Night Fall

Actually, it stunk. I unwrapped the shirt from its tissue and looked at it. It was… sort of pink.

She said, “Hold it up.”

I held it up to my chest.

She said, “That’s a good color for you. It brings out your tan.”

It was a good color if I switched teams. I said, “You really didn’t… thank you.”

She took the shirt from me and undid all five hundred pins in about five seconds, then shook the shirt open and said, “This should fit. Try it on.” It was short-sleeve, and it felt silky. I took off my offending shirt and slipped into the pink silk number.

She said, “It looks very good on you.”

“It feels great.” I asked her, “Did you get a cell phone message from your husband?”

She nodded.

“What did he say?”

She took her cell phone out of her bag, punched up her voice mail, and handed me the phone. I listened to a recorded voice say, “Message received at three-twenty-eightP.M. ” Then Mark Winslow said, “Jill, this is Mark. I received your message.”

There was almost no affect in his voice, and like his photo, I was surprised that his voice left an impression on the digital recording. He said, “I’m very concerned, Jill. Very concerned. I want you to call me as soon as you get this message. You must call me and tell me where you are. This was a very selfish act on your part. The boys missed your Sunday call, and they called here, and I said you were out with friends, but I think they detected some anxiety in my voice, and I believe they’re worried. So you should call them, and reassure them. And call me. I’m becoming concerned. I’ll speak to you when you get this message.”

I waited for him to say, “I love you,” or “Sincerely yours,” but the message ended, and I shut off the cell phone and handed it back to her.

Neither of us spoke, then she said, “I haven’t called back, of course.”

I replied, “How could you resist that heartfelt plea?”

She smiled, then her smile faded, and she said, “I really don’t want to cause him any pain.”

I said, “If I may say so, he didn’t sound like he was in much pain. But you know him better than I do.”

She said, “He’s called three more times with shorter messages saying, ‘Call me.’”

I thought about Mark Winslow’s message, and I concluded that Ted Nash had not been to Mr. Winslow’s house looking for Mrs. Winslow. Then, I thought about it again, and I concluded that maybe Ted Nash was standing in the room with Mark Winslow while he called his wife. I asked Jill, “Did your husband sound… normal?”

“Yes. That’s normal for him.”

“What I mean is, do you think he was being prompted by someone else? The police or someone?”

She thought about that and replied, “I suppose it’s possible… he wouldn’t normally mention the boys… but…” She looked at me and said, “I know what you mean, but I can’t say for certain.”

“Okay.” Just another paranoid thought, but a good one. Bottom line, it didn’t matter if Ted Nash was one step behind me, as long as he didn’t get one step ahead of me. I said to her, “How about a drink?”

We had a drink, and she mentioned taking me to dinner, but I suggested room service, partly because I always run into the wrong people when I’m out and about, and partly because the more doors between me and Jill Winslow and whoever was looking for us, the better.

We chatted awhile, and she confirmed that she’d had the video camera cassette locked in the hotel safe and I said I’d gotten the receipt. She also said that she’d kept her cell phone off all day, not used her credit cards, and not used the ATM machine.

She told me she’d gone to St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue, then walked along the park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She’d gone to Barney’s, then did some window-shopping on Madison Avenue, and then walked back to the Plaza. A typical Sunday in New York, but a very memorable day for Jill Winslow.

We ordered room service, and it arrived at eight. We sat down at the dining table, lights low, candles lit, and soft music coming out of the speakers.

Despite all this, neither of us was trying to seduce the other, which was probably a relief for both of us. I mean, she was very good-looking, but there’s a time and place for everything. For me, that time had passed since my marriage; for her, that time was just beginning. Also, Kate was due to arrive here about 5P.M. the next day.

We had wine with dinner, and she got a little tipsy, and started telling me about Mark, and a little about her two-year affair with Bud. She said, “Even when I decided to be naughty, I did it with a man who I knew I’d never fall in love with. Safe sex. Safe husband. Safe marriage. Safe neighborhood. Safe vacations. Safe friends.”

“There’s really nothing wrong with that.”

She shrugged.

Later, she confided to me, “I had one brief affair since Bud. Three years ago. It lasted about two months.”

I didn’t want the details, and she didn’t offer any.

I’d ordered steak, not because I wanted steak, but because I wanted a steak knife. Jill excused herself at one point and went into her bedroom, and I put the steak knife in my room.

At about 10P.M., I excused myself with the explanation of jet lag and too much rich food and wine, which I wasn’t used to in Yemen.

She stood, and we shook hands. Then, I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, “You’re a trouper. This will all end well.”

She smiled and nodded.

“Thanks again for the shirt. Good night.”

“Good night,” she replied.

I checked my cell phone for messages, but there weren’t any. I left a wake-up call for 6:45, then I watched the news for a while, then popped in the videotape ofA Man and a Woman. I fast- forwarded through the beach blanket scenes, and played the last few minutes in slow motion from where I could see the glow on the horizon, followed by the light rising into air. I tried to be skeptical and to give it another interpretation, but the camera didn’t lie. I played it backwards, to see if that would reveal something that could be interpreted differently-but frontwards, backwards, slow motion, normal speed, it was what it seemed to be: a missile, with a fiery tail and a smoke plume, rising toward the lights of an aircraft. It was the small zigzag of the light and smoke right before the explosion that convinced me, if I needed more convincing-the fucking missile corrected its course, locked on, and hit its target. Mystery solved.

I took the tape out of the video player and put it under the mattress, and put the steak knife on my night table.

I fell into a restless sleep and kept replaying the videotape in my dreams, except it was me on the beach, not Bud, and it was Kate, not Jill, standing naked next to me, saying, “Itold you it was a missile. Can you see it?”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

My wake-up call came at 6:45, and I rolled out of bed, reached under the mattress, pulled outA Man and a Woman, and stared at it awhile.

I looked out the window toward Central Park. I’m not a Monday person, and the weather outside didn’t improve my mood; it was cloudy and raining, something I hadn’t seen in forty days in Yemen. Not that I wanted to be back in Yemen.

After I showered, I got dressed in my increasingly comfortable tan slacks, and put on the pink shirt. If I saw Ted Nash today, and if he made a comment about the shirt, I’d have to kill him.

Aside from that, today was going to be what’s called a Big Day. Today, I’d speak to Nash, and if he’d gotten his act together with Washington, we’d meet with the appropriate parties present. I had to think about who should be at that meeting, where it should be held, and if I should bring one of the videotapes. I’m not much of a meeting person, but I was looking forward to this one.

Most important, this was a big day because Kate was coming home.