you, my child. Mother approves. And now I have to go. My Wall Street titan will be asleep, limp dick in hand, in precisely one-half hour. The madman gets up at five A.M. Can you imagine?” She rose to her feet, snatching up the check. “You should do a piece on this for the Sunday magazine, Mitch. You really should.”
“Maybe I will. When it’s all over.”
Mitch lingered for a few minutes after she was gone, finishing his beer. Several young career women were seated together at the bar, drinking and laughing. One of them was quite pretty, with shiny eyes and a brilliant smile. She noticed that he was looking at her. And returned his gaze, steadily and frankly. Mitch looked away, suddenly feeling very alone.
He had never missed Maisie more than he did at that moment sitting there by himself in Virgil’s.
The night air was breezy and fresh. He strolled across town to the Havenhursts’ apartment with his hands in his pockets, enjoying it. The theaters were beginning to let out. The sidewalks were swarming with animated, excited people. Policemen on horseback patrolled the streets. Vendors hawked pretzels. It was life in New York at its finest-something that Mitch never grew tired of.
Still, he glanced over his shoulder every once in a while to see if he was being followed. He was not.
He reached the well-tended brownstone on East Sixty-fifth Street just after ten. He buzzed, as he’d said he would. But Mandy didn’t come down. Instead, she told him through the intercom to come on up. He did. The building was elegant and spotless inside, with ornate hallway lamps, charcoal-gray herringbone wallpaper and a banister of polished hardwood. There were two apartments to a floor. The Havenhursts’ was on the third floor, in back, and it had to run them at least three thousand dollars a month.
“We rented it furnished,” Mandy said in reference to the decor, which had the just so look of a Bloomingdales showroom display. “Don’t you just hate it?”
“Not at all,” said Mitch, although the gold-veined mirror over the ornamental fireplace did strike him as a bit overwrought. So did the screechy Michael Bolton CD Mandy was listening to. “I thought we were going out.”
“I didn’t feel like getting dressed again,” she said offhandedly. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“I guess not.”
In fact, what Mandy was wearing was outrageously sexy. A white, gauzy, see-through summer shift that buttoned all the way down the front. She’d left the top two and several of the bottom ones undone, and near as Mitch could tell she didn’t have a stitch on underneath. Her bare legs were shapely and shiny. She was barefoot, her toenails freshly painted the same shade of crimson as her fingernails. Her newly trimmed hair seemed an even creamier shade of blond than it had that morning.
Mandy was a very desirable woman. But she was still married to Bud Havenhurst. And she was still no one who Mitch wanted to get mixed up with.
She was drinking white wine. She offered him some. He accepted it.
“This is nice, isn’t it?” she said, pouring him a glass. “Getting away from that island, I mean. I spoke to Bud on the phone this afternoon. He said the press had been calling all day long, wanting to talk to me. I am so glad I’m here. It is so narrow out there. It is so impossible to hide.”
And she was, Mitch suddenly realized, so drunk.
“I didn’t tell him you were coming over,” she added, handing him his glass.
“Why not?”
“He would not understand. He just gets terribly jealous.”
He sipped his wine. “What was it you wanted to tell me, Mandy?”
Mandy stared at him, dazed and dumbfounded. “Don’t believe in wasting time with small talk, do you, Mitch?”
“It’s been kind of a long day.”
“Well, then have a seat,” she commanded, waving him over toward the sofa. “Relax.”
He sat on the sofa, but he did not relax. She turned off the music and curled up next to him, one bare leg folded underneath her.
“It’s about the night of Dolly’s cocktail party,” Mandy began. She suddenly seemed edgy and distracted, as if she were trying to listen to a radio broadcast in the other room. Only no radio was playing. “The night when the Weems man was murdered, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, Bud did not come to bed that night,” she revealed. “Truth of the matter is, he was not even home.”
“Where was he?”
Mandy took a sip of her wine. “With her,” she said to him over the rim of her glass.
“Dolly?”
She nodded her head, slowly and gravely.
“What are you saying exactly?”
“I’m saying that he and that bitch are still sleeping together,” Mandy replied, her voice now low and menacing.
“How do you know this?”
“I know because he slips out in the night on me all the time. I’ve followed him to her place. I’ve seen him.”
She wasn’t necessarily telling Mitch anything he didn’t already know. He knew that Bud kept an eye on Dolly in the night. He’d run smack into the lawyer in her kitchen. “Go on,” he urged.
“He didn’t come home that night until almost five in the morning. And when he did he was wet-and I mean soaking wet. Not from running next door in the rain. But from being out in it for a long, long time.”
“I see…” Mitch considered this for a moment, wondering where else Bud had been on that stormy night. Where had he gone after Mitch was safely back in his own bed? For that matter, where else had Dolly gone? Mitch had no idea. And his mind was racing now. Because the two of them could have killed Weems together. “Did you tell Lieutenant Mitry this?”
Mandy lowered her eyes and gave a brief shake of her head.
“Why not?”
She didn’t respond, other than to shake her head again.
“Why are you telling me?”
Now her blue eyes met his. And she did not seem the least bit drunk. She seemed cold sober, her gaze piercing, her body tensed. “Because I want there to be trust between us.”
“Well, sure. Trust is important between friends.”
“Is that what we are… friends?” she asked him imploringly. “People who can say anything to each other? No shame? No fear?”
“Absolutely, Mandy. We’re friends.”
She untensed now, smiling at him. “Good, I’m so glad. Because there is a favor I wanted to ask of you. It’s kind of a humongous one
…”
Mitch sipped his wine. “Name it.”
“Do you remember me mentioning how much I want to start a family?”
“Two or three little Havenhursts, as I recall.”
“Well, Bud can’t anymore,” she said matter-of-factly. “His sperm count’s too low or something. Actually, I’m not sure what it is, since he refuses to go see a fertility specialist. In fact, he’s dead set against the whole idea of starting a new family with me. And so what I thought was…” She trailed off, swallowing. “He’ll believe it’s his baby, Mitch. And he’d never find out the truth. I swear I’d-”
“Whoa, freeze frame!” Mitch broke in sharply. “What are you saying-that you want to have my test tube baby?”
Mandy frowned at him prettily. “Why, no, Mitch. I’m saying I want to go to bed with you.”
“Whew,” he gasped, fanning himself. “Is it getting weird in here or is it just me?”
“I’m perfectly serious, Mitch.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Well, no, but…”
