Luv watched the car's lights creep away to the south, then turn and head slowly back to the north. He sat just inside the treeline where it came down to the road, resting his back against the trash bag. He was winded and sore from the two-way hike carrying Inge's remains, but he felt exultant as he saw the lights moving toward him in one last sweep. Luv eased himself slowly onto the ground, careful not to make any sudden movement to catch the driver's. He knew how difficult it was to see anything clearly eye in the headlights of a moving car. He had but to remain still on the ground-could probably even have stood bolt upright-to be undetected. This time past Luv saw that it was a police car, and stifled a laugh. Run, run, as fast as you can, he thought merrily. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. Grunting with the effort, he lifted his burden again and moved as quickly as he could toward his waiting car. He would put Inge back in the trunk and wait for another chance to get rid of her. He would not let the police, of all people, panic him into doing anything precipitous. He knew how they worked, they would not be hard to avoid. There were hundreds of square miles of woodlands to choose from and he would not be interrupted again.
But Inge would have to wait for another night, he had to get home to his wife before she awoke. She took two sleeping pills every night and slept like a bear in winter, then complained all day that she never got a wink.
He staggered the last few yards to his car, his labored breathing breaking the silence of the night. If I had known how hard this was going to be, he joked to himself, I would have taken up another line of work. Luv was in a wonderful mood; the stupid cop had turned an ordinary bit of business into an evenin of excitement. It was almost better than luvvving.
12
Kom played tennis with the uncontrolled energy of a natural competitor with little athletic ability. He flailed away from the back of the court, impinging on his wife's territory on every ball that came her way, trying to do the work of two. He would surge to the net, calling "Up!" to Tovah who remained on the baseline, watching him dis dainfully. When Becker or Karen lobbed the ball over him, he would race backward awkwardly with a startled yelp, all widening hips and duck-footed shamble, calling "Mine!" no matter where the ball was headed. When he lost the point, and the game, as he almost inevitably did, it did not seem to bother him in the slightest.
Sweating profusely, he pronounced it all "terrific," and looked dead keen for more.
After the first set, a massacre, they changed partners and Becker walked to Tovah's side of the net while Kom traded places with him.
Tovah watched Becker approach with the same look of disdain she had showered on her husband.
"You'll hate me," Tovah announced.
"Why would I do that?"
"I can't play," she said.
"Doesn't look to me as if you've had much opportunity yet," Becker said.
"I'll just stay out of your way," she said.
"And I'll try to stay out of yours."
"Karen is such a good player. I can't play like that."
"She's a tiger," Becker agreed. He looked across the court at his wife, already in position at net, swaying lightly on her toes, eager to get on with the game. She looked every inch an athlete, and was. It was hard to say just what Tovah looked like other than a model in a tennis outfit. She sported a wide red headband but had not yet moved enough to break a sweat, despite the heat. Becker wondered what she got out of a game like this, it certainly was not the exercise. Not that she appeared to need any. Tall and lean, she looked beautiful in whatever she wore, transforming even the worst of fashions into raiments of adornment with a mannequin's air of indifference. He realized that he was getting used to the jewelry-although it appeared that she was wearing fewer bracelets than at dinner-and the face paint, which today was an unnatural shade of pink.
"But it's a team game," Becker continued. "One strategy we might try is to avoid the stronger player and concentrate on the weaker. What do you think?":,How?" 'Hit every ball to your husband," he said.
Tovah burst into laughter, the first genuine expression of amusement he had ever seen from her.
"Wonderful," she said with relish. "Let's kill him."
Kom took Karen to see the gardens, enthusing over his flower beds and vegetables with a verve that seemed to equal his zest for tennis.
"As if he does the gardening," Tovah said, as the others moved out of earshot. "He thinks memorizing the Latin name of things makes him a gardener."
"You do the actual work, do you?" Becker asked. "We have a man who does the gardening," she said dismissively. "Stanley does the appreciating.
To me, one zucchini looks just like another."
"Well, it's good to have enthusiasms, I suppose," Becker said, feeling platitudinous.
"Oh, Stanley has his enthusiasms," she said, chuckling bitterly. "He does have his enthusiasms."
She stretched her long legs straight in front of her until she was almost sliding out of her chair.
"You think I'm awful, don't you?" she asked.
"You just need practice."
"I don't mean tennis. I couldn't care less about tennis. I mean as a person. You think I'm awful and you think Stanley is great. You think he's so open and so much fun."
"No," said Becker.
"Why not? Everyone else does."
"I mean I don't think you're awful. Stanley's fine-but so are you. You just seem-a little hard on yourself"
"She thinks I'm awful," Tovah said, tilting her head toward Stanley and Karen.
"No she doesn't. Not at all. Karen likes you."
Tovah's chest heaved in a mirthless laugh. "No she doesn't, I can tell.
A woman can tell. Your wife thinks Stanley is just so wonderful, so vulnerable, so damned all courant. He's the goddamned sensitive man they're always talking about."
Becker looked at Karen and Kom and wished they would hurry back. He was pointing out a flourishing bed of blue and purple and burgundy blossoms, kneeling in front of particular plants, cupping the floral heads with one hand, gesticulating with the other. Karen was nodding, looking interested. Becker could not tell from this distance if she was sincere or not. He watched them turn the corner and disappear around the side of the house like a man on a lifeboat regarding a ship sailing over the horizon.
"If she only knew," Tovah was saying.
"Knew what?" As so often with Tovah, Becker felt as if he was missing the most important part of the conversation, the part that would tell him what she was really talking about.
"What he's really like."
"What is he really like?"
"He's a toad," she said. "Not that you would think so. A man wouldn't think so. A man would probably think he's great, just the way you do."
"What makes him a toad?" Becker asked.
She sighed with a puff, like a tire losing air. "What makes any man a toad?"
Becker was not sure he knew the answer, but he felt a fool for asking.
As Karen and Kom stepped around the corner of the house, Kom stopped abruptly and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial level.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"About what?"
"How are they getting on?"
Karen looked at him in some bewilderment. "Who?"