"I appreciate it."
This time there was a little humour in Wagner's laugh, but it was sour humour. "You remember how I told you that some men with spina bifida make fools out of themselves with women? Well, you're looking at one, I'm afraid. After I read her diary and the way she talked about me, I don't think Emma felt much more for me than pity."
Brolan let him talk. That was obviously what the man needed. "When you came in here and saw Denise, I know that's what you thought."
"I'm sorry I'm so cynical."
"No, no," Wagner said. "You're probably right. She came in here and saw a good thing and decided to latch onto it." He shrugged. "That's why being handicapped and having money at the same time is a bad combination. It leaves you open to people who don't mean you any good."
"I shouldn't have been so adamant about Denise. She may be just what she seems. A very nice girl who's got some personal problems and nothing more sinister than that."
"I shouldn't have offered to put her up."
"You're going to ask her to leave?"
"I'm going to think about it."
"Greg, I repeat: I'm a pretty cynical guy. I always tend to look on the dark side. That's a pretty inhibiting attitude sometimes. And sometimes you have to disregard it. I'd give her a chance." Wagner stared at him. "You're not just saying that? You'd give her a chance?"
"Sure. Let her stay here a few days. You two seem to get along. See how things go. She's too young to have a romance with, so you don't have to worry about that. All you have to see is how you get along as friends. If she just wants your money, that'll be obvious pretty quickly. She'll start hitting on you for all sorts of things."
"I guess you started me thinking when you mentioned the fact that she came here to blackmail you."
"She's young. And she doesn't strike me as very sophisticated. Remember what she said-'I was going to ask him for a couple of hundred dollars.' With that kind of attitude blackmail wouldn't be a very remunerative field. I think she's just reaching out. Trying to make some sense of her life and not finding much to be optimistic about. I don't think it was a very serious attempt."
"We've kind of reversed positions."
"Not really, Greg. All I'm saying is, wait and see what happens. She seems like a decent enough kid."
"What about you?"
"I'm going home and read the diary. I'm going to the office tomorrow."
"Thought you were going to take a few days off?"
"Now I need to see our art director." Brolan told him about the pornographic playing cards. He said, as gently as possible, "Emma was in one of them."
He'd expected Wagner to be shocked or at least angered by this, but the man just sat stared at his small hands. "She mentions that in her diary. She also mentions a videotape she's got hidden somewhere. Whatever was going on with Lane, it was starting to scare her."
"Any idea where the tape is?"
"Not yet. But I'll bet it's somewhere in her side of the duplex."
"Does she mention who set it up?"
"Our friend, Charles Lane."
"I can't wait to talk to this guy."
"I'm starting to think he's our killer," Wagner said.
"Does she mention anybody else's being involved in the photographs?"
"Like I said, she mentions names throughout the book, but none of them mean anything to me. No city fathers or leading model citizens or anything like that." He indicated his tape library. "But this isn't my world, Frank. I don't know a lot about the honchos of the Twin Cities. I get my cheque from my inheritance every month, and I get new videotapes sent to me every week, and when dealers have something really collectable, they call me. That's my world, Frank. I don't move in the same circles you do."
Brolan stood up, dropping the diary into his suit coat pocket.
"I'll get back with you tomorrow sometime," he said.
Wagner said, "She didn't really care about me, Frank. Not the way she said she did." He sounded as if he were very close to tears.
"I don't believe that, Greg, not from what you told me about her. Maybe she didn't love you romantically, but I'm sure she cared about you as a friend. If she'd been faking that, I think you would've known it."
"I'm just sitting here and getting embarrassed about the stupid things I did." He looked up at Brolan with silver tears shining in his eyes. "You know, I actually asked her to marry me. Pretty goddamn crazy, right?"
Brolan went over and put his hand on Wagner's shoulder. "Greg, if I had the time to sit here and tell you all the foolish things I've done with women, we'd be here till dawn."
"Really?"
"Really, Greg. Just before I came over here, my former girlfriend told me to get lost. She was more polite than that, but that's what she meant."
Wagner laughed. This time it was a hearty and pleasant sound. "You know something terrible?"
"What?"
"That makes me feel better, Frank. Knowing guys like you get dumped, too."
Brolan smiled. "Glad I could be of service, Greg." Then he got his coat and left.
23
Denise wasn't sure what woke her.
It was four hours after Brolan left and two hours after Greg, exhausted from the pleasant turmoil of the evening, pitched himself on the sofa and fell asleep watching a Pete Smith short subject.
At first Denise thought the sound was something in a dream. Her dreams were always vivid, especially the bad ones. Her sister used to get up and shake her hard, just to help her escape the nightmare images that had plagued her since she was a little girl.
It took a while for her to understand that the sounds were not in the fervid, sweaty cages of her nightmares but were rather… real.
Her first thought on waking was: Where am I?
Her second thought was: What is that noise?
Quickly the hours she'd spent with Greg Wagner returned to her. Nice images. Nice times. At first she'd been pleasant to the man because she'd been afraid that he was going to cedi the police. But then she genuinely started liking him, especially his sly, off-the-wall sense of humour. The only times she didn't like that was when he made fun of himself. There was too much pain in his remarks, too much disappointment. And if they ever became better friends, she'd tell him that, too. That he shouldn't make fun of himself. That he was a beautiful man. From what she'd learned on the streets, real ugliness was on the inside, not on the outside. He had wit, generosity, warmth, and compassion to boast of-which was a lot more than most people had to congratulate themselves for.
Then she realized what the noise was.
Next door, in the duplex just beyond the wall that separated the two places, somebody was wandering around.
Stumbling into things.
She came up from the bed feeling naked and vulnerable in her bra and panties. She should have asked Greg if he'd loan her a pair of pyjamas. She was sure they wore about the same size.
She slipped into her clothes quickly. Against the drawn blinds she could see the nimbus of alley light and ring of crusty ice on the window. Greg must have turned the thermostat down for sleeping. The hardwood floor was cold.
She went out into the hallway, feeling her way along the walls with her hands, moving toward the light at the front of the house; the streetlights gave the living room a faint glow from the sodium vapour lamps.
Greg looked like a child curled up inside a tangle of covers. As she leaned down to him, he smelled of sleep. She touched him gently, not wanting to frighten him. He made deep, groggy noises, but at first he didn't wake up at all. She tapped him softly on the forehead.
"Greg," she whispered.
"Huh?" he said, stirring at last.