, as Iris herself. They were all done up in hand-crocheted, vibrant colors, opulently turned out but now softly muted with time and a gray film of dust. They were everywhere: staring out from glass-doored cabinets and countless musty shelves.

“Dese are my dollies.” Iris sat down on the hassock and crossed her legs, revealing just a touch of lace-trimmed slip. Black.

“How nice,” Claire smiled hard. She edged over toward the window. It was open and she could always jump out. Across the street a car pulled up. Claire’s heart thumped. It was a man, rushing around the car with an umbrella. She didn’t know him, wait, she did. It was that doctor from Stefan’s party and he was opening the passenger door for Zinnie. “Hi!” she waved, pretending they could see her. “My sister and her new boyfriend,” she said. She could hear them laughing as they scooted through the rain. They were kissing now, thick as thieves in each other’s arms on the porch.

Iris was talking about how beneficial a thunderstorm was, shooting lovely bolts of ozone into the earth … like a tonic for the plants.

“I’ve never seen so many dolls,” Claire crept closer. She hated dolls. Always had. She didn’t care how rare they were. Dolls had always filled her with anxiety, even as a child. She couldn’t see them face down on the floor … they had to be upright (imagine being face down like that every day). No, and they had to be adequately covered, too, not naked in a cold garage the way some thoughtless little girls left them. The worst part about dolls was that once you got them dressed and sitting comfortably, they scared the living daylights out of you … looking at you the way they did with icy, unblinking eyes. They were diabolical once they got you alone in the dark.

Iris went away to boil water or something, and Claire had time to investigate the shabby finery of the room. It was sad if you looked at it one way, almost Havishamesque. On the other hand, it was the place of a person who’d chosen her poison at one point and stuck to it, dammit. Each nook and doily held some memory, Claire supposed. There was a series of cat portraits, from aging sepiatone to a brilliant, though blurred, color polaroid of Lü. She guessed she’d rather live like this one day should she become old, independently eccentric, instead of tediously predictable like the other old women around the neighborhood, fastidiously correct with their starched curtains and whitewashed stoops. Dry and forgettable. Interchangeable. You wouldn’t find any of them inviting anyone in to tea at midnight, would you? No matter how the visitor had arrived.

Claire decided she liked Iris after all. There was a cut glass bowl filled with colorful marbles on the coffee table. They refracted the light from the art deco lamp beside it in a mottle of pastel along the walls. And who but Iris would think to upholster the Biedermeier hassock like that, in indigo with tapioca constellations? One whole side of the room consisted of shelf upon shelf of books. Metaphysics in six different languages. Leather-bound volumes of the philosophers: Leibniz, Kant, Descartes, Spinoza, Bacon, and quite a few by that old chauvinist Nietzsche. Freud and Jung had their own rows. This all spoke in favor of Iris’s innocence, as far as Claire was concerned. Nobody with that much psychological knowledge of self would go around killing children. They just wouldn’t. Would they? They would not.

Claire took a quick peek out the window just in case. Zinnie and Emil were still there. Sure. Snug as bugs in her hammock. You could look right into the house from here. She could see her father leaning over some weapon or other in his den, even hear his music, Puccini’s something or other. Her mother was up in bed doing her crossword puzzle, her bent, fissured form happily oblivious to all but obscure word origins.

Iris came back in carrying a tray overloaded with pastry and cups and saucers.

Claire smiled. “What’s this? The Viennese hour?”

“If you like.” Iris rotated her shoulders with a mambo back and forth, getting into the swing of her tea party. Iris apparently didn’t go in for supermarket goodies. She baked herself. There was a slice of rum-wafting fruitcake. With a thrill of horror Claire spotted the powder-sugared rugelach. She resigned herself to tomorrow’s fast and helped herself.

“Dat’s vot I like to see,” Iris sat down happily, “a goot healthy appetite.”

“These are hard not to like,” Claire took another.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“No, nothing. Just the way it is, thanks.”

