Darker Than Night (4 page)

Marcy Graham absolutely and without a doubt had to try on the soft brown leather jacket, and that was what led to the problem.

She knew her husband, Ron, was arguing against buying the jacket not because he disliked it, but because he disliked paying for it. All this talk of it putting weight on her was absurd. Her image in the mirror of Tambien's exclusive women's shop confirmed it. The tapered cut of the three-quarter-length jacket made her look slender.
Not that I have a weight problem.
And the price was unbelievable. Half off because it was out of season.

But later in the years, when the weather was cooler, she could wear such a coat anywhere. What she liked about it was its simplicity. She could accessorize it, dress it up or down. With her blue eyes, her light brown hair, and her unblemished complexion, the soft color of the leather was just right.

“It makes you look ten pounds lighter,” whispered the salesclerk when Ron wandered away to deposit his chewing gum in a receptacle that had once been an ashtray. “Not that you need it, but still….”

Marcy nodded, not daring to answer, because Ron was already striding back to where she and the clerk were standing before the full-length mirrors that were angled so you could see three of yourself.

The salesclerk was a slight, handsome man in a blue chalk-striped suit of European cut. He had brown eyes, with long lashes, and black hair slicked back to a knot at the base of his neck. He also wore rings, gold and silver, on two fingers of each hand, and a dangling diamond earring. Marcy knew the earring and rings were enough for Ron not to like him.

“Look at yourself from all sides,” the salesclerk urged, nudging Marcy closer to the triptych mirrors. “The coat lends you a certain curvaciousness, doesn't it?” He winked not at Marcy but at Ron.

“Don't try including me in bullshitting your customers,” Ron said. He was smiling, but Marcy, and probably the salesclerk, knew he was serious.

The clerk smiled at Marcy. “It's the truth, of course, about what the jacket does for you.”

“It's a subjective thing,” Ron said.

“Or it's the lines of the jacket complementing the lines of the woman. Or maybe the other way around.”

“You really think so?” Ron asked sarcastically. Marcy could see him getting angrier. On dangerous ground now. Close to losing his temper with this slight, effeminate man.

She shrugged and grinned in the mirror at the salesclerk. “I guess my husband doesn't like it, so—”

“Ah! For some reason I thought he was a friend. Or perhaps your older brother.”

Ron glared at the clerk. “I'm not quite sure, but I believe I've been insulted.”

The clerk shrugged. “It certainly wasn't intentional.”

“I believe it was.”

The salesclerk shrugged again, but this time there was a different and definite body language to it. A taunt.

Marcy thought he didn't look so much like a harmless salesclerk now, perhaps gay, but not so effeminate. Not the sort of clerk you might expect to find in a semiswank shop like Tambien's that—let's face it—put on airs to jack up prices. His lean body appeared coiled and strong beneath the chalk-striped suit, and she noticed that his manicured hands were large for such a thin man, the backs of them heavily veined. Faded blue coloring, what might be part of a tattoo, peeked from beneath his right cuff. Marcy didn't want to see those hands, with the rings, made into fists.

“Don't push it, Ron, please,” she said, starting to unbutton the coat.

“Push it?” But he was looking at the clerk and not Marcy. Unlike Marcy, he didn't seem to sense that the slender male-model type might be a dangerous man.

The clerk smiled. Though possibly fifty pounds lighter than the six-foot-one, two-hundred-pound Ron, he was obviously unafraid. The long-lashed brown eyes didn't blink.

“Why not push it?” Ron said. “I don't appreciate this guy's attitude.”

“I apologize for anything you mistook as improper,” the clerk said, his smile turning superior and insincere. His teeth were perfectly even and very white.

Ron's face was darkening. Marcy could see the purple vein near his temple start to throb, the way it did when he was about to lose control. Another customer, browsing nearby, a tall woman in designer slacks, a sleeveless blouse, and too much jewelry, glanced at them from the corner of a wide eye and hurried away on the plush carpet.

“Please, Ron, I'm taking the coat off.” Her fingers trembling, Marcy fumbled at the buttons. “I've decided I don't want it.”

“Can I be of some help here?” a voice asked. A man who stood in a rooted way, as if he had authority, had drifted over to move between the clerk and Ron. He stood closer to Ron. He was short, bald, had a dark mustache, and was wearing a chalk-striped suit like the clerk's, only his was chocolate brown instead of blue. “I'm the store manager.”

“I don't think you
will
help,” Ron said, “but this jerk was coming on to my wife.”

Marcy shook her head. “For God's sake, Ron!”

