Richard Patterson - The Lasko Tangent

“Mrs. Lehman, pardon me for interrupting.” She peered up with pretty blankness. Gubner seemed almost glad.

“What is it?” he interjected.

I spoke to her. “I’m almost through and I’ll be gone. I just need to talk to Marty for a second.”

She hesitated, head half-cocked, as if awaiting the English translation. The shock was showing in her reaction time. “Marty would like a martini,” she said with bright irrelevance.

That called for a response, I guessed. “No thank you, Mrs. Lehman. I appreciate your kindness.” I wanted to say something more, but nothing came out. Gubner rose and steered me into the hallway. I glanced back. She was staring around the living room, at nothing at all.

“Did you find anything?” Gubner asked.

“Nothing sensational,” I hedged. Gubner seemed too distracted to press it. “Are you staying or going?” I asked.

Gubner’s face was sober. “Staying. This is going to get worse.”

“I think so too.”

“About talking, Chris-I think I’ll take a pass on your company for a week or two.”

I could see it. “Fair enough, Marty. See you around.”

I let myself out. Then I got in the car and drove to the airport, through the rain, away from the white houses and the perfect lawns.

It was evening when I got there. I was tired. I checked in mechanically, thinking about everything and nothing. Then I went to a phone. I thought about calling the office, then didn’t. I had started to absorb the bleak idea that talking to the office was worse than useless.

Instead, I called Di Pietro. His voice on the phone was all parsimony. The cops had found the black Cadillac abandoned on a side street off Commonwealth, with a little bit of Lehman on it. It had been stolen from a shopping center and the license plate switched. No fingerprints. I suggested that meant it had been swiped to kill Lehman, then be untraceable. Di Pietro countered that maybe some punk had stolen the car and couldn’t afford to stop. He said it in less time than that. It was as if each sentence was being docked from his pay, at five bucks a word. I thanked him a lot and hung up.

I boarded the plane. I was in the taxi home before I remembered that I’d never paid the Ritz for my martini.

The taxi stopped at my place. I got out, still holding the memo that had killed Lehman.

I walked slowly through the hallway to my door, dragging my suitcase. I put the key in, turned it, and pushed. I started to step inside. Then I froze in the doorway. A light was on, casting dim shadows on the wall. Someone was waiting.

Mary stood by the bookshelf, very still. “I heard about Alexander Lehman,” she said simply. “I’m sorry.”

Somehow I was angry. “So is Lehman’s wife. How did you get in?” My voice belonged to someone else. It was dry and scratchy. I realized how scared I had been.

“The manager gave me a key.”

We both waited for the other to speak. She looked at me directly, not stirring. I wanted her to move.

She stepped away from the books, and snapped the spell.

“I shouldn’t have come.”

“It’s OK.” I paused. “Would you like a drink?”

“Are you?” I nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you. Scotch.”

I pulled a bottle of Scotch from under the bookshelf and went to the kitchen, suddenly glad to be doing something mundane.

“How did you hear about Lehman?” I asked over my shoulder.

“McGuire. He said it was pretty gruesome.”

“Gruesome” seemed arch, like “untidy.” “That’s a way of putting it. ‘Sickening’ is another.” I wanted to shake her; the man was dead.

I splashed ice in the drinks, suddenly alienated by the illusion of routine: “‘And how was your trip, darling?’ ‘Oh fine, dear, but poor Alec got squashed by a car.’ ‘Too bad, I liked Alec. But fine otherwise?’” Something about the scene was out of sync, like roses at an execution. I half-shook my head, as if trying to throw off a tangible strangeness.

I left the kitchen and returned to reality. She was sitting on the living room couch. Her shoulders were turned in and knees together, as if hunched against the cold. I handed her the drink. She clasped it against her lap with both hands and stared into it. I sat down.

“What did you do?” She looked up from her drink.

“I threw up.”

“Do you care to talk about it?”

“No.” She looked hurt. I tried to explain. “Look, yesterday I was sitting with Lehman. He was scared and sick of himself. But he was alive, trying to get something back. When it happened, I was sipping on a martini, stroking my self-esteem. Then there was Lehman, flying through the air. When I got to him, he looked like something people feed to their dogs.” Her fingers squeezed the glass. I rummaged for the words. “It’s not just the finality. It’s that it’s so arbitrary.” It was a meaningless word. I gave up.

“You think he was murdered?”

“I think he was murdered.”

“By whom?”

“Lasko.” And someone else.

“Did you find out anything about Lasko?”

“No. Lehman was killed before he told me anything.” My attache case sat against the couch, a mute reproach.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

In the light her face was softer. She grazed my knee with her hand, then rested it there. I looked at the hand, then her.

“You look tired,” she said. It was a fill-in, as though words would hide her hand.

I pushed Lehman aside. “Did you mean what am I going to do about Lehman, or about you, here?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. Her eyes were wide and watchful. I saw Lehman swimming through them in slow motion. I wanted him to leave. Lightly, I pulled her to me and kissed her once, gently. When she was undressed, I held her for a long time. Then we began to make love.

Afterwards we slept. My sleep was jagged, with strobe light dreams. They were fragments of madness, unbounded by time or place. I kept introducing Mary to Alexander Lehman. My childhood friends came, and we all put on masks and played hide-and-seek. Then Lehman lay in a funny heap. I woke up sweating, to a sudden, angry noise I couldn’t place.

I started and bolted upright, fully awake now and stiff with alarm. My head cleared. The telephone. I hit the lamp switch and squinted at my watch. Four o’clock. It rang again. I answered it.

“Do you know what the hell time it is?” I snapped at the receiver.

No answer. I tried again, calmer. “Who is this?”

Silence. I thought about hanging up. But instinct kept me on.

The voice was very quiet. “You like getting laid, Mr. Paget?”

It didn’t sound like an academic question. My fingers tightened around the telephone.

“She looks like she’d be good. I hope you can do it again.” It was a tone totally without emphasis, as if I had dialed a recorded message. Somehow that made it worse.

I finally tried my voice. “I suppose there’s a point to this.” I already knew half the point; someone was watching my apartment.

“Leave the Lehman family alone, Paget. Otherwise you might spoil your looks.” The voice paused. “Maybe you’d like to look like Lehman. Maybe you’d like to be Lehman.”

I waited for more. There wasn’t any. I had the strange sense of a hand slowly, carefully placing down a receiver. The phone clicked dead. I was still holding it to my ear when the dial tone began.

Mary was stirring drowsily on her side, black hair half-falling across her face. She flicked it away with her fingers, eyes still closed. “What was that?” she murmured.

“Wrong number.”

She reached absently for my shoulder, then fell back to sleep. I looked at her a moment, then flipped the switch.