Empties (5 page)

On his second day off, Benek vacuumed his kitchen, living room, and bedroom floors. They didn’t look much different when he was through, but the air smelled better and the monotony of the job had relaxed him. Then he got a wet rag and wiped the dust from as many surfaces as seemed to need it, trying for the virtue that one was supposed to feel from cleaning, but he did not feel saved.
 

He went grocery shopping every other afternoon, stocking up on frozen low calorie meals, several frozen cakes, some fresh vegetables, apples, and bunches of green, yet-to-ripen bananas.
 

“Got a monkey at home?” the grocer asked him more than once.
 

That evening he took out one of his old college books on Roman history and confirmed that the two men who had come into the precinct last month did in fact resemble the surviving images of Hadrian and Caligula. There had been no news on their stolen car. Benek put the book away and took down a copy of
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
, preferring to read the work of a real Roman rather than a modern historian’s recreations. One day he would replace the copy of Livy that his college roommate Ray Ferguson had borrowed and never returned, despite repeated demands. Benek had called him up some years later and asked for the book. “You must be kidding,” Ray had said. “No, I’m a cop,” Benek had answered. A week later he had gotten a check in the mail, together with an apology for losing the book.
 

Unlike Marcus Aurelius, with his equanimity and quietism, Livy loved gossip, and delighted in putting words into the mouths of his characters, making them confess to all sorts of crimes against Rome.
 

Benek slept late into the next morning after the all-night reading binge, but woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and virtuous, having done something for himself rather than for the violent, dark age in which he lived. He stayed in bed for a while, imagining himself a professor of ancient history, reading, researching, and talking to students about the past, recording black marks against the villains of the day for futurity to discover. He had gone to Rutgers on his father’s life insurance money, but when his mother died of leukemia just after graduation, he had not been able to continue. She had hidden her illness from him while giving him all the money. After her death, there had not been enough money left to go on to graduate school even if his grades had been good enough. The family house had burned down on the day of his mother’s funeral, and he had learned that the insurance premium had not been paid for over a year.
 

Maybe he hadn’t lost that much. He had always struggled with Latin, and would have had trouble getting admitted to any rigorous graduate program in history. So he had gone to the police academy because his grandfather had been a cop and because the course started a week after his mother’s funeral. Even now, it seemed impossible and dreamlike what had happened to him, but he had worked hard at not feeling sorry for himself.
 

As he got out of bed he imagined that he might suddenly wake up and learn that he was entirely someone else.
 

In the afternoon he took the subway downtown to the St. Mark’s Place movie house and saw a revival of
The Grand Illusion
, which now struck him as naive and sentimental, even though he knew that it probably wasn’t, that it was his problem, akin to the straw that broke the camel’s back; it didn’t take much with him to overreact to emotions on the big screen and get it wrong. When he came out, he noticed that he was only a block away from Tenth Street Apartments. The image of Dierdre Matera quickened his pulse as he debated whether he should go over and apologize to her for his rudeness, even if he didn’t mean it.
 

But as he passed her house, he decided against it and continued down toward the corner grocery, where he bought some black bread and imported caviar, telling himself that he was on vacation and how many luxuries did he ever allow himself anyway. On the way back to Second Avenue he passed Tenth Street Apartments again, and once more decided against an apology. After all, the woman had to be thin-skinned indeed to be upset by so little from a cop.
 

Yet she was very different from the women that Didsbury had tried to fix him up with occasionally—usually shy, single women, or recently divorced, vulnerable wrecks. The first kind invariably wanted him to move to Great Neck or Farmingdale and become a father. One or two of the second kind would put on a great show of passion that might even have been real, and try to convince him to have a child with them, whether there was to be a marriage or not. The idea of a woman bringing up his son or daughter alone and against his wishes had unnerved him. A child born without his knowledge was an even greater horror.
 

Still, there was something about Dierdre Matera that sang to him and made him feel uncertain; maybe her controlled exterior hid a deeply erotic nature and a warm, loving personality. For a moment he fantasized about her, flattering himself with his ability to unmask her concealed goodness. Naked, her image was that of a demure woman who invited him into her arms. Powerful and unafraid, he surrendered himself to the lock of her legs around his waist and fondled the smoky black hair that fell to her milky shoulders.
 

Four days into his vacation, soothed by his domestic routines and beginning to feel in control of himself again, someone knocked on his door. He opened it and found a young woman with short, red hair, dressed in a green sweater, jeans, and sneakers, just about to knock again.
 

“Hi,” she said, “I’m your neighbor down the hall.” She looked up at him with green eyes and smiled. “My name’s Carla Selkirk. Would you like to come over for a drink?”
 

“I don’t think so,” he said without thinking. No smoky hair or milky white shoulders.
 

She seemed startled, then annoyed, as if she had read his mind. “There’s something very sad about you, you know. Whenever I’ve seen you coming and going, I mean. Are you shy or just otherwise inclined?”
 

“I’m a cop,” he said, wondering at her confidence in asking.
 

She smiled. “Well, then you’re one of the good guys,” she said, and for a moment he thought she might be a prostitute looking for an easy gig. Or maybe a woman slowly drifting that way, hiding behind an easy exterior, desperate to earn as her funds ran out.
 

“How long have you been in New York?” he asked.
 

“A couple of months. I was lucky to find an apartment.”
 

“Good for you,” he said.
 

