Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

He liked to read his own work. He was, he supposed, his own favorite author. When reading himself, there was always total communication. The perfect author’s foil, he wept when he was supposed to weep, reacted indignantly when he was supposed to, laughed at funny lines, reeled back in shock at surprise chapter endings. It was wonderful to be so understood and so understanding. He made several corrections as he went along, but these were mostly the corrections of typos. He considered himself a craftsman, and he would not have typed “The End” onto the last page had his major revisions not already been completed. The corrections he made now lessened in no degree the pleasure he experienced as he read.

When he finished the book at eleven-thirty that night, he tenderly placed it back into the empty typewriter-paper box and then put the lid on it again. He felt intense relief and immense gratification, but he also felt a little empty. Tomorrow he would deliver the novel to his agent. Tonight he felt a little empty. He would continue to feel that way until the approval came: approval from his agent, and then his publisher, and then the others, all the others.

He sat in the quiet apartment for perhaps ten minutes. He sipped at his Scotch, and he puffed at his cigar, and he wondered what to do next.

Then he went to the telephone and called a girl.

The next name on Eve’s list was Betty Anders.

She didn’t know Felix Anders very well, and her conversational acquaintance with Betty was hardly the stuff of which lifelong friendships are made. But she figured that every good party needed an extrovert, an uninhibited male or female who would supply the spark of revelry, and Betty Anders was perhaps the most uninhibited female she knew. Or, at any rate, the loudest.

Of course, Felix had once asked Larry to work out a landscape plan for him — a task Larry had never even started — and she wondered if Felix’s presence would make him uncomfortable. She decided it would not, and dialed Betty’s number.

“Hello?” the booming voice asked.

“Betty?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Eve Cole.”

“Hello. Just a second, Eve.”

Eve heard the telephone clatter to a hard surface, and then she heard Betty shouting something, and then shouting something else, and then she heard someone crying and then the phone was picked up again.

“That little bastard,” Betty said. “He can’t let his sister play in peace. How are you, Eve?”

“Fine. And you?”

“Exhausted. With Felix after me at night, and his monsters after me all day long, I think I’ll wind up in a nut house.”

Eve laughed in delighted phoniness and said, “Why don’t you come over to our place next Saturday night and let your hair down? We’re having a little party.”

“I can use a party,” Betty said. “February depresses the hell out of me. I can use a good stiff drunk.”

“We’ll have a lot of good stiff drunks here,” Eve said.

“You’re a bigger slob than I am,” Betty answered, chuckling.

“What?” Eve said, puzzled for a moment. “Oh. Oh, I didn’t—”

“Let me look at the calendar, Eve. Which Saturday is that?”

“The ninth. Next week.”

“I’ll ask Felix. He doesn’t like to leave the kids with a sitter. If his mother’ll come out, we’ll be there. Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Sure. If I’m not here, just give the message to Larry.”

“Fine. How can you stand living with a man who’s home all the time?”

“Well, you get used to it.”

“If Felix were home, I’d be flat on my back all day long. That man—”

“I hope you can make it, Betty,” Eve interrupted.

“I’ll try my damnedest. I wasn’t kidding about getting fried.”

“You’ll have all the ingredients.”

“It only takes three and I’m flying.”

“All right, call me, will you?”

“First thing tomorrow. I’d better hang up. That bastard is after her again.” There was a sudden click on the line. Eve hung up, smiling to herself.

Actually, she was very pleased with the way the party was taking shape. The idea had come to her impulsively. With Larry in the city for the afternoon, she had made out her list and then begun her calls, more and more excited by the idea. There was, after all, nothing more depressing than a winter in Pinecrest Manor and a party would do a lot toward dispelling the gloom.

Never did the development seem more like a giant apartment house than in the winter time. Then, the individual homes became cubicles in a brick and concrete structure, cubicles separated by thirty feet of browning grass. Wrapped in seeming seclusion, they defied sameness, turned in upon themselves while belching smoke from their identical chimneys. We are alone, the houses seemed to say. We are a brave family unit facing the winter, and we like it this way. But spring gave the lie to the declaration. In the spring, Pinecrest Manor anxiously burst outdoors, where it pursued the favorite sport of all developments: invasion of privacy.

The winter gloom, then, provided Eve with the good reason for her party. The real reason was another thing again.

She would not admit the real reason even to herself. She knew only that Larry was behaving strangely, that something was crumbling the solidity of their marriage. And so, intuitively, she was utilizing the magnetic pull of a man’s home, planning a party with the man and his home as its nucleus. She honestly did not know what the party would accomplish. She hoped only to surround Larry with people he liked in a setting which was familiar and comfortable. She hoped only to remind her husband of what they shared together.

And so she went down her list and made her plans.

There was only one other couple’s name on the list. She had debated adding them because she hardly knew the girl at all, and she didn’t even know the husband to talk to. But the girl, no matter what one’s personal taste preferred, did have a vibrant sort of beauty, and Eve figured it wouldn’t hurt to have someone decorative around. It would keep the women on their toes, make the men more gallant, and the living room more attractive.

She put a small check next to Betty Anders’ name, and then thumbed through the telephone directory looking for Gault, Donald .

When the telephone rang, she felt a faint stab of panic because she thought it might be he again, would he never stop calling, would it go on and on forever, would the voice say “Margaret?” and would she say “You!” and would the interminable argument begin again, the pleading, the begging, would it never never end?

And then she remembered that Larry had gone into the city to deliver his Puerto Rican recommendations to Baxter, and she smiled because she was suddenly certain it was Larry calling. She rushed downstairs excitedly and snatched the receiver from the cradle.

“Hello?” she said.

“Margaret?” the woman’s voice asked.

“Oh,” she said.

“Is this Margaret Gault?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I was expecting someone else.”

“You sound disappointed,” the woman said.

Margaret’s eyes glowed secretly. “I am.”

“Then perhaps I should do the apologizing,” the woman said. “This is Eve Cole.”

She knew instant pulverizing shock. She froze and then backed against the counter, aware that the receiver was shaking in her fist. She could only think, She knows, she knows, and then wonder in horror why Larry had not phoned to warn her.

“Wh... what is it?” she asked. She could barely speak. The phone continued to shake in her fist. She was afraid it would slam into her teeth, afraid she would faint. What could she say to this woman? What, oh, God, what could she say when Eve Cole accused her?