“A little schnapps? Because you’re vet?”

“Schnapps? What about a cordial?”

Iris threw open a cabinet no farther away than her fingertips. It sparkled with imported bottles. “Pear, plum, orange, peach, hazelnut, or apricot.”

“Um … pear.”

“Pear.” With an admirably steady hand she opened the bottle and plunked a good slosh into Claire’s teacup and then one in her own. Her fingers were gnarled with arthritis but her nails were perfectly manicured. With what painstaking diligence Iris had achieved that was anybody’s guess. Her hands alone would make an interesting portrait. She was going to have to come to a decision soon about using the camera. Why did everything have to be so difficult? You never seemed to be able to do the things you really knew you should be doing without compromising. Nothing was for nothing. “Relationships are so complicated,” she said out loud, but Iris wasn’t interested in pursuing the mundane.

“Vy,” she said, “don’t you get yourself knocked up?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know, pregnant. You’ve got the age. Und nothing else to do. It vood be a fine ting to see some new life around dat house.”

Claire lowered her eyes and swallowed her mouthful. “What does that mean, I haven’t anything else to do?”

“Vell, I mean, I see you over dere. Vandering around all night long. Dat’s nice to come home und readjust but now you ought to have someone else besides yourself to take care of. Pretty soon it vill be too late. Trees only ripen in season, you know.”

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you and you’re telling me my biological clock is running out. And just with whom should I have this baby? Have you got that figured out, too?”

“Pfuff! Plenty of men around your house. Dat one always vatching in da vindows at night.”

“Johnny?”

“I don’t know. Dat one alvays hanging around. You two vould make beautiful children.”

Claire nibbled on her cookie. “He’s a cop.”

“So? Dat’s a goot chob.”

“Is it? Always walking a tightrope between crack smokers with knives and cocaine pushers with guns?”

Iris pursed her lips. “Day got a goot pension if dey get kilt. Und da way I look at it is dis. Like da Arab says”—here she raised her pointer finger into the air—“‘It is written by da prophet ven you shall die. From da day to da hour, yea to da very moment.’ All dat udder stuff about chance is poppycock.”

“Really? I don’t see you with any framed pictures of dead husbands.”

Iris sipped her tea.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t know what came over me. It’s just that I feel suddenly so at ease talking to you … as though I’ve known you for a long time. I never would dare to say something like that to anyone unless I felt close to them. I mean … you must forgive me. My mouth goes off before the thought even reaches my brain.”

“Dat’s all right, dat’s all right,” Iris waved away her apology. “I like you because you do say vot’s on your mind … not because you vatch your vords. No, that doesn’t bother me. But, as you must know, sometimes we carry da strongest memories around with us in our hearts, not in picture frames.”

Claire nodded sadly, remembering Michael. All the loneliness she’d gained with his death could never outweigh the joy of having had him once. Not for a moment.

“I used to have pictures,” Iris mused aloud. “But den came such upheaval in Europe. I took pictures myself, once, with a camera. Ach. I was so proud of dose pictures. I even framed dem myself. You can’t take dat sort of important ting vith you ven you’re getting out of da country.”

Now, isn’t that odd, thought Claire. Weren’t there some sort of pictures … pictures without frames … why, of course. It had been with Michael, a million years ago. They had to have been children. They’d gotten hold of some pictures, dirty pictures. One of those pictures had made such an impression on her that she couldn’t imagine how she had blocked it out. It was a magazine picture, one of those cheap, detective sort of sexy things. There was a man. He was wearing a raincoat and holding a gun. No, then he wasn’t a detective, he was just holding out that gun and pointing it at a woman, she was sitting on the bed in her fancy underwear and there was a caption, cut out with letters from comic books and taped into sentences and it said, wait a minute, it said: “Take off your stockings and pull down your panties.”

Iris cleared her throat. “Dere is,” she said, “a lot to be said for loss itself. It makes you appreciate vot you have. Every bit of it.”

