Zoe reserved a table for three and was already seated when Maddie arrived. With her was a tall, stalwart youth who couldn't have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three. Maddie was hanging on to his arm possessively, looking up at his face, and whispering something that made him laugh.
She hardly glanced at Zoe. Just said, 'Christ, you're skinny,' and then introduced her escort.
'Kiddo, this stud is Jack. Keep your hands off; I saw him first. Jack, this is Zoe, my best friend. My only friend. Say, 'Hello, Zoe, how are you?' You can manage that, can't you?'
'Hello, Zoe,' Jack said with a flash of white teeth, 'how are you?'
'See?' Maddie said. 'He can handle a simple sentence. Jack isn't so great in the brains department, luv, but with what he's got, who needs brains? Hey, hey, how's about a little drink? My first today.'
'Your first in the last fifteen minutes,' Jack said.
'Isn't he cute?' Maddie said, stroking the boy's cheek. 'I'm teaching him to sit up and beg.'
It was the other way around; Zoe was shocked by her appearance. Maddie had put on more loose weight, and it bulged, unbraed and ungirdled, in a straining dress of red silk crepe, with a side seam gaping and stains down the front.
Her freckled cleavage was on prominent display, and she wore no hose. Her feet, in the skimpiest of strap sandals, were soiled with street dirt. Her legs had been carelessly shaved; a swath of black fuzz ran down one calf.
It was her face that showed most clearly her loss: clown makeup wildly applied, powder caked in smut lines on her neck, a false eyelash hanging loose, lipstick streaked and crooked.
There she sat, a blob of a woman, all appetite. It seemed to Zoe that her voice had become louder and screakier. She shouted for drinks, yelled for menus, laughing in high-pitched whinnies.
Zoe hung her head as other diners turned to stare. But Maddie was impervious to their disapproval. She held hands with Jack, popped shrimp into his mouth, pinched his cheek. One of her hands was busy beneath the tablecloth.
'… so Harry moved out,' Maddie chattered on, 'and Jack moved in. A beautiful exchange. Now the lawyers are fighting it out. Jack, baby, you have a steak; you've got to keep up your strength, you stallion, you!'
He sat there with a vacant grin, enjoying her ministrations, accepting them as his due. His golden hair was coiffed in artful waves. His complexion was a bronzed tan, lips sculpted, nose straight and patrician. A profile that belonged on a coin.
'Isn't he precious?' Maddie said fondly, staring at him with hungry eyes. 'I found him parking cars at some roadhouse on Long Island. I got him cleaned up, properly barbered and dressed, and look at him now. A treasure! Maddie's own sweet treasure.'
She was, Zoe realized, quite drunk, for in addition to her usual ebullience, there was something else: almost an hysteria. Plus a note of nasty cruelty when she spoke of the young man as if he were a curious object.
Either he did not comprehend her malicious gibes or chose to ignore them. He said little, grinned continuously, and ate steadily. He poked food into an already full mouth and masticated slowly with heavy movements of his powerful jaw.
'We're off for Bermuda,' Maddie said, 'or is it the Bahamas? I'm always getting the two of them fucked up. Anyway, we're going to do the tropical paradise bit for a month, drink rum out of coconut shells, and skinny-dip in the moonlight. How does that scenario grab you, kiddo? What does a thirsty gal have to do to get another drink in this dump?'
She ate very little, Zoe noted, but she drank at a frantic rate, gulping, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand when liquid trickled down her chin. But never once did she let go of Jack. She hung on to his arm, shoulder, thigh.
Zoe, remembering the brash bravado of a younger Maddie, was terrified by the woman's dissolution. Frightened not only for Maddie but at what it presaged for her own future.
For this woman, as a girl, had been the best of them. She was courageous and independent. She swaggered through life, dauntless and unafraid. She lived, and never feared tomorrow. She dared and she challenged, and never asked the price or counted the cost.
Now here she was, drunk, wild, feverish, her flesh puddled, holding on desperately to a handsome boy young enough to be her son. Behind the bright glitter of her mascaraed eyes grew a dark terror.
If this woman could be defeated, this brave, free, indefatigable woman, what hope in life was there for Zoe Kohler? She was so much weaker than Madeline Kurnitz. She was timid and fearful. She was smaller. When giants were toppled, what chance was there for midgets?
They finished their hectic meal and Maddie threw bills to the waiter.
'The son of a bitch cut off my credit cards,' she muttered.
She rose unsteadily to her feet and Jack slid an arm about her thick waist. She tottered, staring glassily at Zoe.
'You changing jobs, kiddo?' she asked.
'No, Maddie. I haven't even been looking. Why do you ask?'
'Dunno. Some guy called me a few days ago, said you had applied for a job and gave me as a reference. Wanted to know how long I had known you, what I knew about your private life, and all that bullshit.'
'I don't understand. I haven't applied for any job.'
'Ah, the hell with it. Probably some weirdo. I'll call you when I get back from paradise.'
'Take care of yourself, Maddie.'
'Fuck that. Jack's going to take care of me. Aren't you, lover boy?'
She watched them stagger out, Jack half-supporting the porcine woman. Zoe walked slowly back to her office, dread seeping in as she realized the implications of what Maddie had said.
Someone was making inquiries about her, about her personal history and private life. She knew who it was-that stretched, dour man labeled 'police,' who would not give up the search and would not be content until Zoe Kohler was dead and gone.
She slumped at her desk, skeleton hands folded. She stared at those shrunken claws. They looked as if they had been soaked in brine. She thought of her approaching menstrual period and wondered dully if blood could flow from such a desiccated corpus.
'Hello there!' Everett Pinckney said brightly, weaving before her desk. 'Have a good lunch?'
'Very nice,' Zoe said, trying to smile. 'Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Pinckney?'
He beamed at her, making an obvious effort to focus his eyes and concentrate on what he wanted to say. He leaned forward, knuckles propped on her desk. She could smell his whiskey-tainted breath.
'Yes,' he said. 'Well, uh… Zoe, remember that tear gas I gave you? The spray can? The little one for your purse?'
'I remember.'
'Well, have you got it with you? In your purse? In your desk?'
She stared at him.
'Silly thing,' he went on. 'A detective was around. He's investigating a burglary and has to check the serial numbers of all the cans sold in New York. I asked McMillan and Joe Levine to bring theirs in. You still have yours, don't you? Didn't squirt anyone with it, did you?' He giggled.
'I don't have it with me, Mr. Pinckney,' she said slowly.
'Oh. It's home, is it?'
'Yes,' she said, thinking sluggishly. 'I have it at home.'
'Well, bring it in, will you, please? By Friday? The detective is coming back. Once he checks the number, you can have the can again. No problem.'
He smiled glassily and tottered into his own office.
Stronger now, it returned: the sense of being moved and manipulated. Events had escaped her power. They were pressing her back into her natural role of victim. She had lost all initiative; she was being controlled.
She thought wildly of what she might do. Claim an attack by a would-be rapist whom she had repulsed with tear gas? Defended herself against a vicious dog? But she had already told Mr. Pinckney she had the dispenser at home.
Finally, she decided miserably, she could do nothing but tell him she had lost or misplaced the container.
Not for a moment did she believe the detective's claim of investigating a burglary. He was investigating her,
