Final Edit (15 page)

“Thank you.”

“I have a feeling it’s definitely not something you wore to the office this afternoon.”

“You’re right, Nick. I went home and changed first. You see, I only live a few blocks from here.”

“Really?”

“My apartment is on 55th and Third.”

“So the St. Regis—”

“Couldn’t be more convenient.”

“Perhaps the place has no novelty for you?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. I have a considerable fondness for the Maxfield Parrish painting of Old King Cole.”

By this time, a waiter had appeared and we’d ordered drinks: a daiquiri for her and a vodka martini straight up for me. One
of these days, I ought to change drinks, just for the sake of change, to add zest to my life, perhaps, but what the hell,
why give up a winning number?

We touched glasses and sipped for a few minutes. I was eager to learn more about her, but I realized that Parker Foxcroft
was the proper subject of my inquiries.

“You said in your note that you’d like to help if you can.”

“That’s right.”

“Twenty questions?”

“Fire away.”

“First, do you have any idea why he was killed, or who might have done it?”

“That’s two questions. No and no.”

“How long had you known him?”

“A few months over a year,” she said.

“I understand he was quite the Lothario.”

She colored, only the slightest kind of a blush, but I found it becoming.

“Parker seldom spoke about other women, and never with any intimate details, but”—she paused, clearly searching
for the mot juste—“I suspected there were other women in his life. He was a very
private
sort of person. Not at all someone who would kiss and tell.”

“Did he ever mention Claire Bunter?”

“Who?”

“The writer, one of his writers. Also the wife of my sub rights director, Harry Bunter.”

“The name means nothing to me, so I assume he never spoke of her.”

I could not think of any way to phrase the question I wanted to ask her next, like
What did you see in that mean bastard, anyway?
so I refrained.

“Now may I ask you something, Nick?”

“Sure.”

“Did you invite me here only to pick my brain?”

“Well…”

“I’m afraid you’re only interested in my mind,” Susan said.

“Unlike Parker Foxcroft?”

“Parker was never really much interested in my mind,” she replied. “You’re quite right about that.”

“And what was
your
interest in dear dead Parker?”

“You don’t sound like you cared much for him.”

“I didn’t.”

“To answer your last question, he was a brilliant man. And I thought—”

“Yes?”

“That it might help my career to be seen with him. Does that sound crass to you? Opportunistic, perhaps? Unfeminist, as distinguished
from unfeminine?”

“I can’t blame you for that, Susan. But you’re wrong about me.”

“Oh?”

I took a deep breath. “Your mind is
not
the only thing that interests me.”

“I’m so glad, Nick. That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

We were on our second drink by now, and I felt that pleasant sensation which comes when the first drink starts to take hold,
and the inner being turns languorous and submissive. Susan Markham looked at me with the direct and wide-eyed gaze of a precocious
child. A child-woman, I thought. “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” perhaps? Her eyes were mint green in the soft light cast
by the table lamp. Her lips parted in a smile—one part mocking, one part risible.

“Thinking deep thoughts, Nick?”

“Thinking,” I said, taking my time with each word, “of prolonging the evening, if that’s all right with you.”

She leaned closer to me, and almost as though they had a will of their own, the fingers of my right hand reached out and touched
the fabric of her jacket, drew slowly down over the swell of her left breast, lingering briefly at the nipple, which hardened
under my fingertips.

She took a deep breath. “Certainly.” And as though I hadn’t heard her response:
“Certainly,
Nick.”

“Well, then…”

“Why don’t you walk me home?”

We both rose to go. If he had not suddenly appeared at my elbow, I might have forgotten the waiter altogether, and the bill
as well. We sat down again, and I produced a credit card. One transaction later, we were on our way.

It was now dusk, that “enchanted metropolitan twilight,” as Fitzgerald described it, “the racy, adventurous feel of New York
at night.” It is never quite dark, of course; there are no stars to be seen in the stone canyons, no moon; only that supernal
glow of a million lights reflected in the
heavens—and the constant roar of sound, an ocean of white noise.

