In the aftermath, Marlene learned the difference between working private and being part of a billion-dollar security empire when there were bloody corpses to figure out. The police, for one thing, were a good deal nicer to her than formerly, first, because there was not a boss cop in the city who did not dream of a fat postcareer position with a firm like Osborne International, and second, Osborne itself swarmed the area with lawyers and other helpful people. Ms. Solette, scratchless physically, destroyed emotionally, was spirited away to an undisclosed location, with her dog. Marlene was allowed to change her blood-soaked clothes and take a shower right there at the crime scene, although not in the bullet-holed bathroom. Min Dykstra, her assistant, arrived with a change of clothes and clean undies, and a willingness to provide a broad crying surface on either of her shoulders, if desired.
It was not desired. Marlene's first (and nearly sole) interaction with her was an inquiry about Segovia. Answer: in critical condition but still alive. The other four victims were dead, but this toll seemed to have little effect on Marlene, who drifted off to one of the three other bathrooms. She then spent a long time in the shower, so long a time that Dykstra, normally as unflappable a young woman as could be found, kept checking her watch and fingering her cell phone and listening at the bathroom door. Was Marlene having a nervous breakdown in there?
She was not. She was washing her hair. Marlene had a mop of heavy, thick, curly black hair, worn neck length and cleverly cut so that it would cast a shadow over the false eye. But now there were things in it. Tiny bits of skull and scalp with wispy blond hair still clinging that fell to the bathtub floor, as well as little gobbets of matter looking like pink-gray earthworms, parts of the organ in which James Coleman had recently maintained his sorry existence. She nudged one of these toward the drain hole with her toe, which immediately prompted the long-anticipated retch session. This, too, went on for longer than expected.
Dykstra heard the water stop at least, and shortly afterward the sound of a hair dryer. Her heart swelled with relief, for she believed that deranged people do not use hair dryers. She had, however, only worked briefly for Marlene Ciampi.
Who emerged, looking scrubbed and wholesome, except around the eyes, smelling of expensive soap and the best shampoo, and dressed in baggy khaki trousers and a black cotton sweater. She sat through a straightforward interview with a police detective, and then she was whisked away, quite passively, by Dykstra and a covey of hefty VIP-section Osborniks, down the service elevator, out the back way, and into a waiting limo. The press, of course, was in full cry, the combination of celebrity and violence being without question the most desirable of all news stories. But Marlene's troops were skilled at penetrating and evading their wolf packs.
Shortly after they departed the scene, in a black van with smoked windows, a cell phone rang. Dykstra answered and said, "It's your husband."
Marlene stared for a few seconds at the instrument extended to her as if she were unaware of its function, then took it, listened, and said, "Yes, I'm fine… Really… No, I didn't kill him. He killed himself… Yes… Yes… No, I have to go back to the office and write up my report… No, it can't… Yes, I'll see you tonight." All this was delivered with the affect of a recorded announcement. Dykstra and the other people in the limo cast covert glances of admiration at their leader: after something like that, to be so cool! No one said much during the rest of the trip.
Karp put the Solette affair, and his wife's part in it, out of his mind for the rest of the day. He was good at this putting away, from long practice, for if he had gone into uxorious conniptions every time his darling had diced with death, he would not have had enough emotional resources left to run a hot dog stand. Besides, he also knew from experience that Marlene detoxified best when left alone. She would need him eventually, but not just yet. He paged his daughter, leaving a message to call immediately, and called the twins' school and said that he would be picking them up himself. Thus, he put into action the Karp Family Post-Traumatic Stress Coping Mechanism, a regrettably well-oiled machine, and hoped for the best.
A knock at the door and in came Murrow, looking forlorn, a special assistant with no one special to assist. As acting bureau chief, Karp did not rate a special assistant, and Fuller, who had immediately moved into Karp's old office, had no use for him. Technically, Murrow was an ADA, but one with little experience. He had been reassigned to criminal courts, but no one knew quite what to do with him at this point.
"How are you getting on, Murrow?" Karp greeted him. "Working hard?"
"They have me in the complaint room. I'm thinking of bailing out, actually."
"Yes, I can understand that. Being an assistant DA is harder than being a special assistant lounging on velvet cushions and reading spicy novels the day long, as was your wont."
"Yes, I'll miss that," Murrow said, smiling faintly. "And the imported chocolates. The fact is, while I enjoyed working with you, I don't like regular ADA work… I don't think it's my cup of tea."
