Too Easy (19 page)

“Maybe try again.”

Kathy smiles. “There you go.”

“And me?” Robert tries to appear ready for anything, but he's thinking about the word she used. A token. He liked the sound of that.

“You're the alibi. That way you don't have to be there. I mean, it's going to be harder for you than for me. But you're still a part of the deal.”

She sips some more. Her face becomes more serious.

“I have to have that, Robie. Not because I couldn't take the risk by myself. I damned well could. But you have to do something for me, too. Otherwise, I don't want . . .”

She stares at him, sort of sadly, he thinks. It's rare she seems vulnerable. She does now. Letting him feel how important this is to her.

“No problem,” Robert says.
“Whatever
you say.” He squeezes her hand. “Tell me the rest.” He smiles, trying to lighten the mood. “You've done your homework, I can tell.”

“Alibi means you see me somewhere else. Say you tell the people in the office you have to go out for a walk, clear your mind. You just happen to see this woman you know on sight. Certain time, certain corner. Maybe we wave. No doubt in your mind it's her. Me. We'll run through it one day. But, hey, there's no reason it ever comes to an alibi. If everything goes right, it's just a mystery. You come home from work and . . . Well, that's what you have to be prepared for.”

Robert finishes his glass. Thinks over what she's said. Tries to.

“The only other thing I need,” Kathy says, “is a day when she's home. She take personal days? Bad periods?”

He nods. “Often she does. They're not that bad. But she figures she deserves a day—”

“When's the next one?”

Robert pauses, looking at the seriousness in Kathy's face.
She's thinking so fast, moving so fast.
When's the next one?
That's good. “Well, two weeks ago or so. . . . About ten days, I guess.”

“Well, lover? What do you think?”

Robert glances uneasily about the room. It's all so real when Kathy talks about it. And so immediate. Hell, this is countdown. This is saying Anne's got ten days left. . . .

“You can just walk up to the house?” he asks. “Disguised or what?”

“It's typical suburban, right? Oh, I'll go up and take a look.” She's sorry she never told him she was there. But this isn't a good moment either. “The houses aren't that close together, right? And who's looking? . . . Yes, Robie, I'd be disguised.” She wonders if that's why she cut her hair short, because she always knew she'd end up wearing a wig, for one reason or another.

“You've thought of everything. I'm so impressed. . . . Really, it's amazing—”

“Stop, Robie. ‘What do you think' means,
yes
or
no?”

“Yes, absolutely. No question.”

He grabs her hands, lifts them to his mouth, kisses her several times. Yes, he thinks, the best partner a man could possibly have. Everything to the limit. I won't even be there, I'll be miles away. God, I'm not sure I could've done it the other way. But this, this is perfect.

Kathy feels his lips on her fingers. Sees the way his head is bowed in front of her. The dream was getting away, at least she was frightened it was. But now, she thinks, I can make it happen, you just have to fight. A great day, that's what I figured.

“She's not suspicious, right?”

“No,” Robert says. “I'm sure of it.”

“Then there's no problem.”

She slips down low on the seat, pushes a shoeless toe into his groin. “I don't know,” she says, smiling, “this kind of talk does make a person horny, doesn't it?”

Robert kisses her hand some more, says in a joking way, “Don't. Please. We'll get arrested. I have—”

“Oh, I'm just talking. Relax. I won't do anything, even if you beg. . . . Well, maybe if you beg
real nice.”

“I don't know. . . . Horny? Maybe it does. You get me flying, I know that. I'm tingling all over, whatever the reason is. I'm surprised I know my name. . . . What is it, by the way?”

They laugh, all four hands in a writhing ball.

“It's amazing,” Kathy says. “We're sitting here talking about doing away with you-know-who and I'm thinking about fucking on the table. . . . No! It's too late. You had your chance. Don't beg.”

“Please.”

“Oh, alright.”

They laugh more loudly.

“Seriously, Kathy, it would be an honor to beg you.” Robert looks puzzled. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” she nods, “it's very sweet. Thank you.”

