“What do you mean, not Thursday?”
“For months now you haven’t been available on Thursdays. I’m clumsy and slow, Francie, but I get there.”
Francie almost spilled everything on the spot. What was left to spill? But she thought, No damage yet, and found a way out. “Now who’s the bullshitter, Nora? There’s nothing slow and clumsy about you, as you know. And this Thursday’s fine. I’ll meet you then.”
A long pause, followed by: “You’re too smart for me. See you then, babycakes.”
“Bye.”
“B-oh my God, I’ve got it. Anne’s sick, isn’t she?”
Francie held on to the phone.
“Or-or you are.” Francie heard a strange new note in Nora’s voice, almost frantic. “Is that what those Thursdays are about, Francie, some kind of treatment?”
“I’m not sick,” Francie said, but thought, Is there some thing wrong with me, after all?
“It’s Anne, then.”
“No.”
“You don’t have cancer?”
“No.”
“Neither does she?”
“No.”
Nora laughed with relief. “So it can’t be that bad, can it? Whatever it is.”
Francie was silent.
“See you on Thursday, then,” Nora said. “How about Huitres?”
“Somewhere else,” Francie said. “I’ll call you.”
Francie left the lights off in her office. The world outside the windows grew darker. She did no work, just thought about what was to come. She would get to the cottage first, of course, as she always did, but would leave the woodstove unlit, wait for him in the kitchen with her coat on. Then, when he came in, she would stand and say, It’s over, Ned. Because of Anne it’s over. After that, whatever he said or tried to do, she would stick to that point: because of Anne. That was what couldn’t be rationalized, argued away, compromised. Just stick to it, Francie told herself, and stay out of the square little bedroom upstairs, whatever happens.
But the thought of that little bedroom… her mind returned to it over and over-the brass bed, the comforter, what happened beneath. By three-thirty Francie had had enough: enough waiting, thinking, sitting still. She left the office, got her car from the parking garage, headed for New Hampshire.
The first snowflakes fell as Francie crossed the state line, tiny ones, laceless and hard. She barely noticed them, was too busy trying to cap all the memories her mind boiled with-black kayaks, those dark eyes, his skin; too busy clinging to her mantra: It’s over, because of Anne it’s over. She was going to be early, earlier than she had ever been. Perhaps she would light the woodstove after all, wait for him beside it. Nothing wrong with lighting the woodstove, was there? It wasn’t necessary to sit in the cold, to fabricate symbolic expressions of her coming internal state. Everything could be normal tonight and she could still do her duty, as long as she didn’t go up to the little bedroom. Then, out of nowhere, her mind offered up an image that would keep her out of that bedroom. The image: Anne’s face, but the giant face of a two-stories-tall Anne, like a character in a children’s book, watching through the bedroom window from the outside. There was nothing scary about Anne’s face, but this image scared Francie just the same. She tried to blot it out and found it wouldn’t go away.
Snow fell harder as Francie drove north, isolating her in a twilit cocoon, a strange cocoon that felt not the least protective. She was too preoccupied to notice the snow much, but she was very aware of the unprotected part.
24
At six-fifteen, precisely. Roger had been clear about the timing, clear about everything, going over and over the details until Whitey tuned out completely. He already had it all down pat in his mind anyway: the taxi, the receipts, the call from Rome, the hidden painting, the necessity for a cutting tool, a sharp one. Piece of cake. The only problem was Roger. Two things. First, it was now evident to Whitey that he was smarter than Roger. Second, after that toe-stepping bullshit, Roger couldn’t be trusted, not completely. Whitey kept juggling those two things in his mind. Not too bright, not too reliable. Not too bright, so maybe his plan could be improved. Not too reliable, so Whitey would have to make any improvements on his own. He didn’t grasp all that at once, but by the time his eyes opened Monday morning-Whitey waking slumped in the cab of his pickup in the parking lot of some suburban mall where he’d spent the night, running the engine for five or ten minutes every hour or so to keep warm-he had most of it.
Whitey checked his watch: not even six, still dark, just over twelve hours to go. He climbed down out of the pickup, pissed against somebody’s tire, considered Roger’s plan. For one thing, he didn’t like the taxi part. He’d ridden taxis three or four times in his life and hadn’t been comfortable, not with that meter ticking away. And, despite Roger’s reassurance, why drag a witness into the picture, especially when he had the pickup? Funny, too, the pickup with REDEEMER now written on the side. Didn’t people redeem things from pawnshops, things like paintings? Whitey tried to tie it together into some sort of joke, and almost did. All that thinking before he even finished his piss! His mind was sharp today, speeding as fast as it ever had, maybe faster. He had barely zipped up and returned to the cab before he had another thought, connected to the pawnshop idea-and Christ! to get this picture of how his own mind was working, making connections, redeemer and pawnshop-how amazing was that?
The pawnshop connection was this: How much was the garden painting worth? My garden, or oh my garden, or whatever the hell it was. Roger had never said anything about its value, just that it was part of a divorce dispute. But would anyone fight over something worthless? No. So the question was: How much? Whitey turned the key and goosed the engine a couple times, vroom- vroom. How much? A word almost came to mind, a word they used in war movies when some guy, usually the toughest, was sent ahead to check things out. The toughest guy, who just nodded and did whatever it took. Whitey put the pickup in gear and drove out of the mall parking lot.
He made a few stops along the way. First, a pizza place for breakfast: deep dish with everything and an extralarge Pepsi. Second, and by now he was almost in New Hampshire, a hardware store for his supplies: a flashlight, batteries, and something sharp. He was still searching for the right sort of sharp something when a clerk approached.
“What are you lookin’to cut?” asked the clerk.
Canvas. Painting canvas. But what was painting canvas, exactly? Whitey wasn’t sure. “Like cardboard,” he said. “Heavy-duty cardboard.”
“Heavy-duty cardboard,” said the clerk, moving toward a bin. “This here should do you.”
“What is it?”
“Box cutter.”
“Does it come any bigger?”
“There’s this one.”
“I’ll take it. And I need the receipt.”
Third, a stripper’s bar for lunch. Whitey sat by himself at the back, had a beer, a Polish sausage, another beer. That Polish sausage was something, squirting in his mouth with all those spices. They didn’t serve food like that inside. The reminder of what he’d missed out on pissed him off a little and he ordered another beer-just the one, since he was on the job-plus a shot of bar whiskey, even though he could now afford better.
The place was packed: smoke, noise, suits and ties, hairy hands stuffing money into garter belts. Red garter belts, because it was Christmas, and some of the girls wore Santa Claus hats as well, but that was all. He watched them jiggle around, rub themselves against brass poles, bend over. He got a hard-on, all right, but it didn’t last. The problem-and he could figure it out easily the way his mind was working today-was he could see right through everything. It was all a fake: those huge, hard tits, the way their hands went down and almost started going to work on themselves, but not quite, how they opened those lipstick mouths as though feeling pleasure while their