"No, but neither is it anyone else's. I think you're spoiled."
"Quite possibly. I feel sort of squishy and rotten. In any case, I thought I'd drop by to say thank you and farewell."
"Not so fast. Listen, if I were to get you up here temporarily, how would that be?"
"Homicide?" Murrow looked pale.
"Not as such. But I have various things going on where I'll need some help. Technically ADA work, but not routine at all."
Karp made some calls, called in some favors, and the thing was done. Murrow went off happy to get, as he said, his toothbrush and teddy bear. Karp called Vasquez, but got the recorded message from the cell phone company. He intended to stick Murrow as second seat to Vasquez on the Marshak thing, a fairly outrageous act, but he was feeling outrageous lately, cut off by the toxic situation from his usual careful habits. It would work, though: Murrow was tenacious and bright, and maybe the case wouldn't come to trial at all. The kid could get his feet wet without too much harm done.
The phone rang, the private number, and he snatched it up. It was not, however, one of his family or the DA or one of a small group of close associates. It was Shelly Solotoff.
"I hear you got fired again," said Solotoff.
"It was Roland who got fired, or resigned. I'm just helping Jack out here."
A low chuckle, not pleasant. "Poor Roland! All his bile displayed in the press. I was glad to see that Jack didn't even make a pretense at defending him. I mean why be loyal or anything when the feminists are on your ass?" The ironic smoothness of Solotoff's voice was tempered by crackle and the sound of traffic. A cell phone.
"What can I do for you today, Shelly?" asked Karp, nor did he keep the distaste from his voice.
"You're handling the Ramsey shooting, I take it."
"Mimi Vasquez is, but she's reporting to me for now. Why?"
"Because earlier today Ralphie Paxton called me."
"Him being…?"
"How soon they forget! Ralphie is, or was, Desmondo Ramsey's friend, adviser, and running buddy. Our witness. He saw the whole event. And he picked up the knife."
"The knife."
"Yeah! The knife Ramsey was going to stick into my client."
"Uh-huh. Where is this person now?"
"Sitting right next to me. We're on our way to the precinct to make a statement."
"We? Are you representing Mr. Paxton, too?"
"I'm advising him. I don't think he needs representation, as such."
"Really? I thought leaving the scene of a crime in which you were a participant was against the law."
Solotoff laughed. "Oh, well, if you decide to charge him with crap like that, maybe I'll take him on pro bono. Sorry to deprive you guys of your great white defendant, but I assume I can tell Sybil that no charges will be filed."
"That would be a premature assumption at this time. Let's talk to Mr. Paxton first and then we'll see."
Solotoff did not respond to this. Shelly often did not respond to things he did not want to hear, Karp recalled. He sounded high, excited, as if he had pulled off some coup. He wanted to chat, but Karp did not want to chat with him. After he hung up, Karp rang Vasquez again and got her this time.
"Where are you?"
"With Raney at Midtown South. What's up?"
Karp explained. Vasquez said, "Crap! Well, that's that. She seems to be off the hook if this guy holds up."
"Not so fast. I want you to grill old Ralphie, slow fire, lots of basting. Make sure he really saw something. If you have to, take him down to the garage, draw chalk lines. Obviously, full forensics on the knife. Get a picture of it, pass it around to his homies, see if anyone ever saw him flash it."
"Got it. I take it you think Ralphie showing up just now is a little too convenient?"
"A little. Especially with Solotoff involved."
"He's shady?"
"I don't know. He has something going on, an extra agenda." With me, Karp thought, but didn't say. "Oh, and another thing. We need to know about the watch."
A pause. "I'm sorry? What does the watch-"
"Oh, come on, Vasquez! The guy is holding a Rolex worth five, six grand retail. Why is he trying to mug a woman in a parking garage? Where does a street guy get a thing like that? Even on Park Avenue they don't throw gold Rolexes away in the trash. It doesn't fit, and I hate it when stuff doesn't fit. One more thing: I'm giving you Murrow as your second, assuming we go forward with Marshak."
"Mookie?"
"Yes, Mookie. And, yes, he looks like a preppie dweeb, but, in fact, he's incredibly smart, energetic, and you can abuse him to your heart's content. He'll bounce back like an inflatable doll."
Vasquez grumblingly agreed and conceded also that the watch was peculiar, but did not sound particularly anxious to throw energy into the question.
