Manhattan Noir 2 Page 15

  And what she could also do, though I had to be very careful she never found out about it, was take up that shortfall, those pennies between me and the white medicine that makes me such a winning fellow. A generous woman, certainly generous enough for that modest need. And I understood from the beginning that if I were to keep her love and respect and my access to her piggy bank, I must never be too greedy. Independent, self-sufficient, self-respecting, only dipping into her funds for those odd sixpences which would bring me, in Mr. Dickens’s phrase, “result happiness.”

  The appearance of independence was one reason why I kept on at Rendall/LeBeau, but I had other reasons as well. In the first place, I didn’t want one of those second-rate account churners to take over the Morwell—now Kimball—account and bleed it to death with percentages of unnecessary sales. In the second place, I needed time away from Stephanie, private time that was reasonably accounted for and during which I could go on medicating myself. I would never be able to maintain my proper dosages at home without my bride sooner or later stumbling across the truth. And beyond all that, I’ve always enjoyed the work, playing with other people’s money as if it were merely counters in a game, because that’s all it is when it’s other people’s money.

  Four lovely months we had of that life, with Stephanie never suspecting a thing. With neither of us, in fact, ever suspecting a thing. And if I weren’t such a workaholic, particularly when topped with my little white friend, I wonder what eventually might have happened. No, I don’t wonder; I know what would have happened.

  But here’s what happened instead. I couldn’t keep my hands off Stephanie’s financial records. It wasn’t prying, it wasn’t suspicion, it wasn’t for my own advantage, it was merely a continuation of the work ethic on another front. And I wanted to do something nice for Stephanie because my fondness had grown—no, truly, it had. Did I love her? I believe I did. Surely, she was lovable. Surely, I had reason. Every day, I was made happy by her existence; if that isn’t love, what is?

  And Stephanie’s tax records and household accounts were a mess. I first became aware of this when I came home one evening to find Stephanie, furrow-browed, huddled at the dining-room table with Serge Ostogoth, her—our—accountant. It was tax time and the table was a snowdrift of papers in no discernible order. Serge, a harmless drudge with leather elbow patches and a pathetic small mustache, was patiently taking Stephanie through the year just past, trying to match the paperwork to the history, a task that was clearly going to take several days. Serge had been Stephanie’s accountant for three years, I later learned, and every year they had to go through this.

  So I rolled up my sleeves to pitch in. Serge was grateful for my help. Stephanie, with shining eyes, kept telling me I was her savior, and eventually we managed to make sense of it all.

  It was then I decided to put Stephanie’s house in order. There was no point mentioning my plan; Stephanie was truly ashamed of her record-keeping inabilities, so why rub her nose in it? Evenings and weekends, if we weren’t doing anything else, not flying out to the cottage or off to visit friends or out to theater and dinner, I’d spend half an hour or so working through her fiscal accounts.

  Yes, and her previous husband, Robert, had been no help. When I got back that far, there was no improvement at all. In fact, Robert had been at least as bad as Stephanie about keeping records, and much worse when it came to throwing money around. A real wastrel. Outgo exceeded income all through that marriage. His life insurance, at the end, had been a real help.

  And so had Frank’s.

  It was a week or two after I’d finished rationalizing the Robert years—two of them, though in three tax years—that my work brought me to my first encounter with Frank. Another husband, last name Bullock. Frank Bullock died three and a half years before Stephanie’s marriage to Robert Morwell. Oh, yes, and he, too, had been well-insured. And with him, too, insurance paid double indemnity for accidental death.

  Robert had been drowned at sea while on a cruise with Stephanie. Frank had fallen from the terrace of this very apartment while leaning out too far with his binoculars to observe the passage of an unusual breed of sea gull; Frank had been an amateur ornithologist.

  And Leslie Hanford had fallen off a mountain in the Laurentians while on a Canadian ski holiday. Hanford was the husband before Bullock. Apparently, the first husband. Leslie’s insurance, in fact, had been the basis for the fortune Stephanie now enjoyed, supplemented when necessary or convenient by the insurance of her later husbands. After each accidental death, Stephanie changed insurance agents and accountants. And each husband had died just over a year after the policy had been taken out.

