"How was the sea bass?" Berrington said, interrupting her thoughts.
"Delicious. Very delicate."
He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his right index finger. For some reason the gesture struck her as self-congratulatory. "Now I'm going to ask you a question, and you have to answer honestly." He smiled, so that she would not take him too seriously.
"Okay."
"Do you like dessert?"
"Yes. Do you take me for the kind of woman who would pretend about a thing like that?"
He shook his head. "I guess there's not much you do pretend about."
"Not enough, probably. I have been called tactless."
"Your worst failing?"
"I could probably do better if I thought about it. What's your worst failing?"
Berrington answered without hesitation. "Falling in love."
"That's a failing?"
"It is if you do it too often."
"Or with more than one person at a time, I guess."
"Maybe I should write to Lorraine Logan and ask her advice."
Jeannie laughed, but she did not want the conversation to get onto Steven. "Who's your favorite painter?" she said.
"See if you can guess."
Berrington was a superpatriot, so he must be sentimental, she figured. "Norman Rockwell?"
"Certainly not!" He seemed genuinely horrified. "A vulgar illustrator! No, if I could afford to collect paintings I'd buy American Impressionists. John Henry Twachtman's winter landscapes. I'd love to own The White Bridge. What about you?"
"Now you have to guess."
He thought for a moment. "Joan Miro."
"Why?"
"I imagine you like bold splashes of color." She nodded. "Perceptive. But not quite right. Miro's too messy. I prefer Mondrian."
"Ah, yes, of course. The straight lines."
"Exactly. You're good at this."
He shrugged, and she realized he had probably played guessing games with many women.
She dipped a spoon into her mango sorbet. This was definitely not a business dinner. Soon she would have to make a firm decision about what her relationship with Berrington was going to be.
She had not kissed a man for a year and a half. Since Will Temple walked out on her she had not even been on a date until today. She was not carrying a torch for Will: she no longer loved him. But she was wary.
However, she was going crazy living the life of a nun. She missed having someone hairy in bed with her; she missed the masculine smells--bicycle oil and sweaty football shirts and whiskey--and most of all she missed the sex. When radical feminists said the penis was the enemy, Jeannie wanted to reply, "Speak for yourself, sister."
She glanced up at Berrington, delicately eating caramelized apples. She liked the guy, despite his nasty politics. He was smart--her men had to be intelligent--and he had winning ways. She respected him for his scientific work. He was slim and fit looking, he was probably a very experienced and skillful lover, and he had nice blue eyes.
All the same, he was too old. She liked mature men, but not that mature.
How could she reject him without ruining her career? The best course might be to pretend to interpret his attention as kindly and paternal. That way she might avoid spurning him outright.
She took a sip of champagne. The waiter kept refilling her glass and she was not sure how much she had drunk, but she was glad she did not have to drive.
They ordered coffee. Jeannie asked for a double espresso to sober her up. When Berrington had paid the bill, they took the elevator to the parking garage and got in his silver Lincoln Town Car.
Berrington drove along the harbor side and got onto the Jones Falls Expressway. "There's the city jail," he said, pointing to a fortresslike building that occupied a city block. "The scum of the earth are in there."
Steve might be in there, Jeannie thought.
How had she even contemplated sleeping with Berrington? She did not feel the least warmth of affection for him. She felt ashamed that she had even toyed with the idea. As he pulled up to the curb outside her house, she said firmly: "Well, Berry, thank you for a charming evening." Would he shake hands, she wondered, or try to kiss her? If he tried to kiss her, she would offer her cheek.
But he did neither. "My phone at home is out of order, and I need to make one call before I go to bed," he said. "May I use your phone?"
She could hardly say, "Hell, no, stop by a pay phone." It looked as if she were going to have to deal with a determined pass. "Of course," she said, suppressing a sigh. "Come on up." She wondered if she could avoid offering him coffee.
