“I need to ask you about that,” I interrupted. “I know you’ve spoken to Gene about all this, but I need to know if you mentioned the tape to him.”
“What I spoke to Gene about was the night you had those… problems. I never mentioned the tape or anything else we’ve discussed.”
“It’s very important that you tell me the truth about this.”
She stood perfectly still in the doorway. “I just did.”
I gave a reserved nod.
“Don’t you think you should turn the tape over to the police?”
“We decided against it.”
“Why don’t you want them to have it? I don’t understand.”
“Rick doesn’t want us involved in this anymore than we already are.”
“But—”
“And neither do I. Besides, we already put it to a vote.”
“A vote? You still behave as if you’re ten-year-olds playing in a tree fort, for God’s sake. This is a very serious situation, Alan.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what it is.” I let the words loiter awhile. “What I do need is for you to promise me that you won’t tell anyone else about the tape. Not Gene, not Martha, not anyone.” I could only hope the look on my face left no doubt as to how serious I was.
She stared at me for a time before she finally complied. “All right. I promise.”
“We’re going to handle this on our own, Rick and Donald and me. We’re going to get to the bottom of this shit pile one way or another.”
Toni wrestled with a frown. “But you just said you didn’t want to be involved.”
“We don’t want to involve or be involved with the police.”
“Sounds like something a criminal might say.”
I let it go. “We need to do this on our own, that’s all.”
“And what makes you think you’re equipped to do that?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Anger brewed just beneath the controlled exterior she was trying so furiously to sustain. “Right, what was I thinking? Not like it’s any of my business or anything.”
“A few weeks ago, I was crazy. Now a body turns up and all of a sudden—”
“I never said you were crazy, Alan. It’s just—I mean, how could Bernard have done this? I just can’t fathom it. A man we’ve known for so many years, someone who was there at our wedding, who we had in our home, had conversations with and socialized with and ate with and laughed with and shared so much with, how could… Someone we trusted, for God’s sake. How could he have been slaughtering people at the same time? How could he be both of those things? Do you honestly believe he did this?”
I looked away. “I don’t know.”
Toni stepped into the room and noticed the box of manuscripts in the closet doorway. “Your old stories,” she said with a fondness that surprised me.
“Yeah, I was going through them before. Silly, I know.”
“No it isn’t. You should’ve never given up on your writing. You had such potential.”
“Can’t pay the rent with potential.”
“You should start again.”
“It’s the strangest thing.” I went to the closet and crouched next to the storage box. “Half the time I can’t remember what I was thinking ten minutes ago, but when I went through these stories I could remember exactly what I was feeling when I wrote every one of them, exactly what was going on in my life when I’d written them, and even what I was thinking when I’d written certain sentences.” I looked back over my shoulder at her. “Isn’t that something?”
She nodded and let her free hand rest on my shoulder. I studied it, so slender and delicate, the hand of a partner, a nursemaid, a lover, a friend, a vulnerable girl and a strong woman, victim and protector, predator and prey all residing beneath that soft skin, so many sides to the same being bound by a single soul. I turned away, packed the papers back into the box and slid the entire thing into the rear of the closet where I’d found it. By the time I’d closed the closet door and turned back in Toni’s direction she’d tossed her purse onto the bed and begun to undress.
“Look,” I said in the gravest tone I could muster, “we have to keep this tape business and any suspicions we have about Bernard quiet and strictly between us, all right?”
“You already said that.” She draped her suit jacket over the foot of the bed and unbuttoned her blouse. “I heard you the first time.”
“I just need to be sure—”
“I heard you the first time, Alan.” She glared at me with a level of belligerence I’d never seen her express. Then, like a slowly receding tide, her small body began to relax, her shoulders drooped a bit and she turned away, slipped out of her blouse and let it fall to the floor. “Am I supposed to swear on a stack of Bibles or something?”
“I just want you to understand how import—”
“Wait, I know! A lie detector test.” She turned and glared at me again. “You could hook me up to a lie detector, how’s that sound?”
I felt impervious to her jokes, if that’s what they were, and wondered if she felt the same. Once she realized I had no intention of answering her she aimed her death stare elsewhere, kicked off her pumps and busied herself with the zipper on the back of her skirt. She peeled the skirt down beyond her hips, wiggled it off the rest of the way until it slid down into a heap at her ankles, then she stepped away and hitched her thumbs into the back of her pantyhose.
The smells from the pizzeria downstairs were suddenly unbearable, or perhaps they had been all along and I’d only just then noticed them. Regardless, I went to the window and opened it wider in the hopes that fresh sea air might overpower the reek of pizza dough, canned tomato sauce and fried meats. Outside, the darkness continued to gain power, to deepen and develop and take shape.
Toni’s nude form reflected in the window drew my attention. An odd feeling washed over me and although I did my best to shake free, it hung tight. It was as if everyone I had ever known that had died was watching us. Flashes of them—each and every one—appeared in my mind then faded as I stood there, pretending to watch the night but really watching Toni reflected in the upper pane as she carried her dirty clothes to a small hamper in the corner and silently dropped them in.
Behind her, blurred figures, faceless and vague, appeared in the glass as if they were passing, pushing through the wall gradually, reaching for her. I closed my eyes and held them shut until I was certain the feeling and visions had retreated to wherever they’d come from, then turned and saw Toni slipping into a lightweight robe. Oblivious, she grabbed two towels from her bureau, headed for the bathroom and mumbled, “I’m going to take a shower.”
“It’s not about love, is it?” It wasn’t a question, and she knew it, because she stopped and looked back at me. The anger had escaped, replaced by sorrow. “This thing that’s going on with you and Gene. It’s not about love.”
Her expression was one that might follow a round of violent tears or uncontrollable wailing, only none of that had happened. At least not in front of me it hadn’t. She simply looked at me with sadness so overwhelming no amount of tears could ever sufficiently convey its depth. And there in the lamplight, with night in full swing, Toni looked like she had aged for the first time since I’d known her. The tiny lines around her eyes and along the sides of her mouth seemed more evident, as if she’d somehow brought them to life just then. She was tired just like I was, exhausted and drained and doing what we all did: Getting out of bed every morning and doing the best she could, trying her best not to scream or cry or explode in violence and rage or cut her wrists or throw herself in front of a bus or just drop out and allow the streets and shadows to swallow her whole. She was doing what was necessary for survival and sanity, but survival was a tough business, and not at all what life was solely meant to be about.