Kay Runyon and I sat on white chairs with orange cushions. She lit a cigarette, began to smoke it in quick little drags. It was very quiet in the house, so quiet you could hear the faint hiss of the tobacco igniting each time she inhaled.
Pretty soon she said, “I don’t know where to start.”
“Wherever it’s easiest for you.”
“Well... Joe told you my problem. Joe DeFalco.”
“Yes.”
“That my husband is having an affair.”
“Yes.”
“It’s... no, it’s not just an affair. I could deal with it if that’s all it was.”
“Have you had to before? Deal with that kind of thing?”
“You mean is Vic a habitual cheat? No. As far as I know he was faithful to me for nearly nineteen years. That’s one of the things that makes all this so crazy, so...” She shook her head, jabbed out the remains of her weed in an orange clamshell ashtray, and immediately lit another.
“You think he’s in love with this woman, then?”
“No,” Kay Runyon said. “I think he’s obsessed with her.”
“Obsessed?”
“I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s the literal truth. He’s not just sleeping with her, he’s not just infatuated with her... he’s pathologically obsessed with her.”
“If you could be more specific...”
“He isn’t the same man since it started. Not at all the same man. He doesn’t act or interact the same — I’m sure he doesn’t think the same. It’s as if he’s with her even when he’s here with me, as if nothing else — me, our son, our lives together, his job, none of it — is vital to him anymore.”
“How long has he been this way?”
“The relationship started eight or nine months ago, sometime before Christmas. At least that’s when I first suspected he was seeing someone. The obsession... four months or so. But I suppose it had been building all along.”
The length of time surprised me a little. “And he hasn’t asked you for a divorce?”
“No. I kept expecting it, dreading it... but no. I suppose it’s because she’s married, too, and doesn’t want to or can’t get out.”
That was one explanation. I could think of a couple of others, both fear-related, but I didn’t share them with her. I asked, “Have you confronted him about the affair?”
“I tried. It was... bizarre.”
“How so?”
“He wouldn’t admit or deny it,” she said. “Wouldn’t talk about it at all. He just... retreated. Into himself, like a turtle pulling its head into its shell. My God, it was like trying to talk to a stranger, a retarded person. There was just no connection.” She shivered, jabbed out her second cigarette, hugged herself. The lower parts of her arms, bare beneath the half-rolled pullover sleeves, were riddled with goose bumps. “No connection,” she said again.
“The affair started sometime before Christmas, you said. Do you have any idea where or how?”
“No. She’s someone he met through his work, I think. He’s not a social animal. I mean he doesn’t sit in bars by himself, doesn’t have the kind of male friends who go prowling in packs. Doesn’t have many friends at all, in fact. Until eight months ago he was a family man and a workaholic.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“He’s an architect. Private homes, mainly. He’s quite well known, quite successful.” There was pride in her voice; even after all the pain he’d caused her, she was still proud of him. “Not just in the city or Bay Area — all over the state.”
“A workaholic, you said. Would you describe him as driven?”
“Yes. He’s that kind of man. Not such a long step from work obsession to woman obsession, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Something like that. Does he do much traveling?”
“Some. Quite a lot in the past several months — to be with her, I’m sure.”
“Away for long periods of time?”
“Three or four days at the most. But I don’t think he met her while he was away. I think he met her right here in the city. I think she lives here or in a town close by.”
“What makes you believe that?”
“Well, in the first place he was home most of November — just one overnight consultancy trip to L.A. — and all of December. In the second place... lately, when he’s not out of town, he goes to see her two or three nights a week.”
“Spends the entire night with her?”
“No. At least he hasn’t gone that far yet. He comes home, but not until late — midnight or after. Goes straight to her from his office, or meets her somewhere, or whatever.” Another headshake. “I don’t want to know that part of it. What they do when they’re alone... the damn details.”
“He doesn’t call you on those nights, make excuses?”
“No. If he’s not here by six-thirty, then I know it’s one of his nights with...” Emotion drowned the rest of the sentence. I watched her struggle against it, try to hide it by lighting yet another coffin nail.
In one of the other rooms a telephone rang.
Kay Runyon’s head jerked a little; she said, “My God,” and got abruptly to her feet. But she didn’t go anywhere, just stood there rigidly listening to the phone ring three more times. Then she said, “Excuse me, please,” without looking at me, and went out of there at a half run, trailing cigarette smoke.
The chair cushion was hard on my backside; I squirmed on it, fighting off the urge to get up and walk around. If I did that I would probably keep right on walking out the door, out of the troubled lives of Kay and Victor Runyon. This wasn’t my kind of case — I hated this kind of case. DeFalco and his goddamn favors.
From the other room the sound of her voice came faintly. Too faintly for me to make out the words, but the harsh overtones of anger came through. The conversation didn’t last long; she was back in not much more than a minute. It hadn’t been a good call for her. Her face was paler and she seemed shaky now. When she sat down again her knees seemed to bend too quickly, so that she half collapsed into the chair.
“Nedra,” she said, as if she were uttering an obscenity.
“...I’m sorry?”
“That’s her name, the bitch.”
“Whose name?”
“Vic’s obsession, the woman he’s fucking.”
“You mean she just telephoned you—?”
“No, no. That was him again, the man who keeps calling.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Runyon, you’re not making sense to me. Let’s back up a little here. You told Joe DeFalco you had no idea who the woman is, you led me to believe the same thing, and now you say her name is Nedra.”
“That’s all I know about her, her first name.”
“Who told you that? Your husband?”
“No. The man who keeps calling.”
“Why does he keep calling?”
“To harass Vic, but he’s driving me crazy too.”
“Harass him how?”
“He wants Vic to stay away from her. Nedra. My God, it’s the same thing I want. I’ve tried to tell him that but he won’t talk to me, he won’t listen to me.”
DeFalco’s “minor complication.” I asked, “How long has this been going on? These anonymous calls?”
“A couple of weeks.”
“How often? Every day?”
“Almost. Sometimes once or twice a day.”
“If he won’t talk to you, how did you hear the name Nedra?”