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“I’m sorry.”
“For him it was over before he felt any pain. For the people who cared about him, it wasn’t that easy. They’ll feel the pain of it for a long time.”
“Problems?”
“Not that anyone knew of.”
“Then why’d he do it?”
“That remains a mystery.” Speaking to the mantel, she said almost as an afterthought, “Noah had a meeting with him that afternoon.”
“He detected nothing wrong?”
“No, nothing.”
“What was their meeting about?”
“Normal business. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
She faced him again. “Why?”
Rather than answer, he asked if she wanted another drink.
“No, thank you. My toes are already tingling.”
He glanced down at her shoes. “You’re dressed for New York. Why don’t you change, then you can read the segment I’ve been working on since you left.”
She smiled in surprise. “So you have been writing?”
“Mike only thinks he knows everything.”
* * *
“This couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. We can speak freely.” Noah was pretending a nonchalance he didn’t feel. To further convince his visitor of his insouciance, he idly twirled the skewered olive in his martini glass. “Maris went out of town again.”
“Is this typical of her?”
Morris Blume had arrived at the Reeds’ West Side co-op, wearing his condescending attitude like a fashion accessory. Noah had insisted that they meet informally and alone, without Blume’s flunkies. They were like hummingbirds around a tropical blossom, hovering when they weren’t actually fluttering.
Noah had given his doorman an exorbitant tip to admit Blume and to ensure his memory loss about it later. He’d been hospitably waiting for Blume when Blume stepped out of the elevator. Blume had practically marched into the apartment, surveying it as a drill sergeant would a barracks, his colorless eyes seeming to be searching for flaws. Apparently it passed inspection. “Very nice.”
Noah had attributed the tasteful decor to Maris. “She has an eye for such things. Drink?”
Now they were seated on facing sofas, Tiffany martini glasses in hand, and Maris’s name had entered the conversation again. “She goes away frequently, doesn’t she?” Blume asked.
“Not until recently when she began working on a project with an author who lives on an island off the coast of Georgia.”
“You’re sure of this?”
Since Noah felt his control over his wife and his mistress had slipped lately, Blume’s insinuation smarted. “Sure about what?” he asked testily. “My wife’s whereabouts?”
Blume stretched his colorless lips into his distinctive facsimile of a smile. “I knew a man whose wife was allegedly interviewing interior decorators to redo their recently purchased winery in Sonoma. Turns out she was consulting with a notorious divorce lawyer in LA who did his best work in bed. The wife wound up with the lawyer, the winery, and just about everything else. Once the fleecing was over,
the man considered himself lucky to come away with his dick still attached. There’s a lesson to be learned there.”
The implied criticism rankled, but Noah chuckled. “This writer is shriveled and disabled, wheelchair-bound. Passion hasn’t drawn Maris to Georgia.”
