Final Edit (24 page)

Four o’clock—about time to reach over and grab a breast. Who are you with this time? Is it the woman I saw you leaving your
office with yesterday? (Click)

I just have to add one more comment on this whole situation ‘cause if what I think is going on, you’re really… you’re sick!
I hope you have a coronary! (Click)

Last call, darling. I think you’re one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever known. You just threw it away. You just threw something
good so easily away. (Sigh… click)

Really the last call, DAMN YOU! You know you’re lucky I didn’t have a knife handy when you walked out on me last week. I wanted
to kill you! I still do, you bastard! (Click)

I put the file aside, leaned back in my chair, and made a steeple out of my fingertips. I had not thought that Claire Bunter,
on the surface a poised, sophisticated woman, could nurture so much anger and resentment. I had read enough of her work to
know that she saw life, as they say, steadily and whole. Surely she must have known that an adulterous affair, however exciting,
must end sometime, and often badly. However, if I have one cardinal virtue, it is this: I am, where human emotions are concerned,
completely nonjudgmental.

But not where murder is concerned. I probably ought to tell Lieutenant Hatcher about Parker’s files. First, though, I thought
I’d better seek Joe Scanlon’s advice.

* * *

After my deep immersion in the erotic legacy of Parker Foxcroft, I felt I needed a bath. The next best thing, I decided, was
to be with Susan Markham. I told Hannah that I would not be returning after lunch and that she should field all calls and
inquiries.

“What about Herbert Poole?” she asked.

“He’s to have complete access to Foxcroft’s office,” I said, “and anything he might need.”

Stepping out on the street to head for East 55th Street, I hailed a cab, and miracle of miracles, it turned out to be a Checker.
I climbed in gratefully; it looked as though it was going to turn out to be a memorable day, after all.

“How many of these beauties are still left?” I asked the driver, a somewhat wizened middle-aged man.
Angelo Martelli. 45703
. I don’t know why, but I always make a mental note of a cabdriver’s name and usually the number. You never know when you
might need it.

“Ten, I think,” he said.

Only ten. The last time I snared a Checker there were twelve of them. Think of the odds against running across one. Where,
I wondered, had they gone; and why had the cab companies ever given them up in favor of those grungy little Dodges? In my
salad days, there were dozens of Checkers on the city streets, roomy enough so that even a disabled person could get into
them, all with jump seats and a wealth of legroom. Now—well, I have never subscribed to any belief in the progress of mankind
or its ultimate improvement.

The ride, as I expected, was a happy one, and when we pulled up in front of Susan’s apartment building, I gladly overtipped
the driver. “Don’t let this baby go,” I told him.
He hadn’t spoken during the ride, and now he only grunted his thanks, but I could tell he was pleased.

Susan greeted me at the door of her apartment by kissing me sweetly, then drawing me inside with both hands.

“You’re early,” she said.

“Couldn’t wait, could you?”

“Absolutely not.”

She was wearing a white satin robe, belted, trimmed at the cuffs and the hem with lace. And, as far as I could tell, nothing
else.

“The first thing,’ she said, struggling with my jacket, “is to get
this
off, and then”—tugging at my necktie—
“this.”

“What’s the third thing?”

“I’m sure you don’t need any help finding the bedroom, do you, Nick?”

By now we had begun to learn the secrets of each other’s bodies, and their hidden rhythms, so it was some long time before
we drew apart, still clasping hands, but spent and silent. There was no need for either of us to ask if it had been good.

When I started to get out of bed, Susan pushed me back down. “Stay right there, sir,” she said, “for your first surprise.”

It was a linen robe, periwinkle blue, with a shawl collar.

“Hey,” I said. “Where did this come from?”

“Saks. I dropped in there this morning.”

“Well, I thank you kindly.”

“Now you know that you can stop by anytime and you’ll always be decent.”

I kissed her, just a touch of the lips. “Are you, or are you not, the best thing that’s happened to me since I can’t remember
when?” I hugged her again. “You are.”

“I think,” she said, drawing back but at the same time
running her hand down the side of my face, “that I’d better see to lunch.”

