'Chicago.'
'Much acting experience?'
Culhane read silently for a few moments. 'Actually quite a bit of stage work. Lot of dinner theatre but some small-theatre stuff, too. Peer Gynt and Hedda Gabler.'
Brolan nodded. He could see her as Hedda, one of his favourite creations. The remote beauty, the inscrutable motives. Not until then did he realize that Kathleen reminded him of Hedda, too.
'Can you see her in a nice suburban dress, with a nice suburban manner, hawking ice cream?'
'Absolutely,' Culhane said.
'Good. Then let's get her in here for an audition sometime soon.'
Moments after Tim flipped the switch on the VCR, the screen went dead. The screening room, which had a ceiling covered with acoustic tile, was quiet in an almost eerie way. That was why the door's creaking open at the rear of the room made such an unearthly noise, like fate announcing itself.
Culhane looked up and said, 'Oh, hi, Kathleen.'
Hearing her name, Brolan felt as if he were back in seventh grade. When the other boys knew you 'liked' a certain girl, but you were afraid to show them that you did. Brolan stared straight ahead, as if he found the empty screen fascinating.
Culhane, obviously sensing the mood, took the videotape from the VCR put it back in its box, and said, 'Well, I'd better be going. Think we made a good choice.' He nodded goodbye.
'Thanks, Tim,' Brolan said. He had still not turned around.
The closer she came, the more erotic her perfume got. He felt tense, angry, yet desperate to see her.
She walked down the sloping aisle until she was two rows of seats past him. She looked so trim, her calves perfect, her ankles a dream. She turned around and faced him.
'Kilgore has added thirty percent to his next year's advertising budget,' she said.
'Great.'
'That's pretty big news, isn't it?'
Kathleen always liked to be complimented.
'It's very big news,' he said. 'Good work.' He had to remember that he was her boss as well as her lover. Or at least one of her lovers.
She said, 'That isn't really why I came in here.'
'No?'
'No. I wanted to say that I'm sorry about this morning.'
'Oh.' He cleared his throat, not knowing exactly what words to shape.
'I'm still in love with you,' she said.
Seventh grade again. Or at least not adulthood. He felt embarrassed and happy beyond imagining and terrified, all at the same time. Maybe especially terrified because falling in love with Kathleen was scary stuff.
'I love you, too,' he said.
'Maybe we can get through this.'
'I hope so.'
She had come no closer to him. Nor he to her. 'I'm really trying to work through some things. I-I'd like a little more time.'
How could he say no, after she'd come to him with such an air of reconciliation?
'All right,' he said.
She smiled. 'Do I have to give you a dollar to come over here and kiss me?'
She didn't even have to give him fifty cents.
Half an hour later Brolan was in his office finishing up the last-minute duties of the day-looking at a stem letter from the Screen Actors Guild about the impending actors' strike; calling a client and doing a little hand- holding, the man concerned that his bills were running too high (in fact, per-hour profitability on this particular account had been sinking steadily) when the intercom buzzed.
'Yes?' he said.
'Line three.'
'Any idea who it is?'
'Sorry. He wouldn't give a name.'
Brolan thought a moment. 'All right. Three?'
'Right.'
She clicked off.
Brolan picked up the phone. 'Hello?'
'You don't know who I am.'
'All right.'
'But I know who you are.'
'I see.'
'And more significantly, Mr. Brolan, I know what you've done.' Brolan felt acid beginning to eat up his stomach and run up to his chest. Boiling.
'I really should hang up,' Brolan said.
'But you won't.'
'What makes you so sure?'
The male voice-muffled somehow-said, 'Because you want to hear what I'm going to say next.'
'And what will that be?'
'That you killed Emma.'
'I don't know any Emma.'
'Of course you do, Mr. Brolan. We're both grown-ups here. We shouldn't try childish games.'
'Who is this?'
He reached in his desk drawer for some antacid tablets.
'I want you to meet me tonight, Mr. Brolan.'
'Where?'
'At the end of this conversation, I'll give you the address.'
'What if I don't show up?'
'Then I go to the police. Would you like that, Mr. Brolan?'
Brolan's throat was starting to constrict. 'I'll have to think this over.'
'Nine o'clock, Mr. Brolan.'
And then the man gave him the address.
'Did you write that down, Mr. Brolan?'
It was the turn of the other man to pause. 'We pay for our sins, don't we Mr. Brolan?'
With that he hung up.
Brolan had two more antacid tablets.
7
After work Brolan went home. The first thing he checked was the freezer. The woman was still there, blue- tinted and almost embryonic in the way she was hunched over. In the kitchen he had a cheese sandwich and a handful of potato chips and a Pepsi. High school repast He tried watching the local news, but after it was clear that there would be no mention of a missing woman, he went upstairs, changed into jeans, a blue sweatshirt, and a pair of Nikes. Restless, he decided to kill the remaining two hours before his appointment by driving around. He did that sometimes when nothing else made any emotional sense-just drove, one with wind and darkness, ego and identity vanished. He was probably never more relaxed than at these times.
The address he'd been given turned out to be near North Oaks, a relatively recent development that sat on the edge of the suburbs. By nine, snow flurries had started flecking his windshield, and the wind was so hard, it
