Both of them knowing that he was lying.
Thinking now: I’ll have to leave. But for where?
For a moment now in the kitchen, he imagines Mary Lou at the morgue. On her slab. Permanently silenced.
He forces himself to see her when she was twenty-three. Her skin glowing gold in the dim light of that little one-bedroom place in Bed-Stuy, framed by white cotton sheets. He forces himself to feel her warmth again as he held her tightly, full of need, and she again helped melt the ice jam in his heart, the one he had formed to protect himself from the horrors of the world that he was paid to police. She helped him on many nights to build a fence around all of that, to keep it in a separate place, far from home, far from here, far from all these rooms that bear even now the aromas of Mary Lou Watson. Now he has to build his own fences.
Just like that. Gone forever. They will not grow old together. They will never live on a beach by the sea, their hair turned white, dancing in a living room to Billie Holiday or Nat Cole. They will not enter a New York club at midnight and show the poor hip-hop fools how to dance. They will not chuckle together over the endless folly of the world, its vanities and stupid ambitions. They will not hug each other in any chilly New York dawn.
Oh, Mary Lou.
My baby.
My love.
He leans forward now on the table, his forehead pressed upon his folded arms, and his body unclenches, and he begins to weep.
When he is finished, when there are no more tears left in him, Ali Watson sits up. He reaches forward and taps the cold steel of the revolver.
3:45 a.m. Lew Forrest. Chelsea Hotel lobby.
He knows it’s late because the lobby is empty. He can see it with his ears. Even Harry, the night man behind the desk, is dozing. He can hear the man’s faint snoring, a papery flutter. Or the sound of someone blowing into an old Chiclets box. At this hour, it’s just Forrest and Camus. At this hour, whatever time it is, the dog is usually a no-no. He’s the gentlest and most noble of creatures, but there’s always a chance that some knucklehead will barge through the door and Camus will read him wrong and go for his balls. But on nights when Lew Forrest can’t sleep, the owners let them both sit here. A comforting solitude, in the best of company. No odors of paint or turpentine. No demands to keep working.
After Camus walked him to 24th Street and back, Forrest did sleep for a while. Then he was suddenly awake, his heart racing, and he knew he’d been dreaming about the war. There were no images alive in his head, no scenes, no faces, but he knew what they must have been, for they had been coming to him across more than sixty years. He was lost in the fog of the Hürtgen Forest. The artillery was roaring. And he was running, running, running. With no way out.
Now he is in the lobby of the Chelsea. No running. No panting. No artillery. From the street, he can hear a few cars, and one bus, all moving east and west on wet asphalt. He can hear Harry’s snoring. There is no sound of fresh rain, but he can smell the wetness sliding under the front door. In the old days, the empty lobby was alive with tobacco smells, from cigarettes, cigars, pipes. All banished now by the triumphant armies of reform. There is a trace of disinfectant in the air, so he knows the lobby has been mopped.
Then he hears the elevator kicking in, humming as it rises in its shaft. A pause, as someone boards. Maybe it’s that Irish guy who has a hit novel out that I can’t even read now. Seems like a nice fella. Another guy who wakes up in the night and needs the air to unlock a paragraph. There’s been a lot of those guys here over the years. Now the elevator is coming down. He hopes the passenger is not leading a strange dog. Camus knows all the regulars. But he brooks no arrogant hounds. Particularly phony tough guys. Those runty little dogs with teeth like critics. Camus, after all, was once a member of the Resistance. Or his namesake was.
Lew Forrest hears the elevator stop, with a jerk and a thump. The doors open. Harry whispers his good morning. Then he hears the klok-klok klok-klok of knobby heels. He knows who it is.
— Oh, Mr. Forrest.
Lucy from ARTnews. Down from the third floor.
— Good morning, dear, Forrest says.
She comes around and sits next to him. Camus exhales, returning to his position with paws stretched out, head between them on the tiled floor.
— I couldn’t sleep, she says.
— Good. That’s the best time to work. Wear yourself out and sleep till noon.
— It’s not that easy.
— The key is, Forrest says, leave the television set off. It scrambles the brain, whether you’re painting or writing.
— Funny, that’s exactly what happened.
— See what I mean?
— There was an awful story on New York One. I had it on to check the weather, to see if the rain would end. And there was this story. Very upsetting. Two women were murdered in the Village. One of them was a cop’s wife. The other was a woman named Cynthia Harding.
— Cynthia Harding? Forrest whispers, shock in his voice.
— Did you know her, Mr. Forrest? New York One said she was a patron of…
He inhales, then exhales.
— I knew her, yes.
— The TV said she raised money for the arts and—
— She did a lot more than that.
— Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Forrest.
— She owned some of my paintings and hung them down at her home in Patchin Place. She bought them in, oh, nineteen eighty-five? Before anybody was buying them. Before the dough started rolling in from buyers, before I was suddenly hip after fifty years of painting… But I first knew her back in the sixties, after I came home from Paris… Or was it Mexico? Anyway, I knew her. She was the same age you are now, maybe. Beautiful, and very smart… Oh, God. Oh, goddamn it all to hell.
She touches his face with both hands.
— I didn’t mean to hurt you, she says. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.
— Yes, the hurt… But it’s not about me, Lucy dear. Not even close. It’s about her. Lovely Cynthia…
He stands up. So does the dog, who stretches, then shakes.
— Can we go for a little walk? Forrest says. The rain’s over, isn’t it?
— Yes, Lucy says. But it’s pretty wet out there.
— Eh, let’s try.
Lucy opens the door, and Camus moves through it, pulling Lew Forrest after him.
Harry is with them. Awake now. Protective.
— Don’t go too far, Harry says.
— We’ll be all right, Harry, Forrest says.
Then he, the dog, and Lucy are outside under the awning. Each inhales the freshness of the rain.
— Just beautiful, he says.
— Yes, it is.
They walk in silence toward Eighth Avenue, following the lead of the dog.
— Can I ask your permission for something? Forrest says.
— Of course.
— Can I touch your face?
She giggles.
— Of course, she says.