CLAUDIA called--URONT," read the pink message slip the nurse had handed him. He reached her on the car phone, driving back to the office. "They got you," said Claudia.
"I have something somewhat pressing of my own. Please find the number at Dr. and Mrs. Cawley's home and patch me through." They were on the line together while it rang a number of times; Fiona was not in. Stern sworeold wordsin Spanish.
"Did they give you the message about Ms. Klonsky?"
"Klonsky?"
"That's yehat's urgent. She's called here three times in the last hour.
She says she has to see you today. Personal business. I wasn't sure where you were going from there, but she said she'd go to Your house and wait for you. I gave her the address. Is that all right?"
It was nearly six now. Stern slammed on the brakes and jerked the car to the curb. His hands were shaking. He was already turning around.
"Hello? asked Claudia.
"Yes, yes. How long are you them tonight, Claudia?" Another few hours, she answered, working on a brief for Raphael.
Stern asked her to try Mrs. Cawley every fifteen minutes and to give her this message: Mr. Stern apologized for not reaching her directly, but he was unavailable and thought it important that she know Dr. Cawley and he had met this afternoon and had a very thorough and candid discussion.
"And then tell her," said Stern, "that I want to know, with all respect, if she has lost her mind. You must repeat it just so."
Claudia was mumbling and laughing as she made notes; she always enjoyed Stern, He put down the phone then and shot off through the traffic. The auto clock said 6:02. Urgent arid personal.
Yes! He was flying.
The yellow Volkswagen was in the circular drive of Stern's home. He could see it as he approached, driving too fast down the block. It was an instant before he picked out Sonny. She sat on the slate front steps, her legs spread to make way for her belly, and her face turned to the sun-Ms. Natural, as she had called herself last month. Stern did not bother putting the car in the garage. Instead, he parked behind her and hiked up the drive, exhilarated and self-conscious.
Here he was, he thought, at one of those signal moments in life which come upon you, part of the infinite progression, just like other moments, but with the chance for enormous change. There had been a great deal of that for him lately -but he was prepared. He had probably not felt a thing like this in over thirty years, yet he recognized itat once. A certain border terrain had been crossed, and they waited on the edges of real intimacy-not just social interaction or an exchange of views, but penetration of the most fixed personal boundaries. And here, awaiting that final passage, he felt the full complexity, mystery of her persona. Oh, he knew nothing about the kinds of things that had made her.
They came from different ends of the earth, different eras.
It would be years before he recognized the imprint of her experience upon her, every layer, like the accumulating pages of a book. But his heart rose to the assignment; and he was confident that the required energy still resided within him. Every corny fatigued metaphor seemed apropos. He was drunk with the prospect, dizzy.
"What an unexpected pleasure," he said, beaming, as she awkwardly stood, brushing the soil from her seat and blinking off the sun.
He had actually opened. his arms to embrace her, when he caught her look, pointed and intense, which stopped him cold; he knew at once that he had blundered. From somewhere she had produced a.white envelope and she raised it at arm's length, as if to warn him, or even, perhaps, to fend him off.
"This is not for pleasure, Sandy. I came to give you this."
She continued to extend the envelope. "I wanted to do it myself."
He stood there, mannequin-still. How had she put it?
After forty, she had learned no one was even normal.
"Here."
Eventually he took it. With any reflection, he would have known what it must be, but instead he opened the envelope, fumbling and mindless, and studied the document. It was a grand jury subpoena which she had drafted; her'initials were at the foot. Investigation 89-86. He read it over three or four times before the import came home. It was addressed to Stern himself; he had been subpoenaed to appear personally, commanded to attend on Thursday 10 a.m., and then and there produce "a safe transported on or about April 30 from the premises of MD Clearing Corp. and all items in your possession, custody, or control which were contained within said safe as of the time you received it."
She had checked both boxes'on the form-he was required to testify and to produce the object. As he read, there loomed up in him once more the familiar intimation of yet another disaster t "I have to tell you," Sonny sad, tha I'm really pissed off."
"Oh, Sonny," he said. "This is a misunderstanding.
Please. Come inside for a moment." He was already walking up the slate stairs to his home.
"Sandy, there's no point."
"A moment," he said again.
They came into the foyer, and around them the house was dark and cool….
"Sonny, I am constrained, of course, by privilege, he said, meaning that he could not repeat anything Dixon had told him, "but I believe you have a terrible misimpression about this."
"Sandy, I really wouldn't say too much if I were you.