The nightmare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks men’s blood with cold.
There was silence, except for the hissing steam.
“What does your crib make of that?” Karen said.
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “I got it to find out something else.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s kind of stupid.”
“I doubt it.”
They looked at each other through the steam. Her legs had parted slightly. Her left knee was almost touching his right. His whole right leg tingled, as though it were being acted upon by some force.
Eddie cleared his throat. “I’m trying to find out why the Mariner shoots the albatross in the first place.”
Karen didn’t smile, didn’t laugh. He started to like her. “There are only two explanations I can see,” she said.
“What are they?”
“The first, less supported by the text, is the Everest explanation.”
“Because it was there?”
“Check. And the second, which fits much better, is the apple-and-Eve explanation.”
“Meaning?”
“Original sin.”
Eddie didn’t like that one. He preferred some of his own devising-such as the Mariner was afraid of sailing fast, or jealous that the bird could fly.
“Doesn’t grab, huh?” said Karen.
“No.”
“I didn’t believe in original sin either for the longest time. My work has convinced me otherwise.”
What had Jack said? She managed family money. “You’re an investor?”
“Right.”
Eddie didn’t see how that would give her special insight into original sin, and she offered no elaboration.
“I’m going to melt,” Karen said. She stood up, leaving a sweaty imprint of her sex on the bench. “And I’ve got to give your brother a call, as a matter of fact.”
Eddie rose too. “He’s out of town.”
Her voice grew sharper. “Where?” She hitched up her towel.
Eddie paused. They were very close. The heat, the nearness of their almost-naked bodies: what would happen if he just put his arms around her? He had no idea. He looked down into her eyes. There was something odd about them, but he couldn’t place it.
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell me,” Karen said, backing away. Suddenly she was angry. “That’s so sloppy of him. He knew this was rollover day. We discussed it last night. This is going to cost-him and us.”
Eddie didn’t know what
“Thank Christ,” Karen said. “I know where he stays. You just saved him a bundle. And me.”
Eddie was pleased, and more pleased when she smiled and said: “Now I owe you one.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. And I’m free for dinner tonight.”
“Me too.”
She laughed. He felt her breath on his face, cool in the atmosphere of the steam bath. “Pick you up at six,” she said. “Dress casual.”
And then she was out the door, trailing steam. For a moment Eddie was breathless, and not just because of the heat.
It wasn’t until later, in the shower, that he realized what had been odd about Karen’s eyes: he’d seen the circular outlines of transparent discs floating on her cool blue irises. How could she be blind as a bat when she was wearing contact lenses?
18
Dress casual: what did it mean?
Eddie wandered around Macy’s, checking out the clothes and lots of other things, even trying on a blue blazer in front of a three-way mirror. He noticed stubble on his head. He hadn’t shaved it for a while, no longer had his Remington, of course; that was one of the gifts he’d left for Prof. The stubble had a tarnished sheen. Eddie stepped closer to the mirror, and saw that his hair was growing in gray.
“Fabulous,” said the clerk. “It fits you like a glove.”
Eddie left Macy’s without buying the blazer or anything else, and returned to Jack’s suite at the Palazzo. Jack would know how to dress casual. In the bedroom, he opened drawers full of stuff, better than anything he’d seen at Macy’s. There were all kinds of colors and textures. Eddie had worn denim so long he’d forgotten what matched what. He began putting on and taking off clothes, reminded of a scene in a book about Marie Antoinette.
Some time later he was standing in front of the mirror again, wearing a black cotton turtleneck, a blue wool sweater, gray corduroy pants rolled up an inch or two and held in place by a tightly cinched woven-leather belt, gleaming loafers with tassels on them.
He studied his reflection. A clever trick, like the photographic blending of ruffian’s head on Ivy Leaguer’s body. Fabulous. Fit like a glove, but someone else’s. He stuck his hands in the pockets, trying for casual, and withdrew a half-full pack of Camels. He came close to lighting one, came close to throwing the pack away, ended by putting it back in his pocket.
At six o’clock the phone buzzed. “I’m downstairs,” said Karen de Vere.
Karen did look fabulous: her hair was swept up, revealing the substructure of her face, at once strong and fine. She wore jeans, leather boots, a leather jacket; and her tortoise-shell glasses. She offered her hand. He shook it: warm, dry, not without power.
“You look so much like your brother,” she said, “except for the hair. But I guess everyone tells you that.”
“We don’t hang out with the same people,” Eddie replied.
Karen almost laughed; but how could she have gotten the joke? Eddie saw the laugh coming in her eyes; then she stifled it.
“Did you get in touch with him?” Eddie asked.
“Everything’s fine.”
Karen had a car outside, a low Japanese two-seater. “Not too hungry, I hope,” she said. “It takes about an hour.”
“Fine.”
They drove out of Manhattan, onto a bridge, headed north. She stuck a cassette into the tape player. “Like jazz?” she said. “I’m sick of rock.”
A bass played a bouncy line that made Eddie think of hippos, then came a trumpet, soaring above. “Me too.” He’d heard nothing but rock blasting out of the cell blocks for fifteen years.
Karen drove fast, cutting from lane to lane. She watched the road ahead. From time to time, he watched her. The clouds darkened and darkened, and then it was night.
“Funny thing,” she said, as they crossed the Connecticut line. “I’ve known Jack a number of years. Business, but we’ve had lunch a few times, went to a hockey game once, if I recall.”
“You like hockey?”
“Just the fighting,” said Karen. “The point is, in all the time I’ve know him, he never mentioned you.”
“I’m the black sheep.”
“How so?”
“You know how families are,” Eddie said, although his own didn’t deserve the name.
“I know how mine is-completely screwed up,” Karen said. She glanced at him; oncoming headlights glared on
