The Night, The Day (22 page)

chapter 42

R
ichard Schwartz admired the colors
of autumn as he sat on a park bench, waiting for his Israeli associates. He had purposely arrived early at Grace Avenue Park in Great Neck to enjoy a few moments with nature before attending to business.

The Great Neck peninsula was replete with parks, trees and hills, juxtaposing God’s hand on this otherwise saturated residential and commercial area. In this sense, it was quite unlike the Lower East Side of Manhattan where Schwartz had been raised, or his current Georgetown residence where he spent little time. The scent of green in the air coupled with the sounds of chirping birds made him long for something different. It was time for him to move on to the next stage of his life.

This was it, he had been telling himself the past few weeks, his last hurrah. The people he chased were old and dying, and the world no longer cared. Some tribute, he mused, to a career that had sapped his blood and wrecked his family.

He heard footsteps, turned, and saw the Israelis approaching. He exchanged brief niceties with them as they sat down, Galit to his right, Arik and Kovi to his left.

“There have been some developments,” Schwartz said.

“What do you mean?” Arik asked.

“It seems that our Dr. Rosen knows about Benoît,” Schwartz responded.

“How did you learn this?” Galit snapped.

Schwartz figured the Mossad agents assumed that he must have been tapping Rosen’s office behind their backs. “Gifford,” he answered.

The Israelis’ expressions changed.

“Gifford?” Galit said. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s a long story,” Schwartz replied. “Suffice it to say that Gifford did his own searching, for his own reasons, found out who we are and what we’re doing, and told Rosen.”

“What exactly did he tell Rosen?” Kovi asked.

“He didn’t tell him about Benoît. He doesn’t actually know about Benoît. He told him about us, and he believes that Rosen put the pieces together himself. The good news is that neither Gifford nor Rosen know about Galit.”

The Israelis were silent as they digested the information.

“This is all a surprise to you?” Schwartz asked Galit.

She glared at him furiously. “What kind of question is that?”

“One that I had to ask.”

“Look,” Arik interjected, “we have to decide where we go from here.”

“This changes things,” Schwartz added.

They all turned to Galit.

“Since when does he know?” she asked.

“Past day or so,” Schwartz responded.

“I haven’t spoken to him in the past day,” she said.

“I wonder if he will tell you,” Kovi speculated.

“I know he’ll say something. It would be hard for him not to,” Galit said.

“Considering your relationship,” Arik added derisively.

“Listen,” Schwartz said, “you folks can have your little frays on your own time. Right now, we need to figure out our next move.” He looked at Arik. “Personally, I think it’s helpful that Galit is close to Rosen. Gives us an edge.”

Arik responded with a tentative nod.

Schwartz turned to Galit. “What do you think he’ll do?”

Galit shrugged.

“I believe the question should be: What are
we
going to do?” Kovi said.

“I agree,” Schwartz added. “I suggest that, rather than waiting to see what Rosen’s move is, we try to push things a little further along.”

Arik and Kovi appeared eager. Galit, wary. The thought of manipulating Martin Rosen any further didn’t seem to sit well with her.

Schwartz reached for a large manila envelope sitting in his briefcase under the bench and gave it to Galit. “See that this somehow falls into Rosen’s hands,” he said.

She looked at the envelope but didn’t bother opening it. They all knew what was inside it.

“And what is this supposed to do?” she asked.

“Like you folks have been doing for the past few weeks, I’m just spitting in the wind,” Schwartz replied. “It would be interesting to see what develops if we shake things up a bit though. Don’t you think?”

Arik and Kovi nodded. Galit remained still.

Schwartz looked at his watch. “Well, I gotta go.”

Galit understood. The decision had been made, and if she wanted to continue playing on his field, it had to be by his rules.

Okay
, she told herself with a deep breath. After all, she, more than anyone, wanted this thing done with.

chapter 43

C
heryl Manning got out of
the cab and walked up the path toward the house. It was a fairly mild evening, yet she couldn’t help shivering. She rang the doorbell with an unsteady hand and waited.

She heard footsteps from inside the house approaching the door, swallowed hard, and somehow managed a smile as the door opened.

“Hi,” Martin said, wearing his enthusiasm.

“Hi,” she responded as she stepped in.