After she was off the line, Karp diddled around for an hour or so, then called for a car, drove to St. Joseph's, picked up the twins, and came back to the office. There they were made much of by secretaries and staff, given copy paper and colored markers, and diverted much government property to private use in contravention of the laws of New York. It was a rare treat for both of them; Zak hung around the cops, who were always passing through, eyeing their gear and striking up remarkable firearms conversations; Giancarlo drew pictures of rockets, ray guns, and aliens. Lucy called back on the page, and he told her to come by the office, which she did shortly thereafter.
"How's Mom?" she asked.
"She says she's okay. We'll see. Let's be extraspecial kind tonight, okay?"
"I thought she wasn't carrying guns anymore."
"It wasn't her gun, and she apparently saved the life of one of her people and also her client. It must have been a tough choice." He looked her over, suppressing like a good dad his desire that she look more like the schoolgirls he saw on the street instead of like a postwar refugee.
"You look tired," he said solicitously. "Where've you been?"
"At the church, with Father Mike. Daddy…?"
"Mn?"
"Did you ever have two really good friends that both like you, but who didn't like each other?"
"I've had that experience."
"What do you do? It's horrible!"
"You can't do anything, honey. Keep 'em apart and hope for the best. These are friends at school?"
"No, it's Mike. He thinks David is, I don't know, strange or something. He really kind of flared up about it, which is not like him… I mean about other people. He flames me all the time."
"Well, he is strange," said Karp, and got one of the famous Ciampi-women black looks. "I meant most people don't live like St. Francis and go off to dangerous places to help refugees or whatever. What do you think Mike was getting at? That the guy was a phony?"
"No, not really. I think Mike screwed up himself, with the Church, I mean, so he's always on the lookout for people who think they know more than the Church does about religion."
"Really? He seems to be fairly liberal with your mom's antics."
"Oh, Mom's just a common criminal. It's okay to be charitable to those." She fell silent, thinking: Mike Dugan thinks I lust after David is what it is, and that I'm going to get myself in trouble. And I do lust after him, but it's stupid schoolgirl lust, and I'm in no great danger from it; pathetic, really. Still, Mike should know that, so… what if it's something else? Something he knows, or senses? He's so damn smart, Father Mike, I can't believe he's behaving like some Irish parish priest like we joke about, but for real. So what could it be? And as she mused in this way, she recalled the odd things she had noticed about Grale and ignored or excused. That remark about why God lets them live. About the slasher being an instrument of mercy. Those scary blank moments when he suddenly wasn't there. She felt a chill and shuddered. Her father noticed and asked what was wrong, and she said nothing, but it wasn't nothing.
The phone rang. Giancarlo struck like a snake and snatched it up. "Mr. Karp's office," he said; then, handing over the instrument, "It's for you, Daddy."
"I should hope so," said Karp. It was Vasquez.
"Was that a secretary?"
"My kid. What's up?"
"I did Paxton. If he's making it up, he's real good. I took him through it half a dozen times, from every angle I could think of. Raney did him, too. Basically, he says they were cooping in the garage. They have like a route in that area, they dive in trash cans for high-end magazines, and also they pick over things that people leave out on the streets. There's a little blind corner in that garage they use to stash stuff."
"There's no guard?"
"Hey, it's the low-end economy. They slip the poor guy a tax-free twenty and no questions asked. They're merchants. Anyway, they were there, checking over their finds, and Ramsey spots a woman walking by, going over to a Lexus. He was high, Paxton says, wine, and he'd smoked some dust. And he says, 'Look at that rich white bitch. We should take her off.'"
"Sorry, Ramsey or Paxton says this?"
"Ramsey does. And he pulls out his knife and accosts the woman, Marshak as it turns out, and she pulls a gun. Paxton didn't see the gun, but he hears the shot and sees Ramsey go down. Marshak gets in the car and books. He goes over to Ramsey, and he sees he's gone. She got him right through the pump, by the way, according to the autopsy, one shot right on the money. He grabs up the knife and takes off. That's his story."
"And how did Paxton come to contact Solotoff? A sudden spasm of civic responsibility?"
"No, Solotoff had the various homeless hangouts and shelters plastered with handbills. If you know anything about this crime, come see me: reward, five grand for useful information."
"That's a nice reward. A reward like that can powerfully stimulate the imagination. Did you suggest to him that he was making up the whole thing to get the cash?"