The two women looked at each other with mute misunderstanding. Claire remembered her manners. She sat up briskly. “All those pictures you don’t have anymore, were they of someone special?”

“Special? At dat time, ja. Dey vere special den. Only now dey are nothing but memories. Now my pictures are the sounds of crowded trams going up the Prinzregentenplatz … full of people long, long dead.”

Claire shivered. The rain outside was loud and the dust on the window sills had turned to muddy grime. She realized that with the darkness of her loneliness exposed to light, Iris’s mystery had disappeared and now she had Claire on her side. They could arrest Iris but no one would ever convince her that she had killed those children. She found herself staring at a pack of worn out tarot cards on the table. The police weren’t going to like the looks of those. It wouldn’t hurt to get rid of them. The cat jumped onto Iris’s lap and rubbed his head on her breast.

“That’s an interesting name for a cat. Lü.”

“Dat’s Chinese. It means the Wanderer.”

“You know, Iris, if I were you, I’d put those tarot cards away.”

“Pschew. I don’t use dem anymore.”

“You don’t believe in them anymore?”

“Oh, dey work. Don’t think even for a little moment dat you can’t ask da cards. Dat dey von’t tell you exactly vot it is you vant to know. Dat’s sure. I don’t use dem now anymore because I happen to believe in prayer better. The direct approach. Me? I go right to da top. God himself. I don’t bother with dose little saints, either. Und I don’t bother with da cards because even dough dey’ll tell you vot it is you vant to know, dere’s no good reason for you to know it. Not in my book. Anything gonna happen, gonna happen. Vat for should’ve know da future? Take da fun out of it.”

“Yes, but what about preventive foresight?”

“Dat’s vot God gave us intuition for. You rely too much on all these ersatz methods: astrology, palmistry, tarot … you lose your telepathic gift. Your own individual nose, as it vere.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“Und anyhow,” Iris slapped the air, “I get sick and tired of reading everybody’s cards.”

Claire laughed.

“Hmm. You tink dat’s funny. It’s not so funny ven dey won’t let you in peace. Ven dey come from all over the place und interrupt your privacy und even your breakfast to find out if da husband is cheating on dem. Who cares? Once you find out you can do it … it becomes a real hell of a bore, let me tell you dat!” She sank back in her chair, done in by her own vehemence.

“Come on,” Claire said, “I’ll help you carry these things to the kitchen. It’s late.”

“Ja,” Iris got up carefully. “I’m not gonna argue vit you. Und you know vot else?”

“What’s that?”

“If I put da tarot cards away … if I hide dem … und the police come, it vill look vorse for me if dey find dem hidden dan if I chust let dem sit dere in da open.”

So she knew. She’d figured out already that there was going to be a witch hunt. She was even ready for it. The awful thing was that it was Claire herself who’d supplied Johnny with the idea. She patted Iris on her meager arm and carried the tray to the kitchen. It was a harshly lit room, absurdly brisk and clean compared to the casual squalor of the others. The walls were tiled white, much like a hospital operating room except for the relief of one navy blue stripe around the top.

“My liebling room,” Iris’s eyes glittered. “I am in here baking all the morning.”

“No kidding? Every morning?”

“Chust about. Da kids come, you know. I don’t mind dem. Never. So I like to keep da cookie jars full. Dey all have der favorites. Michaelaen likes dat kind you like, the rugelach.”

“Michaelaen comes here?”

“Sure. All da time. Vell, sometimes.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.” Neither, she bet, did Zinnie.

“Chust like Michael used to,” Iris said pointedly, searching Claire’s blue eyes.

Claire leaned against the old porcelain sink. “Do you know what horror is? Not the sureness of death. It’s the uncertainty of life that’s the horror. Not knowing for sure what to do. I always wish there was some way to tell.”

“Ach,” Iris dumped the tea cups into a pool of suds. “Dere is no ‘sure.’ You take a chance. You follow your heart. You know dat.”

