Peter Spiegelman - Black Maps

I lived on the fourth floor, in my sister Lauren’s apartment. She’d gotten married a few years ago, and as far as I knew was very happy in her digs on the Upper East Side, but she’d hung on to this place just in case. I was glad to keep it warm for her. The building is an old one, from the 1890s. For its first hundred or so years it was a factory. Then, in the 1990s, it was reborn as residential space. One big loft on each floor. The building still bore marks of its industrial roots in the oversized elevator and the sixteen-foot tin ceilings, but the individual lofts had been renovated in very different styles. I knew the advertising guy on six had done something with a lot of brushed aluminum that made his place look like the inside of a turbine, and the two women on the third floor had turned theirs into a Craftsman bungalow. Lauren’s place, my place at the moment, was tame by those standards: white walls, bleached hardwood floors, a kitchen area in cherry wood and green granite, halogen lighting, sparse, comfortable furniture in soft leather and wood. I’d told Lauren that if the PI thing didn’t work out, I might open a Banana Republic in there. She’d smiled sweetly and flipped me the bird.

I flicked on the main lights and set the file box on the kitchen counter. My plan was to go for a run, then eat something and read the file. While I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Pierro or his story, I was eager to work. I try to keep the downtime between cases to a minimum. It’s not a money thing. For me, downtime is dangerous. It’s unfocused, disorderly, and open-ended, and too easily filled with memory. Work keeps all that at bay-work and running. They’re cheaper than substance abuse, and ultimately less trouble. I listened to my voice mail on the speakerphone while I changed into my running clothes.

There was a message from Lauren, trying again to cajole me into a family Thanksgiving. “John, it’s me. Call me about Thanksgiving. I promise it won’t be horrible. Ned’s at his best when he’s carving up big pieces of meat, and Janine is sure to get shitfaced, which is always amusing. Seriously, you should come. Everyone wants to see you. We do worry, you know. Call me.” Although she’s just three years younger than I am, Lauren sounds like a breathless sixteen-year-old when she pleads. Ned is my eldest brother; Janine is his well-kempt wife. Maybe I could tell them that I was having Thanksgiving dinner with Mike.

Then there was a message from Clare, calling from a pay phone as always. “Hi. It’s about six-thirty. Look, I’m sorry about Monday. You caught me off guard, and I wasn’t sure if you were kidding or what. It’s hard to tell with you. I’ll try you later. Maybe we can get together tomorrow — I’m free in the morning, around ten.” Clare was.. I’m not sure what. A friend of mine? I couldn’t claim to know her very well, and besides a certain cynical worldview, a high level of aerobic fitness, and intercourse, we didn’t have much in common. Someone I was dating? Can you say that about a woman who’s married to someone else? A woman I’d met a few months ago, running in Central Park, and began having sex with soon after-that, at least, is accurate.

And there was a message from Donald. He spoke slowly, and his deep, gravelly voice filled the room. “Just saying hello. Call when you can. Had a good deer season this year. Got some nice steaks, if you want ’em. Hope you’re okay.” Donald Stennis had been my boss-the Burr County sheriff-and my friend. He’d also been my father-in-law, back when I’d had a wife. I’d phone Donald when I had a long time to spend. It was always good to talk to him, but for the past three years it hadn’t been easy.

I pulled on running tights and a shirt, a wind shell, a reflective vest, my shoes and gloves and hit the streets. It was maybe ten degrees above freezing now, with a nasty wind. Rain, mixed with the occasional snowflake, was being driven sideways. Nice weather for a run. I’d keep it to five miles or so.

I headed west to Ninth Avenue, worked my way south through the quieter streets of the West Village, and then west again to the highway and the piers. I was slapped around by gusts for a mile or two, and it was hard to find a rhythm, but the wind settled into a steady blow from the north as I came to the river and my pace steadied and quickened. For a while I ran along the edge of Ground Zero, and the wide gash of sky there was still disorienting, and somehow oppressive. Even after all this time, a charge of anger and sadness surged through me.

As they often do when I run, my thoughts sprinted away on their own. I thought about Clare, and the last time I’d seen her, on Monday. As always, we were at my place, it being a little awkward to go to hers. I’d fallen asleep and woken up groggy and disoriented at dusk. The last dregs of pale, cold daylight came in through the big windows. The apartment was dark otherwise. Clare had showered and was dressing. I’d watched her for a while in silence-her precise movements as she pulled jeans over her long legs, pulled on socks, laced her shoes, fastened her heavy steel watch, and brushed out her long, pale hair. And as I watched I felt, quite suddenly, as bleak and lonely as I had in a long time. Maybe it was because I was still half asleep, or maybe it was the fading light that brought it on. Or maybe it was that, even watching her familiar ritual of dressing and departure, Clare seemed utterly a stranger.

She had paused to examine the profile of her small, bare breasts and flat belly in the mirror, and saw that I was awake. She smiled and kept on inspecting. When she was satisfied, she pulled on a black turtleneck, bound her hair in a ponytail, and packed all her toiletries into the leather duffle she always brought with her. Time to go.

She’d slipped on her coat and was bending to kiss me when I caught her arm and pulled her down to sit. She’d looked puzzled. For no reason I could think of, I’d asked her what she was doing for Thanksgiving and if she wanted to spend it with me. At first she’d thought I was joking. Maybe I had been. I wasn’t sure why I’d asked her, or if I actually wanted to spend the holiday with her at all. Then she’d gotten mad.

“What?” she’d sputtered. She’d pulled her arm away and stood. “That’s… what is this bullshit? That’s not… I thought we had an understanding here.” She’d checked her watch, annoyed and impatient. “I’m supposed to be somewhere. I can’t do this now.” And she’d left.

She was right to be mad, really. The rules, though unstated, were clear nevertheless, from the time we’d started up months ago. We’d see each other once or twice a week, most weeks. The sex was good, athletic and inventive, and with the added frisson of the illicit. We didn’t talk about much, and what we did say mostly amounted to facile observations on current events and on the various urban types we both knew. We most definitely did not talk about her husband or about the lives either of us led outside the confines of my bed. She made small gestures- she’d bring flowers or coffee, pastries or fresh orange juice-but they were the habits of a well-mannered guest more than tokens of affection. We were a convenience to each other, amusing, undemanding, needing zero maintenance. She was right to be mad; I’d crossed a line. And even a couple of days later I wasn’t sure why.

And then I settled fully into my stride. My thoughts ran on to someplace I didn’t follow, and all I knew was the rhythm of my own breathing and the sound of my shoes on the pavement. The rain, the wind, the terrain, even the pumping of my arms and the pounding of my legs were abstractions now. I didn’t feel the cold, and the thinning traffic was irrelevant. I could run all night.

I’d done over six miles by the time I’d completed the loop that brought me home. The moving van was gone, and so were the boxes. The elevator was back, too. Upstairs, I put on some coffee, and while it brewed I stretched, peeled off my running clothes, and stood under a hot shower. Afterward, I pulled on jeans and a polo shirt, poured the coffee, and put on a Steely Dan disk-music to launder money by. Then I opened a can of tuna and started reading.