The Man Who Loved Women to Death (3 page)

I knew better, of course.

When the downtown local came I got on the same car with her. She took a seat and got into her book, some damn thing about a housecat who went to Paris, France. Whoop-de-damn-do. I stood there with my back to the door and my eyes on her. She looked up once, when we stopped at Columbus Circle, her eyes sweeping across the different faces in the car. They locked onto mine for a second, but kept right on going. The expression on her face told me nothing. My heart was pounding. But I was cool. I was so very cool.

She got off at Times Square and started walking through the station toward the Grand Central shuttle. I did the same, eyeballing the clenching and unclenching of that terrific little butt inside those jeans. I stayed a safe twenty feet back, feeling loose and light on my feet, feeling good. She caught the shuttle, then came up in the Graybar Building on 41st Street and started walking downtown on Lex. I stayed right on her. Damned noisy in that part of town during the morning rush. People screaming, horns honking, ambulances with their sirens blaring. Somebody’s car alarm went off, sounded like they just won the jackpot on one of those TV game shows you and me used to watch together when we were good boys. She paid no attention to any of it. Just kept right on walking. Went into a Korean grocery on the corner of 32nd Street and bought a bunch of flowers. Then she started toward Third on 32nd. Halfway down the block she stopped at a pet food store and got buzzed in. I waited across the street five minutes. When she didn’t come out I figured this must be where she worked.

I crossed the street. I got myself buzzed in.

It was a small place, seemed to be about health food for dogs and cats. Stuff like organic kibble, if you can believe that, Friend E. There was some homey worked there, bringing big bags of stuff up from the basement. And there was her, standing behind the counter bossing him around. She ran the place. She smiled at me real nice. Didn’t recognize me from the subway. Or if she did she didn’t let on. She asked if she could help me. Her voice caught me by surprise. It was so unbelievably chirpy and high-pitched I almost lost it. Was damned glad I wasn’t on any of the major hallucinogens. Or anything else. Which, as you know, is not too typical for me.

I said It must be nice. She frowned and said What must be nice? I said Being so sure of yourself
—
you seem like a person who never has any self-doubts, and I envy that.

Well, this pretty much got her attention, Friend E. Which, in case you are taking notes at home, is that Much Desired First Step. I said I’m looking for kibble for my new puppy and I want it to be free of chemicals and preservatives. She said What kind of dog is it. I said A golden retriever, eight weeks old. And she said They are soooo adorable when they are that age. I admitted as how he’d stolen my heart, which was not so very hard since I’d just gone through a really messy breakup and was trying to start over fresh.

This was me baiting the hook, E. Any honey who runs a pet food store and reads cat books is bound to melt for a human stray. Friend E, it’s vitally important that you become who they want you to become. Guys are all the time asking me what my secret is, and that is it, nothing more.

Be who they want you to be.

She told me she herself had two cats, Fred and Ethel. I told her I’d named my dog Victor. And she said Like Victor Potamkin, the old guy who used to sell Cadillacs on TV? And I said No, like the RCA Victor dog. And she said You mean Nipper, don’t you? And I said No, I mean the RCA Victor dog. And she said Right, the RCA Victor dog’s name is Nipper. And I said Well, my dog’s name is Victor. And we both laughed and that’s when she said I looked really familiar. Which, as you know, I hear a lot. I said I just have an ordinary face. She said Well, I guess you must. She was playing with me now. I shot a look at the clock, suddenly in a big rush to get to work. I asked her how late they’d be open. She said Six. I said I’d be back. She said Cool.

Found a Greek coffeeshop around the corner and sat there drinking coffee with ten, twelve spoons of sugar in it. Only they wouldn’t let me smoke in there. Why won’t they let you smoke in coffeeshops anymore? I don’t get it. So I walked and smoked. Then I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday so I went in a bar, where it turns out they WILL let you smoke, and had me a double order of french fries. I drank more coffee. I sat and stared at the clock. My chest felt so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. After five o’clock the place started filling up with these loud, obnoxious Young Urban Shitheads in fancy suits ordering brands
o
f beer I’d never heard of. Weird thing about this city, Friend E. They won’t let you smoke a cigarette in a coffeeshop but it’s okay to be an asshole anywhere you want.

