THREE
Susan puts the manuscript down. What’s bothering me? she says. As she watches Tony groping in the sordid city for sex, she wonders if this will continue to be a story for her. When Tony was in the woods, horror transcended gender. But the struggle to recover manhood is different. Tony looking for a sex object: she gets no thrill from that.
What’s bothering her is something else. Reading pushes through the sea like a swimmer. The creatures of Susan’s daylight mind, animals of land and air, sink into it, converted into dolphins, submarines, fish. Something bites her while she swims, a small toothy shark. She needs to drag it into the air where she can see. While Tony Hastings grieves, it bites.
When the sea recedes she’s back to Arnold on the telephone. She remembers a reproach. I wish you hadn’t asked that, he said.
What did she ask?
At some point in the conversation he suggested commuting to the Washington job. Let her stay in Chicago with the kids, and he could fly home weekends. She remembers—by a process of association: commuting, which would mean two homes for him, which implies—
The question he reproached her for was whatever it was. He asked why she wanted to know, and she said something. That did not satisfy him, he probed, she resisted, and he said, You’re asking about Linwood.
I didn’t say that, she said.
She heard his impatient intake of breath. You did ask. So I’ll tell you. It hasn’t been decided. It’s an opportunity, and she has a sister in Washington. I thought you understood. I wish you hadn’t asked that question.
He wished she hadn’t asked that question.
There’s nothing to do but drop it back into the sea. Back to Tony, who gives the poor singles woman the creeps. She wonders if Edward invented Tony’s grief by imagining how he would feel if something happened to Stephanie, if that’s how he did it.
Nocturnal Animals 14
When Tony Hastings returned home in the afternoon, there was a note in his mailbox from the local police, please call.
“Please call?” the woman said. “Let’s see. Hastings, you? Andes, Pennsylvania, call immediately. Would that be it?”
Could be. “I don’t know who you’re supposed to call in Andes,” she said.
“Andes is a person.”
He called the number and got someone named Muskacs, who said, “Andes ain’t here.”
He left word and hurried to the pizza restaurant so as to be back by eight. The call came promptly.
“Hastings? I been trying to get you for three days.”
“I went to New York for Christmas. Visiting my sister.”
“A trip, huh? And now you gotta take another one.”
“What?”
“I want you to fly to Albany New York tomorrow, meet me.”
“What for?”
“Good news.”
“Tomorrow?”
“We’ll pay. There’s a plane you can meet me the airport at noon.”
“I have a class tomorrow.”
“Cancel it.”
“What’s it about?”
“I just want you to look at some guys.”
“Identify them?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Is that the good news?”
“Could be.”
“You think these are the ones?”
“I don’t think anything, Tony, until you tell me what to think.”
“How did you catch them?”
“Can’t tell you. Tell you later.”
Tony felt a growing thrilclass="underline" Ray, Lou, and Turk, face to face.
“I have that class tomorrow. It’s important.”
“More important than this, man?”
“I’ll see if somebody can take my class.”
“Now you’re talking. Get this. I want you to call U.S. Air, check in. We’ve made your reservation. Go in the morning, back tomorrow night, all in one day. I’ll be driving there and meet you when you arrive. Can’t complain about that, can you?”
Tony Hastings flew to Albany. He felt a growing fright as he stared out the window into the featureless milky sky. The flight attendant gave him ginger ale and a plastic bag of peanuts. He munched, recapitulating the idea of revenge, reminding himself what it was about. Justice, retribution, to end the sentence. What Bobby Andes expected him to feel. The joy of looking them in the eye with the shackles on them and saying, Your turn now.
They would look back into his eye. Was that what he was afraid of? Try to remember. The scene had been rerun so often, replayed so many times, the print was blotched, color faded, touch and taste dulled. But he was going back to it, to the very time. Try, you must remember.
The man across the aisle in the plane had a black beard. He also had a suit and tie and a clipboard in his lap. He looked like Lou except for his clothes. There was a man with glasses and a briefcase in the back who looked like Turk. The man in a jump suit with earphones on the tarmac in Pittsburgh had a triangular face, teeth bigger than his mouth, like Ray.
They will look at you, but why should you fear? They will be captive, under restraint. Bobby Andes will take care of you.
As he walked through the carpeted tunnel out of the plane, Tony Hastings wondered if he would recognize Bobby Andes.
He remembered Bobby Andes as short, fat, with a large head and smooth shiny cheeks shaded with pepper. He knew the man approaching was Andes, not because he recognized him but because Andes was supposed to meet him. Strange around the eyes, quickly ceasing to be strange, he remembered those eyes and thick lips, and it was the simplified remembered picture in his mind that had been wrong. In another moment, as they walked together through the long passageways toward the exit, the simplified picture was gone, the strangeness obliterated.
“We’re going to Ajax,” Andes said. “That’s twenty miles from here. The meeting’s at two. It won’t take you five minutes. Then you can go home.”
“You want me to identify them?”
“Just say if you recognize anyone. If you do, you can sign a statement.”
“You got all three?”
“Never mind what we got. Just tell us who you know.”
“How did you catch them? Fingerprints?”
“Never mind, I told you. Afterward okay. Beforehand nix.”
They drove out of the city, through fields on a fast two-lane road. Ajax was a factory town on a river. They went to an old brick building with concrete pillars. Up an old staircase under a stained glass window. In the room, a tall white haired man with a used face. Bobby Andes introduced. “Captain Vanesco, Tony Hastings.”
Captain Vanesco was polite. They sat at a desk. “Lieutenant Andes has told me your case,” he said. “Do you feel intimidated by these people? Is there any reason you might hesitate to put the finger on anyone?”
As a matter of fact—but Tony was ashamed and said, “No.”
Vanesco said, “The people we are interested in are prisoners. They will not be released if you identify them.”
Bobby Andes said, “Listen Tony, your testimony is damned important. Do you realize that?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have hardly anything else. Do you realize that?”
Vanesco said, “Not all the people you are about to see are suspects. We do this to give the suspects a fair shake. If you can pick them out from others that strengthens identification.”
Tony was uneasy. He said, “A lot of time has passed.”
“I understand.”
“It all took place at night.”
Vanesco said, “Are you saying you didn’t get a clear look at their faces?”
“I think I did, but it was dark.”
“I understand. Here’s my advice. If you’re unsure, pass. Because if you recognize someone it comes with a click, gestalt, do you know that word? Only don’t pass too quick. Sometimes it takes a while for the click to come. The person might look like a stranger for a few minutes before he focuses and clicks. So if you’re unsure, wait for the click.”