Mister X (12 page)

Pearl deliberately drank too much wine.

Three glasses of an expensive pinot noir.

She’d made up her mind and eaten lightly during dinner at Russeria’s, only a few short blocks from Yancy’s apartment on Fifth Avenue.

He’d suggested the restaurant, somehow knowing this would be the night. Had she in some way signaled him? Pearl wondered if it was particularly easy for men to read her mind. Quinn—

Well, never mind Quinn.

She took another sip of wine. Dessert was on the way, a chocolate flan rimmed with whipped cream and raspberries.

Yancy had told her his apartment overlooked Central Park, Of course it would. And someday it would be windmill powered. It was difficult for her to believe completely, or to
dis
believe completely, anything this man said.

Well, maybe nothing he said was the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That was usually the way it turned out in criminal court.

Not that Yancy was a criminal. Ethics weren’t exactly law.

As they were eating their desserts, she studied him across the table. He was impeccably dressed in a dark tan sport coat with neatly creased taupe slacks, a white shirt, and a maroon knit tie. A matching maroon handkerchief peeked from his jacket pocket. He reminded her of the seasoned, sophisticated Cary Grant. Around the time that airplane chased him.

“New York also has steam,” he was saying, “running underground through much of the city. Remember when that underground steam pipe blew a few years ago near Grand Central?”

Pearl did. It had been a terrific explosion, followed by a gusher of superheated steam and water that reached as high as the nearby Chrysler building. People had gawked in disbelief. People had panicked. There had been at least one death.

“It was quite a demonstration of power unleashed in the wrong way,” Yancy said. “But that kind of power can have positive uses. It’s already used to provide heat and electricity, but not to its full potential. The coalition is considering ways to tap into that steam system even more, expand it out of the city so that someday it will hook up to similar steam systems, get it turning turbines to produce unheard-of amounts of energy. I have a few people close to the governor interested.” He grinned. “I guess we’ll call ourselves the National Wind and Steam Coalition.”

Wind, steam, and bullshit
, Pearl thought. But he did seem enthusiastic about his work.

She told herself that with Yancy,
seem
was the operative word.

“Do you really think that’s possible?” she asked. “Turning the city’s underground steam system into a kind of subterranean Hoover Dam project?”

He toyed with his fork. “Oh, I don’t know. I can make it sound possible, so maybe it is.”

She helped herself to a small sampling of her flan, watching him watch her lips work on the smooth silver spoon.

He gave her his handsome smile, the blue eyes. “But why am I talking about work? You’re so much more important than that.”

“More important than wind and steam power? You sure of that?”

“Of course, Pearl. What you have makes the whole world go round, not just a few windmills or turbines.”

She sipped her wine and leaned over the table to look closely at him. “Are you lobbying me?”

He nodded. “I admit it. Are you susceptible to a bribe?”

She nodded back. “Like a two-term congresswoman.”

“Going to finish your dessert, Congresswoman Pearl?”

“No, just my wine.”

He gave some sort of silent signal to the waiter, who appeared with their check. Yancy paid cash and left an outrageous tip, probably to impress Pearl.

Within a few minutes they were outside on the sidewalk, in the hot night. She was slightly lightheaded from the wine. Things were moving swiftly. It was apparent that Yancy didn’t want her to have second thoughts.

She knew that wasn’t going to happen. The red wine and chocolate flan were having their combined effects on her, and she felt marvelously…compliant.

She didn’t feel that way often, so why not lean back and enjoy it? A person couldn’t keep her guard up all the time.

He flagged a cab that appeared as mysteriously as had the waiter.

“I thought your apartment was only a few blocks away,” Pearl said.

“It is, but we shouldn’t walk when we can ride.”

“Smaller carbon footprint,” said the congresswoman.

“We’ll walk next time,” Yancy assured her.

In the back of the cab he kissed her, then nibbled at her earlobe and gave it a little nip.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Earmark.”

“You do stay with a theme.”

“You’re the theme,” he said. “The theme, the overture, and the entire symphony.”

Being played like an instrument
, Pearl thought.
It’s not just a figure of speech
.

