know.'
'Even that's better than what they had before, isn't it?'
The conversation was making me uneasy. I went into the kitchen to fetch fresh drinks.
194
'Cleo,' I said when I came back, 'I really know very little about what you do. I know you work in a library.
Correct?'
'Yes,' she said, lifting her chin. 'I'm a librarian.'
I spent five minutes assuring her that I admired librarians, that some of the happiest hours of my life had been spent in libraries, that they were a poor man's theatre, a portal to a world of wonder, and she was in a noble and honoured profession, etc., etc. I really laid it on, but the strange thing was that I believed every word of it.
'You're very kind,' she said doubtfully. 'But what it comes down to is some bored housewife looking for the new Jackie Onassis book or a Gothic. You're with a legal firm, Josh?'
'Yes,' I said, 'but I'm not a lawyer. I'm just an investigator.'
I explained to her what I did. I found myself talking and talking. She seemed genuinely interested, and asked very cogent questions. She wanted to know my research sources and how I handled abstruse inquiries. I told her some stories that amused her: how I had spent one Sunday morning trying to buy beer in stores on Second Avenue (illegal), how I manipulated recalcitrant witnesses, how people lied to me and how, to my shame, I was becoming an accomplished liar.
'But you've got to,' she said. 'To do your job.'
'I know that,' I said, 'But I'm afraid that I'll find myself lying in my personal life. I wouldn't like that.'
'I wouldn't either,' she said. 'Could I have another drink?'
I came back from the kitchen with fresh drinks. She reached up with a languid hand to take her glass. She was practically reclining in the armchair, stretched out, her head far back, her stockinged feet towards the dying fire.
She was wearing a snug, caramel-coloured wool skirt, cinched with a narrow belt, and a tight black sweater that 195
left her neck bare. All so different from the loose, flowing costumes she usually wore. The last flickering flames cast rosy highlights on throat, chin, brow. She had lifted her long, chestnut hair free. It hung down in back of the chair.
I wanted to stroke it.
I was shocked at how beautiful she looked, that willowy figure stretched out in the dim light. Her features seemed softened. The hazel eyes were closed, the lips slightly parted. She seemed utterly relaxed.
'Cleo,' I said softly.
Her eyes opened.
'I just thought of something. I have a favour to ask.'
'Of course,' she said, straightening up in her chair.
I explained that one of my investigations involved a man who had been a victim of arsenic poisoning. I needed to know more about arsenic: what it was, how it affected the human body, how it could be obtained, how administered, and so forth. Could Cleo find out the titles of books or suggest other places where I might obtain that information?
'I can do that,' she said eagerly. 'I'm not all that busy.
When do you need it?'
'Well. . as soon as possible. I just don't know where to start. I thought if you could give me the sources, I'd take it from there.'
'I'll be happy to,' she said. 'Did he die?'
'No, but he's disappeared. I chink the poisoning had something to do with it.'
'You mean whoever was poisoning him decided to, uh, take more direct measures?'
I looked at her admiringly. 'You're very perceptive.'
'I have a good brain, I know,' she said. It was not bragging: she was just stating a fact. 'Too bad I never get a chance to use it.'
'Were you born in New York, Cleo?' I asked her.
'No,' she said, 'Rhode Island.' She told me the story of 196
her family. Her father had disappeared from Newport one day and Mrs Hufnagel had brought tiny Cleo to Chelsea to live in the house, which had been bought with their last money as an investment.
I told her my little history — little in at least two ways. I told her how I was raised by my uncle and aunt and what I had to endure from my cousins.
'But I'm not complaining,' I said. 'They were good people.'
'Of course they were, to take you in. But still. . '
'Yes,' I said. ' Still. . '
We sat awhile in silence, a close, glowing silence.
'Another drink?' I asked finally.
'I don't think so,' she said. 'Well, maybe a very small one. Just a sip.'
'A nightcap?' I said.
'Right,' she said approvingly.
'I'm going to have a little brandy.'
'That sounds good,' she said. 'I'll have a little brandy, too.'
So we each had a little brandy. I thought about her father, a shy man who flew kites before he vanished. It seemed to go with the quiet and winking embers of the fire.
'I've never flown a kite,' I confessed. 'Not even as a kid.'
'I think you'd like it.'
'I think I would, too. Listen, Cleo, if I bought a kite, could we go up to Central Park some day, a Sunday, and fly it? Would you show me how?'
'Of course — I'd love to. But we don't have to go up to Central Park. We can go over to those old wharves on the river and fly it from there.'
'What kind of a kite should I buy?'
'The cheapest one you can get. Just a plain diamond shape. And you'll need a ball of string. I'll tear up some rags for a tail.'
'What colour would you like?' I said, laughing,
'Red,' she said at once. 'It's easier to see against the sky, and it's prettier.'
A green sweater for Yetta and a red kite for Cleo.
We sat in silence, sipping our brandies. After a while her free hand floated up and grasped my free hand. Hers was warm and soft. We remained like that, holding hands. It was perfect.
4
I awoke to a smutty day, a thick sky filled with whirling gusts of sleet and rain. A taut wind from the west whipped the pedestrians hunched as they scurried, heads down. The TORT building didn't exhibit its usual morning hustle-bustle. Many of the employees lived in the suburbs, and roads were flooded or blocked by toppled trees, and commuter trains were running late.
I had brought in a container of black coffee and an apple strudel. I made phone calls over my second breakfast. The Reverend Godfrey Knurr agreed to show me his club that day, and Glynis Stonehouse said she would see me. She said her mother was indisposed, in bed with a virus. (A sherry virus, I thought — but didn't say it.) Despite the wretched weather I got up to the West 70s in half an hour. Glynis Stonehouse answered the door. We went down that long corridor again, into the living room. I noticed that several of the framed maps and naval battle scenes had disappeared from the walls, to be replaced by bright posters and cheery graphics. Someone did not expect Professor Stonehouse to return.