“I hope you haven’t gone to too much trouble…”

“I’ve made a quiche and a salad,” she said, “and I promise you won’t gain any weight. But first, the wine. It’s my other surprise.”

I followed her into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle.

“I hope it’s chilled enough,” she said, holding the bottle up for my inspection. It was a rosé, God forbid.

“It’s special,” Susan said.

“Oh?”
How on earth could that wine be special?
I hoped my disappointment wouldn’t be too plain to see. I put on my best smile, even though it was more painful to produce
than my worst frown. “How so, Susan?”

“Well,” she said, clearly pleased, “it arrived at my office with a card that read, ‘From a grateful author.’ Isn’t that neat,
Nick?”

“I’ll say,” I said. “Any idea who the author is?”

“No, but I hope it is who I think it is—one of Little, Brown’s most difficult authors.”

“Susan dear, they’re
all
difficult, aren’t they?”

“Now, don’t be cynical, darling. Here, let’s drink a toast.”

She brought out two stemware glasses and poured the wine into them, almost to the brim.

“To us,” she said.

“To us,” I echoed, and took a sip. Somehow a sip seemed to be enough. I know it is snobbish, but I have never been able to
appreciate rosé. I consider it an adulterated wine, neither white nor red. You might as well drink that carbonated stuff from
Portugal—I forget its name. I hoped I could get away with just another sip or two.

Meanwhile, Susan was emptying her glass with obvious relish, chatting away and fussing around with her salad. Suddenly it
seemed to me that the most important thing in the world was for Susan to be happy, even if I had to drink a glass of rosé
to achieve it.

I was about to have another swallow, shutting down my olfactory sense as I did so, when something odd happened. Susan belched.

“Oh my,” she said. “Oh my Lord.” And then she hiccuped. “Excuse… excuse…” I put my wineglass down and turned to her. She was
swaying, ever so slightly.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I don’t feel so good, Nick,” she said, almost inaudibly. “Excuse me… okay… I think I’ll—” And with that, she bolted for the
bathroom.

“Need any help?” I called. There was no answer, but shortly afterward I heard the sound of retching from behind the bathroom
door.

What the hell?
I hadn’t thought the wine was
that
bad, just ordinarily unappetizing. I picked up the bottle and looked at it.
Armand de Jacquin Gamay Rosé.
So who are you, Armand de Jacquin?

The cork was lying beside the bottle. It was dry, usually a bad sign. When the wine steward brings you the cork, you’re supposed
to feel if it’s slightly damp, as it ought to be, not smell it, as some people do.

Then I noticed something strange. Several tiny holes in the top and bottom of the cork.

I picked it up and called out: “Are you okay? Susan?”

My only answer was a soft moan from the bathroom.

And by now I was beginning to feel… nauseous. Dizzy, in fact. The wine—something wrong with the wine.

Holy shit, I thought, have we been poisoned? But who? Why?

“Susan!” I cried out, but I don’t think she heard me, for there was no answer. I made my way to the bathroom, step by step,
hoping that I wouldn’t vomit before I got there.

“Susan…” This time I could barely croak her name. “Oh my God…”

She was lying on the bathroom floor, her head resting against the base of the toilet.

Somehow I managed to get back to the living room. The phone… pick up the phone… dial 911…

Three numbers to dial. They took forever. And then I remembered nothing. Nothing at all.

The voice came from a long, long way off.
“Niiick,”
the voice said.
“Can… you… hear me… Nick?”
So faint, so far away, it might have been disembodied, celestial even.

I attempted to speak, but could only utter a strangled croak, an unearthly, subhuman sound. My eyes were still tightly closed;
I struggled to open the lids.

Then the sense of touch came back, and by groping around with my hands, I could tell that I was lying on a bed, that my head
was on a pillow.

At last my eyes came open, and I saw, looming over me, a figure in white, eyes behind gleaming lenses, blinking at me. Again
I opened my mouth to speak, but the same gurgling
aggh!
was all I could manage. It was then I realized that I could not speak because there was a tube of some kind stuck down my
throat, choking me, blocking my vocal cords. For a moment I thought I was going to vomit, but the nausea passed and left me
limp, sweating from what seemed to be every pore in my body.

