On the way to work, Mary stopped at a corner lineup of newspaper vending machines and bought a Post-Dispatch and a USA Today. On page six of the Post she found the news item she was searching for, and the photograph of Martha Roundner that had been shown on TV last night. She folded the paper in quarters so the photo showed, then drove the rest of the way to Angie’s apartment to check on her before going to the office.
“The woman looks a little like you, maybe,” Angie said, after prompting. She held the paper at arm’s length and peered blearily at the photo, as if it were something that might cause her trouble. “Around the mouth mostly. She and you ain’t dead ringers, but I can see what you mean.” Her voice was still flat, an instrument badly out of tune.
Mary gave up trying to convince her. “You feeling any better this morning?”
“Sure. Some.”
The apartment smelled stale and musty, and there was dust thick as peach-fuzz over everything. It was getting uncomfortably warm, too, and Angie hadn’t switched on the air-conditioner. The potted plant from her hospital room was on the windowsill and had a parched, brownish look to it, and there was an ashtray on the carpet, littered with the snubbed-out butts that were making the place smell stale. Mary looked at the two glasses on the coffee table. There was an amber residue in each of them, layers of bright color in motionless liquid. Morning-after melted ice made the stillest water in the world.
“That’s Pepsi-Cola,” Angie said defensively, pulling her terry-cloth robe tighter around her thin body.
“Two glasses?”
“Yeah. Fred and me sat around and talked last night. Straightened out some things.”
“Such as?”
“Who and what we are to each other. It was that kinda conversation. You’ve had them, I’m sure.”
“You know more now?”
Angie shrugged. “No, not really, but talking it out till my throat was sore helped somehow.” Her mouth still had that withered look above the upper lip, and the faint tracing of a mustache. Time to apply a depilatory, Angie. Time to push your age back where it isn’t a worry, for either of us.
“Where’s Fred now?” Mary asked.
Her mother gestured weakly with a limp hand that still bore a purple-red bruise from the IV needle. “Other room.”
“Bedroom, you mean?”
Angie sighed. “Don’t interrogate your old mom, Mary. You ain’t the police and you ain’t got the right.”
Mary thought about last night with Jake. She laughed coldly. “Yeah, I guess I see your point. Anyway, I gotta get to work. You sure you’re gonna be okay?”
“Oh yeah. One day at a time, like the AA people say. I can make it through this. I have before, you know.”
“Yeah, you have.” Mary started toward the door.
“If you’re done with them papers,” Angie said, “leave ’em here. I could use something to read.”
“Sure,” Mary said, surprised and glad her mother was interested enough in the world to want to find out more about it. Age and alcohol hadn’t quite won yet. Angie continued the struggle, probably not in any real hope of victory, but more out of the realization that all there was to life, ultimately, was a losing battle.
“I heard on the news them murdered women was violated after they were dead,” Angie said. “It’s awful, but that’s better’n if they was raped and then killed.”
There was no arguing that. “I guess so,” Mary said.
“There’s a lotta sick and evil people out there in the world, Mary. Best you remember that, what with your own dancing and all.”
“I never forget it, Angie.”
“You been bothered again, after what happened to your door?” Angie asked. Mary still hadn’t told her about the dead bird incident.
“Whoever did it isn’t likely to come back. The police were right, it was just a fluke thing. Kids, maybe.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
Mary tore out the photograph of Martha Roundner and slipped it into her purse. She laid the folded newspaper on the arm of the sofa before walking out.
In the interest of fair play and employee moral, Hal Bauer, Summers Realty sales manager, had given Victor another day of floor time at Suncrest. At least Mary wouldn’t have to cope with Victor today.
It was, in fact, a slow day at Summers Realty. Gordon Summers was still in Chicago. Most of the salespeople were out showing property, and Hal and the administrative help were cubbyholed in the conference room with a CPA. Something about new tax legislation. There were no closings scheduled for the day, so she spent her time readying the paperwork for two residential closings to be made later in the week.
In one of the offices was a cabinet containing telephone directories for most major cities. Mary watched the intermittent traffic roll past, glittering in the sunlight, for a while, then glanced at her watch and saw she had forty-five minutes till lunch time. She stood up, walked into the back office, and found a Seattle directory.
She had nothing important to do at the moment, so why not do this?
She didn’t examine the question too closely.
Back at her desk, she opened the yellow pages to the listings for hotels, then dragged the phone closer. She began with the large chains, calling them one by one and asking if there was a Rene Verlane registered.
It was well past noon, and she hadn’t eaten lunch or even left the phone, when she reached the M’s and was told by a desk clerk at a Seattle Marriott hotel that Rene Verlane had checked in yesterday. The clerk asked if Mary wanted him to ring Mr. Verlane’s room, but Mary said she’d call back, then hung up.
Her face felt flushed and her knees were rubbery. She left her hand resting on the receiver, running her fingertips lightly over the warm plastic. The phone had suddenly become something intimate and dangerous.
“Mary?”
She withdrew the hand and jerked her head around.
Victor was standing in front of the desk, smiling down at her. He was wearing gray slacks, blue blazer, white shirt, red tie. Original. If he were a car he’d be a station wagon.
She said, “I thought you were out at Suncrest.”
“I was.” He tapped his brown vinyl Samsonite attache case with an air of extreme importance, as if it contained the code for nuclear war, and his grin widened. “I need to get a contract okayed, then I’m driving back out.” He peered at her through his round glasses; sunlight shot off the lenses as if they were cubic zirconia. “Listen, you okay?”
“Sure. Why?”
