A Perfect Crime (11 page)

“Well, I sure as hell have—where you think I got this scar?—and I can tell you it ain’t the gators need protectin’. Park it in the lot and stay on the people side of the fence.”

She opened the gate. Roger drove into a dusty little yard, parked beside the only other car, a rusted-out Chevy on blocks. A few feet beyond it stood four or five rusted rows of bleacher seats, and beyond that lay a ditch, filled with algae-crusted water and lily pads, and fenced in with ten-foot-high chain-link. Six alligators, five of them between eight and twelve feet long, the sixth a baby, lay motionless on the far bank.

Roger and Whitey sat in the bleachers, read the rules—
Positively No Feeding, Do Not Stick Fingers Thru
Fence, No Teasing
—watched the gators. The sun was hot, the air full of small, sharp-edged flying things, the gators still. After only a minute or two, Whitey’s shirt was sticking to his back; he noticed that Roger, in his black suit, didn’t seem to be feeling the heat at all.

For no reason that Whitey could see, the baby gator suddenly rose up and made his way to the ditch. It stood at the edge, seemed to be looking at Whitey and Roger, the only spectators across the way, then slid into the water and disappeared.

“Cute little bugger,” said Whitey.

Silence. Roger was staring at the water. Whitey was just about to say “cute little bugger” again when Roger turned to him. Whitey realized for the first time that there was something about Roger’s gaze that made him reluctant to meet it; in fact, he couldn’t. “You seem like a bright guy,” Roger said. Whitey looked modest. “So let me ask your advice on something.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe it’s even happened to you.”

“What has?” said Whitey, starting to lose the thread. A frog croaked nearby; Whitey spotted it, a big bullfrog, even bigger than the one he’d speared on I-95, sitting on a lily pad.

“Reducing it to the simplest possible terms,” said Roger, “did anyone ever take something valuable from you?”

“Not that I can remember.” But then Whitey thought of his freedom, and wasn’t sure.

“You’re a lucky man,” said Roger. “But suppose someone did. What would you do?”

“Like what kind of thing?”

“Call it a work of art.”

“Get it back, of course,” said Whitey. “I’d go after the fucker and get it back.”

“And which is more important?”

“Huh?”

“Of the two. Revenge or recovery of the object?”

Whitey felt Roger’s gaze on his face, suddenly knew the word for what this was—networking, or maybe mentoring. In any case, he knew this was an important question. Revenge or recovery of the object: he tried to sort out the terms. The right answer, from his point of view, was to go after the fucker. Who gave a shit about art? On the other hand, maybe Roger was the type who did give a shit about art.

“That’s a tough one,” Whitey said, searching Roger’s face for some clue. Their eyes met, and Whitey turned away, again unsettled by looking into Roger’s eyes, and as he turned, he saw the baby gator surfacing in a patch of lily pads, weeds trailing off its snout. Eeny meeny minie moe, said Whitey to himself, eeny being revenge and meeny recovery. Recovery won.

“The art,” said Whitey, and could see from Roger’s nod, a satisfied nod, as though he’d expected Whitey to do well all along, that he’d guessed right. “Recovery of the art,” Whitey said, “every goddamn time.”

“My former assistant thought otherwise,” Roger said.

“He did, huh?” said Whitey, shaking his head.

The baby gator glided over to the bullfrog’s lily pad. A green blur, some splashing, and then the bullfrog’s legs were dangling from the baby gator’s mouth. The baby gator submerged.

“He is a cute little bugger,” Roger said. “Awakens old, old memories.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I wouldn’t want to bore you,” Roger said.

“Hey, you’re not boring me, Rog, I swear.”

Roger’s face tightened, for no reason Whitey could see, as though he’d felt a sudden pain. He glanced at Whitey—again Whitey looked away—and went on. “I brought one like him home the first time I ever went to Florida, with my aunt. I was six years old.”

“So you’re not from here?” But Whitey knew that already from the way Roger said “ont,” just like he did.

“Can you guess what happened?” Roger said, maybe not hearing the question.

“It escaped?”

“A good guess, Whitey, a very good guess. But no. My parents didn’t let me keep it. They made me give it to the zoo.”

