He's Gone (28 page)

“Dani? You okay?” Nathan says this instead of
hello
. “I’m sorry, shit. I see you’ve been calling me. I’m in my car. I couldn’t hear over the radio.”

“I’ve got to reach Desiree Harris and can’t get her number. I tried Kitty, but she won’t give it out. Kitty called Desiree herself, but she says she’s not there. I don’t believe it. I think she’s avoiding me.”

“I’m not … I’m at … Just a sec.” I hear him place an order for a number three with a root beer, and an intercom voice gives him a total.

“You’re at
Taco Time
?” I’m shocked, actually. It seems so
wrong. A detective is about to catch me in a lie about my missing husband, and his business partner is ordering a beef soft-taco meal.

“Dani, you sound awful.”

“You’ve got to get her to meet me. Or at least talk to me on the
phone
.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea—”

“Nathan.” I attempt to infuse my voice with reason. I unclench my fist, where my nails have left little red crescents in my skin. “She might know something. I’ve got to reach her.”

“I’m worried, Dani.”

“No one’s more worried than I am.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean, this might not look good. It feels … aggressive. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

“It’s not aggressive, Nathan. It’s
desperate
. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, there’s a
reason
.”

“She’s probably afraid.”

“Exactly.”

“No, I mean, you calling like this …”

“Afraid of
me
?” Ludicrous. I can’t even imagine it.

“Yes.”

I don’t say anything.

“You should hear your voice.”

I shut my eyes. It’s a two-second form of prayer without words. “Nathan, please help me,” I beg.

“Let me call her,” he says.

I hear a voice on the intercom again.
Hot sauce or ketchup with that?
And then there is the rustle of a paper bag. I summon every atom of calm I might have in my sorry cells.

“Thank you, Nathan,” I say.

Picture this, my first meeting with Paul Hartley Keller:

Ian and I are drinking a glass of wine in that narrow furnished apartment. It’s just the two of us so far. Ian keeps looking at his watch. Paul Hartley Keller is late.

Our knees are touching. Ian rubs my leg. I reach for my glass on the coffee table.

“Darling,” he says. “If you hold the glass up there, you warm the wine. Hold it by the stem. Or with your fingertips.”

“Ian, relax. Why are you so nervous?”

“I’m not nervous.”

I feel a prickle of irritation. “I won’t embarrass you.”

He leaps up at the knock. I stand, too, and pull my black skirt down.
We’re going to the Twilight
, Ian had said earlier in the week.
You know that black skirt you have? That tight white satin shirt? That’d be perfect
.

Ian answers the door. I can see where Ian gets his looks, first off, and his taste for expensive things. Paul Hartley Keller, even with his fleshy jowls, is a handsome man. He’s got a full head of gray hair, brushed back from his face, and icicle-blue eyes under bushy brows. He’s a big man. His suit is dark, beautiful, and he has a cashmere overcoat. His voice is large, too.

“Hell of a lot closer to civilization than your last place,” he says as he comes through the door. He is huffing badly; I hear a little wheeze that makes me nervous. But he fills that room. I feel his energy the minute he steps inside. This is much better than I was imagining. All at once, the night seems to hold possibilities. I’m actually excited for it. Who knows what might happen. You can tell this about Paul Hartley Keller right off: He makes things
happen
.

“Dad.” Not a hug, but a handshake. “This is Dani.”

“Mr. Keller,” I say.

He looks me directly in the eyes, holds my gaze. “Paul. Please.” He takes my hands. “Oh, your hands are so warm,” he says.

Ian stands around. He’s waiting for something, I can tell. What? Some acknowledgment of his new living arrangements? The apartment is stylish; there’s a view. The building is new and it still smells new. The furniture it came with is leather. The appliances are stainless, though Ian never uses anything in the kitchen except the microwave. But, really, what is there for Paul Hartley Keller to admire?

“Shall we?” Paul Hartley Keller says. “I left the car unlocked.”

“Not exactly a dangerous neighborhood,” Ian says, and meets my eyes. I smile, but I think he’s being overly sensitive. Paul Hartley Keller takes my arm, a firm grip, and stands close to me in the elevator. I slow my pace to his on the way to the car, aware of his effortful breathing, but the truth is, it’s better for me, too, with the shoes I’m wearing.

