after, both of them famished, laughing over toast and orange juice, the long walk along the Bermuda shore, the azure water lapping at their feet, and then the parade of days that followed, all that happiness, her sparkling eyes, the smile, the way she raked her finger along his chest, the sound of her quiet sigh, all of it coming back to him in wave after shuddering wave so that later, when he’d finally turned the key, pressed the pedal, pulled away, he couldn’t recall the actual moment that he’d begun to cry.
STARK
He walked to the unlighted window and parted the curtains. Across the street, he saw him again, a large, awkward man in an old blue jacket, the one he’d noticed as he’d made his evening stroll to the park earlier, then again as he’d returned home, and now, past midnight, this same man sitting on the stone stoop across the street, patting himself against the early-morning chill. He’d disappeared for a while, but had now returned to rest like a crouching gargoyle on the steps, then rise abruptly and pace back and forth along the deserted street.
The man rose suddenly, turned left, walked a few paces, then wheeled around and retraced his steps, a journey repeated several times before he returned to his earlier place on the stoop and resumed his watch.
A rank amateur, Stark thought. He’d never known anyone to blow his cover more thoroughly. Still, there was no doubt that the man had been sent to keep an eye on him. The only questions were why he’d been sent and who had sent him.
Stark had little doubt that the answer to the second question was Mortimer’s friend, the overly discreet husband in search of his vanished wife. In the years since Marisol’s death, he had always expected a husband or lover to attempt the same dark plan, hire him to find a woman he intended to kill. The only surprise was the sudden rage he felt at the prospect of it being done again. It was raw and biting, as if all the passing years had done nothing to quell the fury he’d felt so long ago. He recalled the morning he’d arrived at Marisol’s apartment, the door slightly ajar, the way he’d called her name, waited through the following silence, then eased open the door and stepped inside. The carnage that greeted him still burned in his mind, Marisol’s naked body slumped in a chair, ankles and wrists bound, her hair swept over the top of her head. He’d lifted her head to see a face beaten beyond recognition.
Stark’s dream of vengeance had flared up from that bruised and battered face, the brown eyes swollen shut, the fractured jaw and split lips. And now this rage swept over him again as his eyes bore down upon the figure on the stoop. He imagined the missing wife in the guise of Marisol, tender and forgiving, kind beyond any man’s deserving, full of the leaping energy of life, wanting only to begin again, the man in the blue jacket like Lockridge, hired to follow him until he found her, then deliver her to Henderson, the man who wanted her dead, Mortimer’s shadowy friend.
Of course, he couldn’t know if the two cases were exact parallels. He couldn’t know if the man in the blue jacket was the husband Mortimer had spoken of or whether he’d been hired by the husband. But in the end, it didn’t matter. One way or another, a woman was going to be hurt, and the man who paced sleeplessly on the street below was the instrument of her harm.
Stark’s eyes focused like death rays on the man below, watching as he suddenly stopped and slumped against the leafless tree, then nudged himself away, paced, returned to slump against the rain-slicked trunk again. It was not hard to imagine the source of his restlessness, the rabid impatience that kept him in constant physical agitation. Lockridge, the man who’d followed him to Marisol, had been afflicted with the same frantic movements, and because of that Stark knew precisely what he was thinking, that he was close, very close to the hapless woman whose destruction he sought. They all plotted the same horrors, these men. And only other men, cold, brutal, vengeful men like themselves save for their targets, could stay their hands.
ABE
He sat at the bar, his feet planted on the rail, his fingers knotted around the half-empty pilsner. The room was silent, the piano covered, all the lights out save the few small ones that burned all night even when he wasn’t in the place. He wondered how many nights he’d spent this way, sitting alone after the place had closed, staring at his own face in the mirror across the bar. That was the thing about being alone, it numbed you after a while, so that you really didn’t notice just how alone you were. Then suddenly, someone showed up, and she had a certain look and spoke a certain way, and you realized how much you’d lost.
What he had not imagined was the sheer, heart-stopping excitement he felt in the simple thought of her. The moment she came into his mind, all the old songs made sense again. He felt their tingle and their fever, and the strange exquisite jeopardy they conveyed. He wanted to put his foot down, get a grip, but he knew he couldn’t, not with this one. He wanted to believe that she was just a woman, like others, just a woman passing through his life. But each time he tried to do that, he remembered some little thing about her, and all his will went flying out the window, and he knew that she was not at all like any other woman he’d ever met.
But what made her different?
The answer came so quickly, he knew that it was true.
What made her different?
A courage so raw, he could almost see it bleed.
He didn’t know what was eating at her, whether it was real or something inside her head. He knew only that she was trying desperately to stay ahead of it, and that you had to have guts to run that long and hard, always alert for the sound of footsteps behind you, always glancing over your shoulder. He didn’t know how long she’d have to live this way. He knew only that it was part of the package, something you signed on for if you signed on for her.
And that’s what he’d done, he knew, he’d signed on. But for what exactly? He shook his head at his helplessness. If it were a movie, he’d know what to do. If it were a guy bothering her, he’d be like Gary Cooper or somebody like that.
The door opened and he saw Mortimer’s face hanging like a funeral wreath in the air.
“Hey, Abe,” he said.
“Mort,” Abe answered dully, his mind still on Samantha, how at sea he was.
Mortimer took off his hat and flopped it down on one of the stools while he slid up on the one beside it.
Abe poured him a drink.
“Thanks,” Mortimer said. He knocked back the scotch, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. “So, what’s new?”
“Not much,” Abe said. He’d meant to say nothing more, but suddenly he thought of Samantha again, and despite the fact that Mortimer was hardly the guy he’d normally have talked to about anything important, he said, “I met this woman.”
Mortimer seemed delighted not by what Abe had said, the fact that he’d met a woman, but simply that Abe had mentioned it to him. “No kidding,” he said. He idly circled the rim of his glass with a single finger. “Good for you.” His finger abruptly stopped its circuit and he looked at Abe like a guy who wanted to give good advice. “ ’Cause we ain’t got long, you know?”
Abe wiped the bar with a white cloth. “No, we don’t.”
Mortimer glanced away, his eyes now fixed on the front window, the gray, cascading rain. “So don’t let this one get away,” he said.
“I may have to,” Abe said.
“Why’s that?”
Abe realized that he didn’t know Mortimer Dodge nearly well enough to be talking to him this way. He laughed. “Ah, nothing. She doesn’t talk about it, but, I don’t know, it’s got me thinking maybe I should start packing a gun.”
“A gun?” Mortimer asked. “What for?”
Abe waved his hand, now sorry that he’d brought it up, since the whole thing had finally sunk into nothing more substantial than a cowboy movie fantasy. “In case some guy’s bothering her, which maybe there is and maybe there isn’t.”
