the shock of killing destroyed his feeling for Gwen and drove him closer to Mary-and made him anxious to leave New York in the bargain. It was possible if not probable, and though he was less a suspect man before, he had to stay on the list.
What it all came down to, in fact, was that I had to know if Gwen was seeing anyone while we were married. If she had had an affair with either Stone or Landis, he would be at the top of the list and a leading prospect. Or, for that matter, if she were having an affair with someone else, someone who had not even occurred to me thus far, someone perhaps whom I did not even know, I could then throw away my list and start over. I had to know that part of it or I couldn’t possibly get anywhere.
The same thing kept hanging me up with Russell Stone. I tried to check on him, and I did in fact manage to learn quite a bit about him. I didn’t dare call him, not after Gwen had recognized my voice, but I called all over New York and checked out such arcane matters as his New York residence, his previous employers, and such. It told me things about Russell J. Stone, but it did not tell me whether he had met Gwen in New York while she was my wife or in California when she was my ex-wife. And without knowing this one final fact I couldn’t know whether or not he was the one.
I could find out, for example, that he had not made a recent flight to New York under his own name. This meant nothing. I could find out that his New York apartment had been several miles from our own. This, too, meant nothing. I could find out material which might have been of interest to his biographer. It was occasionally of interest to me as well. But it didn’t get me anywhere.
At one point I thought of calling Gwen. “Honey? This is Alex, your once if not future husband. Look, sweetie, I know you were sleeping with somebody while I was married to you. Was it (a) Russell or (b) Pete? or (c) none of the above? Tell me, doll, because it is of great importance to me.”
I didn’t make the call. But I was tempted.
But it had finally gotten to be Wednesday night, and I had run out of patience at about the same time that I had learned nothing significant from the last logical avenue for exploration. I had essentially narrowed the field to one suspect, which should have been a victory for me, but it didn’t amount to much. There was nothing I had learned which would conceivably make a jury deliberate an extra five minutes before finding me guilty as charged.
At yet another lunch counter over yet another cup of coffee I closed my eyes and saw again my once-wife. I focused quite intently upon the image, trying to bring back her impact upon all five senses. How she looked, her head cocked to the right when she concentrated upon something, the way her hands moved in conversation. The sound of her voice, the several words she habitually mispronounced (exquisite, for one, the middle syllable of which she accented, and which was, incidentally, her favorite laudatory adjective). The smell and taste and touch of her, and these less in a sexual sense than in the manner in which they helped to constitute her essence, her presence, the actuality of all that was Gwen.
I had spent some years as this woman’s husband. It had never occurred to me, in all that time, that she might have been having an affair with someone. No doubt my vision had been obscured by my preoccupation with my own endless rounds of compulsive infidelity, stemming from some unknowable and unopposable dark need, and neatly blinding me to my mate’s acts.
Had she so done? And with whom?
I realized with a measure of surprise that I had no intuitive answer to either of these pertinent questions. They had to he answered, but the answer would have to be found; I could not find it within myself. And this discovery brought quick understanding of how little I had known the woman. I had thought that I knew her, and I had been wrong. I never knew her at all.
Who did?
Certainly, if she were having an affair, someone beside her lover would know of it. As far as I knew, she did not have a friend in the world close enough to her to enjoy her confidences. But, if I could postulate an unknown lover, by the same token I could gift her with a dozen unknown and unknowable confidantes. Q.E.D.
There was one possible confidante known to me. Her older sister, Linda, whose name I had already failed to find in the phone book. Her hip sister, her brassy sister, her several-marriages-much-psychoanalysis-two-suicide- attempts sister.
Whom, unfortunately, I devoutly loathed, and who had always loathed me in return.
It wasn’t late. Eight-thirty by the luncheonette wall clock. I finished my coffee and waited for a boy with girl- length hair to get done on the phone. Then I dropped my dime in the slot and dialed Doug’s number. It rang twice, and Kay answered it.
I dropped my voice a notch and asked for Mr. MacEwan. This didn’t work. There was a fractional pause, then, “Alex? Alex?”
“Is Doug there, Kay?”
Her voice went shrill. “You have to leave us alone, Alex! You have to leave us out of it you can’t come here, you can’t keep calling us! It was years ago! Years ago-”
“Kay, I just-”
It means nothing now, can’t you understand? It’s over and done with, we’ve forgotten all about it-”
Then the phone was taken from her, and there was some off-stage banter which I did not catch, and then Doug said my name.
What I said was, “I think Kay’s secretly in love with me.”
“She’s a little shaky. Alex. That’s all.”
“Sure.”
“We all are, really. What’s up?”
“I have to know Gwen’s sister’s address.”
“Huh?”
“I said-”
“No, I heard you. Hell, I don’t know it I only met her-what? Twice? Three times?”
“I don’t care if you saw her on television, Doug.”
“Huh?”
I made myself take a breath and hold it for a few seconds. Then I said, “You can find out for me. You can make one or two calls and get the information for me. I’m up to my neck in legwork, I can’t move around, I can’t even call people and ask them the answers to simple questions. You can call Gwen, I’ll give you her number-”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Listen a minute. You’ll call her or you can have Kay call her, and all you have to do is ask her how to get in touch with Linda, her sister Linda. I don’t know her last name now, she gets divorced every two years or so, but Gwen will know. Call now, and I’ll buzz you back in half an hour and take the relay.”
“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”
He had me stretched so tight that, if plucked, I would have played high C. I opened my mouth to yell at him, and realized that that wouldn’t accomplish much, and realized at about the same time that I could no longer talk reasonably. So I broke the connection and went outside.
I walked around the block and called him again from a drugstore phone. This time he answered it himself. I said, “I hung up because I didn’t want to shout at you. I’m asking you to do something which no one will know about and which will not get you involved at all. I’ve been going through hell for half a week with too much to do and no room to move around in. All I want is a name and an address and a phone number. I can’t call Gwen. You can, or Kay can. Make up some story, you want to invite her to a party, you know a guy who wants to meet her, anything. But if you don’t make the goddamned phone call I’m going to call the police and tell them that I saw Alexander Penn going into your apartment, and then see how much sleep you and Kay get tonight.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Just try me, you stupid son of a bitch.”
He thought it over. Then he said, “Well, I can’t guarantee anything.”
“I can.”
“Huh? Oh. Well, I’ll make the call, I’ll see what I can find out. It’s Linda, isn’t it?”
“Bight.”
“You have Gwen’s number?”
I gave it to him.
