The Girl in Times Square

  At first silent, Spencer then asks Marcie if she can give them a minute. When the door shuts behind the nurse, Spencer picks up the flowers and throws them in the garbage. There are tears in Lily’s eyes as he turns to the bed. “What happened?” he says. “Andrew is coming tomorrow to give a marrow sample. Everything is okay.”

  “Everything is not okay. It’s not okay. Where have you been? Have you seen what’s been happening to me?”

  He is so sad for her, his shoulders quake with it. “I won’t bring you flowers anymore,” he says.

  “That’s right. And get your things out of my apartment.”

  Pause. “Okay.”

  “And don’t come here anymore. I’ve got Joy, I’ve got Marcie.”

  “Okay, Lil.”

  She tries to sit up on the bed but she can’t without his help. He helps her, and she clenches his suit jacket in her fist and shakes him feebly. He sits with her on the bed, holding her while she thrashes against him.

  “Tell me this, Spencer O’Malley,” Lily says, grasping him around the neck, pressing her head to him, and then pushing him away and looking desperately into his face, “tell me this—you sit here and pretend in front of me that oh, ho, ho, all is well, and this transplant is going to work, and everything is going to be just hunky dory, but tell me—why did you refuse to sell my art on the sidewalks of New York last Saturday? You hide behind your bottle, but tell me why you refused to go and sell it?”

  Spencer blinks—and gets off the bed, taking a step back from her, and feels that this is too much for him, that he can’t take it either. He couldn’t sell her art. After he learned the arsenic was a bust, Spencer can’t sell Lily’s paintings anymore. He wants to say, I’ll sell them this week, Liliput, but it’s a lie, he won’t, she knows it. He won’t, and didn’t, and can’t, because he fears that that art will very soon be the only thing left of her.

  With gritted teeth, Lily says, “I wish I was hit by a fucking bus. This is worse than anything. I wish I vanished like Amy. Instant, immediate and irreversible. In many ways I feel like I have been, yet I continue breathing. The people around me have been acting like I’ve been dead for a year, and they’re just waiting for my body to catch up.”

  “I act like that?” Spencer takes another step back.

  “When you bring me flowers though I’m still living, when you bring my art here instead of selling it there, when you tiptoe around me, not touching me, yes. Yes. You’re thinking, only a little while longer. And then all will be normal again. Well, go to hell. I’m not your penance, Spencer.”

  “Lily…” he says, barely able to speak her name.

  “What, I’m not being fair? I know—this is excruciating. Give me a car crash, a plane crash, Amy’s sudden and permanent disappearance. Give me that any day, so you can get on with your life and not be burying me with white lilies.”

  “Amy’s mother has gone on with her life?” Spencer doesn’t mention himself, and the last two decades of his own life.

  “If Amy is ever found, she will.”

  “Death is death,” says Spencer, mentioning himself obliquely. But Lily doesn’t hear.

  “You know, DiAngelo is going to stop chemo for me. He says it’s not doing me any good and is making me sicker. That’s right. Did you give him some of your advice? Didn’t you once tell me that if I wished to drown, I shouldn’t torture myself in shallow waters?”

  “That wasn’t my advice. I was telling you a story about something else.”

  “You must have told it to DiAngelo. Because he listened. No more chemo. And look at me, I’m not alive, I’m not dead, what am I? What am I without my Hickman? They feed me intravenously, they give me transfusions every five minutes, I can’t make a single red cell on my own anymore. My liver, my kidneys are not failing fast enough. Talk about shallow waters. I’m on dialysis, on electrical monitoring of my heart, I just—! I know—this is how I spent the first twenty-three years of my life, at arm’s length away from all feeling, but I was so happy then! God, I would have lived another hundred-and-twenty-three years not having life be this close to me. All I want is—” Lily breaks off, her hands no longer in a zen-like teepee but pressed together in prayer. “To be stupid and unknowing,” she says finally. “Go to the movies, sleep, paint, sit in Central Park on Sunday, smell rain, live like everyone else—as if I’m immortal. I don’t want this anymore.” She sinks into her bed. He can’t come near her.

  “What do you want, Lily?” whispers Spencer.

  “I don’t want anything. Just to live.”

  64

  Amy and Andrew

  Andrew came to Mount Sinai to have his marrow drawn, and then knocked on Lily’s door. Miera was with him. Two Treasury agents were by his side. He was thinner than ever before, and very gray, and he turned ashen when he saw her, and she must have been thinner than ever before, and very gray also, and ashen.

  He brought Miera with him!

  This was just unbelievable.

  Lily and Spencer stared at each other, and then he stared into his hands.

  Lily pointed at the Treasury agents. “Why are they always with you now, Andrew?”

  “For my protection. I’ve stopped feeling safe,” he replied.

  And Spencer said, “I think that’s wise.”

  Andrew without even acknowledging Spencer, asked if they could have a minute alone, and Lily said, “Andrew, can Miera give us a minute alone?”

  “Miera is family,” Andrew said.

  “You know what, Spencer’s not leaving.”

  “Then I’m leaving.”

  “This is just great, Andrew,” said Lily. “I haven’t seen you since November and you’re leaving?”

