The Couple Next Door (25 page)

She remembers how she used to lie here with Cora on her chest. It seems very long ago now. She would get so tired she’d need to lie down for a minute with the baby. They would snuggle together on the sofa, in the quiet part of the day, like now, and sometimes they would fall asleep together. Tears slide down her cheeks.

She hears sounds coming from the other side of the wall. Cynthia is home, moving around in her living room, playing music. Anne despises Cynthia. She hates everything about her – her childlessness, her air of superiority and power, her figure, her seductive clothing. She hates her for toying with her husband, for trying to destroy their life together. She doesn’t know if she can ever forgive Cynthia for what she’s done. She hates Cynthia all the more because they used to be such good friends.

Anne hates it that Cynthia lives on the other side of the wall. She suddenly realizes that they can move. They can put the house up for sale. She and Marco are infamous here anyway – the mail still piles up each day – and the house that she loved so much is now like a crypt. She feels buried alive.

They can’t live here much longer, with Cynthia on the other side of the wall, within beckoning distance of Marco.

What was Marco doing coming out of Cynthia’s backyard
yesterday anyway, looking so guilty? He vehemently denies having an affair with her, but Anne isn’t stupid. She can’t get the truth out of him, and she’s tired of all the lies.

She will confront Cynthia herself. Get the truth out of her. But with Cynthia, too, how could she know what was the truth and what was a lie?

Instead she gets up and goes out the back door to the yard. She goes into the garage to get her gardening gloves. In the garage she stops and lets her eyes adjust to the light. She can smell the familiar garage smell of oil, old wood, and musty rags. She stands there and imagines what must have happened. She is so confused, by everything. If she didn’t kill Cora and Marco didn’t have someone take her away, then somebody, probably the man who’s now dead, stole her baby from her crib and put her in his car sometime after twelve thirty while she – and Marco and Cynthia and Graham – were oblivious next door.

She’s glad he’s dead. She hopes he suffered.

She goes outside again and starts viciously wrenching weeds out of the lawn until her hands are blistered and her back aches.

MARCO SITS AT
his desk, staring out the window, seeing nothing. The door is closed. He glances down at the surface of the expensive mahogany desk, the one he chose with such care when he expanded his business and took the lease on this office.

When he looks back now on the innocence and optimism of those days, he feels sickened. He gazes with bitter eyes around his office, which so perfectly conveys the image of a successful entrepreneur. The impressive desk, the view of the city and the river out the window across from it, the high-end leather chairs – the modern art. Anne helped him decorate it; she has a good eye.

He remembers the fun they had doing it – shopping for the pieces, arranging everything. When they were done, he’d locked the door, popped open a bottle of champagne, and made love to his giggling wife on the floor.

There was pressure on him then; he had to live up to everyone’s greater expectations – Anne’s, her parents’, his own. Perhaps if he’d married someone else, he would have been content to work his way up, building his business more slowly
with grit and talent and long hours. But he had the opportunity to make things happen faster, and he took it. He was ambitious. He had that money handed to him on a silver platter, and of course he was expected to make a success of it right away. How could he not succeed, as the recipient of such a magnificent handout? There was a lot of pressure. Richard especially took a greater interest in how the business was doing, since he’d bankrolled it.

It had seemed too good to be true, and it was.

He’d gone after the big clients before he was ready. He’d made the classic rookie mistake of growing too fast. If he hadn’t married Anne – no, if he hadn’t accepted the wedding gift of the house and, years later, the loan of her parents’ money – they might be renting an apartment somewhere, he’d have an ugly office farther away from downtown, he wouldn’t be driving an Audi – but he’d be working hard and building success on his own terms. He and Anne would be happy.

Cora would be at home.

But look at how it has all turned out. He is the owner of an overextended business teetering on the edge of ruin. He is a kidnapper. A criminal. A liar. Suspected by the police. In the power of an egomaniac father-in-law who knows what he’s done, and a coldhearted blackmailer who will never stop demanding money. The business is almost bankrupt, even though he’s been given so much – money for the business, connections through Richard’s friends at the country club.