“That’s just it. I never do know. How do you know what the heart is trying to say?”

“You have to listen mit it!” Iris yelled at her. “You vant sure, you listen mit brain. Brain is right-left, black-vite. Heart is like a subvay train. You get off any stop you vant to get home. Quick one … march right home. Udder one … maybe takes more time, more valking, but is a more charming route. More trees und flowers along da vay. Dat’s choice. Your choice. Anyvay, eventually, you gonna get back home. How is up to you.” Then Iris hitched up her skirt and started to hum “You gotta have heart.”

“You’re a regular comedian. I feel as though everything’s falling apart all around me … whatever I do goes wrong, whatever I reach for turns sour.”

“Oh, come, come, come. Noting is dat bad.”

“Maybe not. It’s just that nothing goes right.”

“I know von ting. Ven ting’s are going along smoothly, you can be very sure dat you’re not getting anyvhere. Listen to me vell, girl, because dis is as true as true gets. Ven you’re getting a lot of flack, ven everyting you do meets with resistance, den you know dat you are getting close to da source.”

“The source.”

“Ja.”

When Iris walked her out through the foyer, she handed her an umbrella. It was made of paper and sprayed with shellack. When she opened it, it crackled.

“No sense getting vet,” Iris said, “even if it is chust across da street.”

“Okay,” Claire took it gratefully. “This way I’ll have to come back to return it.”

“I’d like dat. As long as you don’t come too often.”

They smiled at each other. “Damn,” said Claire, “now where’s the Mayor gone?”

At the sound of his name, the Mayor bolted from the depths of the pantry. Natasha, Iris’s poodle, followed him out. She was looking very smug. Iris made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Dat dog. He’s gonna make my Natasha mit puppies. Oh, vell. Gotta have someting to do, eh? At least animals, ven dey’re old and useless, dey can still go out to stud.”

Old and useless? The Mayor flinched visibly. What a rotten thing to say.

Iris, clutching her elbows at the door, seemed to feel the need to temper her words as well. “I remember ven he vas a pup,” she reminisced. “Vay before even Michaelaen vas born. Dit you know he used to catch rats?”

“Yes, my father always talks about it.”

“Strange ting for a dog. Almost unheard of. Und once he caught a thief going into Gussie Drobbin’s house. Caught him by da foot und voodn’t let go!”

“Yes, I heard about that, too. My mother wrote me about it. That was when they changed his name from Blacky to the Mayor, wasn’t it?”

Ah, yes, the Mayor remembered, consoled. And not a bad monicker Blacky had been. Dash, it’d had. A touch of the old mischief. Of course, merit warranted dignity. And one never could go back …

“Goot-bye! Goot-bye! Und not to forget dat handsome young fellow. Imagine vat it vould feel in da arms mit a nice little redheaded baby to hold!” She continued to wave as they made their way across the puddled street.

Claire rushed inside. Zinnie was off the porch by now and the house was dark. A nice little redheaded baby, eh? Claire snorted to herself. She hadn’t been red for the last twenty years. But bless her for remembering. The old fox. She looked at the Mayor. “Listen to me. We’re not even on speaking terms and this is the second time tonight I’m imagining having his baby. I must be off my trolley.”

He yawned at her feebly and they went right up to bed.

Across the street old Iris mopped the table with one edge of her kimono. She dusted her way lovingly around the figurines and ruby glass. She stopped when she noticed the cards. Claire had handled them thoroughly, then put them down absentmindedly into three piles. Iris raised her chin in wise disinterest, then turned around abruptly and snatched up the first. It was the moon. Ah, the mistress of the night. Underlying fears wriggling to the surface of a still pool in the body of a crayfish. A wolf and a dog barking. The home of the dead. Illusion. Iris shivered. She raised the second pile. The hanged man. The unconscious again. A sacrifice to be made. Some fearful journey through the underworld of Hades. Iris sat down carefully. She raised the third and last small pile. The wheel of fortune. So. The old order changeth.