She jumped out of the car and led the way across the row stoop. The front door gave onto a tiny lobby with two more doors. One led to the ground-floor apartment, occupied by Mr. Oliver, a retired stevedore. The other, Jeannie's door, opened onto the staircase that led up to her second-floor apartment.
She frowned, puzzled. Her door was open.
She went inside and led the way up the stairs. A light was on up there. That was curious: she had left before dark.
The staircase led directly into her living room. She stepped inside and screamed.
He was standing at her refrigerator with a bottle of vodka in his hand. He was scruffy and unshaven, and he seemed a little drunk.
Behind her, Berrington said: "What's going on?"
"You need better security in here, Jeannie," the intruder said. "I picked your locks in about ten seconds."
Berrington said: "Who the hell is he?"
Jeannie said in a shocked voice: "When did you get out of jail, Daddy?"
11
THE LINEUP ROOM WAS ON THE SAME FLOOR AS THE CELLS.
In the anteroom were six other men of about Steve's age and build. He guessed they were cops. They did not speak to him and avoided his gaze. They were treating him like a criminal. He wanted to say, "Hey, guys, I'm on your side, I'm not a rapist, I'm innocent."
They all had to take off their wristwatches and jewelry and put on white paper coveralls over their clothes. While they were getting ready, a young man in a suit came in and said: "Which of you is the suspect, please?"
"That's me," Steve said.
"I'm Lew Tanner, the public defender," the man said. "I'm here to make sure the lineup is run correctly. Do you have any questions?"
"How long will it take me to get out of here afterward?" Steve said.
"Assuming you're not picked out of the lineup, a couple of hours."
"Two hours!" Steve said indignantly. "Do I have to go back in that fucking cell?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Jesus Christ."
"I'll ask them to handle your discharge as fast as possible," Lew said. "Anything else?"
"No thanks."
"Okay." He went out.
A turnkey ushered the seven men through a door onto a stage. There was a backdrop, with a graduated scale that showed their height, and positions numbered one to ten. A powerful light shone on them, and a screen divided the stage from the rest of the room. The men could not see through the screen, but they could hear what was going on beyond it.
For a while there was nothing but footsteps and occasional low voices, all male. Then Steve heard the unmistakable sound of a woman's steps. After a moment a man's voice spoke, sounding as if he were reading from a card or repeating something by rote.
"Standing before you are seven people. They will be known to you by number only. If any of these individuals have done anything to you, or in your presence, I want you to call out their number, and number only. If you would like any of them to speak, say any form of specific words, we will have them say those words. If you would like to have them turn around or face sideways, then they will do that as a group. Do you recognize any one of them who has done anything to you or in your presence?"
There was a silence. Steve's nerves were wound up tight as guitar strings, even though he was sure she would not pick him out.
A low female voice said: "He had a hat on."
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She sounded like an educated middle-class woman of about his own age, Steve thought.
The male voice said: "We have hats. Would you like them all to put on a hat?"
"It was more of a cap. A baseball cap."
Steve heard anxiety and tension in her voice but also determination. There was no hint of falseness. She sounded like the kind of woman who would tell the truth, even when distressed. He felt a little better.
"Dave, see if we have seven baseball caps in that closet."
There was a pause of several minutes. Steve ground his teeth in impatience. A voice muttered: "Jeez, I didn't know we had all this stuff ... eyeglasses, mustaches--"
"No chitchat, please, Dave," the first man said. "This is a formal legal proceeding."
Eventually a detective came onto the stage from the side and handed a baseball cap to each man in the lineup. They all put them on and the detective left.
From the other side of the screen came the sound of a woman crying.
The male voice repeated the form of words used earlier. "Do you recognize any one of them who has done anything to you or in your presence? If so call out their number, and number only."
"Number four," she said with a sob in her voice.
Steve turned and looked at the backdrop.
He was number four.
"No!" he shouted. "This can't be right! It wasn't me!"
The male voice said: "Number four, did you hear that?"
"Of course I heard it, but I didn't do this!"
