Eye Contact (7 page)

“I understand, Mrs. Fields, but Cliff was a friend of mine. You might say I have a personal interest in this case. Would you mind?”

There’s a pause. “What the hell. Come on up.” The door lock is already buzzing.

Manning grabs the knob before she changes her mind, then opens the door and enters with David. Manning tells him, “Top floor,” and they start up, David bounding ahead, taking the stairs by twos.

When Manning meets him at the top, he first notices that the door to Nolan’s apartment has been yellow-taped off-limits by the police. There’s been a lot of activity up here, and the hallway furniture looks askew. The dim lighting has been replaced with brighter bulbs, there are carpet tracks from the door to the stairs, and the floor is generally littered with scraps of the investigation. Manning just stands there, taking it all in—it seems so different from the scene he stumbled into last night. Then he notices that the neighbor’s door is cracked open, just an inch or two, so she can spy on him as she did last night.

Her burly voice tells him through the crack, “Didn’t say there was two of you.”

“Sorry,” he says, stepping quickly to the door, hoping it won’t snap shut on him. “I should have mentioned that my colleague, David Bosch, is with me.”

The door opens a bit wider so she can get a better look at David. “’Nother reporter? Damn fine specimen, I’ll say that!” She belts out a laugh, but it’s aborted by a coughing spasm. She tells Manning, “You were alone last night. You find him?”

“Yes.”

“Thought it was mighty quiet over there. Not that I didn’t enjoy it—for a change.” She swings the door wide open. “Come on in, boys.”

They enter the apartment, and Manning is struck by the contrast to Cliff Nolan’s place. It’s hard to believe the two dwellings are in the same building. While Clifford’s apartment was a showplace of genteel refinement, these digs are packed with a hodgepodge of junk furniture and gaudy bric-a-brac. Cheap gilt-framed Bible scenes are centered high on nicotine-beiged walls, and a spangled jumpsuit—it looks for all the world like an Elvis costume—hangs from a hook on the door to a bedroom. The television Manning heard last night is still on, still tuned to a religious channel. A preacher drawls, “With God’s help, and with your support, my dear friends, we plan to expand the television ministry of the Christian Family Crusade, bringing the good news of Jesus, twenty-four hours a day, to every nook and cranny of this great land of ours, now riddled, as it is, by the forces of perversion.”

As for Mrs. Fields herself, she’s a husky woman, but not fat—in fact, she wears a kimono-style bathrobe cinched tight at the waist, strutting a good figure. She has a big, lacquered hairdo, but wears no makeup at this hour. Her years of smoking have taken their toll on her face, and Manning would guess she’s fifty-five. She asks, “Won’t you sit down?”—affecting an air of decorum. Then she laughs at her feigned manners. The laugh triggers another coughing jag. “Excuse me.” She primps.

Manning and David sit, taking chairs that flank a small table, facing the TV. Mrs. Fields mutes the evangelist, but leaves the picture on. Though there are several other chairs in the crowded room, she remains standing, planting both palms on her broad hips. “Now what can I do for you gents? Getcha something?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Fields,” says Manning.

She tells him, “You can call me Dora Lee. You said your name was Mark, right, honey? And David—my, what a sweet child.”

David is accustomed to flattery, but not from the likes of Dora Lee. He blushes, telling her, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Dora Lee,” says Manning, pulling out his notebook and uncapping his pen, “may I ask how long you’ve lived here?”

She screws her face in thought. “’Bout a year.”

“Is there a Mr. Fields?”

“Pfff,”
she dismisses the memory with a jerk of her head. “Dead. Long dead. Packed my bags and moved north from Memphis. Not sure why—bored, I guess.”

“So you live here alone?”

She beads him with a get-real stare that asks, Do you see anyone else?

Manning grins, jotting something in his notes. He asks, “Were you and Cliff Nolan … friendly?”

She smirks. “Let’s just say we traveled in different circles.”

Manning crosses his legs at the knee and leans forward in thought, searching for his next question. “Did you think of him as a good neighbor?”

“Hell no!” Her coy manner has evaporated. Her eyes are fierce. She’s ready to unload something. “Snotty little tea-drinker didn’t give a shit for his neighbors. All that damn music at all hours—canons and gongs, all that yelpin’ they call singin’—I warned him more than once!” She needs a smoke now and fidgets in her pockets for cigarettes and lighter. But the pack is empty, so she scrunches it in her hand and hurls it to the floor.