Claire was just drifting off when the light went on.

“Sst! You asleep?”

“What?”

“You up?”

“Mmm. Turn that light out.”

Carmela put it out and turned another, less offensive, light on. She sat down on the edge of the bed, right at home, and unscrewed her earrings. Claire felt herself stiffen with exhausted rebellion but smiled encouragingly just the same. There was something prepossessing about Carmela, and impressively desperate. You might be riddled by her disturbance but you were also privileged. A realization, Claire supposed, that had something to do with the fact that Carmela was the assured, if batty, first born. She dragged herself up onto one elbow. Whatever it was that Carmela wanted, it would take her a while to get to it. She’d take you for a stroll along her own peculiar brand of garden path and then come out with it as she was just about to leave, an afterthought.

“I’ve wrecked my car,” she announced.

Claire’s eyes went round.

“I did. It’s all smashed up. On that big curve on Park Lane South.”

“Are you all right?!”

“I’m fine. Freddy went through the windshield.”

“Oh my God.”

“I mean, he’s okay. He’s got a big cut on his ear. Like it practically came off.” She raised her eyes to heaven. “But they sewed it back on.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah.”

“What hospital?”

“He’s out. They let him out. They sewed him up and we left. He just dropped me off in a cab.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Me? It was so strange. It all happened so fast. The car went clunk and I thought … I remember thinking it wasn’t too bad, and then there was this terrible sound of shattering glass, and I looked over and there was Freddy heaped up on the dashboard with his neck all funny and I thought … I was sure he was dead. He was so still. And then he put his head up and looked at me and he’s dripping blood … spurting blood, and all I could think was it’s a good thing it’s on the other side because I didn’t want the blood on me. What a thought! I mean what a way to think!”

“So then? What happened then?”

“I backed up the car, we were on Tracey’s lawn, right through the sticker bushes—thank God I didn’t hit the house—and the car still went, sort of, and we limped up to Saint John’s to the emergency room and they took care of him. They were great. Freddy was great. He told them he went through his apartment window.”

“But where’s your car?”

“Well, then I started to drive us home, but then the thing that was sticking out under the car was dragging like crazy so I figured I’d better park it while I had the chance, and we walked down to the Roy Rogers and caught a cab. Aren’t you going to ask me what I was doing with Freddy?”

Claire’s head was spinning. She hadn’t been able to get Freddy alone to confront him and had then concluded that it was none of her business anyway. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear it now. “All right,” she sighed, “what were you doing with him?”

Carmela twisted her ring. She had a two carat diamond from Arnold that she refused to take off. “I’m seeing him.”

Claire fumbled on the nightstand for a cigarette.

“You don’t seem very surprised.”

“It’s Zinnie who’s going to be surprised.”

“She’s not going to find out.”

“Carmela. You’ve got a head-sized hole in the windshield and Freddy the torn up head that fits in it. She’s not stupid, you know.”

“Freddy’s going to have the car towed to his garage in the morning.”

“And what’s he going to say about his head?!”

“I don’t know. He’s going to make up some story. I’m not supposed to know. I’m not supposed to have seen him.”

“Cozy. Very cozy.”

“Claire. They’re not married anymore.”

“Oh, right. That changes everything. I suppose that’s why you’re being so clandestine about it. Because it’s perfectly all right. Suppose Zinnie started dating Arnold. I suppose that wouldn’t bother you a bit?”

“Zinnie sceeves Arnold. She thinks he smells like a corpse.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“You have nothing to do with it, either.”

This was good. “You woke me up to tell me this?”

“Tch. What a mess. It’s all a mess. I never should have started up with him.”

“You’re damn right you shouldn’t have. And what about AIDS? Just where do you think he’s been since he’s out of the closet?”

“Claire. There are such things as prophylactics.”