“Aren’t you a breath of fresh air,” he says. “A beautiful one like you, I bet you’re a very powerful woman.”

I laugh. “Well …” I say. We arrive at his Mercedes. It’s new. Gorgeous. Brushed silver.

He knows what I’m thinking. “Silver fox like me, eh?” I almost blush. I feel nervous, but it’s the good kind of nervous, the kind that’s hiding a secret center of giddiness. He opens the front door for me. There’s a moment of awkwardness, as I don’t want to sit in the front, but I do so anyway. This leaves Ian to sit in the back. I glance behind me, give him a brief look of apology. He looks like he’s about seven years old back there.

Paul Hartley Keller asks me what I do, and I tell him about my graphics firm. I use the word
firm
, though you could hardly call it that. I admit this. He chuckles. “Creative professions have the highest job satisfaction in the world,” he says. Maybe he’s
making this up, but, oh, well. Who cares? He pays the parking attendant with a folded bill and doesn’t wait for change. It’s a small, thrilling world in that car; it smells lush, lush leather and breath mints, and it
feels
lush. Music is playing, and the ride is like velvet. Ian keeps poking his head between us from the backseat, interjecting comments.

“I can’t hear anything back here,” he whines.

“You want me to turn this down, just say so.” Paul Hartley Keller’s hand hovers near the car’s stereo system.

“That’s fine,” Ian says.

“It’s the José Granada Trio,” he says to me. It’s some sort of flamenco. He turns it up a notch. “Like it?” I do like it. I like it a lot. It’s unusual and sexy and fun. He snaps the fingers of one hand as he keeps a casual but commanding hold of the wheel with the other. He smiles as if to say we share the joke. He’s the kind of man who’d be a great dancer, though. He’d guide you with a strong, definite hold. He’d know what to do.

The city looks especially beautiful through those tinted windows. Paul Hartley Keller pulls up to valet parking at the restaurant. The college kid opens the door for me. He’s dressed in black valet pants, a vest, and a crisp white shirt. It’s crazy, but I feel somehow glamorous getting out of that car. My legs feel longer; I’m more elegant.

Paul Hartley Keller has his hand on the small of my back as we go inside. We walk in together. Ian is behind us somewhere, separated at the revolving door. All these stories I’d heard about his father, and now look. He’s utterly charming. He’s not at all what I’d been expecting.

Paul Hartley Keller seems to know the hostess. We’re seated at a perfect table by the window. And this place—wow. There is a view here, too. A wider, more expansive view than the one in
Ian’s apartment or office; it’s of the city and the sound and the mountains beyond. It goes on forever.

Ian is already looking at his menu. “What’s the rush?” Paul Hartley Keller says. “You have a train to catch?” Ian sets the menu down. The restaurant is glittery with candlelight. I glide my napkin to my lap, where it feels as delicate as an orchid.

Paul Hartley Keller orders wine. The sommelier arrives with a white towel over one arm. Paul Hartley Keller sniffs and swirls and nods his approval. The wine is poured—red. I make sure to hold my glass with only my fingertips.

“Better than this,” Ian says. He holds his glass out to me, cupped in two hands. It’s cruel. I redden. I don’t know why he wants to skewer me.

“Private joke?” Paul Hartley Keller says.

“The way Dani was holding her glass earlier.”

“She could keep it on the table and lick from it like a cat, and she would look lovely doing it.” He clinks my glass. I clink his.

“Are you having the trout?” Ian says to me. He’s forgotten that I don’t like white fish.

“The grilled bluefin is excellent,” Paul says.

“I’ll have the petite filet,” I say to the waitress when she returns.

“Ah, the girl likes her meat,” he says. It sounds seductive, electrifying. I may be a powerful woman after all, who knew? Paul Hartley Keller tells us in great detail about a trip he’s thinking about taking, a cruise, but not the kind where a hundred people are huddled together on deck chairs. He likes his space. He likes the best service. The Greek Islands, the Aegean Sea, Santorini, Ios. The way he describes them, they sound like luxurious chocolates in a blue silk box.