The other men in the lineup were already leaving the stage.
"For Christ's sake!" Steve stared at the opaque screen, his arms spread wide in a pleading gesture. "How could you pick me out? I don't even know what you look like!"
The male voice from the other side said: "Don't say anything, ma'am, please. Thank you very much for your cooperation. This way out."
"There's something wrong here, can't you understand?" Steve yelled.
The turnkey Spike appeared. "It's all over, son, let's go," he said.
Steve stared at him. For a moment he was tempted to knock the little man's teeth down his throat.
Spike saw the look in his eye and his expression hardened. "Let's have no trouble, now. You got nowhere to run." He took Steve's arm in a grip that felt like a steel clamp. It was useless to protest.
Steve felt as if he had been bludgeoned from behind. This had come from nowhere. His shoulders slumped and he was seized by helpless fury. "How did this happen?" he said. "How did this happen?"
12
BERRINGTON SAID: "DADDY?"
Jeannie wanted to bite off her tongue. It was the dumbest thing she could have said: "When did you get out of jail, Daddy?" Only minutes ago Berrington had described the people in the city jail as the scum of the earth.
She felt mortified. It was bad enough her boss finding out that her father was a professional burglar. Having Berrington meet him was even worse. His face had been bruised by a fall and he had several days' growth of beard. His clothes were dirty and he had a faint but disgusting smell. She felt so ashamed she could not look at Berrington.
There had been a time, many years ago, when she was not ashamed of him. Quite the reverse: he made other girls' fathers seem boring and tiresome. He had been handsome and fun loving, and he would come home in a new suit, his pockets full of money. There would be movies and new dresses and icecream sundaes, and Mom would buy a pretty nightgown and go on a diet. But he always went away again, and around about the age of nine she found out why. Tammy Fontaine told her. She would never forget the conversation.
"Your jumper's horrible," Tammy had said.
"Your nose is horrible," Jeannie had replied wittily, and the other girls broke up.
"Your mom buys you clothes that are really, like, gruesome."
"Your mom's fat."
"Your daddy's in jail."
"He is not."
"He is so."
"He is not!"
"I heard my daddy tell my mommy. He was reading the newspaper. I see old Pete Ferrami's back in jail again,' he said."
"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Jeannie had chanted, but in her heart she had believed Tammy. It explained everything: the sudden wealth, the equally sudden disappearances, the long absences.
Jeannie never had another of those taunting schoolgirl conversations. Anyone could shut her up by mentioning her father. At the age of nine, it was like being crippled for life. Whenever something was lost at school, she felt they all looked accusingly at her. She never shook the guilty feeling. If another woman looked in her purse and said, "Darn, I thought I had a ten-dollar bill," Jeannie would flush crimson. She became obsessively honest: she would walk a mile to return a cheap ballpoint, terrified that if she kept it the owner would say she was a thief like her father.
Now here he was, standing there in front of her boss, dirty and unshaven and probably broke. "This is Professor Berrington Jones," she said. "Berry, meet my father, Pete Ferrami."
Berrington was gracious. He shook Daddy's hand. "Good to meet you, Mr. Ferrami," he said. "Your daughter is a very special woman."
"Ain't that the truth," Daddy said with a pleased grin.
"Well, Berry, now you know the family secret," she said resignedly. "Daddy was sent to jail, for the third time, on the day I graduated summa cum laude from Princetoa He's been incarcerated for the last eight years."
"It could have been fifteen," Daddy said. "We had guns on that job."
"Thank you for sharing that with us, Dad. It's sure to impress my boss."
Daddy looked hurt and baffled, and she felt a stab of pity for him, despite her resentment. His weakness hurt him as much as it hurt his family. He was one of nature's failures. The fabulous system that reproduced the human race--the profoundly complex DNA mechanism Jeannie studied--was programmed to make every individual a little bit different. It was like a photocopier with a built-in error. Sometimes the result was good: an Einstein, a Louis Armstrong, an Andrew Carnegie. And sometimes it was a Pete Ferrami.
