Allyn Allyn - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

“By the way, did Ames’s check ever get here?”

“Yes, but too late. I have it in my desk.”

“Bring it to me, will you?”

“Ted — I have something to say.”

His smile faded; he cocked his head. “Yes?”

She hated to tell him this, because it would change everything. But she had had to miss a day of work last week to see the doctor and he had already asked her twice if she’d gotten the test results. He had lost Linda to breast cancer and, since then, if anyone he knew had a medical scare, he had shown inordinate concern.

“To begin, well, I heard from my doctor.”

“And?” He put his glass on the corner of his desk, leaned forward, and touched her shoulder. The warmth of his hand radiated through the thin barrier of silk. She wished he would take his hand off, because it only made it harder; once she walked out of here, chances were she would never see him again.

“Pancreatic cancer. Late stage. I’m a goner.” She tipped up her glass and let the Champagne flow into her mouth.

“Effie.” Now both his arms were around her and she had a terrible thought: She should have sprung the same news on him a year ago, before it was true, before he met the waitress. Maybe, if they had found their arms around each other like this when she was healthy, a future for them might have tempted his imagination. But she was finished with lying. That was the whole point.

She pulled away, reached for his Champagne, and drank that, too. “Sorry. I’ll get you some more.”

He stopped her from leaving by holding onto her arm. “How long do you have?”

“He said six months, but it was only a guess.”

“I’m sorry, Effie. Really sorry. What can I do?”

She was intoxicated, and now the rest came more easily. She knew she could walk away, take the check with her, and that would be that; but if it was the last thing she ever did, and it might be, she had to take a stand.

“There’s nothing you can do for me anymore, Ted. Obviously I’m not going to keep working.”

“Of course not. But there is something I can do for you. Where do you want to go? Anywhere — name it. How do you want to spend the rest of your life? Tell me, and it’s yours.”

“I want to accomplish something,” she said. “Do something courageous.”

His eyes clouded a bit; it wasn’t the answer he expected. “Let me send you to Polynesia, to Moorea. I’ve heard it’s the most beautiful place on earth. Sandy wants to go there for our honeymoon.”

“No, thank you.” She took a breath. “It’s about Mr. Vanderbilt’s check. We can’t deposit it.”

“Oh?”

“This has to stop.”

She watched the muscles of his jaw grind. This was the moment she had most feared: when she stepped beyond his control.

“This isn’t the time for an attack of conscience. You’re sick, so let me help you. But you don’t have to bring everyone down with you.”

“Everyone?” Just you. He knew as well as she did that they were the only people with access to the Stollit Fund’s account; the Stollit Group was a separate entity that handled the firm’s other, legitimate business.

“Effie, I’m not sure you realize how special you are to me. This has always been our secret. Not even Linda knew.”

“I’ve thought about that. She died never knowing, which in a sense made your marriage, all those years, honest — as in a tree falling in a forest that no one hears makes no sound . She never knew, so it didn’t happen. When you remember her now, it must help you to think of yourself as a good man.” The remittance of that thought, which had taken months to clarify, lightened her.

“What exactly is it you’re trying to say to me, Effie? Are you planning to call the Securities and Exchange Commission? Is that it?”

Her gaze veered away from him and landed on Dora Maar au Chat , Picasso’s painting of a disarranged woman seated on a chair with a black cat on her shoulder, Ted’s most recent acquisition. He had paid over ninety-five million dollars for it at auction — ninety-five million dollars of other people’s money. The thought settled into her consciousness, weightily, as if for the first time; and as her attention skipped across the room — the photograph of his Hamptons beach house, another photo of his house in the south of France, the solid-gold golf-ball paperweight on his desk, the statuettes of bulls scattered throughout his office — she felt the onslaught of despair, as if she had just now walked in on a robbery. She probably didn’t have enough time left in her life to understand how, and why, she had given her trust without reservation to a thief, or where, or if, she would find the courage to disown him now.

“What I’m trying to say is,” she felt a little woozy, and cleared her throat, “what I’m trying to say is...”

“Are you dizzy, Effie?” He stepped toward her. “Come here — some fresh air might help.”

His hand wove around her back and she felt his fingers cling to her waist. It was an almost sexual feeling of closeness; her body relaxed and swayed into him. Would it be so bad to allow herself the fantasy of Effie-and-Ted one more time? And then another dreadful thought: She had the power to blackmail him. Not for money, but as so many men had done to women through history — for sex. She banished the idea immediately. What she had always wanted from Ted was love .

Together they looked out into the blizzard, fourteen flights above the abandoned snow-covered streets. He pulled up the handle of one of the windows and pushed it open. Frigid air and icy snowflakes rushed at them. She stopped breathing, closed her eyes, and turned her face against the protective shield of Ted’s chest.

“Effie,” he whispered. He gently stroked the side of her face. His fingers wandered down along her neck — much as she had imagined. Her body grew warm in the freezing air. Her brain seized on the contrast: life and death; love and sex; honesty and lies. She felt, for once, imperfectly human. Alive.

“Ted.” She struggled to reverse herself. “I won’t... I can’t...”

“Shh.”

He undid the top three buttons of her blouse, leaned down, and kissed her breast. Breath rushed out of her. Her mind blanked.

“Effie,” he whispered again.

She put her hand to his head and pressed his ear to her chest. “Can you hear my heart? It’s beating so fast.”

“I hear it.”

He kissed her, tenderly, carefully. It was exactly as she had imagined it would be: slow, arousing, drenched with emotion. She felt as if her heart was swelling, actually swelling, and opened her legs as his hand traveled up her skirt. When the fabric was gathered at her hips, she allowed him to help her backward onto the credenza. She wanted to reach forward and touch him, too, but didn’t dare. Her mind had never pictured that part of it; it was always what he did for her, and how she let him.

“Effie.”

She felt the chain snap off her neck as she fell backward out of the window. Her blood sobered, her brain awoke. She was flying through the air, flying, her body twisting incrementally in the downward rush toward the expanse of untouched snow.

Ted closed the window and shook ice crystals off his arms. He dropped the gold chain and key into his pants pocket and straightened his tie. On second thought, he opened the window and threw Effie’s Champagne glass out after her. How tragic: a drunken suicide on the day she learned of her terminal cancer. He left his own glass where it was, empty on his desk, and crossed through his office into hers. He unlocked the top drawer of Effie’s desk. Ames Vanderbilt’s check was sitting right there. He folded it and slipped it into his wallet, relocked the drawer, and dropped the key back into his pocket.