“I should tell Dani my Microsoft story,” he says.

“I could tell her. I know it by heart,” Ian says. He’s becoming snippier and increasingly rude as the night goes on. The wine is amazing. A gentle heat blows through and disappears after each sip.

Paul Hartley Keller tells me how he warned Bill Gates about the idea Bill had to develop a computer for a regular person to use. “ ‘Doomed to fail,’ I said to him. ‘The average person doesn’t want to mess with that technological bullshit.’ He was sitting right there in my own living room. Just a kid. And Paul on my other side. The
other
Paul.”

“Oh, no,” I groan appreciatively. “Now, there’s a big
if only
 …”

“How are things going with your start-up?” he asks Ian.

“Six years, it’s still a start-up?”

“Whoa,” Paul says. He holds up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “The best companies can take years to get off the ground.”

“It’s going great. Profitable. Too profitable. Fifty percent of my stock may go to my ex-wife.” He looks up at his father. I can see it for what it is. It’s a line of connection thrown out his father’s way. Paul Hartley Keller lost a fortune to Ian’s mother when
they
divorced.

Paul shrugs.

“It’s been tough, you know?” Ian’s eyes are soft in the candlelight. They are almost pleading.

“You’ve been sitting in the middle of this for over a year,” Paul says. He spins the wine in his glass, sips again.

“I know. It’s hell.”

“What’re you doing this halfway for? Get in and finish the job. Move on.” Well, obviously, I couldn’t agree more. He touches the cuff of my blouse with the tip of his finger. He looks in my eyes. “I’m a man who always finishes the job.”

I feel a warm rush, and I am ashamed of myself. It’s attraction, but it’s also turning to disgust. I’m not sure who attracts me and
who disgusts me. I look at Ian, and I swear he has shrunk; it’s the wine or maybe the terrible, terrible yanking ropes of lineage and years of humiliation, but I swear Ian looks about a foot tall. He’s a tiny man sitting in that chair.

The waitress arrives. She has our plates balanced on her arms. Poached salmon and grilled bluefin and my filet with fine Roquefort potatoes. “Diane,” Paul says. The waitress has no name tag, so he obviously knows her from another visit. “When is your birthday? Let me guess.…” He waits; he looks her over. A man at another table is signaling his need for her with an upraised hand. It makes me nervous—the other diner wants his check and Diane is still hanging around, as if she has all the time in the world. “October,” Paul Hartley Keller declares.

“November.” She giggles. She has auburn hair. She has a long, thin neck like a ballet dancer.

“I knew it. Scorpio! Dynamic, passionate … aggressive.” He lifts one eyebrow at the last.

She laughs again. “Ah, yes. Watch out, mister.” She shakes my steak knife at him before setting it down next to my plate. I have an ugly feeling. Jealousy, repugnance. My own shine is dimming. “Anything else?” She pours him more wine without asking.

“That’s quite enough,” he flirts. He watches her ass as she leaves.

Definitely enough. My mood is turning sour. His charm is shriveling in my eyes now, too. That disgust I feel—it’s making its rounds. First it was Ian who disgusted me, then Paul. But I’m disgusted with myself the most.

We decline dessert, but he relishes his. He licks the spoon with a fat pink tongue.

On the way out, Paul sees someone he knows. He takes her hand, kisses her cheek. Her eyes shimmer. “Oh, your hands are so warm,” he says.

Paul asks the valet to call us a cab. He has people he’s going to meet. His fingers look like stout sausages as he hands over his credit card to pay. Ian and I don’t speak. The cab takes forever to get there. We stand at the curb, waiting and waiting, as the glittering people come and go.

Eight months later, Ian got a call with the news. Paul Hartley Keller had had a massive heart attack. He was dead. It happened at “a friend’s” apartment. I tried not to imagine the scene but did anyway: Paul Hartley Keller eating oysters in bed, post-sex. A “powerful woman” with her powerful thighs wrapped around his waist. It was a complete fabrication, but this is what I imagined when I thought of him dying. There were other factors, too, though, I guess, other than lust and desire. I remembered that wheezing when we walked uphill toward his car. And he had that diet of rich food and flattery that was obviously bad for the heart.