  Just over a year. So that’s how long my bride expected to share my company, was it? Well, she was right about that, though not in the way she expected. I, too, could be decisive when called upon.

  Whenever the weather was good, Stephanie took the sun on our terrace. Although it would be plagiarizing a bit from my bride, I could one day, having established an alibi at the office….

  The current insurance agent was named Oliver Swerdluff. I went to see him. “I just wanted to be sure,” I said, “that the new policy on my life went through without a hitch. In case anything happened to me, I’d want to be certain Stephanie was cared for.”

  “An admirable sentiment,” Swerdluff said. He was a puffy, sweaty man with tiny eyes, a man who would never let suspicion get between himself and a commission. Stephanie had chosen well.

  I said, “Let me see, that was—half a million?”

  “Oh, we felt a million would be better,” Swerdluff said with a well-fed smile. “Double indemnity.”

  “Of course!” I exclaimed. “Excuse me, I get confused about these numbers. A million, of course. Double indemnity. And that’s exactly the amount we want for the new policy, to insure Stephanie’s life. If that’s what I’m worth to her, she’s certainly that valuable to me.”

  Call me a fool, but I fell in love. Bruce was so different from the others, so confident, so self-reliant. And it was so clear he loved me, loved me, not my money, not the advantages I brought him. I tried to be practical, but my heart ruled my head. This was a husband I was going to have to keep.

  Many’s the afternoon I spent sunbathing and brooding on the terrace while Bruce was downtown at the firm. On one hand, I would have financial security for at least a little while. On the other hand, I would have Bruce.

  Ah, what this terrace could be! Duckboarded, with wrought-iron furniture, a few potted hemlocks, a gaily striped awning….

  Well, what of it? What was a row of hemlocks in the face of true love? Bruce and I could discuss our future together, our finances. A plan, shared with another person.

  We would have to economize, of course, and the first place to do so was with that million-dollar policy. I wouldn’t be needing it now, so that was the first expense that could go. I went back to see Mr. Swerdluff. “I want to cancel that policy,” I said.

  “If you wish,” he said. “Will you be canceling both of them?”

  A MANHATTAN ROMANCE

  BY JOYCE CAROL OATES

  Central Park South

  (Originally published in 1997)

  Your Daddy loves you, that’s the one true thing.

  Never forget, Princess: that’s the one true thing in your life of mostly lies.

  That wild day! I’d woken before it was even dawn; I seemed to know that a terrible happiness was in store.

  I was five years old; I was feverish with excitement; when Daddy came to pick me up for our Saturday adventure as he called it, it had just begun to snow; Momma and I were standing at the tall windows of our eighteenth-floor apartment looking out across Central Park when the doorman rang; Momma whispered in my ear, “If you said you were sick, you wouldn’t have to go with—him.” For she could not utter the word Daddy, and even the words your father made her mouth twist. I said, “Momma, I’m not sick! I’m not.” So the doorman sent Daddy up. Momma kept me with her at the window, her
hands that sometimes trembled firm on my shoulders and her chin resting on the top of my head so I wanted to squirm away but did not dare, not wanting to hurt Momma’s feelings or make her angry. So we stood watching the snowflakes—a thousand million snowflakes drifting downward out of the sky glinting like mica in the thin sunshine of early December. I was pointing and laughing; I was excited by the snow, and by Daddy coming for me. Momma said, “Just look! Isn’t it beautiful! The first snow of the season.” Most of the tall trees had lost their leaves, the wind had blown away their leaves that only a few days before had been such bright, beautiful colors, and you could see clearly now the roads curving and dipping through the park; you could see the streams of traffic—yellow taxis, cars, delivery vans, horse-drawn carriages, bicyclists; you could see the skaters at Wollman Rink, and you could see the outdoor cages of the Children’s Zoo, which was closed now; you could see the outcroppings of rock like miniature mountains; you could see the ponds glittering like mirrors laid flat; the park was still green, and seemed to go on forever; you could see to the very end at 110th Street (Momma told me the name of this distant street, which I had never seen close up); you could see the gleaming cross on the dome of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Momma told me the name of this great cathedral, which I had never seen close up); our new apartment building was at 31 Central Park South and so we could see the Hudson River to the left, and the East River to the right; the sun appeared from the right, above the East River; the sun vanished to the left, below the Hudson River; we were floating above the street seventeen floors below; we were floating in the sky, Momma said; we were floating above Manhattan, Momma said; we were safe here, Momma said, and could not come to harm. But Momma was saying now in her sad angry voice, “I wish you didn’t have to go with—him. You won’t cry, will you? You won’t miss your momma too much, will you?” I was staring at the thousand million snowflakes; I was excited waiting for Daddy to ring the bell at our front door; I was confused by Momma’s questions because wasn’t Momma me? so didn’t Momma know? the answer to any question of Momma’s, didn’t Momma already know? “I wish you didn’t have to leave me, darling, but it’s the terms of the agreement—it’s the law.” These bitter words It’s the law fell from Momma’s lips each Saturday morning like something dropped in the apartment overhead! I waited to hear them, and I always did hear them. And then Momma leaned over me and kissed me; I loved Momma’s sweet perfume and her soft-shining hair but I wanted to push away from her; I wanted to run to the door, to open it just as Daddy rang the bell; I wanted to surprise Daddy, who took such happiness in being surprised; I wanted to say to Momma, I love Daddy better than I love you, let me go! Because Momma was me, but Daddy was someone so different.