“Mr. Barlow,” said a voice, not the one I had heard at first, “you must not try to talk just now.” The voice was
calm, measured, soothing. It belonged to the figure in white with the glittering eyeglasses. A doctor, I thought, and with
a bedside manner at that. Which meant that I—

“You’re in a hospital,” said the doctor, still hovering over me.

Which one?
I wondered.

“Doctors.”

Reassuring—a hospital full of doctors, of all things.

“We’ll be taking that drain in your stomach out shortly, and then you’ll be able to talk.”

Thank God. Nick Barlow unable to talk is Nick Barlow disarmed.

It was something like an hour later when the drain was finally removed, and I was able to sit up. Shortly after that, I was
assisted out of bed, seated in front of a table of some kind, and fed what tasted like mashed potatoes and creamed corn, although
neither dish would ever pass muster even at a truck stop. Nevertheless, I ate greedily. Not only was I ravenous, but I was
so relieved to be alive that I would have gobbled down anything at all.

Once again, I was assisted back into bed, by a nurse on one side and Joe Scanlon on the other.

“Joe,” I said, “I’m glad you’re here. I think I was poisoned.”

He nodded. “You certainly were.”

“But Susan,” I said, sitting bolt upright in bed. “How is she, Joe? Tell me.”

“She didn’t make it,” he said in the flat, unaccented way with which he probably delivered that sort of bad news to more than
one survivor of a tragedy. “DOA, Nick.”

“Oh
no!
Goddamn it,
why?
Why her, for God’s sake?”

“I’m sorry, Nick, believe me,” Scanlon said. “I gather she meant something to you.”

“That, yes, and the damned unfairness of it. She was just too young, Joe.”

Scanlon hunched his shoulders and sighed. Too many deaths, I thought. He’s seen so many, and every last one of them probably
unfair. And what is too young, anyhow?

“That’s not all of it, Nick,” he said. “There’s more, I’m sorry to say.”

“More what?”

“The police think you did it. That you poisoned the wine, Nick.”

“But why in hell would I do that?”

“They’ll do their best to figure that out.”

Of course. It made perfect sense. If I had wanted to poison the wine, I’d have given a full glass to Susan, confident that
she’d drink it, and only sip from my glass. Just enough to make me sick, not enough to kill me—but more than enough, probably,
to kill
her.
Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch…

I told Scanlon about the cork of the wine bottle.

“Hatcher and Falco will be paying you a visit shortly, Nick. Be sure to tell them about the cork. I beat them here only by
posing as the investigating officer. I told the medics this was a homicide matter, and I’d have to question you as soon as
you were conscious.”

“But how did you find out I was here?”

He coughed and turned a light shade of red. “You were, shall I say, not dressed in your usual style, but there was a pocket
diary in your jacket. Margo Richmond was listed as the one to call in an emergency. The ERS guys called her, and she called
me. I hightailed over here as soon as I could.”

“I’m certainly glad of that, Joe.”

“And I suspect Margo will be here soon, too, Nick.”

I leaned back, suddenly aware that my eyes were full of tears. Was I crying for Susan’s death? Gratitude to be alive?
To have friends like Margo… like Joe Scanlon? All of the above, probably.
Thank you, Your Ineluctableness, whoever and whatever you are…

After Scanlon had left, I slid into a dreary torpor, an immense lassitude that ultimately deepened into sleep. I don’t know
how long my nap lasted, but when I awoke in due course, Lieutenant Hatcher and Sergeant Falco were seated on either side of
my bed.

“Do you feel up to answering a few questions, Mr. Barlow?” asked Hatcher.

“Sure,” I said. “Fire away.”

“Just tell us everything that happened, exactly as it happened.”

Falco took out his faithful notebook and a stub of a pencil, which he gripped tightly in his left hand, poised for action.

After I had finished my recital, Hatcher was silent for a moment; leaning back in his chair, he stroked his chin and said:
“You’re sure about the punctures in the cork?”

“Positive.”

“We’ll send someone around to check on that. One other thing: the victim did not tell you who had sent the bottle of wine
to her?”

“She didn’t know who it was. The card was just signed, ‘a grateful author.’

“Did you see the card?”