The Man Who Lived by Night (12 page)

“I can carry her,” I said. “And she’ll be fine on the train.”

Merilee turned off the heat under the casserole and uncovered it. Lulu prefers it served tepid. “I think she should stay here, darling. At least for the weekend.”

“What for?”

“She’s comfy here. She’s close to the hospital. And I don’t think she’s safe with you.”

“Merilee, she’ll be fine. There’s no need to worry.”

“That, Mr. Hoagy, is a load of baked beans. You were very nearly murdered. Both of you. Why didn’t you tell that policeman what’s really going on?”

“Because I don’t
know
what’s really going on.” I poured myself another Laphroaig and Merilee some more of her cooking sherry. Of course, she cooks only with Tio Pepe. She won’t put in food what she won’t also drink. “Clearly, I am on to something—something that somebody wants to keep buried in the past. Maybe it’s Puppy’s death. Maybe it’s something else. I don’t know. I have to find out.”

“And until you do you’re putting her in danger.”

“She’ll be fine,” I repeated.

Merilee sipped her sherry, unconvinced. “Why shoot at you? Why not T. S.?”

“I suppose because he’s so well protected. It would also draw a lot of press attention. And speculation. This serves as a nice, quiet warning: Whoever did it is probably hoping T. S. will get scared and forget about the book.”

“Will he?”

“I doubt it. My guess is that as long as T. S. personally feels secure he won’t be bothered one bit.”

Merilee put her hand against the casserole dish. It was no longer hot. She carried it over to Lulu’s bed and presented her with the whole damned thing. None for his Hoagyness. “Here you are, sweetness,” she cooed, patting her. “Now you eat this
awww
up so you can get s
twong
again.”

Lulu pawed feebly at the dish with her good foreleg. Then she wriggled herself forward in her bed a bit and stuck her head in the dish. Chomping noises followed.

“This is truly low, Merilee. This is beneath you.”

She frowned. “I really don’t know what you mean, darling. I’m just giving her a little TLC.”

“We agreed that I’d keep her. You got the apartment, the Jaguar—”

“And I’m not contesting it. But she’s wounded, and my maternal instinct is taking over. I can’t help it.”

“You’re trying to take her away from me.”

“I’m not.”

“She’s my dog.”

“She’s our dog.”

“She’s
my
dog!”

A low moan emerged from Lulu’s bed. She’d stopped eating and was watching us, genuinely distressed. It’s true what they say—divorce is always hardest on the little ones.

“Merilee, I don’t want to get into some kind of ugly, protracted custody battle with you.”

“I don’t want that either.”

“Good. So I’ll make this very simple: If she stays, I stay. We’re a package deal. You take one, you get both.”

Merilee raised an eyebrow, the same one she raised when Mel Gibson made his play for her in that sweaty tropics melodrama they did together. Her only flop. On screen, that is. “Now who’s getting low?”

I went to her and took her in my arms. She didn’t resist. “I got a stiff neck sleeping on the love seat last night.”

“It
is
short.”

“Your bed isn’t.”

She sighed. “Hoagy …”

“Yes, Merilee?”

She pulled away, went to the closet, and came back with her red Converse Chuck Taylor high-tops and her mink. “Let’s walk.”

Kensington Gardens was where we went. It was a Saturday afternoon and there were people there—pipe-puffing dog walkers, loners with their shoulders hunched and their hands in their pockets, young couples with baby strollers. It wasn’t like being in Central Park. No trash. No graffiti. No dead rats lying in the walkway. No teenage roller skaters with boom-boxes. Also, no one carrying shotguns. This I could be fairly sure of. I was looking. Getting shot at will do that to you.

We walked in silence alongside the Serpentine, enjoying the quiet, until we came upon a young father teaching his little boy how to ride a bicycle. The boy was chubby and apple-cheeked, and wore a tweed cap.

“Oh, darling,” exclaimed Merilee, squeezing my arm. “I want one of those.”

I coughed. “A midget human life-form?”

“No, one of those caps.”

“Oh. Somewhat oversized, I assume.”

“Yes. Would you … ?”

“Would I what, Merilee?”

“Would you buy it for yourself and then give it to me?”

