Down Here (15 page)

“Ah,” she said. “Your book.”

“I was just—”

“You like me, don’t you? Pardon my bluntness, it’s just the way I am. The way I have to be, in my business.”

“Yeah. I do like you.”

“So this is . . . confusing for you, yes? You want information from me. For your book. And, like you said, it’s not professional to, I don’t know what, get involved with a . . . Oh, that’s right, you said I wouldn’t be a source. Whatever you said I was, it wouldn’t be . . .”

I took a step toward her, put my hands on her shoulders. I’m not sure how the kimono came off.

S
he was slim from the waist up, with small round breasts set far apart, but her hips were heavy enough to be from a different woman. Her thighs touched at their midpoint, and her calves were rounded, without a trace of definition, tapering radically to small ankles and feet.

“You don’t smell like cigarettes,” she said, her face in my neck. “I wish I knew how you did that. No matter how many showers I take, or what perfume I use, I always—”

I parted her thighs. She was more moist than wet, tight when I entered.

The bed was too soft. I stuffed a pillow under her bottom, reached down, and lifted her legs to my shoulders.

“I hope you don’t think—” she said, then cut herself off as she let go, shuddering deep enough to make me come along with her.

^“
I
do that sometimes,” she said, later. She was lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, smoking. “Talk too much. When I’m nervous. It only happens in . . . social situations, I guess you’d call them. When I’m at work, I guard my words like they were my life savings.”

“Everybody has pressure-release valves,” I said. “They’re in different places for different people.”

“Where’s yours?” she said.

I put my thumb at the top of her buttocks, ran it gently all the way down the cleft until I was back in her sweet spot. “Right there,” I said.

“That’s a good place.”

“It’s not a place,” I said. “It’s a person.”

“I thought they all looked alike in the dark,” she said, teasingly.

“Looking isn’t what does it for me,” I said, moving my thumb inside her.

She rolled away from me, then tentatively put one leg over. “Do you mind?”

For an answer, I shifted my weight, so she was straddling me.

She made a little noise in her throat.

“Sit up,” I told her.

She did it. “Oh!” she said, bouncing a little.

^“
Y
ou’re not going to take a shower, are you?” she said, much later.

“I can use the bathroom in the other—”

“No, I didn’t mean that. I just . . . I just like how you smell. Like you smell
now.
You can take one before you go, okay?”

“Sure,” I said.

^“
C
ooking is
not
one of my hobbies,” she said, later, standing in her ultra-kitchen. “And I never took a course.”

“You still want to go out? There’s a diner on Queens Boulevard that never closes. It’s not the Four Seasons, but it’s got a fifty-page menu—got to have
something
you’d like.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“I already feel like a guy who expected a Happy Meal and got filet mignon,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” she said, smiling. “And you already figured out we’re not going to get any talking done here, right?”

^“
I
’ll drive,” she said, electronically unlocking her car as we walked toward the stalls.

“Is there anything under here?” I asked, pointing at the concrete floor.

“Oh, there’s a basement of some kind. For the . . . power plant, I think they called it. The boiler, things like that. The utility people go down there to read the meters—they’re separate for each unit—and the phones lines are all down there, too.”

“I figured they had to be somewhere,” I said. “And running power lines up the side of a building like this wouldn’t be too stylish.”

“Not at all,” she agreed, climbing behind the wheel. She turned the key and flicked the lever into reverse without waiting for the engine to settle down—there was a distinct clunk as the transmission engaged.

She drove out of the garage, piloting the car with more familiarity than skill.

“Queens Boulevard, you said, right? I think I know the one you mean. On the south side?”

“Yep.”

“We’re not urban pioneers, you know,” she said.

“I don’t know what you—”

“Where I live. It’s not like it’s a depressed neighborhood. It’s solid, middle-class. A good, stable population. Low crime rate. Our building may be upscale for the area
now,
but that won’t be forever. It’s not like those people rehabbing brownstones across a Hundred and Tenth Street, in Manhattan.”

