CHAPTER 55

The loneliness came again, just past three in the morning. I had pushed against it. All the way back from Kansas and into the night. But it came anyway. Loneliness and I were familiar, if not entirely comfortable, traveling companions. I knew its tricks, the ebb and flow. The pains that crept up on you during the day, the moments of memory that paid their respects only at night.

As I got older, I got stronger. Not immune. Just able to weather the storm. Let loneliness run its course, take its pound of flesh, and be gone. I knew there was an end. I knew because I had already walked it. Loneliness knew it, too. And that gave me all the advantage.

Still, sometimes, occasionally, even at age thirty-five, I felt the bite a bit more than I should, more than I ever thought I would again.

This was one of those nights. And the problem was, I didn’t know why. If it was Diane, I didn’t know it straight off. If it wasn’t Diane, then it was just a feeling without a target. And that was frightening. A mutation of the disease I had never encountered before. Perhaps one without a cure.

The phone rang on cue. I glanced at the caller ID. Wonderful invention that, sort of a dress rehearsal sometimes for life’s little sorrows. I let it ring again, pretended to fumble a bit with the receiver, then picked it up.

“Hello.”

She was quiet but awake. Like she had been sitting up somewhere. Maybe not with whiskey, but still awake.

“Sleeping, Michael?”

“Half and half,” I said.

I wondered where she was. Her bedroom. A cell phone. The lobby downstairs. Then I picked it up. Steel on steel. An El train going by my window and coming out of the phone. All at once.

“I guess my cover is blown,” she said.

“Where are you?”

“Three blocks from your house. A greasy spoon on Lincoln called the Golden Apple. You know it?”

I figured she wasn’t inviting herself up. I figured it was probably for the best.

“Yeah, I know it. Give me five.”

I threw on a pair of pants and a sweatshirt, grabbed my wallet, keys, and a Smith & Wesson revolver. After Kansas I was taking nothing for granted.

         

SHE WAS IN THE LAST BOOTH on the left. I ordered a coffee as I walked through the door. It was on the table by the time I got there. It was that kind of place.

“Where you been all day?” Diane said.

She was wearing jeans and a black sweater, with her hair pulled back, and eyeglasses with black frames. At first glance she seemed put together. Red lipstick, pale makeup. Flawless. When she smiled, however, I saw the first crack. A single line in her cheek, running up under her eye. After the first one, they became easy to spot. And just as hard to ignore.

“Just working some background,” I said and ducked my eyes toward the table. She had a cup of tea and a copy of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon lying flat by her elbow.

“The Agamemnon,” I said.

“Figured I’d give it a try.”

She said it with a pause. The testing kind, the kind you throw out in a relationship to see which way the wind is blowing. I tried to give nothing back, which, in and of itself, was probably everything.

“At three in the morning, that’s some interesting reading,” I said. “Part of a trilogy, you know.”

“So you told me. The Oresteia.”

“What’s your take?”

“I think it’s all about revenge,” she said. “How about you?”

I nodded and felt the blood thicken in my ears.

“Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto.”

“Who are they?”

“Names of the Furies. They show up at the end of the second play. Three sisters who hunt down any perceived wrongdoers. They torture and kill without mercy.”

Diane stirred her tea and took a tiny sip.

“Something wrong with that?” she said.

I picked up the Agamemnon and leafed through its pages.

“The Furies pursued their revenge through time. Through generations. Killed people with little or no connection to the crime. The Greeks portrayed them with snakes in their hair and blood dripping from their eyes. They were mad. All three of them.”

“But they were effective?”

“You think so?”

“Why not? Eye for an eye and all that stuff.”

I slid the Agamemnon back across the table.

“In the third play, the Furies are sated. They help to establish the Athenian court system. The blood feuds end, and the first court of law is established.”

“Maybe I’ll skip that part,” she said. “Sounds a little boring.”

“You like a good blood feud, huh?”

“Who doesn’t? Besides, it’s just a play.”

Diane slid Aeschylus off the table and into a bag by her side. Then she smiled.

“Enough ancient history. Tell me about your sleuthing today. Background on who? For what?”

I went on for the next half hour, giving her every detail of my day, none of it about Kansas, all of it a tissue of lies. Diane nodded, sipped her tea, ordered, then ate some chocolate cake. She smiled at the end and didn’t believe a word of it.

“Well, I better head home,” she said.

“Big day?”

“I tape an interview with Rodriguez in the morning. They arrest Bennett Davis and we get our exclusive tomorrow night. Your name is still out of all this, right?”

I nodded.

“By the way,” she said, “have you told your client about any of this?”

“Not yet.”

“Her face is going to be out there sooner or later, you know.”

“That’s what you figure?”

“It won’t come from my station. But absolutely, she’ll eventually be out there.”

I got up to go. Diane got up with me.

“I’ll see Elaine tomorrow and catch her up,” I said. “I also told Rodriguez I’d meet him at your newsroom after the interview. Tie up a few loose ends.”

“Sounds great. We should wrap around noon.”

She leaned in and kissed me. Red lips, long, strong, and hungry. Like she meant it. Or at least wanted to.

“Thanks for the story,” she whispered. “You saved me and I won’t forget it.”

Then she turned and walked out of the diner. I went home and opened up a copy of the Agamemnon, found the line where Clytemnestra lures her husband into the bath and waits as he is knifed to death.

I spoke the line aloud, rolling the syllables across my tongue as Aeschylus had intended. I wondered just how many Clytemnestras lurked in my life, where were the knives, and most important, who would wind up dead in whose tub.