By the time we reached Park Avenue, Susan’s arm was linked in mine. At Third Avenue, she released my arm and claimed my hand.

“Here we are,” she said. “Here” was an apartment building between Third and Second. 355 East 55th Street. I must remember
the address.

“Come in, Nick.” Her inflection made the command sound more like a question, as though she thought I might refuse her bidding.
For one wild moment, I was ready to decline.
Am I really ready for something like this? Something like what, you ninny? She could just plan to serve you a drink and send
you on your way.

Instead, I followed her into the lobby, which, like myriad other specimens of Manhattan lobbies, was small, but did its best
to be grand: a towering ficus tree; black and white checkerboard tile; generic oriental art; and an obsequious doorman, who
obviously doted on Susan.

He undressed her with his eyes, I thought. Well, who can blame him?

We were alone in the elevator, but Susan stood close to me, as though we had to make room for other passengers. Feeling more
and more like a callow youth on his first date, I leaned over and kissed her.

I cannot say the earth moved, only the elevator. Still, the taste of her lips awakened memories so old I thought they were
buried for good, hungers I had almost forgotten. I shivered in anticipation.

I had no preconceived idea of what Susan Markham’s apartment would be like, but I must say I was somewhat surprised at what
I saw when she unlocked the door of 20-C.

If I’d made a stab at predicting the decor, I would have guessed “feminine, antiques, lots of plants, a frilly bedroom.” What
I found as we made the preliminary tour was a highly functional, rather austere living room with a dining ell, and a small
eat-in kitchen. The furniture was Swedish modern, bright blond wood. Throw rugs on parquet floors. A bar on wheels and a wine
rack. A grand piano, no less. The bookshelves were few, and from my first cursory glance, seemed to be filled entirely with
popular fiction, some of the volumes, I suspected, book club selections. I found the whole effect not feminine at all, but
oddly masculine.

“Drink, Nick?”

“No, not yet. You have quite a place, Susan.” I could not help but wonder how she managed it on an assistant editor’s salary.
Family subsidy, perhaps?
None of your business, Barlow.

“Come this way,” she said, and opened the French doors at the end of the living room. I followed her out onto a wraparound
terrace that overlooked both the Upper East Side and the East River. The view was a feast of lights and the silhouettes of
massive towers.

“Spectacular,” I murmured.

“It is impressive, isn’t it?”

She was standing in front of me, looking out over the river. I put my hands on her shoulders, and she leaned quickly back
into my arms, her head tilted back slightly to be kissed. I obliged her. It was no ordinary kiss; it shook me all the way
down to the soles of my shoes.

When we finally broke apart, I knew there was no turning back. I felt that we were already lovers—that we had been lovers
for some time and had only been waiting for the opportunity to consummate it.

“Well,” I said. “Hello, Susan.”

“Hello, darling,” she whispered. “There’s another room, you know.”

“I somehow thought there would be.”

No, the bedroom wasn’t at all frilly. The bed was king-size, and I saw at least two full-length mirrors and a mirrored closet
door. That was all the inspection I had the time to make: I took in the rest—the furniture, the television set, the computer
workstation—in one sweeping glance.

It’s amazing how quickly two people can shed all their clothes when there’s a bed nearby.

“You are beautiful,” I said, hardly trusting myself to speak at all.

“When you say that, I believe it.”

Her body was before me, and then so near to me that my nostrils were full of her perfume, and then we were locked together
and part of each other.

When we finally separated, she said: “Were you pleased with me?”

“Enormously. And you?”

“It did happen rather fast, Nick.”

I smiled, and touched her breasts with my fingertips. “I suppose I was more than ready. However, Susan, to use a cliché I
would strike from any manuscript—”

“Yes?”

“The night is young.”

And so it proved to be.

Much, much later, she said: “First times are wonderful, aren’t they?”

“’The apple tree, the singing, and the gold,’ “ I quoted.

“What?”

“Euripides on love.”

“Oh. I like that.”

“There was something Rollo May wrote in his book
Love and Will
about this moment, Susan—I wish I could remember it. It had to do with the moment of entrance…”

“Forget books for now, darling. Forget Rollo May. We have the night ahead of us.”

