Эд Макбейн - Privileged Conversation

The letter reads:

She resists the urge to crumple both letter and envelope, understanding at once and with a sharp clarity that this letter, these letters must be saved. These letters are evidence. Evidence? she thinks. And her hand starts shaking as she opens the second envelope.

She does not want to open the third envelope, but she does. Sitting at the dressing table covered with brushes and liners and jars of makeup, she reads it silently:

There are more letters waiting before Friday night’s performance. Four more letters delivered in the mail that afternoon. Each marked sequentially with the handwritten numerals The postmarks all read New York, New York, August 3 . Which means they were mailed yesterday sometime. She stuffs them into her handbag and does not open them until she gets home that night.

Sitting at her kitchen table, sipping a glass of milk, eating a ham sandwich she bought in the all-night deli on Second Avenue, she cold-bloodedly slits open the first of them with a sharp paring knife.

It reads:

She puts the note on the table alongside the first one, and then slits open the next envelope. The letter inside reads:

How come the quantum leap? she wonders. How’d my adoring supplicant all at once turn into my one true lord and master? Is there something transitional in this letter, something that bridges the gap between the letter preceding it and the one I haven’t yet opened? There must be. Otherwise, why has he bothered to number them? If there isn’t a continuity, a sequence, then why the orderly progression? Tell me that , my lord and master.

Calmly, she slits the envelope marked with the number six. Calmly, she unfolds the thick sheet of cream-colored stationery. Calmly, she reads the next note:

Still oddly calm, she picks up the last of that day’s envelopes. Looks at the handwritten words spelling out her name and the address of the theater. Looks at the numeral Studies her name again. The purple ink lends urgency. The handwriting seems suddenly frantic, almost frenzied. She is tearing open the flap when the telephone rings.

It is one of those odd coincidental occurrences, two separate unlinked events happening simultaneously, as if one has triggered the other, the tearing of the flap seeming to activate the ringing of the phone and causing her to drop the envelope at once, as if it has just burst into flames. The phone is still ringing. She looks at the clock on the kitchen wall. It is almost one A.M. The phone persists. She goes to the window and draws the shade, as if suddenly certain she is being observed, as if knowing without question that her one true lord and master is watching her as she moves to the counter and snatches the receiver from the wall phone.

“Hullo?” she says.

Cautiously.

“Katie?”

She is almost relieved.

But not quite.

“Hi, Dad,” she says.

“Hello, darlin,” he says. “How are you?”

Enter Neil Duggan. Yet another time, folks. A curtain call for the very same charmer who ran off with a blond, lanky (horse-faced, her mother insists) woman thirteen years his junior nine years ago, but who’s counting? His sweet lilting voice a bit mellow at a little past one in the morning and a little past six or seven drinks, she guesses. But that’s the only time he ever calls, really. In the middle of the night when he’s had too much to drink. To tell his darlin little girl how much he loves her. Let’s hear it for him, folks.

“How’ve you been doin, Katie?”

“Fine, Dad,” she says.

She does not ask him why he’s in New York, does not ask him how long he’s been here, does not inquire after his health because frankly, my dear, she does not give a damn. She waits for him to speak next. She stands beside the counter with the phone to her ear, waiting.

“Are you still dancin, Katie?”

“Yes, Dad.”

And waits.

On the kitchen table, the last envelope is also waiting. She dreads opening it, but she would rather do that — would rather walk on a bed of coals in Bombay , for that matter — than spend another minute on the phone with Neil Duggan, her wonderful father. Another second , for that matter.

The silence lengthens.

“I just thought I’d see how you were doing,” he says.

“I’m doing fine, Dad.”

“Well, I’m happy to hear that.”

Silence again.

“Have you seen your sister lately?”

“I visit her every month,” Kate says.

Her voice catches. There are sudden tears in her eyes, sharp, burning.

“How is she? How is my dear Bessie?”

“Your dear Bessie is just fine,” she says, unable to keep the caustic edge out of her voice.

“Now, now,” he says.

“Dad...” she says.

And catches herself.

What good is the anger?

What does the anger accomplish?

“Dad, it was nice of you to call,” she says. “But I’ve got two performances tomorrow, and I really need to get some sleep. So if you don’t mind...”

“I’ll let you go then,” he says.

The words seem peculiar, all things considered.

“Thank you,” she says. “Goodnight, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Katie.”

There is a click on the line. She replaces the receiver on its cradle, hesitates a moment, and then goes back to the table and the envelope with her name on it. Boldly, she tears open the flap. This time, the phone doesn’t ring. Calmly, she unfolds the note. It reads:

“Oh sure, master,” she says aloud.

But her hand is trembling again as she slides the letter back into its envelope. She scoops up all four envelopes and carries them into the bedroom. The letters she received on Wednesday are in the top drawer of her dresser, on a stack of leg warmers. She adds these to the pile. Closing the drawer, she goes immediately to the windows and pulls the blinds shut.

Tomorrow will be almost a week since last she heard from David.

He could be anyone in this Saturday matinee audience.

Where before now her concentration has always been entirely on her performance — focusing on how to move like a cat, look like a cat, think like a cat, become a cat — she now scans the spectators in their seats, wondering which of the men is the one who sent her the roses and is now sending her the letters.

Her part requires her to go into the audience.

She wonders where he is sitting.

Who out there is waiting for her to smile at him, wink at him, glance at him?