Compromising Positions (34 page)

“How about ‘Old MacDonald’?” I suggested.

“Too babyish,” sighed Kate.

“Too dumb,” Joey said.

We launched into a series of folk songs and began a
Sesame Street
medley. In the middle of “Rubber Duckie,” the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” the children shouted, stumbling over each other.

“I will get it,” I announced. “Stay down here. Or else.”

Or else, I thought, you might be hit by a stray bullet. I edged along the hall and, nearing the door, flattened my body against the wall. “Who’s there?” I said, louder than I expected.

“It’s me. Nelson Sharpe.” Why would he give his last name?

“What’s your middle name?” I demanded.

“For Christ’s sake,” said the muffled voice. “Would you open up?” It had to be Dicky, I thought. But how would he know about Sharpe? Had Sharpe originally interviewed him? Had he been following us? Or had I been wrong all along? Could it be someone else? Someone I hadn’t seriously suspected. “Okay. My middle name is Lawrence. I have a B.A. in European history and...” I opened the door, Sharpe was standing there looking serious. Behind him was a policewoman, a few inches taller than he, with broad shoulders and a massive, perfectly coiffed Afro. A gun rested on her slim right hip. If I were planning anything illegal and spotted her, I would instantaneously change my plans and spend the rest of my life in a cloistered order, doing only good works. She looked tough.

“Mrs. Singer, this is Officer Jackson.” That’s why he had used his last name. “Can we come in?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, opening the door. The squad car was pulling away. “Hi,” I said to Officer Jackson.

“Hi,” she said, in a surprisingly small voice for such a formidable-looking woman. “They asked me to keep you company for a while.” She sounded like Jacqueline Kennedy. We smiled. “Can I look around?”

“Sure,” I said. Her head swiveled right and left, as though she was tuning her radar to the air currents of my house. “Oh, I didn’t have time to make my bed this morning,” I added.

“Neither did I,” she replied, although I’m sure that was simply politeness; an unmade bed in Jackson’s house would have sense enough to make itself. “Now, you have two children, right? Where are they?”

I walked to the stairs and peered into the den. Kate and Joey were hovering at the foot of the steps, staring back at me. I motioned them to come up and introduced them to Sharpe and Jackson. Kate gaped at Jackson, alternating her glance between the badge and the black holster. Joey looked at Sharpe and asked: “You again?”

“Yes. Your mother is helping the police.”

“Big deal,” Joey responded. Before I could cringe, Jackson asked the children to take her around the house. Kate led her, gazing back occasionally with awe and adoration. Joey tagged behind, making loud, flatulent noises between pursed lips. He was not immune, I knew, to preschool obnoxiousness, but something about Sharpe seemed to bring out the worst in him. Did he have some sort of Oedipal sixth sense, some finely attuned perspicacity, that told him that Sharpe was a threat? Or was it merely four-year-old bravado before a cop?

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute,” Sharpe said as soon as they were up the stairs.

“Nelson, please hold me,” I whispered. He led me into the kitchen, away from the staircase, and he put his arms around me. We stood, pressed tightly together, swaying slightly from side to side. “I’m okay now,” I said finally, and sat down at the table. He sat opposite me. “All right, let me tell you about the arrangements,” I said, sounding quite matter-of-fact.

He knew where La Crevette was, and said it would be no problem securing the area. “I can have a couple of men in parked cars, maybe one in a taxi, in the lot, and I’ll check out the building for a back entrance. Don’t worry, we’ll be right there.” He looked at me earnestly. “You want to go, don’t you?” I said nothing. “Okay, if you don’t, don’t worry about it. It’s no problem.”

“I want to go.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” I paused. “Oh, he’s leaving his plant about five-thirty or six. I asked him when he was going home for dinner.”

“Judith, you’re great,” he said, managing a small smile. We were nervous. I played with the saltshaker while he shoved the napkin holder back and forth between his hands. “I’m leaving Jackson to watch the house. She’s good. And she’s on the rape squad, so she’s used to dealing with kids.”

“With kids? On the rape squad?”

“Come on. Don’t get yourself upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

“Yes, you are. Anyway, we’ll wire you again. But this time you’re going to wear a bulletproof vest, so wear a coat with pockets for the transmitter.”

