Джеффри Дивер - Nothing Good Happens After Midnight - A Suspense Magazine Anthology

“Sweetie, sweetie,” the voice — a woman’s — was saying. “That’s cart before the horse. It was a real failure, right? I mean — three people in Sarasota?”

Horses? Sarasota? I admit I had a moment of trying to figure out what she might be talking about in that imperious voice, but it was now pushing 1:30 in the morning, and my get-some-rest efficiency was not being helped by the interruption. It was possible that my neighbor did not know how beautifully her voice carried. But this would be over soon. No one would be so rude as to continue a long conversation at this time of the night. Morning.

Wrong .

“My point is, there are no options,” she was saying now. “He is not a process guy. We need to focus our efforts on hitting goal, and not be distracted with noise.”

Not be distracted with noise? That was actually pretty funny. I leaped up, grabbed the pillow from the top bunk, slid myself back under the thin, pale blue blanket, and put the borrowed pillow over my face. Tried to block out the sound. That succeeded in making me unable to breathe. But not unable to hear.

“It’s gonna be fun,” I heard her say. “I’m telling me as much as I’m telling you. But I’m his right hand person at Rotherwood, so it’s so not a problem. Clear sailing. We’ll keep it clean. She’ll be done.”

Nice , I thought. Charming . And wondered who was on the other end. Whose right hand? Rotherwood, I knew, was a fancy prep school on Beacon Hill, a row of three story brownstones with historically genteel facades. What did they have to “keep clean?” As the CEO, and only O of Cady Armistead Enterprises, I was used to negotiations. Making things right, was how I explained what I did. Spinning my clients’ sides of the story. It was funny to think that I succeeded when someone else had a problem, but that’s how the world works. Checks and balances, all leading to equilibrium. I have to admit, as I listened, because how could I help it, to one end of the discussion-next-door, it sounded like someone indeed had a problem.

Whoever was about to be “done.” Whatever that meant. “Done” didn’t sound good, but it was none of my business.

My cell phone glowed on the floor, since I needed it near me, sadly, in case a client had an emergency. Damn it . Damn my curiosity. I grabbed up the phone, googled Rotherwood, looked up “contact us.” Clicked. Contact at Rotherwood dot edu, so went the address. I clicked on “Our Staff.” An array of women and men, diverse and professional in gray lapels and appropriate jewelry. I picked one at random. The email ended with Rotherwood dot edu.

We’ll keep it clean , she’d said. Keep what clean?

But again, none of my business, and I would never know. I clicked off my phone, trying to quiet my inquisitive brain. The woman’s voice had softened to a murmur, and for a moment I felt a twinge of disappointment. Something was going on in her world, and part of my job — and my passion, I admit — was to be curious. So I kind of wanted to hear the rest. But sleep was more important. I heard the loo flush in her room, had a moment of realization that if I could hear hers, she could hear mine. Then I heard water gushing in her aluminum sink. Mine was aluminum at least.

Mumble mumble, I heard. Time for me to sleep.

Outside the world was impenetrable, a dense July night, and staring, sleepless, out the window into nothingness, I imagined all the invisible dramas underway out there. The overnight hours, the time so many of us spend in suspension, our bodies recharging and our brains at rest. Or busy only in dreams. But there are those who are awake and active during that span of quiet. And some people live in different time zones, I reminded myself, so who even knew who Ms. Chit-chat next door was talking to. Still talking to.

“I’ll shoot off an email to Shay,” the woman was saying. “She’s the one who got the directive. I’ll cc you. But you minimize your contact, and then I’ll swoop in.”

Shay? I thought. Or Shea? Or Shaie? Ms. Shay? Mrs. Shay? Directive? Swoop?

Swoop?

My phone was a tempting rectangular glow on the thin gray carpet. No , I ordered myself. Go to sleep.

It only took me about four seconds to search Rotherwood for Shay. And Shea. And for good measure, Gray. And Bray. But nothing.

“Sweetie... sweetie, sweetie.” The woman was now obviously cajoling someone. I envisioned those cartoons my sister and I used to watch on Saturday mornings, where some animated character would hold a wineglass against the wall to eavesdrop on the animated character next door. Nina and I had tried it, and it didn’t work, we couldn’t hear a thing, and decided it only worked in cartoons. But what I was hearing was as clear as it had been in Looney Tunes. And maybe just as looney.

“The board has no idea, you know that. He’s a lush, a total lush. The wife’s a basket case,” the woman pronounced. “Ellen has disappointed me from the outset, so we can’t rely on her at all. Its two t’s right, in Pattillo? But if someone wants to commit career suicide, sweetie, who are we to stand in the way? Ha, ha, I mean.”

I clutched my phone to my chest. Even in bed I was still wearing my little navy jersey travel bathrobe, and socks. The socks because the floor was iffy, and the robe in case the porter had been lying about the windows. I thought about the people who’d shared the train with me before we all went off to our separate little compartments. You can’t really look at your fellow passengers, even as you stagger down the aisle to the bathroom or the café car and back, balancing your wine or soda against the lurching train. That would be rude. And replaying the faces of my travelling companions only offered me half-memories of newspaper barriers, and earbuds, eyes focused on glowing screens, on a man with his head plastered against the wide glass window, dead asleep. A woman with a — I stared at the bunk above me, as if the video of the train car was replaying. A woman with steely hair, with sunglasses on her head, and earrings. Big earrings. Was she the one plotting something in the room next door?

Since Ms. Chit-chat was in a sleeper car, she’d boarded the train with me in Chicago, at the lofty-arched and elegant Union Station, where the roasty smell of the Nuts on Clark mixed with fragrant coffee and wafts of yeast-pungent beer from happy travelers in the Great Hall. We’d all trooped down the chilly dank platform, pulling our black roller bags and tote bags. A few travelers had been lugging pillows, which I had thought, at the time, was odd. Now I know why they had them. Which passenger was in the room beside mine? Our heads together, Pyramus and Thisbe, without her knowing?

Should I ring for the porter? Ask him to intervene on behalf of sleepy passengers everywhere?

Maybe I should pretend to call someone, speaking really loudly, and then when she hears me, she’ll put two and two together, realize I can hear her, and shut up.

Or I could simply tap on her door and warn her. “I can hear everything you say,” I’d sheepishly reveal. Or maybe I could just indicate how I could kind of hear, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed, but so that she would stop the hell talking. We’d arrive in Boston’s South Station at 9:50 am.

She’d probably still be talking.

“My firm intuition, my firm intuition, is that come next week, after she walks across that stage, that’s the last we’ll hear of her.”

The last we’ll hear of her . And after that line, I counted my blessings that I did not have to deal with someone like this in my own office. I had one assistant, the woefully underpaid Hadley who could find anything on the computer, break any password, track down any elusive source, get a reporter’s private cell number or a police detective’s home address. Hadley, unfortunately, was on vacation in some paradise with white sand and no internet. And probably good pillows. People said provocative stuff like that, though, without meaning it. I’m going insane, I’m going to blow this place up, I’m gonna kill you. Hyperbole. Exaggeration for effect. Everyone on the planet does it.