“I know just how you feel,” Whitey said. “Same thing happened to me with a weasel. Only it wasn’t the zoo. My ma just made me let it go, back in the woods.”

“Did she?”

“You don’t know my ma—that’s her through and through.”

“This was in New Hampshire?”

Whitey saw no other course but to admit it. He nodded.

“You know your way around the woods up there?”

“Shit yeah, Rog. I grew up like that goddamn what’s-his-name.”

“Natty Bumppo?”

“Never heard of him. It’ll come to me.”

But nothing came. The baby gator appeared on the far side of the ditch, climbed out, lay with his elders in the sun; no sign of the bullfrog. Roger said, “My former assistant didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” said Whitey, who was thinking of his own bullfrog, and the crown-shaped ring of blood on its bumpy green head.

“Didn’t know his way around the woods.”

“No, huh?” Whitey conceived a brilliant question: “What were his qualifications, anyway?”

“Not the right ones, evidently. Do you know that saying about law and sausages, Whitey?”

“Law and sausages?”

“You don’t want to look too closely at how either of them is made. My work’s a bit like that.”

Law and sausages. Whitey didn’t get it. Was Roger trying to tell him he was a tough guy or something—dangerous? Whitey couldn’t see it. He, Whitey, was tough and dangerous—he thought of that stupid whore and her pimp with the baseball bat, and what had happened to them. Or was Roger trying to tell him that the assistant had to be tough and dangerous? Or maybe—

Roger checked his watch, his Rolex, stood up. “Better get you back to your post,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to put your job in jeopardy, would we?”

“Well, the thing is—” said Whitey, but Roger was already walking away and didn’t seem to hear.

Roger pulled over at the side of 441. He turned to Whitey, who’d been smelling the leather coat in the backseat, again gave him that look that seemed to see deep inside. “I said I’d pay you for your time.” And there was a one-hundred-dollar bill—not the same one, because there was no hole—held out for him. He was thinking all kinds of things to say, like it’s too much, and I didn’t really earn it, but while he was in the middle of thinking them, he grabbed it.

Roger smiled.

Whitey opened the door, started to get out. But how could he let this go without at least trying? What was there to lose? “This assistant thing,” he said, “are you looking for a replacement?”

Roger raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I hadn’t really thought about it yet.” He seemed to be thinking about it now, staring into the distance. “I’d need someone more discreet this time,” he said. “Discretion is the sine qua non in this business.”

That threw Whitey, and he licked his lips a couple of times before saying, “You never said what the business is exactly.”

“I thought I had,” said Roger, sounding disappointed in him for the first time. “It’s the recovery of valuable objects.”

“Such as what?”

“Paintings, shall we say.”

“Like that someone’s stolen?”

“Precisely like that.”

The DPW truck came into view, shimmering on the horizon.

Now or never. “I want the job,” Whitey said.

“Do you—”

“Swear to God.”

“—know the meaning of discretion, Whitey?”

“It means no questions and keep your fuckin’mouth shut.”

Roger nodded. He scribbled a number on his alligator farm ticket stub. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll set up an interview.”

Whitey stuffed the ticket stub and the money in his pocket, got out of the car. A job interview: he’d never had one. This was the big time.

The DPW truck dropped Whitey at the depot. He caught the number 62 bus, reached the stop a block from New Horizons at five to six. He was almost out the rear door, had one foot on the pavement, when he saw the cop car parked up the street. Did that mean anything? No. But he said, “Oops,” like he’d almost gotten off at the wrong stop, and stepped back on the bus. The driver, watching in his mirror, muttered something Whitey couldn’t hear.

The bus drove on, picked up speed, approached New Horizons. Whitey saw a cop on the sidewalk, talking to the social worker. As the bus drew closer, Whitey saw that the cop was showing something to the social worker, a piece of paper. And as the bus went right by, within a few feet of them, Whitey saw what it was: the artist’s composite, with nothing right except the fucking hair. Whitey stayed on the bus.

Roger was sleeping the deepest sleep he’d had in a long time when the phone rang. He fumbled for it in the darkness of the strange room, answered.