“And you’re not displacing anyone, converting a factory,” I said.

“That’s
right.
The people around us, they were thrilled when they heard what was going on. Instead of an abandoned building where kids can get into trouble, or that the homeless could turn into a squat, they get something that actually improves their property values. Adds to the tax base, too.”

Why are you telling me this?
I thought, but just nodded as if I gave a damn.

She drove the Audi like an amateur, going too fast between lights so that she ended up stopping for all of them. Or maybe she mostly used the car for those upstate trips she had talked about, wasn’t used to city driving.

“There it is,” I said, “just up ahead.”

She made the left, swung into the parking lot. It was relatively empty—well past dinner, and too early for the night owls.

We walked inside, followed a young woman in a pale green dress toward the back.

“Would you prefer a booth or a table?”

“A booth, please,” I said. “As private as possible.”

“You can take that one there,” she said, pointing. “But this place can fill up just like that,” snapping her fingers.

“I know it can,” I said, slipping her a ten. “And if we end up surrounded, I know it won’t be your fault.”

L
aura ordered a Greek salad and a glass of red wine. I made do with a plate of chopped liver, potato salad, and coleslaw, French fries on the side. Not Delancey Street quality, but decent enough. And I was hungry.

“What good would it do him?” she said, out of the blue.

“Your brother?”

“Yes. I did a little . . . well, ‘research’ would be too strong a word. Just a little looking around in the . . . genre, I guess you’d call it. The books I found, they’re either about how an innocent man was finally freed, or they’re an attempt to
get
him freed. Don’t you think that’s accurate?”

“Pretty much,” I conceded.

“Well, except for the people still in prison—I mean, anyone could see what good a book would do
them
—the other ones, the people who were the . . . stars, I guess you’d call them, didn’t they get money, too?”

“I guess in some cases they did. Like when you see their names as ‘co-writers,’ you can probably bet on it. Some, maybe not—they might have just wanted to get their stories told.”

“But they never have control, do they?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I read about one man, Jeffrey MacDonald, I think his name was. He was accused of murdering his wife and children. Didn’t he . . . cooperate with a journalist? And it backfired on him?”

“MacDonald played his own hand,” I said. “And, anyway, there’s no similarity. Your brother’s already free. And he’s not charged with any crimes. The book you’re talking about, it was the investigation of a crime. My book is an investigation of the system.”

“But you said yourself, John is the centerpiece.”

“I said I’d
like
him to be.”

“All right, you’d
like
him to be. But it comes down to the same question.”

“What’s in it for him?”

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t mean to sound so cold-blooded. This doesn’t have—doesn’t
have
to have—anything to do with you and me. But I have to view all deals the same way. The interests of the parties.”

“If it doesn’t have anything to do with you and me, maybe we should just split it up,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she said, spots of color in her cheeks.

“You’re not your brother’s . . . agent, I guess is the word I’m looking for. Let’s put them all face-up, okay?

“One, I would rather have simply approached your brother, made my pitch, and either started working with him, incorporating him into my project, or moved on. Quick and easy, yes or no.

“But, in his current situation, he’s not only less accessible—I don’t have a clue where he even is, never mind how to reach him—he’s more attractive. Because of the whole prosecutor-on-trial angle.

“Two, I . . . like you. I guess that’s obvious. I don’t want one thing to screw up the other. I don’t want to put you in a position of making choices you shouldn’t have to make.”

“You mean . . . ? I don’t know
what
you mean.”

“I want to meet your brother,” I said. “Talk to him. And leave you out of it. And, regardless of how
that
works out, I want to keep seeing you.”

“Oh.”

I didn’t say anything, just went back to my food. At least the Dr. Brown’s cream soda was the same as you could buy on Second Avenue.

“You wouldn’t still want my . . . recollections?” she asked. “The family history, things like that?”