“If you’re going to be so close, won’t he hear the transmission?”

“No, the equipment will be inside a car with the windows closed. Now, you stay in your car until he gets out. We want to see that he’s not carrying a weapon. If he is, although I doubt it, just fall to the floor of your car. We’ll take care of him.” He stopped his napkin holder game. “Are you listening to me, Judith?”

“Of course,” I shot back. “Now, look, how should I steer the conversation? I think...” We spoke for another half hour and then he stood to leave, squeezing my hand.

“You’ll do fine,” he murmured. “You always do.”

When I opened the front door for Sharpe, I saw that the sleet had changed to snow. Not the big, puffy wet flakes that melt upon impact with concrete, but a deluge of stiff, granular snow that clung to the driveway. Sharpe stood on the front step, turning his head slowly, like a hunting dog trying to pick up a fading scent.

“It looks bad,” he observed, his eyes darting up to the luminous, low-hanging clouds. “Get your car into the garage.”

“What?” I asked, although I had heard him.

“Your car. Get it into the garage. You don’t want the windows iced up so badly that it will take a half hour to scrape them off, do you?” I sensed him looking at me and returned his glance. “Judith, are you sure...?”

“I’m sure. I was just thinking. I have to call my husband so he’ll be home in time to stay with the children. What if he’s working late? Nelson, wouldn’t it be awful if the whole investigation fell through because I couldn’t get a baby sitter?”

His hair and eyebrows were coated with snow. He looked like a kid who had applied cotton bunting for the Santa Claus role in the school’s Christmas pageant. His smooth, unlined skin and great brown eyes were those of an enchanting ten-year-old. “Fuck the baby sitter,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “Jackson will be here. Don’t get so hung up on logistics. Okay?”

“Okay,” I snapped, and took a deep breath of cold air. I stood at the doorway, feeling the warmth of the house on my back and the frigid, damp March air on my face. “Okay,” I said again, more calmly. “Now, what’s the schedule?”

“We have a man surveilling his plant and another at his house. As soon as he leaves, I’ll be notified, and once he’s home for a few minutes, we’ll get into the plant. Hopefully, we should finish there in an hour, an hour and a half at most. If there’s still time, I’ll call you or come over. Otherwise, I’ll be in the parking lot. But for Christ’s sake, don’t look around for me.”

“I know, I know,” I said absently, thinking how much I disliked driving in the snow.

“The only thing is,” he began, and took his index finger and wiped the snow off his eyebrows.

“The only thing is what?” I demanded.

“Nothing really.”

“Nelson,” I said forcefully, “I am about to confront a homicidal maniac, not some cute sociopath who specializes in misdemeanors. He kills, he breaks into people’s houses. He has no decency, no honor. He bites his toenails, for God’s sake.”

“Really? You never told me that.”

I shivered and held myself tight. “Does that make a difference?” I asked.

“Well, it’s not grounds for arrest in New York. Look, Judith, all I was going to say is that if it’s snowing very hard, we may have to change our plans about securing our people in parked cars.”

“You’re worried about them getting frostbite? What about me?”

“All I’m saying is that if it’s bad out, their car windows will get frosted or covered with snow and they won’t be able to see a goddamn thing. Don’t worry, we’ll find some place else for them.”

“You know what worries me,” I said, lowering my voice. Jackson and the children were a few feet away from me in the living room. “What really makes me nervous is all those old detective novels.” Sharpe looked at me blandly, listening. “Do you know what happens in them? The detective has a fantastic affair with some wonderful woman and guess what happens to her?” He shook his head. “She gets killed in the end,” I explained. “You know why?” Again he shook his head. “So that in the next case the detective can have another fantastic affair with another wonderful woman, who will ultimately die so that in the next case...” A small, quavering sigh escaped me.

“Judith, this is life. Reality. And nothing can happen to you because there can’t possibly be another woman in the next case who even remotely resembles you. Okay?”

“That’s what you say now.” For a moment we said nothing. Then we looked at each other and laughed. “All right. You’d better be going. It’s getting late.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I’ll see you later.” I stepped back into the house. “Be careful,” I called after him. He didn’t look back.