“Rog? It’s me, Whitey Tru—Whitey Reynoso. I’m calling like you said.”

“But it’s four in the morning.”

“Kind of anxious to get started, is all.”

Was he drunk? Stoned? Planning some scheme of his own? Was this not going to work, after all?

“Rog? You still there?”

“Yes.”

“So maybe you could come and pick me up.”

“Where are you?”

“On 441, of course. Where you picked me up before.”

Was he armed? Alone? His voice was full of impending surprise. “Very well,” said Roger.

His motel room had a kitchenette. Roger took the biggest knife from the drawer, hid it under the seat of his rented car, drove out to 441. Could he kill Whitey? Certainly. There was a deep, violent well of hatred in him, as he was sure there was in most people; he’d known it since boyhood. It made war possible, and perhaps all human civilization. The only problem was scheduling: Whitey wasn’t supposed to die yet.

Roger came to the spot where he’d found Whitey, saw a lone man in the headlights, slowed down, slow enough to bring any overeager accomplices out of the bushes, slow enough to see that Whitey was holding some sort of bundle, slow enough to hear him cry, “Hey, it’s me,” as Roger went by.

A few hundred yards beyond, Roger made a U-turn and drove back. He stopped the car, one hand on the knife. Whitey came out of the shadows, opened the passenger door, got in. His eyes were bright. “Hi, Rog. Had me concerned there for a minute. Here. I brought you something.”

Roger inched the knife out from under the seat. Whitey laid the bundle between them: something wrapped in a denim jacket. “Open it, why don’t you?”

With his free hand, Roger opened the jacket—and there was the baby gator, its mouth fastened shut with packing tape. Roger felt Whitey’s gaze on him, waiting for his reaction.

“You’ve done well, Whitey, very well.”

Whitey laughed with delight. “Feisty little bugger, that gator, let me tell you.”

“Not an alligator, actually,” Roger said. “It’s a crocodile—you can tell from the angulation of the jaw.”

“Whatever. Tore my jacket to shreds. My only jacket.”

Roger silently counted three and said, “You can have the one in back.”

“Cool,” said Whitey, donning the leather jacket right away. It felt great. The gator watched with its slitty yellow eyes.

14

“A
ny hints?” asked Anne, eyeing their opponents across the net as the players took their serves before the top-bracket semifinal of the club championships.

Francie checked them out: two wiry women wearing elbow braces and knee pads. She thought she recognized the taller one from her college days; she’d played for Brown, or possibly UConn—a distant memory, no more than a fragment, but unpleasant.

“How was your overhead in the warm-up?”

“I didn’t make a single one,” said Anne with alarm. “You think they’re going to lob us?”

“To death,” said Francie.

Francie was right. The wiry women, tireless, unsmiling, grim, fed them—Anne particularly, as they saw her game begin to fall apart—junk, chips, dinks, lobs; they served conventional, Australian, from the I, even both back for a point or two; and they called the lines very close. First set: 6-2, the 2 coming on Francie’s serve.

On the changeover, while the wiry women iced their elbows and knees, Anne turned her flushed face to Francie and said in a low voice, “I’m so sorry.They’re hitting every ball to me and I’m playing like shit.”

Francie put her hand on Anne’s knee, felt it trembling. “First of all,” she said, “it’s only tennis. Second, it’s not over.” She leaned forward, spoke in Anne’s ear. “This set we’re going to do a little lobbing of our own.”

“Will that work?” Anne asked. Francie saw the blue disk of her eye in profile, inches away: still, waiting for the response.

“At least those fucking knees of theirs are going to ache tonight,” she said. The blue disk brightened, bulged slightly; Anne laughed.

She laughed, but her game did not come back, at least not right away. Her lobs were short, and the wiry women proved adept at putting them away, one of them grunting an annoying little “Ho!” on every overhead. Francie and Anne fell behind 1-3, 1-4.

Anne’s serve. “This isn’t working,” she said as Francie handed her the balls.

“Any other ideas?” said Francie.

