Give Me Your Heart (6 page)

Melanie Roberts’s smile was fading. Amid her chatter, Leonard must have interrupted. “. . . hear you, Len? It’s so noisy in this . . .”

The car was swaying drunkenly. The lights flickered. With a nervous laugh Melanie gripped the back of the seat to steady herself. Another eight minutes to Salthill Landing—why was the
woman hanging over his seat! He yearned to be touched, his numbed body caressed in love, so desperately he yearned for this touch that would be the awakening from a curse, but he shrank from
intimacy with this woman who was his neighbor in Salthill Landing. On his open laptop screen was a column of e-mail messages he hadn’t answered, in fact hadn’t read, as he hadn’t
for most of that day returned phone messages, for a terrible gravity pulled his mind elsewhere.
The first husband. You cannot be first.
Melanie was saying brightly that she would call
Valerie and maybe this weekend they could go out together to dinner, that new seafood restaurant in Nyack everyone has been talking about, and Leonard laughed, with a nod toward the window beside
his seat where some distance below the oily dark sprawl of the Hudson River was lapsing into dusk: “Ever think, Melanie, that river is like a gigantic boa constrictor? It’s like time,
eventually to swallow and digest us all?”

Melanie laughed sharply as if not hearing this, or hearing enough to know that she didn’t really want to hear more of it. Promising she’d tell Sam hello from him and she’d call
Valerie very soon, with a faint, forced smile lurching away somewhere behind Leonard Chase to her seat.

He would track down the first husband, he would erase the man from consciousness. He would erase the man’s memory, in which his own wife existed. Except he was a
civilized human being, a decent human being, except he feared being apprehended and punished, that was what he would do.

Early November when he’d discovered the Key West photos. Late February when his CEO called him into his office in the tower.

The meeting was brief. One or two others had been taken to lunch first, which had not been a good idea; Leonard was grateful to be spared lunch. Through a roaring in his ears he heard. Watched
the man’s piranha mouth. Steely eyes through bifocal glasses like his own.

Downsized. Stock options. Severance pay. Any questions?

He had no legal grounds to object. Possibly he had moral grounds, but he wouldn’t contest it. He knew the company’s financial situation. Since 9/11 they’d been in a tailspin.
These were facts you might read in the
Wall Street Journal.
Then came the terrible blow, unexpected—at least, Leonard believed it to be unexpected—the ruling in Atlanta: a
federal court judge upheld a crushing $33 million award to a hotel-chain plaintiff plus $8 million in punitive damages. The architectural firm for which he’d worked for the past seven years
was hard hit. Conceding yes, he understood. Failure was a sickness that burned like fever in the eyes of the afflicted. No disguising that fever, like jaundice-yellow eyes.

Soon to be forty-six. Burned out. The battlefield is strewn with burned-out litigators. His fingers shook, cold as a corpse’s, yet he would shake the CEO’s hand in parting, he would
meet the man’s gaze with something like dignity.

He had the use of his office for several more weeks. And the stock options and severance pay were generous. And Valerie wouldn’t need to know exactly what had happened, possibly ever.

“. . . seem distracted lately, Leonard. I hope it isn’t . . .”

They were undressing for bed. That night in their large, beautifully furnished bedroom. Gusts of wind rattled the windows, which were leaded windows, inset with wavy glass in mimicry of the old
glass that had once been, when the original house had been built in 1791.

“. . . anything serious? Your health . . .”

From his corner of the room Leonard called over, in a voice meant to comfort, that of course he was fine, his health was fine. Of course.

“Damned wind! It’s been like this all day.”

Valerie spoke fretfully, as if someone were to blame.

Neither had brought up the subject of the trip to Italy in some time. Postponed to March, but no specific plans had been made. The tenth anniversary had come and gone.

In her corner of their bedroom, an alcove with a built-in dresser and closets with mirrors affixed to their doors, Valerie was undressing as, in his corner of the bedroom, a smaller alcove with
but a single mirrored door, Leonard was undressing. As if casually, Leonard called over to her, “Did you ever love me, Valerie? When you first married me, I mean.” In his mirror Leonard
could see just a blurred glimmer of one of Valerie’s mirrors. She seemed not to have heard his question. The wind buffeting the house was so very loud. “For a while? In the beginning?
Was there a time?” Not knowing if his voice was pleading or threatening. If, if this woman heard, like the frightened woman on the train she would laugh nervously and wish to escape him.

“Maybe I should murder us both, Valerie. ‘Downsize.’ It could end very quickly.”

