19 Purchase Street (41 page)

“What do you do, Archie?”

“I'm a handicapper.” A shot of truth

“You cause people to become handicapped?”

“In a way. I tell them how to bet.”

“Horses?”

“Mainly football.”

“I only know horses.” Her expression changed, especially her eyes, as though something forgotten took precedence over this banter. After a moment she came back to it. “You played football in school?”

“I would have been broke otherwise.”

She laughed, and it wasn't good for her face. “What school?”

“Princeton. Cum laude.”

“You majored in law, I suppose.”

“Needlepoint.”

She laughed.

“Tattoos,” he said, remembering.

All the while, he'd been reducing his vodka and tonic, thinking with each gulp he'd reach the tonic level, but it was vodka straight to the bottom and already getting to him. He felt the base of his spine slacken. “Would you care for a drink?”

“A spritzer,” Millicent said.

Gainer held his empty glass high and rattled it to get a white-jacketed man's attention. He also got the eyes of an aging blond in a minimal blue swimsuit who came coasting over in four inch espadrilles.

The blond mmm'd down and up scale in appreciation of Gainer, stood unnecessarily close. It was something she could have gotten away with, but probably wouldn't have resorted to, thirty years earlier, leading with her crotch like that. It was nearly level with Gainer's view.

“His name is Archie,” Millicent told her. “Archie, this is Barbara Darrow.”

Mrs. Darrow backed off a ways, either to accommodate her eyesight or the better to take in all of him.

Gainer saw that Darrow's wife was much overtanned, her skin blotched dry from too many seasons of Antibes and Deauville, Gstaad and Chamonix. She was sitting on sixty or more, another time fighter. However, she wasn't much of a contender, had only a few minor bouts left in her. The underflesh of her upper arms was hopelessly crepey.

Up to then, although Mrs. Darrow hadn't said a word, she'd said too much. She was either half-drunk or thoroughly bitter.

“Off with you,” Millicent told her.

Mrs. Darrow smirked.

Gainer thought any second he'd go talk to the Spaniard.

“Not this time, Barbara. I'm warning you,” Millicent said, almost letting her smile drop.

Mrs. Darrow sighed and made an unpleasant little pout that accentuated the vertical age lines above her upper lip. “You happen to know what a coward I am out of bed,” she said, and walked away.

“She's actually quite good-hearted,” Millicent said.

“Needs her organs raised,” Gainer mumbled, considering Mrs. Darrow's pouched out belly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Drinks came.

“Where were we?”

“Tattoos.”

“I don't see any.”

“I've got them,” Gainer said.

Millicent's eyes said she understood. She looked as though she'd just smelled a pleasing fragrance.

Gainer noticed a gold link bracelet she was wearing, not quite large enough to fall off. It had the initial M inset with diamonds. She also had pampered feet, probably had hours spent every day on her feet. All toes straight, not even the sign of a callous on her little ones.

She reached over and clinked his glass. “Are you staying here?”

“Yeah.”

“Which room is yours?”

Gainer stood, adjusted his trunks, glanced up at Leslie's windows.

Millicent reached with her foot, touched his calf. “Later on,” she said, “as late as you wish, come find me and we'll make some old times out of some new times.”

Gainer dove in.

A
T
five-thirty next morning Gainer came awake, suddenly, totally awake and sat up in bed as though something had yanked him.

The snuggling, bed-hogging Leslie was so used to him being up and around at all hours that she merely asked was anything wrong and went back to sleep before he could answer.

On the front of Gainer's mind, using, it seemed, the inside of his forehead for an illuminated billboard, was the so-called Millicent Buckley. At some time during his sleep she had assumed that foremost position and was still there. It occurred to Gainer, of course, that he might still be asleep and just dreaming that he was awake, but there on the bedside table was the green glow of the face and hands of Leslie's tiny Schlumberger travel clock, and when as a test he tugged sharply enough to hurt at a tuft of his hair, it really did hurt.

Millicent Buckley.