She was waiting for me. I could tell by the way she looked up from the counter when I buzzed. And the way she smiled. She had a real nice smile, E. After some discussion I bought a 20 lb. bag of kibble that had brown rice and free-range-chicken bonemeal and a bunch of other ingredients in it you wouldn’t believe. You wouldn’t believe the price neither. I hung around while she was closing. Asked her if she had a long trip home. She said Not really. Told me where she lived, which turned out to be less than two blocks from where I was staying. I said Would you mind if I ride uptown with you? She said No, not at all. I didn’t try asking her out for a drink yet, sensing she’d go cautious on me if I did that.

I told her my name while we walked to the subway. Hers was Diane. While we were riding home Diane asked me the usual, which was what I did for work. I told her I was employed by the City of New York as a social worker specializing in helping young inner-city fathers take responsibility for themselves both as providers and as parents. It is my personal belief, I told her, that the only way you can heal this city is one family at a time.

Which is total bullshit, as you and I both know, E. But let me tell you, it was the perfect approach with Diane. Her big blue eyes got bigger and bluer. Her lips got softer and fuller. She wanted me, E. I could FEEL how she wanted me.

I was in and I knew it. We both did:

We were right near my place when we got off the train. I said Hey, Diane, want to come up and meet Victor? She said I’d like that. Just like I knew she would. She even let me hold her hand in the elevator. It was real small, but firm and dry. I warned her that my place wasn’t much. She told me it didn’t matter, she wasn’t into appearances. We walked in the door and I put down the bag
o
f kibble, which was damned heavy, and turned on a light. I said See? I told you it wasn’t much. She looked around and said Don’t be silly. It’s fine. Only, where’s Victor? Is he asleep? I ducked my head, really sheepish, and said Actually, I don’t own a dog. Now she was totally confused. I don’t get it, she said. Why did you buy the kibble? And I said Because I wanted to meet you. And she said Why? And I said Because I am the answer to your prayers, Diane. And she said What prayers?

And then she didn’t say anything more because she KNEW. Only it was too late now. I had her. She was mine, all mine.

This is the moment I live for, E. The moment when they KNOW. That’s when I love them the most. I guess because they’re so alone and miserable, so desperate to find someone. I AM that someone. They just don’t know it, the poor things. So I have to show them. And I have to move fast, before they give in to their fears. So I did move fast. Grabbed the nearest thing, a table lamp. My only one. Came with the room. I hit Diane on the side of the head with it. Hit her hard. That relaxed her. Then I wrapped the lamp cord around her throat and I did it. I did what I’d been wanting to do to her since I first spotted her on the subway platform that morning. I did it fast and I did it sure.

I performed an act of kindness. A random act of kindness.

What is it if not kindness? I had nothing but love in my heart for her. And she returned my love. It was good for her. I know this, I’m telling you this. I answered her prayers, E. I made her happy.

When it was over I put my mark on her. You know what I’m talking about, E. You always know.

Damn, it’s so good to be back in town.

Your pal, T

p.s. If you can get me that fifty I’d be much obliged

I set the pages aside and drained my martini. I have to tell you, I was stunned. I almost never make it all the way through an unsolicited manuscript. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the talent’s just not there and that’s painfully obvious by page two and there’s no point in reading any further. This one was different. There was talent here. There was the germ of a major confessional novel. This guy had taken Lardner’s boastful bush-leaguer, Jack Keefe, and made him over into someone entirely new and predatory and of our time—someone living on the edge, someone
with
an edge, someone lean and mean and deeply disturbed. He certainly disturbed me. Oh, sure, I had some misgivings. I thought the ending was a bit over the top. But that was minor.
That
we could talk about. Because this guy was worth talking to. This guy was the real thing.

Only, who the hell was he? Why hadn’t he shared his name and his address with me? Would I ever hear from him again? I hoped I would.