“Oh. And you’re sure that that’s enough? I mean is it worth it? You and Mom were telling Zinnie you didn’t want him around Michaelaen, for God’s sake.”

“I know, I know, I know.”

“I mean, it’s your business what you’re up to, but you can’t be pleased with yourself. You can’t.”

Carmela snorted. “I haven’t been pleased with myself since I was in school.”

“Because you were challenged there. You only got mixed up in this nonsense because you’re bored. Why don’t you quit that stupid job and sit down, I mean like really sit down, and write something good. You know you’ve got to sooner or later. You know it’s in you. Don’t you owe anything to the talent you were blessed with?”

“No.”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“Oh, Claire. You talk like a high school guidance counselor.”

“So? What’s wrong with that?”

“What about you? You could get a job in some terrific studio in the city and work hard and eventually open your own. And what do you do? You wander around here like some refugee from the third world who’s too proud to go on welfare.”

“That’s just what I don’t want. A job in the city. A job in a studio. Any studio. That would be the same as your job at the magazine. Being soothingly polite to arrogant clients who you’d just as soon smash in the teeth. I know how those people are and I don’t want to turn into one of them. They act so big. They act so … so … cool. You just want to put them in a black and white film from the fifties and turn off the sound. I’d rather sell cookies in a shop. And keep my photography the way I like it: pure.”

“Nothing’s pure.”

“Yes, some things are. Saving yourself for someone you love is pure.”

“I don’t know why I bother to talk to you. You’re screwing your brains out with that Polack and that … that pig cop.”

Claire flushed. “Michael was one of those ‘pig cops.’ And I haven’t slept with either of them, for your information.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I haven’t.”

“Well, then you’re more of a dope than I figured.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’d love to be there in the morning when the Traceys wake up and see their sticker bushes gone.”

They both laughed, Carmela harder than Claire, whose heart had gone light and then lead at the mention of Johnny. Her first instinct was joy, but her reason told her bluntly it would never work out. She remembered what Iris had said, and she hugged her knees with grim hope. Carmela’s hearty convulsion was just trailing off in a high, windy note of amusement. She focused her rather bloodshot eyes back on Claire. “Oh, I get it,” she said. “You’re in love. But with which one?”

“Which do you think?”

“The poor one.”

“Bingo.”

“Figures. You always were the one to bring home the mutts.”

“He’s not destitute, Carmela. He has a house. A horrible house, but a house. He’s not some cokie, he’s—”

“That’s all horseshit. What you mean is that he makes your juices run.”

“You’re so poetic. I always liked that about you.”

“Hey. A spade’s a spade. So what’s the plan?”

“Sit back and wait. Either he’ll come after me or he won’t.”

“You wanna borrow something ravishing to sit back and wait in? Like my strapless jewel green?”

Somewhere in the depths of Claire’s mind, preoccupied with the image of Johnny coming across her suddenly in the dazzling green dress, an alarm went off. But Carmela was taking her hand. “Listen, kid,” she said kindly, “if I were you, I wouldn’t sit around and wait for anyone. I’d go after him with big guns.”

“I thought I did. We just wound up wanting to wring each other’s neck.” She didn’t mention his accusations.

“Look. If you want someone, you have to forget your standards and act like a flight attendant. He’ll come around. Dress up. Wear heels. Dip.”

Claire burst out laughing.

“I mean it.” She stood. “You wanna get laid, you have to put aside your values for a couple of minutes.”

“But I don’t—”

“Bullshit. You do. We all do. As a matter of fact, if you’re not interested in the Polack, I’ll take him. That is if you really don’t mind.”

“Carmela, there’s something strange about Stefan. I don’t trust him. He could be the killer, for all we know.”

“Who’s talking about trusting him? I’d like to take him for all I can get.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I. I like the type who are up to no good. Mischief. You just don’t want me living in that mansion up on Park Lane South.”

