Maybe it was her conscience's way of squaring things, of saying to Denise, you can have that but you can't have everything, you don't deserve everything. Not that she needed a reminder. Denise had never expected much, and was always aware that she didn't deserve more than life had given her. Lyle was an astounding, illuminating, utterly undeserved gift. No one deserved such a blessing in her life, least of all her. But oh, she was grateful.
The size of the lobby intimidated her, as did the rather frosty young woman with the slight accent who awaited her at the registration desk.
Denise was certain that the woman knew what she was there for, that her wanton indecency showed in her inappropriate clothing-she should have chosen her linen sundress with the cap sleeves-in the look on her face, in the blush that ran to the roots of her hair. Denise carried a suitcase, but it had nothing in it besides the teddy she had purchased from Victoria's Secret for this occasion and her makeup kit and her toothbrush. It didn't feel right in her hand and she could tell by the glance the woman gave it that it didn't convince her, either.
She paid for the night in advance, in cash, as Lyle had told her to do, and signed the name Mrs. Marjorie Fanedean, which she and Lyle had made up together, giggling. She almost forgot and signed her own name and she was certain that the clerk had noticed her hesitation with a knowing glance.
A bellboy took her bag, although Denise would have preferred to carry it herself and she was sure that he knew it was almost empty. He was an older man and didn't leer at her, not openly anyway, but she knew that he would talk about her with the other employees. In the motels where they had met before, the opinions of the help didn't seem to matter. She seldom saw anyone other than the person who checked her in-there was no nonsense about signing registers, no pretense that any luggage was involved-and he or she was always so blatantly indifferent that after her first time-renting a room, she had not given it much thought. This was different, Denise felt sinful amidst all this luxury.
The room was so splendid that Denise went over it, detail by detail. She wanted to be able to appreciate it and reremember it, from the plush blackout curtains with their patterm of tea roses to the little motorized brush in the bathroom for shining shoes. Lyle had hinted that he wanted the room in the Marriott for a special reason and now that she saw how elegant it all was, she knew there was only one reason grand enough to justify it. Lyle was going to tell her that he would leave his wife and marry her. She had almost not dared to think of it before now, although it had always been in the back of her mind, scratching to come to the forefront. Now the realization that her dream was about to come true overwhelmed her and she sank to the bed and wept.
When she finished her cry she went to the bathroom to repair herself and to put on the teddy in preparation for Lyle's arrival.
On the day of the planned surprise party for Becker, Dr. Stanley Kom drove from his office to Norwalk Hospital, where he was scheduled to perform an operation. The doctors' parking lot was merely a special section of the main lot and as he walked across the street to the front entrance, he could see the Toyota tentatively poke its nose past the stop sign at the base of the hill and start a slow climb toward the lot.
Kom paused inside the hospital doors to make sure that the Toyota took up an observation position with a view of both the entrance and Kom's car.
Kom greeted the ladies at the reception desk heartily and spoke a bit longer than politeness required to the security guard who loitered by the elevators, making certain that his presence was noted by as many people as possible. He chatted amiably with nurses and doctors in the surgical ward and even offered a rueful smile to Nurse Reilly, his one hospital mistake.
Years ago, shortly after arriving in Clamden, he had had an affair with Reilly and had learned of the foolishness of fouling one's own nest. If she had been bitter or vindictive, she could have made his life difficult. Fortunately for him, Reilly was a woman of experience who had been unimpressed by his fledgling attempts at sex and happy enough to end the relationship, but her continuing presence in his professional life was a constant reminder of the need for caution. After Reilly he had begun his campaign of deceit. Occasionally he toyed with the idea of spending another night with Reilly to demonstrate what he hadlearned in the intervening years, but wisdom always prevailed. With his own office staff and in the hospital, Kom was friendly but never so much as flirtatious. He performed arthroscopic surgery on his patient's knee, repairing the torn cartilage of an overzealous basketball player, working, as always, briskly, efficiently. Following the operation, Kom placed his slightly bloodied surgical gown and gloves in the appropriate hamper. They would be taken from there and burned in the hospital's massive incinerator, thus eliminating any chance of future contamination by a patient's blood, fluids, or viruses.
Kom advised the nurse at the floor desk that he would be visiting his patients in the hospital, of whom there were several, and he did indeed visit two of them. From the window of the second patient's room he saw that the Toyota was still in place in the front lot; then he left the hospital by the back entrance that led from the basement. The walk to the Pathmark Mall took two minutes. From there he ordered a cab and then called Denise to find out her room number. The cab ride to the Stamford Marriott lasted fifteen minutes.
Kom-tapped on Denise's door twenty-five minutes after leaving surgery.
He carried with him a shopping bag from the Pathmark Mall. Denise greeted him in her purple teddy and Kom noted to himself that she didn't have the legs for it even as he swept her into his arms.
"I have something for you," he said, when they had finally ended their first embrace. He took a small velvet box from his pocket and opened it. Denise's eyes widened with anticipation.
"What…?"
"Open it," he said, grinning at her.
"Oh, Lyle," she said, her lip quivering.
In the box was a small gold wristwatch with a dial.
"It was all I could afford," Kom said. In fact it had been rather difficult to find. Stem-wound dial watches had become a thing of the past-but it was what he needed. "Put it on," he said.
"It's so beautiful," she said, trying to hide the trace of disappointment in her voice by smiling broadly and laying her head to his chest. For a brief, paralyzing moment she had thought it would be an engagement ring.
"Well, put it on," he said, chuckling. "Let's see how it looks on you."
"You put it on me," she said, holding the watch in her hand. He hesitated, not touching the watch, "I can't, my fingers are too clumsy.
Put it on, I want to see it on you."
"You big silly," she said. "Your fingers are magical." She kissed his fingertips, but then she removed her own digital timepiece and put the new watch on her wrist by herself She held it up as if it were a diamond bracelet. "It's so sweet of you," she said. "You have to set the time and wind it," he said.
"I don't want time to start," she said. "I want this day to last forever."
"Come on," he cajoled. "We have to make sure it works, don't we?"
When he was sure that she had handled the watch enough to place her fingerprints on it, Kom had sex with her. If she noticed that he was much quicker than usual, she made no complaint, and when he took her from behind and asked permission to squeeze her neck she complied out of regard for him even when his grip became uncomfortably tight. It was the last thought she had.
Kom flushed the condom, then put on the surgical gloves that he took from the shopping bag. He dragged Denise's body to the bathroom and set the time on the wristwatch forward to 9:12, then slapped her arm against the tile floor until the watch broke and the hands of the dial froze into position. He put her old timepiece in his pocket to be disposed of later, then changed into a clean set of surgical clothes and took Denise into the shower. As always, he had two scalpels with him, but he needed only one, working very rapidly for a change, taking no pleasure from it.