WHEN THEY FINALLY left the party, just short of midnight, Stacey clutched Nessheim’s arm as much for support as from affection. He had stuck to apple juice, for he had wanted to stay alert even if the horse had already fled the barn, but Stacey had made up for his shortfall. The wind had died, and as they walked the block over to Nessheim’s apartment, Stacey yapped away as he guided her home.
‘What’s the pencil factory?’ she asked. ‘I met some man tonight who said he was its foreman.’
It must have been Zinn, making a joke about graphite; he liked to say they could go into the pencil business with the graphite offcuts from their work. ‘I’m not sure who you mean,’ said Nessheim.
‘And who was that morose giant of a man?’
‘You mean Nadelhoffer? He works with Professor Fermi.’
‘What’s eating him? You’d have thought the war was over – and we’d lost twice.’
‘He gets weighed down by things, I guess.’
‘I would too.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t play me for a mug, Nessheim. Anyone could tell these guys are doing hush-hush work.’ Stacey exhaled with exasperation. ‘I bet those guys tell their wives what they’re up to,’ she said. He knew she was trying to taunt him into indiscretion. ‘Especially Nadelhoffer.’
‘He’s not married, Stacey. And I doubt Professor Fermi tells his wife a thing.’
‘I wouldn’t count on that. And I bet the others do.’
‘Maybe,’ he said neutrally, hoping she would leave it alone.
‘I mean, if you and I were married, you’d tell me.’
It was an odd thing to say. He looked at her strangely; she seemed unperturbed. At last he said, ‘We’re not married.’
Stacey squared her shoulders and said ‘Humph’ in a curiously old-fashioned way. Then she recovered, saying, ‘Don’t look so scared, Agent Nessheim.’
When they reached the courtyard on Kimbark Avenue, he was relieved to see the light still on in his living room. Inside the atrium he opened the outer door, and they went up into the apartment. He entered first, but though there was a faint whiff of cordite inside, and the splintering on the bedroom door, Stacey had hit the punch hard enough not to notice, and everything else was as he’d left it. When he came out of the bathroom dressed only in his boxer shorts, he found her under the covers, naked, alluring, and out for the count.
He didn’t feel sleepy, so he went to the kitchen and poured himself a small Scotch, then sat in the dining room so as not to disturb Stacey. He realised he hadn’t been back to her apartment again since their first night together.
What did this mean? Was there a chance of a life with her? he wondered. It would certainly be eventful: there would always be the equivalent of a Spanish-looking guy at the end of the bar, eyeing her up. That wasn’t the problem: Trudy, his first girlfriend back in Wisconsin, had been a pretty girl who drew more than her share of admiring stares. But unlike Trudy, Stacey would stare back, or smile, or flirt. Sometimes all three.
He supposed he could deal with that, or at least try to get used to it. Maybe if she got married and had kids she would lose some of that ‘look at me’ business. Wasn’t that true of most women? They had kids, and suddenly instead of worrying about themselves, they found a new world to worry about. But it was hard to see Stacey Madison ever settling down. She was the kind of woman who drank life dry, moving from waterhole to waterhole (man to man, bar to bar, party to party), never sated, never full, never happy with the same source of the energising fuel she lived on.
When he went into the bedroom, the bedside lamp was on. Stacey stirred and then sat up drowsily. She said, ‘Hand me a smoke, will you? I’ve lost my lighter. There’re matches in the wooden box.’
He found the box and opened the lid. Inside he didn’t find matches, but instead a bracelet, a small necklace, and a ring. His eyes fixed on the ring, and he slowly brought it out of the box. It was gold, simple, unadorned; it could only be for one thing. He sighed involuntarily.
‘What’s the matter?’ Her voice came from the bed, alert now.
‘Nothing,’ he said. But he had to know. ‘What’s this?’
He could see her sit up to peer at him – she was short-sighted but too vain to wear glasses.
He brought the ring over to the bed. Without a word he held it about a foot from her eyes.
‘Ah, I brought the wrong box. Damn.’ She sounded unruffled. She added, ‘That’s my wedding ring. Pretty, isn’t it?’
‘When did that happen?’ he asked, trying to keep the anger he felt out of his voice.
‘Are you going all puritan on me, Nessheim? Don’t tell me you haven’t slept with a married woman before.’
‘I’m not telling you anything,’ he said.
‘Mr Pious, is that it?’ Her scorn seemed affected.
‘No. Mr Careful if the husband has a gun.’ He was trying to show he didn’t care, but he couldn’t carry it off.
Stacey must have wanted the same thing, for she tried to laugh. She reached her hand out for his, but he ignored it. She said, ‘Cat got your tongue? You’ve done it before. Why’s this so different?’
‘Because –’ he said, then stopped, too shook up inside to speak. He wanted to tell her it was different because he loved her and didn’t want her married to another man. But it was not a confession he could bring himself to make. He’d done that once with her and been burnt. Never again. So he said only, ‘You might have told me.’
‘Of course it matters. It makes me feel … feel like …’
‘A gigolo?’ Stacey laughed out loud to his fury. ‘You’re many things, Nessheim, most of them good, but you’re not a gigolo.’
He didn’t join her laughter. ‘So what about this husband of yours?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Not really.’
‘I’ll tell you anyway. He’s in Reno as we speak. In two weeks – actually fifteen days and yes, I’m counting – we’ll be divorced. Satisfied?’
‘Sure.’ He wanted desperately to believe her.
‘I’ll tell you all about him. His name is George Tweedy. Not a name to be reckoned with if you ask me. He’s –’
‘I don’t want to know,’ he said angrily.
‘Okay,’ she said mildly. ‘Everybody’s got a past, Nessheim. Even you. Now get me that smoke, will you?’
He did and soon Stacey was snoring gently, while he lay there, willing himself to sleep as well. But he was too much on edge, after the break-in earlier and after this new revelation. Did he believe Stacey about her impending divorce? He didn’t really know. Did it matter? He didn’t know that either.
He thought back to the evening. How had the intruder got in? Stacey had borrowed the only other key, but for some reason she had put it back. It was conceivable that the intruder had found it, though very unlikely. But say he had found it – why had he put it back before he was done inside?
The only conclusion was no conclusion. If there were others, Nessheim couldn’t see them. Or didn’t want to.