Tony and Susan (12 page)

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi.’

‘You got a name?’

‘Tony. What’s yours?’

‘Sharon.’

She let him take her home in a taxi. He was nervously astonished by his success, since he had a deep fear of strangers and had never before picked up a woman in a public place. He was still afraid and wondered if he was going to his death, but her own anxiety relieved his fear somewhat. On the way she said, ‘In case you’re wondering, I’m not a prostitute.’

He wondered if that meant she would turn him away at the door. She said, ‘I’m a working girl, I work in a department store. I’m a singles.’

On the stairs she said she liked to meet new people, but most of the men she picked up were creeps. He hoped he wasn’t a creep. She hoped so too. She was forcing herself to talk. He noticed she was shivering. ‘Are you cold?’ he said.

‘Not really.’

She had a flat three flights up. When she got to the door she took a deep breath as if to force her shivering to stop. She glanced at him apologetically. ‘I get nervous,’ she said.

He tried to put his hand on her shoulder. She slipped away, then grabbed his hand and pointed to his ring.

‘Cheating on your wife, I see.’

‘My wife is dead.’

She fished in her purse for the key and let him in. She told him to be quiet, her roommate was asleep in the other room.

Her own room was small. It had picture postcards on a bulletin board above her bed. She had an open wardrobe with dresses in it.

‘What did she die of?’

‘She was murdered.’

He sat on the bed and told Sharon about it. She sat motionless on the other chair, looking at him without expression. He told the story first in summary fashion, the main events. Then, though he didn’t mean to, he got into detail. He went back to the beginning and described it step by step. She stared at him blankly, listening.

‘Gee mister,’ she said. ‘You’re giving me the creeps.’

He was describing the mannequins in the bushes, and suddenly he identified the look on her face, staring at him while he talked. Terror. She was a stranger, but he was a stranger too.

He stopped, shocked himself. It was not the conjured visions of Ray, Turk, and Lou she was terrified of.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I get carried away.’

She was looking around the room, like measuring distances.

After a moment he said, ‘Do you want me to go?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I guess you better.’ Shivering again.

Once he was out in the hall she looked relieved. She leaned against the door, ready to push it shut if he changed his mind. ‘Did I scare you?’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Listen, I’m real sorry for your wife and kid, okay?’

He went down the stairs, relieved too.

On the way back to the hotel, Ray and Turk and Lou were in the street, in the shadows of doorways, the subway, watching him, while the big eyes of Sharon absorbed Laura and Helen into herself. She was killing his memory, defiling them.

So he brought it back. In the trailer Ray commanded them to strip. Turk held his knife to Helen’s throat while Ray forced Laura on the bed. Then Helen’s turn. When Laura yelled and charged, Ray smashed her in the head. Mother! Helen screamed. Screaming and crying, her mother destroyed on the floor, while Ray twisted her arm until it broke.

Something like that. Damn them to hell, Tony Hastings said.

Susan puts the manuscript down. What’s bothering me? she says. As she watches Tony groping in the sordid city for sex, she wonders if this will continue to be a story for her. When Tony was in the woods, horror transcended gender. But the struggle to recover manhood is different. Tony looking for a sex object: she gets no thrill from that.

What’s bothering her is something else. Reading pushes through the sea like a swimmer. The creatures of Susan’s daylight mind, animals of land and air, sink into it, converted into dolphins, submarines, fish. Something bites her while she swims, a small toothy shark. She needs to drag it into the air where she can see. While Tony Hastings grieves, it bites.

When the sea recedes she’s back to Arnold on the telephone. She remembers a reproach. I wish you hadn’t asked that, he said.

What did she ask?

At some point in the conversation he suggested commuting to the Washington job. Let her stay in Chicago with the kids, and he could fly home weekends. She remembers – by a process of association: commuting, which would mean two homes for him, which implies –

The question he reproached her for was whatever it was. He asked why she wanted to know, and she said something. That did not satisfy him, he probed, she resisted, and he said, You’re asking about Linwood.

