papers had been full of him ever since his appointment was announced.
Right now, in fact, as she sat on an uncomfortable sofa in the shiny, pastel apartment, sunlight filtering in through sheer patterned curtains, putting shadowy X's on her lap and legs, she had in her hands the morning paper, which was again full of Eliot. She had read the article again and again till her eyes blurred. She read it over morning coffee, and then she took the car and drove to the nearest drugstore where she bought the other papers, and she read their versions of the Harvard Club raid as well.
She took time out midmorning to do a few personal things, and then she read the papers some more, and then she fixed herself an egg salad sandwich for lunch, drinking a glass of milk with it, feeling like a little girl.
Shortly after that came the threatening phone call.
'Your fuckin' husband's a dead man,' the voice had said.
She hung the phone up, quietly, the foul word bouncing off her. Such phone calls had been coming regularly, since they moved in. Eva had mentioned them to Eliot and he had told her not to worry. He had said they had something to do with his throwing two drunken cops off the force.
'I'll get our phone number changed,' he had told her, but he hadn't.
She wondered if this call was about the drunken cops, or whether it had to do with the raid last night. Not that it mattered. Such calls would continue, for old reasons, and for new ones that Eliot's future actions would provide.
She had not cried today. Instead, she had trembled with something that she barely recognized as rage, and she had felt oddly empty. These and other reactions, other emotions, ran through her, but she had not cried. She went over and over the newspaper stories of how her husband, the city government executive who ran the police department and the fire department, had gone kicking down doors and scuffling with bandits and facing men with machine guns, unarmed.
How he had very possibly broken the law by taking a 'battalion,' as one of the reporters put it, of Cleveland's finest across the city limits to get involved in a messy, dangerous business that was none of Eliot's business, none of the cops', and none of Cleveland's.
Oh, but the papers loved it. Every one of them. Eliot had proven that the advance notices of his G-man bravery had not been exaggerated. He was a man of action, Eliot Ness was. Fearless. Like something out of the movies.
Last night, when he got home after midnight, he had said only, 'Sorry I'm so late. Stupid city council meeting, and then something else came up.'
She'd found him in the kitchen, checking to see if she had anything ready for him to eat, which of course she did, cold cuts and cheese on a platter in the Frigidaire.
'Didn't mean to wake you,' he'd said, with his shy grin, as he took the platter to the white kitchen table in their oh-so-modern kitchen, the blindingly white kitchen that reminded Eva of an operating room. She missed their breakfast nook so.
'I wasn't asleep,' she told him, sitting with him. She'd dressed in a pink robe and looked nice-at least she hoped she did. She'd made an effort to.
'I'm starved,' he said.
'You want a beer with that?'
'Is there some cold? I didn't see any.'
'There's some in there. You just didn't dig around enough.'
He laughed. 'Some detective I am, huh?'
She opened and handed him the bottle of beer; he wasn't one to use a glass. 'You want some bread with that?'
'No, thanks, honey.' He was folding the slices of meat and cheese, gobbling them. He usually had better manners than this, but he was clearly tired and, as he said, starved.
'What came up?'
He looked at her, puzzled.
'You said something came up,' she said. 'What?'
He waved it off. 'No big deal. A lot of buildup and not much payoff,'
'Why don't you tell me about it?'
'Just boring stuff. You know. Work.'
'I see.'
'You better get back to bed. It's the middle of the night.'
'I missed you.'
'I missed you, too, baby.'
She got up and put an arm around him and kissed his cheek. 'Come to bed. Don't sit up and read.'
'Is that an invitation?'
'Sure is.'
'Okay. How can I refuse a siren like you? Give me a few minutes to finish stuffing myself.'
'Sure.'
'And I'll just take a glance at the evening paper.'
'Fine.'
She went to bed and waited. Fifteen minutes later, she got up and found him in the living room, asleep in his chair, the paper in his lap.
She'd let him sleep. Now she was glad nothing had happened last night. She loved him, and she loved the way he made her feel; he was no rough-and-tumble guy where lovemaking was concerned. If they'd had a sweet night together last night, it would make what she had to do today, this afternoon, even harder.
He worked till noon on Saturdays, and then had lunch at the Theatrical Restaurant with some of his reporter friends. She knew he would show up around mid-afternoon and take a nap. Then the couple would spend Saturday night together. In Bay Village they had friends they'd play cards with. They hadn't made any friends in the apartment building yet, and last Saturday, their first Saturday in the apartment, he'd taken her to some fancy banquet where they met a lot of politicians and businessmen.
She'd enjoyed that. She liked dressing up, meeting important people, basking in her husband's celebrity. That was nice, it was fun, and so were most of their Saturday nights together.
But it wasn't enough. It could not make up for the rest of her life, in this pastel prison.
At three o'clock he came in. He was cheerful, as she helped him out of his topcoat and hat, which she hung in a pale green closet.
'How would you like to go to a show tonight?' he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. That boyish grin, that lock of hair that wouldn't stay off his forehead. God, she loved him so.
'You hate going to the movies, Eliot,' Eva said.
He took his hands off her shoulders, and shrugged his own. 'I don't hate it. It's just not my favorite thing. Have you started supper yet?'
'No.'
'Maybe we could take in a restaurant then. There are some pretty fancy places in this neck of the woods. Or we could drive downtown. They serve a mean steak at Stouffer's. I hear.'
'That's very nice, Eliot. Sit down.'
'Sure.'
She sat on the sofa. He sat next to her.
'Is something wrong?' he asked.
'I read the papers.'
He noticed, for the first time, the pile of papers on the round glass coffee table.
'Why the extra editions? Isn't the Press enough for you?'
'I read about your… adventure last night.'
He snorted. 'That was nothing.'
'No, it wasn't. It was a very dangerous something.'
'It wasn't dangerous at all.'
'Those men had machine guns.'
'They didn't use them.'
