The Hellfire Club

novel would vanish into the established pattern. In a week or two she and Nora could work out a reconciliation.

She got off the bed to reassemble the manuscript and stuff it back into the suitcase.37

Still anxious, Nora wandered into the kitchen and wiped down the counter. The problem was that if something could go wrong, it usually did. For Daisy, the manuscript was in enemy territory as long as it remained with Nora. She thought about dragging the suitcase from under the bed and driving it to Mount Avenue, but this prospect immediately induced exhaustion and despair.

Without considering what she was doing, Nora went to the sink, turned on the hot water, squirted soap into the palm of her hand, and began washing her hands. Then she washed her face. When she was done, she washed her face and hands again. The fourth time she scrubbed soap into her cheekbones and the flanges of her nose, Nora became conscious of these actions. Hot water stung her skin. She turned on the cold tap, rinsed herself, and reached for a dry dish towel. Her face stung as if she had sandpapered it. Blotting herself dry, Nora realized that she still felt appallingly dirty - no, not still, but rather as though someday very soon she would be appallingly dirty. Fighting the urge to turn the water back on and scrub herself all over again, she drifted into the living room, lay down on the sofa, and closed her eyes until the sound of Davey's car turning into the driveway awakened her. She wondered where he had been for the previous nine or ten hours and decided she didn't care. The Audi pulled into the garage.

Here was an interesting problem: would he slip into the family room and pretend she was not there, or would he come upstairs to confront her? Davey opened and closed the back door. His footsteps brought him toward the stairs. However slowly, he was moving in her direction.

Davey reached the top of the stairs and glanced into the kitchen before turning to the living room. He was looking for her, definitely a good sign. Was this what was called grasping at straws? Go on, she thought, grasp away. He came into the living room. His eyes locked with hers and slid away. He dropped into the chair most distant from Nora, leaned back, let his arms fall, and closed his eyes.

Nora said, 'Welcome back.'

'Did the police call?'

'Natalie's under sedation.'

He was still collapsed into the chair as if thrown into it, and his eyes were closed.

'It might be nice if you said something.'

Davey opened his eyes and leaned forward, catching her eyes yet again and then quickly looking down. 'When I heard you leave, I bounced around the house like a Ping-Pong ball. Finally I went for a drive, got on the expressway and headed north. No idea where I was going. I had to think. That's what I've been doing all this time, driving and thinking. When I got to New Haven, I got off the highway, went to the campus, and walked around for about an hour.'

'Eli, Eli,' Nora said. She wondered if Davey had ever associated with Dick Dart in New Haven.

'Don't be sarcastic, all right? Nora, I was thinking about you. This morning everything seemed so clear. About ten minutes after you left, I began to wonder. Did that sound like you? You can do some rash things, but I thought you'd draw the line a long way short of kidnapping and torture.'

'What do you know?' Nora said.

'I thought about what you said - that I was putting my guilt on you. But all the pieces fit together so perfectly, the whole pattern was so convincing, that it seemed like: it had to be the truth. It was like one of those crossword puzzles Frank Neary and Frank Tidball do! The only part that didn't fit was you.'

'You debated with yourself.'

He nodded. 'The more I thought, the idea that you kidnapped Natalie got more and more ridiculous. I got back in my car and drove around New Haven. New Haven is a crummy town, once you get away from Yale.' Here he looked up at Nora, as if the irrelevance of the sentence had released him.

'I got completely lost, if you can believe that. I spent four years in New Haven, and it isn't that big. You know what happened? I got scared. I thought I'd never find my way out. I kept driving past the same little diner and the same little bar, and it was like I was under a curse. I almost had a breakdown.' He wiped his forehead. 'After about an hour I finally drove past this pizza joint I used to go to, and I knew where I was. No kidding, I almost cried from relief. I got back on 1-95. My hands were still shaking. It felt like my whole life was up in the air.'

'Good thinking,' Nora said.

He nodded. 'I was so tired and so hungry. When I got to Cousin Lenny's, I drove in. I grabbed a booth and ordered meat loaf and mashed potatoes. When it came, I dumped ketchup all over the meat loaf like a little kid, and when I was eating, this idea opened up in my head like a giant scroll: If I could get so lost in New Haven, you could be telling the truth. Who says all the pieces have to fit, anyway? One thing I knew for sure. Even if you did find out about me and Natalie, you could never kidnap her. That's not you.'

'Thank you.'

'You really didn't, did you?'

'I said that three or four times this morning.'

'I was just so convinced. I…' He shook his head and looked down again, then back up. Complicated feelings, all painful, filled his eyes. 'Will it do any good if I apologize?'

'Try it and see.'

'I apologize for everything I said. I wish with all my heart for you to forgive me. I'm sorry that I let myself get into that thing with Natalie Weil.'

'That thing is commonly called a bed,' Nora said.

'You're mad at me, you must despise me and detest Natalie.'

'That's about right.'

'This morning, didn't you say that we could eventually work things out? I want to do that, Nora. I hope you'll forgive me. Will you take me back?'

'Did you leave?'

'God bless you,' said Davey, uncomfortably reminding Nora of his mother. He pushed himself out of the chair and came forward. Nora wondered if he intended to kneel in front of her. Instead, he kissed her hand.' Tomorrow we start over again.' He placed her hand on her lap and began caressing her leg. 'What did you do all day?'

'I almost drove to New York.' She moved her thigh away from his hand. 'I was thinking about not coming back. Then I turned around and came back.'

'I would have gone crazy if you hadn't been here when I got back.'

'Here I am.'

He kissed the top of her head. 'I have to lie down and get some sleep. I can barely stand up. Do you mind?'

'Of course not.'

He went toward the hallway, turned to give her a grateful look and a sketchy wave, and was gone.

Nora leaned back against the sofa. If she had any feelings, they were like the little, black, shriveled husks left behind by a fire. She supposed that someday they would turn back into feelings.38

Hunger eventually forced Nora off the sofa. Her watch said it was ten minutes to eight. Davey slept on. Nora thought he would probably wake up around midnight, fumble his way out of his clothes, and climb right back into bed to finish digesting his meat loaf and mashed potatoes, another example of Davey's habit, when under stress, of regressing to the age of training wheels. A search of the kitchen shelves yielded a can of mushroom soup, hot diggity. She plopped the congealed gray-brown cylinder into a pot, turned on the heat, and waited for it to melt while she toasted two slices of wholewheat bread.

As soon as she began to spoon soup into her mouth an inner rheostat dialed itself upward, and a sense of well-being came to life within her. She'd return Daisy's book, and that would be that. She could get over Natalie Weil, though she would never trust her again. Nora didn't have to trust her; she never had to see or speak to the platinum cockroach again. If they met over the dairy counter at Waldbaum's, in a nanosecond Natalie's frisky little cockroach heels would skitter her away behind a mountain of toilet paper until Nora was in the parking lot. Pleased