“When was this?” Hawes asked. “When he got into another man’s car?”
“It was exactly a week ago.”
“That would’ve made it…”
“The twenty-seventh,” Meyer said, looking at the calendar in his notebook. “Last Friday.”
“And you say he hasn’t been driving since?” Hawes said.
“I hide the keys.”
“Because you see,” Meyer said, “he was in a robe and pajamas. So he couldn’t have taken the train in, could he? Not dressed like that.”
“I don’t know how he got in,” Margaret said.
“When’s the last time you saw him?” Hawes asked.
Margaret hesitated.
“Last night,” she said.
The hesitation had been enough for both detectives. By instinct, they closed in. Old lady or not, they closed in.
“When last night?” Meyer asked.
“When…he was getting ready for bed.”
“Putting on his pajamas?” Hawes asked.
“Yes”
“What time was this?”
“Around ten o’clock.”
“Getting ready for bed, you said.”
“Yes.”
“Doing what?” Meyer asked.
Working in tandem. They had done this a thousand times before, they would do it a thousand times again. There was something here. They wanted to know what it was.
“I was…helping him wash and…and brush his teeth. He can’t do those…things too well for himself anymore.”
“Could he do those things a week ago? When he drove the car into town.”
“I wouldn’t have let him go if I’d seen him getting in it. It’s difficult to keep track, you know. He…you can’t just keep your eye on someone day and night.”
“Did you have your eye on him last night?” Hawes asked.
“Yes, I…try to take care of him the best I can.”
“But last night he got out of the house somehow, didn’t he?”
“Well, I…I guess he did. If he’s in the city now, then I guess…I guess he must’ve…must’ve got out somehow.”
“Youdidn’t drive him to the city, did you?” Meyer asked.
“No.”
“You’re sure about that, are you?”
“Positive.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“Around ten-thirty.”
“Your husband went to bed at that time, too?”
“Yes.”
“Do you sleep in the same room?”
“No. He snores.”
“Anybody else have a key to this house?”
“No.”
“When did you learn he was missing?”
“What?”
“When did you learn he was missing, ma’am? We called you at a little past ten this morning, and you asked what he’d done this time. Did you know he was missing before we called?”
“Yes, I…did.”
“When did you find out he was missing, ma’am?”
“When I…woke up this morning.”
“What time was that?”
“Around seven.”
“How’d you learn he was gone?”
“He wasn’t in his bed.”
“What’d you do then?”
“I…”
Her eyes were beginning to mist behind the ridiculous eyeglasses.
“What’d you do, ma’am?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“You didn’t call the police to report him missing?”
“I didn’t want any more trouble with the police.”
“So you didn’t call them?”
“No.”
“Your husband wasn’t in his bed, he wasn’t in the house, but you didn’t…”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said.
Both men fell silent.
“Day and night, living with a ghost, you don’t know what it’s like. He talks to me, but he doesn’t make sense, it’s like being alone. Last week, when the thing with the car happened, at least he still knew my name. Now he doesn’t even know my name. Day by day, he forgets a little more, a little more. Last week, he could drive the car, now he can’t even tie his own shoelaces ! He gets worse and worse all the time. All the time. I think he may have had a small stroke, I don’t know, I just don’t know. I have to take him to the bathroom, I have to wipe him, you don’t know what it’s like ! No, i didn’t call the police. I didn’t want to call the police. I didn’t want them to find him! Why did you have to find him? Why did you have to find me ? Why can’t you leave me in peace , damn you!”
“Ma’am…”
“Leave me alone,” she said. “Please leave me alone.”
“Ma’am,” Meyer said, “do you know how your husband got into the city?”
She hesitated a long time before answering.
Her eyes behind the absurd eyeglasses were wet with tears now. She stared vacantly past the detectives into somewhere beyond, perhaps to a time when a young sailor had his wife’s pet name tattooed onto his arm, a name he could no longer remember. Perhaps she was thinking how rotten it was to get old.
“Yes,” she said at last, “I know how he got into the city.”
THE FOUR OF THEM were in the car the Deaf Man had rented that morning. Gloria was sitting with him on the front seat, behind the wheel and fifteen pounds heavier than when he’d interviewed her last Sunday. Carter and Florry were on the back seat. The car was parked on Silvermine Drive, overlooking the River Highway and the Department of Sanitation facility on the water’s edge.
“The burn is set for one tomorrow,” he said. “We go in at twelve-thirty, secure the facility, wait for the fuzz to arrive. We should be out of there by one-twenty latest. We’ll have clear sailing all the way downtown.”
“Where do we make the transfer?” Gloria asked.
“Just off the parkway, a mile below the facility. In the boat-basin parking lot.”
“We using this same car tomorrow?” Carter asked.
“No, I’ve reserved four other cars.”
“Be safer that way, don’t you think?”
“Yes, of course. That’s why I…”
“I mean, in case anybody makes us today,” Carter said, still flogging a dead horse.
“Yes, I understand,” the Deaf Man said.
“That way, we’ve got four cars, they’ll go crazy tracking us down,” Carter insisted.
“When do we collect what’s coming to us?” Florry asked, which the Deaf Man considered premature since Florry hadn’t yet done anything but construct what he called his “little black box,” for which the Deaf Man had already paid him ten thousand as an advance against the hundred thou he’d promised. All Gloria had done so far was cut her hair and gain fifteen pounds, for which she, too, had already received ten thousand bucks. For the same amount of money, Carter had purchased the uniforms they’d be wearing, stolen the laminates, and located the garbage truck he’d be stealing early tomorrow morning. Thirty thousand bucks had been advanced thus far, against the three hundred the Deaf Man would be paying in total for their participation tomorrow. Meanwhile, the park wasn’t wired, and they didn’t have the garbage truck, and Gloria looked even more womanly than she had before she’d gained the weight and got her hair cut like a boy’s.
“You’ll all be paid the balance of your fees when we’re safely across the bridge and at the motel,” he said. “Then we all go our separate ways.”
Except Gloria, he thought. He was planning on celebrating with her after the job tomorrow. Pay them all, send the other two on their merry way, and then ask Gloria to share a bottle of champagne with him in the motel room. Toot a few lines, get down to male-female basics.