I took her to Bates, a tiny, cluttered old hat shop on Jermyn Street. The proprietor’s cat from much earlier in the century still stood guard there from inside a glass case—properly stuffed, of course. It wouldn’t be long before the clerk who fitted me would be joining Puss in there himself, I reckoned. I got a charcoal gray herring-bone tweed that would have gone nicely with my new suit, and presented it to Merilee when we got outside on the sidewalk. She tried it on right away, admired her reflection in the store window from one angle, then another. Then she burst into tears.

I held her until they stopped. Then I gave her my linen handkerchief and asked, “What is all this?”

She dabbed at her face with the handkerchief. “All this,” she replied, sniffling, “is that I’m still in love with you. I didn’t sleep a wink all night. I couldn’t. All I could do was think about how much I want you back.”

I’d been waiting three years to hear Merilee say those words. Now that she had I found myself feeling just a little dubious. “I see,” I said quietly.

She eyed me. “Well, don’t jump up and down,” she said drily.

“I won’t.”

“What’s wrong? Are you thinking it’s just because of Lulu?”

“You’re the one who said your M-instinct has been aroused.”

“It’s not all that’s been aroused.”

“Actually, I was thinking about Tracy.”

“What’s Tracy got to do with it?”

“Merilee, you do happen to be playing a woman who does happen to fall back in love with her ex-husband.”

She mulled this over, as we stood there on Jermyn Street. “There is that,” she conceded. “I
am
an actress, and therefore a nut. This whole situation is rather …”

“Neat?”

“And it’s bothering you.”

I shrugged. “My professional nutsiness drove us apart. I suppose it’s entirely appropriate if yours brings us back together. I guess I can handle it. Just promise me one thing.”

“Name it.”

“Don’t ever do
Macbeth.
Not even if Papp begs.”

She laughed girlishly. “Papp doesn’t beg.”

We kissed. It started soft and sweet, but didn’t stay that way for very long.

She pulled away, gasping. “Darling, we’re being indiscreet.”

“So?” I gasped back.

“Not fair to Zack.”

I caught my breath, looked around. People on the street were indeed watching us. “You’re absolutely right. Let’s go somewhere nice and quiet, and get discreetly naked.”

We didn’t stray far from the feathers the rest of the weekend. Lulu seemed cheered by our reconciliation. She even started to hop around the house a bit, which meant now I
had
seen something sadder than a basset hound with a broken foreleg—a basset hound with a broken foreleg trying to walk. Not that she’s particularly gutsy. This was strictly a ploy for sympathy. And smoked salmon.

Merilee and I had one ground rule. We would talk only about London. No talking about afterward allowed. But there was no ordinance against thinking about it, and that’s what I did as we cuddled there in the middle of the night, all cozy and warm under our down comforter and tray of salmon sandwiches and cocoa. I let myself think about Zack out and me back in. Back in the eight art deco rooms overlooking the park. Back in the sweet life—acclaimed, promising, madly in love. Maybe you can’t go back, but you can always try. Hmm. Maybe here was the ending for novel number two. A
happy
ending.

I let myself think about us. Sure I did.

Monday morning the dampness and gray skies were back. Merilee showed me to the door wearing my old silk target dot dressing gown. It definitely looked better on her than it did on me, especially with nothing on underneath it. I undid the sash, opened it wide and probed its contents, purely for the sake of scientific analysis. She pressed against me and let me feel her warmth and her strength. Then she stood on her toes and put her mouth to my ear.

“Come back, darling,” she whispered.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

I scratched Lulu’s neck and told her to stay off the paw. She didn’t argue with me. She was going to stay there with Merilee for the time being. It did make sense not to move her. Besides, I’d be back as often as I could manage. I’d have to bring Lulu’s vest. Also my new target dot dressing gown, so Merilee and I could lounge about the mews house in our his-and-his robes.

It was Jack’s day off. Pamela met me at the Guildford station in the Silver Cloud. She was outfitted in a mannish black pants suit, white shirt, and black necktie, all of this topped off by a black chauffeur’s cap. I rode up front with her, and immediately regretted it. She drove like a demon.

“You’ll be pleased to learn,” she announced, rounding a corner with a screech of rubber, “that I’ve finished typing up the transcripts of your tapes with Mr. Scarr.”

“Excellent.” Among her myriad other talents, Pamela typed a hundred and twenty words per minute, and none of them were Etaoin Shrdlu. “Pamela, I think we should talk seriously about your coming back to New York with me when I’m done here.”

