John Connolly - The Unquiet

“She’s a slut. I don’t know what sluts call them: fucks, maybe.”

“Why would you call her a slut?”

“Because that’s what she is. She cheated on me when we were married, then lied about it. She lies about everything. This guy you’re talking about, he’s probably some jerk who was promised a good time, then got upset when it didn’t arrive. I was a fool to marry a woman who was soiled goods, but I took pity on her. I won’t make that mistake again. Now I’ll screw ’em, but I won’t marry ’em.”

He leered once more. I waited for him to nudge me in the ribs, or give me an “aren’t we men of the world” wink, like in that Monty Python sketch. Your wife, eh? She’s a liar and a slut, right? They all are. Put like that, it wasn’t quite so funny. I recalled Legere’s earlier question- Did she hire you? -and the relief on his face when I told him that I was working for his wife. What did you do, Jerry? Who else did you annoy so much that she might require the services of a private detective?

“I don’t think this man is a rejected suitor,” I said.

Legere appeared to be about to ask what a suitor was, but then took the trouble to work it out for himself.

“He’s been asking about Rebecca’s father,” I continued. “He’s under the impression that Daniel Clay might still be alive.”

Something flickered in Legere’s eyes. It was like watching a djinn momentarily try to break free from the bottle, only to have the cork forcefully rammed home upon it.

“That’s bullshit,” said Legere. “Her father’s dead. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone?”

Legere looked away. “You know what I mean.”

“He’s missing, not dead.”

“She had him declared. Too late for me, though. There’s money in the bank, but I won’t see any of it. I could have done with some of it right about now.”

“Times hard?”

“Times are always hard for the workingman.”

“You ought to put that to music.”

“I reckon it’s been done before. It’s old news.”

He turned on his heel and looked back at the warehouse, clearly anxious to be done with me and get back to work. I couldn’t blame him.

“So what makes you so sure that Daniel Clay is dead?” I asked.

“I don’t think I like your tone,” he replied. His fists clenched involuntarily. He became conscious of the reflex and allowed them to relax, then wiped the palms dry on the seams of his jeans.

“There’s nothing in it. I just meant that you seem pretty certain that he’s not coming back.”

“Well, he’s been gone a long time, right? Nobody has seen him in six years, and from what I hear, he left with the clothes on his back and nothing else. Didn’t even pack an overnight bag.”

“Did your ex-wife tell you that?”

“If she didn’t, I read it in the newspapers. It’s no secret.”

“Were you seeing her when her father went missing?”

“No, we hooked up later, but it didn’t last more than six months. I found out she was seeing other men behind my back, and I let the bitch go.”

He didn’t seem embarrassed to be telling me this. Usually when men discussed the infidelities of their wives or girlfriends, it came with a greater degree of shame than Legere was showing, the memories of the relationship underscored by an abiding sense of betrayal. They were also careful to whom they told their secrets, because what they feared most of all was that they would somehow be held accountable, that it would be adjudged that their failings had forced their women to seek their pleasures elsewhere, that they had been lacking in the ability to satisfy them. Men tended to see these matters distorted through the prism of sex. I’d known women to wander out of desire, but I’d known more who had cheated because with it came the affection and attention that they weren’t getting at home. Men, by and large, sought sex. Women traded it.

“I guess I wasn’t no innocent either,” he said, “but that’s the way of men. She had everything she needed. She had no call to do what she did. She threw me out of the house when I objected to how she was behaving. I told you: she’s a whore. They hit a certain age, and that’s it. They become sluts. But instead of admitting it, she turned it on me. She said I was the one who done wrong, not her. Bitch.”

I wasn’t sure that this was any of my business, but Rebecca Clay’s version of her marital difficulties was very different from her ex-husband’s. Now Legere was claiming that he was the injured party, and while Rebecca’s story had more of the ring of truth about it, perhaps that was simply because Jerry Legere made my skin crawl. But I could see no reason for him to lie. The story didn’t reflect well on him, and there was no mistaking his bitterness. There was a little truth somewhere in his story, however distorted it might have become in the telling.

“Have you ever heard of a man named Frank Merrick, Mr. Legere?” I asked.

“No, I can’t say that I have,” he replied. “ Merrick? No, it doesn’t ring a bell. Is he the guy who’s been bothering her?”

“That’s right.”

Legere looked away again. I couldn’t see his face, but his posture had changed, as though he had just tensed to avoid a blow. “No,” he repeated. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Strange,” I said.

“What is?”

“He seems to know you.”

I had his full attention now. He didn’t even bother to hide his alarm.

“What do you mean?”

“He was the one who told me to talk to you. He said you might know why he was looking for Daniel Clay.”

“That’s not true. I told you, Clay’s dead. Men like him don’t just drop off the face of the earth only to pop up again later someplace else under a different name. He’s dead. Even if he wasn’t, there’s no way he’d be in contact with me. I never even met the guy.”

“This man, Merrick, was of the opinion that your wife might have told you things that she kept from the authorities.”

“He’s mistaken,” he said quickly. “She didn’t tell me nothing. She didn’t even speak about him much.”

“Did you think that was odd?”

“No. What was she gonna say? She just wanted to forget him. Nothing good would come from talking about him.”

“Could she have been in contact with him without you knowing, assuming that he was still alive?”

“You know,” said Legere, “I don’t think she’s that smart. You see this man again, you tell him that.”

“The way he was talking about you, it sounded like you might get the chance to tell him yourself.”

The prospect didn’t appear to give him much pleasure. He spit on the ground, then rubbed the spittle into the dust with his shoe just to give himself something to do.

“One more thing, Mr. Legere: what was the ‘Project’?”

If it was possible to freeze a man with a word, then Jerry Legere froze.

“Where did you hear that?”

The words were spoken almost before he realized it, and I could see instantly that he wished he could retract them. There was no anger left now. It had disappeared entirely, overwhelmed by what might almost have been wonder. He was shaking his head, as if in disbelief.

“It doesn’t matter where. I’d just like to know what it is, or was.”

“You got it from that guy, right? Merrick.” Some of his belligerence was already returning. “You come here, making accusations, talking about men I’ve never met, listening to lies from strangers, from that bitch I married. You got some nerve.”

His right hand shoved me hard in the chest. I took a step back and he started to advance. I could see him preparing to land another blow, this one harder and higher than the first. I raised my hands in a placa-tory gesture, and positioned my feet, my right foot slightly forward of the left.