Of course, Bob Newhouser already knew all this, and had very likely been inside of Gartner’s house instead of merely assessing its curb appeal in passing. So he could have skipped this part altogether, or stayed home and let Google Earth do the heavy lifting.
But knocking on doors, that was something you had to do in person.
And so he pulled up in front of the house to the immediate left of Gartner’s and went to the front door, carrying the clipboard that always went with him on such excursions. Not because he was much at jotting things down, but because nothing equaled a clipboard for establishing one as being a legitimate man of purpose.
There was a yellow pad under the clip, the one he’d used to write out that little one-act radio play starring Doak and Lisa. The sheets he’d covered with block capitals had all been shredded, along with the several blank sheets at the top of the pad, where the pressure of the ballpoint might have left a lasting impression.
Because you couldn’t be too careful.
Once he’d knocked on a door on the top floor of a Brownsville tenement, and something made him step aside just seconds before a bullet came through it. From that time on he always stood to the side of the door when he knocked, and of course he never saw another bullet.
Another time, a woman answered the door wearing bunny slippers and nothing else. She had a drink in her hand and, he suspected, quite a few others inside her. He had a partner with him, a kid named Birch who’d just made the move to plainclothes, and it was interesting to watch him work at keeping his composure. He’d heard squad room stories of similar situations, and in some of the stories the responding officers did the right thing, feeding the poor dear a couple of aspirin and tucking her into her solitary bed. And in other stories the officers responded in a more assertive fashion, treating their hostess to a two-on-one.
Either ending was plausible, he supposed. He and Birch had taken a middle course, just turning around and getting the hell out of there. Years later he’d run into Birch, who asked if he remembered the naked lady with the bunny slippers (he could hardly have forgotten her) and wondering what had ever become of her. He had no idea.
“She had a shaved bush,” Birch said. “Never saw one of those before.”
Had she? He couldn’t remember that part.
“Now it’s all the rage, I guess. You know, man, we could of taken her in the bedroom and done anything we fuckin’ wanted to her.”
“I guess.”
“Say we do it. You think she’s gonna mind? Probably wants it, or at least half of her wants it.”
“The top half or the bottom half?”
“The shaved half. I mean, who comes to the fucking door like that? And what’s the odds she’s even gonna remember it the next day? ‘Oh, goodness, my pussy’s sore. I must have fucked a couple of cops.’ What’s the matter, Doak?”
“Nothing,” he’d said, “but you were what, twenty-two when I knew you? Twenty-three?”
“So?”
“So you’ve changed some since then.”
“Well, this fucking job,” Birch said. “And anyway, who’s the same person he was at twenty-three? Who in his right mind would want to be?”
Since then, just as no one had fired through a door at him, neither had anyone shown up in bunny slippers. But, even as he stood to the side of the door (even here in this placid suburb, where people didn’t shoot through doors) so too did he allow himself the wistful thought that the door might open onto an adventure, a brief encounter.
What did he need, or even want, with the kind of adventure that might wait behind a closed door? He was in the middle of an adventure with, literally, the girl of his dreams, and he had another very adventurous lady as a Friend with Benefits. Was he turning out to be just like the mopes on Let’s Make a Deal, jumping up and down because they’d just won the prize of a lifetime, then ready to throw it away for whatever might turn out to be behind Door Number Three?
He had time to think this over, because nobody came to the door at first, and if he hadn’t seen the squareback Honda in the driveway, he’d have tried his luck next door. But he gave it another minute, and heard footsteps and muted conversation, and then the door was opened by a woman in a pastel print housedress. She had a toddler clinging to her hand, a little boy with white-blond hair, and her shape suggested that he could expect a brother or sister in two or three months.
He gave her his name, told her the man next door had applied for an insurance policy and he needed to confirm a couple of points. In the living room, he asked her half a dozen innocuous questions to which he already knew the answers, then moved on to get a more personal perspective. What kind of neighbor was Ray Gartner? His lawn and yard looked good today, but was that generally the case? What was her impression of the Gartners’ marriage? Did they entertain a lot? Keep late hours? Have loud arguments?
He barely paid attention to her answers, which were everything both Gartner and his prospective insurers could have hoped for. Instead he found himself increasingly aware of the woman’s body. Her son sat beside her, turning the pages of a picture book about dinosaurs, while his mommy testified to the laudable ordinariness of the family next door.
A Milf, that was the term for her. An acronym of the texting generation, for a Mother I’d Like to Fuck. Make that an eMilf, he thought, with the E for Expectant.
How long since he’d had a pregnant woman? Ages, he realized, because he’d never had one aside from Doreen, not that he was ever aware of. And if any of their couplings during either of her pregnancies had been notable, they were so no longer. He couldn’t remember them. He knew they’d had sex while she was pregnant, though not terribly often, but had there been anything different about it?
What would it be like with this one?
