Full Stop (22 page)

Her weekend case was on the bed, surrounded by clothes and shoes. Rummaging through the piles, Loretta found that most of the things she had brought with her were too crumpled to wear again, or too tight for a seven-hour plane journey. Deciding on
thin black trousers and the white shirt she'd bought at Bloomingdale's, she rolled her underwear into a bundle, stowed it at the bottom of the bag and laid the more delicate items of her wardrobe on top. She showered, dressed in the clothes she'd picked out and went to Toni's desk to consult the phone book, in search of a book shop within walking distance of the flat where she could buy Dale Martineau's novel. She had had a mildly erotic dream about him when she finally fell asleep in the early hours, so pleasant and full of promise that she had actually thought about ringing him to see if he was busy at lunchtime. That was when she realised he hadn't given her his home number in return for hers, probably an oversight but one which was compounded by her discovery that he was ex-directory. There were several Martineaus in the phone book, none of them with the initial D, and she could hardly ring them all in the hope of finding a relative. The next best thing, the only way of feeling connected to him, was to buy his novel; she was about to dial a book shop on Broadway to find out if it was open on Sunday morning when the phone rang again.

‘Hello,' she said eagerly, hoping it might be him until she remembered he didn't know where in New York she was staying.

‘Hi, Loretta. This is Michael.'

It was quite unexpected, he had always called in the evening. Then she realised she was wrong, he had spoken to her in the morning a couple of times, but only when he was pretending to be Lieutenant Donelly.

Her silence made him anxious. ‘Loretta, you're not going to hang up on me? I missed our little chat yesterday, it wasn't very nice of you, staying out all day when you knew I was waiting to talk with you. You did know, didn't you? I waited all afternoon, first your machine was on and then the line was busy. You're gonna have to be specially nice to me today to make up. I've been thinking about you a lot, whether you work out and stuff ... I hope you work out, I like hard bodies, not those soft, fleshy types of women.' He hesitated, and his voice began to wheedle. ‘Come
on, Loretta, say something, you
know
what I like. Tell me about your body.'

She said impatiently: ‘It's too late, I know all about you —who you are, where you live. I rang last night, you were out and I got your answering-machine.'

He laughed, a little uncertain. ‘Nice try, Loretta, but most folks in New York have machines. Listen, I realised last night I never asked your measurements, I hope you don't have big breasts? I'd be very sorry if you –'

‘God,' she said, thoroughly annoyed, ‘you don't give up easily, do you? Wait, I'm going to move to the other phone.' She went back into the living-room, picked up the other handset and carried it to the coffee table where she had left her notebook. ‘OK, here we are. Your name's Michael Lindsay and you live on –'

At the other end of the line there was a muffled sound, somewhere between a gasp and an exclamation. She ignored it, continuing to read his address and phone number into the stunned silence.

‘You're an actor, I gather. Are you a good one? Or is this the best you can manage, pestering women over the phone?' She mimicked his tone of voice: ‘I don't think you're very good, Michael. When did you last work? In panto was it, or don't you have them over here? I'm trying to remember the name of that place, the one in the saying. Will it play in Peoria, that's it, I expect that's about your level, isn't it Michael, panto in Peoria.' To her astonishment, she was beginning to enjoy herself. ‘What about Lieutenant Donelly, is he there too?'

There was a long pause, then he said lightly: ‘You really have done your homework. But you have to admit, you were taken in for the longest time. How did you find out, did you talk to Toni?'

‘No, actually. I worked it out for myself.'

‘Clever girl.'

Not liking his tone, Loretta said sharply: ‘Look, it's over, whatever game you think you're playing at. And before I leave New York I'm going to give your name and address to the
police.' She said it without much conviction, wanting to scare him, thinking he was taking his exposure much too lightly.

‘I don't think so.'

‘You don't?'

‘You really think they'll believe you?' He put on a high, womanish voice, a fake English accent: ‘I've been getting these calls, Lieutenant, this
horrid
man wanted to know all about me, I mean
everything.
Oh no, I couldn't possibly repeat it, he
made
me talk dirty to him. No, of
course
I didn't put the phone down, I thought I was helping the police.' His voice changed back. ‘You think they're gonna buy that?'