“Well, this is my home.” He gestured to the surroundings.

“Very nice,” she said, looking around.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Earlier in the day, he had told her that he still wasn’t ready for her to meet Elizabeth, but he did want her to spend the night at
his
place for a change. He had given the nanny the night off, which he knew she would spend with her boyfriend, and made a sleepover date for Elizabeth with her cousins in Brooklyn.

“I’m glad too,” she said.

Martin had spent the past few hours trying to prepare some semblance of a dinner, ruminating over the day’s events, and confronting the question of whether to collect all of Katherine’s pictures and put them away. In the end, the dinner had gotten ruined, and he’d decided to keep the pictures where they were.

His decision regarding the pictures had been mostly instinctive, but upon reflection, he believed it was important for Cheryl to see and understand who Katherine was. He simply couldn’t hide or dismiss his past. Beyond that, he was convinced that, had he removed the pictures, Cheryl would most likely have asked to see them.

He moved closer to her, kissed her and put his arm around her. “Come, let me show you around.”

He walked her to the entrance of the living room. She stepped away from him and entered the room herself, spun around slowly, and offered a nod of approval. Her reaction surprised him, considering that her apartment was so… different. He wondered for a moment if that difference was merely the result of her being a career woman with no time for domestic considerations, or indicative of something else.
Turn it off, Marty
, he told himself.

As he had anticipated, she carefully perused the artwork, then the photographs. The ones that caught her attention were arranged atop a black Baldwin baby grand.

“Who plays?” Cheryl asked, trying to be subtle about her interest in the photos.

“No one, now,” Martin answered. “I suppose Elizabeth will take it up. She likes to bang on the keys and make believe she’s playing.”

“Katherine played?” The pictures helped her avoid looking at him as she asked the question.

“Yes. It was one of her passions.”

“As was decorating, I can see.”

“Yes.”

“She was very beautiful,” she said, turning to him with a picture in her hand.

He nodded.

She smiled slightly.

“Can I show you the rest of the house?”

She returned the picture to its place and reached for his hand. “Gladly.”

The rest of the tour went quickly, a formality that both of them were eager to dispense with. Afterward, she sat on the sofa in the den, while he excused himself to the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with two glasses and a bottle of red wine.

“Wine?” she asked.

“Dostoyevsky said, ‘Man is a creature who can get used to anything.’”

She examined the bottle. A Chilean Merlot, very impressive. Her smile widened.

He poured.

“To new things,” he said.

“You like that toast.”

“It’s growing on me.”

They sipped and looked at each other.

“So, how was your day?” she asked.

“The usual,” he said, hoping to leave it at that. He had resigned himself to forgetting his problems for the evening.

“It must be stressful, listening to everybody’s misery and having them expect you to fix it all.”

“It can be,” he responded.

Their conversation was interrupted by the doorbell.

“Expecting someone?” she asked as he got up.

Donning a slightly embarrassed look, he said, “Dinner.”

“I thought you were…”

“I’ll explain everything,” he replied, already halfway out the room.

She rose from the couch, walked into the foyer and watched him pay the delivery man. He turned around holding two paper bags, one with a menu stapled across the top that had Asian characters on it.

“Chinese?” she asked.

“Japanese,” he responded, walking past her to the kitchen.

She turned and followed behind him. “As in sushi?”

He looked at her, wondering if there was a problem. “You don’t like it?”

“Raw fish?”

Uh oh,
he thought. “I really tried to make steak for dinner, but it ended up getting a little… overcooked.”

“Overcooked?”

“Burnt.”

Her look said,
How did you manage that
?

“I think my mind just wasn’t in it,” he confessed.

“Where, then, was your mind?” she asked playfully.

He took a deep breath, still trying to erase Benoît from his thoughts. “Work stuff.”

“Now there’s a detailed answer.”

“Sorry.”

He opened up the first bag. “I ordered a lot of odds and ends. I’m sure there’ll be something you like.”

She came over to help him unpack it. “Let’s see what we have here.”

A few hours later, she awoke, surprised to find herself alone in the bed. She lifted her head, looked around, but he wasn’t in the room. She got up, taking the sheet to cover herself, and walked out to the hallway.

“Marty,” she called.