“Carmela, believe me, I know exactly how you feel. I had quite a few of the same thoughts once or twice myself tonight. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about finding a way to live with ourselves. I mean, look at us. Here we are at three in the morning; I’m still drunk and you’re blitzed from God knows what—”

“So I snorted a little …”

“Yeah. You only ever snort a little. That’s why you weigh about forty pounds.”

“Oh, shut up. Just shut up, because I know what kind of sermon’s coming. And you just wish you had my slender thighs.”

“Thighs, yes, scrawny neck, no.”

“You had to get that out, didn’t you? Make you feel better?”

Claire listened to her heart pounding in her ears. Why on earth did she let Carmela get to her like this? Nobody had ever irked her this way overseas. Was this what she’d run away from? The people who pushed all her buttons? Turned her into a child? She sank back, exhausted, onto her pillow. Carmela moved over to the doorway and looked sadly at Claire. Cruelty had a way of bringing out the best in her. “Anyway,” she said. “I hope it works out with your dick-a-della. I really do.”

“Thanks.”

Carmela hesitated one more time. “Oh,” she said, “by the way. If you could pick up my car tomorrow I’d really appreciate it. Um … as you have nothing else to do. With your camera stolen and all, you won’t be doing much shooting, right?”

Claire smiled wryly. “Sure. I’ve got nothing else to do. And tigers never change their stripes.”

“What’s that face for?”

“I just wish you would once walk up those rickety stairs to see me without wanting something. Just to come up once for no reason at all but to, I don’t know, talk or something. The way you make it out to look before you get to what you really want. Or at least just say what it is you want first. You don’t have to make an ass of me.”

Carmela narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. The only reason you came home and bothered with us is because you were washed up over there. We didn’t see hide nor hair of you when you were a big success in Germany. You didn’t even show up for Christmas! Never. You just lived your selfish life and went your selfish way … and did you ever think that maybe you were missed? That you were needed? You think you were the only one who suffered losing Michael? You think you loved him maybe more than we did? Do you? Because I can remember nights when I would come up these ‘rickety stairs,’ as you so picturesquely put it, just to get away from the sound of Mom crying at night. And did you ever hear a grown man cry over there in your travels, in your quest to see the wide, real world? Because I can remember nights that Dad would put on his Beethoven tape and think we couldn’t hear him. Or do you think the mourning went away when you left? After the excitement of the funeral parlor died away and all the relatives were gone and nobody from the precinct came around anymore, it was just us, without him. Who the hell do you think cleaned out his sock drawer? You? His dear twin sister? So who are you going to call the user? Me?”

Claire let the one tear roll down her cheek without wiping it. “You’re right. And it is because I’ve been a failure in so many ways that I wound up back here, still looking inward, like a teenager does, trying to know myself and all that. I don’t deny that I’m a failure. The only thing is that I’ve been a success in ways you think I’ve been a failure and a failure in what you take for granted I’ve succeeded in. I was such a waste while I was making all that money. I was so nothing, so nowhere. I couldn’t sleep unless I had the light on and a couple of joints under my belt. I used to get these great travel jobs, traveling to these incredible places, and all I could see were the printed results I’d get out of it … what was going to look great in the dais. I didn’t see the Sugarloaf in Rio, I saw an impressive backdrop for the clothes I was shooting. Oh, Carmela! I didn’t see anything, I was so driven. So paranoid. I let myself fall in love with a vicious, megalomanic, woman-hating bastard just to satisfy my rotten self-image. And I was right. I was a total shit. I only started to come to myself, to love myself, when I was so broken down and lonely that even I had to feel sorry for me. The best I was was at my worst, with nothing. I just gave up, surrendered … and went out on my own. And it was only then that I found the courage to want to come home. So I am using you. I certainly am. But finally for the right reasons.”

Carmela was putting her hair in a braid. ‘“And it was then that I found the courage …’ How moving. I suppose I’m supposed to feel sorry for you now, too. It must have been awful making all that money without having to take the subway for it. It must have really bent your artistic pride. This might be new to you but, you know, a lot of people never even get the chance to be a hack at their art. They wait tables.”