"Of course, and I outlined to him the penalties for perjury and assured him that if we did find him perjurious, we would go after him to the full extent, et cetera, but he sticks to his story. Ramsey attacked with a knife, was slain in self-defense."
"What's the knife look like?"
"Oh, the knife is good, too. Solotoff brought it in in a plastic bag. Cheapo six-inch hunting knife, a Taiwan product. It's got prints on it. Obviously, forensics has it while we speak, but a good assumption would be that some of the prints are Ramsey's. It doesn't look that great for the good guys, boss."
"No." He paused. "And the watch?"
"Zilch on the watch. He never saw the watch, never knew Ramsey had it. He affected surprise and outrage when I told him that Ramsey had died with a gold Rolex in hand. He was pissed off because they were supposed to split everything down the middle. Ramsey was holding out on him. He says."
"Yeah. So he wants us to believe that a street merchant with no recent record of violence, and with a six-thousand-dollar watch in his pocket, which he doesn't tell his partner about, and which we have no idea where he got it, all of a sudden decides to mug this woman and gets killed with a knife in his hand, after which his partner takes the murder weapon and keeps it safe until prompted to come forward by a reward."
"The mugging is explained by the dope. The knife being taken is explained by panic."
"Oh, please!"
He heard her sigh over the line. "Hey, what can I tell you? That's his story. Raney thinks it's bullshit, too. So… what do you want me to do now?"
"Not sure. Need to think about this some more, but I can't right now."
He replaced the phone. Lucy looked inquiringly at him. "You were talking about Desmondo and Ralphie, Desmondo's murder and all, weren't you?"
"Yeah. Ralphie came in and told his story. He said Ramsey was doped up and attacked Ms. Marshak with a knife, and she shot him."
"Do you believe him? Ralphie?"
"I don't think so, but he's sticking pretty hard to the story. What do you think? You knew both of them, didn't you?"
"I guess. I thought I did. But you never know about people. I always thought Des was pretty straight-up. He drank wine and smoked a little, but he wasn't a dealer."
"My guy says Ralphie says Ramsey was dusted when he went after this woman."
Lucy shook her head. "No way. Des didn't do hard drugs that I ever saw or heard about. Ralphie might've. Ralphie was sort of a slimeball, and the two of them were, you know, the way a kind of straight-up guy will let a slimer hang out with him because he's sort of half-sorry for them and also because it like makes him feel good to have a follower? That was them."
The twins came in then, ravenous and sugar-stoked, having consumed all the candy in the secretary's little disk, and demanded junk food for their supper. Karp obliged, being an old junk-food glutton himself. Lucy feigned enthusiastic agreement, although, like her mother, she found American fast food faintly nauseating. Unteenlike, she found herself unexpectedly solicitous of her family's grosser tastes, peace being at a premium this particular evening. Karp accepted this pose unawares, and Lucy reflected upon the ease with which we can fool people who love us.
They went to the McDonald's on Canal. Lucy nibbled one of their waxy salads while the men pigged out on meat and cheese. She amused them by translating the Chinese characters for the food. A hamburger was han wu mei guo, or "harmonious American thing"; a sandwich was san ming zhi, or "three bright managing," a good name, Lucy pointed out, because not only did it sound right, but it adverted to the brilliance of the food's design, enabling the eater to handle two breads and a filling at once.
Thus sated, the four made their way home in a good mood, much skipping about among the crowded, scented streets of Chinatown, capped by a breathless run up the five short flights to the loft. Karp thought he knew what he would find there: Marlene soaking in the hot tub, a couple of empties scattered around, the smell of wine and rose petals. He would hold her, she would cling to him and wail. He had done it all before, and while it was not his favorite part of the relationship, it was one he knew pretty well and accepted.
But this was not what he found. Marlene was dressed in pajamas made of heavy black-figured silk and a soft-looking tan robe, neither of which he recalled seeing before. She was watching television and sipping cognac. Lucy took one look at her mother and retreated to her room. The twins did their usual scramble and competition to tell her the news of the day, but she seemed impatient with them, snappish. She indicated by a number of signs that she did not wish to play just now, and Karp took the hint and diverted the boys to their own room, where, God knew, there was enough stuff to keep them busy for a decade.