  Spencer got up. “I’m leaving.”

  “No!”

  “Lily, I’ll be just outside.” He leaned deep in to her and whispered, “If he knows what’s good for him, tell him he better not upset you.”

  “Shh,” she said, but by the way Andrew glowered at the departing Spencer, Lily wasn’t sure he hadn’t heard.

  “Lily,” said Miera, coiffed and high-heeled and Armani-clad, “you’re not looking too bad.”

  “You were expecting worse?”

  “I don’t know what I was expecting. We knew you were sick. But you don’t look—” she broke off. “I’m just trying to be nice, Lilianne.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So how are you, Lil?” Andrew said, taking her hand.

  “Fine, thanks.” She sighed. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay. I’m hanging in there.”

  “Me too.” She struggled to keep her voice even. “I’m glad to see you.”

  Andrew sat on the edge of her bed and embraced her. “Liliput,” he whispered. “Liliput.”

  She was calm. On slow cytarabine drip today. Sick. Tomorrow home. She patted his back. She waited.

  “Miera, could you give me a minute, please?” he finally said.

  Thank you, Andrew.

  “Andrew, but you said—”

  “I know. Just one minute, Miera.”

  After she left, Andrew lowered his voice and an audible groan came from him. “I’ve made a horrible mess of things, Lily. It’s all my fault. I hope my marrow matches. Look at you. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  “Forgive you for what?”

  He pulled back. “For not coming all these months.”

  “Oh. That. I forgive you.”

  “I’ve been too ashamed to come, Lil. Too ashamed to face you. I would have come if I could’ve. I just couldn’t.”

  “I knew that. I told Spencer that.”

  “Stop talking about him.”

  “You mustn’t be so hard on him. He’s just doing his job.”

  “No, he hates me beyond all call of duty.”

  “Andrew, that’s not true.”

  “Look I don’t want to talk about him with you. You’re sick, let’s just get you better, and then we’ll see about everything else.”

  Lily turned he
r head away from her brother, despising herself for her weakness, wishing herself strong, unable to talk to him about the only thing they needed to talk about. Why did she think Andrew would tell her anything?

  He wasn’t letting go of her. “What are all these things going into you?”

  “Well, my heart is attached straight to the poison in that little bag right there.”

  “What’s in the other bags? Attached to your arm IV?”

  “Antibiotic, glucose.”

  Andrew started to cry.

  “Please,” said Lily, patting her brother’s back. “It’ll be all right. Really. Don’t be upset.”

  “Can I pick you up? Can I pick you up in my arms?”

  “You’ll yank my chains off of me.”

  He picked her up very carefully, and sat on the bed, and cradled her, and rocked her. Her head was against his shoulder.

  “Liliput, do you remember how I used to carry you?”

  “Andrew, please…my heart’s not strong enough.”

  “Oh, Lily,” he said. “There are so many things I can’t talk to you about—because of him. I know you feel I’ve betrayed you, I know that, but you must know that I have felt betrayed by you, no, no, don’t protest, you’re a child, how could you understand the motives of grown men. I came here with Miera as protection against you, but I didn’t want to leave, seeing you like this, without letting you know one important thing about me and Amy.”

  “What thing?” she said inaudibly.

  His voice low and throaty, he said, “Lily, how could you have been so blind? Haven’t you figured it out yet? I was in desperate love with her! I was going to leave everything in my life for her. I loved her more than I have ever loved anything. More than my job, my career, my future, my family. All 1 loved in the world was her.”

  Clarity was still myopic, amblyopic in the one uncorrectable eye.

  “You did?”

  “Of course I did. She came into my life, and altered it beyond recognition. I didn’t expect it. She certainly didn’t expect it, I don’t think, me to fall for her like that. I think it surprised even her. She thought she was strolling in to have a little affair with a powerful man. Everything under control. And suddenly there it was.”

  “So if you loved her, why did you end it?” Lily struggled. “Did you…end it?”

  “I didn’t. In April she told me she didn’t want to see me any more.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes. Completely out of the blue. She said…she didn’t love me anymore and didn’t want to continue.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  “Not at first. I thought it was a ploy. Perhaps to get me to leave my wife faster, or not run for the Senate. I didn’t know. I was devastated. But, eventually, I came to believe her. She convinced me that she didn’t love me anymore.”

  “How?”

  “She just did. With her actions. She was very cold. She cut me out of her life. With her words. She said some things that made me believe it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Stop it, Lil. You’re my sister, not a detective. Stop talking like one.”

  “So why didn’t you tell this to him?”

  “I don’t know if you know this about him, but he manages to turn every single personal thing I’ve ever said and use it against me.”

  “Oh, Andrew.”

  “Lily, trust me when I tell you my side—me and Amy had nothing to do with you. I know it’s hard to believe, and you feel betrayed. We did deceive you for so long. But I just fell in love—and lost my head. Everything else fell by the wayside. If you tell your friend anything, tell him that.”

  “You know, Andrew, Detective O’Malley keeps his own counsel on all matters.”

  “Frankly I think that’s probably best under the circumstances.”

  “Me, too.”

  They smiled.