“No,” Anne replied, her face pinker than ever. Francie watched a vein throbbing in her forehead. She wanted to say
forget whatever’s fucking up your mind and just play
. Instead she glanced across the net, saw the opposition waiting restlessly on the other side, eager to get on with the demolition.

“Go with your second serve,” she told Anne.

“What good will that do? They’re clobbering my first.”

“Probably none, but try it.”

Anne tried it. The wiry women, fooled by the change of pace, netted the first two returns. On the next two, they were ready and hit aggressive crosscourt shots, but Francie poached on both and put them away, the second drilling a padded knee and drawing an angry glare—unintentional, on Francie’s part, but somewhere in her heart, she said
yes
. 2-4.

Anne’s lobs grew stronger and deeper in the next game, forcing the wiry women to scramble in the back-court for the first time in the match. Now Francie and Anne were making the easy putaways. 3-4. Francie’s serve. Four all. Francie and Anne then broke serve again, but Anne, serving for the set, double-faulted twice. Both sides held after that and they went to a tiebreak.

A long tiebreak, full of jittery errors on both sides, kept alive by an outrageous out call on the far baseline that brought a surprisingly furious look to Anne’s face.

7-7. “Can you believe that call? It was in by a foot.”

“Anne?”

“Yes?”

“Just win this point.”

Their eyes met. Francie thought she saw through the doubtful outer person to a stronger one inside. Anne nodded.

Next serve to Francie, a spinner into the body. She hit a weak return, picked off at the net, angled at Anne’s feet. But Anne made one of her miraculously quick reflexive shots, catching the ball on her racket, deflecting a soft lob, her best of the match, over outstretched racquets on the other side, landing indisputably within the lines for a winner.

“Beautiful,” said Francie, suddenly filled with the feeling—rare for her, but the greatest pleasure the game had to give—that she could do anything she liked with the ball.

She took two of them from Anne, put one in her pocket, bounced the other a few times, tossed it up, bent her knees. The ball reached the top of its arc and seemed to pause. With all the time in the world, Francie hit it in the bottom right quadrant as hard as she could: an ace down the middle.

“Oh, yes, Francie.”

Match tied at one set apiece.

But it was really over, probably decided somewhere in the middle of the second set, perhaps at the moment Francie volleyed the ball off that padded knee. Francie and Anne began playing better and better; the wiry women, their soft game beaten, had no fallback. In what seemed like a few minutes, Francie and Anne went up 5-0, 40-15 in the third set.

Anne serving at match point. To the backhand. One last lob, a good one, over Francie’s head. She went back to take it, calling, “Got it.”

Anne came across behind her: “Mine.”

“Got it.”

“Mine.”

They were both in midswing when Francie ran her over. A cry of pain from Anne; their racquets collided—but somehow struck the ball, which arced toward the net, ticked off the tape, and dropped untouched on the other side. Game, set, match.

Anne lay on the court, face ashen, lips blue. She sat up, tried to rise, could not. Francie knelt beside her. “What hurts?”

“Ankle. What if I can’t go on?”

“Don’t have to. We won.”

“That went over?”

“Yup.”

Anne made a fist, almost pumped it.

Francie sat on the court, gently removed Anne’s shoe, rolled off her sock, and supporting the weight of Anne’s leg in her lap, examined the ankle.

Shadows loomed over them. “Did you hear a cracking sound?” said one of the wiry women, not quite hiding her satisfaction.

“More like a little rip,” Anne said.

Francie looked at the wiry women pursing their lips. “Nice match,” she said, reached up to shake hands, and asked them to send someone from the desk. They went away. Anne was gazing up at her. “You’ll be okay by Saturday,” Francie said.

“You think?”

“I’ve done that ripping number a hundred times. We’re going to win this goddamn tournament.”

Color began returning to Anne’s face.

But it was her right ankle, and she couldn’t drive. Francie and the desk attendant helped her out to the parking lot, and Francie drove her home in Anne’s car.

“I hate to inconvenience you like this,” Anne said. “My husband will drive you back the minute he gets home.”

“No trouble,” Francie said. “Got anything to drink? Beating a pair like that’s worth a celebration.”

“I never thought we could. You were so cool out there, Francie.”