Jeannie had to get rid of Berrington fast. "If you want to make that call, Berry, you can use the phone in the bedroom."
"Uh, it'll keep," he said.
Thank God for that. "Well, thank you for a very special evening." She held out her hand to shake.
"It was a pleasure. Good night." He shook hands awkwardly and went out.
Jeannie turned to her father. "What happened?"
"I got time off for good behavior. I'm free. And naturally, the first thing I wanted was to see my little girl."
"Right after you went on a three-day drunk." He was so transparently insincere, it was offensive. She felt the familiar rage rise inside her. Why couldn't she have a father like other people's?
He said: "Come on, be nice."
Anger turned into sadness. She had never had a real father and she never would. "Give me that bottle," she said. "I'll make coffee."
Reluctantly he handed her the vodka and she put it back in the freezer. She put water in the coffee maker and turned it on.
"You look older," he said to her. "I see a little gray in your hair."
"Gee, thanks." She put out mugs, cream, and sugar.
"Your mother went gray early."
"I always thought you were the cause of that."
"I went to her place," he said in a tone of mild indignation. "She doesn't live there anymore."
"She's in Bella Vista now."
"That's what the neighbor told me. Mrs. Mendoza. She gave me your address. I don't like to think of your mother in a place like that."
"Then take her out of there!" Jeannie said indignantly. "She's still your wife. Get yourself a job and a decent apartment and start taking care of her."
"You know I can't do that. I never could."
"Then don't criticize me for not doing it."
His tone became wheedling. "I didn't say anything about you, honey. I just said I don't like to think of your mother in an institution, that's all."
&n
bsp; "I don't like it either, nor does Patty. We're going to try to raise the money to get her out of there." Jeannie felt a sudden surge of emotion, and she had to fight back tears. "Goddamn it, Daddy, this is tough enough without having you sit there complaining."
"Okay, okay," he said.
Jeannie swallowed hard. I shouldn't let him get to me this way. She changed the subject. "What are you going to do now? Do you have any plans?"
"I'll look around for a while."
He meant he would scout for a place to rob. Jeannie said nothing. He was a thief, and she could not change him.
He coughed. "Maybe you could let me have a few bucks to get me started."
That made her mad again. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do," she said in a tight voice. "I'll let you shower and shave while I put your clothes through the washer. If you keep your hands off that vodka bottle, I'll make you some eggs and toast. You can borrow some pajamas and sleep on my couch. But I'm not giving you any cash. I'm desperately trying to find the money to pay for Mom to stay someplace where they'll treat her like a human being, and I don't have a dollar to spare."
"Okay, sweetie," he said, putting on a martyred air. "I understand."
She looked at him. In the end, when the turmoil of shame and anger and pity died down, all she felt was longing. She wished with all her heart that he could take care of himself, could stay in one place more than a few weeks, could hold down a normal job, could be loving and supportive and stable. She yearned for a father who would be a father. And she knew she would never, ever have her wish. There was a place in her heart for a father, and it would always be empty.
The phone rang.
Jeannie picked it up. "Hello."
It was Lisa, sounding upset. "Jeannie, it was him!"
"Who? What?"
"That guy they arrested with you. I picked him out of the lineup. He's the one that raped me. Steven Logan."
"He's the rapist?" Jeannie said incredulously. "Are you sure?"
'There's no doubt, Jeannie," Lisa said. "Oh, my God, it was horrible seeing his face again. I didn't say anything at first, because he looked different with no hat. Then the detective made them all put on baseball caps, and I knew for certain sure."
"Lisa, it can't be him," Jeannie said.
"What do you mean?"
"His tests are all wrong. And I spent time with him, I have a feeling."
"But I recognized him." Lisa sounded annoyed.
"I'm amazed. I can't understand it."
"This spoils your theory, doesn't it? You wanted one twin to be good and the other bad."