  “I’m sorry, Lil. That it’s all gone to hell like this.”

  “Me, too, darling Andrew. Me, too.”

  “Is the policeman with you all the time now?”

  “When I’m not here or with Joy, yes. More or less.”

  And then another incomprehensible out of Andrew: “That’s good, Liliput. That’s good.”

  After Andrew left and Spencer walked back into the room and sat on the chair next to her bed, Lily reached over, took off his glasses and pressed her hands to his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” He didn’t move away.

  “Get that detective look right out of your eyes, detective. I’m not letting go until Spencer returns.”

  He kissed her hands, he pulled away, he smiled, he put on his glasses.

  “Stop looking at me,” she said.

  “Your eyes are closed. How do you know I’m looking at you?”

  “Because you’re always gawking at me for this, for that. Stop it.”

  She lay on her pillows quietly. He sat in the chair by her side.

  “So what are you doing now?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” There was a smile on her face. “Following your heartfelt advice, I am freely exercising my American right to remain silent.”

  Spencer brought a sandwich for himself and soup for Lily, and she ate slowly, sipping teaspoons of her soup so as not to upset her intestines, so easily upsettable.

  After she was done with the soup, she said, “All right, you want to know what he told me?” She closed her eyes, trying not to get upset. These days she was so easily upsettable.

  “Dear Lily.” Spencer brought her hand to his lips. “You want me to tell you what he said, coming in here? He told you that Amy reached down his throat and grabbed his heart, pulled it out, threw it on the floor, stepped on it with her high heels, spit on it, shoved it in the oven and cooked the shit out of it. Then she sliced it into little pieces, slammed it on a hunk of toast and served it to him, and then expected him to say, thanks, honey, it was delicious. And he did.”

  She opened her eyes. Stared at him in disbelief. Spencer, his piercing blue eyes piercing her, trained on her, was thoughtful. “Spencer…”

  “Lily, I never thought Amy loved Andrew. I always suspected it was the other way around.”

  “Why? Why did you think that?”

  “A number of reasons.”

  “Give me one.”

  “Because she gave away the jewelry he bought her.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. You don’t give the Tiffany jewels the man you love bought you away to a bum in a homeless shelter unless you don’t love the Tiffany giver and love the bum.”

  “Okay, you have gone mad. Amy loving Milo is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.”

  And then she said, “You know what else is wrong with you? You don’t understand women at all.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “You may be immune to my brother’s charms but no woman can resist him. Amy may have flung her auburn hair into his heart, but he has tricks, too. It’s impossible not to fall for him.”

  “So what are you saying? I’m just not seeing the love?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Show me Amy. Find me her. In any form, and you’ll make a believer out of me.”

  65

  Nathan Sinclair

  “I cannot believe I’m here again,” Spencer said to Liz Monroe.

  “Well, we have some sworn affidavits we wanted to talk to you about.”

  He looked around the room. She said we but she was alone this time. Just him and her in the rectangular air-conditioned conference room.

  “Why don’t you sit?” She opened up a letter. “This one here is from a Constance Tobias.”

  “Okay.” He sat.

  “Do you know who she is?”

  “Well, obviously, Ms. Monroe.”

  Monroe cleared her throat and buried herself in the letter. “Her sworn statement says that a few weeks before Nathan Sinclair’s death, you came to see her at the New Hampshire maximum security prison, where she had been serving six years for a c
rime she says in this statement she did not commit.”

  Spencer had no comment.

  “Do you want to add anything to that?”

  “No. Should I? There is nothing so far I need to respond to.”

  “For a crime she did not commit.”

  “No, Ms. Monroe. For a crime she says she did not commit. Two different things. The jails are full of innocent people, if you ask the inmates.”

  “Are you convinced she is guilty?”

  “I’m convinced that she pled down to a manslaughter from a murder charge, saving herself from life in prison. I’m convinced that she balked from being tried by a jury of her peers because the evidence was overwhelmingly against her. I’m convinced that though there may be a few innocent people in jail, she is not one of them.”

  “She says in her letter that you seemed disturbed by your conversation with her.”

  “No more or less disturbed than I am by many things of that nature, Ms. Monroe. Is there anything else?”

  “Let’s stay with this for a moment. Miss Tobias’s letter alludes to the fact that you might have also believed she was not guilty of murder, in which case you might have sought out the one who you thought was guilty of murder and who got away scot-free. Is that possible, detective?”

  “Is it possible?” Shrugging, Spencer raised his eyebrows. “It is not impossible.”

  “Well, let me say this, while we’re on the subject of sworn affidavits, I have two here from your co-workers. One from your former partner Chris Harkman, and one from Gabe McGill. We interviewed them—”

  “Detective Harkman, retired from the force, is still giving interviews from his hospital bed?”

  “I don’t see how that’s relevant, Detective O’Malley. This is what Detective Harkman told us. He told us that once or twice a few years ago when you had been drinking after work, you told him, and here I quote him, that ‘the Greenwich bastard got what was coming to him.’”

  Spencer laughed. “Hang on a minute. When I’ve had a few to drink I’ve told my partner that the Greenwich bastard got what was coming to him?”