  The doorball rang. I ran to answer it. Momma remained in the front room at the window. Daddy hoisted me into his arms, “How’s my Princess? How’s my Baby-Love?” and Daddy called out politely to Momma, whom he could not see, in the other room, “We’re going to the Bronx Zoo, and we’ll be back promptly at 5:30 p.m. as agreed.” And Momma, who was very dignified, made no reply. Daddy called out, “Goodbye! Remember us!” which was like Daddy, to say mysterious things, things to make you smile, and to make you wonder; things to make you confused, as if maybe you hadn’t heard correctly but didn’t want to ask. And Momma never asked. And in the elevator going down Daddy hugged me again saying how happy we were, just the two of us. He was the King, I was the Little Princess. Sometimes I was the Fairy Princess. Momma was the Ice Queen who never laughed. Daddy was saying this could be the happiest day of our lives if we had courage. A light shone in Daddy’s eyes; there would never be a man so handsome and radiant as Daddy.

  “Not the Bronx, after all. Not today, I don’t think.”

  Our driver that day was an Asian man in a smart visored cap, a neat dark uniform, and gloves. The limousine was shiny black and larger than last week’s and the windows were dark-tinted so you could see out (but it was strange, a scary twilight even in the sun) but no one could see in. “No plebeians knowing our business!” Daddy said, winking at me. “No spies.” When we passed traffic policemen Daddy made faces at them, waggled his fingers at his ears and stuck out his tongue though they were only a few yards away; I giggled frightened Daddy would be seen and arrested, but he couldn’t be seen, of course—“We’re invisible, Princess! Don’t worry.”

  Daddy liked me to smile and laugh, not to worry; not ever, ever to cry. He’d had enough of crying, he said. He’d had it up to here (drawing a forefinger across his throat, like a knife blade) with crying, he said. He had older children, grown-up children I’d never met; I was his Little Princess, his Baby-Love, the only one of his children he did love, he said. Snatching my hand and kissing it, kiss-tickling so I’d squeal with laughter.

  Now Daddy no longer drove his own car, it was a time of rented cars. His enemies had taken his driver’s license from him to humiliate him, he said. For they could not defeat him in any way that mattered. For he was too strong for them, and too smart.