“We'll get a cab back to the city,” Robert says, “and I'll beg you all the way in.” He raises a hand, signals the waiter. “I've got a wish list already.”

“How many wishes?”

“Just three or four main ones.”

“I'll try to hold out. . . . At least out of the parking lot.”

They're laughing when the thin waiter comes over. He gives them a prim stare of reprimand. Kathy eases on her sunglasses, gives him a fuck-you smile.

•
 Anne faces a wall in the firm's cafeteria, sitting alone, eating in an absentminded way.

Stan, a young attorney in the firm, is walking toward the serving line. He stops and watches her for a moment. Something very intent, even grim, about her. He hesitates to interrupt her, almost doesn't. A nice-looking woman, pleasant, smart, he thinks, probably a good body but not exactly Miss Conviviality.

Oh, well, he decides, putting on a big smile. He walks over and says, “Anne, hi. How's everything?”

She looks up with a blank expression. “Ohhh . . . Stan. Fine.”

“Can I sit down a moment?”

“Certainly . . . of course.”

Stan sits facing her. “You probably don't even remember . . . but I thought I'd tell you something.”

“Yes?”

“Couple months ago. You were in here with one of the CPAs. A bunch of us were talking about this case, a burglary, guy got shot. Remember any of this?”

“I remember very well.”

“Oh. Well, I remember it bothered you. So I can give you some good news. The whole thing got settled. Case just evaporated, actually. Happy?”

She stares at him. Stan doesn't get the feeling she's overjoyed to hear all this.

“Well, thank you, Stan,” she says slowly. “Thanks for telling me.”

Stan nods. “You do remember, right?”

She seems to snap a little. “Stan, I told you I recall the case precisely. It was offensive that you . . . that we would be involved in something like that.”

Stan shrugs uneasily. “Well, people have a right to good counsel.”

Anne puts down her fork. Stan watches this with a twinge of apprehension. “The man in the yard was a professional burglar,” she says in a low but stern voice. “You knew that. He was not drunk. He was not lost. He was there to break into the house and steal. I don't pretend to know what proper punishment is. But the whole point of the legal system is to get the facts on the table. At least to try to.”

Stan smiles. “Not if you're guilty.”

Anne stops herself from responding. She picks up her coffee with both hands, takes her time sipping. Slow things down, stay calm.

Stan's just trying to be nice, she thinks. Edd took care of it, apparently—
he
was just trying to be nice.
Everybody
is trying to be nice. I'm so wound up, I have to be careful. Fake it, lady. Smile. Who cares about a damned burglar and the rest of it? Well, damn, I can't very well say what I really care about. Oh, Stan, by the way, I think my husband's planning to leave me. . . . Maybe something much worse. God, it hurts just to think that.

She gasps. Holds the cup away from her lips. “Still hot,” she lies, trying to smile.

“Right,” Stan says, looking uncomfortable. “Anyway, I just thought you would want to know.” He stands up. “Well, I'll be—”

He glances across the room, sees Edd Lawrence walk in. Edd scans the room, sees them and comes right over. “Well, still here,” he says to Anne. “Good, I'll join you. . . . Hi,” he adds, turning to Stan.

Anne looks up at them. “Stan here was just saying that the burglar's suit has evaporated. That the word, Stan?”

“Is that so?” Edd exclaims. “I remember it.”

“You do?” Stan says, surprised. “February . . . yes, I think it was—”

“Sure,” Edd says. “Anne said it was a silly suit.”

“I said it was disgusting,” Anne corrects him. “I meant evil. Now, I wonder why I thought that. . . .” Now, she thinks, that I know a lot more about the subject.

Stan stares down at Anne. “Well . . .” He starts to walk away but doesn't.
“Now you wonder why?
I'm sorry?”

“You boys play your little games,” Anne says, looking down. “And then you're surprised that people hate lawyers.”

“Anne, really.”