He changed and came back to the living room. A commercial for a car company was on, but Marlene seemed to be watching it raptly, as if it were a complex metaphor for the ultimate secrets of existence. Karp observed his wife for a while as he sat next to her. Except that she took a sip of cognac at regular intervals, she could have been a waxwork.
"How are you?" he said tentatively. His eye went, against his will, to the cognac bottle, which was about a third gone.
"Fine."
"How did it go with the…"
"The shooting. That went fine. Lou was very understanding and complimentary. He said to take off as much time as I needed."
"That's good. You could use a break."
"We closed at sixty-one and one-quarter today," she said in the same dull voice.
"That's good."
"Yes, it's good for business when we save a client with lots of bloodshed all around. Did you know that Oleg killed twelve people getting Richard Perry out in Kosovo? I only killed four. Still, a six-point rise on the day isn't bad."
"You didn't kill anyone. It wasn't your fault."
"Yes, that's what Lou said. He said it about fifty times. He kept watching the stock tape on the TV screen while he was telling me it wasn't my fault." She took a gulp of her drink and splashed some more into the snifter. She fingered the material of her robe.
"I picked this up on the way home. I was thinking about getting someone to drive me back to the Volvo, and then I thought, hey, I don't need to do that. So I called a limo service and came home in a white Caddy with smoked windows. Did you know people stare at you when you're in a car like that, trying to see who's in it? And I had him stop off at Bendel's and I bought this outfit. This is pashmina. It cost twenty-five hundred. The pj's were seven-fifty."
Karp didn't know what to say. A strange, tight feeling was in his chest.
She said, "I want to go away, take a trip. Paris, we'll rent an apartment, or we could get a place in Tuscany." She turned to face him for the first time, a weird light in her eye, and grabbed his arm. "Let's go, Butch! Let's shitcan the whole mess and go!"
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, I was never more serious."
"Marlene, what're you talking-I have a job, you have a job, we have kids, they're in school. We can't just take off."
She dropped his arm and turned back to the television, which was playing a generic sitcom. The canned laughter was like some insect burrowing into his brain.
"Fine. I'll go myself."
"Marlene? What's wrong? Why are you acting like someone you're not?"
She shrugged. "I'm rich. Very rich. Very rich and very drunk, and the very rich and very drunk are very different from you and me."
"Oh, horseshit, Marlene! You're not rich. You have a bunch of stock options that you can't sell for six months."
"Untrue. I have a bank account with five and a half million in it, plus a credit card that they never send you a bill on, you buy what you want and Ms. Lipopo takes care of it. Five and a half million, less what I spent on what I'm wearing, less the five hundred bucks I jammed into Wayne's sucking chest wound, but I'll probably get that back."
"You borrowed against the stock?" said Karp, horrified.
"Yep. That's how it's done, buster."
"Oh, Christ! What if the stock goes down? What do you do then?"
"It doesn't go down. It only goes up." She made a little swoop with the glass in her hand to demonstrate the difference in the two directions. Cognac splashed on the pashmina robe, but she didn't seem to notice.
He stood up, glared at her, and turned to walk away, and she said, "And if it starts to go down even a teeny bit, we'll shoot a few more people. Then it'll go up up up again until it hits the sky."
The next morning Marlene awoke to pain and nausea and a gap in her memory where living, breathing neurons used to be. She groaned and opened her eye. In her field of vision was the nightstand on her side of the bed. On the nightstand was a light, a couple of magazines and paperback novels, and an empty bottle of Hennessy. Empty. That was impossible. The bottle was one of those Lou had given out to the troops when the IPO went through, and she had opened it just last night because she needed a drink after. After what? She rolled over, carefully, and checked out the other side of the bed. The pillow was undented, the sheets and blanket and bedspread undisturbed. Butch had not slept here last night. Uh-oh. Now she noticed that she was dressed in an unfamiliar robe and heavy silk pajamas, both smelling unpleasantly of stale cognac, and she noticed also a faint and nauseating odor coming from somewhere below. The dog? She licked her dry lips and managed a weak whistle. Thump thump and a whine at the door. Holding her head so that it would not fall off, she swung her legs out of bed and took a couple of tottering steps, whereupon her bare foot landed in a generous pool of vomit. Uh-oh again. She flung off her clothes and staggered into the bathroom, where she ate four aspirins and got into the shower, first hot and then, for punishment, ice-cold for as long as she could stand it.