Alice and Richard’s investment in Marco’s business is lost. Like the five million dollars they’d paid for Cora. And now Richard is negotiating with the kidnappers – they’ll pay even more to get Cora back. Marco has no idea how much more.

How Anne’s parents must hate him. For the first time,
Marco thinks about it from their point of view. He can understand their disappointment. Marco has let them all down. In the end his business has failed, spectacularly, even with all that help. Marco still believes that if he’d done it his own way, he would have been very successful – gradually. But Richard pushed him to accept contracts he couldn’t deliver on. And then Marco became desperate.

When things started to go wrong, really wrong, a couple of months ago, Marco had taken to having a drink at the bar on the corner before going home to Anne, where he would feel helpless in the face of her mounting depression. It was usually fairly quiet at five o’clock, when he arrived. He’d sit at the bar, having his one drink, brooding into the amber liquid, wondering what the hell to do.

Then he’d leave and go for a walk down by the river, not wanting to head home yet. He’d sit down on a bench and stare out at the water.

One day an older man came and sat down beside him. Annoyed, Marco was about to get up, feeling that his space had been invaded. But before he could leave, the man spoke to him, in a friendly way.

‘You look a bit down,’ he said sympathetically.

Marco was abrupt. ‘You could say that.’

‘Lose a girlfriend?’ the man asked.

‘I wish it were that simple,’ Marco had said.

‘Ah, must be business troubles, then,’ the man said, and smiled. ‘They’re
much
worse.’ He held out his hand. ‘Bruce Neeland,’ he offered.

Marco took his hand. ‘Marco Conti.’

Marco began to look forward to running into Bruce. He found it a relief to have someone – someone who didn’t really
know him, who wouldn’t judge him – to tell his troubles to. He couldn’t tell Anne what was really going on, with her depression and her expectation of success. He hadn’t told her that things were going south, and once he’d started not telling her things were going badly, he couldn’t suddenly tell her just how badly things were going.

Bruce seemed to understand. He was easy to like, with a warm, open manner. He was a broker. He’d had good years, bad years. You had to be tough, ride out the bad times. ‘It’s not always easy,’ Bruce said, sitting beside him in his expensive, well-cut suit.

‘That’s for sure,’ Marco agreed.

One day Marco had a little too much to drink at the bar. Later, down by the river, he told Bruce more than he meant to. It just slipped out, the problem with his in-laws. Bruce was a good listener.

‘I owe them a lot of money,’ Marco confessed.

‘They’re your in-laws. They’re not going to feed you to the fishes if you can’t pay,’ Bruce said, looking out at the river.

‘Maybe that would be better,’ Marco said sourly. Marco explained the hold his wife’s parents had over him – the business, the house, even trying to turn his wife against him.

‘I’d say they’ve got you by the short and curlies,’ Bruce said, pursing his lips.

‘Yup.’ Marco took off his jacket, slung it over the back of the bench. It was summer, and the evenings were warm.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You could ask them for another loan, to tide you over till business improves,’ Bruce suggested. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’

‘I don’t think so.’

Bruce looked him in the eye. ‘Why not? Don’t be an ass.
Just ask. Get yourself out of the hole. Live to fight another day. They’ll want to protect their investment anyway. At least give them the option.’

Marco considered. As much as he hated the idea, it made sense to come clean to Richard, to tell him the business was in trouble. He could ask him to keep it between them, not to bother Anne and Alice with it. After all, businesses failed every day. It was the economy. Things were much tougher now than when Richard started out. Of course, Richard would never see it that way. At least he would never admit it.

‘Ask your father-in-law,’ Bruce advised. ‘Don’t go to the bank.’

Marco didn’t tell Bruce, but he’d already been to the bank. He’d put a mortgage on the house a few months earlier. He’d told Anne it was to help the business expand further in a high-growth time, and she hadn’t questioned it. He’d made her promise not to tell her parents. He said they had their noses in too much of Marco and Anne’s business already.

‘Maybe,’ Marco said.