Anne is seeing Robert's face when she says, “It's just wrong, that's all. A man's home is his castle. And a woman's, too, I would hope.” She pushes the tray back and stands up. Edd is watching her with his passive face, but she can feel his mind whirring. Anne confronts Stan. “We have to be responsible. Is that too much to ask? Life isn't a game, you know. I'm sorry, Edd, I have to get back to work.”

“I'm sorry, too,” Edd says.

Stan's face moves from one expression to another. Geez, I was just trying to be nice. And look what I get. What is going on here? I didn't know accountants got so crazy.

Anne makes a little wave, smiling some, trying to end on a lighter note. “Thanks, Stan. Well, I'll be going.”

“You're welcome,” he says, the words sounding ironic.

Anne starts across the room. Edd watches her, then sees Stan's confusion. “Interesting woman,” Edd says.

Like that explains
anything,
Stan thinks. “Oh, yeah,” he says vaguely. “Bye.” Sorry he ever came over to talk to her.

•  •  •

Anne settles at her desk, tries to concentrate on the numbers. . . . God, I feel like I'm on fire or something.
I can't do it now,
Robert says, and I think he's talking about divorce. No, no; now I don't think that's right. If it was divorce, he'd talk to me about it. He doesn't talk, so it's got to be something worse. Something unspeakable . . . as it were. And there's something in the tone of his voice, something hushed and conspiratorial.
We have to make sure everything's just right,
he says. What, for leaving me? I just assumed that's what he meant. But what would have to be
right?

Every time I listen, I hear it in a darker way. Oh, I don't know what to think anymore. I don't know how to think about any of this. I mean, how do you? You have to be a cop or something like that. What was it, four or five years ago, Robert and I were joking,
You know, we're both worth a lot more dead than alive. Haha.
 . . . Is that it?

She remembers the man who sold her the recording device. Sure, he'd know how to think about this. Everyday stuff. Maybe I should pick a lawyer out of the phone book, talk to him. Or go to the police. But they might just laugh. Well, lady, you want to press charges? What?! Everything's so inconclusive. All I've got's a half dozen sentences. That last time, they really start to talk and her mother calls! Call waiting. Now there's an old lady somewhere I don't even know and I hate her.

So who can I talk to? Maybe call up Mom, say, Remember your favorite son-in-law? Well, he might be . . . I couldn't speak the words.

I feel like such a lunatic just thinking about this, for suspecting that Robert could actually . . . Oh, I must be a lunatic. Yes, definitely. I've got this on my mind every other minute. So I'm a lunatic
for
thinking it. Or thinking it will
make
me a lunatic. Either way, I end up in the same spot. They get you in a padded room and people peek in the little window and you never get out. Sorry, lady, you thought crazy thoughts. Case closed, door locked.

Anne remembers that for several minutes before lunch she felt analytical, objective. Here's a puzzle, try to solve it, she told herself. Turn the pieces around until they make sense. She liked this feeling. It's the feeling she brings to her work, to solving the tax problems of her clients. But the feeling didn't last long. She tries to bring it back now. There's just a jumble of thoughts and in back of them a mist of fear.

She sits back violently, as if she can jolt these thoughts from her mind.

She looks up and sees Edd leaning in the door. He's smiling in his neutral way. She wonders if he saw her jump back like that. Yes, he must have.

He moves inside the office, stands there looking at her. “Anne . . . I'm sorry. I'm not sure how to say this. You seem very tense the last week or so.”

Anne shrugs. “Oh, well . . . work's piling up on me. You know how it is.”

She glances back and forth from the computer screen to Edd, wondering what he suspects, wondering if her behavior has changed in such an obvious way. She smiles, tries to appear very calm.

“Right,” he says. “I know how it is.” He hesitates, then adds, “Well, if there's anything I can do. . . .”

She looks at him more directly. Maybe Edd could help, she thinks. He's got a shrewd, even-tempered way of looking at problems. He'd probably know exactly what to do. I really wish I could trust him.

Edd watches her. Smiling some. Not much of a smile, but this, she thinks, is a man who hardly smiles at all. “If I can be of any help,” he says, “you tell me.”

“Yes, alright, Edd. I will.”