I opened the envelope. I took out the pictures. I looked at them, and I began to feel my face go flaming red.
I recognized the room in the pictures, remembered that motel. The faces were clear in every one of the photographs.
“What you’ll want,” said the nasty man, smiling triumphantly, “is the negatives.”
I whispered, “You mean, you’ll show these to my husband?”
“Oh, I would much rather not. Wouldn’t you like to have them for yourself? The prints and the negatives?”
“How much?”
“Well, I really hadn’t thought,” he said, smiling and smiling. “I’d rather leave that up to you. How much would you say they are worth to you, Mrs. Carroll?”
I looked at the photos again, and something seemed to go click in my mind. I said, “I believe I’m going to faint,” Then my eyes closed, and I fell off the chair onto the floor.
He had a great deal of difficulty awaking me, patting my cheeks and chafing my hands, and when at last I opened my eyes, I saw that he was no longer smiling, but was looking very worried.
“Mrs. Carroll,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“My heart,” I whispered. “I have a weak heart.” It was untrue, but it seemed a lie that might prove useful.
It did already. He looked more worried than ever, and backed away from me, looking down at me lying on the floor and saying, “Don’t excite yourself, Mrs. Carroll. Don’t get yourself all upset. We can work this out.”
“Not now,” I whispered. “Please.” I passed a hand across my eyes. “I must rest. Call me. Telephone me, I’ll meet you somewhere.”
“Yes, of course. Of course.”
“Call me this evening. At six.”
“Yes.”
“Say your name is Boris.”
“Boris,” he repeated. “Yes, I will.” Hastily he retrieved the fallen photos. “Call at six,” he said, and dashed out of the house.
I got to my feet, brushed off my toreadors, and went to phone William. “Darling,” I said.
“Darling!” he cried.
“My love.”
“Oh, my heart, my sweet, my rapture!”
“Darling, I must—”
“Darling! Darling! Darling!”
“Yes, sweetheart, thank you, that’s all very—”
“My life, my love, my all!”
“William!”
There was a stunned silence, and then his voice said, faintly, “Yes, Mona?”
There were advantages to having a poet for a lover, but there were also disadvantages, such as a certain difficulty in attracting his attention sometimes.
But I had his attention now. I said, “William, I won’t be able to see you tonight.”
“Ob, sweetheart!”
“I’m sorry, William, believe me I am, but something just came up.”
“Is it—” his voice lowered to a whisper, “—is it him?”
He meant Robert. I said, “No, dear, not exactly. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
“Shall I see you tomorrow?”
“Of course. At the Museum. At noon.”
“Ah, my love, the hours shall have broken wings.”
“Yes, dear.”
With some difficulty I managed to end the conversation. I then took the other car, the Thunderbird, and drove to the shopping center. In the drugstore there I purchased a large and foul-looking cigar, and in the Mister-Master Men’s Wear Shoppe I bought a rather loud and crude necktie.
I returned to the house, lit the cigar, and found that it tasted even worse than I had anticipated. Still, it was all in a good cause. I went upstairs, puffing away at the cigar, and draped the necktie over the doorknob of the closet door in my bedroom. I then went back to the first floor, left a conspicuous gray cone of cigar ash in the ashtray beside Robert’s favorite chair, puffed away until the room was full of cigar smoke and I felt my flesh beginning to turn green, and then tottered out to the kitchen. I doused the cigar under the cold water at the kitchen sink, stuffed it down out of sight in the rubbish bag, and went away to take two Alka-Seltzer and lie down.
By one-fifteen, when Robert came bounding home, I was recovered and was in the kitchen thawing lunch. “My love!” roared Robert, and crushed me in his arms.
That was the difference right there. William would have put the accent on the other word.
I suffered his attentions, as I always did, and then he went away to read the morning paper in the living room while I finished preparing lunch.
When he came to the table he seemed somewhat more subdued than usual. He ate lunch in silence, with the exception of one question, asked with an apparent attempt at casualness: “Umm, darling, did you have any visitors today?”
I dropped my spoon into my soup. “Oh! Wasn’t that clumsy! What did you say, dear?”
His eyes narrowed. “I asked you, did you have any visitors today?”
“Visitors? Why… why, no, dear.” I gave a guilty sort of little laugh. “What makes you ask, sweetheart?”
“Nothing,” he said, and ate his soup.
After lunch he said, “I have time for a nap today. Wake me at three, will you?”
“Of course, dear.”
I woke him at three. He said he’d be home by five-thirty, and left. I checked, and the crude necktie was no longer hanging on the doorknob in my bedroom.
When Robert came home at five-thirty he was even quieter than before. I caught him watching me several times, and each time I gave a nervous start and a guilty little laugh and went into some other room.
I was in the kitchen at six o’clock, when the phone rang.
“I’ll get it, dear!” I shouted. “It’s all right, dear! I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”
I picked up the phone and said hello and the nasty man’s voice said, “This is Boris.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“Can we talk?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t your husband home?”
“It’s all right, he’s in the living room, he can’t hear me. I want to meet you tonight, to discuss things.” I gave a heavy emphasis to that word, and put just a touch of throatiness into my voice.
He gave his nasty laugh and said, “Whenever you say, dear lady. I take it you’re recovered from this afternoon?”
“Oh, yes. It was just tremors. But listen, here’s how we’ll meet. You take a room at the Flyaway Motel, under the name of Clark. I’ll—”
“Take a room?”
“We’ll have a lot to — talk about. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the room.”
“Well,” he said, “in that case…”
“I’ll try to be there,” I said, “as soon after nine as possible. Wait for me.”
“All right, M—”
“I must hang up,” I said hastily, before he could call me Mrs. Carroll. I broke the connection, went into the living room, and found Robert standing near the extension phone in there. I said, “Dinner will be ready soon, dear.”
“Any time, darling,” he said. His voice seemed somewhat strangled. He seemed to be under something of a strain.
Dinner was a silent affair, though I tried to make small talk without much success. Afterward, Robert sat in the living room and read the evening paper.
I walked into the living room at five minutes to nine, wearing my suede jacket. “I have to go out for a while, dear.”
He seemed to control himself with difficulty. “Where to, dear?”