The salesclerk stood with his hands at his sides, perfectly calm. Almost amused. It occurred to Marcy that he might be one of those small men who felt compelled to pick on large men as a way of proving themselves. The kind of man who'd learned the hard way how to fight and was eager to back up his bravado. Showing off for the lady, but mostly for himself.

“You were
flirting
, Ira?” the manager asked, glancing at the clerk. His tone suggested he was astounded by the possibility.

“Of course not. If it appeared so, I certainly apologize.”

Marcy removed the coat, relieved to be out of it, and handed it to the clerk.

He gave her a little bow as he accepted the garment and extended a card to her with his free hand, smiling. “If you think about it and change your mind, I'm Ira.”

“She knows you're Ira, and she won't change her mind,” Ron said. “And you won't change it for her.” He clutched Marcy's elbow. “C'mon, Marcy. We're outta here.”

Marcy let him lead her toward the door. She knew he felt he'd topped the clerk and was ready to leave while he was ahead. She was thankful for that. The situation was already embarrassing enough.

“Marcy's a nice name,” she heard Ira remark softly behind them.

Ron seemed not to have heard, but she wondered if he had.

He stood in the doorway of a luggage shop across the street and watched Marcy Graham leave Fifth Federal Savings Bank, where she worked as a loan officer. She paused in front of the bank's glass doors, set between phony stone pillars, and glanced up at the sky as if contemplating rain, then seemed to reject decisively the idea of going back inside for an umbrella and began walking.

He followed.

He knew her routes and her timetable by now, her haunts and habits. After work, she boarded the subway at a stop two blocks from Fifth Federal. He enjoyed watching her walk. She would stride down the block in her high heels, the warm breeze pressing her skirt against her thighs, her breasts and brown hair bouncing with each step, and she would unhesitatingly enter the long, shadowed stairwell to the turnstiles.

It was a wonder to watch her descend the concrete steps, moving rapidly if there was no one in her way. Almost like a graceful, controlled near-tumble. His eyes took all of her in, the strength and looseness of her legs, the way her arms swung, her hair swayed, her hips switched, motion, countermotion, the rhythm of time and the cosmos. In some women there was everything.

She would take the train to within two blocks of her apartment building, then walk the rest of the way home, playing out her daily routine, locked in the worn pathways of her life. He knew routine made her feel secure. There was safety in repetition simply because there were no surprises; life was habit and redundancy all the way to the edges of her perception. What a comfort! How wise she was, yet didn't know herself.

Sometimes he followed closely all the way from the bank, taking the same uptown train, even riding in the same car, watching her, imagining. In the gray world of the subway, they were both sometimes lucky enough to find seats. And more often than not, there were the usual subway creeps staring at a woman like Marcy. That meant she didn't pay much attention to him, worrying about the silent watchers who so obviously wanted every part and morsel of her.

The pink and red of her, the hues of her flesh and hidden white purity of bone.

Not that Marcy had to worry about the creeps. She belonged to someone already, even if she didn't yet know it.

He would follow her up to the multicolored surface from the drab subway stop, then down the street to her apartment in the building with the dirty stone facade. Then he'd cross the street and find a spot where he could stand out of the flow of pedestrian traffic and watch the Grahams' apartment windows.

He would see one or the other of them pass from time to time, fleeting movement behind glass panes. Glimpses into another world in which he was only a ghost and she its brightest inhabitant.

Only a few minutes, perhaps ten, would he stay there. Best not to attract undue attention. But it intrigued him that Marcy and her husband were unknowingly walking where he'd walked, touching what he'd touched, maybe sitting in a chair not long cooled from his own warmth. Living, breathing, touching themselves and each other. Being their private selves in the place he'd just left in order to follow her back to it. He didn't shadow Marcy home from work so he could find out where she was going, but to observe her closely when she thought she was alone.

This evening was cooling down and comfortable. It wouldn't be dark for several hours, so the apartment lights wouldn't come on anytime soon. That was a shame, because he particularly wanted to see what would happen this evening between Marcy and Ron. After night fell was when watching was best, when Marcy and her husband moved behind the glass. When, if they happened to glance out, they could see only in—their own reflections and the reflection of their world.

When, even if by chance had they looked precisely in his direction, they couldn't see him.

Color me invisible.

 

A uniform wanted to see him and only him. Captain Vince Egan was puzzled. It took a lot for a uniformed cop to skip the chain of command and confide in a captain. It meant trouble for the cop if he guessed wrong, and if what he had to say wasn't deemed worthwhile.