Manning and David eye each other, unprepared for the outburst, trying not to laugh. Then she stamps to the table between them and yanks open a drawer. She snatches out a fresh pack of Camels and zips open the cellophane. As Manning glances down at the clutter within the drawer, she slams it shut.

Fuming, Dora Lee lights a cigarette, draws a long drag from it, and paces across the room. When she turns back, smoke shoots from her nose as she tells them, “He always played that highbrow music way too loud, and it was even louder than usual that night.” She throws up her arms in exasperation. “I’m glad he’s dead! I coulda killed him myself!”

Manning’s brows instinctively rise. Seeing this, she stammers, “I … prob’ly shouldn’t say that, Mark.” She snorts. “I mean, just wanted to have a little peace and quiet. I was
mad
enough to kill the little weasel, but of course I didn’t.”

He lets it pass. Rising from the chair, he turns a page of his notebook and says to her, “When I was in the hall last night, I noticed that you opened your door to see who was out there. Do you try to keep an eye on things up here?”

Happy to shift the discussion away from the murder, she tells him, “A woman’s got to look out for herself. Can’t be too careful these days.”

“That’s true,” Manning mumbles, “so true.” He takes a step closer to her. “I’m wondering, Dora Lee, if perhaps you noticed anyone in the hall on the night Cliff was killed. Did you see anyone enter his apartment?”

She takes a puff. “Sure did.”

David, sensing pay dirt, pulls out his pad to take a few notes of his own as Manning continues, “Do you know who it was?”

“Never saw him before. Sort of tall—well, taller than Clifford, but that ain’t sayin’ much. Only saw him from behind, never got a look at the face.”

Now Manning is pacing. “That’s not much to go on. Did you hear what he sounded like? Can you remember any conversation?”

“Over that ‘music’—you nuts?”

Manning stops pacing and turns to her. “How was he dressed? I mean, shabby like a bum, sporty like a college kid …?”

“No,” she steps toward Manning, wagging the cigarette in front of him, “he was more like a salesman. Dark suit, maybe.”

“This was Monday night, right? Do you recall what time?”

She sucks her Camel, thinking. “Right around ten. The news was on.”

Manning nods. “That would fit. What time did he leave?”

“That damn music was blarin’!” She’s getting worked up again. “Louder than I ever heard it. It was bangin’ so loud, I never even heard the shots. I pounded on the wall and made a few choice threats, but it did no good. That caterwaulin’ didn’t stop for over an hour. The caller was prob’ly gone by then. Didn’t hear anything else that night”—she snorts—“or ever again, for that matter.”

Manning pauses, looking at his notes. He stabs a period with his pen. “Have you told all this to the police?”

“Yes.” She exhales wearily. Then she leans close to Manning and tells him, under her smoky breath, “All except that part about how I coulda killed him myself, if you know what I mean.”

He nods confidentially. “This has been helpful, Dora Lee. I only wish you’d seen more.” Then he nods to David, signaling that they’re ready to leave.

As David rises and pockets his notes, Dora Lee says, “Awful sorry, Mark, but there wasn’t much
to
see. There was nothin’ special about the man at Clifford’s door—except, of course, that there was a
man
at Clifford’s door.”

Huh? Manning looks at David, who asks, “What do you mean, Dora Lee?”

She laughs. “Well,” she explains, coughing, “most of Clifford’s callers were of the female persuasion. Especially at that hour. Especially when the music got loud.”

Manning and David again look at each other, exchanging a shrug. It’s time to go. “Thank you,” Manning tells the woman, “we appreciate your taking time for us.”

“Hell, Mark”—she extends her hand, a big, beefy mitt of a hand, crunching his knuckles—“anytime.” She walks both men to the door and opens it. “If you think of more questions, just ask.”

David glances over his shoulder into the apartment. There’s a quizzical look on his face. “Actually, Dora Lee, I’ve been sort of curious …”

“Yeah, sweetie? What?”

His glasses flash toward the bedroom. “It’s that, uh …”

“Elvis?” She laughs, coughs. “Why, that’s my
costume
—for my
act.
See, I do this impersonation? And folks seem to think it’s pretty good, and I been workin’ a lot of church fund-raisers lately. Maybe you heard, the Christian Family Crusade is openin’ a fancy new hotel here in Chicago, the Gethsemane Arms, and I’m booked for a nightly show there next month.”