  It was a time of sudden reversals, changes of mind. I had been looking forward to the zoo; now we weren’t going to the zoo but doing something else—“You’ll like it just as much.” Other Saturdays, we’d driven through the park; the park had many surprises; the park went on forever; we would stop, and walk, run, play in the park; we’d fed the ducks and geese swimming on the ponds; we’d had lunch outdoors at Tavern on the Green; we’d had lunch outdoors at the boat-house; on a windy March day, Daddy had helped me fly a kite (which we’d lost—it broke, and blew away in shreds); there was the promise of skating at Wollman Rink sometime soon. Other Saturdays we’d driven north on Riverside Drive to the George Washington Bridge, and across the bridge, and back; we’d driven north to the Cloisters; we’d driven south to the very end of the island as Daddy called it—“The great doomed island, Manhattan.” We’d crossed Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, we’d crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. We’d gazed up at the Statue of Liberty. We’d gone on a ferry ride in bouncy, choppy water. We’d had lunch at the top of the World Trade Center, which was Daddy’s favorite restaurant—“Dining in the clouds! In heaven.” We’d gone to Radio City Music Hall, we’d seen Beauty and the Beast on Broadway; we’d seen the Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center; we’d seen, the year before, the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. Our Saturday adventures left me dazed, giddy; one day I would realize that’s what intoxicated, high, drunk means—I’d been drunk with happiness, with Daddy.

  But no other drunk, ever afterward, could come near.

  “Today, Princess, we’ll buy presents. That’s what we’ll do—‘store up riches.’”

  Christmas presents? I asked.

  “Sure. Christmas presents, any kind of presents. For you, and for me. Because we’re special, you know.” Daddy smiled at me, and I waited for him to wink because sometimes (when he was on the car phone, for instance) he’d wink at me to indicate he was joking; for Daddy often joked; Daddy was a man who loved to laugh, as he described himself, and there wasn’t enough to laugh at, unless he invented it. “You know we are special, Princess, don’t you? And all your life you’ll remember your Daddy loves you?—that’s the one true thing.”

  Yes, Daddy, I said. For of course it was so.

  I should record how Daddy spoke on the phone, in the backseats of our hired cars.

  How precise his words, how he enunciated his words, polite and cold and harsh; how, though he spoke calmly, his handsome face creased like a vase that has been cracked; his eyes squinted almost shut, and had no focus; a raw flush like sunburn rose from his throat. Then he would remember where he was, and remember me. And smile at me, winking and nodding, whispering to me; even as he continued his conversation with whoever was at the other end of the line. And after a time Daddy would say abruptly, “That’s enough!” or simply, “Goodbye!” and break the connection; Daddy would replace the phone receiver, and the conversation would have ended, with no warning. So that I basked in the knowledge that
any one of Daddy’s conversations, entered into with such urgency, would nonetheless come to an abrupt ending with the magic words “That’s enough!” or “Goodbye!” and these words I awaited in the knowledge that, then, Daddy would turn smiling to me.