“I’m glad of that. And I will have that drink now.”

“I know how busy you are, Nick…”

“We’ll work something out, Susan. How does Friday evening look to you?”

“Free and clear.”

It was the following day. Susan had provided me with a brand-new toothbrush, a razor, also pristine, and shaving cream (clearly,
overnight male guests were no rarity in the Markham flat—but what the hell, how could I complain?), and after I’d finished
grooming myself, she served up a breakfast of juice, shirred eggs, bacon, a bagel, and a coffee strong in chicory. French
roast, I decided. Patting my stomach in appreciation, I folded my napkin neatly, leaned over the breakfast table, and kissed
her, hard.

“Thank you,” I said when we’d come up for air, “for feeding me so well. I was ravenous.”

“I’m not surprised. We forgot to eat any dinner.”

“So we’ll get together Friday evening?” She nodded. “I’m planning to go out to Connecticut on Saturday afternoon, but I hope
to provide you with as good a breakfast as you’ve given me.”

She smiled. “Call me before Friday, won’t you, Nick? Let me know what you’re up to.”

“Of course.”

It occurred to me shortly after I had walked out of her apartment building and hailed a cab that I hadn’t really touched much
on the subject of Parker’s murder, ostensibly my reason for seeing her in the first place.

Ah well, so it goes. I haven’t given up advance planning altogether, but I have certainly given up expecting those plans to
work out quite as I anticipate.

When I was back in my library again, I took out the well-worn copy of
Love and Will
and quickly found the place I’d earmarked:

The moment of greatest significance in love-making, as judged by what people remember in the experience and what patients
dream about, is not the moment of orgasm. It is rather the moment of entrance, the moment of penetration. This is the moment
that shakes us, that has within it the great wonder, tremendous and tremulous as it may be—or disappointing and despairing,
which says the same thing from the opposite point of view.… This, and not the orgasm, is the moment of union and the realization
that we have won the other.

I couldn’t have expressed it better myself, not even if I were a psychologist.

Once settled in my office, I figured it was about time for me to huddle again with Joe Scanlon.

“Nick,” he said when I called, “I’ve been meaning to phone you. I’ve picked up some interesting information.”

“That makes two of us.”

Within the hour, Scanlon was seated across from my desk, cradling a mug of coffee in his hands. A similar mug, bearing the
profile of Mark Twain by David Levine, steamed away on my desk.

“So what have you learned, Joe?”

“First off, that Parker Foxcroft has been extremely flush lately. Dinners at the most expensive restaurants in town. Weekend
trips to Atlantic City and a good deal of action at Belmont. At least one ten-day Caribbean cruise this spring. Running up
sizable bills at Paul Stuart’s and Ralph Lauren.”

“That’s nothing new,” I said. “Parker has always needed a lot of money to support his lifestyle, and he was known to borrow
money from every conceivable source…”

“That habit may have intensified in recent months, however.”

“Suggesting?”

“Blackmail, perhaps,” said Scanlon. “He may have been dabbling in shakedowns of one kind or another.”

“Do tell.”

“It’s at least a strong possibility. So far, however, I haven’t come up with anyone who might have been feeding his kitty.”

“How about your pal Sergeant Falco? Any leads there?”

“Zip so far. But I’m working on him. We’ll see what turns up.”

Then I told Scanlon about Judith Michaelson. “What do you suppose I should do, Joe?”

He snorted, as though the question was just too asinine to take seriously. “Talk to the lady, by all means.”

“Yeah, but by
what
means? How do I manage to meet her?”

“Want to borrow my shield, Nick?”

“Come off it, Joe. Be serious.”

At once, Scanlon assumed the pose of Rodin’s
Thinker.
When he finally did speak, it was hesitantly, as though he was searching hard for the right words. I had the feeling he was
giving me the benefit of his subjective processes.

“You have access to Foxcroft’s Rolodex, yes, Nick?”

“Yes, I do.”

“She wouldn’t have been at the funeral and done what she did if she didn’t know him well… Right?”