Evan Hunter: Nobody Knew They Were There

“Do you really want beer?” I ask.

“Yes.” She hesitates. “Don’t you?”

“I think I would prefer scotch,” I tell her.

“I think I would prefer a whiskey sour,” she says.

“Then why did you say you wanted beer?”

“Because most college kids don’t have seven thousand dollars in their pocket.”

“We’re not supposed to refer to that.”

“Sorry,” she says, and shrugs elaborately. “I need cigarettes, too.”

I go for the drinks and the cigarettes. On the off-chance that she is watching me, I move with great style. At the bar, I turn for a quick look at the table, hoping to catch her unaware. She could not be less interested. She is, in fact, studying her fingernails. When I return, she looks up as though in discovery. She is all mannerisms tonight There is a look of pained disbelief on her face. It clearly states that something unspeakably vile has had the effrontery to die right here in a public place. She opens the cigarette package with calculated grace. She brushes gossamer hair away from her face as she leans forward to accept the light I proffer. She blows a stream of smoke ceilingward. She delicately lifts her glass and in clearly articulated tones, as though projecting for a jury, she says, “I suppose we should drink to the success of our little enterprise.”

“I suppose.”

“To a job well done,” she says, and clinks her glass lightly against mine. I am beginning to think she is a child. It is too bad, because I plan to take her to bed.

“To a job well done,” I repeat.

“ A re you carrying the money with you?” she asks.

“Of course not.”

“Where is it?”

“Under my mattress.”

“Do you think it’s safe there?”

“I know it’s safe there because it isn’t there.”

“Then where is it?”

“I spent it all at Reidel’s the other night.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, I kept five hundred dollars of it for expenses, and sent the rest to the American Cancer Society.”

“You didn’t”

“I did. As an anonymous contribution.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like cancer.”

“But if you’re not doing this for the money…”

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you?”

“I just told you. I don’t like cancer.” The statement is phony and theatrical, and she recognizes it as such because she herself has been nothing but phony and theatrical all night long. But before she can dismiss it, I quickly say, “Why are you doing it?”

“I have nothing to lose,” she says, and shrugs.

“You may have a great deal to lose.”

“How?”

“You’re involved in an assassination plot. If I’m caught..

“If you’re caught, we knew nothing at all about your nefarious scheme. You presented yourself to us as a tractor salesman from Los Angeles. How were we to know what you were really up to?”

“I may have already written letters to be opened upon my death or capture.”

“But you haven’t.”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

“I know you haven’t. Besides, they’d be dismissed as the rantings of a lunatic. Assassins aren’t considered exactly stable people, you know.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“To increase your chances of survival.”

“By letting me know I'm surrounded by traitors?”

“Traitors only if you’re caught”

“And if I'm not?”

“Staunch admirers.”

“The distinction eludes me.”

“It’s a very real distinction, and it can only help you.”

“How?”

“By forcing you to realize that if you fail, you fail alone. No one will be there to mourn your death.”

“Except you,” I say suddenly.

“I never weep,” Sara says, and drains her glass. “I’d like another drink, please.”

She is only twenty-one, but she downs four whiskey sours in half an hour, draining her glass each time the conversation reaches a climactic point, as though she is ad-libbing a very long play in which she recites the curtain line at the end of each act. By ten o’clock, she has consumed six drinks, and I have learned, among other things:

That she’s a Capricorn. “You’re a Libra,” she says. “Capricorns and Libras definitely do not mix.”

That the wedding band she wears on the third finger of her left hand belonged to her grandmother. Gwen is constantly advising her to wear it on a chain around her neck because she feels it might scare people off this way. Sara insists she wants to scare people off. Gwen counters by saying she may scare off the wrong people. Sara tells her, “Most people are the wrong people.”

That the ring she wears on her right hand, a large fresh-water pearl surrounded by tiny seed pearls, was given to her by a Chicago writer to whom she was once engaged. The writer turned out to be suicidal, and she suspected his condition might prove detrimental to the longevity of their relationship. When she broke the engagement, he surprised her by not killing himself. Instead, he picked up a hooker on North Wells and stayed in bed with her for a week. When Sara tried to return the ring, he told her to shove it. “You’re not a writer, of course,” she says to me, “but I suspect you’re as suicidal as he was.”

That she bought the leather sombrero in Arizona where she spent last summer with a VISTA worker named Roger Harris, with whom she is madly in love, and whom she expects to marry as soon as she gets her law degree. He is coming to visit her on Thanksgiving, she hopes. “He grooves me,” she says, “he really does.”

That she is a straight-A student who was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Northwestern. “I’m bored by most people because I’m smarter than they are,” she says. “Thank God, I can’t say that about you.”

I am beginning to suspect that the reason she’s not bored is because she has been holding an endlessly fascinating dialogue with no one but herself. I recognize with some regret that the only appealing thing about her is her youth, and I suddenly wonder why that alone should make her seem desirable. She must notice the look that crosses my face because she abruptly asks, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Have I been talking too much about myself?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I’m too polite.”

“Killers shouldn’t be so polite,” she says. “Anyway, I thought you were interested.”

“I’m terribly interested. Tell me more about your assorted boyfriends.”

“You’re married, aren’t you?” she asks. Straight for the jugular. I admire her finesse.

“Yes.”

“In which case, I can talk about my boyfriends if I like.”

“It hasn’t stopped you so far.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she says. “Do you want another drink, or shall we go?”

“Whichever you prefer.”

“I won’t get drunk, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I never get drunk.”

“You never tell, you never weep, and you never get drunk.”

“What?”

“Total recall.”

“What?”

“Forget it. Do you want another drink?”

“What do you mean, total recall?”

“I am possessed of total recall.”

“Total recall is a curse,” she says with vehemence.

“ Do you want another drink?”

“No, I want to leave.”

“Okay, let’s leave.”

“ You're the one who called me, you know. I didn’t call you.”

“I know that.”

“Nobody asked you to. If you’re married, why'd you call me?”

“Because I need assistance. You told me you were here to lend assistance.”

“Not that kind of assistance.”

“How do you know what kind I need?”