Michael Baden - Remains Silent

“Nice night, Ms. Manfreda,” Christopher said, unfazed.

Jake and Manny took the elevator up. “You live on the thirteenth floor?” he said. “Not superstitious?”

“Very. Almost didn’t live here because of it. Are you?”

“Actually, no. I’m a scientist.”

They stood in front of her door. Key in hand, she hesitated. Let him in and my life changes. Do I really want that? She inserted the key and pushed the door open.

He stood on the threshold, taking in the room. “Small.”

“Would you be more comfortable sleeping with Sam at the hospital?”

“I slept with him in the same one-bedroom apartment through medical school, and that’s enough. Besides, I’m cold and hungry.”

“The Four Seasons has good heating and room service.”

“No, thanks. I’m a man of simple tastes.”

She glared at him. “When will men ever learn that size doesn’t matter?”

“It’s just that you have a lot of things in here.” Jake eyed wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling shoe boxes. “Where do you sleep?”

“There.” She pointed to a beach-colored panel upon which hung an oil painting by a lawyer-turned-artist of a half-full milk glass. “It’s called Optimism.” A small white round table piled carefully with fashion magazines stood in front of it.

“You sleep on a painting?”

“It’s a Murphy bed, dummy. The panel pulls down. The painting’s fastened to the bottom of the bed, and the bed sits on the table- it’s known as design.” She pulled down the bed, revealing a queen-sized mattress covered with a silk comforter. “Mycroft usually takes up most of the space.”

“He sleeps with you?”

“Where else?”

“Some dogs sleep on the floor, in baskets.”

“Not Mycroft.”

“What’d you do with him?”

“My mother took him back to New Jersey. She doesn’t want me walking him yet.”

He had forgotten her injured leg. “Oh, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be standing. I should be fetching for you.”

“You’re not a dog. Can I offer you something? A shower? Food?”

“Shower, then food.” Then? “Do you actually have a kitchen here?”

“Of course, this is my home.” She pulled the screen aside to reveal a bar sink in a small counter, with a microwave above, a picnic-sized refrigerator below, and a toaster.

“This is your kitchen? You have only a microwave?”

“With a microwave you need skill. It’s a precision instrument. Ten seconds one way or another and splat- we duplicate your explosion. Happened to my spaghetti squash last week.”

He walked past her to look in her refrigerator; then, remembering her discussion of refrigerators and medicine chests at his brownstone, turned and said, “May I?”

“Sure, Mi casa es su casa.”

“Peanut butter and champagne. That’s all you have?”

“Not just any peanut butter. It’s Skippy smooth and rosй champagne. Everything I need for a balanced meal: fruit juice with bubbles- the bubbles are so important- and protein.”

“But as a meal?”

“Try it for dinner- or are you a chunky person? You might like it instead of some two-pound bloody steak, charred on the outside by temperatures that cremate rather than merely cook the cow.”

“Your place is nice. It feels… freeing.”

“Freeing?”

“There’s order and not a lot of baggage.”

“I take it that’s supposed to be a compliment.”

“It is. But personally I’d rather be surrounded with my things. Did I tell you that whoever dies with the most stuff wins?”

“Had to get back to dead people, didn’t you?”

“Maybe I better take a shower before my luck runs out.”

While he showered, Manny located a pair of sweatpants and a large white T-shirt, once Alex’s. When she heard the water stop running, she knocked.

“Yup?”

“I have some clothes. They might not fit great, but-”

Jake opened the door, a towel wrapped around his waist. Manny took in hair, abs, muscles. Nice. Don’t stare. She handed him the clothes and shut the door quickly.

“Whose were these?” asked Jake, coming out of the bathroom. The sweatpants stopped at mid-calf.

“Old boyfriend.”

“And I was keeping back information?”

“I would have told you.” She turned on the TV.

Jake settled into one of the chairs and watched New York 1 News while she took a shower. There were shots of his town house. Francesca’s lawyers were asking for a mistrial because the attack had stirred up sympathy for the state’s witness. Garbage.

Manny came out of the bathroom wearing silver satin pajamas. She had left the top buttons open, but when she caught Jake’s stare she closed them. “Hungry?”

“Yes, but first may I use your bathroom?”

“Sure, but didn’t you just-”

“Not for that. I think I can make the vanity into a view box.”

“You’re going to work?” What is he, a neuter? A castrato? Get a life, man- only not with me.

“I need to talk to you about something before we… eat.”

Something more important than sex? “If you promise we’ll… eat afterward.” She sat down facing him.

“Promise. There’s something troublesome about the Turner bones. Skeleton Two, the humerus- it’s radioactive.”

His seriousness shook her. Desire dissolved in fear. “What does it mean?”

“Something strange happened to that person before he died. It’s a finding we might see in the victims of Hiroshima or Chernobyl, if they lived long enough. Come, I’ll show you.”

They squeezed into the bathroom. Jake switched off the overhead light, using the vanity bulbs for illumination. He opened his envelope, put the film of the humerus on the vanity table, and explained how radiation from the bone had developed the image on the film without the use of the X-ray machine. “It means that something radioactive was incorporated in this bone, and this happened before he died.” He switched pictures. “And here’s the mandible from Skeleton Four. The dental work is bizarre, amateurish. And look”- another picture-“here’s the metal plate from Skeleton Three. Lyons. I thought the initials were A.V.E., but that’s why I couldn’t locate the neurosurgeon. The middle letter’s abraded. The real initials are A.W.E.- we’ll be able to find him now!”

“Pretty amazing,” Manny said, in a flat voice. She had long ago stopped looking at the pictures but was staring at him, and all his words about X-rays and radiation and bones were feeble missiles that failed to reach their target. Now, she knew, he had caught her stare and understood it.

She was remembering something that had happened the year before, after she had hired Jake to do the second autopsy in the Terrell case. The local doctor had picked up the postmortem X-ray of her client’s chest and had clipped it onto the light box. Just as the doctor’s left hand had left the X-ray, Jake, without a word, had tugged the film off the light box, turned it around, and put it back correctly in one swift motion, simple yet powerful.

There was something in Manny’s tone of voice that made Jake look up from the film he was holding. He looked into her eyes and in the next second leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. With precision and skill, he undid the buttons of her silver pajama top- the buttons Manny had so carefully buttoned up- and started to massage her breasts.

“Wait!” Manny said, coming up for air.

“What?”

“Not what. Wait.”

“Why? We’re both grown-ups.”

The sight of the blood in the Alessis autopsy flashed in her head. “Did you wash your hands?”

“Manny!”

“Okay.”

He kissed her again. She remembered him holding Mrs. Alessis’s heart, drew away, and licked his ear, hoping the pleasure would erase her memory. Then there was the sound of the buzz saw cutting through the skull and the clouds of bone dust around his hands and face.