His apartment was on Fifth Avenue and did indeed have a view of the park. The apartment was spacious, with plush rugs over a gleaming hardwood floor. There were brown leather upholstered chairs, glass-topped tables, modern prints on the walls. A Mondrian that looked real over a fireplace that didn’t. Over in a corner there was even a gleaming grand piano.

The overall impression was one of comfort, order, and wealth.

But just an impression of the apartment’s living room was all Pearl got, or wanted.

The bedroom was vast, with a king-sized bed with a brown leather bench at its foot. White walls, beige drapes, a thick cream-colored duvet.

No mirrored ceiling, thank God.

Had she expected one?

In truth, she was still trying to understand this guy.

In bed he was dominant but gentle, bringing her close to orgasm and then letting her fall back, turning her in on herself so that every thought other than of what he was doing fled from her mind. He toyed with her, and she amused him in a way that excited her.

He brought her closer, closer to where she wanted to be, and didn’t let up.

Didn’t let up.

A woman in the room called his name in her voice.

When they were finished he rolled lightly off her and kissed the ear he’d nibbled in the back of the cab. They looked at each other across the topography of white linen that was the landscape of lovers.

He didn’t ask her how it had been for her, but she could see the question in his eyes.

“Profound and fun,” she said.

He smiled. “In equal measures?”

She thought about it. “Yeah, I’d say. Only one complaint.”

He appeared startled and hurt. “Oh? What’s that?”

“Your hair didn’t get mussed. Not one single hair on your head.”

She turned to him, laced her fingers through his thick white hair, and made it a wild tangle.

She was amazed to see that he had dark roots.

Holifield, Ohio, 1994

It had taken forever for night to fall. Jerry and his mother were the only ones in the house.

Jerry Grantland’s father seldom bothered to show up on his scheduled visitation days. This day had been no exception. It had passed without explanation, without even a phone call, without Jerry or his mother even mentioning his father.

Jerry lay silently in bed, waiting for his mother to turn off the
Jeopardy!
rerun on television in the living room. He could barely hear the low murmur of voices and rustle of applause from the TV, but he could see the crack of light beneath his bedroom door and knew she was still up. Probably she was drinking another of the mixture she made from club soda and the bottle of gin she kept in the cabinet above the sink.

An hour passed. Two. He could hear his mother snoring now and thought she’d probably sleep all night where she lay on the sofa. That was how it usually worked when she watched
Jeopardy!
and drank the gin drink.

Jerry rolled over onto his side and checked the clock with its flipping lighted numbers by his bed. It was twenty minutes past midnight. Jerry knew he should wait until about one a.m. That was usually the time it happened, when Mrs. Keller was asleep. Of course, if you watched the clock it would never flip to the next minute. Instead of watching, he closed his eyes and thought about Mrs. Keller. Jerry realized he had an erection, and he wondered, with a wife like Mrs. Keller, why did Mr. Keller do the things he did?

But then, why did Jerry’s mother do some of the same things? Adults were a mystery to Jerry. Someday, he was sure, the mystery would be solved. When he was an adult.

At ten minutes to one he could no longer stay in bed without jumping clear out of his skin. He got up, slipped into his jeans, and put on his tennis shoes without socks. Though it was a hot night, he got a dark shirt from his closet and wore it untucked over the white T-shirt he slept in.

Silently, he went to his bedroom window and raised it. The window moved smoothly in its wooden frame and made no sound. Two days ago, while alone in the house, Jerry had lubricated it with some of his mother’s Crisco from the kitchen.

The window screen unlatched from the bottom and swung upward, allowing him room to slip beneath it and drop the few feet to the yard.

It was a moonless night and dark, just as he liked it. The mosquitoes were out, but they didn’t bother him much. Off in the distance he could see a shimmering cloud of moths circling a street light. They looked oddly like snowflakes caught in a whirl of wind.

He crept a few feet away from the window, then ran and disappeared into the dark void that was the unbroken lawn between his house and the Kellers’.

Then he was in the blackness and shrubbery at the side of the Kellers’ house, near the twins’ bedroom window. Sharp-edged holly bush leaves scratched his bare arms as he moved sideways into the comparative softness of the yews.

