Brian Garfield - Necessity

For a long time it was more than enough. Living with Bert was exciting: it was like watching a performance by a great actor-the unpredictably explosive kind who radiates danger. There’ve been times when he’s put her in mind of Brando, of Robert Duvall-even when he’s at rest there’s an electric menace that hangs in suspension around him like heat lightning ready to strike.

You never knew whether a night in bed with Bert would be a seduction or a rape.

Not that he ever actually treated her roughly. Once they were married he behaved toward her in an Old World manner that was simultaneously reverential and condescending; always he was a conscientiously generous lover. Yet there was always the feeling that at any moment he might explode.

She remembers Jack Sertic, his mind a stagnant pond, saying to her more than once, “Al lives at the edge. Right at the razor edge.”

She might have been a crystal statuette-an image that defined not only her status but the extent of her influence over Bert’s decisions.

And the longer she lived with him the more she realized how little she actually knew about the nature and range of those decisions.

There were entire compartments of his life about which she knew absolutely nothing. When she first stumbled across clues to the hidden compartments she ignored them; when they persisted she became troubled; finally it was no longer possible to pretend they didn’t exist. There was a world of evil-perhaps Bert inhabited it only part of the time but it dominated him, it described the way he was-it defined who he was. And the more she learned about it the more she feared him for the child’s sake.

By the time the baby was born she knew it was no good: it was out of kilter. As the bureaucrats might say, this was not a suitable environment in which to raise a child.

The baby was hardly a day old when for the first time she saw Ellen in Bert’s arms and the decision grenaded into her mind: I have got to take her away from him.

Monday morning she flies all the way to Texas to make telephone calls. At the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, watching automated tram cars move silently in and out of their stations like boats piloted by invisible Charons, she dials the number of the Third Avenue apartment and listens to it ring three times before the machine picks it up.

He hasn’t changed the recording. The voice is still her own: “This is seven six six two. There’s no one near the phone right now but please listen for the sound of the beep and then leave your name and number on the answering machine tape. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”

She hangs up without leaving a message.

At least he hasn’t changed the number. Maybe he’s still hoping she’ll get in touch.

It was worth a try but the result is worthless. If he’d answered the phone himself she’d have known at least that he was in the city. If the nurse had answered it would have suggested that Ellen was there in the apartment. That’s assuming the same nurse still works for him. But this way? Nothing.

She dials the number of the cabin at Fort Keene. It rings twice; a man’s guarded voice answers: “Five four six one.” She recognizes the soft bass growl-Philip Quirini’s voice. She’s hoping to hear background sounds-other voices-but nothing comes through. She hangs up on him. With luck he’ll dismiss it as a wrong number.

Damn. Philip would be at the cabin anyway; he’s there all summer, he and his bovine wife in charge of the household. So you still don’t know a thing, really.

You know you can’t put it off any longer. This is the call you knew all along you were going to have to make. Come on-get it over with.

She places the call.

“Hello?”

“Diane? This is Madeleine.”

“You’re kidding me.” Then: “Matty?”

“Yes dear. The same. The very same.”

“Matty-are you all right?”

“I’m getting along.”

A stretch of silence. “Well. Well, well. ” Then: “Where on earth are you calling from?”

“Just say it’s long distance. How’ve you been?”

“Me? I’m all right. A little tennis elbow. Al and-we got wiped out last week in doubles.”

“It’s all right. You can mention his girlfriend’s name if you want. I assume he has a new girl?”

“Several. You know Al-”

She can picture Diane: dark, long-limbed, tan, big brown eyes flashing with excited speculation.

“Matty, what the hell happened to you? Where are you? My God, if you knew the-”

“I can imagine. I’m all right. I’m fine. I won’t go into detail. He earned it, you know. He asked for it.”

“Al?”

“Of course. Who else?”

“He was awful mad, honey. He didn’t say it but you could see-”

“That’s hardly surprising. Nobody bugs out on Albert LaCasse. I walked off with his pride. How are the boys?”

“Fine, fine.” Diane is nervous; her laugh is off key. “You know teenagers. The last week before school starts again. They’re staying with a rowdy crowd in one of those grouper beach houses on Fire Island. Screwing all the girls and drinking all the beer. My God-you remember when we all first met, out in the Hamptons? Jesus. Think how much things change.”

“How’s Jack?”

“Jack’s all right. Up at the cabin right now with Al. I guess they’ve been shooting venison for the freezer.”

Bingo.

Passengers hurry by; she can’t help smiling at them. Into the phone she says, “Nothing’s changed much, I gather,” and watches a uniformed steward push an old man in a wheelchair toward the boarding gates. The old man is listening to a Walkman and conducting an invisible orchestra-sealed in a private world of music that no one else can hear. A loudspeaker blares: “Mr. Emil Schnarf, Mr. Emil Schnarf, please pick up a white courtesy telephone.”

In as casual a voice as she can manage she says to Diane, “How’s Ellen? Have you seen her?”

“Not lately. He’s had her up in the mountains all summer. I guess they’re coming back to the city next week. Good grief ”-Diane’s voice soars and squeaks-“you’ve got to tell me what you’re up to. Where you are. What you’ve been doing. I’m just dying to know. Come on-give!”

“I’m doing fine, dear. I’ve made a new life for myself down south here. You wouldn’t believe it but I’ve been going with a cop. Big enough to dismantle Bert by hand. But a real gentleman all the same.”

“Hey, hey. Tell me more!”

She pictures Diane in her big apartment on Central Park West-probably wearing a designer outfit that’s the ultimate in summer’s day brevity, surrounded by her collections of porcelain figurines and miniature paintings, some of them hardly an inch square and painted with a one-hair brush. Acquisitive Diane with the fullest acreage of clothes closets you’ve ever seen.

“He’s a nice cop,” she invents, “believe it or not. Poor as a churchmouse. He’s got three kids by the former wife. Adorable brats.”

She’s thinking: How amazing I ever thought of making the gift of my friendship to Diane. What a pathetic creature-her boundaries defined by pretentious brand names and that Park Avenue shrink with his clientele of Valium addicts. You could trade a hundred Dianes for one Charlie Reid or even one Marian or Doyle Stevens and you’d still be incomparably ahead of the game.

But in those days you didn’t know any better. You had no Marian, no Doyle, no Charlie to compare her with.

You haven’t missed Diane once. Or any of that crowd. And here you’re already missing the Stevenses and you feel like hell about Charlie even though you’ll see him again within twenty-four hours.

My God. How is it we become so damned valuable to one another-so painfully important?