‘Why wouldn't they?'

‘Fine, I can't stop you. Waste your last day in New York – what time
is
your flight, by the way?'

‘It's none of your business.' She was losing control and a memory came back to her, an incident in Paris when she'd caught a man slipping his hand into her bag outside the Pompidou Centre. She had shouted, in English unfortunately, and the would-be thief took a couple of steps back and looked her boldly in the eye. She did not know what to do and a moment later he ran off, disappearing into a noisy crowd which had gathered to watch a fire-eater. She felt the same sense of disjunction now, unable to think of a way of ending the conversation without giving Michael Lindsay the last word.

Into the silence he said matter-of-factly: ‘It was a game, Loretta. Like you said.'

‘I didn't mean — not literally.'

‘What I'm saying is, I'm an
actor
.'

‘I know.' She wasn't sure where this was leading.

‘I was rehearsing, you were helping. You've heard of the Method, I have to get into a part, really live it. Like De Niro.'

She gave a shout of astonished laughter.

‘What's so funny? You're a friend of Toni's and you offered to help. Now you've changed your mind. Maybe you got into it, enjoyed it too much, now you're crying rape –'

‘What?
You think anyone's going to fall for that?'

He mocked her: ‘Why wouldn't they? I'm a respectable guy, I have an agent, I'm up for a part in Tarantino's next movie. You have — what? Twelve hours before your flight? Say you're right and you manage to persuade those guys I'm some kind of a pervert. That makes you a witness, maybe they won't let you fly out, did you think of that?'

‘That's ridiculous. They wouldn't keep me here.'

‘You wanna risk it?'

She was still thinking when he began to speak in a completely different, caressing voice. ‘Come on, Loretta, we both enjoyed it but it's over. Let's not fight.'If a stranger had overheard him, it would have sounded regretful, a lover's farewell.

‘God,' she said in a rush, ‘you really like manipulating people, don't you? This isn't about sex, it's about power.'

‘Wow. A
feminist.'

‘And what are you?
Nothing,
just a collection of parts. What do you do when you wake up in the morning, toss a coin? Who's it going to be today, Hamlet or a child molester?'

‘Now wait –'

‘Or some stupid little pervert who's so scared of women he has to get his kicks over the phone. You weren't acting on Friday night, that's the only way you can — ‘

‘Baby,' he crooned reproachfully, ‘and I was going to invite you to
lunch
.'

‘What?'

‘Loretta, we could have been so
good
together, I would've taken you to Orso's, maybe we'd have ended up in bed together. But you had to go and spoil it. Sorry, babe, but I just don't think I want to talk to you any more.'

There was a soft click as he put the phone down. Loretta stared at the receiver, lost for words. She had heard of people with multiple personality disorder, had read a case history in a magazine, but she had always assumed that in real life the transitions were gradual, nothing like so rapid as she'd just encountered. Unless, of course, Michael Lindsay had been acting all the time, from the first phone call on Thursday to this final
flourish ... Astounded, she handed the phone down on to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, replaying the bizarre conversation in her mind.

‘Honey,' she said after a while.

The dog was asleep in her usual place, stubby legs stretched out front and back, next to the television. She opened her eyes and regarded Loretta distrustfully, as if to say she'd been fooled too many times by the promise of a walk which then failed to materialise. Loretta got up and went to the front door, calling the dog repeatedly over her shoulder, and lifted the lead from its hook. Still suspicious, Honey dragged herself to her feet, slouched towards the door and allowed Loretta to slip the hook on to the ring of her collar.

