Lawrence Sanders - The 1st Deadly Sin

Afterward they had small, warmed Portuguese brandies. Daniel and the Mortons carried on a desultory conversation about Art Deco, a current fad. Celia’s opinion was asked, but she shook her head. “I know nothing about it.” After that she sat quietly, brandy glass clasped in both hands, eyes brooding. She had no talent for small talk. Complain of bad weather and she might, he thought, deliver you a sermon on humility. Strange woman. What was it Sam had said-“She scares you.” Why on earth should he have said that-unless he was referring to her disturbing silences, her alienation: which might be nothing more than egoism and bad manners.

She rose suddenly to her feet and, for the first time, Blank saw her body clearly. As he had guessed, she was tall, but thinner and harder than he had suspected. She carried herself well, moved with a sinuous grace, and her infrequent gestures were small and controlled.

She said she must go, giving Flo and Sam a bleak smile. She thanked them politely for their hospitality. Flo brought her coat: a cape of weighted silk brocade, as dazzling as a matador’s jacket. Blank was now convinced she had not been home to that East End Avenue townhouse since Saturday evening, nor slept at all the previous night.

She moved to the door. Flo and Sam looked at him expectantly.

“May I see you home?” he asked.

She looked at him thoughtfully.

“Yes,” she said finally. “You may.”

The Mortons exchanged a rapid glance of triumph. They waited in the hallway, in their studded jumpsuits, grinning like idiots, until the elevator door shut them away.

In the elevator, unexpectedly, she asked: “You live in this building, don’t you?”

“Yes. The twenty-first floor.”

“Let’s go there.”

Ten minutes later she was in his bedroom, brocaded cape dropped to the floor, and fast asleep atop the covers of his bed, fully clothed. He picked up her cape, hung it away, slipped off her shoes and placed them neatly alongside the bed. Then he closed the door softly, went back into the living room to read the Sunday New York Times , and tried not to think of the strange woman sleeping in his bed.

At 4:30, finished with his paper, he looked in upon her. She was lying face up on the pillows, her great mass of black hair fanned out. He was stirred. From the shoulders down she had turned onto her side and slept holding her bare arms. He took a light wool blanket from the linen closet and covered her gently. Then he went into the kitchen to eat a peeled apple and swallow a yeast tablet.

An hour later he was seated in the dim living room, trying to recall her features and understand why he was so intrigued by her sufficiency. The look of the sorceress, the mysterious wizard, could be due, he decided, to the way she wore her long, straight hair and the fact, as he suddenly realized, that she wore no make-up at all: no powder, no lipstick, no eyeshadow. Her face was naked.

He heard her moving about. The bathroom door closed; the toilet was flushed. He switched on lamps. When she came into the living room he noted that she had put on her shoes and combed her hair smooth.

“Don’t you ever wear any make-up?” he asked her.

She stared at him a long moment.

“Occasionally I rouge my nipples.”

He gave her a sardonic smile. “Isn’t that in poor taste?”

She caught his lewd meaning at once. “Witty man,” she said in her toneless voice. “Might I have a vodka? Straight. Lots of ice, please. And a wedge of lime, if you have it.” When he came back with identical drinks for both, she was curled up on his Tobia Scarpa sofa, her face softly illuminated by a Marc Lepage inflatable lamp. He saw at once her weariness had vanished with sleep; she was serene. But with a shock he saw something he had not noticed before: a fist-sized bruise on the bicep of her left arm: purple and angry.

She took the drink from his hand. Her fingers were cool, bloodless as plastic.

“I like your apartment,” she said.

Under the terms of the separation agreement, Gilda Blank had taken most of the antiques, the overstuffed furniture, the velvet drapes, the shag rugs. Daniel was happy to see it all go. The apartment had come to stiffle him. He felt muffled by all that carved wood and heavy cloth: soft things that burdened, then swaddled him.

He had redecorated the almost empty apartment in severe modern, most of the things from Knoll. There was chrome and glass, black leather and plastic, stainless steel and white enamel. The apartment was now open, airy, almost spidery in its delicacy. He kept furniture to a minimum, leaving the good proportions of the living room to make their own statement. The mirrored wall was cluttered wit, but otherwise the room was clean, precise, and exalting as a museum gallery.

“A room like this proves you don’t require roofs,” she told him. “You have destroyed the past by ignoring it. Most people have a need for history, to live in a setting that constantly reminds of past generations. They take comfort and meaning from feeling themselves part of the flow, what was, is, will be. I think that is a weak, shameful emotion. It takes strength to break free, forget the past and deny the future. That’s what this room does. Here you can exist by yourself in yourself, with no crutches. The room is without sentiment. Are you without sentiment?”

“Oh,” he said, “I don’t think so. Without emotion perhaps. Is your apartment in modern? As austere as this?”

“It is not an apartment. It’s a townhouse. It belongs to my parents.”

“Ah. They are still living then?”

“Yes,” she said. “They are still living.”

“I understand you live with your brother.”

“His name is Anthony. Tony. He’s twenty years younger than I. Mother had him late in life. It was an embarrassment to her. She and my father prefer him to live with me.”

“And where do they live?”

“Oh, here and there,” she said vaguely. “There is one thing I don’t like about this room.”

“What is that?”

She pointed to a black cast iron candelabrum with twelve contorted arms. Fitted to each was a white taper.

“I don’t like unburned candles,” she said tonelessly. “They seem to me as dishonest as plastic flowers and wallpaper printed to look like brick.”

“Easily remedied,” he said, rose and slowly lighted the candles.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s better.”

“Are you ready for another drink?”

“Bring the vodka and a bucket of ice out here. Then you won’t have to run back and forth.”

“Yes,” he said, “I will.”

When he returned, she had snuffed three of the tapers. She added ice and vodka to her glass.

“We’ll snuff them at intervals. So they will be in various lengths. I’m glad you have the dripless kind. I like candles, but I don’t like leavings of dead wax.”

“Memories of past pleasures?”

“Something like that. But also too reminiscent of bad Italian restaurants with candles in empty Chianti bottles and too much powdered garlic in the sauce. I hate fakery. Rhinestones and padded brassieres.”

“My wife-” he started. “My ex-wife-” he amended, “wore a padded bra. The strange thing was that she didn’t need it. She was very well endowed. Is.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Gilda? A very pleasant woman. We’re both from Indiana. We met at the University. A blind date. I was a year ahead of her. We went together occasionally. Nothing serious. I came to New York. Then she came here, a year later, and we started seeing each other again. Serious, this time.”

“What was she like? Physically, I mean.”

“A large woman, with a tendency to put on weight. She loved rich food. Her mother is enormous. Gilda is blonde. What you’d call a ‘handsome woman.’ A good athlete. Swimming, tennis, golf, skiing-all that. Very active in charities, social organizations. Took lessons in bridge. Chinese cooking, and music appreciation. Things like that.”