Эд Макбейн - Privileged Conversation

“I’m not trying to shift any guilt. I don’t feel any guilt.”

“Then why were you bawling in the car?”

“Not because I was feeling guilt. Don’t give me guilt, okay? I had enough guilt with Jacqueline. I’ve been through guilt and back again, David, okay? I’m fine now, okay, so don’t...”

“Why’d you go to bed with him?”

“Go to bed with him? Are you dreaming?”

“You said...”

“I said...”

“You said if I’d been here, you wouldn’t have let him.”

“That’s right.”

“Let him what? ”

“ Kiss me, for Christ’s sake! Anyway, are you so celibate up there on the Vineyard?”

“You know I’m married.”

“Yes, and you know I’m single.”

“What is that supposed to be? A license to kill?”

“Nobody killed anybody, David.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that.”

“Anyway, we’ve been through this before.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I told you he’d asked me out.”

“You also told me you didn’t give him your number.”

“I didn’t. Not then. I went to see him right after the letter was delivered here. That’s when I gave him my number. He was helping me, David. Anyway, we’re not married, you know.”

“So I’m beginning to understand.”

“You make love to her , you know. So you can’t...”

“That’s something altogether...”

“Don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So you have no right...”

“That’s right, I don’t. So I guess if there’s nothing further to discuss, I’ll just...”

“We’re having another fight, you know. About Rickie again.”

“With a difference this time.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Last time, you hadn’t kissed him.”

“It didn’t mean anything.”

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s the cliché of all time. If it didn’t mean anything...”

“It didn’t.”

“Then why the hell did you do it?”

“To thank him.”

“For what?”

“For helping me. For being here! Where the hell were you , David?”

“Look, what’s the sense of this?”

“None. Not if you want to keep on fighting.”

But she seems delighted that they are fighting. He senses the argument adds a dimension of domesticity to their tottering romance, perhaps provides it with the promise of longevity as well. After all, if they’re having their second fight, and if they survive it, the implication is there’ll be a third fight and a fourth and a fifth ad infinitum. Just like Mum and Dad, kiddies. Having their cute little fight, so they can kiss and make up afterward. Except that he has no intention of kissing her now, not after she kissed her young toreador last Wednesday night. And God knows how many times since.

“Have you seen him since?” he asks.

“No.”

“Has he called you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet. Give them a taste of honey...”

“Stop it, David! I’m not a whore!”

“Who said you were?”

“I’m not a whore!”

He has not even mentioned this word, and he wonders where it comes from now. A whore? Simply because she kissed...

“What kind of kiss?”

“What do you mean?”

“A friendly kiss, a brotherly kiss, a paternal...”

“A goddamn soul kiss!” she says angrily.

The room goes silent.

“I thought you loved me,” he says.

“I do.”

“In your fashion.”

“No. Completely and utterly.”

He looks at her.

He wishes he could believe her, but then why the Wednesday night Latino? Besides, she’s correct in maintaining there are no strings on her, mister, she is as free as a bird and entitled to kiss whomever the hell she chooses. The thing is... he thought... he assumed... mistakenly, it now turns out... but nonetheless...

“Do you plan on seeing him again?” he asks.

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“Never mind what I want!” he shouts. “What the fuck do you want?”

“I want you.”

“Then why...?”

“I want only you.”

“Then...”

“I want you to love me.”

“Kate, why don’t we just...?”

“Don’t say it!”

“I think we should just...”

“Don’t say it!”

She is staring at him now, looking small and vulnerable and tired and pale in the blue jeans and white cotton shirt and adorable gray fedora, hands folded in her lap, green eyes wide and beseeching. He does not want her to cry again, he does not believe he can bear it if she starts crying again. She sits there on the very edge of dissolution, the tears standing in her eyes but not spilling over, and in a barely audible voice, she says, “Don’t leave me, David.”

He stands watching her.

“Please,” she says. “I beg of you.”

He takes a step toward her.

“Love me,” she says. “Just keep loving me.”

He calls Stanley Beckerman at a little before eleven.

“Boy, thank God,” Stanley says. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“There was a lot of traffic,” David says. “The rain.”

“The sun was shining in Hatteras,” Stanley says.

“The Vineyard, too.”

“Any trouble getting away?” Stanley asks, lowering his voice though David suspects he is alone in his office. Or perhaps his little nineteen-year-old bimbo has already joined him. Perhaps she is already sitting on his couch like Sharon Stone, legs wide open, no panties.

“No trouble at all,” David says.

Stanley believes that he alone is the one who needs protection and cover in the days ahead, and David doesn’t plan to disabuse him of the notion. Therefore, the responsibility of working out a series of fictitious lectures and whatnot has fallen to Stanley as presumed solitary philanderer and liar in this four-day subterfuge. David has given Helen only the scant information Stanley provided in his one invitational call to Menemsha two weeks ago. Now he listens carefully, eager to protect his own ass, but playing to the hilt the role of Stanley’s beard.

“I’d like to fax this to you, hmm?” Stanley says. “Do you have a fax in your office?”

“No,” David says.

“Well, can I leave it with your doorman then?”

“Where?”

“The office, the apartment, wherever.”

“The office would be better,” David says.

“I’ll drop it off later. Meanwhile, can we go over it on the phone?”

“Yes, let’s.”

“I really don’t want any contradictions here, Dave. This is too important for either of us to be saying something the other one contradicts. What’d you tell Helen?”

“That Syd Markland...”

“With a ‘y,’ right?”

“Yes.”

“Syd with a ‘y.’”

“Yes, had put together the program and invited all the guests.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the name you gave me...”

“Yes, he doesn’t exist.”

“Good.”

“Did you say the APA was sponsoring it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That’s what I told Gerry. Did she question any of this? Helen?”

“No.”

“Good. What I’ve tried to do, Dave, is set up a practically morning-to-night round of talks, meetings, panel discussions... I’m sorry to do this to you, I know you’ll just be killing time here in the city...”

“I have work to do, don’t worry.”

“I truly appreciate this, Dave.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I just want to seem busy and involved all day long, hmm?” Stanley says. “That’s why I’d like you to look over the schedule carefully, so in case Helen asks where you’re going to be on such and such a night...”