I didn’t say that, she said.

She heard his impatient intake of breath. You did ask. So I’ll tell you. It hasn’t been decided. It’s an opportunity, and she has a sister in Washington. I thought you understood. I wish you hadn’t asked that question.

He wished she hadn’t asked that question.

There’s nothing to do but drop it back into the sea. Back to Tony, who gives the poor singles woman the creeps. She wonders if Edward invented Tony’s grief by imagining how he would feel if something happened to Stephanie, if that’s how he did it.

When Tony Hastings returned home in the afternoon, there was a note in his mailbox from the local police, please call.

‘Please call?’ the woman said. ‘Let’s see. Hastings, you? Andes, Pennsylvania, call immediately. Would that be it?’

Could be. ‘I don’t know who you’re supposed to call in Andes,’ she said.

‘Andes is a person.’

He called the number and got someone named Muskacs, who said, ‘Andes ain’t here.’

He left word and hurried to the pizza restaurant so as to be back by eight. The call came promptly.

‘Hastings? I been trying to get you for three days.’

‘I went to New York for Christmas. Visiting my sister.’

‘A trip, huh? And now you gotta take another one.’

‘What?’

‘I want you to fly to Albany New York tomorrow, meet me.’

‘What for?’

‘Good news.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘We’ll pay. There’s a plane you can meet me the airport at noon.’

‘I have a class tomorrow.’

‘Cancel it.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘I just want you to look at some guys.’

‘Identify them?’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Is that the good news?’

‘Could be.’

‘You think these are the ones?’

‘I don’t think anything, Tony, until you tell me what to think.’

‘How did you catch them?’

‘Can’t tell you. Tell you later.’

Tony felt a growing thrill: Ray, Lou, and Turk, face to face.

‘I have that class tomorrow. It’s important.’

‘More important than this, man?’

‘I’ll see if somebody can take my class.’

‘Now you’re talking. Get this. I want you to call U.S. Air, check in. We’ve made your reservation. Go in the morning, back tomorrow night, all in one day. I’ll be driving there and meet you when you arrive. Can’t complain about that, can you?’

Tony Hastings flew to Albany. He felt a growing fright as he stared out the window into the featureless milky sky. The flight attendant gave him ginger ale and a plastic bag of peanuts. He munched, recapitulating the idea of revenge, reminding himself what it was about. Justice, retribution, to end the sentence. What Bobby Andes expected him to feel. The joy
of looking them in the eye with the shackles on them and saying, Your turn now.

They would look back into his eye. Was that what he was afraid of? Try to remember. The scene had been rerun so often, replayed so many times, the print was blotched, color faded, touch and taste dulled. But he was going back to it, to the very time. Try, you must remember.

The man across the aisle in the plane had a black beard. He also had a suit and tie and a clipboard in his lap. He looked like Lou except for his clothes. There was a man with glasses and a briefcase in the back who looked like Turk. The man in a jump suit with earphones on the tarmac in Pittsburgh had a triangular face, teeth bigger than his mouth, like Ray.

They will look at you, but why should you fear? They will be captive, under restraint. Bobby Andes will take care of you.

As he walked through the carpeted tunnel out of the plane, Tony Hastings wondered if he would recognize Bobby Andes.

He remembered Bobby Andes as short, fat, with a large head and smooth shiny cheeks shaded with pepper. He knew the man approaching was Andes, not because he recognized him but because Andes was supposed to meet him. Strange around the eyes, quickly ceasing to be strange, he remembered those eyes and thick lips, and it was the simplified remembered picture in his mind that had been wrong. In another moment, as they walked together through the long passageways toward the exit, the simplified picture was gone, the strangeness obliterated.

‘We’re going to Ajax,’ Andes said. ‘That’s twenty miles from here. The meeting’s at two. It won’t take you five minutes. Then you can go home.’