“Really?” says Manning, struggling to appear interested. “We’ll try to catch it.”

Dora Lee beams. “You just let me know when, and I’ll getcha a good table.”

“Thanks,” the guys tell her. “We’ll let you know.”

As they pass by her on their way through the door, she takes aim at David’s plump, muscular rear and gives it a hearty slap. He stops and turns to her, stunned. She leans, croaking into his ear, “Feel free to pop back up and see me anytime!” She breaks into laughter and thumps the door closed. Then the apartment reverberates with the explosive hack of another coughing jag.

The two reporters retreat down the stairs, David trying not to laugh. Manning lags behind him by a couple of steps, immersed in his thoughts, sorting through what he has seen and heard. When they at last pass through the vestibule and emerge into the hot shade of the building’s canopy, David blurts, “She’s
nuts
!” He has found the whole experience uproarious, but he’s had to restrain himself till this moment. “Did you see that Elvis getup?”

“That’s not all I saw.” Manning smiles, but he’s too preoccupied to fully appreciate David’s hilarity. “When Dora Lee opened that drawer for cigarettes, I noticed something peeking from a batch of old Christmas cards and other junk—it was the muzzle of a pistol.”

I
T’S A PLANET
—not in theory, not in virtual reality, not in digitized projection—but in itself, in all its density and roundness, anchoring a rose-colored atmosphere that resembles the Day-Glo haze airbrushed on a psychedelic poster that a college roommate once taped to the cement-block walls of Manning’s dorm room.

Manning grinds his feet in the Zarnikal dirt, ready to run. He breathes the strange vapor, filling his lungs with galactic fog. At first he attributes his light-headedness to the gas he has inhaled, but then he discovers that it is not his brain that has been buoyed, but his body. The mass of this distant world is so slight that it generates barely enough gravity to keep his feet in touch with the surface. The horizon before him arcs like a world in miniature, a dusty landscape through a fish-eye lens. The globe spins so rapidly—its day, he remembers, is equivalent to two Earth hours—that his hair is tousled by never-ending winds blown by coral-fingered clouds.

He feels neither hot nor cold in the dim sunlight that radiates from a moving pinpoint in the farthest reaches of the sky. He is alone and without inhibition, so he bends to remove his running shorts. He kicks free of them and sends the ball of yellow nylon hurtling before him. It disappears beyond the horizon, and as he contemplates the laws of physics rewritten for this strange terrain, his shorts reappear—from behind, in the sky above him, fixed in an eternal orbit. The pink planet now has a little yellow moon. Dr. Zarnik got to name the planet he discovered, but Manning can take credit for its moon. “Eros,” he names it aloud.

Intrigued by his newfound power to launch projectiles into space, he looks about for something else to fling into the cosmos. But there is nothing—no rocks, no plants, no birds or lizards—just the perfect, untrampled stretch of talc-fine dirt that surrounds him, the rosy tendrils of clouds that streak with geometric precision overhead. The only other objects, he concludes, in his entire new world are the shoes on his feet—white leather running shoes, his favorite pair, the ones he wore the morning when he first had sex with Neil, the ones that have taken on the power of a fetish, their laces crusty with the spatters of uncounted orgasms. The thought of losing them to the heavens is unspeakably painful. The shoes, he decides, must stay.

Manning has been running since high school, at times escaping something, at other times pursuing. He ran on a cross-country team because he was told it was required. Later, in college, he ran for the enjoyment of it. In adult life, in the real world, he rediscovered it and hoped it might forestall middle age. But the revelation he expected least was the hedonistic pleasure of running, the erotic element that scratches his consciousness every time he laces up those shoes. He has run on cinder tracks, on city streets, on the shore of Lake Michigan, and on a mountain road one Christmas morning in Phoenix. He has run in his dreams as well, a recurring dream in which he returns to a hometown where he never grew up. Running there, he has flown, taken flight, soared above a fluttering tunnel of elms and convulsed in midair, shooting semen into a pristine blue sky.

But this is different. Neither blue sky nor fluttering elms are here to conjure memories of a childhood never known. There is no cinder track, no lakeshore, no mountainside—there is only the compacted vastness of an empty world.