59

“But I must be like her,” Lida said.

Duvivier seemed puzzled.

“Like Christine Rivers.” The thought made her sad.

“No,” he said, “she had a much cuter nose.” But when he saw that Lida didn’t smile, he stopped walking.

Lida turned. He laid his hands on her shoulders. “You’re brash,” he said, “as she was. And you’re unsettling, as she was. But she was conspicuously sexual. Not like you at all. There was something desperate about her. As though she had some quota that she had to meet, you know, so many men by the end of the year.”

“You make me sound like a fucking virgin,” Lida said.

“You know what I mean. Only, a man like Riley wouldn’t know the difference between someone like her and someone like you.”

Or a man like Charles. Or a man like Jerry. I could give you a whole list of names, she thought.

They wandered the streets with no destination.

“Is this vagrancy?” Lida asked.

“I thought it was loafing,” he said.

Lida saw a phone booth at the end of the block and led him toward it. “I should call Diana,” she said. “I told her I’d be there.”

“Go ahead.” He plumbed his pockets and produced a handful of change. Lida took it and arranged it on the little metal shelf beneath the phone. “What will you say?” he asked.

“That you didn’t do it.” Lida pulled the door to the booth shut and dialed.

“She gave us this number,” Eddie said, “but she said not to call unless it was an emergency.”

“What’s the number?”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Yes, god damn it. What’s the number?” She kicked the door open and covered the mouthpiece. “I hate kids,” she told Duvivier. “Especially Diana’s kids.”

He saw her lips move, reciting the number over and over again so that she wouldn’t forget it.

“What are you doing in some sleazy motel?” she accused Diana. “You’re supposed to be at your place, consoling me.”

Diana giggled in response. Lida heard her say “It’s Lida,” to someone in the room.

“Are you with Allen,” Lida asked, “or with one of your other johns?”

Diana giggled again. “Allen missed his plane,” she explained.

“Listen,” Lida went on, “because this is important. And brace yourself.” She winked at Duvivier through the glass partition of the booth. “That friend of Allen’s, that Paul Riley? It was Paul Riley—not Ronald Wendolyn—who killed Christine Rivers. And this morning, Paul Riley tried to kill me.”

“Oh, my God,” Diana said. Her voice drifted away, and Allen came on the phone.

“Are you with Wendolyn?” he said sternly.

Lida jerked the phone away from her ear. “Put Diana back on,” she said.

“Where are you?” Allen insisted.

“Relax,” Lida said. “I’m on the streets of the nation’s capital and it’s broad daylight.” Then she told him the story, from the Howard Johnson’s to the Air and Space Museum, pausing at odd intervals to insert more coins. During these stops Allen relayed the tale, piecemeal, to Diana.

“Oh, my God,” Diana’s faraway voice kept saying.

Now Lida listened. Duvivier watched her until he couldn’t take it any longer. He opened the door to the booth. “What’s going on?” he said. “You haven’t said anything for the last five minutes.”

“Shhh,” Lida told him. “We’re tying up all the loose ends.”

“What loose ends?” he asked, watching Lida pocket the remainder of his change.

“The fate of Ronald Wendolyn, for one thing.” She looked over at Duvivier. “He’ll remain dead, of course. Allen doesn’t want to lose his cushy job just yet.”

“What cushy job?”

“He holds the Wendolyn Professorship. Perks you wouldn’t believe!”

“I know all about them,” he said.

They came to the curb and he stretched out his arm to stop her. “We have a red light,” he said.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Lida answered. “This is Fourteenth Street. A famous red-light district.”

“Surely not.” He gestured at the mannequins in the department-store window. “They’re such a cold-looking bunch.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, catching his arm and pulling him toward the revolving door. “Let’s go in here and shop, like regular folks.”

“Is this one of your haunts?” he asked.

“Garfinckel’s? Hell, no. The salesgirls are too snooty. I like salesgirls who snivel.” She walked over to the perfume counter, reading along a row of bottles.

“What are you looking for?” He spoke over her shoulder.

“There’s this commercial,” she said. “‘You touch Masumi. Masumi touches you.’” She croaked the words, hoping to sound mysterious.

“I have that,” A saleswoman stretched toward them. “Here we are.” She proffered a squat bottle, a gold atomizer bobbing at its neck.

Lida reached for it, but Duvivier caught her hand. “No,” he said to the clerk. “Thank you, but I like the brand the lady is wearing. I don’t think she’ll try that.”

The woman arched her brows and stared at him. She withdrew the bottle, but held it, awaiting Lida’s protest.

“What brand?” Lida said, turning toward him. It couldn’t be the spermicide. She had scrubbed her hands. “I’m not wearing any perfume.”

“Aren’t you?” He sniffed at her hair, her throat. “But you are. You smell of last night. And of me.”

The Masumi bottle shattered against the floor, and a thick cloud of scent closed around them. “Oh, God, let’s get out of here,” Lida shouted. “Quick! Before it touches us!”

He followed Lida to the escalator. They took it two steps at a time, dodging matrons with shopping bags, housewives making certain that their toddlers gripped the handrail. When they got off on the seventh floor, Lida was puffing.

“Hey,” she said, feigning collapse, “I thought you were an old man.”

“I used to be an old man,” he answered, taking her hand and leading her through a maze of crushed-velvet sofas and overstuffed chairs.

They stood at the edge of a partitioned square. It was arranged to simulate a room. Unread magazines and bowls of waxed fruit were set to exaggerate the gleam of the coffee table, the end tables. The pillows along the sofa were plumped just-so. Lida appraised the scene. “Barf,” she said.

“Where do you live?” he asked. “I mean, what’s it like?”

“Not like this,” she said, looking at him.

He walked into the room, pulling at her to follow. He sat in an easy chair, but without ease. He sat like someone in a dentist’s waiting room.

“Is this Early American?” she asked, and he laughed, leaning forward and taking hold of her bottom. He patted her backside. “Why don’t you fix me a drink,” he said, “and I’ll take my shoes off and tell you all about my day.”

She stooped beside the chair, balancing carefully. “Hey,” she whispered, “aren’t you afraid the meat loaf will burn?”

“You haven’t any ear for dialogue,” he told her. “It should be my meat loaf. ‘Aren’t you afraid my meat loaf will burn.’ Women are very proprietary about the food they prepare.”

“Aren’t you afraid my meat loaf will burn?” she said.

“You still haven’t any feel for the line. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve always hated your meat loaf.”

“Yeah? How about my mashed potatoes?”

“Those too,” he said. “Hate ’em.”

“Isn’t there anything you like?”

“Your meringue.” He stroked her hair. “I just love your meringue.”

The clerk, having stood on the periphery straightening his tie and deciding between ‘Can I help you?’ and ‘Something I can show you?’ cursed his timing and walked away.

Lida didn’t notice. She stood. “Meringue isn’t enough,” she said.

“I know that.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lida said. “I may not have an ear for dialogue, but I sure do have some talent for analogies.”