The previous day's and evening's events now started to arrive at the conscious layers of her brain, like static-ridden communications from a war zone. Coleman; Wayne; Lou Osborne; the $3,000 lounging ensemble; the fight with Butch. That one was hard to remember. Did she throw things? Did she follow him around the house clutching a bottle of booze and shrieking? Impossible; obviously some of those false memories you heard so much about. She should call him and find out what had happened, apologize if required. Or maybe later, after she had cleaned up this mess.
She dressed in painter's overalls and an old pink T-shirt, scrubbed what needed to be scrubbed, and some things that didn't, such as the kitchen, including the stove and the refrigerator. Marlene considered herself something of a slob compared to her mother and her married, stay-at-home older sister, but she was actually fairly neat, and she had a husband who cleaned up after himself and a daughter who was practically an obsessive. She now demonstrated where her daughter got it from. Polishing the refrigerator racks with tiny pieces of steel wool. By noon she was done, and dissatisfied. Clean enough, but there was something wrong, displeasing, a little tacky? That couch, for example. The bedroom furniture. Some of it was actual junk from when she had been a struggling single, and the rest was over ten years old.
Suddenly she was restless. She had to get out. She walked the dog, then called the limo service. What to wear? She had nothing to wear. A rampage through her closet. Aiiii! She must have been insane to have gone out in public in these rags. What was she thinking? Living in a crumbling loft in Chinatown? In Chinatown? You couldn't even say it was SoHo with a straight face. She was shoving clothes into plastic trash bags when the buzzer rang. The dog looked up expectantly and fawned. Marlene ignored this, and the creature slumped away to its lair under the kitchen table. She threw on her coat, grabbed her bag, and was off.
The driver was a short, tan man named Patel. He seemed glad to see her as he opened the door. She told Patel to take her to Bloomingdale's.
"So we are going shopping today, madame?" asked Patel.
"Yes, shopping, just a couple of things."
Marlene ordinarily was not much of a shopper. She had little time for it, and she harbored a secret contempt for women who spent a lot of time buying stuff, or talking about buying stuff. Marlene had been a poor girl at a rich high school, rescued from shame by the school uniform, and after school hours by defiance. She had adopted the garb of the tough-Italian-neighborhood semislut, which had the additional virtue of being cheap. She had gone to college and graduate school during an era when nearly everyone wore boho rags, and afterward there was another kind of uniform: severe suits by day, retro-thrift-shop finds at other times. Marlene did not care much about clothes. Or so she imagined.
But she had developed the habit, over many years, of buying a little something for herself when blue, a habit certainly as widespread and as unacknowledged as, say, masturbation, and upon which retail battens. Usually it would be a small thing: perfume, cosmetics, a scarf, underwear. Something semisecret at any rate. And so she gravitated to the lingerie department of Bloomie's and found herself in front of a table displaying La Perla sets. Marlene had, in fact, one of these already and had suffered or enjoyed that mixed pang of guilt and luxurious pleasure that paying a hundred bucks for a bra and panties provides for some usually prudent women. She touched the flimsies, held them up admiringly. They were silk satin in coral, eggplant, aqua, with lacy panels of contrasting colors. She picked up one, two, couldn't decide between them, or maybe that one… that was nice, too. She let out a giggle. Oh, the hell with it, she thought, and bought one of each color, ten in all. The saleswoman took the magic card and gave Marlene a look she did not recall ever receiving from a saleswoman before.
She wandered now through the designer floor. The thought occurred: I can buy anything I want. Anything. Any. Thing. She tested this novel notion by picking up an ivory Ellen Tracy suit ($700), which fit, but which was wearable in no remotely probable social situation in her immediate plans, and then down on the main floor again, where she dropped $200 on Lancome lipsticks and moisturizers, although her skin felt moist enough, somewhat sweaty, in fact.
Out on the sidewalk she waited until Patel cruised by with his pearl-gray Caddie, one of the numerous chauffeured cars that circled Bloomie's like schooling fish. Patel stashed the loot in the trunk, and Marlene got a smile from a package-encumbered, knockout blonde in a leopard coat. A knowing smile from one of the Sisterhood of Spend to another. Marlene got into the car and said, "Ralph Lauren on Madison."