Her name was Roberta Ellison, he’d had to write it down for his report. Roberta, I think pregnancy is making your breasts swell up, because your maternity housedress is getting too tight on top. Roberta, I bet your husband’s too gentle with you these days, I bet he’s afraid he’ll hurt either you or the baby. Roberta, I won’t make that mistake, because I don’t care if it hurts you, I don’t care if it fucking kills your baby.
Did she have any idea what he was thinking?
She was probably thirty or close to it, but she wasn’t wearing any makeup and her face was an oval with small regular features, and she looked younger than her years.
He said, “Well, I think that’ll do it. You’ve been very helpful, and I don’t think your neighbor has anything to worry about. Thanks very much for your time, Mrs. Ellison.”
Fourteen
* * *
Back at his house, he typed up his report, including a summary of his interview with one Roberta Ellison, neighbor, and printed it out. He could have attached it to an email, but Bob Newhouser was an old-school hard-copy kind of a guy. He liked everything on paper so he could slip it into a manilla file folder and tuck it away in a steel cabinet, so Doak printed out two copies, one for Newhouser and one for his own files, not that he ever expected to look at it again. If he ever needed to see what he’d written, which was doubtful, he’d find the document on his hard drive. That had to be easier than rooting around in the cardboard carton that served him as an unclassified file cabinet.
He’d been checking the new phone periodically, and he checked it now, and this time he had a voicemail. It had come in just minutes ago. He played it, and heard her say, “Call me.”
He erased the message first, then made the call. She answered at once. She said, “Is it you? ’Cause this is me.”
“I somehow figured as much.”
“Do we need code names? Maybe not, if we’re the only two people who ever use either of these phones. I want you to know I have no idea what I’m doing here. Is it safe to talk on these things?”
“Where are you?”
“At the Baron. I’m early for my shift, I’m out back in my car. Well, leaning against my car.”
“Parked up against the buildin
g?”
“No, I’m at the back of the lot. If you’re thinking security cameras, we’ve got one, but I’m in its blind spot. If you’re impressed, don’t be. It’s my usual spot.”
“I’m impressed anyway,” he said. “Outside is good. I’m in my house—”
“Not out on the dock?”
“No, although that’s not a bad idea. In a little while maybe I’ll crack a beer and go out there.”
“I wish I could join you.”
“I don’t think—”
“Oh, it’s not the kind of wish you have to steer me away from. It’s like I wish dogs could talk so you could have real conversations with them.”
“One of the best things about them,” he said, “is they can’t.”
“See, now that wasn’t a wish you had to steer me away from, either, and now you ruined it for me. I’ll never be able to wish it again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I should hope you are. I couldn’t come over even if it was a good idea, because I’m about to start my shift and watch otherwise prudent men defy their cardiologists. Are you okay, darling? Is everything good?”
“Yes and yes.”
“I just called you darling.”
“I know.”
“Am I still your fantasy girl? Or did that go up in smoke along with the fantasy?”
“Oh, you’re it,” he said.
“God, I like the way you said that. It gave me a little shiver. What did you do today? And if that’s a terrible question, you’ve got to admit it’s better than What are you wearing.”
“Some work for an insurance company. Most of it on the computer, going into some subscription databases, but then I drove over and looked at his house and interviewed the lady next door.”
“Was that fun?”
“She was pregnant, and a very well-behaved little boy sat on the couch next to her.”
“It’s good the kid’s well behaved, or she’d be sick at the prospect of having another.”
“I wanted to fuck her.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, I really did. I sat there asking stupid who-gives-a-shit questions and pretending to pay attention to her answers, and I wanted the kid to go into the other room so I could fuck his mother.”
“But you didn’t do anything, or say anything.”
“No. I hadn’t planned on mentioning it.”
“Yet here you are, telling me about it.”
“Yeah, and I’ve got to be at least as surprised as you are. And I’m not trying to make you jealous—”
“Which I’m not.”
“—or excited.”
“Which I am, kind of. Anyway, I think I know why you’re telling me.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t give George a blow job.”
“Now there’s a coincidence,” he said, “because neither did I.”
“Just one more thing we’ve got in common, my darling. But, you know, I thought about it, because the occasional BJ makes life at home a good deal more tolerable for me.”
“For him too, I bet.”
“But here’s the thing, when I thought about it I thought about you, and it struck me that if I blew George, or even if I just thought about blowing him, it didn’t have to be a fucking secret. I could tell you. And I can, can’t I?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I can tell you absolutely everything. I’m still getting used to the idea, but it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And you told me about Mommy Preggers because you could. You could tell me how you wanted to fuck her, and if you actually did fuck her you could tell me that, too. We can tell each other anything. Isn’t that amazing?”
“It is.”
“Have you ever had anything like that with anybody?”
“Never. Have you?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been nothing but secrets all my life. Are you gonna call her?”
“Call who? Oh, Roberta?”