There was no answer.

She searched the two other bedrooms, Elizabeth’s and the guest room, but both were empty. She decided to try downstairs. As she descended, her footsteps intruded upon the silence, until she came to the foot of the stairs and thought she heard something from the den. She walked slowly toward the den and called his name again.

“In here,” he said.

She entered the den and found him sitting in a chair, looking out a window at the night.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Want company?”

“Sure.”

His tone was far from convincing, but she planted herself on the couch anyway. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I don’t know if I’m sure of anything,” he said as if he were talking to himself.

She looked down at the floor next to the chair and saw an empty Scotch glass. “You’ve been drinking?”

“I’m not drunk,” he clarified. “Just a few ounces to clear my mind.”

“And is your mind clear?”

He thought for a moment. “Not really.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea. It’s about a patient, and I really shouldn’t discuss my cases with…”

“It’s okay, I understand,” she interjected. “Would you like to be alone?”

“No,” he said, seemingly surprised by his own response. “I’d like you to stay.”

“Then I will.”

They sat silently for a few moments.

“Let me ask you this,” Martin said.

She perked up, thinking that he was going to get into it.

“Do you find that people frequently aren’t who and what they profess to be?” he continued.

“What do you mean?”

“People. You deal with them all the time. What do you think, are most of them phonies?”

“I don’t know,” she said, hiding her uneasiness. She reflected a moment. “I suppose in my line of work, everyone is putting on a show.”

“It’s that way in my field as well,” he muttered.

“How so?”

“Patients. They lie all the time. Mostly to themselves, occasionally to me. Every now and then I get a whopper, but it’s part of the job. People have defenses. Lying is very common. I’ve grown used to it over the years, I’ve even developed the skills to deal with it… until today.”

“What happened today?”

“Today I found out that I was being told the mother of all lies.”

“And what difference does that make? Why can’t you handle this the way you always have?”

He thought about her question. “Because
this
is different.”

She looked into his eyes and somehow knew that the moment had arrived. She could no longer handle her own complicity in what was happening to him. It had to come to an end. “Marty?” she said.

He gazed at her.

She hesitated. “I am one of those people.”

“What people?”

“People who pretend to be what they aren’t.”

“I wasn’t talking about you.”

“But you were.” Her eyes became watery.

“Cheryl?”

She put her head in her hands.

He got up from his chair and sat down beside her. “Are you okay?” He stroked her hair.

She lifted her head, faced him, and took his hands. “I have to tell you something, Marty.”

“Sure, anything.”

Her lips quivered. “I… just need for you to know that I… love you very much.”

“I know…”

She put her finger over his lips.

“That no matter what happens between us, I have never met a man in my life that I have felt so deeply for.”

He grasped her hand. “Please, tell me, what’s the matter?”

She took a deep breath and stood up. Convinced that she was about to spill all, she opened her mouth and suddenly found herself paralyzed. She couldn’t do it. Searching for something, anything, to say, the only words she could muster were, “I have to go.”

“
Go?
Go where?”

“Please, Marty, don’t ask me any more questions. I just can’t be here right now.”

“This is nuts! You’re about to tell me something that is obviously important, then all you say is that you have to leave?”

She stood, silent, looking out the window.

He got up and walked over to her. “Cheryl?”

“I’m sorry, Marty,” she said. “We were talking about your problems and somehow ended up here.”

“It’s okay.” He put his arms around her.

“No it isn’t. There are things about me that… you don’t know.”

“So tell me.”

She hesitated, then turned around to him. “I will. But not right now. Not tonight. Please, just let me leave. I promise I’ll tell you everything soon.”

He was about to say something else when she put her hand over his mouth once again.

“Please,” she said.

He watched from the window as she got into the cab, wondering what in hell had just happened. After the scene in the den, she had simply gone upstairs, put on her clothes, called the cab and left. He had come out of the den to say goodbye when she was already halfway out the door.

“I’ll call you,” was all he had time to say.

“Okay.”

Now he stood, puzzled, though not completely shocked. He had suspected all along that there was something not quite right, and had known that sooner or later he would have to confront whatever it was. Only this particular evening was just about the worst of all possible times for that.

He turned from the window and went searching for his bottle of scotch.