“But we want you to have something-a bonus-for everything you’ve done. We can give it to Mike, and he can pass it along to you. That’s okay, right? Or do you want cash? We could do that too.”
“You can do whatever the hell you please,” I said, surprised by my own sudden anger. “It’s your money. If you’re determined to get rid of some, I can think of a dozen charities that could use it.” Helene drew back, her face stiff. She was very still.
“I’ve offended you somehow, John,” Helene said softly, the accent more distinct in her lowered voice. “I don’t know how, but I must’ve, and I’m very sorry. It’s the last thing I meant to do. If you’d like us to make a charitable donation, of course we will. Just tell me where to send it.” I was quiet and so was she, for what seemed a long time. My eyes flickered down the counter to the manila envelope, and Helene’s eyes followed.
“Jesus,” she said, in a slow, tired sigh. She shook her head. She pressed her palms together in her lap and looked down at them and took a deep breath. When she spoke her voice was flat and exhausted.
“You looked. And now you’re angry with us-angry with me. You, too? Why, because I lied? Because you saw the pictures and read the papers, and now you think that I’m a whore and Rick’s a crook? Is that it? You’re mad because you worked so hard, and got hurt, and it turned out to be all on account of a whore and a crook?” She ran out of breath and stopped. She shook her head a little.
“You’re mad? How do you think we feel? All you did was work for a whore. It could’ve been worse. You could’ve woken up one morning to find you’d married one.” She laughed, harsh and bitter. A tear rolled down her cheek, and then another, but she did not sob or sniffle.
“I was nineteen, for god’s sake. I was a kid-too stupid, too full of myself. Were you never like that? Am I the only one?” A shudder ran through her and her shoulders shook but she bit back whatever was welling up. “And Rick-back then, he wasn’t much more than a kid himself. He was finding his way, trying to make something out of his life. And the world he found himself in just didn’t seem to want any part of him.” The breath left her again and she paused, still shaking her head.
“You want an apology? Fine, we’ve got plenty of those-even more than we’ve got money. That’s all we do now is say we’re sorry. I say I’m sorry to Rick, for being… for not being what he thought I was. He says he’s sorry to me for the mistakes he’s made. He breaks down; I hold him together, and he says he’s sorry for that too. We both say it, silently, to the children, and we pray they never know any of this.” She stopped and held her glass, as if she was about to drink, but she didn’t. Her voice was exhausted, too thin and strained to carry anger or sadness or anything other than her plain words.
“Jesus, I am just so tired of it all. I just want it to be over. But what’s one more between friends, huh, John?” She straightened herself in her seat and put her hands in her lap. Tears were still rolling slowly down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry you think I’m a whore. I’m sorry Rick and I weren’t worthy of your efforts. There, does that about cover it?” She stood and pulled on her coat. She reached down the counter and took the envelope and tucked it in her bag. She chuckled ironically.
“Maybe you should have some kind of test for prospective clients; find out beforehand if they measure up to your moral standards. Find out if they’re the kind of people who deserve your help. Then you could avoid these problems.” She wiped her eyes and cheeks with the back of her hand, and drank some seltzer. Then she looked at me and shook her head. She put her hand lightly on my arm.
“I’m sorry, John. That was… that wasn’t right. This has been so terrible. It’s taken such a toll. I wish you could’ve known us before all this. This isn’t us. We’re… we’re good people. I know that must sound stupid to you.” She squeezed my arm gently and moved away, unhurried, to the door. I spoke as she reached for the knob.
“You ever go back to East Hampton?” I asked. She turned around.
“It was expensive to keep up, and there were vandalism problems, too, and it took so long to get out there, that’s why we sold it,” she said.
Her answer was matter-of-fact and mundane, low-key and unexceptional. It was delivered smoothly, but with pauses and stops in all the right places, so it didn’t seem practiced. It was the best kind of lying. But it was the answer to a question I hadn’t quite asked, and in the instant the words passed her lips, we both knew it. We looked at each other across a dense silence.
There was the briefest flash of something in Helene’s eyes. Fear? Anger? It was gone too quickly to tell, replaced by a steely calculation, a quick, cold weighing of options and odds and possible outcomes. It reminded me, suddenly and vividly, of the look in Bernhard Trautmann’s eyes when I’d stared at them over the barrel of my gun.
“Fuck you,” she said, like she was spitting out a pit, and she left.
I stared at the door for a long time, until the hairs on the back of my neck relaxed and my spine warmed up. Helene Pierro was a scary person, less obviously so than someone like Trautmann, but all the more dangerous because of that. Her perfume still hung in the air, more like a threat than a promise now.
I rinsed Helene’s glass and my own and put them in the dishwasher. Then I wrote out a check to Randy DiSilva, slipped it in an envelope, and went out to mail it. The temperature was dropping with the sun, and a chill ran through me as I stood in the doorway of my building. I found myself checking the street, as I had when I’d thought Trautmann might be around, looking for payback, and realized I had that same creepy, watch-your-back feeling. I shook my head. Helene was scary, I told myself, but a drive-by wasn’t her style. I dropped the letter in the box on the corner and went back home. I was hurting in many different places, and my bed was calling.
I pulled the shades and kicked off my shoes and stretched out. I thought some more about my conversation with Helene, and about calling Mike, and somewhere in there I drifted off. Despite my weariness, or maybe because of it, my sleep was tiring and fevered. I tossed and turned and got tangled in the sheets and pillows. I came near to waking several times, and when I did I was sweating. My eyes were hot, and my throat felt parched and dusty. I willed myself back down. At some point I had the dream again, or a version of it. It was by the lake and Anne was there, but so was Helene Pierro and someone else, whose face I couldn’t see. I was calling out to… someone, when the doorbell woke me.
It was dark out, just six p.m., according to my clock. I rubbed my face and my head. I went into the bathroom and drank cold water from the tap. The bell rang again. I splashed water on my face and took some deep breaths. Then I went to the door, flicking on lights as I walked. I looked through the peephole. Jane Lu. I opened the door and Jane smiled at me, but her smile turned into a frown as she surveyed the latest damage.
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “How can you get any health insurance?” She wore a charcoal gray pants suit with a bolero jacket, and underneath it a square-necked blouse in pearl gray. Her boots were black suede with a square heel. She held two paper bags in her arms. The delicious smell of Chinese food hit me, and my stomach made a longing noise. Hunger chased away my grogginess.
“Come in,” I yawned. “We can talk about my health plan after we eat.” I turned into the apartment, and as I did there were fast footsteps in the hallway. I turned back and saw a dark figure there, and Jane lurched forward and staggered into my arms. Her packages scattered. Evan Mills locked the door and pointed my gun at my face.