She kept on doing reruns of herself from the previous afternoon, her words and facial expressions, and Gainer also began to recall things about her that he hadn't realized he'd noticed. Her eyes, for instance, the color of them. Green with black circumferences. The handsome more than pretty mouth, resolute. Her hairline, shape of face and especially her voice. There was, in her voice, a quality, way back in under the broad A's and layers of other influences, that seemed as familiar as Norma's voice had been to him. Then, there had also been:

Millicent's inquisitiveness regarding him, an element of genuine interest to it now that he thought about it.

The oblique quickness of her humor, sort of her version of his own.

The possessive way she'd taken it on herself to protect him from the consuming cunt of Mrs. Darrow.

The gold link bracelet with the diamond M on it. Heavy enough to have been a man's bracelet cut down. The M for the long-ago Manny, whom Gainer had heard about. Could be.

Good God.

She was the right age and everything.

Gainer got out of bed, put on jeans, sweatshirt and canvas shoes. Did not need to splash cold water on his face. Hastily combed his hair with his fingers and went out. Drove recklessly to the city, to his apartment.

To the Cartier framed photograph.

Sat on the sofa with it in hand under a two hundred and fifty watt bulb. He mentally overlaid the face he remembered as Millicent's on the younger face in the photograph. Yesterday's face had not been very definable in the bright sun just as this one was washed out by retouching. It seemed the noses were close to a match, and the mouths too. The shape of the eyes were different but that could have been due to plastic surgery.

There was similarity enough, Gainer believed.

It was her, come back.

It was.

(Or was it that he wanted it to be?)

Anyway, she was with the Darrows, of all people. A hanger-on, so it appeared. Going along with what Mrs. Darrow did in order to be allowed to go along with her. How had she gotten in with that element? Wouldn't it be ironic if she'd once been a carrier, same as Norma?

Gainer believed he knew the exact moment yesterday afternoon when she'd recognized him. Had seen it register and go through her. Maternal instinct. She'd been short on that long ago, why long on it now? He hoped to hell she didn't son him and mother love him all over the place. That would be embarrassing. He wouldn't be able to reciprocate. She was just a woman he'd come out of, or so he told himself.

Chances were, she wouldn't let on. Women like her, no matter how they felt, avoided having their past spread out for one and all to poke around in as though it was a yard sale.

But if it happened that she did lose control, he knew how he'd handle it.

Just as she deserved.

At her expense.

He'd deny her, say she was nuts, gone off the end of her wishful thinking. Hell, he'd been born on the high sea somewhere between Cyprus and Madeira—and by Caesarean section at that. (Show your scar!) His parents were not divorced, but as separated as possible. Father a retired automobile dealer now doing quality bookbinding up in Nova Scotia. Mother a pediatrician in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. She had contracted any number of tropical bugs over the last ten years but was still going strong.

And so on.

That's what he'd do.

He got a couple of the mother postcards from Norma's carton, took them and the framed photograph with him back to Number 19.

Just in case they were needed, he told himself.

Drove slower than the limit.

When he got there he saw that most of the high-priced cars were gone.

He went in, was headed up the stairs to Leslie when a hint of the odor of fried bacon turned him. He tracked it to the dining room.

Darrow was alone at the huge table.

“You were out early,” Darrow commented.

“Business,” Gainer said, remained standing, waiting to be invited.

“Sit,” Darrow told him.

Gainer was tempted to bark. He took the chair to Darrow's right, told the servant no eggs, just bacon, toast and coffee.

“Mrs. Pickering prefers breakfast in bed,” Darrow said, as though that was an inside observation.

“Dinner too most of the time,” Gainer put in, and heard Darrow's knife cut hard across the Rosenthal plate.

“I understand you're a tout,” Darrow said.

Gainer just took it with a nod.

“I wager now and then on football, mainly for the challenge of it, only four or five thousand a game,” Darrow said.

It was hard for Gainer to imagine Darrow betting on anything other than a fix. Maybe, he thought, he should follow Darrow's action.