‘You want me to identify them?’

‘Just say if you recognize anyone. If you do, you can sign a statement.’

‘You got all three?’

‘Never mind what we got. Just tell us who you know.’

‘How did you catch them? Fingerprints?’

‘Never mind, I told you. Afterwards okay. Beforehand nix.’

They drove out of the city, through fields on a fast two-lane road. Ajax was a factory town on a river. They went to an old brick building with concrete pillars. Up an old staircase under a stained glass window. In the room, a tall white haired man with a used face. Bobby Andes introduced. ‘Captain Vanesco, Tony Hastings.’

Captain Vanesco was polite. They sat at a desk. ‘Lieutenant Andes has told me your case,’ he said. ‘Do you feel intimidated by these people? Is there any reason you might hesitate to put the finger on anyone?’

As a matter of fact – but Tony was ashamed and said, ‘No.’

Vanesco said, ‘The people we are interested in are prisoners. They will not be released if you identify them.’

Bobby Andes said, ‘Listen Tony, your testimony is damned important. Do you realize that?’

‘Yes.’

‘We don’t have hardly anything else. Do you realize that?’

Vanesco said, ‘Not all the people you are about to see are suspects. We do this to give the suspects a fair shake. If you can pick them out from others that strengthens identification.’

Tony was uneasy. He said, ‘A lot of time has passed.’

‘I understand.’

‘It all took place at night.’

Vanesco said, ‘Are you saying you didn’t get a clear look at their faces?’

‘I think I did, but it was dark.’

‘I understand. Here’s my advice. If you’re unsure, pass. Because if you recognize someone it comes with a click, gestalt, do you know that word? Only don’t pass too quick. Sometimes it takes a while for the click to come. The person might look like a stranger for a few minutes before he focuses and clicks. So if you’re unsure, wait for the click.’

They went out and down the stairs to a room like a classroom. They sat in the front row.

Vanesco said, ‘We’re going to show you four men. I won’t tell you how many are suspects. I want you to look and if you recognize anyone, from anywhere anytime, tell me.’

‘When do I tell you?’

‘As soon as you’re sure.’

‘Before they leave?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Andes said. ‘Nobody’s killing you here.’

Tony Hastings pushed back in the classroom chair, trying to relax so as to breathe. He remembered the shivering Sharon climbing to her Village flat. A door opened and a policeman came in followed by four men. They stood in bright light in front of the blackboard. Tony Hastings looked at them bewildered.

The first man was big. He wore a red T-shirt stretched tight around his chest and had a round droopy face with blond fuzzy hair and a small mustache. The second man, not so big, wore a checked flannel shirt and had a bony face, calculating eyes, a blond forelock down his forehead. The third man, about the same size as the second, had glasses with large black frames, sparse dark hair and a bushy black mustache. He wore a jump suit and his face was puffy. The fourth man was short and scrawny. He wore an old shabby suitcoat without a tie and had silver rimmed glasses. Tony Hastings did not recognize any of them.

He sat a long time studying them, trying to remember. The men with their hands behind their backs grew restive, shifting weight from one foot to the other. The two with glasses looked at some mystic vision above his head in the back of the room. The blond man with the bony face glared as if trying to figure out who
he
was, while the big one with the droopy face darted furtive glances around the room. Guilty – but no one Tony had ever seen.

Faced with this unfamiliar four, Tony could no longer remember Ray or Lou or Turk, though their images had burned in his living thoughts for six months. He tried to bring them back. Could Ray have been as big as the big blond man? Never mind the mustache, could he put on so much weight in six months? Or the man with the bony face? Gradually he brought back to mind a rudimentary Ray, recovered the bald forehead, restored the triangular face, the big teeth in the small mouth. And the large intimidating eyes. So Ray at least was not here. What about Lou, who had led him down the woody road and forced him out of the car where the bodies of his wife and daughter were soon to be dumped? What would Lou look like if his black beard were shaved off? Rule out Lou. What of Turk? He remembered Turk’s glasses, but not dark framed like these. If Turk grew a mustache? Tony Hastings was beginning to sweat. He had not paid enough attention to Turk, shadowed by his more vivid companions.