The yews were his cover and his shelter. He’d come to feel as at home in them as if he were some wild and nesting animal. Though he knew he was risking everything by being there, he still somehow felt more secure where he was than anywhere else in his world. He belonged there, in the concealing blackness and cover of the shrubbery. What he was doing couldn’t be so wrong if he belonged there.

As if on signal, katydids in the surrounding trees began to sound their ratcheting shrill mating call. Jerry was glad. The racket made it less likely that he’d make some slight noise and be discovered.

He was at the window now. The shade was lowered almost all the way, as it usually was. A gap was left so it wouldn’t knock over Tiffany’s collection of ceramic animals on the inside sill. The bottom of the shade was an inch above the giraffe, leaving plenty of room for a view.

Squatting on the soft earth, Jerry settled into a comfortable position so he could peer into the bedroom without moving or making a sound. He wasn’t worried about being noticed; there was always a night-light glowing softly in the twins’ room, making it brighter inside than out. If somebody inside did happen to glance his way, he was sure that if he didn’t move he’d be invisible behind dark reflecting glass. Experimenting with his own bedroom window had taught him that much. Night turned bedroom windows into the kind of mirrors you saw in the movies and on TV, where the police questioned suspects and then left them alone to comb their hair or examine their teeth, but they couldn’t see the cops standing behind the mirror looking right at them.

Jerry was where the cops usually stood. Safe unless for some reason the light changed.

Mr. Keller had begun early tonight. He was already in bed with Tiffany. The bedroom was shadowed and dimly lit, so that Jerry couldn’t make out exactly what was going on. But the shadows writhing on the wall beside Tiffany’s bed made it obvious what was happening. As Jerry watched, breathless, he moved his hand down to caress himself.

The shadow show became more frantic and violent, and Jerry was sure he could actually hear the squeaking of bedsprings.

Mrs. Keller has to know what’s going on. She has to….

All the time Mr. Keller was doing things to Tiffany, Chrissie lay curled on her side, facing away from her sister’s bed but not seeing Jerry. Her eyes were open and blank, and she was sucking her thumb. As old as she was, she was sucking her thumb.

When Mr. Keller was finished with Tiffany he got up from his bed and adjusted his white boxer shorts. He moved toward the window, and Jerry’s heart leaped and he drew back, ready to bolt into the shadows between the houses. He held his breath and made himself be still.

But Mr. Keller wasn’t looking at the window; he was looking at Chrissie. Jerry saw something looped in his hand. His belt. He hadn’t worn his pants to the twins’ bedroom, but he’d brought his belt.

He yanked Chrissie roughly so she lay flat on her stomach, then raised her nightgown and pulled her panties down. She didn’t resist or change expression.

Mr. Keller bent low and said something to her, probably warning her to be quiet. Then he began beating her bare buttocks and the backs of her thighs with the belt. With each blow her body tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, and then it stayed tense as the beating continued. Jerry understood how she must feel. He realized he was weeping silently, and his fingernails were digging into his palms so deeply that it hurt.

When Mr. Keller was finished, he worked Chrissie’s nightgown back down so that it covered her buttocks. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, leaned down so his face was near hers, and kissed her cheek. He stood up, caressed her hair, and then turned and walked from the room. He closed the door slowly and carefully behind him.

Jerry wondered where Mr. Keller was going now? To Mrs. Keller? They slept together, Jerry was sure, but their bedroom was upstairs, impossible to see into from outside. He could only guess what they might be doing.

Chrissie lay motionless for a while, and then she turned onto her side, facing away from Jerry. Across the room, Tiffany was lying on her side, facing Chrissie and the window where Jerry watched. The twins lay that way and stared at each other, their expressions blank. Jerry didn’t think either of them spoke.

He’d reached a climax. He could feel the wetness at the crotch of his jeans.

Controlling his shakiness and shortness of breath, he backed away from the window, into the scratchy holly bushes. Sweat beaded on his face. Perspiration or tears stung like acid at the corners of his eyes.

Everywhere in the night the katydids screamed their relentless mating call.

Jerry turned and ran into the darkness, toward his own window, his own home.

The screams of insects followed him. As did the darkness.