For now, I had my life to lead. And E. B. White was right—no one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky. I showered and dressed—the double-breasted dinner jacket with peaked lapels, the matching trousers, ten-pleat bib-front shirt with wing collar. Black silk bow tie. Grandfather’s pearl cuff links and studs. I enjoyed Pam’s daube and a half bottle of a very nice Côtes du Rhone while I savored what Louis Armstrong did to “West End Blues” and what the candlelight did to Merilee’s big green eyes across the hexagonal dining table from me. After dessert, we bundled up and walked arm in arm through the park in the crisp cold night while Lulu paid dutiful visits to some of her favorite haunts. There was a sliver of moon out over the Sherry Netherlands, and it was so clear we could see stars. It has to be very clear for that. We stopped off at Café des Artistes for a calvados and were home, snug in our bed, by eleven. Merilee was reading Alan Bennett’s essays on his life in the theater. I was working my way through a collection of short stories by B. Traven, which is something I do every few years just to remind myself what good writing is. By twelve all lights were out and all were fast asleep, Merilee with her hip resting against mine, Lulu with her tail on my head, Tracy snoozing peacefully in her crib in the nursery next door to us. She had taken to sleeping all the way through the night without waking us. I had taken to being very grateful. Almost as grateful as Merilee.

I slept late the next morning. Merilee had already left for rehearsal when I got up and padded into the bathroom and got busy stropping Grandfather’s razor. I turned on the radio so I could catch the weather forecast. I caught the news as well. That’s when I found out that the body of a young woman had been found early that morning by a jogger in Riverside Park. She had been strangled. The victim had worked as the manager of an organic pet food store on East Thirty-second. Her hair was blond, her eyes were blue. Her name was Diane Shavelson.

I
MET ROMAINE VERY
at Barney Greengrass the Sturgeon King, that noted Amsterdam Avenue landmark where they’ve been purveying smoked fish since before the outbreak of the First World War. And where they haven’t changed the wallpaper in the restaurant since—well, I don’t think they’ve ever changed the wallpaper in the restaurant of Barney Greengrass. I drank coffee at a Formica table while I waited for Very to show. Lulu, who regards the place as her personal cathedral, mooched choice morsels of sturgeon from the countermen.

Already, the murder was getting major play on the radio. Murders were supposed to be down in the city. The mayor did a lot of preening about this. A body found in the park, especially a young woman’s body, was big news. WINS news radio had a bit more detail as I was going out the door. Diane Shavelson was thirty-one and single and a native of Rhinebeck, New York. She had lived at 343 West Ninety-seventh Street. Her body had been found in the brush about fifty feet from Grant’s Tomb. A jogger had stumbled upon it shortly before dawn.

They had a bit more, like I said. But they didn’t have much. They didn’t have cause of death. Or whether the police had a lead or a motive or any damned thing. My guess was they didn’t. My guess was I was the only one who did. That was why I’d called Very.

I almost didn’t recognize Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very, hip-hop cop, when he came in the door. He’d gone hep cat on me. Buzz-cut his thick, wavy black hair down to an early Jerry Lewis, lost the earring, added a narrow tuft of beard under his lower lip and a pair of Ray-Ban wraparounds, all of which made him look vaguely like someone who might have sat in on tenor sax with Miles, Diz and Bird. Of course, it was easy to be deceived by Very’s look. The first time I met him I thought this short, muscular street kid was a bicycle messenger, as opposed to a crack NYPD homicide detective with a degree in Romance Languages from Columbia. I’d also thought he was the single most wired individual I’d ever met. This was a man who couldn’t stop nodding to his own personal beat. This was a man who’d given himself an ulcer by the time he was twenty-six. This was a man whose middle name was Try the Decaf.

Although
this
Romaine Very, the new Romaine Very, didn’t come strutting across the restaurant toward me, chin thrust defiantly in the air, like the old one would have. This Romaine Very oozed in slowly and sluggishly. There was a grayish pallor to his skin. And, when the shades came off, there were dark circles under his eyes. His fingers fumbled clumsily, endlessly, at the belt of his old, worn leather trench before he finally got it undone and shrugged himself out of it. He wore a baggy, shapeless avocado-green sweater underneath, a black T-shirt, jeans and Timberland boots. He motioned to the waiter for coffee, then slumped heavily into the chair across from me, groaning like an old man in serious need of disc surgery or an enema or both. Like I said, I almost didn’t recognize this Very.