“I like to compete,” Francie said. True, but not the kind of remark she’d normally make, possible now only with the endorphins flowing through her brain.

“And you were serving so hard—just like Nora.”

“That turns out not to be a compliment,” Francie said. She explained Nora’s Newtonian theory of big hips and hard hitting.

Anne laughed and said, “You know you’ve got a great body.”

“I most certainly do not.”

“Come on—men on the other courts are always looking at you. That’s never happened to me in my whole life.”

Anne lived in Dedham, a small Federal house with a big lawn, not far from the green. Leaning on Francie, she limped up the shoveled walk, unlocked the door. They moved into a little hall, with cut flowers—irises—in a vase beside the mail and a stack of audiotapes. “I’ll get ice,” Francie said, seeing the kitchen straight ahead.

A bright kitchen, with three places set on the table and a note stuck to the fridge:
Anne—I’ll handle dance pickup
.
Back at 8
. A note probably written early that morning; Anne’s husband would be tired, in no mood for more driving. Francie checked her watch: twenty minutes to. She opened the freezer, found an ice pack under a container of rocky road ice cream, took it to the living room.

Anne sat in a corduroy-covered chair, her leg up on a footstool. The ankle was more swollen now, but Francie had seen worse. She laid the ice pack on it.

“You’re an angel,” said Anne.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. There’s some wine in the cabinet over the sink, but I don’t think it’s very good.”

“Let’s save it for Saturday night,” said Francie, picking up the phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling a cab.”

“Please don’t,” said Anne, glancing out into the darkness. “They’ll be home any minute.”

Francie started dialing.

“Please. I feel guilty enough already.”

Francie paused for a moment, then gave in. She hung up the phone, poured Romanian wine for both of them, sat on the couch.

“To victory,” said Anne.

They drank a toast to victory.

Paintings hung on Anne’s walls, all but one framed re-productions, of no interest to Francie. The one original, partly obscured by a desk lamp, was a still life of a bowl of grapes. She thought at once of
oh garden, my garden
. This painting had none of its resonance, but the technical skill of the artist was as high, perhaps higher: the grapes glistened, as though they’d just been washed.

“I like that painting,” Francie said.

“You do?”

“Who’s the artist?”

“Well,” said Anne, “the fact is, me. Although I wouldn’t say artist.”

Francie rose, took a closer look at the painting, liked it even more.
A. F.
was painted in a bottom corner, almost too small to read. “Tell me more,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Where you learned to paint. What other stuff you’ve done. Et cetera.”

“I can’t say I ever really learned. And I haven’t done anything in years, Francie.”

“How come?”

Anne shrugged. “Family life.” Her gaze turned inward. “And I guess I got discouraged.” She brightened. “But are you really telling me you like it?”

“I am.”

“That means a lot. The truth is I’m so jealous of you. I’d kill for a job like yours, Francie.”

“I’m not an artist,” Francie said.

“Neither am I.”

“Don’t be so sure. I’d like to see more.”

Anne thought. “They’re all packed away in the basement,” she said. “Except one I did of my husband, just after we got married. My last real effort, now that I think of it.”

“Where is it?”

“In the bedroom. You can go up. First door on your right.”

Francie went into the hall, climbed the stairs, entered the first room on the right. A bedroom, with a king-size bed, and over it, in oil, the head of a dark-eyed young man, all greens and browns, edged in white. Not as good as the grapes in technique, but it resonated more—whether because of Anne’s artistry or the subject’s resemblance to Ned, Francie didn’t know. An astounding likeness, not photographic, but in affect, and perhaps all the more powerful for that reason. It froze Francie on the spot, there at the foot of Anne’s bed. She stared at the painting, unaware of time, unaware of anything until a car door slammed, close by.

Francie hurried downstairs, through the hall, into the living room. Anne looked up with a smile. “Find it okay?”

“Yes. Anne—”

“And what did you think? I’ve never been that happy with it, but it’s Em’s favorite for some reason.”

“Em?”

“Emilia. My husband started calling her Em, and it stuck.”

Francie heard the front door open.

“Speak of the devil,” Anne said.