He thought about it for two days. He slept poorly. Finally he decided to approach his father-in-law. It was always Richard he dealt with when it came to financial matters involving Anne’s parents. Richard liked it that way. Marco screwed up his courage and called Richard and asked if they could meet for a drink. Richard seemed surprised, but he suggested the bar at the country club. Of course. He always had to be on his own fucking turf.

When Marco arrived, he was nervous and downed his drink quickly. He tried to slow down when he got close to the ice cubes.

Richard stared at him. ‘What’s this about, Marco?’ he asked.

Marco hesitated. ‘The business isn’t doing as well as I’d like.’

Richard immediately looked wary. ‘How bad is it?’ he asked.

This is what Marco hated about his father-in-law. It was all about humiliation. He couldn’t let Marco save face. He couldn’t be generous.

‘Pretty bad, actually,’ Marco said. ‘I’ve lost some clients. Some haven’t paid. I’m having a bit of a cash-flow problem at the moment.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, nursing his drink.

There was a long silence. He wasn’t going to offer, Marco realized. He was going to make Marco ask. Marco looked up from his drink, regarded his father-in-law’s stern face. ‘Could you provide me with another loan to get over this tough spell?’ he asked. ‘We could structure it like a real loan. I want to pay interest on it this time.’

Marco hadn’t really considered the possibility that his father-in-law might refuse. He didn’t think Richard would dare, because what would happen to his daughter then? It was mostly the groveling he’d been avoiding, this moment, of having to ask for help, of being in Richard’s power.

Richard looked back at him, his eyes cold. ‘No,’ he said.

Even then Marco misunderstood. He thought Richard was saying no to the interest. ‘No, really. I want to pay interest. A hundred thousand would do it.’

Richard leaned forward in his seat, hulking over the little table between them. ‘I said
no.
’

Marco felt the heat go up his neck, felt his face flush. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t believe Richard meant it.

‘We’re not giving you any more money, Marco,’ Richard said. ‘We won’t
loan
you any money either. You’re on your own.’ He settled back in his comfortable club chair. ‘I know a bad investment when I see one.’

Marco didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t going to beg. When Richard made up his mind, that was it. And he’d obviously made up his mind.

‘Alice and I feel the same way about this – we’d already decided to stop giving you any more handouts,’ Richard added.

What about your daughter?
Marco wanted to ask, but he couldn’t find his voice. Then he realized he already knew the answer.

Richard would tell Anne about this. He’d tell his daughter what a poor choice she’d made in Marco. Richard and Alice had never liked him. They’d been waiting patiently for this day. They
wanted
Anne to leave him. To take his baby and leave him. Of course that’s what they wanted.

Marco couldn’t let that happen.

He stood up suddenly, bumping the little table between them at his knees. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll manage on my own.’ He turned and left the lounge, blind with rage and shame. He would tell Anne himself first. Tell her what a bastard her father really was.

It was late afternoon. Time for one more drink before he went home. He went over to his own bar for a quick one and then went for his walk. Bruce was already there, on the bench.
That
was the moment. The point at which there was no going back.

‘
YOU LOOK LIKE
shit,’ Bruce said as Marco sat down beside him on the bench.

Marco was numb. He’d screwed up his courage to ask, but he hadn’t actually considered that Richard would say no. The business could be saved, Marco was sure of it. There were some bad debts, clients who hadn’t paid. But there was some new business he was chasing – they were just being slow about making a decision. It could still all come right, with a little money to tide him over. He still had his ambition. He still believed in himself. He just needed some breathing space. He needed some cash.

‘I need some money,’ Marco told Bruce. ‘Know any loan sharks?’ He was only half joking. He knew how desperate he must seem.

But Bruce took him seriously. He turned sideways to look at Marco. ‘No, I don’t know any loan sharks. And anyway, you don’t want to do that,’ Bruce said.

‘Well, I don’t know what the fuck else I can do,’ Marco said, running his hand through his hair, staring angrily out at the river.

‘You could declare bankruptcy, start over,’ Bruce said after some thought. ‘Lots of people do.’