John Lutz: Torch

Carver said, “You can trust me.”

Donna stared at him across the table and said, “I know I’m not trustworthy, so why should I think you are?”

“Because Beth recommended me, and you can trust her. She’s honest to the point of cruelty.”

Donna Winship smiled. She was attractive when she smiled, but still not the sort to inspire men to fight. Her features were made more delicate by the middle-aged lines etched in them, like fine cracks in bone china. She had dyed blond hair cut shoulder-length and with a wisp of bangs; brown eyes like those of a frightened animal run to ground, gazing out from behind the bangs as if they were foliage meant to conceal her from hunters. Maybe that was the way she felt. She had a plump and pleasing figure beneath a business suit tailored to make her look crisply efficient, which was probably impossible. Carver guessed she was in her late thirties, but he knew he might be off five years either way. She looked like one of those average, not unattractive women used in commercials for weight control programs or tanning salons, the type the composite female TV watcher could identify with, just as the advertisers had schemed. You couldn’t trust advertisers.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said. “The past month or so has made me suspicious of everyone.”

“Beth said you wouldn’t feel that way without good reason.” Beth had also said Donna seemed to be under horrendous stress.

Donna nudged the olive below the ice cubes in her martini and took a sip. Her hand was steady enough. “Beth’s a sweetheart.”

“I noticed.”

After a night of especially exhausting lovemaking, Beth had convinced Carver that he should meet with her friend Donna. Donna was having problems and didn’t want to go to Carver’s office, didn’t want anyone to know she’d consulted a private investigator.

Carver had hesitated, so Beth had gone about persuading him as only she could persuade. He’d pretended to be hesitant as long as possible, then finally agreed to meet Donna Winship that evening at the Happy Lobster on the coast highway and get the story from her. Beth had thanked him in her own special way.

Carver smiled. It was something, the way people used each other. It kept him in business.

The Happy Lobster had semi-private tables with pink tablecloths and a wide, curved window that looked out over the vast blue-green Atlantic, mesmerizing diners with its shifting, rolling planes of shadowed and glimmering depths. There were a few high clouds today of the sort that taunted the uninitiated with the promise of rain this time of year on the east coast of Florida. Dusk was beginning to settle in. The sky met the sea in a haze that obscured the horizon and that at sunset would darken and close like the fold of an envelope.

They were only meeting for drinks and conversation, but Carver had gotten a restaurant table so they’d have more privacy than the lounge provided. When Donna had walked in, he’d recognized her immediately from Beth’s description and the blue dress she’d said she’d be wearing. Beth must have described him well, too, because Donna had put on a strained smile and made her way directly across the restaurant toward him. She had a nice, fluid walk; several male diners interrupted their chewing and glanced after her.

There followed fifteen minutes of drink sipping and tentative verbal fencing, much of it self-deprecating on Donna’s part.

Feeling he had her confidence at last, Carver said, “Why do you say you’re not trustworthy?”

Donna raised her dark eyebrows in surprise. They were barely visible beneath the dyed, wispy bangs. “Beth didn’t tell you?”

“No. She thought you should. We’re starting from scratch.”

She gazed out at the endless Atlantic, then back at Carver, decision in her eyes. There was no sound for a while except the murmur of conversation among the other diners, the muted clinking of flatwear against china. The sea breaking on the beach below couldn’t be heard through the thick glass. “I’m a married woman, Mr. Carver, the mother of a four-year-old daughter.”

She seemed to expect Carver to comment on that. He said, “That’s not a bad situation.” For an instant he thought of his own daughter, living in St. Louis with his former wife in a world not meant to contain him.

“And I’m seeing another man.”

“Why?”

“I no longer love my husband, and he no longer loves me. Mark made it clear months ago that our marriage was going to end.”

“Another woman?”

“I suspect so, but I’m not sure. He simply became distant, refused to communicate. It’s still that way.”

“Is he abusive?”

“Only verbally, when he bothers to talk to me.” She took a long pull of her martini and placed the glass back on its improbable lobster-shaped cork coaster. “We’ve become locked in a kind of war of nerves, if you know what I mean.”

“I know,” Carver said. “All happy marriages are different; unhappy marriages are alike.”

She looked back at the sea and thought about that. He doubted if she believed it. There was something about her expression. The sea had depths; she had depths.

“Mark stopped giving me money,” she said, still looking at the sea, “so two months ago I arranged for day care for Megan-our daughter-and got a job as a receptionist at an insurance company. I knew where the marriage was headed and wanted to provide for our future.”

“Yours and Megan’s.”

“Exactly. No matter what Mark does.”

Pieces were beginning to fall into place for Carver, but he said nothing, letting Donna talk.

She produced a lacy white handkerchief from somewhere and began wringing it between small, shapely hands with pink-enameled nails. “I’m not sure if Mark knows about Enrico and me. I’m not sure he’d care if he did know, except that despite our marital problems, he’s very possessive of anything that belongs to him, including his wife. And despite all the strain on our marriage, I’m still his wife.”

“Enrico?”

“Enrico Thomas, the man I’m involved with. We met two months ago when he came into the office to see about insurance. He didn’t have an appointment, so he had to wait for almost an hour, and we began talking. The next day he sent me flowers. The next day he called. The next day we met for lunch. We’ve been meeting ever since, and for more than lunch. Mark would consider that wrong, since I’m still a married woman. He’s . . . very religious, a traditionalist. I don’t think it’s wrong; I think it’s necessary.” She sounded defensive. “Enrico gives me the air to breathe that Mark denies me. Can you understand that?”

“Sure. We all need oxygen to survive. But you’re afraid Mark knows, or will find out.”

“My husband’s never laid a hand on me in anger, Mr. Carver, but he has with other people. He can be a violent man in a way few of his friends know about. His rage is old and deep in him and comes to the surface suddenly and unexpectedly. A few years ago I saw him beat up a man in an argument over who was first in line at a theater. Fifteen minutes later he was his usual calm self.”

“Does Enrico know you’re married?”

“I never told him I was, but I suspect he knows.” A deep determination transformed her for a moment; her gentle eyes darkened and held the depths of the Atlantic, near as eternity on the other side of the window from martinis and lobster bisque. “I intend to keep seeing Enrico, Mr. Carver.”

Carver rattled the ice in his glass. The waiter took it for a signal and looked inquisitive. Figuring what the hell, Carver held up two fingers, and the waiter nodded and glided away between the tables. “I’m not sure exactly why you want to hire me, Donna.”