“My Lord, Hoagy,” she exclaimed, blushing. “It’s been years since I’ve received such an indecent proposition from such a young gentleman.”

“Not so young. And not so indecent. My ex-wife and I—what I mean is, we may be looking for someone.”

“So you two
are
together again.”

“Why, yes. How did you—?”

“It was I who spoke with the gossip sheet when they rang up. They’d traced the number off of the mini. I told them nothing, of course.”

“I appreciate your discretion.”

“I’ve plenty of practice, believe me. I spoke to the police as well.”

“So did I.”

Pamela sped through the traffic with the lunatic zeal of a Canarsie-born cabbie. At one intersection a truck driver had to hit his brakes hard to keep from plowing into us. He shook his fist at her.

She clucked at him and said “I’ve never been to New York.”

“You’ll do just fine.”

“I was so sorry to learn of Miss Lulu’s misfortune. Is she better?”

“Actually, she’s getting seriously spoiled.”

“Do give her my best.”

She made the trip to Gadpole in half the time it took Jack. We had passed through the main gate and were cruising through the cluster of staff houses and service buildings when I heard the sharp crack of pistol fire. Then silence. Then more pistol fire. I shuddered, remembering just how close those shots had come the other day.

“Jack executing some of the help?” I asked.

“Getting in some target practice, I expect.”

“I’ll get out here, if I may.”

“You may.”

Behind some gardeners sheds, two targets were set into a twenty-foot-high mound of earth. Jack stood fifty feet away, firing off bull’s-eyes with a twenty-two-caliber target pistol. So did another shooter, who was tall and lean and dressed in matching camouflage safari jacket, fatigue trousers, and baseball cap. It wasn’t until I got up closer behind them that I realized the other crack shot was that precocious little multimaniac herself, Lady Vi.

They didn’t notice me there until they stopped to reload, and I said “You’re rather good, Violet.”

She treated me to a devilish grin and pointed her gun at me. “Bang bang.”

Jack snatched it from her. “Never, ever point a weapon at someone, Vi! I’ve told you!”

“It’s empty!” she protested.

“No matter whether it is or it isn’t,” he lectured sternly. “You could be mistaken. And
most
sorry.”

Just to satisfy himself, Jack pointed the empty gun at one of the targets and pulled the trigger.

It wasn’t empty.

He stood there staring at the hole he’d made in the target. Then he looked down at the gun in his hand and, slowly, up at me, horrified.

“Yet another bull’s-eye,” I observed with a brave smile and jelly knees. Clearly, I’d have to steer wide of guns for a while. Also cracks in sidewalks, black cats, and precocious, long-limbed teenagers.

This one was tickled thoroughly pink. “Just having a bitty goof,” she exclaimed with a merry laugh as she grabbed her empty gun back from a still-stunned Jack. “Can’t a girl have a goof?”

“I don’t see why not,” I replied graciously. Jack and I watched her reload the target pistol. “And how is she with a sporting rifle?” I asked him.

“Even better,” he replied softly.

“But not as good as Jackie,” she pointed out. “No one’s as good as Jackie.”

“Taught her m’self,” he said. “Since she was a little thing.” He stuck a hand out to me. “Allow me to welcome you back, sir.” Happy to see you’re all of a piece. How’s the pup?”

“Not very happy,” I replied, shaking his hand.

“Poor little bugger,” he said.

“Sorry about the mini,” I said. “Quite a car.”

“Indeed, sir. I’ll have her towed back here soon as they’re done with her. Get her put back together good as new. You’re welcome to the Peugeot, in the meantime.” Jack swiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “Terrible business, this. I know Mr. Scarr is most upset.”

“Yes, I should think he would be,” I said quietly.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. We stood there staring at each other.

Violet broke in, offering me her gun, barrel down. “Care to shoot a round?”

“Thank you, no,” I replied. “Javelin is more my style.”

“Javelin?” she asked, frowning. Evidently she wasn’t too up on track and field, which was probably just as well. Who knew what havoc she could wreak with a discus.

“It’s a spear,” I explained. “Long. With a point at the tip.”

“Ooh, sounds fun.”

“Somehow,” I said, “I had a feeling you’d think so.”

It was time to get out my mukluks. I always wear them when I’m at the typewriter. I wore them when I was writing the novel, and I don’t dare change now. There’s no telling where inspiration comes from. Who’s to say it isn’t footwear?