Neal came back from Connecticut to an empty apartment. It didn’t surprise him, even though Diane had been sleeping there more nights than not lately.
They’d had one of those quick but wicked fights the morning he’d left to meet Graham at the train. She couldn’t understand that anything could be so urgent that he had to miss an exam, or that anything could be so confidential that he couldn’t tell her where he was going or what he was doing. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t understand it, either, but the rules told him to keep his mouth shut.
“Am I allowed to know how long you’ll be gone?” she’d asked.
“I’d tell you if I knew.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“How’s the studying going?”
“Great.”
He didn’t doubt it. He knew Diane was smarter than he was and worked harder to boot. She was the star of every class and seminar, and so insecure, she was the only one who didn’t see that.
They’d met in Boskin’s Eighteenth-Century Comparative Lit seminar just a few weeks after the Halperin job. He’d been reading and drinking, more drinking than reading, when they managed to contrive a conversation in the hall. He took her to coffee and she took him to bed, explaining somewhere in there that she had time for a relationship but not for a courtship. He found that the pageboy cut of her dark brown hair and the hats and vests and baggy clothes she wore disguised a quite feminine body. She made love like she studied, with a fierce concentration and attention to detail, and she slept right through the nightmares he was having in those days.
So now, he called her room at Barnard. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Yeah?”
“Hi.”
“You missed a hell of an exam.”
Might as well get this over with.
“I have to go away for a while.”
He could feel her anger over the phone.
“More secret guy-type stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“I sleep with you, you know?”
“I know.”
“So when do I get to know you? When do I see the other half? What’s so bad? What’s so special about your secrets?” she asked, then added with a small chuckle, “Hey, Neal, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
His chest felt tight. It hurt. “If I show you that stuff, you’ll leave me.”
“If you don’t show me that stuff, I’ll leave you.” It hurt a lot more. He didn’t have anything to say. “Besides,” said Diane, “I’m not leaving you, you’re leaving me.”
“Can I come over?”
“All of you or part of you?”
Part of me, and fuck you.
“I guess I’ll see you when I get back,” he said.
“Maybe.”
She hung up.
Good going, Neal, he thought. Well, probably for the best, anyway. You’ve raised self-pity to an art form; this will give you a chance to create another masterpiece.
He checked the clock. It was 11:30. He dialed Levine at home.
“Hi. I hope I woke you up.”
“Not exactly.”
“And you answered the phone? How is the little woman? On top of things?”
“What do you want?”
“I’ll need a safe house.”
“What’s wrong with a hotel?”
“It has other guests. I’ll need a safe house.”
Neal could hear Janet’s voice in the background. A fine whine that had improved with age.
“I’ll work on it,” Ed said. “What else?” “Cash.”
“Keep accounts.”
“When Allie ran away before, did you pick her up?”
The pause was just a shade too long. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Nice try, you lying sack of shit.
“Nothing. Listen, go back to what you were doing.”
Levine slammed the receiver down.
How come everyone’s hanging up on me tonight?
He dialed Graham.
“Dad!”
“Son…”
“Find anything?”
“Not a thing.”
“How about in Ed’s desk?”
“Zip. If we ever dealt with Allie Chase, there’s nothing there to show it.”
“Well… thanks for the effort.”
“Always a pleasure. When do you take off?”
“Tomorrow. Next day. I’m waiting on some stuff from Ed.”
“Mind if I go back to bed?”
“Sweet dreams.” He hung up quickly, just to break the pattern.
Neal rooted around the refrigerator until he found a beer hiding in the back. He popped it open and drained about half of it in the first swallow. Maybe if he just showed up at Diane’s, displayed his sweet, sad face, she’d take him in. Probably not. He finished his beer and went to bed.
The phone woke him early.
“Wake up, fuckhead,” Levine said.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing,” Ed said. Then he hung up.
The doorbell rang about noon. Neal was making coffee, strong, black hangover coffee. The kind of coffee meant to bring life back to your fingertips. He wasn’t thrilled to hear the doorbell. Maybe it was Diane, but probably it wasn’t. He thought about ignoring it, until it went off again, machine-gun-style, as if somebody was leaning on the button.
Joe Graham was leaning on the button.
“Wakey, wakey,” he said when Neal opened the door. He didn’t wait to be asked in, but walked past Neal, sniffed the coffee, and grabbed a cup out of the cupboard. He examined it carefully. “Is this clean?”
“I washed it personally.”
“I’ll take a chance.”
He poured himself a cup, found milk and sugar, and poured in a healthy measure of each. Then he poured another cup-black, no sugar-and set it down on the counter. He lifted his own cup in a toast. “Bon voyage.”
“You know something I don’t?”
Neal took a sip of the coffee and believed once again in the possibility of a supreme, merciful God.
“I know a lot you don’t know, son, about everything, but I also know that you’re leaving tonight at eight o’clock,” Graham said. He took a ticket packet from his jacket pocket and tossed it to Neal. “I know that some guy named Simon Keyes-are you ready for this? he’s a safari guide-will meet you at the airport. He’s going to be gone most of the summer. You can use his apartment to detox the kid.”
“A safari guide? This is getting bizarre, Graham.”
Neal started on his second cup.
“He safari guided The Man once. Friend of the family, so to speak. Guess what else I know.”
“Decency doesn’t allow-”
“You’re supposed to have the kid back by August first.”
“Any particular time?”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously.”
Graham ground his rubber hand into his natural one, the way he always did when he was worried. “This coffee isn’t too horrible. I’m surprised. They also don’t want her back much before August first.”
“Children should be seen and not heard?”
“Something like that.”
Yeah, something like that, Neal thought. John Chase is walking a narrow line, and he thinks he’s the only one who knows it. He wants Allie back just long enough to play her role in “The
Waltons Go to Washington,” not long enough to sing “Daddy’s Little Girl.” He must want to be Veep pretty badly to take that kind of risk.
“Today is what, May twenty-eighth?”
“Twenty-ninth.”
“Twenty-ninth. That gives me something like nine weeks to find her, get hold of her, fix her up, and persuade her to come back, and these people want it brought in on the button? Gee, what if I can’t?”
The rubber hand was really busy now, rubbing away. Graham didn’t like this thing, either.
“If you can’t bring her in on the date… forget it,” he said.
“Forget it?”
Graham shrugged. It was an eloquent gesture, the answer to a Zen koan.
“Yeah, okay,” Neal said. “I get it.”
Allie is useful for a few days if it’s the right few days. Otherwise, leave her where she is.
“Smells, right?” Graham said, rubbing a sheen onto the rubber hand.
“Like a garbage strike in July.”
“Right?”
Graham poured another cup. Neal saw he wasn’t finished with the news.
“What else do you know?” Neal asked.
“Your graduass-school thing. You can pick it up again.” Graham stirred the sugar in with great care. “Next fall.”
Could be worse, Neal thought. They could have just tossed me out. But the rubber hand was turning again. There was more, and he knew what it was.
“If I bring Allie back by August first.”
Graham frowned and nodded.
The sound of one hand clapping.