For several minutes, I sat on the living room floor with the children, the three of us looking up in awe at Officer Jackson, who held court on the piano bench, her back erect, her head lifted slightly. Kate informed me that she had dropped all her other career plans and was going to become a policewoman. Joey told me that Jackson had never killed anyone but had once punched a guy out.

“I just want to give my husband a call, see what his plans are,” I said to Jackson. She nodded. I called Bob’s office from the bedroom, fully expecting his secretary to proclaim that he was in conference and couldn’t be disturbed for the next twenty-four hours. Instead, she said he had just left.

Maybe, I pondered, clambering downstairs, his train will be stuck in a snowdrift. Nothing perilous, and they’d have sandwiches and coffee in the bar car, just enough to keep him tied up till about ten-thirty or eleven. But glancing out the living room window, I saw only about a half inch of snow on the ground. “I guess I’ll make dinner,” I said to the three of them. They blinked at me with great disinterest. Jackson said she’d watch television with them, but to call her if I heard any strange sounds. Like Dicky cackling in my back yard, I mused, his awl gleaming in the moonlight.

I stuck my hand into the freezer and fished out a large aluminum container of meatballs and plunked it into a pot to thaw. There was, fortunately, a whole packet of spaghetti, and I managed to throw together a salad. In less than three hours, I would be encased in a bulletproof vest, and here I was slicing radishes. I felt I should be overwhelmed by a sense of absurdity, but somehow the whole situation seemed rather cozy. What harm could befall a woman who at the very next moment was going to make her own salad dressing? With parsley and tarragon and dill. I set the table in the dining room and was just measuring the coffee when the doorbell rang.

Jackson got there first, her silver badge reflecting the hallway light, her hand about five inches away from her gun. “Did you hear anyone drive up?” she asked, in her silvery voice.

“It’s probably my husband,” I answered softly. “Who’s there?”

“Me,” said Bob, his voice muffled by the thick oak door.

“It’s him,” I assured Jackson and opened the door. “Hi.”

But he was staring at Jackson, his mouth open slightly. “Hi,” she said to him. “I’m Officer Sandra Jackson.”

“Come in,” I urged Bob, as I would a shy guest, taking his hand and guiding him over the threshold. “Everything’s fine.”

He found his voice. “How can everything be fine if there’s a policewoman in the house? Would you please explain that to me, Judith?” He began to unbutton his coat. “I’ll need a wooden hanger,” he informed me. Being in no mood to argue, I walked the two feet to the hall closet and handed him a hanger. He put his coat on it, then shook it a couple of times so the snow that had accumulated on his walk from the driveway fell onto the floor. He removed his brown plaid cashmere scarf and placed it around the wire part of the hanger, the silk lining facing down. “Now, would someone like to explain what’s going on here?” he demanded, handing me his coat.

I handed it back to him. “I’ll tell you as soon as you put your coat away,” I said. He glared at me. Jackson shot me her first real smile of the day.

“Daddy, Daddy.” The children exploded up from the den, hugging Bob’s waist and standing on tiptoe to be kissed.

“You’re home for dinner,” observed Kate with a satisfied smile.

“Isn’t it nice,” I observed, “having Daddy home? Let’s eat.”

For the first time in weeks, the conversation at the dinner table was animated. Bob, of course, sat isolated in his bleak silence, but the rest of us had a grand discussion about fingerprints. As I stood to serve the spaghetti, I whispered to Bob: “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk. I’ll explain after dinner.” He lifted his fork and stabbed a meatball.

We finished eating a few minutes before seven. Jackson told the children to go downstairs and watch television; they obeyed without protest. She glanced from Bob to me. “I’ll wait downstairs with the kids.” I nodded. “But we’ll have to get started in about fifteen minutes.” She stood. “Nice talking to you, Mr. Singer.” He had not acknowledged her presence throughout the entire meal.

“All right,” I began, “let me fill you in.” He bit into a cold Sara Lee brownie. “It’s really very difficult,” I said, “because you haven’t been listening to me, so you don’t know what’s going on. But I’ll try to give you a rundown to bring you up to date.”

“Why is that woman in my house?” he asked. “Who is she?”

“She’s with the rape squad,” and he stared at me. “No, no, this has nothing to do with rape. They just wanted a woman because they’re going to wire me up and I have to take off my sweater for that and they don’t want a man to have to do that because God forbid he should see my bra.”