'No. You have to unlock. You have to open up. You're like a fortress with the drawbridge closed. If Linda helps you, I like it.'
'And it makes you feel less guilty,' I said.
'Maybe, and maybe if there's someone with you, I worry for you less . . . sometimes I worry about you so that I can barely breathe.'
'I care about her,' I said. 'I guess I sort of love her. But not like I love you. Linda knows that. I have not lied to her about it.'
'The only thing that would be awful,' Susan said, and I knew from her voice that she was speaking of things she'd thought about often, 'would be if you said to me, `I never want to see you again. I never want to look at your goddamned face again.' When I think of that I get the awful anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach.'
'I will never say that,' I said.
'Maybe you should use words like never and ever less often,' she said.
'I'll never use them ever again,' I said.
'Weak humor,' Susan said, 'but better than none.'
'It hurts only when I laugh,' I said.
'Yes. I'm going to hang up now. You be careful of yourself.'
'I will.'
'I'll call soon.'
'Yes.'
She hung up and the silence in the room swarmed in on me. I looked at my watch, 10:30. Linda had gone to a meeting of the art directors of Boston. I called her. She was home. I went. It was raining again.
Linda was wearing a pink nightgown when she let me in. I put my arms around her and held her against me soundlessly. After a while she leaned her head back and looked at my face, her body still pressed against me. 'Susan?' she said.
I nodded.
'Come to the bed,' she said. I hugged her harder against me.
She said it again, gently. 'Come to the bed. We'll lie on the bed together.'
I went with her to the bedroom and we lay on the bed. I hadn't even taken off my raincoat. Linda kissed me for a long time. And she touched my hair and rubbed the back of my neck. And patted my cheek quietly and kissed me again.
I clung to her as if I clung to earth, as if to let go were to disperse into the rainy night. Linda seemed to know that. She held me as I held her and kissed me and patted me. There was no sexuality to it. There was love and need and solace.
She said, 'Do you want to talk?' I shook my head.
She rubbed my neck some more. 'You talked with Susan,' Linda said.
'Yes,' I said. 'She has a friend.'
Linda gently disengaged us and put her hands on each side of my face and looked at me from very close and said softly and slowly with emphasis, 'So do you,' and kissed me on the mouth, and now it was more than love and need and solace. Now there was sexuality. Raincoat and all.
CHAPTER 24
I made some Xerox copies of my notes of Winston's spilled beans. I put a copy in the safe-deposit box, took out one of the photos, and went back to my office. I got out two manila envelopes. In each I put a copy of the notes and a picture of Paultz and Winston. Then I went to see Sherry Spellman.
She was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt that said no YOU KNOW JESUS across the back, and was hoeing beans in a garden in back of the Salisbury branch of the church. She stopped when she saw me and looked a little less serious. Life would never be bubbly for Sherry.
We sat in the front seat of my car and I showed her the picture first.
'Reverend Winston, you recognize. The other man is Mickey Paultz, whose primary source of income is the processing and sale of heroin.'
Sherry looked at me and widened her eyes. I gave her the notes. 'Notice,' I said as she began to read, 'that each page is signed by Reverend Winston.'
She read on and then stopped and looked at me and read some more. When she got through she shook her head.
'No,' she said. I nodded.
'No. He wouldn't have done this. I don't know what you're doing but it's not true.' I waited. There was the hum of locust in the air, and the sound occasionally of a dog, and now and then the rush of a car past us on Route 1.
'Why does he say these things?' I said.
'He didn't. You made them up and forged his signature.' She looked at me. I waited. She shook her head again. Her eyes were wet.
'No,' she said. 'You wouldn't do that.' She began to read the notes again. Halfway through she put her head down in her hands and began to cry. I patted her shoulder softly.