“You had a funny look on your face when I looked in your office.”
She put on a nonchalant expression and shrugged. “Just daydreaming, I guess.”
“About what?”
Wouldn’t you be surprised? “Personal.” Her voice was clipped and angry, surprising her.
Victor backed up a step, his smile wavering. “All right. Sorry. Sure didn’t mean to pry.”
Mary knew she’d gone too far, for Victor and for herself. Victor was such a wimp, but at times he could elicit a primitive kind of pity. That was the fulcrum of his life, manipulating and surviving by getting others to feel sorry for him. Even though people knew this, it was effective. She made herself smile. “Sorry, Victor. I snapped, didn’t I?”
He immediately appeared reassured. “Well, I understand. What with the problems with your mother and all. By the way, how is she?”
“Much better.”
“That’s good.” He advanced on the desk, and for a moment she thought he was going to lean forward and pat her hand. But he stopped and said, “Well, I better see if I can clear this deal with Hal.” He opened his attache case and straightened some papers. Mary noticed a red-handled pocket knife tucked in a compartment next to his calculator. He saw her staring. “It’s a Swiss Army knife,” he said. “I carry it ’cause it’s got a screwdriver, leather punch, even a scissors on it. Comes in handy for everything from opening packages to fastening ‘sold’ signs.” He quickly closed the case. “Speaking of ‘sold’ signs…”
“Hal’s in a meeting with the CPA right now.”
“I know. We talked this morning and he told me to call him out of it if this contract was signed. It’s for one of the display houses, and there’s a lotta extras involved.” He took a stride toward the back offices.
“Wait a minute,” Mary was surprised to hear herself say. She reached into her purse and drew out the photograph of Martha Roundner, then spread it flat on her desk. “Who’s this look like?”
Victor rested his palms on the desk, leaned close, and studied the photo for a long time. His face took on a strained expression Mary had never seen before.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, standing up straight and using a forefinger to tap his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. “She looks a lot like my sister in Phoenix. You wouldn’t believe how much. Who is she?”
“Never mind,” Mary said, returning the photo to her purse. “I don’t think you know her.”
Victor looked puzzled for a moment, then gave her another of his tentative smiles and walked away to drag Hal out of conference as instructed.
Long ago Mary had read a story about a man who thought his double was maliciously ruining his life, and followed and killed the man. At the story’s end, it was revealed that there was no resemblance at all, except in the mind of the killer. Mary wondered for a moment if she might be reversing the story, projecting her own image on the photographs of victims because she identified with them so strongly. Because she wanted-
She decided that was absurd. Cast it from her mind with an internal violence that tightened her stomach.
She didn’t have a lesson scheduled for that evening, and Angie had said she was going out with Fred. So after work Mary spent half an hour cleaning up the mess Jake had left in the apartment: dirty dishes from his late breakfast, wadded underwear and socks on the floor, a glut of dark hair in the shower drain. He could leave a bathroom looking as if a freshman track team had used it after a meet. She lowered the seat and flushed the toilet, trying not to inhale. What, if anything, did your mother teach you, Jake?
When the apartment was reasonably neat, and she’d finished her frozen sirloin tips dinner, she put on her flat-soled training shoes and practiced dancing in the spare bedroom. For over an hour she did tango steps in front of the full-length mirror, gliding and swirling gracefully, perfecting her head movements during fans and promenade turns. She looked good. She knew she’d improved dramatically in only the past few weeks. It was like that with dancing; you’d hit a sticking point and think you’d never make progress, then suddenly it was as if a dam gave and you were surprised to stride out on the floor a much better dancer. Moments that made life worthwhile.
When her legs were tired and her feet began to ache, she switched off the light and walked into the living room. She sat on the sofa and removed her shoes, stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles.
But she couldn’t relax. She wondered again if there really was a resemblance between her and the two murder victims. Other people didn’t seem to see it. Was the reason for her fascination with Rene Verlane really the fact that he was suspected of murder? She’d heard about eager victims flirting with death, but she certainly wasn’t one of them. Was this a lucid moment, or was her imagination running wild now?
You’re being ridiculous, she admonished herself. Facts are facts, and talk show psychology won’t change them.
Feeling, even hearing, the pounding of her heart, she found her gaze drawn to the phone.
Weary but restless, she stood up and carried her shoes into the bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed and slipped a pair of white cotton tube socks onto her feet, then her comfortable old Reebok jogging shoes.
She left the apartment and walked for blocks, all the way over to Arsenal Street. The air was so humid it seemed to press like velvet against her flesh. She was perspiring. Tower Grove Park lay to her right like a dark and dangerous void. She knew she shouldn’t be walking at night after what had happened to her recently, but something in her compelled her to press on, striding parallel to the edge of the park.
It was a few minutes before ten when she got home. Coincidence? Or had she hurried to reach the apartment in time to settle back down on the sofa and watch the ten o’clock news?
There was nothing on the news about the Verlane or Roundner murders. Mary used the remote to mute the “Tonight” show and watched Jay Leno, nimble for such a big man, dance slowly about and clasp and unclasp his hands during his monologue.
It was two hours earlier on the West Coast. As she stood up and moved to the phone, she realized she’d memorized the number of the Marriott Hotel in Seattle.
Rene Verlane was in his room. He answered the phone on the second ring. She recognized his voice from the television interviews, and she had a vision of him speaking to her from one of the news tapes shot in his New Orleans home, a conversation real yet unreal.
He said hello again, puzzled, and Mary cleared her throat.
This was madness, but she was determined not to panic and hang up.