He didn’t own a gun. Had no access to a gun. Rifle? Could you go into a sporting goods store and buy a rifle? A shotgun? Not a handgun; he knew that was more difficult in New York State.
You had to apply for a license, there was a background check, paperwork. The thought made his head ache.

“. . . that sound, what is it? I’m frightened.”

In her corner of the room Valerie stood very still. How like an avalanche the wind was sounding! There had been warnings over the years that the hundred-foot cliff above Salthill Landing might
one day collapse after a heavy rainstorm, and there had been small landslides from time to time, and now it began to sound as if the cliff might be disintegrating, a slide of rock, rubble, uprooted
trees rushing toward the house, about to collapse the roof . . . In his corner of the room Leonard stood as if transfixed, his shirt partly unbuttoned, in his stocking feet, waiting.

They would die together, in the debris. How quickly, then, the end would come!

No avalanche, only the wind. Valerie shut the door of her bathroom firmly behind her; Leonard continued undressing and climbed into bed. It was a vast tundra of a bed, with a hard mattress. By
morning the terrible wind would subside. Another dawn! Mists on the river, a white wintry sun behind layers of cloud. Another day Leonard Chase would enter with dignity, he was certain.

2.

“Dwayne Ducharme, eh? Welcome to Denver.”

There came Mitchell Oliver Yardman to shake Leonard’s hand in a crushing grip. He was “Mitch” Yardman, realtor and insurance agent, and he appeared to be the only person on
duty at Yardman Realty & Insurance this afternoon.

“Not that this is Denver, eh? Makeville is what this is here—you wouldn’t call it a suburb of anyplace. Used to be a mining town, see. Probably you never heard of Makeville
back east, and this kind of scenery, prob’ly you’re thinking ain’t what you’d expect of the West, eh? Well, see, Dwayne Ducharme, like I warned you on the phone: this is
east Colorado. High desert plain. The Rockies is in the other direction.”

Yardman’s smile was wide and toothy yet somehow grudging, as if he resented the effort such a smile required. Here was a man who’d been selling real estate for a long time, you could
see. Even as he spoke in his grating mock-western drawl, Yardman’s shrewd eyes were rapidly appraising his prospective client Dwayne Ducharme, who’d made an appointment to see small
ranch properties within commuting distance of Denver.

So this was Oliver Yardman! Twenty-one years after the Key West idyll, the man had thickened, grown coarser, yet there was the unmistakable sexual swagger, the sulky spoiled-boy mouth.

Yardman was shorter than Leonard had expected, burly and as solid-built as a fire hydrant. He had a rucked forehead and a fleshy nose riddled with small broken veins, and his breath was meaty,
sour. He wore a leathery-looking cowboy hat, an expensive-looking rumpled suede jacket, a lime-green shirt with a black string tie looped around his neck, rumpled khakis, badly scuffed leather
boots. He seemed impatient, edgy. His hands, which were busily gesticulating in twitchy swoops like the gestures of a deranged magician, were noticeably large, with stubby fingers, and on the
smallest finger of his left hand he wore a showy gold signet ring with a heraldic crest.

The first husband.
Leonard’s heart kicked in his chest; he was in the presence of his enemy.

In the office, which was hardly more than a storefront and smelled of stale cigarette smoke, Yardman showed Leonard photographs of “ranch-type” properties within “easy
commuting distance” of downtown Denver. In his aggressive, mock-friendly yet grudging voice, Yardman kept up a continual banter, peppering Leonard with facts, figures, statistics, punctuating
his words with
Eh?
It was a verbal tic that Yardman seemed unaware of or was helpless to control, and Leonard steeled himself waiting to hear it, dry-mouthed with apprehension that Yardman
was suspicious of him, eyeing him so intimately.

“. . . tight schedule, eh? Goin’ back tomorrow, you said? Said your firm’s relocating? Some kinda computer parts, eh? There’s a lot of that in Denver, ‘lectronics,
chips, these are boom times for some, eh? Demographics’re movin’west, for sure. Population shift. Back east, billion-dollar companies goin’ down the toilet, you hear.”
Yardman laughed heartily, amused by the spectacle of companies going down a toilet.

Leonard said, in Dwayne Ducharme’s earnest voice, “Mr. Yardman, I’ve been very—”

“Mitch. Call me Mitch, eh?”

“Mitch. I’ve been very lucky to be transferred to our Denver branch. My company has been downsized, but—”

“Tell me about it, man! Downsize. Cut back. Ain’t that the story of these United States lately, eh?” Yardman was suddenly vehement, incensed. His pronunciation was savage:
Yoo-nited States.