Riverside Park was marginally less noisy than usual, the volume of traffic on the expressway not quite as relentless as on a weekday morning. Loretta recognised a couple of other dog-walkers in the distance, people she'd seen on previous visits to the park, but most of the joggers seemed to have decided to stay indoors until the mist lifted. The drifting, translucent haze in which the city seemed to float when viewed from the fifteenth floor, and through glass, translated at ground level into sticky fumes which Loretta could feel clogging her nasal passages. Honey was as impervious to the weather as ever, sniffing sparse hummocks of grass and squatting every few yards to rid herself of a depressingly diminutive quantity of pee. While the poop-a-scoop and its associated operations still filled Loretta with disgust, she was becoming less self-conscious with every outing about die horrid little plastic bags she had to dispose of on her way out of the park; eager to get the whole business over, she did her best to be patient, aware that the dog didn't really get enough exercise for an animal of her size.

Honey trotted ahead, following invisible trails with the enthusiasm of a truffle hound on the track of some sumptuous underground tuber. So far that morning they had survived a challenge from a yappy, bad-tempered Yorkshire terrier, a
familiar nuisance whose sorties Honey magisterially brushed aside, and a more perplexing encounter with a short, squat, black pig. Honey had stopped and growled as soon as she spotted the animal, observing it with growing alarm as it waddled towards her with its owner, a slender woman in skintight cycling shorts. To Loretta's astonishment, as the odd couple got nearer, the bulldog backed away as far as the lead allowed and flattened herself on the scrubby ground next to the path, as though 40 lbs of muscle and bone could simply merge into the scenery at will. Loretta crouched beside the terrified dog, speaking to her encouragingly, but Honey refused to be comforted, flicking her eyes this way and that until the threat was safely past.

‘You useless lump,' Loretta finished affectionately, getting to her feet, and they resumed their serene progress through the park. Hearing the pounding footsteps of a jogger gaining on them from behind, the first one that morning, Loretta moved to the side of the path to allow the runner to overtake without breaking his or her stride. ‘Honey,' she said warningly, shortening the lead in case the dog took it into her head to snap at the jogger's heels.

The next moment the jogger barged into her, inflicting a painful blow on Loretta's left shoulder. She staggered, the breath knocked out of her, and let go of the lead. Recovering enough to spin round, already remonstrating with the runner, it took her a split second to realise he wasn't a jogger at all, that she was being mugged. He came at her again, shouting unintelligibly above the furious barking of the dog, his hands seizing her arms, and she felt his superior strength as she twisted and struggled to break free. Gasping that she had nothing to steal, nothing at all, her mind threw up only useless advice — don't make eye contact, don't speak, keep your jewellery hidden. Sheer desperation jerked her knee up into the soft vulnerable flesh cof his groin, the only manoeuvre she remembered from an old self-defence manual, and she was unprepared for its spectacular success. He let go instantly, doubled over in pain, his hands between his legs,
and the unexpected physical release sent Loretta tottering backwards. The dog, beside herself with rage, saw her opportunity at last and hurled herself at the mugger's legs, bowling him over.

Loretta watched in horror as the scene unfolded: the attacker sprawling on his back, the dog's powerful jaws closing on his leg, her teeth ripping through denim, her noisy grunts as she resisted his frantic attempts to shake her off. Dazed by the speed with which her assailant had been disabled, Loretta did not move until he screamed, a high, inhuman sound which snapped her out of her state of shocked inaction. Throwing herself forward, shouting the dog's name until she was hoarse, she managed to get a hold on the thick leather collar, first with one hand and then with both, and pulled so hard that the animal rounded angrily on her, knocking her off balance. Gravel tore at her hands as she skidded backwards on the path, throwing up her arms to defend her face as the dog turned on her —

‘I got him,' someone shouted, and the dog reared on her hind legs, jerked backwards by the lead. Loretta scrambled out of reach, still afraid, but the stranger held tight.

‘You all right?' she heard him say, unsure whether he meant herself or the injured mugger a couple of yards farther up the path. She struggled into a sitting position, tears streaming unnoticed down her cheeks, peering at the man who had tried to rob her. Not a man, a youth —

‘What happened? You know this guy?'

She did not answer, transfixed by the bloody stains on her attacker's jeans. ‘Get a doctor,' she gasped, unable to look away from the ragged, oozing mess. ‘Get an
ambulance
.'