“Is that her name, the pregnant lady?’
“Roberta Ellison.”
“What does she look like? I want to picture her.”
He described the woman.
“She sounds nice. You still want to fuck her, don’t you?”
“I could live just fine without it,” he said. “But would I like to fuck her? Which is not to say that I could, because she has a say in the matter, but yes, I’d like to.”
“Well, you know where she lives. Give her a day or two and then drop by with some follow-up questions.”
“Maybe.”
“How would you do it?”
“How?”
“What position? You want to know what I think? I think you should take her from behind, with both of you lying on your sides, and you’ve got your arms around her so you can put your hands on her belly. What do you think of that?”
“If we by some chance got you pregnant last night,” he said, “I think that’ll eventually be a dandy position for us.”
“Oh my God,” she said. “I’d managed to forget about that. And now it’s too late for a Morning After pill, and I don’t have one, anyway. I’m not pregnant. I can’t be, can I?”
“Probably not.”
“Oh, look at the time. I got here way early and I’m gonna walk in late. And we’re using up phone minutes, and what happens when we run out?”
“If we can’t get them refilled, we’ll just get new phones.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” she said. “It’s a big relief, actually. Because now I know we’ve got nothing to worry about.”
After she ended the call, he sat for a long moment, letting it replay itself in his mind. He remembered the first mention of Lisa, in Radburn’s office, the first glimpse of her on the sheriff’s phone. Some bell had rung inside him at that first sight of her, but did it go back further than that? Hadn’t he begun anticipating all of this even before he’d seen her picture?
And it kept building. Just now, the things she’d said to him, the things he’d found himself able to say to her. It was powerfully sexual, and yet from another angle it had next to nothing to do with sex.
All that crap lovers spouted in the movies, finding one’s other self, being two halves of the same person. It had never quite made sense to him, and he wasn’t sure it did now, and those weren’t the words he’d use if he found himself moved to talk about it. But he knew what they were getting at, the writers who put those lines in the characters’ mouths.
He had the refrigerator door half open and changed his mind, went back to his desk. Opened up Google, typed george otterbein, hit Enter.
Fifteen
* * *
His browser was Firefox, and it had a pull-down menu called History. He selected Clear Recent History, and it wanted him to say for how long. One hour? Two hours? It was getting on for seven o’clock, and he wasn’t sure when he’d started. Last Hour. Last Two Hours. Last Four Hours. Today. Everything.
Probably two hours, he thought, but he selected Last Four Hours and wiped away that much of the recent past.
Then he went and got that beer from the fridge and took it out onto the dock.
He thought about Roberta Ellison, with her round belly and her swelling tits, and about the conversation she’d inspired.
“You should take her from behind, with both of you lying on your sides, and you’ve got your arms around her so you can put your hands on her belly . . .”
Got him hard, talking like that, but it was very different from the phone sex with Barb Hamill. That had been stimulating because stimulation was its whole purpose, its sole reason for being. Their words had been selected for erotic effect, to get them going and get them off, and it had worked for Barb and would have worked for him if his body hadn’t chosen to hold itself back.
Saving the money shot for Lisa.
He’d have to tell Lisa about Barb. He’d mentioned her—that there was a married woman he was seeing casually,
but he’d have to tell her about the sex, the phone sex and the bedroom sex.
Would he keep seeing Barb? He’d met the love of his life, he’d finally encountered Fantasy Girl and had found with her something that went way beyond his fantasies, so why would he want to go on seeing Barb?
Because she was hot, he thought. Because it was a joy to pose her on her knees and moisten himself in one of her openings so he could slip into the other one, fucking her gorgeous heart-shaped ass and making her like it.
He wished she would call. It wasn’t going to happen, she only called during the daytime, but he wished she’d call right now and come over right now so he could fuck her.
And the best part would be later, when he told Lisa about it.
Kinky, he thought, but it wasn’t just kinky. It was more than kinky. It was . . . well, he didn’t know what it was, exactly.
He found himself thinking, for the first time in years, of Phyllis Arenbeck. She was a tiny brown-haired creature, built like a boy, and married to Red Arenbeck, a uniformed cop built like a tight end. He had in fact played that position at Long Island University, and he’d been big enough for the NFL, but nowhere near good enough. He was bigger as a cop than he’d been as a football player, packing fat on top of muscle, and there was a Mutt and Jeff aspect to the Arenbecks as a couple.
He knew Red from the job, but not well, and he’d met Phyllis a couple of times at parties. Then there was an engagement party for a mutual acquaintance at somebody’s house in Ridgewood, and he was fixing himself a drink he didn’t particularly need when Phyllis joined him.
She said, “Cops. You wouldn’t believe how many of ’em hit on me in the past what, two hours?”
“I’d believe it.”
“Oh yeah? Come on, I’m nothing special. I’m a skinny little thing with a flat chest.”