“Those are actors, Carmela.”

“So they shoot weddings.”

“Now what do you want? Me to feel guilty for being successful at what I hated anyway? I’ve got enough things I feel comfortable being guilty for. That’s not one of them. Let me ask you something. Why the hell do you have such an attitude? Did I do something to you? What is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She sat back down on the bed.

The Mayor groaned. This night was going on forever. Would they never stop jabbering? He rolled over and broke calamitous wind.

They both held their heads in submissive meditation while the thunderous moment passed.

“I always play the bitch with you,” Carmela said. “I admit it. You always did bring out the worst in me. But I’m only sending out mixed signals. It’s really not so bad that you’re home. I mean, it could be worse.”

They sat watching each other fondly, warily. The rain battered down above their heads.

“I’ve got to sleep,” said Claire.

“And you won’t forget my car?”

“No.”

“Good night, then.”

“Yeah. Night.”

Michaelaen sat up in his bed. What was that? It was raining so hard. He was in his own bed but those shadows made all kinds of funny shapes on the wall. You could never be sure. His heart beat swiftly in his narrow chest. They were supposed to go out for their meeting. There was going to be magic and everything. He slipped out of bed and went up to the window. Boy. It was really coming down. And he felt a little sniffly. No one was going out on a night like this. But he didn’t want Mommy to get in trouble. He didn’t want anyone to hurt Mommy. What was today? Was it Wednesday? He couldn’t remember. If it was Wednesday Mommy was off nights. She’d be home. But if he went all the way down to her room and it wasn’t Wednesday, no one would be there. Michaelaen gulped. It was better to take along his old blankie. You never knew if it might get cold. Or drafty. Or something. He found it, right where it always was, tucked underneath his toy chest. How he hated to go down this hallway. It was best to more or less skedaddle through. He raced with his rear end tucked up tight behind him and never looking right or left, just squint so you couldn’t see too much and close your ears and hunch up, like.

Zinnie woke up quickly, a blink of an eye and she went from full sleep to full consciousness. This was a talent of cops and conscientious mothers, and of course she was both. Michaelaen slept alongside her most of the time when she wasn’t on nights, the hell with what those psychs said in the books—what did they know, anyway? She’d arrested her share of them. Sure, they’d always gotten off, but you knew what you were dealing with. Professional loonies, half of them. She’d let her son sleep beside her as long as he needed her warmth. She smiled at the sweet-smelling body cradling into her arms. Oh Lord. This is what kept her from going over the edge. The things she saw at work! The people! If you could call them that. The things some of them did to their own kids. It made you want to be sick. It almost made you want to quit the whole deal and move out to the Island or up past Westchester. But not quite. Those people, their kids were just as hopped up as the kids in the neighborhoods. And the job, whatever it might be, it had its points. There was a feeling of camaraderie you weren’t going to find somewhere else. Like that time one of their own took a bullet and they closed every street and intersection and even the bridge on the way to Saint Luke’s. Fast. She’d had the entrance to the bridge and she’d stood there alone in the night in her uniform—that was back when she’d still been in uniform—and all of a sudden like a shot out of nowhere comes this speeding ambulance, over the bridge with no moment of hesitation, one of their own they were going to get taken care of, and save him they did, not a moment too soon they’d said later. And it made you feel good. Especially when the ambulance had been flying by and there you were holding back any interference. The little lights twinkling on the bridge there, and you knew that all the way there, there would be someone else to take over, like a chain. It was horrible. But it was beautiful, too. It had its own kind of grace. And you were part of it. It could give you a chill up your spine. She pulled Michaelaen closer still and buried her face in his tufty hair. His smell was all his own and she reveled in it. Like clover and gum. Water-pistol water from the plug. She closed her eyes. The Mayor, satisfied that all was well and everyone in their proper place, walked contentedly back down the hall.