Peter Abrahams - A Perfect Crime

Roger checked the coverage statement. Amount: $500,000. Beneficiary: himself. Yes, he had found a job, and it came with a suitable performance bonus. Had his mind somehow known about Francie even then when he’d first thought of Tad and arranged to run into him on the street? A reunion that had led to a drink, talk of Francie’s success, proud exhibition of the Globe clipping-but no explicit discussion of her possible insurance needs, unnecessary with the Tads of the world. The human mind had unplumbed powers, his especially. He heard Francie moving about upstairs, left the desk the way he’d found it.

Roger was putting cookies on a tray when Francie came into the room: the sight of her. Her face, once such an appealing mix of elements-bright eyes, strong features, soft skin-was nothing but a mask. How clearly he saw that now. Despite all the thinking he had done that day, despite the need for long and careful preparation, despite that glinting coppery goal sometime in the future, he wanted to beat her head in, then and there. “Care for a cookie?” he said, offering the tray.

“No thanks,” she said.

“Feeling better?”

“Yes.”

She was wearing a coat: an old one, he noticed, unworn for a year or two. “Going somewhere?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’m playing in the tournament.”

“Mixed?” he asked.

“Women’s doubles, Roger,” said Francie, taking her purse and moving toward the door that led down to the garage.

“Good luck, then.” She went out. He waited until he felt the vibration of the opening garage door under his feet before calling, “Don’t forget to bend your fucking knees.”

“God, what fun,” said Anne. Still sweating slightly, they sat at a corner table of the tennis club bar, overlooking the courts. Seven-five, two-six, seven-five: they’d knocked the number one seeds out of the tournament. “That backhand down the line you hit at five all ad out-unbelievable. I wouldn’t have the guts to try that, not in a million years.”

Francie just smiled.

“And then your two best serves of the night, right after. Bang bang. I could have kissed you.” Beer came, and water, lots of water. Pink with exertion and victory, Anne talked on and on, reliving the match, her words sometimes tripping over themselves. Francie hadn’t seen her like this, suspected it didn’t happen often. She wondered about Anne’s husband.

Anne paused for breath, took a big drink of water. “Was it Jimmy Connors who said that tennis is better than sex?”

“Maybe his tennis,” Francie said. “Not ours.”

Anne glanced at her, and in that glance Francie saw her realizing she’d been talking too much, at least in terms of some inner code. Her mood changed, the blood draining from her face, leaving her pale. Her eyes took on an inward look: something was on her mind, something unrelated to tennis. She tried some beer, started to speak, stopped, and finally said, “Can I ask you something, Francie? I hate to be too personal, but the truth is I find you so easy to be with-like someone I’ve known for a long time.”

“Ask away,” said Francie.

Anne said, “Are you a good cook?”

“That’s the question?”

Anne nodded.

“I have two surefire appetizers, two surefire entrees, one dessert,” said Francie. “The rest is silence.”

Anne smiled, an admiring smile that made Francie a little uncomfortable. “I thought my lemon chicken was surefire, too,” she said, “but I guess I was wrong.” The inward look again. Francie waited. “Does your husband ever bring people home for dinner at the last minute?” Anne asked.

“He’s actually been doing the cooking lately,” Francie said.

“Aren’t you lucky.”

Anne added something else that Francie didn’t catch. She was thinking of their own dining room, and the happy sounds that used to fill it. At one time she and Roger had entertained a lot, then less, and since the loss of his job, not at all. Plotted on a graph, she wondered, would those dinners track the health of their marriage? Down, down, down, with upturns here and there: a stunted marriage, like a tree growing in the face of an impossible wind.

“Thursday of all days,” Anne was saying, “when he usually works late. It was going to be a McDonald’s night, and then boom. So I threw together the lemon chicken, but they hardly touched it. And I suppose the wine wasn’t very good either, although that didn’t stop them from drinking plenty of it. I’d read an article on Romanian wine, goddamn it.” Was Francie imagining it, or had Anne’s eyes filled with tears? Tears, yes: and Anne saw that she saw, and tried to explain. “He cares so much about his career. The least I can do is put a decent meal on the table.”

Francie could imagine Nora at this point, saying, Your husband sounds like a jerk. She toned that down. “I don’t see the connection. And if he’s any good at his job, a failed lemon chicken won’t make any difference.”

“You think? He’s so ambitious.”

“I do. Lighten up, for God’s sake.”

Anne’s eyes cleared. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “You’re so clearheaded, Francie, so in control.”

Francie, suddenly picturing herself under the ice at Brenda’s cottage, her breath escaping in silver-and-black bubbles, said nothing.

“Can I ask you a favor?” Anne said.

“But first do me one,” Francie said. “Stop asking if you can ask and just ask.”

Anne laughed. “With pleasure.” She reached across the table, touched Francie’s hand. “Give me one of those surefire recipes of yours.”

Francie took the paper napkin from under her glass and wrote:

Francie’s Roast Lamb, serves 8

7 cloves garlic, 1 halved, rest chopped

2 pounds baking potatoes, peeled and…

She came to the end, added the reminder to keep the gratin warm while waiting to carve the lamb, handed the napkin to Anne. “Enjoy.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will,” said Anne. “The very next time we have company.” Her face brightened with an idea. “Maybe you and your husband would like to join us?”

“That sounds nice,” Francie said.

Anne, having checked her watch and said “Oh my God, the sitter,” left in a hurry; Francie sat alone at the corner table in the bar. Looking down on court three beneath her window, she watched the second seeds playing their match. They were good, but nothing like the pair she and Anne had just beaten, nothing like the pair she and Anne had so quickly become. Francie couldn’t remember playing this well at any time in her life. How was it possible, with so much on her mind? Her near-drowning, her stupid on-air phone call, the loss of oh garden, my garden, Roger’s attempted seduction, to put the kindest light on it, and his subsequent attentiveness, just as disturbing. Some of it had to do with Anne, of course-they fit together so well-but was the rest simply chance? Or was it one of those Faustian bargains, her life falling apart while her tennis got better and better? She wanted no part of that. Tennis was her game, but just a game. In any case, her life wasn’t falling apart-not with Ned in it, no matter what happened. Francie paid her bill, went downstairs to her car, started for home.

Roger sat before his computer. The Puzzle Club was up, but he was not really attending. In fact, he was staring through the words on the screen, into a translucent beyond, his mind working out the possibilities of planting a bomb in an Israeli consulate, having first ensured that a visiting art consultant would be inside at just the right moment. A wretched idea, he concluded: messy, inelegant, leaking evidence, guaranteed to provide a full-scale investigation, and he knew nothing of bombs, bomb-making, bomb-planting. He leaned his head against the screen and thought, What am I doing? The computer hummed quietly against his brain.