Glancing with satisfaction around his paneled office, Egan understood why it took guts for a mere patrolman to approach him. There were framed photos of Egan with various NYPD elites, posed at banquets and various ceremonies with top New York pols. Among the career photos and commendations were a few shots of Egan with show business types, like the old black-and-white photograph of Egan with his arm slung around Tony Bennett, taken years ago in L.A., though Egan always said it was in San Francisco. And there was one in color with Egan chatting with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Bridget Fonda after a New York movie premiere a while back. Egan with Wayne Newton. All of these photographs were signed.

An impressive office. An impressive and important person must occupy it. Somebody you didn't approach lightly with a shit piece of information or some whine about how the department was run.

Egan was getting tired of waiting. Who the fuck was this guy, and what did he want? And what would be his future after he said his piece and walked out of here?

This better not be about charity. Some kind of pet cause Egan couldn't refuse to contribute money or time to without looking like an ass.

Like the time the guy swallowed his nervousness and asked Egan to make a public announcement about the abominable way chinchillas were treated on chinchilla ranches before they became coats.

What did Egan care about chinchillas? What the fuck actually
was
a chinchilla?

Egan glanced at his watch and wished again the guy would get here. He was already five minutes late, which was inconveniencing people. Like Doris, Egan's uniformed secretary who called herself his assistant, who ordinarily would have left by now but was waiting in the outer office.

Doris, sitting straight as a soldier behind her desk as she always did, like she had a pole up her ass, maybe catching up on some word processing. Egan leaned back in his leather desk chair and thought about Doris. She wasn't a beauty, and Egan didn't usually mix business with fornication, but since her divorce six months ago, Doris was beginning to look more attractive to him. Sure, she was in her fifties, but she still had a shape, and if she wasn't a blue-ribbon beauty, she wasn't butt ugly. And there was another thing Egan liked about her: now more than ever, she needed to hold on to her job.

Egan smiled. Doris was highly ethical and acted around the office like she didn't even have erogenous zones. But with hubby having left her for some younger cunt, she still might come around, like her predecessor.
What some women will do to stay employed….

There was a familiar three-knock tattoo on the office door; then it opened halfway and Doris stepped into sight.

Was she wearing tighter uniform slacks since she'd become single? She was definitely getting grayer, Egan noticed, and thicker through the middle. Still…

“Patrolman Mercer is here, sir.”

Mercer. Damn it! He'd told Charlie Mercer not to come here unless it was important. Even now, four years later.

Egan felt suddenly uneasy.
So, maybe it's important.

He nodded and sat forward in his leather chair, using his right hand to push away some papers on his desk, as if he'd been busy contemplating them.

“Send Officer Mercer in, Doris.”

Marcy Graham couldn't figure it out, and she wondered if she should even try.

There was the leather coat she'd tried on at Tambien's, the one that had prompted the argument between Ron and that salesclerk who was trying so hard to work her; just doing his job, and Ron got all pissy. It was lying draped over the arm of the sofa, not carelessly but as if someone had carefully arranged it there so she'd see it when she came in. A nice surprise.

Marcy put down her purse on a lamp table and went to the coat, touched it, stroked it. The leather was so soft. That really was what had attracted her to it in the first place. She lifted a lapel, then an arm, and could find no sales tag.

She held up the coat at arm's length and looked it over. There was no clue as to where it had come from. She slipped it on, thinking it felt as good as it had at the shop, and walked to the full-length mirror near the door.

Smiling at her reflection, she turned this way and that, almost all the way around, gazing back over her shoulder as if at a lover she was leaving.

She removed the coat and placed it back on the sofa arm. A gift from Ron? Most likely. In fact, that was the only possible explanation. He felt guilty about smarting off and almost blowing up in Tambien's, and he wanted to make it up to her. It wouldn't be unlike him. He had a temper, but he could be sweet.

She stood with her hands on her hips, staring at the coat. Now, how should she react? What would Ron expect when he walked in the door? Should she leave the coat on the sofa? Maybe it was better to hang it in the closet, play dumb, toy with him and make a game of it. The kind they used to play. Or she could lay the coat on the bed and let
him
find it. That might be interesting. Then she'd show him her appreciation for his unexpected gift, making a gift of herself. The old games.

There was a slight sound in the hall; then the ratcheting of a key in the dead-bolt lock.

The door opened and her options disappeared as Ron stepped into the apartment.

At first he didn't notice her or the coat as he turned and closed and relocked the door. Then he turned back, saw her, and immediately his gaze shifted to the sofa where the coat lay. He appeared genuinely puzzled, but she knew he could act convincingly if he had to, feigning surprise at seeing the coat.

“Isn't that—”

“You know it is,” she interrupted, smiling.

“You went back and
bought it
?” She could see his confusion changing now to anger, and silent alarms went off in her head.

“Of course not. You know I didn't!”