Leonard said, with an air of stubborn naivete, “Mr. Yardman, my wife and I think of this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To relocate to the West from the crowded East. We’re
Methodist Evangelicals, and the church is flourishing in Colorado, and we have a twelve-year-old boy dying to raise horses, and my wife thinks—”

“That is so interesting, Dwayne,” Yardman interrupted, with a rude smirk. “You are one of a new pioneer breed relocating to our wide-open spaces and relaxed way of life and
lower taxes. Seems to me I have just the property for you: six-acre ranch, four-bedroom house for the growin’ family, barn in good repair, creek runs through the property, fences, shade
trees, aspens, in kinda a valley where there’s deer and antelope to hunt. Just went on the market a few days ago. Dwayne Ducharme, this is serendip’ty, eh?”

Yardman locked up the office. Pulled down a sign on the front door: closed. When he wasn’t facing Leonard, his sulky mouth retained its fixed smile.

Outside, the men had a disagreement: Yardman wanted to drive his prospective client to the ranch, which was approximately sixteen miles away, and Leonard insisted on driving his rental car.
Yardman said, “Why’n hell we need two vehicles, eh? Save gas. Keep each other company. It’s the usual procedure, see.” Yardman’s vehicle was a new-model Suburban with
smoke-tinted windows, bumper stickers featuring the American flag, and a dented right rear door. It was both gleaming black and splattered with mud like coarse lace. Inside, a dog was barking
excitedly, throwing itself against the window nearest Leonard and slobbering the glass. “That’s Kaspar. Spelled with a
K.
Bark’s worse ‘n his bite. Kaspar ain’t
goin’ to bite you, Dwayne, I guarantee.” Yardman slammed the flat of his hand against the window, commanding the dog to “settle down.” Kaspar was an Airedale, purebred,
Yardman said. Damn good breed, but needs discipline. “You buy this pretty li’l property out at Mineral Springs for your family, you’ll want a dog. ‘Man’s best
friend’ is no bullshit.”

But Leonard didn’t want to ride with Yardman and Kaspar; Leonard would drive his own car. Yardman stared at him, baffled. Clearly, Yardman was a man not accustomed to being contradicted or
thwarted in the smallest matters. He said, barely troubling to disguise his contempt, “Well, Dwayne, you do that. You in your li’l Volva, Volvo, Vulva, you do that. Kaspar and me will
drive ahead, see you don’t get lost.”

In a procession of two vehicles they drove through the small town of Makeville in the traffic of early Saturday afternoon, in late March. It was a windy day, tasting of snow. Overhead were
massive clouds like galleons. What a relief, to be free of Yardman’s overpowering personality! Leonard hadn’t slept well the night before, nor the night before that; his nerves were
strung tight. In his compact rental car he followed the military-looking black Suburban through blocks of undistinguished storefronts, stucco apartment buildings, taverns, X-rated video stores, and
onto a state highway crowded with the usual fast-food restaurants, discount outlets, gas stations, strip malls. All that seemed to remain of Makeville’s mining-town past were the Gold Strike
Go-Go, Strike-It-Rich Lounge, Silver Lining Barbecue. Beyond the highway was a mesa landscape of small stunted trees, rocks. To get to Yardman Really & Insurance at 661 Main Street, Makeville,
Leonard had had a forty-minute drive from the Denver airport through a dispiriting clog of traffic and air hazier than the air of Manhattan on most days.

He thought,
Can he guess? Any idea who I am?

He was excited, edgy. No one knew where Leonard Chase was.

Outside town, where the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour, Yardman pushed the Suburban toward seventy leaving Leonard behind. It was to punish him, Leonard knew: Yardman allowed other
vehicles to come between him and Leonard, then pulled off onto the shoulder of the road to allow Leonard to catch up. In a gesture of genial contempt, Yardman signaled to him and pulled out onto
the highway before him, fast. In the rear window of the Suburban was an American flag. On the rear bumper were stickers:
BUSH CHENEY USA; KEEP HONKING, I
’
M RELOADING
.

Yardman’s family must have been rich at one time. Yardman had been sent east to college. Though he played the yokel, it was clear that the man was shrewd, calculating. Something had
happened in his personal life and in his professional life, possibly a succession of things. He’d had money, but not now. Valerie would never have married Yardman otherwise. Wouldn’t
have kept the lewd Polaroids for more than two decades.