  That wild day! Breakfast at the Plaza, and shopping at the Trump Tower, and a visit to the Museum of Modern Art where Daddy took me to see a painting precious to him, he said…We had been in the café at the Plaza before but this time Daddy couldn’t get the table he requested, and something else was wrong—it wasn’t clear to me what; I was nervous, and giggly; Daddy gave our orders to the waiter, but disappeared (to make another phone call? to use the men’s room?—if you asked Daddy where he went he’d say with a wink, That’s for me to know, darlin’, and you to find out); a big plate of scrambled eggs and bacon was brought for me; eggs Benedict was brought for Daddy; a stack of blueberry pancakes with warm syrup was brought for us to share; the silver pastry cart was pushed to our table; there were tiny jars of jams, jellies, marmalade for us to open; there were people at nearby tables observing us; I was accustomed, in Daddy’s company, to being observed by strangers; I took such attention as my due, as Daddy’s daughter; Daddy whispered, “Let them get an eyeful, Princess.” Daddy ate quickly, hungrily; Daddy ate with a napkin tucked beneath his chin; Daddy saw that I wasn’t eating much and asked was there something wrong with my breakfast; I told Daddy I wasn’t hungry; Daddy asked if “she” had made me eat, before he’d arrived; I told him no; I said I felt a little sickish; Daddy said, “That’s one of the Ice Queen’s tactics—‘sickish.’” So I tried to eat, tiny pieces of pancakes that weren’t soaked in syrup, and Daddy leaned his elbows on the table and watched me, saying, “And what if this is the last breakfast you’ll ever have with your father, what then? Shame on you!” Waiters hovered near in their dazzling white uniforms. The maitre d’ was attentive, smiling. A call came for Daddy and he was gone for some time and when he returned flush-faced and distracted, his necktie loosened at his throat, it seemed that breakfast was over; hurriedly Daddy scattered $20 bills across the table, and hurriedly we left the café as everyone smiled and stared after us; we left the Plaza by the side entrance, on 58th Street, where the limousine awaited us; the silent Asian driver standing at the curb with the rear door open for Daddy to bundle me inside, and climb inside himself. We had hardly a block to go, to the elegant Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue; there we took escalators to the highest floor, where Daddy’s eyes glistened with tears, everywhere he looked was so beautiful. Have I said my Daddy was smooth-shaven this morning, and smelled of a wintergreen cologne; he was wearing amber-tinted sunglasses, new to me; he was wearing a dark pinstriped double-breasted Armani suit and over it an Armani camel’s-hair coat with shoulders that made him appear more muscular than he was; he was wearing shiny black Italian shoes with a heel that made him appear taller than he was; Daddy’s hair had been styled and blown dry so that it lifted from his head like something whipped, not lying flat, and not a dull flattish white as it had been but tinted now a pale russet color; how handsome Daddy was! In the boutiques of Trump Tower Daddy bought me a dark blue velvet coat, and a pale blue angora cloche hat; Daddy bought me pale blue angora gloves; my old coat, my old gloves were discarded—“Toss ’em, please!” Daddy commanded the saleswomen. Daddy bought me a beautiful silk Hermès scarf to wrap around my neck, and Daddy bought me a beautiful white-gold wristwatch studded with tiny emeralds, that had to be made smaller, much smaller, to fit my wrist; Daddy bought me a “keepsake” gold heart on a thin gold chain, a necklace; Daddy bought for himself a half-dozen beautiful silk neckties imported from Italy, and a kidskin wallet; Daddy bought a cashmere vest sweater for himself, imported from Scotland; Daddy bought an umbrella, an attaché case, a handsome suitcase, imported from England, all of which he ordered to be delivered to an address in New Jersey; and other items Daddy bought for himself, and for me. For all these wonderful presents Daddy paid in cash; in bills of large denominations; Daddy no longer used credit cards, he said; he refused to be a cog in the network of government surveillance, he said; they would not catch him in their net; he would not play their ridiculous games. In the Trump Tower there was a café beside a waterfall and Daddy had a glass of wine there, though he chose not to sit down at a table; he was too restless, he said, to sit down at a table; he was in too much of a hurry. Descending then the escalators to the ground floor, where a cool breeze lifted to touch our heated faces; I was terribly excited in my lovely new clothes, and wearing my lovely jewelry; except for Daddy gripping my hand—“Care-ful, Princess!”—I would have stumbled at the foot of the escalator. And outside on Fifth Avenue there were so many people, tall rushing rude people who took no notice of me even in my new velvet coat and angora hat, I would have been knocked down on the sidewalk except for Daddy gripping my hand, protecting me. Next we went—we walked, and the limousine followed—to the Museum of Modern Art, where again there was a crowd, again I was breathless riding escalators, I was trapped behind tall people seeing legs, the backs of coats, swinging arms; Daddy lifted me to his shoulder and carried me, and brought me into a large, airy room; a room of unusual proportions; a room not so crowded as the others; there were tears in Daddy’s eyes as he held me in his arms—his arms that trembled just slightly—to gaze at an enormous painting—several paintings—broad beautiful dreamy-blue paintings of a pond, and water lilies; Daddy told me that these paintings were by a very great French artist named “Mon-ay” and that there was magic in them; he told me that these paintings made him comprehend his own soul, or what his soul had been meant to be; for as soon as you left the presence of such beauty, you were lost in the crowd; you were devoured by the crowd; it would be charged against you that it was your own fault but in fact—“They don’t let you be good, Princess. The more you have, the more they want from you. They eat you alive. Cannibals.”