“How would I know that?”

“Because you bought the coat and put it there on the sofa so I'd find it when I came home.”

He yanked his tie loose violently so it hung crookedly around his neck, reminding her of a hangman's noose, then jutted out his chin and unfastened his top shirt button. “Now why the hell would I do that?”

Marcy was stunned, searching for words. “I…uh…Well, I don't know.”

Not because you love me. Your eyes and that throbbing vein in your temple say now isn't the time to remind you of that.

“You thought it was a gift from me?” He pulled the narrow end through the knot and let the tie drape loosely around his neck. Almost as if he were preparing to remove it and strangle her with it if that was what he decided.

“What else would I think? I came home from work and there was the coat you knew I wanted.”

“And that we didn't buy.”

“You could've changed your mind.”

“The point is, I didn't change it. So where'd the coat come from?”

“I told you, I assumed it was from you. Who else would have left it there? I was at work all day, and you and I are the only ones who have keys. Except for Lou the super.”

Ron shook his head. He might have been angrier, only he couldn't quite figure out who was his target. “Lou's sixty-five years old and couldn't afford a coat like that. Besides, it's impossible to get him in here to fix a leaky faucet, much less shower us with gifts. After the chat I had with him, Lou wouldn't let anybody in here even for a minute without one or both of us being present.”

“Then who?”

He clenched his right hand into a fist, holding it close to his chest. “That asshole salesclerk at Tambien's—Ira.”

“But how could he?
Why
would he?”

“He knew you wanted the coat.” Ron went to the coat and lifted it, then wadded it and tossed it in a heap back on the sofa. “There was no note or anything?”

“Nothing. I found it just like you saw it.”

He picked up the coat again and tucked it, still wadded, beneath his arm. “C'mon!”

“Come on where?”

“To Tambien's.”

“You're taking it back?”

“No. I never took it
from
! We're giving it back to Ira the wiseass salesclerk, along with a warning.”

“We simply can't give this back, Ron! I can't. Let's put this off, think about it some more.”

“There's no place else the coat could have come from. Nobody else who might have given it to you.”

“How could Ira get in?”

“I don't know, Marcy,” Ron said impatiently. “I don't know how magicians guess the right card, either, but they do.”

“But why would he give me a gift? What would he expect to get out of it?”

“Jesus, Marcy, what do you think?”

“We only met once, and you were there.”

“So what? Maybe he's one of those fucked-up psychos who only have to see a woman once and some kind of weird connection's made.”

“I guess that's possible….”

“Goddamned right it is!”

“If it is, I don't want to go near him again.”

Ron drew a deep breath, then sighed and dragged his forearm across his mouth, as if he'd just taken a long, sloppy drink from a stream.

“All right,” he said. “You stay here. I'm gonna take this thing and return it to Tambien's. We're gonna find out about this! And do something about it!”

And he was out the door and gone.

 

An hour later Ron was back, empty-handed. Marcy watched her husband remove his sport coat and drape it on a hanger in the hall closet. He seemed calmer now. His face wasn't so flushed, and the blue vein in his temple wasn't even visible. “Did they take the coat back at Tambien's?”

“No,” Ron said. “They claimed they didn't sell it. Said it was sold in at least a dozen shops in and around New York. I told them maybe Ira just walked out with it so he could give it to you. Ira got pissed and I threatened to twist his head off. He just smiled, the little bastard.”

“I think he might be dangerous,” Marcy said. “There's something creepy about him.”

Ron shrugged. “Whatever he is, I told him if he ever came around here again, I'd cut off his balls.”

Before or after you twist off his head?
“What did he say?”

“That Tambien's wouldn't take the coat in return unless I had a sales slip. He and that numb-brain manager went into their professional salesclerk mode, polite but underneath it acting like assholes.”

“So what'd you do?” Marcy asked.

“I told them I didn't want a refund; then I tossed the coat on the floor and walked out the door. You shoulda seen the look on their faces.”

“That's an eight-hundred-dollar coat, Ron.”

“Not to us, it isn't. It's worse than worthless.” He stalked into the kitchen and a few minutes later returned with a glass of water with ice cubes in it. Marcy watched him take a long sip, his head back, the Adam's apple working in his powerful neck.

“You still think Ira somehow sneaked in here and left the coat?” she asked when finally he lowered the glass.

He'd downed half the water. His head bowed, he stared into the glass and swirled its remaining contents around so the ice cubes rattled. “I don't know,” he said. “I honestly don't. But if it was him, he won't do something like that around here again. He's been scared away.”

Marcy wasn't so sure.

For some reason she doubted if Ira had ever been scared away from anything in his life.