“Sorry to disturb you,” she said after an awkward moment, and hurried away.
 

“Oh, Carla,” he called after her as she reached her door.
 

She turned her head appealingly and smiled.
 

“I’m Bill Benek. Would you like to come in for a drink?” he asked suddenly, and was startled by his impulse. That Gibney would approve seemed enough of a reason.
 

“Sure,” she said, smiling, and came back down the hall.
 

As she stepped inside and he closed the door, he said, “I’m afraid I can only offer you tea or coffee,” and showed her to the sofa.
 

“Coffee’s fine,” she said, sitting down and looking around. “You like Spartan decor,” she added, then looked worried that he might take offense.
 

“I don’t do much with it,” he said, wondering if she knew what Spartan meant or had simply used it instead of austere. “I don’t clean too often.”
 

“You should have someone come in,” she said. “But I don’t see much dust.”
 

“I just cleaned up. My vacation time. I couldn’t afford a service on what a cop makes.”
 

He went out into the kitchen, filled the copper pot with water, and put it on the stove. “Hope you don’t mind instant,” he called out. “I was going to pick up some real coffee later.”
 

“Instant’s fine.”
 

He went back to the living room. Carla was smiling at him politely as he sat down in the chair facing the sofa.
 

“What do you do?” he asked, trying hard to sound friendly.
 

“I’m a medical records specialist at New York General.”
 

“You’re not from New York,” he said.
 

“They brought me in from St. Louis,” she said. “I learn records fast and can use the computer.”
 

“Oh,” he said, “you have brains.”
 

She smiled innocently. “I specialize in frauds and scams. Mostly I compare records. Something tells me when they don’t fit together for a particular patient. I’m not always right. I guess you could call me a kind of busybody.”
 

“You’re a detective,” he said, “like me.”
 

“Thanks,” she said, “that’s nice of you.”
 

Something tells her who’s a fraud, he repeated to himself, and thought of mentioning the case of the brainless dead man to her as she spoke of a car accident victim with a history of lucrative mishaps. But she was unlikely to know anything about a brainless dead man, and he would be getting off on the wrong foot by discussing the grisly details of the hoax and then sending her off on a mental wild goose chase. He found himself wanting to make a good impression on her, then asked himself if he truly wanted to get off on the right foot with her. Sure you do, Gibney would say.
 

“The hospital corporation doesn’t like it when I support the patient,” she said. “I think they’re looking to fire me someday soon.”
 

“What will you do?” he asked.
 

“Go back to school maybe. I’ve saved enough, and my uncle left me a bit.”
 

He got up and went out to the kitchen. “Milk or sugar?” he said as he turned off the gas under the kettle.
 

“Black, thanks.”
 

He poured water into two mugs, stirred in the instant coffee, then returned to the living room. “Your job must pay well.”
 

“Yes, but I spend it on a sick mother. My father died when she was sixty. He was nearly seventy-five. She’s in a nursing home, and the doctors don’t expect her to live much longer. There’s enough left over after I pay the bills each month.”
 

As he listened to her, he felt an abyss opening up before him, and that if he listened long enough, Carla would change into someone vastly different from the woman he saw in front of him. She was living for later, when the last parent was gone and the life she had begun would resume its original probings. She was fortunate, it seemed to him, that her parents had started a family later in life. She seemed to be in her early twenties, and her mother would be gone while she was still young, sparing her the emotional burden of dealing with her decline in middle age, as he had been spared. It was a cruel fact, and he felt guilty.
 

He asked, “Is this the work you want to do?”
 

She took a deep breath and said, “I’m learning a lot, even if some of it is depressing, but later I’d like to teach mathematics, maybe get married. Who knows? How about you?”
 

He shrugged. “A cop’s life is tough for one person, more so for two, worse for a family. I wouldn’t inflict it on a wife, or anyone, unless I had no choice.”
 

“What do you mean, if you had no choice?” she asked with obvious interest, leaning back against the cushions.
 

“I mean if I cared enough about someone...” He stopped. “You can’t decide that,” he added.
 

“And you don’t?” she asked.
 

“I guess not. There’s never any time.”
 

She smiled. “Oh, I bet you’d make time if you found someone.”
 

He sat back and looked away from her, feeling foolish.
 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m embarrassing you. But then what are neighbors for?”
 

He pulled himself together and looked at her again. “You’re from a small town.”
 

“Yes, where we’re all gossips and busybodies and know everybody’s business. I hope you don’t mind.”
 

“Sorry.”
 

“Don’t be. I’m still that way, I guess. When people’s interest in each other isn’t too intrusive, keeping up an interest helps make them more responsible to each other, maybe even more honorable. I like to think so, anyway, even though it gets out of hand.”
 

The thought crossed his mind that maybe Carla Selkirk was a bit naive, maybe even cracked. But he looked into her fresh, slightly freckled face more confidently now. Her green eyes looked back at him, then blinked and looked away, as if she had abruptly realized that she was far from home and that the neighbor she was talking to was really a stranger who might not understand or care much about what she was saying.
 

“Thanks for the coffee, Bill.” She got up. “I’ve taken up too much of your time already.” She went to the door, opened it, and stepped out. He went after her into the hall and watched her stride toward her door, looking compact in her sweater and jeans. He felt flattered that she had come by to talk to him, but then reminded himself that she was simply acting the way a new neighbor would back home. It didn’t mean anything.