Ralph sold her a fitted patent-leather motorcycle jacket in navy, and she got the same look from the salesclerk when she flashed the card. This purchase marked the first time Marlene had ever bought a garment without looking at the price tag. After that, down the avenue: Chanel for a couple of suits, Manolo's for half a dozen pairs of handmade stiletto mules and several slingbacks, Celine's for a pair of caramel glove-leather jeans and a long-sleeved, red silk T-shirt encrusted with tiny Swarovski crystals. Here she did glance at the price tag, out of scientific curiosity, and found it cost an even grand, plus tax. I just paid a thousand dollars for a T-shirt, said a voice in her head. More giggling in front of the mirror. The crystals flashed hypnotically as she posed. She wore the pants and the T-shirt out of the store. They made her old leather trench, until lately the most expensive item she had ever bought for herself, look like a burlap sack. In the car she said out loud, "This is crazy. I am nuts."
"Madame?" said Patel.
"Nothing," said the client. "Go to Gucci's."
Gucci's provided loose-fitting faux-snakeskin pants and a dress of the same ($2,300) plus a real crocodile bag with a silver chain, a steal at $8,000 and change. They drove to Dolce amp; Gabbana. Crystals were apparently the thing at D amp;G. They had crystal bras. Marlene bought one. Then she bought a black silk, see-through, chiffon shirt with gold cuff links to go over it, and an embroidered silk suit avec gold embroidery and crystals to go over that, and more shoes to round out the outfit, mink-trimmed pumps, the whole bill around $15,000. She had stopped sweating by now. People with the special dull gray card apparently did not need to sweat, and she hadn't eaten since breakfast, but for some reason food did not attract her. The sun had sunk low now, people were leaving work. On Madison the cabs were multiplying like guppies, but the lovely stores were still gaping for more nourishment.
Oblivion is the goal of all addiction: the boozer's blackout, the junkie's nod, the speed freak's mindless motion. Marlene had not known that shopping could cause the same effect, but then she had never shopped for eight and a half straight hours. She was dead to the world as she stood in front of a full-length mirror at D amp;G, looking at a stranger wearing a white, floor-length silk jacket completely covered with tiny crystals and weighing ten pounds. She definitely remembered buying that, for $78,000. Somewhat later, after a vague interval, they kicked her out of Barneys because they wished to close the store. She could see that they were reluctant to do so because she was clearly buying out the place. A few moments later, she sat in the backseat of the limo, surrounded by charcoal gray Barneys shopping bags and boxes, and recalled that she had a husband and family. She directed Patel to head home and rummaged in her bag. Her cell phone was off, she found, which was a shocker because she never turned her cell phone off. She had a little bag from Cartier's in her hand. Another shocker because she could not exactly recall stopping by that famous store. A number of gift-wrapped items were in it. Apparently she had bought gifts for her husband and her entire family. Watches? Probably. She had a gold Baume et Mercier on her wrist that had not been there when she'd started out that morning. She looked through the Barneys bags with some curiosity. She found a brown leather fleece-lined coat; a couple of de la Renta dresses, a multicolored Fendi lizard bag, yet another crocodile purse, this one by Bulgari, and a white Valentino couture suit. She felt numb, as if the great dentist of capitalism had shot her whole body full of novocaine. She was starving, too. No wonder; eight o'clock and she hadn't eaten for twelve hours. At the corner of Third and Thirtieth she directed Patel to a cancer wagon, where she bought a kielbasa with mustard and a can of Coke. They drove on, she munching ravenously, and at the first pothole she squirted mustard all over her $1,000 T-shirt and Coke on her $1,800 faux-snake slacks. Somehow it didn't matter. She could go out again tomorrow and get more. But the accident made her less numb, which was no good. She spotted a liquor store, dashed out, and came back with a quart bottle of Hennessy. Just a taste to wash that sticky, greasy film out of her mouth. There was a little bar in the limo, so she was able to make herself a civilized drinkee. And another around Eighteenth Street. And a third at Broome and Lafayette. She drank slowly, like a lady, and arranged all the charge slips in a neat bundle. Just for fun, she added up the totals with the tiny flat calculator stuck to her new checkbook: it came to $150,921.35. She looked at the number, which for some reason was expressed in a numerical system she did not understand, and put the device away and gulped down the rest of her drink, not like a lady at all.
Numb returned, and so she felt pretty good when she burst into her loft with Patel burdened like a brown burro under her purchases, confronting her startled family, reeling slightly, glittering with crystal, dabbed with grease, stinko.
Karp looked at her and thought, who are you, and what have you done with my wife?