I would never have told them, Jenny. I understand completely. As only I can understand I only wanted your face.
He folds the flyer and slides it into the inner pocket of his coat.
There is no need to fear me, Jenny. I only wanted your picture.
26
Walking through the city at night, this night, is like walking through a serial dream, a slightly gauzy mirage where, though specific images repeat on a regular basis, the whole of the landscape never gets very clear or recognizable.
The apartment is about five miles from the theatre and it’s after four in the morning when Sylvia finally walks up the back stairs, still dressed in the remains of the Berkshires nightgown and Propp’s coat. Her hand on the back door, she pictures Perry sitting at the kitchen table, still in his suit though the tie will be pulled loose from his throat and the top button may be undone. Will she even try to offer some explanation? Or will she just stand still and wait for the yelling to dwindle so she can crawl into bed and try hard to fall asleep and pray that there’s some way to go back to the day before the Aquinas, before the seven pictures that have melted her life into this unrestricted chaos?
She takes the key from the molding lip, unlocks the door, replaces the key and heads into the kitchen. She flips on the light, puts the Canon down on the countertop and she’s both relieved and surprised that Perry isn’t there. She closes the door quietly and walks to the bedroom. The bed is empty but the red light on the answering machine is blinking in the dark. She hits the playback button and after the rewind comes Perry’s voice, hushed but clearly drunk.
“Syl, good, don’t get up, stay there, it’s me. I’m at Eddie Meade’s place. It’s about one A.M. and we’ve had a few, we’ve had quite a few, you know, drinks. After the meeting. After we finished the meeting. So I’m in no shape to drive home and I’m just going to sack out here on Eddie’s couch. Okay? You sleep. Hope you feel better in the morning. You sleep. I’ll talk to you then. We’ll talk in the morning.”
She sits down on the edge of the bed and puts her head in her hands. She’s too tired to laugh. She pulls the slippers off her feet and throws them in the wastebasket. She thinks about pouring some wine, going into the living room, flipping on the tube and seeing what Peter Lorre is up to. She unbuttons Propp’s coat and shrugs out of it, holds it in her lap and realizes it would be hard to explain if Perry saw it lying on the bed in the morning. She gets up, goes to the closet, opens the door and stares into Rory Gaston’s terrified face.
It’s his eyes that keep her from letting out a scream that could wake up Mrs. Acker. Gaston’s eyes are so wide and flinching he looks like a child on his second trip to the dentist. He’s hunched in on himself, trying somehow to disappear, a deer that’s suddenly sensed a predator in close proximity. He starts shaking his head no over and over and Sylvia’s first wave of shock and fear is replaced by anger undercut by just a little pity.
She steps back and says, “Get out of my closet.”
He complies and starts to walk past her for the bedroom door. She grabs the back of his sweater and yanks him to a stop.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
He turns around to face her.
“I’m so sorry, Sylvia,” he stammers. “If there was any other way. I’m begging you, please don’t call the police.”
“You broke into my goddamn apartment.”
“I didn’t take anything. I swear to you. You can check. I didn’t take a thing.”
“You broke in, you bastard.”
“Please, Sylvia, try to understand our position—”
“I don’t see anyone here but you, Gaston.”
“You left the key over the door—”
“That gives you the right to come into my apartment.”
He stares at her, prematurely ready to give up. He says, “You’re going to call the police?”
“Are you going to tell me why I shouldn’t?”
He looks around the bedroom, pulls on his beard. “I wasn’t going to take them,” he says. “I just wanted a look. I just wanted to see, to confirm for myself …”
“See what?” she says.
“The pictures.” he says.
“And confirm what?”
He looks at her, suddenly more confused than afraid.
“That they’re Propp’s,” he says in a soft, kind of reverent whisper.
Sylvia stares at him and refuses to speak for a while. Then she steps over to the telephone on the nightstand and lets her fingers rest on the receiver. Gaston looks from her hand to her face and back again.
Sylvia says, “You look different when you’re not in your pajamas.”
“For God’s sake,” he says, “I didn’t even find them. I didn’t disturb anything. Can’t we just leave it be?”
“No, we can’t just leave it be. You broke into someone’s apartment, Gaston. That’s a serious breach. That’s a crime. You can’t let things like this go.”
“Please, Sylvia,” his voice breaking and his eyes starting to blink too fast.
She lets him struggle for a few more seconds and then steps away from the phone and says, “Let’s go in the kitchen.”
They sit at the table with glasses of tap water in front of them and stare at each other.
“Why did you come here tonight?”
“I told you,” Gaston starts, “I only wanted—”
“No,” Sylvia says, “I mean what makes you think I have any Propp photos. I told you the only place I’ve ever seen a Propp was at the Skin Palace.”
He draws in a doubtful breath and says, “Please, Sylvia—”
She cuts him off and says, “Mr. Gaston, you’re not in a position to dictate how this discussion will go. We’re not sitting in Der Garten tonight. You want to screw around with me? I can have the police here with a phone call.”
“All right,” he says. “Calm down.”
“Quevedo told you the story, didn’t he?”
He shakes his head. “I told you before, I never heard of a Mr. Quevedo. Call the damn police if you want. I don’t know the man. Nobody in the group knows the man.”
“Please, Gaston,” mocking him.
“We know this much. We know you were the last person to visit Jack Derry’s before he stripped the store and ran. We know you left the store with a camera. An Aquinas. And we know you showed up at our door the next day.”
She takes a sip of water and gets overwhelmed with a metallic taste. She gets up and goes to the sink and dumps the glass.
“Back up. How do you know Deny? How do you know I went to the store?”
“Jack Deny has been in the Zone for years—”
“So has Quevedo.”
“I don’t know a Quevedo,” he snaps.
“All right,” she says. “You don’t know Quevedo.”
“Look, Sylvia,” he says. “We’re like the apostles after the crucifixion, okay? The group tries to live on faith. We look for signs, little traces that Propp’s still around. That there might be more—”
“More what?”
He looks at her, either annoyed or confused. “More images. More clues. More messages.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We can’t get enough, Sylvia,” he says. “There have to be more pictures. We go on in the hope that there are more pictures.”
“Look, we’re getting off track here—”
“What would you think?” he says, kind of a challenge. “A stranger comes to Der Garten. She asks questions about Propp. She’s evasive about her reasons and her existing information.”
“I’d think that she wasn’t telling me everything. That maybe she knew something I didn’t.”