“Sure I would,” I said. “The truth is, your brother’s story—the
factual
part of his story—pretty much tells itself. There’s court documents—indictments, trial transcripts, appeals—all over the place. I
was
looking for more. Deep background. What I told you was one hundred percent true. The impact on the family is a microcosm of the impact on all society.

“It wasn’t until we . . . it wasn’t until I realized I had feelings for you that I decided I didn’t want to risk one thing for the other.”

“We went to bed,” she said, scanning my face. “I don’t know a lot about men, but I know enough to know that doesn’t take a lot of ‘feelings’ on their part.”

“I didn’t expect it to happen,” I said. “Any of it. Sure, you’re a gorgeous girl, and I’m not pretending I wouldn’t want to get next to you even if I had never spent ten minutes talking to you. You don’t know a lot about men; I don’t know a lot about women. But I know some things. I know you’re not the kind of girl who makes love to a man unless you’ve got feelings of your own.”

“You know that . . . how?”

“I couldn’t tell you if you gave me a shot of truth serum,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not right. It’s just something I . . . sense, maybe. I don’t know.”

She toyed with her salad, not looking up.

“Tell me I’m wrong, and that’ll do it,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me you don’t have feelings for me, and we’ll drop the whole thing.”

“You’re confusing me.”

“Look at me, Laura. You don’t have to be a map reader to know I’ve been around for a while. I’m not too old to play, but I’m too old not to play for keeps. If you just like sex, and figured I might be fun, I hope I didn’t disappoint you. But it would sure disappoint
me.
”

“And if I said that . . . that I was just horny?”

“No hard feelings,” I said. “You’re a big girl, you get to make your own decisions.”

“You’d still want to do the book? With my brother, I mean?”

“Sure.”

“Just . . . what, then?”

“Just nothing. I thought, if I told you I could just meet your brother, leave you out of it, maybe you and I, we could try being together, see how it worked.”

She pushed her plate away from her, said, “You can’t meet my brother. I don’t even know where he is. I hear from him, once in a while. But they’re keeping him safe. Until the trial, anyway.”

“I understand.”

“I wish you could smoke here,” she said.

“I can fix that,” I said, catching the attention of our waitress with a check-signing gesture.

S
he made a sound of pleasure, exhaling a stream of smoke into the warm, soft night, leaning against the side of her Audi in the parking lot.

“I like to know where everything is before I do anything,” she said. “Going to bed with you—
taking
you to bed—that’s not me, you’re right. But I did it before I thought about it. And now you’re
making
me think about it.”

“I don’t know money talk,” I said. “But isn’t there some terminology you guys use for long-term investments?”

“Lots of them. Why?”

“That’s what I’m looking for.”

“With your book?”

“Stop dancing around, Laura. You don’t need to do that. I’m not pressuring you. That’s why I said what I did, to take the pressure
off.
”

“I . . . checked you out,” she said, quietly, looking down.

“And?”

“And . . . are you married?”

“Divorced,” I said.

“Do you have children?”

How deep did she look?
I knew Hauser kept his private life rigidly segregated from his work, but, still . . .

I gambled. “No,” I told her. “I had a vasectomy, in fact.”

“You don’t like kids?”

“I don’t
dis
like them. Just never wanted any.”

“Me neither,” she said. “I wouldn’t have invited you to my house if I didn’t know you were a legitimate person. Some of those books, the ones I read after we first talked, they were just . . . terrifying. Like . . . I don’t know, pornography.”

I shifted my body slightly, so my chest was against her shoulder.

“I don’t mean that I think there’s anything wrong with . . . sex,” she said, hastily. “That isn’t what I meant by pornography. Those books—are they
all
about sex murderers or rapists?”

“I guess they could seem like that, especially if you were looking at the paperback originals. The real pros, though, they’re journalists, and crime happens to be the topic of a particular book. Look at Jack Olsen. He was the dean of so-called true-crime writing, and he wrote about sex killers, sure. But he also wrote about Gypsy con games. And about an innocent man spending most of his life in prison.”