“Who do you like this season?” Darrow asked.

“I don't have an opinion yet.”

“Only two weeks until the regular season opens.”

“Time enough.”

“Perhaps I should have you as my personal handicapper, Andrew. Does that appeal to you?”

No, Gainer thought, he wouldn't enjoy handicapping for anyone connected with Norma's killer. “I had close to a wipe-out last season, only three out of sixteen, one pick in the playoffs and I blew the Super Bowl.”

“You're worse than Hine,” Darrow said.

“How did he do?”

“I mean you insist on lying even when someone's looking down your throat.”

Think, but don't say, Gainer advised himself.

“I played varsity football at Yale,” Darrow said, “I was an end.”

“You're built like an end.”

Darrow accepted the compliment before it occurred to him that it might not have been one.

“Where's Mrs. Darrow this morning?” Gainer asked.

“Gone. She and all her chums.”

“For the day?”

“To Beverly Hills. At least I believed she mentioned Beverly Hills. From there, who knows.”

Gainer was both disappointed and relieved. “I met Mrs. Darrow just briefly yesterday,” he said. “Also one of her friends. I don't remember her name. Good-looking, dark-haired woman …”

“Had on a white bathing suit?”

“That's her.”

“Millicent Buckley.”

“Is that really her name?”

“Why do you ask?”

“She reminded me of someone.”

“Barbara and Millicent go way back.”

“To where?”

“They won't say what year anymore, but they went to Smith together.”

The nearest his mother had gotten to Smith was a cough drop, Gainer thought. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Of course, I used to play squash with her brother.”

Gainer overchewed a bit of toast and then gave up on breakfast, placed his knife and fork precisely across the edge of his plate, folded his napkin just so and sat there stuck to his own foolishness. He'd never let anyone know, not even Leslie, especially Leslie, how he'd overreacted to a mere resemblance. To get off it he told Darrow: “Cincinnati.”

“You like the Bengals?”

“They should have a good year.”

“Let me know whenever you think they'll win big or manage an upset. Will you do that?”

“Yeah.”

“I enjoy an upset.”

F
OR
the second time that morning Gainer got only a few steps up the main stairs on his way to Leslie. This time the bulk that was F. Hugh Sweet intentionally blocked him, looked down on him and said: “Hine wants to see you.” Sweet took Gainer by the elbow, and although it appeared that was merely to guide him, it was such a grip it caused Gainer's hand to go numb.

Down the steps.

Out to Hine's car.

A two and a quarter hour drive, without conversation or radio, to Southampton, Long Island.

Hine's beach house was about two miles from the town proper, on the ocean side of Dune Road. It was on two point three acres bound precisely by a high white concrete wall. The house was constructed of the same white material, resembling, on its inland side, a coastal defense installation with ultra-contemporary blocky lines, no windows or other vulnerables. The interior was stark and soft. Hard, white surfaces contradicted by masses of colorful plush, as though saying, as long as you're here you might as well be comfortable.

The entire ocean front of the house was of glass, at least half of which could be opened, and was open now.

“Take off your clothes,” Sweet said.

Gainer wanted to know why.

“Or I'll take them off for you,” Sweet told him.

Gainer removed his shoes, sweatshirt and jeans. Sweet also stripped. His chest was twice as thick as Gainer's, had abundant hair on it and there was nearly as much on his shoulders and back. A powerful, straight up and down chunk with columns of muscle left and right of his spine down to his buttocks.

“Everything off,” he said.

Gainer undid his wristwatch. Sweet took it, looked at it, placed it on a low table on top of a deluxe edition of
Sappho
, by photographer J. Fred Smith.

Sweet steered Gainer outside. A deck area of natural bleached cedar ran across the front of the house, and a wide walkway of it ran down to the shoulder of the beach. The wood was hot and uncomfortably dry under Gainer's feet, felt as though it would cause splinters. After a short ways Sweet took him off the deck and onto the sand, up over the edge of a particular dune that was depressed, like a wide bowl decorated with tufts of beach grass.