He thought: the man with the dark framed glasses might be Turk. He began to see familiarity in him, as if he had known him once. A long time ago. But not definitely, not with the click Vanesco needed. Though Tony Hastings thought he knew that man, he could not remember Turk. All he had left of Turk was a generic image, man with iron rimmed glasses.

He heard Bobby Andes breathing heavily beside him. One of the men in front muttered, ‘Jesus!’

The bony man said, ‘If it takes you this long to decide, it’s no case.’

Now Tony was sure the man with the dark framed glasses was Turk. On the other hand, he could not remember Turk, therefore he could not be sure. Since making a false identification was worse than making none, he sighed and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

Bobby Andes hissed. ‘Take them out,’ Vanesco said.

Bobby Andes flung his clipboard on the floor. ‘For God’s sake, man!’ he said.

‘I’m sorry.’

Vanesco was mild. ‘It’s all right. If you can’t be sure, it’s better to pass.’

‘There goes our whole shittin case,’ Andes said. To Vanesco: ‘This means I can’t have him, right?’

‘That’s up to you. If you’ve got the evidence.’

Bobby Andes said: ‘Fuck!’

Tony said, ‘There’s a faint possibility –’

‘What?’

‘There’s one guy who just might, I couldn’t be sure.’

‘You want to bring him back, bring him back!’

‘Wait,’ Vanesco said.

‘I’m not sure, that’s the problem.’

‘One? Bring em back!’

‘Wait,’ Vanesco said. ‘Which one, Tony?’

‘The third one, glasses and mustache. If he’s changed his glasses and grown a mustache.’

Bobby Andes and Captain Vanesco looked at each other for a long moment.

‘Which one would he be? Ray? Lou?’

‘I’m not saying he is. I’m very unsure. If he is one, he’d be the one they called Turk.’

‘Turk.’

‘And the others?’

‘The others are out.’

Vanesco asked, ‘Would you be willing to make a positive identification of this Turk?’

‘I said I can’t. I can’t be sure. The only thing makes me think he’s Turk is you brought me here to identify them. You have some reason for connecting them with the case.’

Vanesco and Bobby looked at each other. Vanesco shook his head and said, ‘Not enough.’

Going out the door he put one hand on Bobby’s shoulder, the other on Tony’s, like a father. ‘Think of it this way. It’s a start. You’ll have to develop more evidence.’ To Tony he said, ‘Don’t feel bad. It’s hard to form an image in the dark.’

Bobby Andes drove Tony Hastings back to the Albany airport. He was angry. ‘You sure let me down, baby,’ he said. They drove for miles along the valley floor saying nothing.

‘I couldn’t be certain,’ Tony said.

‘Yeah.’

Bobby Andes said, ‘The guy you said “might” be Turk. Would you like to know who he is?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s Steve Adams, boy. That’s the guy whose fingerprints were on your trunk. That’s the circumstantial fact, he put his fucking hands on your car, and you never saw him before.’

Steve Adams, man in the picture: long hair to the shoulder, beard like a prophet. They sure do change. The original Turk so little distinguished that Tony could remember only the
generic glasses was much more ordinary than either of the Steve Adamses.

Maybe Steve Adams’s fingerprints had been put on the trunk at some other time, by a pump man in a gas station.

‘Want to know the rest?’ A sneer in Andes’s voice.

‘Yes of course.’

‘They was three guys trying to make off with a car from a used car lot. One got away. Fingerprints turn up this Steve Adams, wanted by me. If you’d identified him, they would have extradited him to me.’

Later Bobby Andes broke another silence. ‘How can you develop more evidence when the witness don’t cooperate?’